Miss Prudence Part 18

VII.

UNDER THE APPLE-TREE.

"Never the little seed stops in its growing."--_Mrs. Osgood._

Linnet moved hither and thither, after the dinner dishes were done, all through the house, up stairs and down, to see that everything was in perfect order before she might dress and enjoy the afternoon. Linnet was pre-eminently a housekeeper, to her mother's great delight, for her younger daughter was not developing according to her mind in housewifely arts.

"That will come in time," encouraged Marjorie's father when her mother spoke faultfindingly of some delinquency in the kitchen.

"I should like to know _what_ time!" was the sharp reply.

It was queer about Marjorie's mother, she was as sharp as she was good-humored.

"Linnet has no decided tastes about anything but housekeeping and fancy-work, and Marjorie has some other things to be growing in," said her father.

"I wish she would grow to some purpose then," was the energetic reply.

"As the farmer said about his seed before it was time for it to sprout,"

laughed the children's father.

This father and mother could not talk confidentially together five minutes without bringing the "children" in.

Their own future was every day; but the children had not begun to live in theirs yet; their golden future, which was to be all the more golden because of their parents' experiences.

This mother was so very old-fashioned that she believed that there was no career open to a girl beside marriage; the dreadful alternative was solitary old-maidenhood. She was a good mother, in many respects a wise mother; but she would not have slept that night had she believed that either of her daughters would attain to thirty years unmarried. This may have been owing to a defect of education, or it may have been that she was so happily married to a husband six years her junior--whom she could manage. And she was nearly thirty when she was married herself and had really begun to believe that she should never be married at all. She believed marriage to be so honorable in all, that the absence of it, as in Miss Prudence's case, was nearly dishonorable. She was almost a Jewish mother in her reverence for marriage and joyfulness for the blessing of children. This may have been the result of her absorbed study of the Old Testament Scriptures. Marjorie had wondered why her mother in addressing the Lord had cried, "O, Lord G.o.d of Israel," and instead of any other name nearer New Testament Christians, she would speak of him as "The Holy One of Israel." Sometimes I have thought that Marjorie's mother began her religious life as a Jew, and that instead of being a Gentile Christian she was in reality a converted Jew, something like what Elizabeth would have been if she had been more like Marjorie's mother and Graham West's wife. This type of womanhood is rare in this nineteenth century; for aught I know, she is not a representative woman, at all; she is the only one I ever knew, and perhaps you never saw any one like her. She has no heresies, she can prove every a.s.sertion from the Bible, her principles are as firm as adamant and her heart as tender as a mother's. Still, marriage and motherhood have been her education; if the Connecticut, school-teacher had not realized her worth, she might have become what she dreaded her own daughters becoming--an old maid with uncheerful views of life. In planning their future she looked into her own heart instead of into theirs.

The children were lovely blossomings of the seed in the hearts of both parents; of seeds, that in them had not borne abundant fruitage.

"How did two such cranky old things ever have such happy children!" she exclaimed one day to her husband.

"Perhaps they will become what we stopped short of being," he replied.

Graham West was something of a philosopher; rather too much of a philosopher for his wife's peace of mind. To her sorrow she had learned that he had no "business tact," he could not even sc.r.a.pe a comfortable living off his scrubby little farm.

But I began with Linnet and fell to discoursing about her mother; it was Linnet, as she appeared in her grayish brown dress with a knot of crimson at her throat, running down the stairway, that suggested her mother's thought to me.

"Linnet is almost growing up," she had said to herself as she removed her cap for her customary afternoon nap. This afternoon nap refreshed her countenance and kept her from looking six years older than her husband.

Mrs. West was not a worldly woman, but she did not like to look six years older than her husband.

Linnet searched through parlor and hall, then out on the piazza, then looked through the front yard, and, finally, having explored the garden, found Marjorie and her friend in camp-chairs on the soft green turf under the low hanging boughs of an apple-tree behind the house. There were two or three books in Marjorie's lap, and Miss Prudence was turning the leaves of Marjorie's Bible. She was answering one of Marjorie's questions Linnet supposed and wondered if Marjorie would be satisfied with the answer; she was not always satisfied, as the elder sister knew to her grievance. For instance: Marjorie had said to her yesterday, with that serious look in her eyes: "Linnet, father says when Christ was on earth people didn't have wheat ground into fine flour as we do;--now when it is so much nicer, why do you suppose he didn't tell them about grinding it fine?"

"Perhaps he didn't think of it," she replied, giving the first thought that occurred to her.

"That isn't the reason," returned Marjorie, "for he could think of everything he wanted to."

"Then--for the same reason why didn't he tell them about chloroform and printing and telegraphing and a thousand other inventions?" questioned Linnet in her turn.

"That's what I want to know," said Marjorie.

Linnet settled herself on the turf and drew her work from her pocket; she was making a collar of tatting for her mother's birthday and working at it at every spare moment. It was the clover leaf pattern, that she had learned but a few weeks ago; the thread was very fine and she was doing it exquisitely. She had shown it to Hollis because he was in the lace business, and he had said it was a fine specimen of "real lace." To make real lace was one of Linnet's ambitions. The lace around Marjorie's neck was a piece that their mother had made towards her own wedding outfit.

Marjorie's mother sighed and feared that Marjorie would never care to make lace for her wedding outfit.

Linnet frowned over her clover leaf and Marjorie watched Miss Prudence as she turned the leaves. Marjorie did not care for the clover leaf, only as she was interested in everything that Linnet's fingers touched, but Linnet did care for the answer to Marjorie's question. She thought perhaps it was about the wheat.

The Bible leaves were still, after a second Miss Prudence read:

"'For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.'"

_That_ was not the answer, Linnet thought.

"What does that mean to you, Marjorie?" asked Miss Prudence.

"Why--it can't mean anything different from what it says. Paul was so sorry about the people he was writing about that he wept as he told them--he was so sorry they were enemies of the cross of Christ."

"Yes, he told them even weeping. But I knew an old gentleman who read the Bible unceasingly--I saw one New Testament that he had read through fifteen times--and he told me once that some people were so grieved because they were the enemies of the cross of Christ that they were enemies even weeping. I asked 'Why did they continue enemies, then?' and he said most ingenuously that he supposed they could not help it. Then I remembered this pa.s.sage, and found it, and read it to him as I read it to you just now. He was simply astounded. He put on his spectacles and read it for himself. And then he said nothing. He had simply put the comma in the wrong place. He had read it in this way: 'For many walk, of whom I have told you often and now tell you, even weeping that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.'"

"Oh," cried Marjorie, drawing an astonished long breath, "what a difference it does make."

"Now I know, it's punctuation you're talking about," exclaimed Linnet.

"Marjorie told me all about the people in the stage-coach. O, Miss Prudence, I don't love to study; I want to go away to school, of course, but I can't see the _use_ of so many studies. Marjorie _loves_ to study and I don't; perhaps I would if I could see some use beside 'being like other people.' Being like other people doesn't seem to me to be a _real_ enough reason."

Linnet had forgotten her clover leaf, she was looking at Miss Prudence with eyes as grave and earnest as Marjorie's ever were. She did not love to study and it was one of the wrong doings that she had confessed in her prayers many a time.

"Well, don't you see the reason now for studying punctuation?"

"Yes, I do," she answered heartily. "But we don't like dates, either of us."

"Did you ever hear about Pompeii, the city buried long ago underground?"

Linnet thought that had nothing to do with her question.

"Oh, yes," said Marjorie, "we have read about it. 'The Last Days of Pompeii' is in the school library. I read it, but Linnet didn't care for it."

"Do you know _when_ it was buried?"

"No," said Linnet, brightening.

"Have you any idea?"

"A thousand years ago?" guessed Marjorie.

"Then you do not know how long after the Crucifixion?"

"No," they replied together.

"You know when the Crucifixion was, of course?"