Chapter IV: Part 4

"Last night we took tea again with the Elderkins, and Mrs.
Elderkin was as kind to me as ever, and Miss Meacham is an
excellent woman, and the little ones are loves of children; and
I wish you could see them. But you will, you know, _quite
soon_. Sometimes I fall to crying, when I think of it all; and
then the goodman comes and puts his hand on my head, and
says,--'Rachel! Rachel, my dear! is this your gratitude for all
God's mercies?' And then I jump up, and kiss his grave face,
and laugh through my tears. He is a dear good man. This is all
very foolish, I suppose; but, mamma, isn't it the way with all
women?

"Dame Tourtelot is a great storm of a creature, and she comes
down upon us every now and then, and advises me about the
housekeeping and the table, and the servants, and
Benjamin,--giving me a great many good hints, I suppose; but in
such a way, and calling me 'my child,' as makes me feel good
for nothing, and as if I were not fit to be mistress. Miss
Almira is a quiet thing, and has a piano. She dresses _very
queerly_, and, I have been told, written poetry for the
'Hartford Courant,' _over two stars_--* *. She seems a good
creature, though, and comes to see us often. The chaise is a
_great_ comfort, and our old horse Dobbins is a good, sober
horse. Benjamin often takes me with him in his drives to see
the parishioners who live out of town. He tells me about the
trees and the flowers, and a thousand matters I never heard of.
Indeed, he is a good man, and he knows a _world_ of things."

The tender-hearted, kind soul makes her way into the best graces of the people of Ashfield: the older ones charmed with that blithe spirit of hers, and all the younger ones mating easily with her simple, outspoken naturalness. She goes freely everywhere; she is not stiffened by any ceremony, nor does she carry any stately notions of the dignity of her office,--some few there may be who wish that she had a keener sense of the importance of her position; she even bursts unannounced into the little glazed corner of the Tew partners, where she prattles away with the sedate Mistress Tew in good, kindly fashion, winning that stiff old lady's heart, and moving her to declare to all customers that the parson's wife has no pride about her, and is "a dear little thing, to be sure!"

On summer evenings, Dobbins is to be seen, two or three times in the week, jogging along before the square-topped chaise, upon some highway that leads into the town, with the parson seated within, with slackened rein, and in thoughtful mood, from which he rouses himself from time to time with a testy twitch and noisy chirrup that urge the poor beast into a faster gait. All the while the little wife sits beside him, as if a twittering sparrow had nestled itself upon the same perch with some grave owl, and sat with him side by side, watching for the big eyes to turn upon her, and chirping some pretty response for every solemn utterance of the wise old bird beside her.

VIII.

On the return from one of these parochial drives, not long after their establishment at Ashfield, it happened that the good parson and his wife were not a little startled at sight of a stranger lounging familiarly at their door. A little roof jutted out over the entrance to the parsonage, without any apparent support, and flanking the door were two plank seats, with their ends toward the street, cut away into the shape of those "settles" which used to be seen in country taverns, and which here seemed to invite a quiet out-of-door gossip. But the grave manner of the parson had never invited to a very familiar use of this loitering-place, even by the most devoted of the parishioners; and the appearance of a stranger of some two-and-thirty years, with something in his manner, as much as in his dress, which told of large familiarity with the world, lounging upon this little porch, had amazed the passers-by, as much as it now did the couple who drove up slowly in the square-topped chaise.

"Who can it be, Benjamin?" says Rachel.

"I really can't say," returns the parson.

"He seems very much at home, my dear,"--as indeed he does, with his feet stretched out upon the bench, and eyeing curiously the approaching vehicle.

As it draws near, his observation being apparently satisfactory, he walks briskly down to the gate, and greets the parson with,--

"My dear Johns, I'm delighted to see you!"

At this the parson knew him, and greets him,--

"Maverick, upon my word!" and offers his hand.

"And this is Mrs. Johns, I suppose," says the stranger, bowing graciously, "Allow me, Madam"; and he assists her to alight. "Your husband and myself were old college-friends, partners of the same bench, and I've used no ceremony, you see, in finding him out."

Rachel, eyeing him furtively, with a little rustic courtesy, "is glad to see any of her husband's old friends."

The parson--upon his feet now--shakes the stranger's hand heartily again.

"I am very glad to see you, Maverick; but I thought you were out of the country."

"So I have been, Johns; am home only upon a visit, and hearing by accident that you had become a clergyman--as I always thought you would--and were settled hereabout, I determined to run down and see you before sailing again."

"You must stop with me. Rachel, dear, will you have the spare room made ready for Mr. Maverick?"

"My dear Madam, don't give yourself the least trouble; I am an old traveller, and can make myself quite comfortable at the tavern yonder; but if it's altogether convenient, I shall be delighted to pass the night under the roof of my old friend. I shall be off to-morrow noon," continued he, turning to the parson, "and until then I want you to put off your sermons and make me one of your parishioners."

So they all went into the parsonage together.

Frank Maverick, as he had said, had shared the same bench with Johns in college; and between them, unlike as they were in character, there had grown up a strong friendship,--one of those singular intimacies which bind the gravest men to the most cheery and reckless. Maverick was forever running into scrapes and consulting the cool head of Johns to help him out of them. There was never a tutor's windows to be broken in, or a callithumpian frolic, (which were in vogue in those days,) but Maverick bore a hand in both; and somehow, by a marvellous address that belonged to him, always managed to escape, or at most to receive only some grave admonition from the academic authorities. Johns advised with him, (giving as serious advice then as he could give now,) and added from time to time such assistance in his studies as a plodding man can always lend to one of quick brain, who makes no reckoning of time.

Upon a certain occasion Maverick had gone over with Johns to his home, and the Major had taken an immense fancy to the buoyant young fellow, so full of spirits, and so charmingly frank. "If your characters could only be welded together," he used to say to his son, "you would both be the better for it; he a little of your gravity, and you something of his rollicking carelessness." This bound Johns to his friend more closely than ever. There was, moreover, great honesty and conscientiousness in the lad's composition: he could beat in a tutor's window for the frolic of the thing, and by way of paying off some old grudge for a black mark; but there was a strong spice of humanity at the bottom even of his frolics. It happened one day, that his friend Ben Johns told him that one of the bats which had done terrible execution on the tutor's windows had also played havoc on his table, breaking a bottle of ink, and deluging some half-dozen of the tutor's books; "and do you know," said Johns, "the poor man who has made such a loss is saving up all his pay here for a mother and two or three fatherless children?"

"The Deuse he is!" said Maverick, and his hand went to his pocket, which was always pretty full. "I say, Johns, don't peach on me, but I think I must have thrown that bat, (which Johns knew to be hardly possible, for he had only come up at the end of the row,) and I want you to get this money to him, to make those books good again. Will you do it, old fellow?"

This was the sort of character to win upon the quiet son of the Major. "If he were only more earnest," he used to say,--"if he could give up his trifling,--if he would only buckle down to serious study, as some of us do, what great things he might accomplish!" A common enough fancy among those of riper years,--as if all the outlets of a man's nerve-power could be dammed into what shape the possessor would!

Maverick was altogether his old self this night at the parsonage. Rachel listened admiringly, as he told of his travel and of his foreign experiences. He was the son of a merchant of an Eastern seaport who had been long engaged in the Mediterranean trade with a branch house at Marseilles; and thither Frank had gone two or three years after leaving college, to fill some subordinate post, and finally to work his way into a partnership, which he now held. Of course he had not lived there those seven or eight years last past without his visit to Paris; and his easy, careless way of describing what he had seen there in Napoleon's day--the fêtes, the processions, the display--was a kind of talk not often heard in a New England village, and which took a strong hold upon the imagination of Rachel.

"And to think," says the parson, "that such a people are wholly infidel!"

"Well, well, I don't know," says Maverick; "I think I have seen a good deal of faith in the Popish churches."

"Faith in images; faith in the Virgin; faith in mummery," says Johns, with a sigh. "'Tis always the scarlet woman of Babylon!"

"I know," says Maverick, smiling, "these things are not much to your taste; but we have our Protestant chapels, too."

"Not much better, I fear," says Johns. "They are sadly impregnated with the Genevese Socinianism."

This was about the time that the orthodox Louis Empaytaz was suffering the rebuke of the Swiss church authorities for his "Considerations upon the Divinity of Jesus Christ." Aside from this, all the parson's notions of French religion and of French philosophy were of the most aggravated degree of bitterness. That set of Voltaire, which the Major, his father, had once purchased, had not been without its fruit,--not legitimate, indeed, but most decided. The books so cautiously put out of sight--like all such--had caught the attention of the son; whereupon his mother had given him so terrible an account of French infidelity, and such a fearful story of Voltaire's dying remorse,--current in orthodox circles,--as had caught strong hold upon the mind of the boy. All Frenchmen he had learned to look upon as the children of Satan, and their language as the language of hell. With these sentiments very sincerely entertained, he regarded his poor friend as one living at the very door-posts of Pandemonium, and hoped, by God's mercy, to throw around him even now a little of the protecting grace which should keep him from utter destruction. But though this was uppermost in his mind, it did not forbid a grateful outflow of his old sympathies and expressions of interest in all that concerned his friend. It seemed to him that his easy refinement of manner, in such contrast with the ceremonious stiffness of the New England customs of speech, was but the sliming over of the Serpent's tongue, preparatory to a dreadful swallowing of soul and body; and the careless grace of talk, which so charmed the innocent Rachel, appeared to the exacting Puritan a token of the enslavement of his old friend to sense and the guile of this world.

Nine o'clock was the time for evening prayers at the parsonage, which under no circumstances were ever omitted; and as the little clock in the dining-room chimed the hour, Mr. Johns rose to lead the way from his study, where they had passed the evening.

"It's our hour for family prayer," says Johns; "will you come with us?"

"Most certainly," says Maverick, rising. "I should be sorry not to have this little scene of New England life to take back with me: it will recall home pleasantly."

The servants were summoned, and the parson read in his wonted way a chapter,--not selected, but designated by the old book-mark, which was carried forward from day to day throughout the sacred volume. In his prayer the parson asked specially for Divine Grace to overshadow all those journeying from their homes,--to protect them,--to keep alive in their hearts the teachings of their youth,--to shield them from the insidious influences of sin and of the world, and to bring them in God's own good time into the fold of the elect.

Shortly after prayers Rachel retired for the night. The parson and his old friend talked for an hour or more in the study, but always as men whose thoughts were unlike; Maverick filled and exuberant with the prospects of this life; and the parson, by a settled purpose, which seemed like instinct, making all his observations bear upon futurity.

"The poor man has grown very narrow," thought Maverick.

And yet Johns entered with friendly interest into the schemes of his companion.

"So you count upon spending your life there?" says the parson.

"It is quite probable," says Maverick. "I am doing exceedingly well; the climate, bating some harsh winds in winter, is enjoyable. Why shouldn't I?"

"It's a question to put to your conscience," says Johns, "not to me. A man can but do his duty, as well there as here perhaps. A little graft of New Englandism may possibly work good. Do you mean to marry in France, Maverick?"

A shade passed over the face of his friend; but recovering himself, with a little musical laugh, he said,--

"I really can't say: there are very charming women there, Johns."

"I am afraid so," uttered the parson, dryly.

"By the way," said Maverick,--"you will excuse me,--but you will be having a family by and by,"--at which the parson fairly blushed,--"you must let me send over some little gift for your first boy; it sha'n't be one that will harm him, though it comes from our heathen side of the world."

"There's a gift you might bestow, Maverick, that I should value beyond price."

"Pray what is it?"

"Live such a life, my friend, that I could say to any boy of mine, 'Follow the example of that man.'"

"Ah," said Maverick, with his easy, infectious laugh, "that's more than I can promise. To tell the truth, Johns, I don't believe I could by any possibility fall into the prim, stiff ways which make a man commendable hereabout. Even if I were religiously disposed, or should ever think of adopting your profession, I fancy I should take to the gown and liturgy, as giving a little freer movement to my taste. You don't like to think of that, I'll wager."

"You might do worse things," said the parson, sadly.

"I know I might," said Maverick, thoughtfully; "I greatly fear I shall. Yet it's not altogether a bad life I'm looking forward to, Johns: we'll say ten or fifteen more years of business on the other side; marrying sometime in the interval,--certainly not until I have a good revenue; then, possibly, I may come over among you again, establish a pretty home in the neighborhood of one of your towns; look after a girl and boy or two, who may have come into the family; get the title of Squire; give fairly to the missionary societies; take my place in a good big family-pew; dabble in politics, perhaps, so that people shall dub me 'Honorable': isn't that a fair show, Johns?"

There was a thief in the candle, which the parson removed with the snuffers.

"As for yourself," continued Maverick, "they'll give you the title of Doctor after a few years!"--The parson raised his hand, as if to put away the thought.--"I know," continued his friend, "you don't seek worldly honors: but they will drift upon you; they'll all love you hereabout, in spite of your seriousness (the parson smiled); you'll have your house full of children; you'll be putting a wing here and a wing there; and when I come back, twenty years hence, if I live, I shall find you comfortably gray, and your pretty wife in spectacles, knitting mittens for the youngest boy, and the oldest at college, and your girls grown into tall village belles;--but, Johns, don't, I beg, be too strict with them; you can't make a merry young creature the better by insisting upon seriousness; you can't crowd goodness into a body by pounding upon it. What are you thinking of, Johns?"

The parson was sitting with his eyes bent upon a certain figure in the green and red Scotch carpet.

"Thinking, Maverick, that in twenty years' time, if alive, we may be less fit for heaven than we are to-day."

There was a pitying kindliness in the tone of the minister, as he said this, which touched Maverick.

"There's no doubt on your score, Johns, God bless you! But we must paddle our own boats: I dare say you'll come out a long way before me; you always did, you know. Every man to his path."

"There's but _one_," said Johns, solemnly, "that leadeth to eternal rest."

"Yes, I know," says Maverick, with a gay smile upon his face, which the parson remembered long after, "we are the goats; but you must have a little pity on us, for all that."

With these words they parted for the night.

Next morning, before the minister was astir, Maverick was strolling about the garden and the village street, and at breakfast appeared with a little bunch of violets he had gathered from Rachel's flower-patch, and laid them by her plate. (It was a graceful attention, that not even the clergyman had ever paid to her.) And he further delighted her with a description of some floral fête which he had witnessed at Marseilles, in the year of the Restoration.

"They welcomed their old masters, then?" said the parson.

"Perhaps so; one can never say. The French express their joy with flowers, and they bury their grief with flowers. I like them for it; I think there's a ripe philosophy in it."

"A heathen philosophy," said the minister.

At noon Maverick left upon the old swaying stage-coach,--looking out, as he passed, upon the parsonage, with its quaintly panelled door, and its diamond lights, of which he long kept the image in his mind. That brazen knocker he seemed to hear in later years, beating,--beating as if his brain lay under it.

"I think Mr. Frank Maverick is a most charming man," said the pretty Mrs. Johns to her husband.

"He is, Rachel, and generous and open-hearted,--and yet, in the sight of Heaven, I fear, a miserable sinner."

"But, Benjamin, my dear, we are all sinners."

"All,--all, Rachel, God help us!"

IX.

In December of the year 1820 came about a certain event of which hint has been already given by the party chiefly concerned; and Mrs. Johns presented her husband with a fine boy, who was in due time christened--Reuben.

Mrs. Handby was present at this eventful period, occupying the guest-chamber, and delighting in all the little adornments that had been prepared by the loving hands of her daughter; and upon the following Sabbath, Mr. Johns, for the first time since his entrance upon the pastoral duties of Ashfield, ventured to repeat an old sermon. Dame Tourtelot had been present on the momentous occasion, with such a tempest of suggestions in regard to the wrappings and feeding of the new comer, that the poor mother had quietly begged the good clergyman to decoy her, on her next visit, into his study. This he did, and succeeded in fastening her with a discussion upon the import of the word _baptize_, in which he was in a fair way of being carried by storm, if he had not retreated under cover of his Greek Lexicon.

Mrs. Elderkin had been zealous in neighborly offices, and had brought, in addition to a great basket of needed appliances, a silver porringer, which, with wonderful foresight, had been ordered from a Hartford jeweller in advance. The out-of-door man, Larkin, took a well-meaning pride in this accession to the family,--walking up and down the street with a broad grin upon his face. He also became the bearer, in behalf of the Tew partners, of a certain artful contrivance of tin ware for the speedy stewing of pap, which, considering that the donors were childless people, was esteemed a very great mark of respect for the minister.

Would it be strange, if the father felt a new ambition stirring in him, as he listened from his study to that cry of a child in the house? He does feel it, and struggles against it. Are not all his flock his spiritual children? and is he not appointed of Heaven to lead them toward the rest which is promised? Should that babe be more to him than a hundred others who are struggling through life's snares wearily? It may touch him, indeed, cruelly to think it; but is not the soul of the most worthless person of his parish as large in the eye of the Master as this of his first-born? Shall these human ties supplant the spiritual ones by which we are all coheirs of eternal death or of eternal life? And in this way the minister schools himself against too demonstrative a joy or love, and prays God silently that His gift may not be a temptation.

For all this, however, there is many a walk which would have been taken of old under the orchard trees now transferred to the chamber, where he paces back and forth with the babe in his arms, soothing its outcry, as he thinks out his discourse for the following Sabbath.

In due time Mrs. Handby returns to her home. The little child pushes through its first month of venturesome encounter with the rough world it has entered upon bravely; and the household is restored to its uniform placidity. The affairs of the parish follow their accustomed course. From time to time there are meetings of the "Consociation," or other ministerial assemblages, in the town, when the parsonage is overflowing, and Rachel, with a simple grace, is compelled to do the honors to a corps of the Congregational brotherhood. As for the parson, he was like a child in all household matters. Over and over he would invite his brethren flocking in from the neighboring villages to pass the night with him, when Rachel would decoy him into a corner, and declare, with a most pitiable look of distress, that not a bed was unoccupied in the house. Whereupon the goodman would quietly take his hat, and trudge away to Squire Elderkin's, or, on rarer occasions, to Deacon Tourtelot's, and ask the favor of lodging with them one of his clerical brethren.

At other times, before some such occasion of clerical entertainment, the little housewife, supported by Esther with broom and a great array of mops, would wait upon the parson in his study and order him away to his walk in the orchard,--an order which the poor man never ventured to resist; but, taking perhaps a pocket volume of Doddridge, or of Cowper,--the only poet he habitually read,--he would sally out with hat and cane,--this latter a gift of an admiring parishioner, which it pleased Rachel he should use, and which she always brought to him at such times, with a little childish mime of half-entreaty and half-command that it was not in his heart to resist, and which on rare occasions (that were subject of self-accusation afterward) provoked him to an answering kiss. At which Rachel:--

"Now go and leave us, please; there's a good man! And mind," (shaking her forefinger at him,) "dinner at half past twelve: Larkin will blow the shell."

The parson, as he paced back and forth under the apple-trees, out of sight, and feeling the need of more vigorous exercise than his usual meditative gait afforded, would on occasions brandish his cane and assume a military air and stride, (he remembered the Major's only too well,) getting in a glow with the unusual movement, and in the heat of it thanking God for all the blessings that had befallen him: a pleasant home; a loving wife; a little boy to bear the name, in which, with all his spiritual tendencies, he yet took a very human pride; health,--and he whisked his cane as vigorously as ever the Major had done his cumbrous sword,--the world's comforts; a congregation that met him kindly, that listened kindly. Was he not leading them in the path of salvation, and rejoicing in the leadership?

And then, to himself,--"Be careful, careful, Benjamin Johns, that you take not too great a pride in this work and home of yours. You are but an instrument in greater hands; He doeth with you what seemeth Him best. Let not the enticements of the world be too near your thought." In this way it was that the minister pruned down all the shoots of his natural affections, lest they might prove a decoy to him, and wrapped himself ever more closely in the rigors of his chosen theology.

As the boy Reuben grows, and gains a firmer footing, he sometimes totters beside the clergyman in these orchard walks, clinging blindly to his hand, and lifting his uncertain feet with great effort over the interrupting tufts of grass, unheeded by the minister, who is pondering some late editorial of the "Boston Recorder." But far oftener the boy is with the mother, burying his face in that dear lap of hers,--lifting the wet face to have tears kissed away and forgotten. And as he thrives and takes the strength of three or four years, he walks beside her under the trees of the village street, clad in such humble finery as the Handby grandparents may have bestowed; and he happens oftenest, on these strolls with Rachel, into the hospitable home of the Elderkins, where there are little ones to romp with the boy. Most noticeable of all, just now, one Philip Elderkin, (of whom more will have to be said as this story progresses,) only a year the senior of Reuben, but of far stouter frame, who looks admiringly on the minister's child, and as he grows warm in play frights him with some show of threat, which makes the little Reuben run for cover to the arms of Rachel. Whereat the mother kisses him into boldness, and tells him that Phil is a good boy and means no harm to him.

Often, too, in the square-topped chaise, the child is seated on a little stool between the parson and his wife, as they drive away upon their visits to the outskirts of the parish,--puzzling them with those strange questions which come from a boy just exploring his way into the world of talk.

"Benjamin," says Rachel, as they were nearing home upon one of these drives, "Reuben is quite a large boy now, you know; have you ever written to your friend, Mr. Maverick? You remember he promised a gift for him."

"Never," said the minister, whose goodness rarely took the shape of letter-writing,--least of all where the task would seem to remind of a promised favor.

"You've not forgotten it? You've not forgotten Mr. Maverick?"

"Not forgotten, Rachel,--not forgotten to pray for him."

"I _would_ write, Benjamin; it might be something that would be of service to Reuben. _Please_ don't forget it, Benjamin."

And the minister promised.

In the autumn of 1824,--the minister of Ashfield being still in good favor with nearly all his parishioners, and his wife Rachel being still greatly beloved,--a rumor ran through the town, one day, that there was serious illness at the parsonage, the Doctor's horse and saddle-bags being observed in waiting at the front gate for two hours together. Following close upon this, the Tew partners reported--having received undoubted information from Larkin, who still kept in his old service--that a daughter was born to the minister, but so feeble that there were grave doubts if the young Rachel could survive. The report was well founded; and after three or four days of desperate struggle with life, the poor child dropped away. Thus death came into the parsonage with so faint and shadowy a tread, it hardly startled one. The babe had been christened in the midst of its short struggle, and in this the father found such comfort as he could; yet reckoning the poor, fluttering little soul as a sinner in Adam, through whom all men fell, he confided it with a great sigh to God.

It would have been well, if his grief had rested there. But two days thereafter there was a rumor on the village street,--flying like the wind, as such rumors do, from house to house,--"The minister's wife is dead!"

"I want to know!" said Mrs. Tew, lifting herself from her task of assorting the mail, and removing her spectacles in nervous haste. "Do tell! It a'n't possible! Miss Johns dead?"

"Yes," says Larkin, "as true as I live, she's dead"; and his voice broke as he said it,--the kind little woman had so won upon him.

Squire Elderkin, like a good Christian, came hurrying to the parsonage to know what this strange report could mean. The study was unoccupied. With the familiarity of an old friend he made his way up the cramped stairs. The chamber-door was flung wide open: there was no reason why the whole parish might not come in. The nurse, sobbing in a corner, was swaying back and forth, her hands folded across her lap. Reuben, clinging to the coverlet, was feeling his way along the bed, if by chance his mother's hand might catch hold upon his; and the minister standing with a chair before him, his eyes turned to heaven (the same calm attitude which he took at his evening prayer-meeting) was entreating God to "be over his house, to strengthen him, to pour down his Spirit on him, to bind up the bruised hearts,--to spare,--spare"----

Even the stout Squire Elderkin withdraws outside the door, that he may the better conceal his emotion.

The death happened on a Friday. The Squire, after a few faltering expressions of sympathy, asked regarding the burial. "Should it not be on Sunday?"

"Not on Sunday," says Mr. Johns; "God help me, Squire,--but this is not a work of necessity or mercy. Let it be on Monday."

"On Monday, then," said Elderkin,--"and let me take the arrangement of it all off your thought; and we will provide some one to preach for you on the Sabbath."

"No, Mr. Elderkin, no; I am always myself in the pulpit. I shall find courage there."

And he did. A stranger would not have suspected that the preacher's wife lay dead at home; the same unction and earnestness that had always characterized him; the same unyielding rigidity of doctrine: "_Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish._"

Once only--it was in the reading of the last hymn in the afternoon service--his voice broke, and he sat down half through. But as the song rose under the old roof of the meeting-house, his courage rose with it. He seemed ashamed of the transitory weakness. What right had he to bring private griefs to such a place? What right had the leader to faint, when the army were pressing forward to the triumph God had promised to the faithful? So it was in a kind of ecstasy that he rose, and joined with a firm, loud voice in the final doxology.

One or two of the good old ladies, with a sad misconception of the force that was in him, and of the divine aid which seemed vouchsafed to him during the service, came to him, as he passed out, to give him greeting and a word of condolence. For that time only he passed them by, as if they had been wooden images. His spirit had been strained to its uttermost, and would bear no more. He made his way home with an ungainly, swift gait,--home to the dear bedside,--down upon his knees,--struggling with his weakness,--praying.

At the tea-hour Esther knocked; but in vain. An hour after, his boy came,--came at the old woman's suggestion, (who had now the care of him,) and knelt by his side.

"Reuben,--my boy!"

"She's in heaven, isn't she, father?"

"God only knows, my son. He hath mercy on whom He will have mercy."

Small as he was, the boy flushed at this:--

"I think it's a bad God, if she isn't in heaven.'

"Nay, Reuben, little one, blaspheme not: His ways are not as our ways. Kiss her now, and we will sit down to our supper."

And so they passed out together to their lonely repast. It had been a cheerful meal in days gone, this Sunday's supper. For the dinner, owing to the scruples of the parson, was but a cold lunch always; and in the excited state in which the preacher found himself between services, there was little of speech; even Reuben's prattle, if he ventured upon it, caught a quick "Hist!" from the mamma. But with the return of Esther from the afternoon Bible-class, there was a big fire lighted in the kitchen, and some warm dishes served, such as diffused an appetizing odor through the house. The clergyman, too, wore an air of relief, having preached his two sermons, and showing a capital appetite, like most men who have acquitted themselves of a fatiguing duty. Besides which, the parson guarded that old New England custom of beginning his Sabbath at sundown on Saturday,--so that, by the time the supper of Sunday was fairly over, Reuben could be counting it no sin, if he should steal a run into the orchard. Nay, it is quite probable that the poor little woman who was dead had always welcomed cheerily the opened door of Sunday evening, and the relaxing gravity, as night fell, of her husband's starched look.

What wonder, if she had loved, even as much as the congregational singing, the music of the birds at the dusk of a summer's day? It was hard measure which many of the old divines meted out, in excluding from their ideas of worship all alliance with the charms of Nature, or indeed with any beauties save those which were purely spiritual. It is certain that the poor woman had enjoyed immensely those Sabbath-evening strolls through the garden and orchard, hand in hand with Reuben and the minister,--with such keen and exhilarating sense of God's goodness, of trust in Him, of hope, as was not invariably wakened by the sermons of her Benjamin.

On the evening of which we speak, the father and son walked down the orchard alone. The birds sang their merriest as day closed in; and as they turned upon their walk, and the good man saw through the vista of garden and orchard a bright light flitting across an upper window of his house, the mad hope flashed upon him for an instant (such baseless fancies will sometimes possess the calmest minds) that she had waked,--his Rachel,--and was there to meet him. The next moment the light and the hope were gone. His fingers gave such a convulsive grip upon the hand of his little boy that Reuben cried out with pain, "Papa, papa, you hurt me!"

The parson bent down and kissed him.

ANCIENT MINING ON THE SHORES OF LAKE SUPERIOR.

In the month of March, 1848, Samuel O. Knapp and J.B. Townsend discovered, from tracks in the snow, that a hedgehog had taken up his winter-quarters in a cavity of a ledge of rocks, about twelve miles from Ontonagon, Lake Superior, in the neighborhood of the Minnesota Copper Mine. In order to capture their game, they procured a pick and shovel, and commenced an excavation by removing the vegetable mould and rubbish that had accumulated about the mouth of what proved to be a small cavern in the rock. At the depth of a few feet they discovered numerous stone hammers or mauls; and they saw that the cavern was not a natural one, but had been worked out by human agency, and that the stone implements, found in great profusion in and about it, were the tools used in making the excavation. Further examination developed a well-defined vein of native copper running through the rock; and it was evidently with a view of getting this metal that this extensive opening had been made.

This was the first instance where "ancient diggings"--as they are familiarly called in the Lake Superior region--were ever recognized as such; and this artificial cavern presents the most conclusive proofs that a people in the remote past worked those mines. Upon the discovery of this mine, attention was at once directed to numerous other cavities and depressions in the surface of the earth at this and other points, and the result was that nearly a hundred ancient pits were found, and in all of them mining-tools of various kinds. These ancient mines or pits are not restricted to one locality, but extend over the entire length of the copper region, from the eastern extremity of Keweenaw Point to the Porcupine Mountains, a distance of nearly one hundred miles.

In some of the ancient diggings, the stone hammers have the marks of hard usage, fractured or battered faces, and a large proportion of them are broken and unfit for use; but in other pits the hammers are all sound, and many of them have the appearance of never having been used. These hammers, or mauls, which are of various sizes, and not uniform in shape, are water-worn stones, of great hardness, similar in all respects to those that are found in abundance on the shore of the Lake, or in the gravel-banks of that region. They are generally trap-rock, embracing the varieties of gray, porphyritic, hornblendic, sienitic, and amygdaloidal trap, and appear to have had no labor expended upon them except the chiselling of a groove around the middle for the purpose of attaching a withe to serve as a handle. In a few instances, I have noticed small hammers, usually egg-shaped, without a groove; and the battered or worn appearance at one end was all that induced the belief that they were ever used for hammering.

These hammers are usually from six to eight inches in length, and from eight to twelve inches in circumference, and weigh from four to eight pounds; but I have measured specimens that were twenty-four inches in circumference at the groove, and would weigh thirty pounds. It seems hardly probable that one man could wield so ponderous a tool; and from the fact that some of the large mauls have two grooves around them, it is presumed that two men were employed in using them.

Stone hammers are found in all the ancient diggings, and in some instances the number is almost incredible. From the pits near the Minnesota mines it is estimated that ten cart-loads have been removed; I was informed that a well there was entirely stoned up with them, and from the great number still remaining I am inclined to believe the report. A still greater number are said to have been found at the Mesnard and Pontiac Mines, in the Portage Lake district. Farther east, in the vicinity of the Cliff and Central Mines, they are also abundant; and it would seem, from the circumstance of their being invariably found in the pits, that the law among the ancient miners was similar to the one adopted by the adventurers in California a few years since, who established their claims by leaving their tools upon the land or in the pits where they were digging for gold.

In addition to the stone implements, copper chisels, wedges, or "gads," are often found in the abandoned mines; and in the vicinity, as well as in places more remote, other copper relics are found, consisting of knives, spear-points, and rings, like the bracelets of the present day. In a collection at the Douglas House, in Houghton, Portage Lake, are ornaments of this kind, and also some spear-heads, nicely wrought and similar in shape and size to the blade of a spontoon. But I have never seen a copper relic that had the appearance of having been melted. They invariably appear to have been cut and hammered into shape from a mass of native copper.

Colonel Charles Whittlesey, of Cleveland, Ohio, who has examined these "ancient diggings," has several interesting relics, some of which he has figured and described in the thirteenth volume of the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge." In the Vermont State Cabinet is a spear-head of native copper, about six inches long, which was found in Williston, Vermont, in 1843.

It may be proper here to remark, that the copper in these relics is tougher than that which has been fused, and so is the native copper of Lake Superior; and occasionally in these copper relics blotches and grains of native silver are found. These circumstances serve to establish the fact, that the material of which the implements were made was obtained at Lake Superior; for there, and nowhere else in America, is native silver found in grains, and sometimes in considerable masses, imbedded in a matrix of native copper. I well remember, when a boy, reading an article relating to the "Lost Arts," in which the fact was stated, that a piece of metal consisting of pure copper and silver had been found in Hamilton County, Ohio, and that a copper knife had been found in one of the ancient mounds at Marietta, which had distinct blotches of pure silver in it. The writer of the article claimed that the people who manufactured that knife were in the possession of an art, now lost, by which copper and silver could be melted and indiscriminately mixed, but upon cooling would separate and remain distinct and pure, instead of forming an alloy. The discovery of native copper and silver similarly associated in the Lake Superior mines has not only destroyed this theory, but has established beyond a doubt the locality whence that copper knife, and other relics found in the ancient mounds and elsewhere, were obtained.

Billets of wood that bear the marks of a tolerably sharp-cutting tool are often found in the old mines where water has been suffered to remain since their abandonment. In the Waterbury Mine wooden shovels were found about three and one half feet long, some of which were much worn upon the blade, and appeared as though they had been used for scraping together and throwing out the refuse rock and dirt from the mine.[A] At the same locality a wooden bowl was found, the side being so worn as to show conclusively that it had been used for baling water from the mine. Similar implements have been found at the mines in the Portage Lake and Ontonagon districts. When first found, these wooden implements appear sound, and being thoroughly saturated with water are heavy and can be handled without breaking; but when dried they often crack and warp so as to retain little of their original form and appearance. It is to be regretted that but few of these wooden relics were saved and properly preserved by those who found them. In a few instances the wooden withe or handle has been found attached to the hammers, but upon being dried they usually fall to pieces.

At the Hilton Mine in the Ontonagon district, in October, 1863, as the men were removing the vegetable mould that had accumulated in one of the old pits, they found at the depth of about nine feet a leather bag, which was eleven inches long and seven inches wide. It was lying upon a mass of native copper which the ancient miners had unsuccessfully attempted to remove from its parent vein. The bag was in a remarkable state of preservation, the leather being quite pliable and as tough as sheepskin. It was made up with the hair inside, was sewed across the bottom and up one side with a leather string, and near the top holes were cut and a leather string inserted to close the mouth by drawing it together. The bag was empty, but from its appearance I judged that it had been used for transporting copper or other mineral,--the leather in places showing marks of much service, and the hair being almost entirely worn off. I was unable to determine what kind of skin it was, but inclined to the belief that it was from the walrus, as the short, stubby hairs more closely resembled those of that animal than of any other with which I am acquainted. At the time I saw the bag,--the day after it was discovered,--it was in the possession of C. M. Sanderson, Esq., the agent of the Knowlton Mine; but I hear it has since been taken to Boston and sold.

In several of the ancient mines considerable masses of pure copper detached from the main lode have been found, which were left there by those who mined it. At the Central Mine, not far from Eagle Harbor, a mass of copper was found in one of these old pits that weighed forty-six tons. Every portion of the surface was smooth, and appeared as though it had been hammered by those who detached it from its original vein. In the Mesnard Mine, in the Portage Lake district, a detached mass of copper was found that weighed eighteen tons, hammered smooth like the mass before named.

But the most interesting specimen was found in an old pit near the Minnesota Mine. In removing the accumulated leaves and vegetable mould, the workmen, at the depth of eighteen feet, discovered a mass of copper ten feet long, three feet wide, and more than a foot thick, weighing six tons. On removing the earth around the mass, it was found to rest upon skids, or timbers, piled up to the height of about five feet. These timbers, having been constantly covered with water, were in a good state of preservation, and at the ends showed plainly the marks of the tool used in cutting them. It was thought by those who saw the billets when they were plump, that they were a species of oak; but the few remaining pieces which I have seen were so cracked and shrivelled that I have been unable to form an opinion as to the kind of wood. This mass of copper, like all others found in those ancient pits, was divested of all its ragged points, and hammered perfectly smooth. There was nothing in its appearance to show that it had ever been cut from another mass; but upon clearing out the rubbish from the bottom of the mine, which was about twenty-six feet below the surface, a vein of pure metal was found from which this had evidently been taken.

A few unfinished jobs have been found in these ancient pits, which throw some light upon the manner in which the work was carried on. In two instances there were projecting masses somewhat resembling urns, or inverted short-necked bottles, and completely smoothed by hammering, especially at the thinner portion or neck. It appears that the ancient miners first removed the rock from around the veins of copper. This was done by building fires upon or about it, and, when heated, crumbling it by throwing on water. By means of stone mauls the fragments were broken up and removed. When the vein was sufficiently exposed on all sides, a point was selected where the copper was thinner or narrower than the average of the vein. Here they commenced cutting off a mass, and by patient and long-continued hammering severed the two portions of the vein. In all the ancient mines which I have visited there is abundant evidence that fire was extensively used in the removal of rock; for not only do the rocks give proof of having been heated, but charcoal and ashes are invariably found at the bottom of all the rock excavations.

In general, the mining was done by surface openings along the line of the outcrop of the vein; but occasionally adits are driven into the rock, similar to the one first discovered at the Minnesota Mine before alluded to.

The surface mines are usually nearly filled with leaves and vegetable mould that have accumulated during the centuries that have elapsed since their abandonment, and till within a few years a heavy growth of timber covered the land; hence the numerous slight depressions that occurred along the line of the vein excited no suspicion that they were artificial excavations. By the closest observers they were regarded as natural depressions, caused either by the disintegration of the underlying rock or the peculiar manner in which the overlying drift was deposited. In many of these depressions, which have proved to be abandoned mines, trees of enormous size are found growing, some of which are ascertained, by counting their concentric rings, to be four hundred years old. At the Hilton Mine, directly over the leather bag before alluded to, there was a hemlock-tree about three feet in diameter. I noticed the stump of a tree nearly four feet in diameter in a gap near the Rockland Mine, where a hill had been actually cut asunder by these ancient miners, and a deep valley formed by the removal of the rock. Until very recently this valley was not recognized as an ancient mine; for, being ten rods in width, and cutting nearly at right angles across the strata of the rock that formed the hill, it was considered too extensive to have been made by human hands, and was supposed to be the result of natural causes. But about two years since, during a very dry time, a destructive fire swept through the woods, and so completely burned up all the vegetable matter accumulated there as to expose the underlying rock, and reveal its true character. After the fire had done its work, it was found that copper veins, which had been worked, ran through the rock in the gap, and that the great bank upon the south side of the hill, which was supposed to be a terraced gravel bank, proved to be a vast accumulation of "attle," or refuse stone, that had been taken from the artificial gap and deposited there. The stones forming this immense pile are generally small, and appear to have been broken up by heating to facilitate their removal from the mine, and possibly may have been again broken, with the hope of finding copper in them. In the midst of the pile I noticed several stone hammers, or mauls, some of them measuring twenty inches in girth around their grooves, and one I brought away weighing thirty pounds.

When examining this locality, I was struck with a significant fact, tending to show the long time that must have elapsed since the abandonment of these mines. I noticed in many instances that the artificial groove around the hammers was nearly obliterated upon the upper side, while upon the lower side, less exposed to the abrading agency of the atmosphere and rains, the groove presented a comparatively fresh appearance, and even the slight markings made by the tool that cut them were quite distinct. When I removed the overlying rock, and found a grooved maul in a protected spot, the groove was generally as fresh as though it had been made but a few months before. The compact nature of the stone of which these hammers are made, and their ability to resist the action of weather and moisture, prove conclusively that much time has been required to disintegrate their surface so as to obliterate the artificial work which has been expended upon them.