The Diary of a Saint Part 26

"Deacon Daniel," I told him, "I know it is all in your kindness for me that you would talk, but I refuse to have this beautiful summer evening wasted on theology. You couldn't convince me, and I don't in the least care about convincing you. I am entirely content that you should believe your way, and I am entirely satisfied with mine. Now I want to talk with you about our having a reading-room next winter."

So I got him to another subject, and what is better I think I really interested him in my scheme of opening a free library. If we can once get that to working it will be a great help to the young men and boys.

"The time seems to have come in human development," I remember Father's saying not long before he died, "when men must be controlled by the broadening instead of by the narrowing of their minds."

June 18. I have been considering why it is that I have had so much said to me this spring about religion. People have not been in the habit of talking to me about it much. They have come to let me go my own way. I suppose the fact of Mother's death has brought home to them that I do not think in their way. How a consistent and narrow man can look at the situation I have had a painful ill.u.s.tration in Mr. Thurston. If Kathie had not pushed him into a corner by asking him about Mother, I doubt if he could have gone to the length he did; but after all any really consistent believer must take the view that I am doomed to eternal perdition. I am convinced that few really do believe anything of the sort, but they think that they do, and so baby and I have been a centre of religious interest.

Another phase of this interest has shown itself in Mr. Saychase's desire to baptize Thomasine. I wonder if I had better put my preferences in my pocket, and let the thing be done. It offends my sense of right that a human being should have solemn vows made for her before she can have any notions of what all this means; but if one looks at the whole as simply promises on the part of adults that they will try to have the child believe certain things and follow certain good ways of living, there is no great harm in it. I suppose Deacon Webbe and his wife would be pleased. I will let Tom decide the matter.

June 21. I met Tom in the street to-day, and he absolutely refuses to have baby christened.

"I'll have no mummeries over any child of mine," he declared. "I've had enough of that humbug to last me a lifetime."

I could not help saying I wished he were not so bitter.

"I can't help it, Ruth," was his retort. "I am bitter. I've been banged over the head with religion ever since I was born, and told that I was 'a child of the covenant' till I hate the very thought of the whole business. Whatever you do, don't give anybody the right to twit Thomasine with being 'a child of the covenant.' She has enough to bear in being the child of her parents."

"Don't, Tom," I begged him. "You hurt me."

Without thinking what I did I put my hand on his arm. He brushed it lightly with his fingers, looking at it in a way that almost brought tears to my eyes. I took it off quickly, but I could not face him, and I got away at once. Poor Tom! He is so lonely and so faithful. I am so sorry that he will keep on caring for me like that. No woman is really good enough not to tremble at the thought of absorbing the devotion of a strong man; and it seems wicked that I should not love Tom.

June 25. The rose I transplanted to Mother's grave is really, I believe, going to bloom this very summer. I am glad the blossoms on Father's should have an echo on hers.

June 29. Babies and diaries do not seem to go very well together. There is no tangible reason why I should not write after the small person is asleep, for that is the time I have generally taken; but the fact is I sit working upon some of Tomine's tiny belongings, or now and then sit in the dark and think about her. My journal has been a good friend, but I am afraid its nose is out of joint. Baby has taken its place. I begin to see I made this book a sort of safety-valve for poor spirits and general restlessness. Now I have this sweet human interest in my life I do not need to resort to pen and ink for companionship. The dear little rosy image of Thomasine is with me all the time I seem to be sitting alone.

June 30. Last night I felt as if I was done with relieving my mind by writing in an unresponsive journal; to-night I feel as if I must have just this outlet to my feelings. Last night I thought of baby; to-night I am troubled about her father.

I saw Tom this afternoon at work in the hayfield, looking so brown and so handsome that it was a pleasure to see him. He had the look of a man who finds work just the remedy for heart-soreness, and I was happy in thinking he was getting into tune with wholesome life. I was so pleased that I took the footpath across the field as a mere excuse to speak to him, and I thought he would have been glad to see me. I came almost up to him before he would notice me, although I think he must have seen me long before. He took off his hat as I came close to him, and wiped his forehead.

"Tom," I said at once, "I came this way just to say how glad I am to see you look as if you were getting contented with your work. You were working with such a will."

I do not know that it was a tactful speech, but I was entirely unprepared for the shadow which came over his face.

"I was trying to get so completely tired out that I should sleep like a log to-night," he answered.

Before anything else could be said Deacon Daniel came up, and the talk for the rest was of the weather, and the hay, and nothings. I came away as sad as I had before been pleased. I can understand that Tom is sore in his heart. He is dominant, and his life is made up of things which he hates; he is ambitious, and he is fond of pleasure. He has no pleasure, and he can see nothing before him but staying on with his father. It is true enough that it is his own fault. He has never been willing to stick to work, and the keenest of his regrets must be about his own ill-doing.

He is so generous, however, and so manly and kind that I cannot bear to see him grow hard and sad and bitter. Yet what can I do to help it?

Certainly this is another case for asking if I am my brother's keeper. I am afraid that I was resigned not to be the keeper of Mrs. Weston, but with Tom it is different. Poor Tom!

VII

JULY

July 2. Thomasine is legally my daughter. It gives me an odd feeling to find myself really a parent. George and Tom met here this forenoon with the papers, and all necessary formalities were gone through with. It was not a comfortable time for any of us, I fancy; and I must own that George acted strangely. He was out of spirits, and was but barely civil to Tom. He has never liked the idea of my having Thomasine, and has tried two or three times to persuade me to give her up. I have refused to discuss the question with him, because it was really settled already.

To-day he came before Tom, and made one more protest.

"You can keep the child if you are so determined," he said, "though why you should want to I can't conceive; but why need you adopt it? It hasn't any claim on you."

I told him that she had the claim that I loved her dearly. He looked at me with an expression more unkind than I had ever seen in his face.

"How much is it for her father's sake?" he burst out.

The words, offensive as they were, were less so than the manner.

"A good deal," I answered him soberly. "I have been his friend from the time we were both children."

He moved in his chair uneasily.

"Look here, Ruth," he said; "you've no occasion to be offended because I hint at what everybody else will say."

I asked what that was.

"You are angry," was his response. "When you put on your grand air it is no use to argue with you; but I've made up my mind to be plain.

Everybody says you took the baby because you are fond of him."

I could feel myself stiffening in manner with every word, but I could not help it. I had certainly a right to be offended; but I tried to speak as naturally as I could.

"I don't know, George," was my reply, "what business it is of everybody's; and if it were, why should I not be fond of Tom?"

He flushed and scowled, and got up from his seat.

"Oh, if you take it that way," he answered, "of course there's nothing more for me to say."

I was hurt and angry, but before anything more could be said Rosa showed Tom in. He said good-morning to George stiffly, but Tom is always instinctively polite, I think. George had toward him an air plainly unfriendly. I do not understand why George should feel as he does about my adopting Thomasine, but in any case he has no right to behave as he did. I felt between the two men as if I were hardly able to keep the peace, and as if on the slightest provocation, George would fly out. It was absurd, of course, but the air seemed to be full of unfriendliness.

"I suppose we need not be very long over business," I said, trying with desperation to speak brightly. "I've been over the papers, Tom, and I can a.s.sure you they are all right. I'm something of a lawyer, you know."

George interposed, as stiffly as possible, that he must urge me to have the instrument read aloud, in order that I might realize what I was doing. I a.s.sured him I knew perfectly what the paper was, even if it were called an instrument.

"Ruth is entirely right," Tom put in emphatically. "There is not the slightest need of dragging things out."

"I can understand that you naturally would not want any delay," George retorted sharply.

Tom turned and looked at him with an expression which made George change color, but before anything worse could be said, I hurried to ask Tom to ring for Rosa to act as a witness. I looked in my turn at George, and I think he understood how indignant I was.

"It's outrageous for you to burden yourself with his brat," George muttered under his breath as Tom went across the room to the bell-rope.

"You forget that you are speaking of my daughter," I answered him, with the most lofty air I could manage to a.s.sume.

He turned on his heel with an angry exclamation, and no more objections were made. George never showed me this unpleasant side of his character before in all the years I have known him. For the moment he behaved like a cad, like nothing else than a cad. Something very serious must have been troubling him. He must have been completely unstrung before he could be so disagreeable.