Cape Cod Folks Part 39

Farewell, ye dreams of night; Jesus is mine!

Lost in this dawning bright; Jesus is mine!

All that my soul has tried, Left but a dismal void; Jesus has satisfied.

Jesus is mine!

Farewell, mortality!

Jesus is mine!

Welcome, eternity!

Jesus is mine!

Welcome, the loved and blest!

Welcome, bright scenes of rest!

Welcome, my Saviour's breast!

Jesus is mine!

Scarcely had the leaves of the fallen peach-tree by the window begun to wither when the strong bearers pa.s.sed out with their beautiful, stainless burden, while slowly, reverently, the little community of mourners followed to the grave.

CHAPTER XXI.

FAREWELL TO WALLENCAMP.

Yet another week pa.s.sed in Wallencamp before I was able to complete the preparations for my departure.

One day, I set myself with a sort of listless fidelity to the summing up of my accounts. I found, on deducting the amount of my actual expenses from the sum total of my earnings in Wallencamp, that I had sixty-two cents left!

The revelation caused me some surprise; strangely little perturbation of spirit. I thought what tragic tales might sometimes lie hidden beneath a seemingly dry and senseless combination of figures, while, in my own case, I was merely struck with the justice of those figures.

For such eccentric and distracted services as I had rendered in Wallencamp, the superintendent of schools had paid me in full at the price stipulated, eight dollars per week.

On the other hand, the column of insolvency, I considered that the West Wallen Doctor's bill was an expression of modesty itself. The sum due my Dear Madeline for "board," at two dollars and a half per week, though I trusted it was some compensation for the merely temporal advantages to be enjoyed in Wallencamp, did not appear as an astounding aggregate. The list of "minor details" was well portrayed, and presented an aspect of clear use and value.

My once fond dream of a "private bank account" had gradually faded from my memory. I saw the last spar in that fair wreck go down, now, without a sigh. And the "loans solicited," in labored phrase, as "mere temporary conveniences," from the friends at home--these, I was satisfied, must remain only as the sweet continuation of a life-long debt. But how was I to get home?

The combined fares on that route, I remembered, had amounted to something over nine dollars! So the question haunted me, not restlessly, but with a vague, tranquil, melancholy interest, as pertaining to the history of some one who had lived and died a few years before; so long indeed, it seemed to me, since I had performed the journey to Wallencamp.

I had not written home as to the day of my probable arrival, in this yielding pa.s.sively to the force of habit, which had ever constrained me to plan my returns as "surprises" to my family and friends.

But for myself, I had fixed the day of my departure from Wallencamp, and, in spite of the discovery made in regard to the insufficient state of my finances, looked forward to that event without any trepidation, so that, I remember--it was actually the day before the one fixed on, and still no hope had dawned on the financial horizon,--when Grandma Keeler embraced me with some tender words premonitory of our parting, I kissed her gratefully, musing at the same time in dreamy, untroubled fashion: "Yes, I must be going home to-morrow."

It was on this same day that we drove to "Wallen Town," Grandma and Madeline and Becky and I. The excursion was one Grandma had planned several weeks before, and I had no intention of making it the opportunity which I finally did.

As we were pa.s.sing a dingy-looking establishment, where some doubtful articles of _virtu_ appeared in the window, an idea seized me, as new as it was comprehensive of my difficulties.

I went in, ostensibly to purchase a watch-key, really to engage in negotiations of a more serious and complicated nature. The proprietor of the shop became the temporary guardian of my watch, while I was invested with the funds necessary for my homeward journey. I learned, afterwards, that this man had made an exception in the usually limited range of his operations, in my favor, his establishment not being, by any means, that of a p.a.w.nbroker, but, in every sense, of the most highly moral and respectable nature.

He gave me such "ready cash" as his coffers would yield, with an improvised p.a.w.nbroker's check, at the composition of which we had both seriously and ingeniously labored. I can testify both to his honesty and obligingness. He insisted on my taking with me, "jest to tell the time o' day," a very large watch in a tarnished silver case.

Not wishing to seem to cast any disparagement on his wares, I became the helpless recipient of this favor. The article in question was far too large for my watch-pocket, and had a persistent habit of holding its mouth wide open like a too weary sh.e.l.l-fish. On the interior of the case, one on either side, were pasted photographs of individuals to me unknown, male and female, their countenances such as the blinded eye of affection alone, I thought, could have rendered mutually entertaining; and the watch maintained, on all occasions, a system of chronology peculiarly its own.

As we drove back to Wallencamp, Grandma Keeler, her great heart close to Nature that sunny afternoon, beguiled the way with a gentle hilarity which never shocked or offended, but Becky put her hand often in mine, looking up with the old helpless, pleading expression in her eyes--Becky, I knew, would remember longest.

Sometimes, as my hand wandered almost unconsciously to caress the precious coin in my pocket, instead of the wild tract of stunted cedars through which our road lay, I fancied I saw the great elms of Newtown, the wide, straight street, the familiar house, an open door, and--ah! It wasn't the first time I had been taken in at that door, the survivor of wrecked ambition and misguided hope, only to hear my shortcomings made tenderly light of, my most desperate follies lovingly ignored and forgiven.

But I had meant that it should be so different this time! I had gone out as a missionary; and deeper than ever in my consciousness, I must feel the want and woe of the returning prodigal; the same old story, the ever-recurring failure. It seemed as though all the wonder and impatience might well go out of my despair.

Then as I lent myself more and more to the contemplation of that home picture, how restful and happy it grew! but poor old Wallencamp--for we were nearing the little settlement now, and the sun was fast westering--poor, squalid, solitary, beautiful Wallencamp, as I looked down upon it from the brow of Stony Hill, thrilled me with a troubled sense of some diviner, some half-comprehended glory.

The crimson glow had not quite faded in the sky when I took my last walk across the fields to where the new grave had been made on the hillside.

This is the new burying-ground of the Wallencampers; the old one lies a mile farther up the river, near the Indian encampment. Here I saw more than one simple slab, bearing the name of Cradlebow. Here little Bess lies, too. The hill, meet for such sublime repose, looks ever calmly on the humble, straggling homes of the Wallencampers below, and sees the lonely river winding near, and hears, by night and day, the monody of deeper waters.

I thought the voice of that great ocean of restlessness sounding along the sh.o.r.e might quiet my unrest, but the beat of the waves, the growing gloom of that still evening hour, oppressed me with a feeling unutterably sad. I could not bear it, at last. It seemed as though another deep was rising and breaking in my heart, the flood of proud, half-stifled pa.s.sion waking in one awful moment to overwhelm me. No light upon that sea--but hope wronged, the mockery of death for yearning love, the unguided clash of drifting human lives!

An agony of blindness swam before my eyes. I felt my weak hands clutching at the gra.s.s, and gasped, as though it had been indeed in the blindness and pain of physical death, the prayer wrung from my selfish need. But the answer was of infinite love and compa.s.sion. It came to me then--not as some grave revelation of truth to the "enlightened seeker," but like the kiss or peace to a tired child, a door mysteriously opened to the self-bound captive, to one ignorant, the light shining along a plain, straight way. And the doubt and terror and anguish went out of the world; even the sorrowless farewell of frozen lips changed to tender benediction.

When I looked up at last, wondering, peaceful, my face wet with happy tears, the stars had come out in the sky, and, down below, the windows of the Ark were shining. The faint murmur of a song was borne up to me. The Wallencampers had gathered at the Ark to celebrate our last "meeting"

together, and I went down to join them.

At what ghostly hour of the next morning Grandma Keeler awoke Grandpa to the unusual exigencies of the occasion, I cannot say. It was necessary for me to start very early from the Ark to take the train at West Wallen, but when I descended the stairs, by candle-light, Grandpa Keeler had been already washed and dyed and arrayed, as for the Sabbath, in his best.

Yes, and I was constrained to believe that he had even been instructed in the mysteries of Sunday-school lore, for there was about him an air of haggard and feverish excitement, and he glared at my familiar presence with wild, unseeing eyes.

Memorable were the colloquies held that morning between Grandma and Grandpa Keeler; Grandpa's tragic a.s.sumption of manly consequence, and solemn fears lest we should miss the train, directed in astute syllables of warning towards Grandma Keeler; Grandma's increased deliberation, and imperturbable quietude of soul.

I recall the strange, unearthly aspect of the scenes enacted in the Ark at that early hour, the fleeting vision of a morning repast which formed some accidental part in the chaos of vaster proceedings.

Then, when the first faint signs of dawn were beginning to break through the gray in the eastern sky, I bade farewell to the Ark forever, lingering a moment on the old familiar doorstep for a last word with those of the neighbors who had gathered there to see us off, for the whole Keeler family accompanied me to the station.

There were others waiting at the gate to say good-bye, and at various posts all the way down the lane. At the big white house, Emily came running out, breathless. She whispered hurriedly in my ear; "There was a message left. Ye wasn't well. I reckon 'twas a message. When fisherman and that other one came up from the sh.o.r.e, day o' the storm, he came to our house for Sim to take him to Wallen. He said it was better to be the dead one than him. He was awful white, and Sim got harnessed, and just as fisherman was goin' out, he left a message along o' me, though there wasn't no names mentioned, and he talked queer; but he wanted as somebody should know that he realized it all now, and he couldn't make up for it, never; but it was go'n' to be new or nothin' for him, and they shouldn't want for nothin', never, and kep' a sayin' more, and no message, exactly, as ye could call a message, but I reckoned--I thought--may be--"

Emily's glowing eyes, fixed on my face, grew very wide and grave. I could only press her hand in parting for Grandpa, growing impatient, had succeeded in clucking f.a.n.n.y on again.

We drove along the river road, and, pa.s.sing through the Indian encampment, there were more good-byes exchanged by the roadside.

Then climbing up "Sandy Slope," beyond the settlement, we heard the shrill "Hullo!" of a familiar voice, and looking back, saw Bachelor Lot running after us very swiftly, his head dest.i.tute of covering, and his little wizened face glowing red as the celestial Mars in the distance. He looked like some odd, fantastic toy that had been wound up and set going.

So he came up with us, and trying to conceal his breathlessness in polite little "hums and haws," delivered aside, he offered me a huge bouquet, composed, I should think, of every sort of wild-flower available on the Cape at that season, and showing, in its arrangement, marks of the most arduous striving after artistic effect. In the other hand, he held out to me a basket of large, selected boxberries.

I accepted the gifts with unaffected delight, and thanked Bachelor Lot warmly. I looked back at him, trudging cheerfully homeward through the sand, so withered and small, with the gray in his hair, and his coat so much too long for him--back to the poor brown house, which no tender love had ever hallowed, or merry waiting laugh made bright for him; and I wondered, along his life's way which looked so sad and desolate, what hidden wild flowers G.o.d had strewed for him, that he seemed always so humbly cheerful and content, and brought his best of offerings with a smile to bless the happier lot of others.

For the rest of the way, the wild untenanted stretch was unbroken by any incident; yet I remember no tedium by the way; and I believe that a trip taken with Grandma and Grandpa Keeler through the most trackless desert would inevitably have been made to teem with diversion. Those blessed souls! I smile, looking back, but through tears, and with a reverence and tenderness far deeper than the smile.

By the time we reached the West Wallen depot the sky had clouded over.