The Harvest of Years Part 39

"Oh, de good Lord! white lamb, how kin we ever let you go; you's done got hold on our heart-strings! Oh, de good Lord bless ye, ye snow-white darlin', an' ef it's de Mas'r's will, den we mus' lib all in the dark widout ye, but de light ob your eyes is hevin to dis ole heart!"

"Oh, that's true' nuf!" said Aunt Peg, "G.o.d'll take care on you, but what'll we do?" and their groans fell like the wailing winds upon the ears of us all; our hearts were touched to their inmost chords.

"Mr. Davis," said Clara, and her eyes dilated with a wondrous light while her voice grew unnaturally strong, "I am to see your wife. Shall I say you are looking forward to meeting her?"

"Just that, and it will not be long," and he bowed his head as he held in both his own her white hand.

"Halbert and Mary, come and let me bless you. My brother and sister, you are so dear to me. You, Halbert, have a wondrous touch; you stand before the shrine of art, and ere many years a people's verdict shall more than seal your heart's desire; a master artist you shall be, my friend."

"Oh, Clara, Clara!" said Hal--

"Yes," she continued, "Love's fawn has won the prize for you at home and abroad; I leave to you a friend,--Louis will attend to it all,--and among the little ones who come there will be some who have, like you, talent; help them as you shall see fit."

He could only bow his head, while Mary, sobbing as if her heart would break, said:

"Do not go; oh, do not leave us!"

Clara closed her eyes and sank back among her cushions almost breathless. We took her hands, Louis and I, and I feared she would never speak again. Tearful and motionless these beloved ones sat about her, and at last, when the crimson and gold swept like a full tide of glory the broad western expanse that lay before us, she raised herself, looked into all our faces, held her lips for a last kiss from us of the household, and said in tones as clear as silver bells:

"I am going now; he is coming. Aunt Hildy, you will come soon. Emily, love my Louis. Louis, kiss me again; fold close the falling garment.

Baby, breathe on me once more--Louis Robert. Oh, this is beautiful!"

Her head dropped on Louis' shoulder. Slowly the eyelids covered the beautiful eyes.

She was dead. Clara, the purest of all, dead and how beautiful the transition! What a picture for the sunset to look upon, as with the full tide of sympathy flooding our hearts, we stood around her where she lay!

John, in his strong dark beauty, with folded arms, and eyes like wells of sorrow; Matthias and Aunt Peg, with tears running over their dusky faces; good Mr. Davis, with his gray hairs bending over her as if to hear her tell the message to his loved one; Aunt Hildy standing like one who is only waiting for a little more to fill the cup, which is already near her lips; my father and mother with their tender sympathies expressed in every feature, with Jane and her husband near them like two statues; Hal and Mary beside Louis and me, wrapt like ourselves in the mantle of a strange and new experience. How long we stood thus, I know not; the last sun-rays were dying as Aunt Hildy said: "We must wait no longer; Jane and Aunt Peg, you'll help me, the rest of you need'nt stay;" and so we left our beautiful dead, still in the hands of her friends.

The day of her burial was a perfect one--calm in its beauty, the blue of its skies like the eyes of our darling. The little pillow made by her own hands was of blue, covered with a fine web of wrought lace, and with edging that had also been her handiwork. We dressed her as she desired,--in a plain dress of pale blue,--the violet blossoms she loved were in her hand, and it seemed to me as if I could never see her laid out of sight--she was so beautiful in this last sleep; she looked not more than thirty; there were no gray hairs among the brown, and no lines of care or sorrow marked her sweet, pure face.

All things were as she desired, and when the sun burned low on the hills, we laid her under the willow, while the children sang "Sweet Rest."

"Will there ever be another like her?" I said.

"Never," said Aunt Hildy.

"No, never," said the hearts of all.

My father missed her as much as if she had been his daughter, and I was glad of little Emily's presence; it was a star in our night. Louis was calm and strong, and spoke of her daily, and insisted on her plate at the table, saying:

"I cannot call her dead. Let us keep a place for her."

It was a tender recognition which we respected. He looked after her, it seemed to me, and almost saw her in her new home. The months wore on, and our cares were still increasing. News of battles lost and won came to us daily, and at last a letter telling of Lieutenant Minot having been wounded seriously. It was impossible for any one to reach him at present, and we must wait until he got to Washington, whither he would be sent as soon as he was able. Our fears were great, but at last a letter came from Washington, stating he would start for home on the twenty-first of October, and he desired Hal to meet him in New York. Hal found that the wound was in the shoulder, and the ball was still in it.

Unsuccessful probing had caused him great suffering, and we should hardly have known him.

When the real state of the wound was known, Aunt Hildy said:

"I can get that ball out," and she went to work energetically. She cut cloth into strips and bound all about the place where the ball entered, and then she made a drawing "intment," as she called it, and applied it daily, and in about four weeks, to our great delight, the ball came out.

Ben had the receipt for that wonderful "intment," and he calls it "Aunt Hildy's miracle."

When the cold days of the fall came upon us, Aunt Hildy felt them greatly, and the morning of December tenth we awoke to find her gone; she had gone to sleep to wake in a better home.

It seemed as if we could not have it so, but when I remembered all she had told me of her hopes and fears, when I knew she had found Clara and was glad, I said we were selfish; let our hearts say "Amen."

The town mourned Aunt Hildy, and again our church was filled to overflowing, and the sermon Mr. Davis preached was a just and beautiful tribute to our beloved friend, the true and faithful Hildah Patten.

The day after the burial, father said to us in a mournful tone:

"Now I have a duty to perform, and when she talked to me about it, she said, 'Do it right off, Mr. Minot; don't wait because you feel kinder bad to have me laid away. It's the best way to do what you've got to do, and get it over with.'

"So to-night we'll read the papers, and then we will carry out her desires--good old soul; I do wish she could have stayed longer. I can hardly see how we're going to live without her."

The evening drew near, and Halbert, Mary and Ben, with little Hal, were seated in the "middle room," while my father, with a trembling hand, turned the key in a small drawer of the old secretary, and took out a roll of papers and a box. As he did so a thought struck him, and he turned suddenly, saying:

"Why are not all here? She told me to have Matthias and Peg and John come over. I believe a few more sad partings would make me lose my memory."

"I'll go over for them," said Ben; "it is early yet."

"Yes, there is plenty of time," said father. "The sun sets early; the shortest day in the year will soon be with us," and his eyes closed as if he were too tired to think, and he sat in silence until the sound of feet on the walk aroused him.

"Hope we hain't come over to see more dyin', Miss Em'ly. 'Pears like its gettin' pooty lonesome round yere," and as our friends seated themselves, the old clock tolled the hour of seven.

Little Emily was asleep in Louis' lap, and her cousin Hal curled himself up in one corner of the old sofa, as if he, too, felt the presence of the G.o.d of sleep.

"Now we are ready," said my father, "and here is the paper written by Aunt Hildy which she bade me read to you all, and whose instructions we must obey to the letter, remembering how wise and good our kind friend has ever been. It is written in the form of a letter," and he read the following:

"My dear friends, I am writin' this as ef I was dead and you still in the land of the livin', as we call it; I feel now as if when you read it I shall be in the land of the livin', and you among them who feed mostly on husks. I know by this stubbin pain in my side that I shall go to sleep, and jest step over into Clary's room before long, and all that ain't settled I am settlin' to-night, and to Mr. Minot's care I leave these papers and this box. You have been good and true friends to me, and I want to help you on a little in the doin' of good and perfect work. When Silas left me alone he took with him little money. I don't know what possessed him; but Satan, I guess, must have flung to the winds the little self-respect he had. He took one boy off with him to be a vagrant. Silas' father was a good man, and he left a good deal of property to this son of his, and we had got along, in a worldly sense, beautiful; so when, he went away he left considerable ready money and a lot of land, and I've held on to it all. Sometimes I've thought one of 'em might come back and want some of it; but now I know they are dead.

From time to time I've sold the land, etc., and you see I've added to what was left. I now propose to divide it between Emily and Louis, as one, Jane North Turner and her husband, and John Jones."

As this name fell from my father's lips, John's dark eyes spoke volumes and his broad chest heaved with emotion, but he sat perfectly erect, with his arms folded, and I thought what a grand picture he made.

Matthias groaned:

"Oh, de good Lord ob Israel, what ways?" Aunt Peg gave vent to one of her peculiar guttural sounds as father concluded the unfinished sentence with the names of Ben, Hal and his good little wife.

"Now, you can't do a great deal with this money, but it will go a little ways toward helpin' out. I believe there is just three thousand dollars, and that figgers only six hundred dollars apiece. Now, ef Ben's shoulder prevents him from workin', and he needs to have it, Halbert must give him half of what I leave to him, and I know he'll do it. Ben wants to get married, and I can see which way the wind blows in that quarter, and I think sense he's been half killed you'd all better help him. When that comes to pa.s.s, give to him all the furniture and beddin'

that I leave, for his wife will be sensible enough to be glad of it.

Halbert's likeness of me in marble is a great thing they say, and sells well, and he will please to put me up again in that same shape, and then sell the picter and use the money to help the poor. He'll do jest what I'd like to have him.

"Emily and Louis will know jest what to do with their share; and now, John Jones, to you,--as a child of our father, as a brother to me,--I say, help yourself with what little I bestow in the very best way you can. Ef I didn't know you would look well after Peg and Matthias I should have left it to them and not to you. They won't stay here very much longer, any way--and its all peace ahead, blessed peace. You, perhaps, are wonderin' why Jane and her husband ain't here in this list.

This is the reason: I wanted to tell you jest how I come to have this money, and I thought her husband would feel bad at the explanation. I should like to have you all go over there, and let Mr. Minot read to Mr.

and Mrs. Turner and the children the paper I have left for them. Now I'm contented to go, and ef they do put a railroad track through my wood lot, it can't make me feel bad. The things of earth that I held so close through long years, will not seem to me any more as they have, too holy to be teched."

When father concluded the reading, we sat in such silence that the tick of the old clock, was to our ears the united beating of our hearts. Our thoughts were all centered on the wisdom and goodness of our unselfish friend who, through her life had been ever mindful of the needs of her fellow-men, and who, when standing before the gate of her eternal home, threw behind her her last treasure, thinking still of the poor hearts who needed its benefit.

We were to a.s.semble at Jane's the next afternoon at five o'clock, and when we said "good night," John looked up at the stars and said:

"If the spirit of that good woman sees me, she reads what I cannot tell you."

The next afternoon found us in Jane's large square room, which faced the western sky, and no less than twenty children were seated there with us.