In Exile and Other Stories Part 5

"You said once that I reminded you--of her: is that the reason you--Am I consoling you?"

"Good G.o.d! I don't want consolation! _That_ thing never existed; but here is the reality; I cannot part with it. I wish you had as little as I have, outside of this room where we two stand together!"

"I don't know that I have anything," she said under her breath.

"Then," said he, taking her in his arms, "I don't see but that we are ready to enter the kingdom of heaven. It seems very near to me."

They are still in exile: they have joined the band of lotus-eaters who inhabit that region of the West which is pervaded by a subtle breath from the Orient, blowing across the seas between. Mrs. Arnold has not yet made that first visit East which is said by her Californian friends to be so disillusioning, and the old home still hovers, like a beautiful mirage, on the receding horizon.

FRIEND BARTON'S "CONCERN."

It had been "borne in" upon him, more or less, during the long winter; it had not relaxed when the frosts unlocked their hold and the streams were set free from their long winter's silence, among the hills. He grew restless and abstracted under "the turnings of the Lord's hand upon him,"

and his speech unconsciously shaped itself into the Biblical cadences which came to him in his moments of spiritual exercise.

The bedrabbled snows of March shrank away before the keen, quickening sunbeams; the hills emerged, brown and sodden, like the chrysalis of the new year; the streams woke in a tumult, and all day and night their voices called from the hills back of the mill: the waste-weir was a foaming torrent, and spread itself in muddy shallows across the meadow, beyond the old garden where the robins and bluebirds were house-hunting. Friend Barton's trouble stirred with the life-blood of the year, and pressed upon him sorely; but as yet he gave it no words. He plodded about, among his lean kine, tempering the winds of March to his untimely lambs, and reconciling unnatural ewes to their maternal duties.

Friend Barton had never heard of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, though it was the spring of 1812, and England and America were investigating the subject on the seas, while the nations of Europe were practically ill.u.s.trating it. The "hospital tent," as the boys called an old corn-basket, covered with carpet, which stood beside the kitchen chimney, was seldom without an occupant,--a brood of chilled chickens, a weakly lamb, or a wee pig (with too much blue in its pinkness), that had been left behind by its stouter brethren in the race for existence. The old mill hummed away through the day, and often late into the evening if time pressed, upon the grists which added a thin, intermittent stream of tribute to the family income. Whenever work was "slack," Friend Barton was sawing or chopping in the woodshed adjoining the kitchen; every moment he could seize or make he was there, stooping over the rapidly growing pile.

"Seems to me, father, thee's in a great hurry with the wood this spring. I don't know when we've had such a pile ahead."

"'T won't burn up any faster for being chopped," Friend Barton said; and then his wife Rachel knew that if he had a reason for being "forehanded"

with the wood, he was not ready to give it.

One rainy April afternoon, when the smoky gray distances began to take a tinge of green, and through the drip and rustle of the rain the call of the robins sounded, Friend Barton sat in the door of the barn, oiling the road-harness. The old chaise had been wheeled out and greased, and its cushions beaten and dusted.

An ox-team with a load of grain creaked up the hill and stopped at the mill door. The driver, seeing Friend Barton's broad-brimmed drab felt hat against the dark interior of the barn, came down the short lane leading from the mill, past the house and farm-buildings.

"Fixin' up for travelin', Uncle Tommy?"

Vain compliments, such as worldly t.i.tles of Mr. and Mrs., were unacceptable to Thomas Barton, and he was generally known and addressed as "Uncle Tommy"

by the world's people of a younger generation.

"It is not in man that walketh to direct his own steps, neighbor Jordan.

I am getting myself in readiness to obey the Lord, whichever way He shall call me."

Farmer Jordan cast a shrewd eye over the premises. They wore that patient, sad, exhumed look which old farm-buildings are apt to have in early spring.

The roofs were black with rain, and brightened with patches of green moss.

Farmer Jordan instinctively calculated how many "bunches o' shingle" would be required to rescue them from the decline into which they had fallen, indicated by these hectic green spots.

"Wal, the Lord calls most of us to stay at home and look after things, such weather as this. Good plantin' weather; good weather for breakin' ground; fust-rate weather for millin'! This is a reg'lar miller's rain, Uncle Tommy. You'd ought to be takin' advantage of it. I've got a grist back here; wish ye could manage to let me have it when I come back from store."

The grist was ground and delivered before Friend Barton went in to his supper that night. Dorothy Barton had been mixing bread, and was wiping her white arms and hands on the roller towel by the kitchen door, as her father stamped and sc.r.a.ped his feet on the stones outside.

"There! I do believe I forgot to toll neighbor Jordan's rye," he said, as he gave a final rub on the broom Dorothy handed out to him. "It's wonderful how careless I get!"

"Well, father, I don't suppose thee'd ever forget, and toll a grist twice!"

"I believe I've been mostly preserved from mistakes of that kind," said Friend Barton gently. "Well, well! To be sure," he continued musingly. "It may be the Lord who stays my hand from gathering profit unto myself while his lambs go unfed."

Dorothy put her hands on her father's shoulders: she was almost as tall as he, and could look into his patient, troubled eyes.

"Father, I know what thee is thinking of, but do think long. It will be a hard year; the boys ought to go to school; and mother is so feeble!"

Friend Barton's "concern" kept him awake that night. His wife watched by his side, giving no sign, lest her wakeful presence should disturb his silent wrestlings. The tall, cherry-wood clock in the entry measured the hours, as they pa.s.sed, with its slow, dispa.s.sionate tick.

At two o'clock Rachel Barton was awakened from her first sleep of weariness by her husband's voice, whispering heavily in the darkness.

"My way is hedged up! I see no way to go forward. Lord, strengthen my patience, that I murmur not, after all I have seen of thy goodness. I find daily bread is very desirable; want and necessity are painful to nature; but shall I follow Thee for the sake of the loaves, or will it do to forsake Thee in times of emptiness and abas.e.m.e.nt?"

There was silence again, and restless tossings and sighings continued the struggle.

"Thomas," the wife's voice spoke tremulously in the darkness, "my dear husband, I know whither thy thoughts are tending. If the Spirit is with thee, do not deny it for our sakes, I pray thee. The Lord did not give thee thy wife and children to hang as a millstone round thy neck. I am thy helpmeet, to strengthen thee in his service. I am thankful that I have my health this spring better than usual, and Dorothy is a wonderful help. Her spirit was sent to sustain me in thy long absences. Go, dear, and serve our Master, who has called thee in these bitter strivings! Dorothy and I will keep things together as well as we can. The way will open--never fear!" She put out her hand and touched his face in the darkness; there were tears on the furrowed cheeks. "Try to sleep, dear, and let thy spirit have rest.

There is but one answer to this call."

With the first drowsy twitterings of the birds, when the crescent-shaped openings in the board shutters began to define themselves clearly in the shadowy room, they arose and went about their morning tasks in silence.

Friend Barton's step was a little heavier than usual, and the hollows round his wife's pale brown eyes were a little deeper. As he sat on the splint-bottomed chair by the kitchen fireplace, drawing on his boots, she placed her hands on his shoulders, and touched with her cheek the worn spot on the top of his head.

"Thee will lay this concern before meeting to-morrow, father?"

"I had it on my mind to do so,--if my light be not quenched before then."

Friend Barton's light was not quenched. Words came to him, without seeking,--a sure sign that the Spirit was with him,--in which to "open the concern" that had ripened in his mind, of a religious visit to the meeting const.i.tuting the yearly meetings of Philadelphia and Baltimore. A "minute"

was given him, encouraging him in the name, and with the full concurrence, of the monthly meetings of Nine Partners and Stony Valley, to go wherever the Truth might lead him.

While Friend Barton was thus freshly anointed, and "abundantly encouraged,"

his wife, Rachel, was talking with Dorothy, in the low upper chamber known as the "wheel-room."

Dorothy was spinning wool on the big wheel, dressed in her light calico short gown and brown quilted petticoat; her arms were bare, and her hair was gathered away from her flushed cheeks and knotted behind her ears. The roof sloped down on one side, and the light came from a long, low window under the eaves. There was another window (shaped like a half-moon, high up in the peak), but it sent down only one long beam of sunlight, which glimmered across the dust and fell upon Dorothy's white neck.

The wheel was humming a quick measure and Dorothy trod lightly back and forth, the wheel-pin in one hand, the other holding the tense, lengthening thread, which the spindle devoured again.

"Dorothy, thee looks warm: can't thee sit down a moment, while I talk to thee?"

"Is it anything important, mother? I want to get my twenty knots before dinner." She paused as she joined a long tress of wool at the spindle. "Is it anything about father?"

"Yes, it's about father, and all of us."

"I know," said Dorothy, with a sigh. "He's going away again!"

"Yes, dear. He feels that he is called. It is a time of trouble and contention everywhere: 'the harvest,' truly, 'is plenteous, but the laborers are few.'"

"There are not so many 'laborers' here, mother, though to be sure, the harvest"--

"Dorothy, my daughter, don't let a spirit of levity creep into thy speech.

Thy father has striven and wrestled with his urgings. I've seen it working on him all winter. He feels, now, it is the Lord's will."