Wheat and Huckleberries Part 23

The shrewd gray eyes were looking at him kindly.

"And Stout-heart doesn't win them either, sometimes," he said bitterly.

"Oh, it's chance, it's chance, the way things happen!"

The preacher laid his hand on the young fellow's shoulder. "No, Mort,"

he said with a peculiar gentleness in his voice, "Stout-heart _doesn't_ win them always. We fail of them sometimes with all our trying. G.o.d knows how I've wanted some things I've missed. But there's one thing we needn't miss,-the Lord himself stands to that,-courage to meet what comes, strength to go without, if we must, and not be broken by it."

The young man stopped in his walk and faced the other. "Strength!" he cried, almost fiercely. "To do without the things that make everything else worth having! Where is one to get it? You could hunt for work-I'd take my chances on finding that-but _this_!"

He set his teeth hard, and the preacher felt the strong young figure grow tense under his hand. He drew himself up, and his eyes held the boy's with a compelling earnestness.

"Where are you to get it, Mort?" he said solemnly. "From the One that gave you what strength you've got. Do you think He bankrupted Himself giving you and me the little sense, the little power that's in us? I tell you there's more; there's _enough_ for every soul of us. Cry to Him for it. Open your eyes and open your heart. It's here, it's there, it's all around us. And it's ours for the having."

He stretched out his arms as he spoke with a wide reverent gesture, and his plain awkward face looked n.o.ble as he lifted it toward the sky.

They stood together for a long still minute without speaking. He had broken in upon an hour of solitary wrestling; the older man knew it, and he shrank back now from his intrusion. Suddenly he turned away. "It's a little shorter for me across the fields, Mort, and I'll leave you here,"

he said. "Good night, and G.o.d bless you."

It was past midnight when Morton Elwell opened the door of his uncle's house. A light was burning in the sitting room; and his aunt rose as he entered, dropping from her lap the work with which she had been filling the time while she waited.

"What, were you sitting up for me, Aunt Jenny?" he said, as she met him.

"It's a long time since I had a chance to sit up for you, Mort," she said tenderly. And then she added, with a gentle reproach in her voice, "Don't you think you ought to be taking a little more rest to-night, when you start so early to-morrow?"

"I'm going to bed right now," he said. Then he put his arm around her neck in the old affectionate way, as he added, "A fellow has a deal to be thankful for that's had such an auntie as you are to take care of him all these years."

And with that manly word, and a little quiver at his lips, he mounted the stairs to his own room.

CHAPTER XV

ESTHER GOES TO PRAYER-MEETING

Meanwhile autumn was gliding away at the old farm. It was worth Esther Northmore's while, as Aunt Katharine had suggested, to have seen October in her mother's country. Even Old Timers, used to the glory that wrapped its hills in the shortening days, doubted gravely whether they had ever known a fall when the woods wore such gorgeous coloring as now, or kept their royal robes so long. All the world seemed flaming in crimson and gold, with fringes of purple at the roadsides, and Esther, walking joyously in the midst, felt her pulses beating to a rhythm she had never caught before in the swinging of the round old world. Her grandfather was no poet; but he liked to see the girl come in with her face glowing and her hands full of leaves, which always seemed to her more beautiful than any she had ever found before. Sometimes he was moved to remind her that this, too, was "vanity," one of earth's pa.s.sing shows, but she protested against this, and told him it would never pa.s.s for her. She should keep it as long as she had life and memory.

Very often in these shining days came Mr. Philip Hadley; once to urge that pleasant invitation, then to make sure that his friends had returned from the trip in safety; once to bring her a book she had wanted, and at last to say good-by to Ruel Saxon. The Hadleys were about to leave their summer home. With the approach of November it was time to be back in the city. There had been an eager look in his eyes as he added, turning to Esther, "You will be going about the same time." And he had kept her hand longer than usual at the door as he said, "It has been delightful to see you in this lovely old home, but we shall see each other much oftener in Boston, I hope. I can't tell you how glad I am that you are going to be there."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'IT HAS BEEN DELIGHTFUL TO SEE YOU IN THIS LOVELY OLD HOME.'"]

She had dropped her eyes, that easy color rising in her face as he spoke, and then he had said, "Good-by for a little while," with a very earnest pressure of the hand in his, and ridden away.

It was late when he left, but she slipped out of the house immediately for a walk, and for once there were no leaves in her hand when she came back. "It looked like rain," she said, when Tom remarked that she had stopped short of her favorite woods.

It did not look so much like rain but that Ruel Saxon went as usual to the prayer-meeting that night, and of course Esther went with him. It was one of the standing engagements for every week. Perhaps the girl could have spared it sometimes-there were few young people there-but she never declined to accompany her grandfather. As for him, it was a place he loved; a spot in which his own gifts shone conspicuous, and in which it must be confessed he sometimes appropriated more than his fair share of the time. Why Christian people did not all and always go to prayer-meeting was one of the things he could not understand, and it really seemed to him a surprising omission that there was not an explicit command in the Bible laying the duty upon them. However, he consoled himself with the admonition "not forsaking the a.s.sembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is," to which favorite quotation he frequently added that he should not forsake the a.s.sembling of _himself_ together as long as he was able to be there.

There really was some doubt in Aunt Elsie's mind to-night as to the last point. The old gentleman seemed to have all the premonitory symptoms of a cold, but he would have scorned to stay at home for a trifle of that sort, and started in good time on the long ride to the village. He bore his part in the meeting with unusual unction, and a number of the brothers and sisters took his hand at the close to thank him impressively for his beautiful remarks. It was a form of flattery which he dearly loved.

Then, as he jogged home behind Dobbin with Esther, he fell to talking, in reminiscent mood, of his own long services in the church, and this, making all due allowance for that cheerful vanity, which he had never been at pains to conceal, was a subject on which Ruel Saxon, if any man, had some right to grow eloquent. Ministers might come and ministers might go, but, as deacon of the church in Esterly, he had gone on, if not forever, at least so long that few could remember when he had not held and magnified the office. He had sat on councils to receive and dismiss, he had contended for the faith, he had poured oil on troubled waters; in short, in all the offices of peace and war, he had stood at his post, and none could name the day when he had shirked its duties.

"I've seen some strange doings in my time," he said, after one of his pauses, "and I tell you there's as much human nature among church members as there is among outsiders. Sometimes I've thought 'twas because they needed grace worse than most folks that the Lord elected some of 'em. I've been called on to settle quarrels among professors that would astonish you; and I've had a hand in their love affairs too, once or twice, when they got things so tangled up that they couldn't straighten 'em out for themselves," he added with a little chuckle.

"Love affairs!" repeated Esther, catching at the chance of a story.

"Why, how was that? Do tell me one of them, grandfather."

He clucked to Dobbin, drew his hand across his face in the meditative way that suggested a stroking of memory, and began slowly:-

"I guess the queerest one I ever had anything to do with, and the one that bothered me most in my own mind, was that affair between Jotham Radley and those two girls. You see they were both bound to have him; and for the life of him he couldn't seem to settle on which one it should be."

"_They_ were bound to have _him_?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Esther. She had heard of two lovers to one lady, but this sort of a case was new in her acquaintance.

"Well, I don't know as I or' to say _they_ were," said the old gentleman, correcting himself. "It was Huldy's mother on one side, and 'twas Polly herself on the other. You see, Jotham had been keeping company a good while with Huldy, and folks gener'ly thought 'twas a match between them, but he got to carrying on with Polly Green 'bout the time he was building her father's barn. I always thought she must have led him on. He was a wonderful easy man to be pulled round by women folks, and Polly was a smart girl, there's no denying that.

"Well, it began to be common talk that they were engaged, and then Huldy's folks spoke out and said 'twas no such thing; it was all settled between him and Huldy long ago, and her mother showed the linen she'd spun and the bed quilts she'd pieced for housekeeping. It got to be a good deal of a scandal, for Jotham was clerk of the church, and some folks, specially the women, thought it or' to be stopped. So we deacons talked it over together, and then two of us went to see Jotham and asked him how it was about it. He didn't say much, one way or t'other-acted sort o' queer 'n' shame-faced; but he agreed the talk or' to be stopped, and said he'd have it settled in a week.

"I guess he found it harder to settle than he counted on, for Polly was a dreadful spirited girl, and Huldy's mother was the kind that couldn't be put off. Anyhow, instead of easing up, the talk kept getting louder, and Jotham didn't show his face in the meeting-house for two Sundays.

Well, the deacons felt that he was trifling with 'em, and that time we went in a body to deal with him.

"Deacon Simms did the bulk of the talking, and he told Jotham pretty straight what he thought about a man's whiffling round between two girls as he did, and then he told him if he couldn't settle the business for himself the church would have to settle it for him. At that Jotham spoke out like a man distracted, and said he wished to goodness we would. I asked him if he'd abide by our decision, and he said he'd abide by anything the girls would.

"I must say I didn't much like the business, but we went the next day to see the girls. Polly cried, and took on, and according to her account Jotham had certainly said some wonderful pointed things for a man that didn't know his own mind. As for Huldy, she looked sick and scared, and 'twas much as we could do to get a word out of her. Her mother was ready enough to talk, but Jotham warn't engaged to _her_ anyhow, and I stood to it that we couldn't settle the thing by the way _she_ looked at it. I always suspicioned that if Huldy'd spoke up and freed her mind, she might have made out the best case, but she wouldn't do it.

"Seemed as if she didn't want to commit him, and the other deacons thought 'twas a clear case he ought to marry Polly. It sort of 'peared to me that it or' to be Huldy, but of course I couldn't prove it, and anyway 'twas three to one. So I gave in to the rest, and to settle all the talk, we had Jotham and Polly published in church the next Sunday.

They did say Jotham turned dreadful white when they told him how we'd settled it, but he married Polly at the set time, and as far as I know they always got along well together."

"What become of Huldah?" queried Esther.

"Huldy?" said the deacon, reflecting. "Well, she stayed single till she must have been upward of thirty; then she married a widower, and everybody said 'twas a good match."

There was silence for some time, then Esther said, with her eyes on the sky, over which the clouds were shifting uneasily, "Grandfather, do you think a person _could_ have any doubt in his own mind as to which one of two people he cared for most, if-if he was really in love with either of them?"

"I ain't sure but he might," said the deacon, slowly. "It takes a good while to get acquainted with folks, and I don't know but it's about as hard sometimes to know your own mind, as 'tis to know anybody else's-even if 'tis inside of you." And then he added briskly, "But it stan's to reason that a man or' to have a care how far he goes before he gets things cleared up."

She seemed not to hear the last remark. "But if you had known a person for a long, long time," she said insistently, "there couldn't be any doubt then, could there?"

Again, like the wise man he was, the deacon answered slowly, "Well, a body or' to get his mind made up in a reasonable length of time," he said. "There was Nathan Weyler went to see Patty Foster every Sat.u.r.day night for thirty years before he asked her to marry him. I should call that _slow_! But there _is_ such a thing as seeing so much of folks-being so close to 'em, you know-that you don't really get as good a sight at 'em as you would if they were farther off. It's getting your attention drawn somewhere else, and seeing what's in other folks sometimes, that wakes you up to what there is in those you thought you knew best."

Esther, whose eyes had been fixed on her grandfather's face intently during this reply, looked suddenly back at the sky. She had thought there were no stars to-night, but she was aware, all at once, that there were four or five shining straight before her. Had they all come out in the last moment, or was it an ill.u.s.tration of what he had just been saying?

Her voice shook a little, and she did not look at her grandfather as she asked her next question. "But if it came to you that there _was_ more in somebody than you had realized-if you saw more to admire than you ever did before-_that_ wouldn't be enough, would it? I mean, it wouldn't be right to marry for anything but love, would it?" She broke suddenly off, then began again with a nervous, half-incoherent swiftness. "That man, for instance, that you were telling me about, and Huldah. If he had just felt sorry for her, and it kept coming to him all the time that he hated to leave her, because-because he had known her so long, and he knew it would be hard for her, and she was so good and true-all that wouldn't be enough to make him marry her, would it?"

Strange that she should be so deeply stirred over that old story of so long ago! Her hands trembled so much that she had to press them together to hold them still when she had finished.

He was a keen-witted man, Ruel Saxon. Perhaps it may have crossed his mind at that moment that he was being called once more, at this late hour of his life, to lend a hand in straightening out some tangled skein of love, but if so he did not reveal it.

"No," he said distinctly, "no; there's nothing else but love will do.