Chapter VII: Esther's Forgiveness

NO one but a faithful Christian worker in Christ's vineyard can understand the encouragement such a revelation as that described in the last chapter is to those who have been for years sowing good seed and waiting for the harvest.

Esther, for years a member of the mission Sunday school,—light and frivolous, seemingly almost incapable of retaining any of the teachings repeated Sunday after Sunday in her hearing,—had been impressed by something in this simple prayer which the gracious spirit of God had fixed in her memory. It seemed to have been the "word in season," which had come back to her in her hours of deepest need, and proved to her in truth that God was really a loving Father watching over and pitying His sorrowing children.

Marion related the incident which had so deeply affected her to her friend in England adding, "I suppose I may learn from this a lesson of trust. We have the glorious privilege of sowing the seed in the hearts of these poor waifs. It is God's part, which He has promised to do, to help it to sink into the light soil and spring up to everlasting life.

"How many times I have heard people say, 'Such work does no good. The influences around these poor creatures are all against them. Once in seven days they repeat the command not to swear, not to steal, not to lie, and every hour of the other six days they hear the vilest oaths and are witness to a breach of every other command. If it were any truths but God's own truths, which He has promised to bless, we might well be discouraged; but in the case of Esther, when to human appearance all her surroundings were against her, one little seed of divine truth sank into her heart and bore such wonderful fruit that I take fresh courage and feel that I can labor with fresh diligence."

Never in all her acquaintance with Mrs. Douglass had our young friend enjoyed her visits there as now. The lady had recovered from her recent illness, and was able to take a short walk every day, supported by her daughter's arm. In Mrs. Cheriton's countenance there was an added beauty. Her eyes no longer flashed defiantly, as of old. Her head seemed to have forgotten its fashion of throwing itself back, as she haughtily refused any request which crossed her own inclinations. Upon her brow there was a sweet serenity that spoke to the observer of inward peace.

I have already spoken of the change in her treatment of her boy. Her resolutions made during that dreadful night were never forgotten. Conscience, once aroused, did not slumber again. She prayed earnestly that she might have help to command her own temper, and thus be able to teach Geenie to conquer his. The resemblance in many of her traits to her uncle Henreich, which has caused her mother hours of anxious forebodings, grew less and less every day. She saw that her daughter was making a great effort to correct her faults, and that in her government of her son she was kind but firm.

Formerly, as Marion went into their room, she was aware that her entrance had interrupted some unpleasant discussion. Mrs. Douglass would either be trembling with agitation or in tears while Mrs. Cheriton was flushed and defiant.

Now what a pleasing change! The two ladies sat at their work, regarding each other with the tender affection natural to the tie between them, while Eugene, sometimes boisterous indeed, was growing every day more willing to yield to authority.

One morning Marion called on her way to her pupils, who, by the way, were making their best efforts to show her they appreciated her self-denying efforts, as she had informed them she intended to resign her place in the school. She met Eugene, dressed for a walk, with a young companion from the house; and descending the stairs, found the ladies improving the time in reading an interesting book.

"I want you to tell Miss Howard about Geenie's prayer," remarked Mrs. Douglass to her daughter.

"I really hope," began Mrs. Cheriton, "that he understands what I have told him, that God sees us, though we can't see Him. Yesterday afternoon we were sitting here with the door open into the next room. I heard a noise like driving a nail, but supposed he was busy with his toys, and presently I heard his voice. We both listened and heard him say,—

"'God, don't look this way! Turn your eyes the other side. I'm very naughty, God. Don't see me! Look over there! I'm SO naughty, God, I don't want you to see.'"

"By this time I concluded it was best for me to see what the hammering meant. I went in and found him driving tacks into the trunk. He made no resistance when I took away the hammer, but looked ashamed when I said,—

"'O Geenie! How could you do so?'"

"You can imagine how he would have resisted once," added the boy's grandmother. "He would have kicked and screamed and tried to bite."

"I am thankful those days are past," murmured Marion, noticing the mother's flush of painful recollection caused by this allusion. "He will reward you for all the pains you take to control him."

"He has already," exclaimed the young mother, clasping her hands in her impulsive manner. "Geenie was never so affectionate as now. I do believe that he never loved me so well as when I had to punish him the other day. He hung around me, kissing me again and again. When he saw tears in my eyes, he took his own little handkerchief to wipe them away, saying repeatedly,—

"'Geenie will be good all the time, mamma. Geenie won't make mamma cry any more.'"

Marion was sometimes very curious to know whether, with the many obvious changes in Mrs Cheriton's character, her feelings of aversion to her husband remained. She was well aware that many of the former disagreements with the mother arose from the fact that Mrs. Douglass urged Juliette to write kindly to her husband, from whom they had heard within a few months. To be sure, he had not sent them any intelligence, but in a newspaper accidentally falling under their notice, they had seen his name and knew he was then in New Orleans. If there was any return of affection on the wife's part, no one knew it, for on this subject she maintained the most rigid reserve.

Indeed, Mrs. Cheriton could never be called a frank person. It was only under the influence of very strong emotion that she gave utterance to her deepest feelings. From the first, Marion had noticed this trait, and wondered at it in one so young.

With another child-wife it was exactly the reverse. To her earliest friends—Miss Howard and Hepsey—Esther laid bare all that was in her childish and grateful heart.

Marion often came upon her, singing in a low musical voice, a refrain from the hymn sung at family prayers, and when spoken to she had a way of looking up with her large, deep-set eyes, and smiling, as she said softly,—

"I'm so happy, ma'am. Everybody is so kind to me." And this was while the great ridges on her slender body, caused by her husband's brutal beatings, were still unhealed. In regard to this husband she did not hesitate to speak, though at first with tears.

"Would it be wicked, ma'am, to let him think I belong to him now?"

She asked this one morning when she was braiding her young mistress's abundant tresses and could keep her own face concealed.

"What do you mean?" Marion was startled and spoke in a sharp voice.

"I mean, ma'am, he's shut up now and can't get rum; and he was kind, once; and wouldn't he feel better if he knew that I cared for him a little?"

"You said you did not care for him; that you never wanted to see him again. Would you go back to him? Would you submit to his ill treatment, his profanity and abuse?"

Esther was silent, and glancing in the mirror, her mistress saw that her eyes were full of tears. At last she said, in a tone of deep sorrow,—

"I'm sorry God heard me say that. I was angry at the bad rum, and I was afraid of being shut up in a cell with him. I—I asked Jesus to put my naughty feelings away. I—I found the place in your prayer-book, ma'am,—I mean the marrying place. It's solemn words, ma'am; I didn't know that marrying was such a solemn thing. I was too young, and I had no mother, and my mates thought it would be fun to be married, and I didn't remember that I should have to stay married whether I liked it or not and so when he praised me and said he loved me best of all the girls in our court, though they all wanted him, I said I'd go to the parson. I had no call, ma'am, to let him say that bad woman was my mother. She was old Nan, the worst woman among them all, but that is over now. I'd die before I'd do so naughty again, but, ma'am, the minister asked me those solemn words, and I said yes, so I've been thinking that," sighing heavily, "'for better for worse, till death us do part,' means that I do belong to him, ma'am and so I—" Her voice was stopped suddenly for she fell on her knees, and with her head hidden in her arms, sobbed without restraint.

Marion's own tears flowed. As she told the story afterward to Mrs. Mitchell and Hepsey, "When I saw her in a perfect abandonment of grief, sobbing her heart out at the recollection of the man who had so abused his trust, I resolved that, if the law could prevent it, she never should live with him again. But at the same moment I felt for her such an increase of respect that folded her in my arms and kissed her."

A few days after this Miss Howard was dressing to go out when Esther came forward, blushing painfully, and holding out an awkwardly folded paper, asked,—

"May I go out, ma'am, to put this into the box at the corner?"

The lady took the letter and glanced her eye over the address, "Joseph Cole, Sing-Sing Prison, Auburn, New York State." The writing was scarcely intelligible, but Marion was not thinking of that. She could not endure the thought that Esther in her childish trust might bind herself irrevocably to his future.

"His sister told me how to write that," murmured Esther, in a hesitating tone. "'T isn't my place, ma'am, to ask you to give your time to it; but if you'll please to read it, and say I may send it to him, I shall be very happy."

This was what Marion wished to do. She seated herself instantly and unfolded the paper, not yet sealed, Esther meanwhile ruffling the edge of her apron as though her life depended on her doing it quickly.

Marion had never perused a letter in which all the rules of grammar and spelling were so wholly set at defiance; but seldom had she read one which touched her heart more. It was very brief, but to the point, and correcting the spelling, read as follows:—

Dear Jo,—

It's a good while now since you and me see each other. I thought, maybe, you'd like to know that a dear, kind lady, as used to teach me in the Mission, is giving me a home. I'm happy, or I would be if I could forget where you are. I'm learning to pray, Jo; and when I say my prayers I never forget that God can look right into your cell and see you, though I can't; so I tell him all about you, and ask him to make this the best time in your life, as it may be if you will learn to love Him. You are not yet twenty years old, and when you come out of prison you will be young enough to begin life again. This is what I am praying for you all the time.

Your little wife, ESTHER.

"If she had left out the words 'your little wife,'" said Marion to herself, "I would not have objected to her writing him for once." Then glancing up, she saw Esther's eyes fixed upon her with a mournfully earnest expression, and without another word went to her desk, took out an envelope, enclosed the letter in it, copied the address, and let it go. Afterward she confessed, "I believe at that moment I felt far more unforgiving toward the prisoner than the innocent victim of his brutality did."