Hills of the Shatemuc Part 19

Winthrop did not attempt to mend this position. He only mended the fire.

"I wish you need not be disappointed!" the mother said sighing, looking at the fire with a very earnest face.

"My dear mother," said Winthrop cheerfully, "it is no use to wish that in this world."

"Yes it is -- for there is a way to escape disappointments, -- if you would take it."

"To escape disappointments!" said Rufus.

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"Will you promise to follow it?"

"No mother," he said, with again a singular play of light and shade over his face; -- "for it will be sure to be some impossible way. I mean -- that an angel's wings may get over the rough ground where poor human feet must stumble."

How much the eyes were saying that looked at each other!

"There is provision even for that," she answered. "'As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings,' so the Lord declares he did once lead his people, -- and he will again, -- over rough ground or smooth."

"My dear mother," said Rufus, "you are very good, and I -- am not very good."

"I don't know that that is much to the point," she said smiling a little.

"Yes it is."

"Do you mean to say you cannot go the road that others have gone, with the same help?"

"If I should say yes, I suppose you would disallow it," he replied, beginning to walk up and down again; "but my consciousness remains the same."

There was both trouble and dissatisfaction in his face.

"Will your consciousness stand this? -- 'Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall; but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength: they shall mount up with wings as eagles,' -- just what you were wishing for, Rufus; -- 'they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.'"

He was silent a minute; and then replied, "That will always continue to be realized by some and not by others."

"If you were as easily disheartened in another line, Rufus, you would never go through College."

"My dear mother!" he said, "if you were to knock all my opinions to pieces with the Bible, it wouldn't change me."

"I know it!" she said.

There was extreme depression in voice and lip, and she bent down her face on her hand.

Two turns the length of the room Rufus took; then he came to the back of her chair and laid his hand upon her shoulder.

"But mother," he said cheerfully, "you haven't told us the way to escape disappointments yet; I didn't understand it. For aught I see, everybody has his share. Even you -- and I don't know who deserves them less -- even you, I am afraid, are disappointed, in me."

It was as much as he could do, evidently, to say that; his eyes were brilliant through fire and water at once. She lifted up her head, but was quite silent.

"How is it, mamma? or how can it be?"

"I must take you to the Bible again, Rufus."

"Well, ma'am, I'll go with you. Where?"

She turned over the leaves till she found the place, and giving it to him bade him read.

"'Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the unG.o.dly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate, day and night.

"'And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in due season; his leaf also shall not wither, _and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper_.'"

Rufus stopped and stood looking on the page.

"Beautiful words!" he said.

"They will bear looking at," said Mrs. Landholm.

"But my dear mother, I never heard of anybody in my life of whom this was true."

"How many people have you heard of, in your life, who answered the description?"

Rufus turned and began to walk up and down again.

"But suppose he were to undertake something not well -- not right?"

"The security reaches further back," said Winthrop.

"You forget," said his mother, "he could not do that; or could not persist in it."

Rufus walked, and the others sat still and looked at the fire, till the opening of the door let in Mr. Landholm and a cold blast of air; which roused the whole party. Winthrop put more wood on the fire; Mr. Landholm sat down in the corner and made himself comfortable; and Mrs. Landholm fetched an enormous tin pan of potatoes and began paring them. Rufus presently stopped behind her chair, and said softly, "What's that for, mother?"

"For your breakfast to-morrow, sir."

"Where is Karen?"

"In bed."

"Why don't you let her do them, mother?"

"She has not time, my son."

Rufus stood still and looked with a discontented face at the thin blue-veined fingers in which the coa.r.s.e dirty roots were turning over and over.

"I've got a letter from my friend Haye to-day," Mr. Landholm said.

"What Haye is that?" said his wife.