Chapter II: Part 2

Mrs. Murdock’s feelings toward the family of her husband’s victim were curious. For them she cared nothing, but for “Billy’s sake” she cherished a strong desire, a feverish anxiety to do them some service. Had she been of the Roman Catholic instead of the Methodist faith she would have starved herself, if need be, to pay for masses for the repose of his soul. As it was, ministers of the gospel--well-meaning men--who had “labored and prayed” with Murdock before his execution, told her that he had refused the means of grace. While admitting regret for the crime committed, he had declared that he did not love God; that he knew nothing about Him. “When yo’ talk, Elder, about lovin’,” he would say, “I could sense yore meanin’ mighty well ef yo’ was a p’intin’ at my woman an’ the little chickabiddy. Them’s all I’ve got ary love fer in this hyer world. I never knowed the Lord here, an’ ef it depends upon my believin’ in an’ lovin’ of Him now, I reckon I shan’t know Him in the next place.” With which grim statement the preachers were finally forced to silence.

Being taken thus in the blackness of his sins, unconverted, of course he must pay the penalty hereafter, they told the grieving wife. The penalty, she had always been taught and had undoubtedly believed, was unspeakable torture forever and evermore.

Now, in her extremity, she did as we all do when a creed is too narrow for our own special needs--she passed it by. Turning from that monument of human wisdom, she groped for a gate where hope was not shut out.

“Billy must be punished, for he done a wicked thing, but he was not bad, he was not bad. I knowed him so well. He was always kind, on’y his temper quick--God must know that too, an’ surely, surely He can’t be hard on him always ’cause he lost control over his self jest once. Ef I could on’y do something for Mrs. Jillson, seems as if ’twould count for Billy some way. Ef she would let me work for her I might see some chance, but ’pears like she won’t let me come a-nigh.”

Having no one else, she whispered her thoughts, her wishes to the little Nancy. Instead of tender songs and baby talk, the child was lulled to sleep with stories of her father, with broken sobs and prayers. Who knows how early she became aware of a shadow upon her life? How soon she was conscious of a difference between herself and other children whom she saw? Her presence was only tolerated by the busy farmers’ wives because the mother could not leave her; no noisy play, no mischievous pranks were permitted or excused.

The children of the poor and unfortunate learn self-control and self-repression at an early age. When Nancy was ten years old she was done with childhood. She could make herself useful in many ways to the women who wanted “help.” She could “earn her own living,” and talk gravely of a half day’s or a full day’s time. Her mother, perhaps feeling that she could do no more for her daughter, and having no other interest in life, let this world slip from her feeble hold, and went out over the border into the unknown.

As she grew up, people were not often unkind to Nancy. On the contrary, they were usually friendly in a somewhat condescending way--when she did her work well. Had she been a timid, confiding creature, less self-reliant and reserved, no doubt they would have shown her many a favor that would have made her heart glad. As it was, the occasional rude taunts of other children (what is more barbarous than a cruel child?) and now and then rough allusions to her father’s death by older people, raised in her nature the armor of silence and assumed indifference. Withdrawing into herself, asking no help, she was allowed to go her way alone as best she could. So she toiled and served until she came to eighteen years of age. That time found her in the home of a farmer, twenty miles from her birthplace.

Had you asked the girl if she were happy, she might have said yes. The farmer and his wife, who had no children, were kind to her. There was plenty of hard work, to be sure, but she had known nothing else. Metaphysical questions had not troubled her; she had never asked herself if life were worth living, had accepted fate without rebellion. She had read no novels. Mr. Rhorer, the farmer, sometimes asked her to read to him from The Weekly Reaper--“types were so much littler’n they used to be, readin’ kind o’ made his head dizzy.” Nancy certainly might absorb facts, but not romance, from the able dissertations she spelled out upon the treatment of lambs, the weevil in wheat, or the advertisements of patent churns. Even the household department of the paper did not develop artistic tastes. She had no colored tissue papers wherewith to construct lamp-mats. Why should she make elaborate frames of walnut shells or crooked sticks, when she had no pictures to put in them?

An ignorant, uninteresting serving-maid, you see--very different from the æsthetic, cultured heroine, so popular nowadays. Yet this one was a woman, “with the heart and the hopes of a woman.” Hardly conscious, perhaps, that she had a heart, so long had it been starved. As in her childish days, she still held aloof from the young people, though, had she been so disposed, more than one young granger would have been glad to become her “beau,” for Nancy was fair to see. They were not so fastidious as to birth and family that her bright eyes might not have won them.

The one small interest and excitement in Nancy’s life this summer was watching the evening passenger train. It stopped for a few moments at a water station not far below the house, and there she waited, when her work was done, to catch a glimpse of the wonderful outside world, that she could see in no other way. Day after day found her there, leaning against the old gate under a wide beech tree. She liked to look at the strange faces, and took deep interest in the variety of hats and bonnets, the only articles of apparel visible from her point of view. It puzzled her to guess where so many people could always be going. If she should ever go traveling she would not look so tired and cross as many of them did; she was sure she would feel sorry, too, for girls who could only stand outside and see the cars go by. Once she saw a man carefully fasten a wrap around his wife’s throat, and heard words of tender anxiety for her comfort. She wondered vaguely if any one would ever care for her in that way; it was not likely, she thought. Somehow she did not wish to stay that night until the train started. She was tired, and the hissing of the steam made her head ache.

One day she became conscious that the young man who stood smoking a cigar on the back platform was the same one who was there yesterday, perhaps the day before that. With eyes turned away she became aware, too, that he was looking at her with bold admiration--the subtle magnetism, conveyed no scientists quite explain how, made her cheeks scarlet.

What was there in a trifle like that to make her sleep that night less dreamless than before, in spite of sound health and weary young body?

The next evening she went to the usual place. A little shyness about her now, but why should she stay away? She could not know that the young man would be there again; but he was there, and this time lifted his hat and smiled at her. If Nancy lived to be an old woman, and never saw him again, he would stay in her memory for that one act. She looked at it, not as an impertinence, but as a mark of respect. No man had ever lifted his hat to her before. The rustic beaux had not attained that touch of polish, and would have sneered had they seen him, yet have envied him his style and city manners.

The refined, accomplished lady of whom we like to read would not have been pleased with this young man. She would have seen a “person” of twenty-one or twenty-two years of age with sandy hair and a jet black moustache. A penetrating odor of hair oil and cinnamon essence diffused itself about him. Wherever jewelry is admissible in masculine outfit he had given it room--not expensive ornaments, perhaps, but large and showy. A hat worn upon one side of his head, a cigar carried in the opposite corner of his mouth, as if to balance the organ of brains, were peculiarities of his style.

The thrill which filled poor Nancy with delight would have been a shudder of disgust to our fastidious maiden.

Poor Nancy? No. Something had entered into her days which made labor light and hours short. Only smiles and glances, but these may mean so much. Once he threw a kiss at her when no one else could see; she tried not to think of that except when by herself, for fear some one might guess her thoughts.

One day her heart was set to fluttering, and her cheeks to burning when Mr. Rohrer brought the young man--yes, there could be no mistake--the same young man home to dinner with him. His name was Valentine Gipe.

“My stepfather’s name, did you say, Mrs. Rhorer? Yes, I’ve always went by name of Gipe instead of ----.” (A door slammed and Nancy did not catch that.) “Live up at Newburg, with maw an’ paw. Maw, she’s that wropped up in me she won’t hardly let me out of her sight. Am in business with Uncle Joe, down to the junction, an’ havin’ a free pass, it’s just as cheap to board at home, so I go up and down on the road every day. We’re dealin’ in stock right smart at present. Heard Mr. Rhorer had some fat cattle to sell, an’ have took a run up to see. Betcher boots I can’t be beat in jedgin’ the pints of a nanimal. Uncle Joe, he knows it, too; has dead loads o’ confidence in me.”

It took a long time to buy those cattle. Mr. Gipe came and went, and came again. When one purchase was made another was talked of, and the summer was ended before the stock was sold.

Long before that time Nancy’s heart was gone. All the love that other girls divide among friends and relatives was concentrated and lavished upon a creature who did not know what treasure was laid at his feet. He had nothing but empty words to give in return, was having a little fun, a little flirtation, he said to himself--but upon these words of love Nancy lived and was happy. The world took on a beauty she had never seen before. She wondered, as she sang at her work, that she had not noticed what a pretty blue was the sky, how bright were the sunsets; nothing in heaven, she thought, could be fairer than the moonlit summer nights.

The light of her passion brightened everything. Even the gray, heavy face of her mistress was touched with a reflected glow. Hitherto the girl had felt an unconscious pity for that worthy matron’s plainness. With feminine faith in beauty, she had wondered, idly, how Mr. Rhorer, himself no Adonis, could ever have married so unprepossessing a creature. Now she could see that the good woman might not have been so plain, after all, when young.

Mrs. Rhorer saw nothing of the play that went on before her face. Not a whisper of the old, old story reached her dull ears. She had forgotten that she was young once; she did not remember that the blood of youth is riotous, its pulses swift and eager--not sluggish, as her own. The girl was “only Nancy.” Her mistress did not see that she was fair, did not dream that she had a want that was not supplied by herself. It never occurred to her that Valentine’s frequent visits were for any one but her husband, because she knew----.

A part of what Mrs. Rhorer knew Nancy learned one day. Summer had gone then; the first bleak weather of fall had come, and sitting by the kitchen fire, the prudent farmer’s wife began planning for the winter. “I wish to goodness Dan’el an’ Val Gipe would finish up their trade about that last lot o’ cattle. We don’t want to winter them steers over. The young feller’s keen at a bargain, but powerful cautious. It’s jest as well, though, I s’pose, fer him to go slow an’ take care of his money, fer he’ll have a heap of it some day. His Uncle Joe’s an old bachelor, an’ most likely’ll leave him all he’s got, an’ then his pap left him right smart of a lump.”

“His pap dead? Why, child, didn’t I ever tell ye ’at Val’s pap was murdered when he was a baby? Gipe’s on’y his stepfather--Jillson’s rightly his name. The man was hung who did the killin’. ’Member me and Dan’el was at the hangin’.----Why! Bless my soul! What ails the critter, a whiskin’ out thataway an’ slammin’ of the door? Is she--why lawsy, come to think, the man who was hung was her pap, and I clean forgot it. Mighty touchy she is, to be sure, but I wouldn’t a’ said anything if I’d a’ thought. Was going to tell her about Val’s wedding that’s to come off next month. Wonder if we’ll get an invite.”

Nancy’s mind was in a whirl. One thought only was clear. Val was coming that night. He would have “something particular” to tell her, he had said, and she, in her innocence, had blushed and thought of but one thing he could say. Now she must tell him this awful thing; of course he did not know it, and what would he say? Quite likely he could not marry her now, for his mother would never consent. But how could they live apart?

With the simplicity of a woman who loves and knows nothing of coquetry or flirtation, she had accepted Val’s tender words without misgiving. That he had said nothing of marriage had not troubled her; so far the love had been all-absorbing, without thought for the morrow. She had not doubted that he knew her history--“everybody did”--and mixed with her affection was a strong feeling of gratitude that he had not held aloof. She would care for him just the same, she knew, if all his relatives were thieves and murderers, but this was different. Her early years had left a vivid impression on her mind of the relentless hatred of Mrs. Jillson to her mother and herself. It could hardly be hoped that time had made much change. If Val should ask his mother, perhaps--it might be--

Like one dazed she went about her tasks. Would the day never end? How gray and cold it was! The morning, she remembered, had been bright and clear. After supper she was sent to the cross-roads grocery, a mile and a half away, on some household errand. It grew dark early now, but she was not afraid. What was there to fear? She must hurry, though, to be back when Val came. It was nearer to go up the railroad than around by the turnpike, so she started home that way. It was a lonely walk even in the daylight, through dense woods and through deep cuts, but she thought only of the man she was hastening to meet.

Suddenly in the darkest part of the road, where it made a short curve, she came upon an obstruction. Partly with eyes accustomed now to the darkness, partly by touch, she found logs and stones piled high across the track.

How they came there she did not stop to consider. Like a flash came the thought, “the evening express is due; it will be wrecked and Val is on it.” One moment, then followed the thought and the deed for which she had lived her eighteen years. “If I can reach the water station I can warn the engineer; there is no other way. I shall save Val yet.” Softly she crept over the logs; with swift feet she sped up the gloomy road, and thought not of the darkness. Like an illumination around her was the feeling “My Val shall not die, I will save him.” Swifter yet she ran--it was a mile or more. Once she fell; with her ear upon the ground she heard the vibrations of the coming train. Could she not go faster? On and on, past the woods, through the cornfields now--the stalks still standing breast-high after the western fashion. How the dry leaves rustled! Her footsteps seemed to echo. Plainly now she heard the throbbing of the engine; its fiery eye shone far up the road--there was yet time, she was nearly there. Louder sounded the thunder of the train, but above that and the beating of her heart she heard again the echoing steps. Some one followed her, called to her to halt, threatened her, but still she ran faster, faster. A pistol shot, another, but she went on, staggering now. The train came thundering on, seeming in the gloom, like a destroying monster, stopped impatiently at the station, and Nancy dragged herself to the engineer’s cab. Her work was done. The creatures who, for malice or plunder, had planned the wreck were defeated, but had wreaked vengeance on her.

On board that train were lives worth more than the one for which she had given her own--men for whom other women would have died, no doubt; wives and children for whom hearts would have broken had they come to their homes no more. She had saved these passengers from destruction, but her thoughts were only for one. “Val! my Val!” was her cry--maidenly shyness gone now in the solemn presence of death. To her it was as though they two were alone in all the world. When they carried her to the house the young man followed reluctantly.

“I did it for you, Val. I know’d you’d be on the train. Seemed as if the Lord must let me get there in time. I kep’ askin’ Him over an’ over, an’ He did. I reckon it’s all up with me, though. This mornin’ I’d a been sorry, but it’s just as well. You couldn’t a married me, Val, a-knowin’ who I be, an’ it don’t ’pear as if I could a-lived away from you. You’re all I’ve got. Mother’ll be glad ’at I did this. Mebbe it’ll count for father, as she always was sayin’. Mebbe yer ma’ll forgive us all now.”

Valentine Jillson was selfish. Some woman had ministered to his comfort, his vanity, all his life. This one, he thought, had only done what was proper, everything considered. He was base, but with those dying eyes upon his face he did not remind Nancy that he had never spoken of marrying her. He could not tell the girl what he had come that night to say--that their acquaintance must come to an end, because he was to marry Squire Jones’s daughter, Juniata, next month.

And she, even with the prescience of death, could not read his treachery. With his hand clasped tightly in her own she did not know him false.

Swiftly her life ebbed away. She grew weaker, weaker. “I am--so--tired. Kiss me--once more--Val. Say you--love me. My Val. I--love--love--. It is--dark.”

With his words, his kiss (heaven would pardon this last deceit), Nancy’s eyes closed to open no more on this earth. On the other side, it may be, she took up the thread of existence that had lain in the shadow here and carried it on into the eternal brightness--the glory that is neither of sun nor of moon.

MRS. BROOKS’S CHANGE OF HEART

Mrs. Hannah Brooks, “Aunt Hannah,” as she was commonly known, had been a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church from the time she was eleven years old, and she was now sixty-two. For over fifty years she had walked in the strait and narrow path and had never failed to observe the ordinances of the church, or to rebuke sin wherever she detected it. Many people, even church members, felt that Mrs. Brooks’s standard of behavior was a little too exacting and severe for nineteenth century use. She was quite as austere in her views as if she had been a direct descendant of a Puritan father and had lived all her life on stony New England soil instead of having been born in Indiana of parents who had come from the “old country.” The Puritan influence affects all American character more or less, and it is a mistake to suppose that the stern and rigid code of conduct commonly ascribed to that influence is confined to one locality or is accepted only by Americans whose family trees were planted in this soil before the Revolution.

Mrs. Brooks had early been taught to believe that dancing was a device of the enemy of mankind to ensnare the souls of youth. Card playing was an abomination that none could tamper with without danger of missing heaven; while as for the theater, that was simply an open door to the place of everlasting torment. All through her life she had frequently found it necessary to warn and reprove young people of her acquaintance who showed an inclination to indulge in the two first-named frivolities, but the theater evil was one she had encountered only in recent years. Aunt Hannah had never lived in the city, her home having been first upon a farm, and, later, and for many years now, in the little town of Cicero, which has no opera house and whose dramas are not played upon the stage. With increasing frequency the rumor came to her that some young man or maiden had visited the theater in Indianapolis to see a performance by graceless play-actors--a “show” they called it--and if these erring young persons were in the church she invariably took pains to make a personal remonstrance and to urge them to turn again to the strait and narrow path.

Among themselves these young people, feeling a little guilty and conscience-stricken over their conduct, nevertheless, said sometimes that Aunt Hannah was hard and unsympathetic, and that she would not talk so if she were not so old-fashioned and understood how harmless theaters really were. But Mrs. Brooks was not unsympathetic. She believed firmly that all these things were wicked. She had been taught so, and had seen no reason to change her opinion. Believing thus, and being very direct, outspoken and fearless in her methods, she hesitated not to free her mind when occasion seemed to require.

She was an uncommonly intelligent and well-informed woman for one of her limited opportunities, being a close reader of such literature as came in her way--the range extending from the Bible and the life of John Wesley to Roe’s novels and the weekly newspaper. But reading must be supplemented by experience and observation before it gives breadth of view and liberality of judgment. She realized vaguely that a change of sentiment had taken place in recent years concerning card playing, dancing and kindred amusements, but she felt that this was merely a symptom of the degeneracy of the times and was strongly to be combated. Even the ministry was being tainted with moral weakness, for had not Presiding Elder Daniels--and he one of the most influential men in the conference, too!--said to her one day when she was discoursing on this subject--had he not used these almost incendiary words:

“People must have amusements, Sister Brooks, and perhaps it is better to let them enjoy their pleasures under the sanction of the church. In old times they danced before the Lord, you know.”

This was heresy that horrified the good lady, but she resolved, let come what might, that she would abate not a jot or tittle of her efforts against sin. Whatever others might do she would obey the spirit of the rules and regulations laid down in the Methodist Book of Discipline, and one of these rules charged that no entertainment be entered into on which the blessing of the Lord could not be asked, or words to that effect. And to the best of her ability she did. She neglected none of the accepted means of grace. She was a regular attendant at prayer-meeting, where her voice was frequently raised in exhortation and prayer, as is the custom with devout and elderly sisters in that fold. She was faithful at class-meeting, and there confessed her shortcomings with such reservations as seemed expedient in view of the fact that the listening ears were those of a dozen or so neighbors instead of a single father confessor vowed to silence. For instance, she saw no necessity for relating in detail that she lost her temper and thought a dreadful thought, which if put in print would have contained a dash, when her clothesline broke on Monday and let her week’s “wash” into the mud. All she considered essential was to acknowledge, in a general way, that she was a weak and sinful creature, and to ask the prayers of her brethren and sisters that she might overcome the old Adam and lay hold more firmly on divine grace. If any of her friends and neighbors had dared to arise in the same meeting and to speak of her as weak and sinful it would have been a very different affair. But none of them did. They only sighed heavily, looked dismal and said “Amen!” or “Lord bless!” after the relation of each “experience.”

Of late, as it happened, Mrs. Brooks’s attention had been especially attracted to matters of a theatrical drift. A son living in Chicago occasionally sent her a Sunday paper, and those papers, as everybody knows, devote a considerable share of their space to the drama in its various phases. She had serious doubts as to the propriety of reading these newspapers because they were labeled “Sunday,” but, reflecting that it was along in the middle of the week before they reached her, she decided, through some obscure train of logic, that there was no moral delinquency in finding out just what had been going on in the world three or four days before.

It was something of a task to read a twenty, thirty or forty-page Chicago paper through from beginning to end with the religious care that she did her county weekly, but in the two or three weeks that each copy lay around before another arrived she accomplished the task. Consequently she read a good deal about the theaters, much of it not to edification, because she had never seen a play nor read one, and failed to comprehend many allusions. There was something about these columns that attracted her, however, and she continued to peruse them with interest. One day she found something within her comprehension. In response to popular demand, Joseph Jefferson had reproduced his “Rip Van Winkle” that season after its semi-retirement for some years, and Chicago papers had a great deal to say about it and about him--all in the way of praise. Now, Mrs. Brooks knew all about “Rip Van Winkle” and all about Jefferson. The daughter of her next-door neighbor on the east was a school-teacher in the city--said city meaning Indianapolis, of course--and subscribed for the Century Magazine, sending each copy home after she had read it. When the family was through with it, it was passed around the neighborhood, beginning with Mrs. Brooks. Among other things she found in it was Jefferson’s autobiography. She began reading this under the vague impression that Joseph Jefferson was a statesman of the Thomas Jefferson type; or, if not, perhaps a great writer, though she did not remember to have heard of him. At any rate, he must be a distinguished man, for only that kind wrote biographies of themselves and got them printed. When she learned that he was only an actor she felt something of a shock, but by that time she was interested in his career and pleased with the good principles he seemed to possess and the excellent moral sentiments he enunciated incidentally. It did seem strange, though, that such a man should engage in so reprehensible a calling.

When she came to the account of his appearance as Rip Van Winkle she was again surprised and pleased, for had she not read Irving’s story of that good-for-nothing but winsome idler? Her next-door neighbor on the west had received a copy of the “Sketch Book” as a prize for subscribing for the Weekly Bugle, and, like most other books in the village, it had eventually gravitated into her hands.

Altogether, she was fairly well posted in regard to this particular bit of drama, and was startled one day by the discovery that she was actually wishing to see the play and to see Jefferson. The idea was really shocking. She, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in good standing, to think of going to the theater of all places in the world. Satan himself must have put the suggestion into her mind. Did not the church Discipline enjoin members to engage in no pastimes which could not be performed to the glory of God? Certainly no one could praise God at the theater; and yet--and yet, there was nothing especially objectionable about “Rip Van Winkle,” while Mr. Jefferson seemed a good sort of man according to his light. However, perhaps the theatrical columns of the Sunday papers were just as well left alone, and she would have no more of them.

The truth was that Mrs. Brooks had, without suspecting it, a liking for the dramatic and for the spectacular. She patronized all the entertainments given under church auspices, and was pleased with them in proportion as they were picturesque or exciting. She liked elocutionary performances, and was partial to the more dramatic recitations. She never missed charades or tableaux arranged by the young people, and made no criticisms, though the representations were scenes from profane history or heathen gods and goddesses arranged in white cotton drapery, such as gods never wore before. She liked lively music--dance music, if she only knew it--revival meetings of the stirring, fervid sort, and temperance meetings where the emotions were played upon by skillful speakers.

A week or so after this twinge of worldly temptation Mrs. Brooks went to spend a few days with her married daughter in Indianapolis to help that young matron with her winter sewing. The very evening of her arrival her son-in-law remarked to his wife at the supper table:

“Maria, Joe Jefferson is to play ‘Rip Van Winkle’ to-morrow night. You know we have been waiting to see him again, and I have bought tickets.”

Now, Mrs. Brooks knew that since her marriage her daughter had departed from the strict ways of her youth, and now and then indulged in that perilous frivolity, progressive euchre, and attended the theater. She had made vigorous remonstrance, as in duty bound, but, finding her protests of no use, had abandoned the fight, at least till an opportune season. Out of respect to her mother’s feelings, Maria tacitly ignored the subject, and now endeavored to signal her husband to silence, but he went placidly on and invited his mother-in-law to go with them, saying he would secure another seat. Much to his surprise, and more to that of his wife, Mrs. Brooks did not manifest that animosity toward theaters which a mention of them in her presence had been wont to arouse, and which the artful son-in-law had hoped to excite on this occasion for his own delectation. On the contrary, she took up the subject with a show of interest more eager than she knew, and displayed so much familiarity with Jefferson and his play that the two younger people looked at each other in wonder. But when urged to say whether or not she would go she suddenly stiffened and responded coldly:

“George Henry, you know my principles in regard to such places. To-morrow night I shall go to hear Francis Murphy. I know the way to the hall, and am not afraid to go and come alone.”

Next evening came, but Maria had a headache and could not go. George proposed to escort his mother-in-law to the Murphy meeting and leave her there while he went to the theater for an act or two--“for it was really a pity to miss it when we had the tickets and the time. You know, Mother Brooks,” he said solemnly, winking at his wife over his mother-in-law’s head, “you know going to see Jefferson is not like going to see other actors. He plays such nice, clean, moral plays and is such a high-toned, moral man--church member, and all that--that it is almost as good as going to a religious meeting to hear him.”

“Church member, is he?” was Mrs. Brooks’s only response, but the acute George Henry detected an expression in her eye that led him to whisper to his wife, as he kissed her good-night: “If we are not home till late you may know that I have inveigled your esteemed parent into a wild orgy at the theater.”

It was a fair night, and they walked down. The Grand Opera House was on the way to Tomlinson Hall, and as they drew near its portals the orchestra could be heard discoursing some very lively music preliminary to the raising of the curtain. When they reached the entrance George Henry turned toward it.

“Come, Mother Brooks, let’s hear Jefferson. You may never have another chance. He beats Francis Murphy all hollow. It’s all right. You’ll find lots of good people there who wouldn’t go to any other play nor to see any other actor for the world.”

There was a faint remonstrance--where were Mrs. Brooks’s accustomed vim and decision? There was a feeble holding back of her steps, but her eyes were fixed on the distant drop curtain, visible through the open doors--and in she went.

It was an event in her life. The stage with its setting, was as novel to her as to a child. There it all was, just as she had read about it, but so much more real--the village green, the old Dutch burghers, the vixenish Gretchen, little Katrina and the happy-go-lucky, lazy, but lovable Rip. As played, the story had some points she did not recall in the book, but what mattered! There was Rip doing the best he could. Suppose he was lazy and shiftless and did get tipsy sometimes, such a wife was enough to drive a man to drink. Mrs. Brooks forgot time and place in following his fortunes. She leaned forward, filled with visible wrath when Gretchen scolded, and when, at last, the wife drove him from home with his dog, and Rip turned and bade her and his child a touching farewell, tears ran down her cheeks unheeded.

Then, how she thrilled at the thunder of the mysterious ninepins rolled in the hollows of the Catskills by Hendrick Hudson’s men; how weird those old Dutchmen were; how wonderful was the red fire that flashed over them, making them look like creatures from the infernal regions! How her heart and her throat ached for the poor, pitiful old man when he woke from his twenty years’ sleep and wandered back to his home to find the world changed! What a wonderful thing it was altogether that one man--for the others in the play did not matter much--that one man could make a mere story, an impossible legend, seem so true, such a thing of actual life! And what a delightful creature he was, that Rip, that Jefferson, with his airy wave of the hand and his confidential, infectious smile.

She was glad she had seen him; glad, glad.

And this statement she adhered to. George Henry was discreet enough to say very little about this escapade of his mother-in-law, but she knew that she would meet no such consideration at home, for in coming out of the opera house she had jostled against young Hiram Jones, of Cicero, whom she had often rebuked for his theater-going, and whose father was her class leader. But she was not cast down. She had no intention of concealing her act. Next Sunday she went to church as usual, serene in the consciousness of looking well in a brand new, though properly plain, bonnet bought in the city. As usual, she appeared in class-meeting when the hour came. Her keen eye detected a movement of interest and curiosity on the part of others present, which convinced her that young Hiram had told his story.

Brother Minshall, being called on after the opening prayer and hymn, arose and repeated with nasal emphasis the formula of forty years, beginning: “Brethren and sisters, I feel to rejoice that I am spared to be with you another Sunday, that I may tell you of the wondrous work of grace in my heart.”

Sister Angeline Martin told her hearers in droning phrase that she was a weak and sinful worm of the dust, but that she had fixed her trust in the Lord and knew that He would lift her up.

Uncle Ezra Hinshaw was glad to add his testimony and to say that he was on the Lord’s side, and had been for nigh on to forty year. An hour spent here, he said, was worth all the fleeting joys the world could give.

And so it went on until Mrs. Brooks arose. She wasted no time in preliminaries.

“I take it for granted, brethren and sisters,” she said, “that you know I attended the theater when I was in the city last week, and that you want to know how I reconcile it with my professions. I did go; I got no harm, but very much enjoyment, and, I think, some good. I learned that whatever some theater plays may be, some others are as good as the best sermons. I have found out that it doesn’t do to abuse all theaters because some are bad. I don’t feel that I did anything wrong. I don’t advise anybody else to go, and I don’t advise them not. It is a matter with their own conscience. Mine is clear. I expect never to go again, but I am glad I went, and glad I learned what I learned, and glad I saw Joe Jefferson. Praise the Lord!”

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” said the leader with solemn intonation, but with a faint twinkle in his eye. He was a discreet man, and had been to the theater in his time, too. So the class sang the doxology and was dismissed.

Going out, Aunt Hannah met young Hiram Jones, looking a little sheepish, and shook hands with him.

“Wasn’t it beautiful?” said she. “Ain’t you glad you went, and ain’t Joseph Jefferson great? May he live long and prosper.”

AN ABIDING LOVE

The woman who was a critical reader of magazines met her friend, the writer of stories, in the little railroad station at Mullins, in southern Indiana. The writer had just arrived from Indianapolis; the other was waiting the north-bound train.

“What have you come to this dull, lonely, forlorn place for? Not for literary material, surely? My grandmother lives here, and I have known the town all my life. Nothing romantic ever happened to anyone here; there are no incidents, no tragedies, no characters worth studying; the people simply vegetate.”

“I never hunt for ‘material’ anywhere,” replied the woman who wrote. “It comes to me--crowds itself on me. I have been sent for by an invalid cousin, and expect not to think of literary matters; but if I were searching for themes I have no doubt I could find them, even here.”

“I am sure you could not. What, for instance (here the speaker’s voice was lowered), what could you make out of that spiritless, meek, faded-out creature there? She is a resident here; I have seen her often, but she is so colorless I never had the curiosity to ask even her name. I am sure she never had a vivid emotion, never really lived in all her life.”

“Perhaps not,” laughed the writer, “but I believe she has a story. I will find it out and tell it to you.”

* * * * *

This is the story she told a month later:

Martin Davis did not look much like a man with æsthetic sentiment in his soul as he left his plow in the furrow that afternoon in early April and drove his tired horses up the lane. His face was weatherbeaten, his hands rough and hard, his clothing cheap and coarse, his high boots, into which his jeans trousers were tucked, caked with mud. But he was young and vigorous; his eyes were bright and eager, and he felt himself a man to be envied, for had he not a wife waiting for him at the house--a bride of but a few weeks? In the band of his rusty felt hat he had slipped a bunch of yellow violets.

“I knew ye liked posies, Lizzie,” he said as he handed them to her at the kitchen door, “and these are the first I’ve seen this season, ’thout it’s the little white windflowers that wilt while ye’re pickin’ them. These yellow things are way ahead of time. I’ve never found them before earlier than May; they’re not common hereabouts, anyhow, but I know of a spot down in the holler where they always flourish.”

When she put them in a teacup and set them on the supper table he wondered vaguely why he had never known before that flowers made a room look so cheerful--almost as if the sun were shining, though that luminary had sunk behind the western hill. He did not know that the brightness was not of the flowers, but was the light of love reflected from his heart and hers.

It was but a brief time that his happiness lasted. That was the spring of ’61, and the country was even then calling upon her loyal sons. Martin Davis turned his horses into the pasture, left his crops for others to harvest and went unhesitatingly to answer the call. Oh, the heroism of the myriads who thus went out from home, and peace, and love, to the battlefield in those dreadful years! What if they did not know that the ninety days would lengthen until no man could name the end, and that the slain would be like the leaves of the forest for numbers? What if they did go simply from a matter-of-fact sense of duty, and with little feeling of risk and danger, or because the riotous spirit of youth yearned for adventure? The fact remains--the tremendous, immutable fact--that they went by hundreds, by thousands, by tens and hundreds of thousands, and that they offered their lives. Greater love than this hath no man, and yet we, in this frivolous later day, dare sometimes speak lightly of those men and their sacrifices.

It was a monotonous and a hard life for the most part, that of a private soldier in the war for the Union. Its story has been told in fragments at home firesides and by campfires, but never in literature as a whole for the world to know. Perhaps it never will be. The veterans tell of battles and of victories and of stirring events, but they do not, as a class, care to dwell upon their hardships and sufferings. The experience cut deep, and the scars are even yet too sensitive to touch upon.

Martin Davis’s life was not different from the rest. There was the drill and the camp life, the picket duty, the marching, the digging of trenches and building of breastworks, the skirmishing, the expectation of encounters with the enemy--all this for slow and weary months, and at last a great battle.

Lizzie, the young wife at home, waited from week to week and month to month, as women did in those days, with what show of patience and composure they could muster--a proof of courage and patriotism not less than that of going to war. The soldiers’ story may sometimes be told, but where is the historian who shall portray the agony of the women’s waiting hearts, the suffering of uncertainty and suspense? Who shall comprehend the anguish of their tears? Who understand that the strain of constant dread of evil news from husband and brother and lover was greater than that felt by the soldier before the enemy’s guns--that it left unhealed scars that aged them before their time?

Lizzie Davis fared like the other women--hoping and praying, living upon the letters that came at irregular intervals, going about her tasks by day, with heavy heart, and enduring long nights with their visions of war and woe. In the little town from which the flower of the young men had already gone, existence was not gay at the best of times, and was now more monotonous than ever to the women, whose part was to wait. There were few things to distract their minds from their own anxieties; they were not the “new” women, with many and diverse activities, and so they sat at home and thought of what might be. Mrs. Davis did not love her husband more than the other lonely women loved theirs, perhaps; but without him she was quite alone in the world, and it was natural that no event of the war was important in which he had no place. That brawny private, that long-limbed, awkward farmer boy, was all the world to her. No future opened to her vision which he did not share. She was a commonplace little creature, narrow in thought and limited in capacity, but other and greater women have found it all of life to love one man.

Letters came to her from Tennessee now. Martin wrote that it looked as if some fighting would be done very soon that would scatter the rebels and end the war. Then came the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson, and he wrote with still greater certainty that the war was soon to close. Men better informed than he thought so then. After that there was marching across country, transportation by boat up the Tennessee, more marching, with rain and mud and cold as features of the travel--all this described in fragmentary scrawls. One of them, dated April 5th, and written on a scrap of paper while he stood in the rain with his company awaiting orders, said there would be fighting soon, and added: “Here’s a yellow violet; just found it under a bank. Season’s early down here. We’re going to beat the rebs out of their boots. Good-bye.”

This note, and then--silence. There had been a battle; it was Shiloh--bloody Shiloh. On its gory field, when the 7th of April dawned, the dead lay by thousands--the blue and the gray. Oh, Shiloh! the waiting hearts that broke when your victory was won!

Private Davis, of Company D, was numbered among the dead. A comrade wrote to Lizzie, telling her that Martin had died like a hero. A part of his regiment had faced about and retreated, broken in a panic before the Confederates’ furious onslaught; but he had remained, had seized the flag from the hand of the fleeing color-bearer and gone on triumphantly to meet the coming foe. In the thick of the fight he was seen to fall, “and,” said the writer, with no art at softening cruel truth, “he was buried in a trench.”

To the widow a realizing sense of the death did not come. It is often so when those away from home are taken; to their families they seem still temporarily absent and likely to return at any hour. She accepted the situation dumbly, uncomplainingly. She had no longer a keen interest in life, and was without the strength of character to rise above her grief and force herself to accept new interests. She was simply an every-day woman, who had loved her husband and continued to love and to think of him day and night, though he was dead. She sold her farm to a rich neighbor, who took advantage of her ignorance to pay her but half its value, and she was deprived of a large share of the proceeds by a sharper to whom she intrusted them for investment. Then she settled down in the little town and became a neighborhood drudge. She sewed, nursed the sick, took care of the new babies, and was at the beck and call of any housewife who needed her in domestic emergencies.

The years went on with little variety. The war ended, and affairs settled into new grooves. A flood of prosperity swept over the country and affected even this quiet town, but made little difference in Mrs. Davis’s plodding, uneventful existence. No one pitied her especially for her lonely and hard-working life. She was spoken of as “the widow Davis,” but she was only one among many widows the war had created, and, as she made no ado over her woes, no one else thought to do it for her. They had their own troubles to think of. They did say, along at first, that she didn’t take Mart’s death very hard. She “didn’t make no fuss,” they said, and they “’lowed” she was “ruther shaller.” Afterwards they practically forgot him, and assumed that she had done the same. But she never put off her simple mourning garb; her mouth fixed itself in a pathetic little droop; her brown hair faded early. And she would not marry again. Ten years after Shiloh, John Holt, a thrifty widower, attracted by her quiet, industrious ways, sought her as a step-mother for his children.

“No, Mr. Holt,” she said. “I can’t be your wife. Martin Davis is dead and buried, but I can’t make him seem dead nohow; I never have, an’ I don’t reckon I ever can. I feel as if he was gone jest on a trip; an’ I dream of him o’ nights, an’ I’m always glad when night comes, because them dreams come, too. I’ll go along by myself till the time comes for me to go and meet Martin--but it’s long, long!”

And then, her self-repression overcome by the sudden compassion in the man’s eyes, she bowed her head upon the table and sobbed and wept in the utter abandonment of a grief which knows no pretense.

John Holt went away thoughtful, and was afterwards heard to say it was a “sing’lar dispensation o’ Providence that took a man away from a wife like that an’ let other men live whose wives wouldn’t a-mourned for ’em over night if they’d drownded theirselves.”

More years went, until, one day, Mrs. Davis heard of an excursion that filled her patient soul with longing. This was a trip by boat to Shiloh battleground. She had never been further from home than to Cincinnati, fifty miles away, where she had gone once when a girl, but she determined to make this journey. It was a great undertaking, and she got ready for it with an excitement such as had not stirred her for years. She never thought of the South but as the rebels’ country, and, though she knew there were no rebels now, there was down in her heart a dull hatred of all Southerners, because but for them there would have been no war--but for a certain one of them who had fired a fatal shot she would not have been left in loneliness all these long years.

Men and women of the world who, through contact with people of many localities, have gained the ability to judge their fellow-beings dispassionately find it difficult to comprehend the limitations of one who has but a single point of view. Lizzie Davis had had but one great interest in life, and had never been able to consider the outside world in any other than its relation to herself.

The trip down the Ohio river, though novel, aroused no emotion; once on the Tennessee she began to brighten. Martin had made this journey not long before his death. The war, now so far past, was brought close to her. The battle seemed but a little while back. On the wooded bluffs she could almost see rebel skirmishers in hiding. Her meek, feminine soul, which had never before directed a cruel thought toward any individual, suddenly throbbed with fierce resentment; the slow, easy-going natives, who strolled down to the landings and leisurely carried their freight up the bank in primitive fashion, seemed to her to represent a bloodthirsty, murderous people. She eyed them malevolently.