Chapter IV: Strangers

"ARE you tired of waiting, Selina?" asked Miss Armstrong as she locked the schoolhouse door, and put the key into her basket. "You need not have staid. I don't believe I should be so stupid as to lose my way twice."

"I liked to," said Selina with a great effort: "it is pleasanter than walking home alone. But I think it is too bad to keep you after school so."

"Oh, I am used to that," answered Miss Armstrong, smiling. "I usually get 'kept after school' oftener than my scholars do. I am pleased when the girls come to me with questions. I am very much interested in poor Kitty; I hope to be able to do something for her."

"They must be an ignorant, low set," said Selina. "Fancy any one not knowing that the New Testament is a part of the Bible!"

"A good deal more than half the people in the world are in the same condition, including various kings, nobles, and others of unquestionable gentility," said Miss Armstrong. "I have met with many such cases in the city, but I was surprised, I confess, to find one here."

"Oh, well! Phin Mallory has not always lived here. He has lived out West, and in all sorts of wild places," replied Selina, jealous for the reputation of the neighborhood. "If he had grown-up in Oldham, I dare say he would have been different."

"I think it altogether probable that one might find people who have grown-up in Oldham whose cases are still more remarkable," said Miss Armstrong, "though such cases are so common that their peculiarity does not strike you unless you consider the matter."

"I don't know what you mean," said Selina.

"I am thinking of people who have been brought up to know a great deal about both the Old and New Testaments, who are carefully instructed in the Bible, and profess to believe it, and who yet behave as if there were no such thing."

Selina blushed. She knew very well that this was very much her own case. "Do you think that is so much more strange?" said she.

"Which would be the more remarkable,—that a man should walk off a precipice in the dark, or that he should do so in the daytime with his eyes open?" asked Miss Armstrong.

"That he should do it in the daytime, of course," replied Selina, "but that is different."

"It is a fair illustration, I think," said Miss Armstrong. "A man professes to believe that there is no salvation for any one who does not accept the Lord Jesus for his Saviour, and give himself up to Him; and yet he does neither."

"I don't understand what people mean by that," said Selina,—"I mean, by what they call a saving faith."

"A saving faith, as distinguished from a merely historic faith, is a faith that leads to action. To give you a homely illustration: Mr. Bassett, here in the mill, believes that school will open at nine o'clock to-morrow; that is, if he thinks of it at all. But it makes no practical difference to him: he will not rise an hour earlier, or make any change in his arrangements, on that account. But to me it is, so to speak, the central fact of my day; and all my plans are made in reference to it. So a man has a kind of belief in the Saviour; that is, he believes that there was such a person, and that He did the works ascribed to Him: but he does not make any alteration in his life on that account. But let that man be once waked up to the truth that he is a lost sinner, with no hope of deliverance except in this same Saviour, and he will not rest till he has made that Saviour his own."

"Then all people want is, to be waked up," said Selina. "If that is the case, I wonder true Christians don't talk to people about such things more than they do."

"It is, no doubt, a duty grievously neglected," said Miss Armstrong, "but it is not all, by any means. People go on in sin, not because they don't know any better, but because they love sin. They know that if they become really Christians, they must do many things which they don't like to do, and give up many things they don't like to give up; and they cannot make up their minds to such a course. The cross looks very hard and heavy, and they don't like to meddle with it."

"Some people say there is nothing but joy in the life of a true Christian," observed Selina.

"The life of a true Christian must be very unlike that of his Master, then," replied Miss Armstrong. "The very sight and thought of so many going the broad way to destruction must hinder any true Christian from being perfectly happy at all times. 'The disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord.' But, Selina, how is it with you? You ought not to need any arousing on this subject."

"One may sometimes have too much of a good thing," said Selina lightly. And then, willing to dismiss the subject, she exclaimed, "I wonder whose carriage this is, coming up the hill! I am sure it does not belong about here."

"It is Mrs. Van Zandt's," said Miss Armstrong with an expression of pleasure. "She wrote me that she meant to drive over from Oldbury."

As she spoke, the carriage came up to them and stopped. And the coachman, touching his hat, asked Selina if they were in the right road to the Van Zandt mansion.

"You are right so far, but you must turn to the left by that red house," said Selina.

She looked round for Miss Armstrong, and saw that she was already at the carriage window, exchanging greetings with the persons within. One was an old lady with beautiful white hair put up in puffs under a shady bonnet. The others seemed to be young, but Selina could not see them distinctly. She felt a sense of being forlorn and neglected, as if Miss Armstrong had somehow done her an injury by being acquainted with these strangers, while she was not. It was not very reasonable, but it is a feeling which almost every one has experienced at some time. Miss Armstrong hastened to catch up with her.

"What made you run away?" said she. "I wanted Mrs. Van Zandt to see you."

"She is a handsome old lady, isn't she?" said Selina, not answering the question, which, indeed, she would not have found easy. "How prettily she was dressed! I do love to see an old lady dressed like an old lady."

"And so do I," answered Miss Armstrong. "There is no more pitiable spectacle, to my mind, than that of an old woman trying to look young."

"Some old people 'feel' young," observed Selina. "There is Miss Delia Claxton standing at her gate now. She says she does not feel any older than she did when she was twenty, but she does not dress young."

"I dare say not. People who feel young seldom do. How very pretty she is!"

Miss Delia did indeed look wonderfully pretty as she stood under the great tree at her own gate, with the flickering lights and shadows glancing over her delicate calico dress, and the white Shetland shawl she had thrown over her head. She was an alert little body, with a clear, dark complexion, plenty of color, and bright hazel eyes, made still brighter by the whiteness of her abundant wavy hair.

"Good evening, Miss Armstrong," she said in a cheery voice as soon as that lady came within hailing distance. "I am out staring after our new neighbors, you see. That isn't very dignified, is it? But, dear me, one sees so little here, that a travelling-carriage is quite a sight. Celia says you know these ladies, Miss Armstrong, and that they are very nice people."

"That they certainly are," said Miss Armstrong, smiling. "I think you will like them very much."

"Well, I am glad to hear that," said Miss Delia emphatically, "because, you see, being connections in a kind of way, we must call upon them. Dick Van Zandt's mother was first cousin to our mother. She was a Butler, you see, and her mother was a Ring belonging to the Rings of Rollock, the same family that our maternal grandmother came from; so, of, course, we must call. You will smile at that, though," added Miss Delia, breaking in on herself with a good-natured laugh: "strangers don't understand how much we think of relationship and descent in these parts."

"I am Scotch, and an Armstrong," replied Miss Armstrong, smiling in her turn; "and you know the Scotch count kindred to the tenth degree, at least. But I assure you, Miss Delia, you will like Mrs. Van Zandt very much. She is odd,—at least, most people consider her so,—but she is very lovely."

"I am considered odd myself, so I can't quarrel with that," replied Miss Delia. "You see, we don't often call on the summer boarders," she added: "one does not know much about their antecedents, as a rule, and some of them are not very nice.—I hear that the Richmonds are coming back, Selina."

"They are, I believe," answered Selina rather shortly, as though the subject were not very agreeable.

"Well, if they do, I hope you won't go making an intimate of that Amelia," said Miss Delia: "she is not a nice friend for you. Well, there, child, don't color so: I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.—Miss Armstrong, won't you and Selina come in and stay to tea? I am sure Celia would be delighted to have you. You will excuse my not having called. The fact is, I had been coloring carpet-rags, and I never can do that without coloring my hands at the same time; so I told Celia she must do duty for both. But I should so like to have you stay to tea!"

"Not to-night," replied Miss Armstrong, seizing the chance when Miss Delia stopped for lack of breath. "Some other night I shall be very happy."

"Any time; stop in on your way home from school.—Here, wait a minute." She went into the house as she spoke, and returned with a plate of cakes.

"Here, Selina, take these to your mother," said she. Then to Miss Armstrong, in explanation, "They are old-fashioned ginger-nuts made with honey. It is a family recipe, and they do say nobody but a Claxton can make them properly, but I will give you the rule if you like."

"And I will give you the recipe for short-bread, which they say none but a Scotchwoman can make properly; and we will both try to disprove the rule," answered Miss Armstrong. "Come, Selina; we ought to be at home. Your mother will think I am lost again.—Good-night, Miss Delia.—What a bright little lady she is!" added Miss Armstrong as they walked away. "She seems quite different from her sister."

"Most people like Miss Celia best," remarked Selina: "Miss Delia is so sharp, and she makes such queer remarks. One day Mrs. Blandy—she lives in that big house on the corner next the church—she said one day at the society that she didn't believe in foreign missions.

"'Well,' said Miss Delia, 'if every one had been of your mind, Mrs. Blandy, you would be going about dressed in a neat-fitting suit of blue paint instead of that handsome black silk, and hiding away that fat little boy of yours to keep him from being burned alive as a sacrifice to Bel.'

"'What do you mean, Miss Delia?' asked Mrs. Blandy.

"'Nothing, only that was what your ancestors were doing in the time when the Church at Jerusalem sent out so many foreign missionaries,' answered Miss Delia; 'and if the apostles had been of your way of thinking, you would probably be doing the same now.'"

"I don't see any thing odd in that," remarked Miss Armstrong: "it was only a simple statement of facts. And what then?"

"And then Mrs. Blandy said it was a very different thing, sending missionaries to England, from what it was sending them clear off to India.

"And Miss Delia said, 'Yes, very different: a much harder and more perilous journey, and much more trouble and danger when they got there.'

"You see, Miss Delia is a great reader, and she never forgets any thing: so, when people talk against missions or any such thing, she always gets the last word."

"I should say she deserved it, if she always argued as well as in this case," said Miss Armstrong, much amused.

"Yes, ma'am; but you see people don't like to be put down, and shown to be in the wrong. I'm sure I don't."

"What! Not when you are in the wrong?"

"I think that is the time when one likes it least of all," replied Selina frankly.

"But how are you ever to be set right, in that case?"

"I don't think Mrs. Blandy cared about being set right, very much," replied Selina. "She said again that charity began at home. And then Miss Delia began to talk about the orphan-asylum at Oldbury, and poor Mrs. Graves who has a sick husband and four little children. And she asked Mrs. Blandy if she had not a frock to make over for the little girls, so they could be decent to come to Sunday school. But Mrs. Blandy said she was calculating to make a rag carpet pretty soon, and she had to save all her old clothes for that, because she meant to take the prize for it at the State fair."

Miss Armstrong smiled and sighed. She had met a great many Mrs. Blandys in her lifetime.

"I think I should like to be a foreign missionary," said Selina, after they had walked a little way in silence.

"Why?" asked Miss Armstrong. "Oh, because there would be some adventure and romance about it. It would not be all prose, like one's life here."

"My dear, if you allow your life to be all prose here, it would be prosy anywhere. And the prose of a mission-life among heathen is much more disagreeable than that of a daughter's life at home in New England. I know, because I have tried it. What would you think, for instance, of combing and washing a dozen children who never were combed or washed before in their lives?"

"I did not suppose missionary ladies did such things as that," said Selina.

"They do a great many such things as that, and worse, such as I don't care to tell you about just before supper," replied Miss Armstrong. "I have often wished that our missionaries would give us more of just such details, that people could see what the life really is."

"Why don't they?" asked Selina.

"Well, for various reasons. They are afraid, for one thing, of disgusting and discouraging people; making them think there is no use in doing any thing."

"I should think, the worse the people were, the more need there was for teaching them better," observed Selina.

"That is a very just remark, but a great many people do not see it in that light. Then these matters of personal experience become every-day occurrences, and they do not think of them as being any more novel or interesting to others than to themselves."

"I think they are interesting, though," said Selina. "Little things like that are just what make a story seem real."

"Very true, again. But, Selina, you would never make a missionary if that is to be your only motive. The romance and adventure soon wear off, and the hard and prosaic duties remain. You need a much stronger and purer motive than that, even the love of God in your heart, the same that sent the early Christians everywhere preaching the Word, and that now sends hundreds of men and women every year to preach the glad tidings to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. Have you that love in your heart?"

"I am afraid not," answered Selina. "But, suppose I had, do you think I should make a good missionary?"

"I could hardly say that on so short an acquaintance," replied Miss Armstrong. "Consider, my dear, that I have not known you quite a week. I do not see, however, any reason why you should not make as good a missionary as another. But, Selina, let me say one word more: unless you have that love in your heart, you are no more fit for a life here at home than you would be for a life in India. You want Him just as much in one place as another, and you can no more be happy without Him. Won't you think about that, my child?"

"Yes, Miss Armstrong, I will," answered Selina; and at the time she fully meant what she said.

She was much more pleasant all the rest of the week, and her mother rejoiced over the change. "Girls are full of moods and fancies," she said to her husband. "We must have patience, father."

"I never knew you to have any thing else, mother," was the reply. Mr. Weston had full confidence in his wife's judgment, and he was very fond of his adopted daughter.

It had long been the custom to hold a service in the red schoolhouse on Friday evenings. This service was usually called the Bible class, because a portion of Scripture, usually the Epistle or Gospel for the next Sunday, was given out beforehand to be talked over. The minister, if he was present, read a short service; and a hymn was sung to a familiar tune. Then the discussion was opened by the pastor, or whoever supplied his place; and every one spoke who had any thing to say. Even the little children were encouraged to repeat texts, and verses of hymns. This service had been started by old Dr. Munson, who had preached, and also practised, in Oldham for forty years. He had been dead for a quarter of a century, but the Bible class he had begun lived after him.

The meetings of the class were usually tolerably well attended in winter. But the numbers fell off in warm weather, when, truth to tell, the red schoolhouse was apt to be warm and close. Those who came on this particular evening, however, were destined to find it much more comfortable than usual.

"Now, who will stay and help me put the schoolroom in order?" asked Miss Armstrong, as the afternoon session drew to a close.

The girls looked at each other in surprise.

"The Bible class meets here this evening, Miss Armstrong," said Ruth Jewsbury.

"I know it, my dear. That is just the reason we want to put the room in nice order."

"I don't see it," answered Ruth bluntly.

"Don't see what?"

"I don't see the use of sweeping, when the people will put all out of order again."

"Suppose some distinguished person—Mr. Longfellow, say, or the Bishop—were going to be here."

"Oh, well! Then, of course, we should want things to look neat. But there will be nobody like that coming to-night."

"Are you sure?" asked Miss Armstrong. "Who is it that says, 'Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them'?"

"I never thought of that," said Sarah Leet. "But, Miss Armstrong, why don't they keep the church cleaner, then?"

"You must put that question to somebody besides me," answered Miss Armstrong. "Now, who will help me?"

Half a dozen volunteered at once, of whom Kit Mallory was one. There was a large old-fashioned fireplace in the room, which had been closed with a fireboard when the increasing scarcity of wood had made a stove necessary. Miss Armstrong had persuaded Mr. Weston to remove this board, and leave open the great chimney, which thus made an excellent ventilating-shaft. She had found a tall pickle-jar among Mrs. Weston's stores, which she placed on the hearth, and filled, with the children's assistance, with sweet-fern, cedar-boughs, and brakes. The windows were opened at top and bottom, the room carefully swept and dusted, and a glass of fresh, sweet flowers placed on the table.

"How nice it looks, and how fresh and sweet it smells!" said Kit, who had been one of Miss Armstrong's most efficient helpers. "Isn't it too bad, Miss Armstrong, that I can't come to the meeting?"

"Can't come to the meeting? Why not?" asked the voice of Mr. Bassett, the miller, from the open door. "Why can't you come, child?"

"Uncle Phin won't let me," answered Kit. She did not care to be further catechised about her uncle and his ways, and slipped away without even bidding Miss Armstrong good-night,—an omission which Selina did not fail to notice, and register in her private account of Kit's misdeeds.

"Poor little young one!" said the kindly miller. "What a shame that she can't come, when she wants to so much! I feel for that child. I wish one could do something for her."

"I hope something may be done, but it seems one of the cases where one must proceed with caution, for fear of doing more harm than good."

"I guess you are about right there. We must keep her in mind, and perhaps a way will be opened. Well, Miss Armstrong, I came over to fix things for the Bible class, but I don't see that you have left me any thing to do. That is a first-rate idea,—getting that chimney open. I don't blame people for getting sleepy when the room is hot as an oven, and so close you couldn't slip in a flax-seed sharp end first. I feel as if we were going to have a real good time."

"What about lights?" asked Miss Armstrong.

"I always calculate to provide them. We don't have many in summer.—I hope you will all come, girls, and all have a verse at least. Will your sister be out, Faith?"

"I don't believe she will," answered Faith: "she has so much to do."

"She would do it a deal easier, and better too, if she would take some rest now and again,—that's my opinion," said the miller. "Between the mill and the farm and the blacksmith-shop, I have plenty of irons in the fire, and I don't let them get cold, either; but I couldn't afford not to take time for the Bible class. You tell her what I say. And you come along with me: I've got some nice early pease to send her. The folks laughed at me for buying them,—they're some I sent for to Flower City,—and said the old-fashioned ones were good enough.

"'You have the laugh,' says I, 'I'll have the pease.'

"Now I've got the laugh, and the pease too. Come along, little ones, and see if Ma Bassett hasn't got some gingerbread. You leave the key, Miss Armstrong, and I'll see to the rest. I feel as if we were going to have a real good time."