Chapter VII: Part 7

"Honey," she said gravely, "you might jest as well own up that you don't know who Rizpah was. That comes o' parents not makin' their children read the Scriptures. When I was a child we had to read our Bibles every Sunday evenin' till pretty near sundown. I can't say we enjoyed it much, but when we grew up we didn't have to blush for shame when anybody asked us a Bible question. Now, you take my Bible yonder on the table, and find the second book of Samuel. I can't be expected to ricollect exactly the chapter or the verse, but you look around in that book till you see Rizpah's name and then read what it says."

I made a hasty search for the passage and presently found it:

"But the King took the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite; and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest.

"And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until the water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night."

"There!" said Aunt Jane, "that's Rizpah. Now try to remember that story, child. You couldn't help rememberin' it if you'd ever seen the picture. It was an awful thing to look at, but somehow if you looked at it once you couldn't help goin' back to it again. There was the sky and the light breakin' through the clouds. I never could tell whether it was right after sundown or jest before sunrise--and the dead bodies hangin' from the limbs o' the trees, stiff and straight, and Rizpah fightin' off the vultures with a club, her long black hair streamin' down her back and her eyes blazin' like coals of fire. The minute I looked at that picture, I says to myself, 'That's Mother.' Many a night she'd dream of seein' the bodies of her sons lyin' on the battle-field and the birds pickin' the flesh from their bones, and she'd wake up cryin' and wring her hands and say, 'If I could only know that their bodies was buried safe in the ground, I could stand it better.' But we never did know, and--it's a curious thing, honey--when you don't see the dead buried you never can be right sure that they ain't alive yet somewhere or other on this earth.

"The footsteps never come again, but all her life Mother listened for 'em, and I hope and trust that when she got to the other side, the first thing she heard was the steps of her boys comin' towards her jest like they used to come before the war parted 'em."

She dried her eyes once more on the gingham apron and tried to smile at me in her usual way, but the smile would not come.

"This ain't the right kind of a story to tell you, honey, on a pretty spring day," she said brokenly, "and I never set out to tell it. But that old bayonet got me started, and before I knew it I was right back in war times livin' it all over. And while I'm about it, there's one more story I'm goin' to tell you, whether you want to hear it or not. It's about Elizabeth Taylor. I reckon I've told you Sally Ann's experience, haven't I? And if you ricollect that, you'll know who Elizabeth Taylor was.

"Elizabeth felt different from Mother about the war. She was strong for States' rights, and when Harrison, the only son she had, went into the army, he went with her blessin' and consent, and he made a mighty brave soldier, too. I ricollect the day 'Lizabeth come over to tell us about Harrison bein' promoted at the battle o' Port Gibson. You've heard o' the battle o' Port Gibson, haven't you, honey? That was another time when they fought all day long. I've heard Harrison say the first gun was fired before daylight, and when they give up and begun fallin' back, it was gittin' on towards dusk. Harrison said his officers went down one by one, first the captain and then the lieutenants, and when the last one fell, he up and took charge o' things himself jest like he'd seen the captain do; and when they found they had to give up the fight, Harrison somehow or other managed to carry away two cannons out o' the six they'd been workin' that day, and with these two he kind o' kept the Yankees off while the men fell back, and if it hadn't been for that they'd 'a' been cut all to pieces. Harrison was nothin' but a striplin', not out of his teens, but he went into that battle a sergeant and he come out of it a captain. 'Lizabeth was the proudest, gladdest woman you ever saw; says she, 'I've had a hard life, but this pays me for all my troubles.'

"But what I set out to tell you was somethin' 'Lizabeth herself did, not what Harrison did. It was along towards the close of the war, the summer of '64. One evenin' in July a squad o' Yankee soldiers come gallopin' along the pike about dark, and camped over in the fields back of 'Lizabeth's house. 'Lizabeth said she went up in the garret and looked out o' the window, and she could see 'em lightin' their camp-fires and feedin' their horses and cookin' supper. There wasn't a soul on the place with her except old Aunt Dicey and Uncle Jake. 'Lizabeth's brother was a slave owner, and when Harrison went to the war he sent Aunt Dicey and her husband over to 'Lizabeth's to watch over her and keep her company.

"Well, that night 'Lizabeth said she didn't feel much like sleepin', not knowin' but what the soldiers might come at any minute to search the house or maybe set it on fire. But she said her prayers and was almost fallin' off to sleep when she happened to think of some powder that Harrison had hid over in that field. Harrison was mighty fond of huntin', and always kept a big supply o' powder on hand, and the day before he went to the war he carried the can over to that field and hid it in a holler tree. 'For,' says he, 'I don't propose to be furnishin' ammunition to the Yankees.' 'Lizabeth said her heart stopped beatin' when she thought o' that powder and the fires all around, and the ground covered with dry grass and leaves. And she thought, 'Suppose the grass and leaves should catch a fire and the fire spread to the tree,' and she got up and put on her clothes and went to the garret again and looked out o' the window, and she could see a fire right near where she thought the old holler tree was standin', and her conscience says to her, 'If anybody's killed by that powder blowin' up whose fault will it be?' She said she knew she ought to go and git the powder, but the very thought o' that made her shake from head to foot. And she went back to bed and tried to sleep, but when she shut her eyes all she could see was a fire spreadin' amongst the leaves and grass and creepin' up to an old holler tree, and she thought how every one o' them soldiers lyin' there asleep had a mother and maybe a wife and a sister that was prayin' for 'em. And all at once somethin' said to her, 'Suppose it was your boy in this sort o' danger; wouldn't you thank any woman that'd go to his help?' And then she saw in a minute that there wasn't but one thing for her to do: she must go and take that powder out o' the holler tree and put it out o' the reach o' fire. So she threw an old shawl over her head and went out to the cabin and called Uncle Jake, and asked him to go with her across the field betwixt the house and the place where the soldiers had their camp. The old man was no manner o' protection, for he was so crippled up with rheumatism that he had mighty little use of his feet and hands, but 'Lizabeth said she felt a little bit safer havin' some human bein' along with her crossin' that big field.

"The moon was about in its third quarter that night, and 'Lizabeth said if the sentries had been awake they could 'a' seen her and Uncle Jake creepin' through the high weeds in the field. And every now and then she'd stop and listen, and then go on a little piece and stop and listen again, and that way they got to the far corner of the field, and Uncle Jake he crouched down behind a big oak stump, and she crawled under the bars o' the fence, and there was the fires all burnin' low, but givin' enough light along with the moon to keep her from stumblin' over the soldiers lyin' asleep on the ground. She said she gethered her skyirts around her and picked her way to the holler tree and pulled the powder out and put it in the skyirt of her dress and started back. She said she was so skeered she never stopped to see whether there really was any danger of fire spreadin' to the tree and settin' off the powder. She had jest one thought in her mind, and that was to git the powder and go back home.

"Did you ever dream, child, of tryin' to go somewhere and your feet feelin' as if they had weights on 'em and you couldn't move 'em? Well, 'Lizabeth said that was the way she felt when she started back to the fence with that powder. It was mighty heavy and weighted her down, so that she had to walk slow, and she could hear the soldiers breathin', and once one of 'em said somethin' in his sleep, and she come pretty near faintin' from fright. Every step seemed like a mile, and she thought she never would git back to the fence. But God watched over her, and she got out o' the camp and back to the house safe and sound. She said when she stepped up on her back porch she felt like a weight as heavy as the powder had been taken off her conscience, and she went up stairs and kneeled down and thanked God for givin' her courage to do the right thing, and then she went to bed and slept as peaceful as a child.

"Now, you may think, child, that 'Lizabeth put on her bonnet and come over and told me this the day after it happened; but she didn't. 'Lizabeth never was any hand to talk about herself, and it was an accident that anybody ever heard what she'd done. I happened to be at her house one day, maybe six months or so after the war was over, and Harrison was searchin' around in the closet, pullin' things out like I've been doin' to-day, and he come across the powder. He looked at it a minute, and says he, 'Why, here's that powder I hid in the old holler tree; I'd clean forgot it. How did it get here, Mother?' And 'Lizabeth says, 'Why, son, I went and got it the night the Yankees camped over in the woods at the back o' the house.' Harrison looked at her like he thought she was talkin' out of her head, and says he, 'What did you say, Mother?' And 'Lizabeth went on to tell him jest what I've told you, as unconcerned as if she was tellin' about walkin' from the front door to the front gate. And when she got through, Harrison drew a long breath, and says he, 'Mother, I'm proud of you! That's braver than anything I ever did. They made me a captain, but you ought to be a general.' And 'Lizabeth, she colored up, and says she, 'Why, son, any woman that had the heart of a mother in her would 'a' done jest what I did. It's nothin' to make any fuss over.'

"I ain't overly fond o' tellin' stories about war times, child," concluded Aunt Jane, "but I like to tell this, for it's somethin' that ought to be ricollected. Harrison showed me a big book once, The Ricords of the Rebellion, and his name as big as life on one o' the pages, tellin' how he was promoted twice in one day; but 'Lizabeth outlived her husband and all her children, and you won't find so much as a stone to mark her grave, and in a little while nobody'll ever know that such a woman as 'Lizabeth Taylor ever lived; yet, it's jest as Harrison said; what she did was braver than anything he did. And it's my belief that Harrison never would 'a' been the soldier he was if he hadn't had his mother's conscience. It was 'Lizabeth's conscience that made her stand up in church and own up to usin' our Mite Society money, and made her leave her bed that night and risk her life for the lives o' them soldier boys, and it was her conscience in her son that kept him at his post on the field o' battle when everybody else was runnin' off; and that's why 'Lizabeth's name ought to be ricollected along with Harrison's."

"Poor human nature," we sometimes say, forgetting that through every character runs a vein of gold. Now and then kindly chance rends the base earth that covers it and shows us a hero or a heroine. But revealed or unrevealed, all human nature is rich in the possibility of greatness.

Here and there we build a monument; but if for every deed of noble daring some memorial were raised, earth's monuments would be as the stars of heaven or the sands of the sea; the names of the lowly and the great would stand side by side; and the name of the mother by the name of the son. For the valor of man is a mighty stream that all may see as it rolls through the ages, changing the face of the world, but ofttimes its source is a spring of courage rising silently from the secret depths of an unknown woman's heart.

IX

THE WATCH-MEETING

IX

THE WATCH-MEETING

It was the thirty-first of December. The short winter day had ended in a golden sunset, and the old year was passing in a night of stars. Aunt Jane and I stood on the porch looking westward at the clear wintry sky, where the radiance from the silver lamp of Venus gleamed as clearly over the bare, frozen earth as if it were lighting the feet of lovers through the rose-gardens of June. All the winds of heaven were sleeping, and the cold still air was like a draught from a mountain spring. Our eyes were on the same star, but our thoughts were far apart; mine with the years to come, and Aunt Jane's with the years that were past.

"Fine night for a watch-meetin'," she remarked at last.

"A watch-meeting?" I queried. "What is a watch-meeting?"

Aunt Jane turned her face toward me, and through the darkness I felt her look of deep reproach. "Child," she said gravely, "do you mean to tell me that you don't know what a watch-meetin' is, and you livin' in a Christian country all your life? Next thing you'll be tellin' me you don't know what a prayer-meetin' is. However, I don't know as you're to blame. Your grandfather and grandmother went to watch-meetin', and your mother knows what it is, but I reckon watch-meetin's are as much out o' fashion these days as purple caliker dresses and turkey-tail fans. In my day, child, folks went to church New-year's eve and sung and prayed the old year out and the new year in, and that's a watch-meetin'."

"How interesting!" I exclaimed.

Aunt Jane chuckled softly. "Yes, it was mighty interestin'," she said, "and there was one watch-meetin' I'll never forgit as long as I live. But you come into the house. This ain't the weather for old folks or young folks either to be standin' out on the porch."

We went in, and I laid a stick of wood on the andirons in the open fireplace. A momentary splendor lit the room as the gray moss and lichens caught fire and the swift flames ran from one end of the log to the other and then died out, while the smoke from the kindling wood rose in the huge chimney.

"There's never a New-year's eve that I don't think o' that watch-meetin'," Aunt Jane continued, "and I set here and laugh to myself over the times we used to have in the old Goshen church. Jest hand me my knittin', child, and I'll tell you about that meetin'. It's jest as easy to talk as it is to think."

The room was lighted only by the faint glow from the fireplace, but Aunt Jane needed no lamp or candle to guide her through the maze of stitches in the heel of the gray stocking. I sat with folded hands and wondered at the deft fingers that wove the yarn into the web of the stocking, and at the deft brain that, from the thread of old memories, could weave the web of a story in which was caught and held the spirit of an older day.

"The night o' that watch-meetin'," began Aunt Jane, "was jest such a night as this, cold and clear and still; and if you're wrapped up well and have a good warm quilt over your knees, why, it's nothin' but a pleasure to ride a mile or so to the church. A watch-meetin' is different from any other church-meetin'. It generally comes on a week-day, it ain't preachin' and it ain't prayer-meetin', and you don't have to remember to keep the day holy; so you can laugh and talk goin' and comin' and before the meetin' begins. Next to a May-meetin' a watch-meetin's about the pleasantest sort of a church-meetin' there is.

"Now, as you didn't know what a watch-meetin' is, it ain't likely you know what a May-meetin' is, either. There, now! I knew you wouldn't. Well, child, that all comes o' livin' in town. Town's a fine place to go to once in a while, but there's a heap o' disadvantages about livin' there all the time. A May-meetin' is the first Sunday in May, when we all take big baskets o' dinner to the church and eat outdoors under the trees after preachin's over. And now let me git back to my story or, the first thing you know, I'll be tellin' about a May-meetin' instead of a watch-meetin'. But I thought I'd better explain it to you right now, honey, so's you won't be mortified this way again. There's some things everybody's expected to know, and this is one of 'em.

"I ricollect jest how the old church looked the night o' that watch-meetin'. It was soon after we'd got the new organ, and the shine hadn't wore off the new cyarpet yet, and the lamps was burning bright on the stands each side o' the pulpit and on the organ. Some o' the young folks had hung branches o' pine and cedar around the walls and over the winders, and you could hear the hickory wood cracklin' and poppin' in the stove at the back o' the church, and there was all the Goshen folks sittin' in their pews: Sam and Milly, and Hannah and Miles, and Maria and Silas, and Uncle Jim and Sally Ann, and Parson Page down in front o' the pulpit leanin' back in his chair with his chin restin' on his hand and his other hand proppin' up his elbow. The young folks of course was in the back part o' the church, where they could talk and laugh without bein' seen by their parents; and little Sam Amos and two or three more o' the Goshen boys, along with Martin Luther Wilson, was sittin' down on the pulpit steps, where they could see everything that was to be seen and hear everything that was to be heard."

Aunt Jane began to laugh gently, and the knitting dropped from her hands. Another moment and she would have slipped away to the watch-meeting of forty years ago, leaving me alone in the quiet shadow-haunted room; but I called her back.

"How did Martin Luther happen to be at Goshen?" I asked. It was an idle question, but it served my purpose.

"Why, don't you ricollect?" said Aunt Jane brightly. "Brother Wilson preached in town, but after Squire Schuyler give him that house for a weddin' fee he lived there. That was betwixt and between the town and the country. Martin Luther loved the country jest like his father did, and there never was a watch-meetin' or a May-meetin' that Martin Luther wasn't on hand; but I'm bound to say that most o' the time it wasn't for any good.

"Well, by nine o'clock everything was ready for the watch-meetin' to begin, and Parson Page set the clock on the floor back o' the pulpit--it sounds a heap solemner at a watch-meetin', child, to hear the clock strike when you can't see it--and then he give out the first hymn:

"'A few more years shall roll,
A few more seasons come,
And we shall be with those that rest,
Asleep within the tomb.

"'A few more suns shall set
O'er these dark hills of time,
And we shall be where suns are not,
A far serener clime.'"

To me there seemed nothing joy-inspiring in the old hymn, but Aunt Jane smiled radiantly as she chanted the melancholy words that held in their cadences the voices of the choir and the music of the organ in the old country church.

"That's one o' the hymns we always sung at a watch-meetin'," she observed, "that and

"'Lo, on a narrow neck of land
'Twixt two unbounded seas I stand.'

"I love every one o' the old hymns, child, jest as much as I love my Bible, and I can take that hymn-book yonder and read over the hymns we used to sing at prayer-meetin' and communion and funerals and baptizin's, and I declare it's jest like livin' over again all the Sundays of my life. When we got through singin' the hymn Parson Page read a chapter out o' the Bible. It was the ninetieth psalm, the one that begins, 'Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations'; and then he give us a little talk, not a sermon exactly, but jest a little talk about the new year and the old year. I ricollect pretty much all he said as well as if it was yesterday. He said that there was nothin' sad about the passin' of the years, and every New-year's eve ought to be a time for rejoicin'; that life was jest a gainin' and a losin' and the two balanced pretty even. Every year we lost a little of our youth and a little of our strength, but we gained in wisdom and understandin'. He said if we'd improved our time and come up to our opportunities durin' the past year, we could go forward joyfully to meet the new year, and if we hadn't, why, still there wasn't any reason for givin' up and feelin' downhearted, for the mercy of the Lord was infinite, and there was always another chance waitin' for us, and if a man turned over a new leaf and made up his mind to do better, every day was a New-year's day.

"And then he called on the men folks to tell what their experience had been durin' the past year, and jest as Uncle Jim Mathews got up to tell his experience the clock struck ten, and Uncle Jim says: 'Brethren, you hear that? Jest two more hours of this year is left to us.' Says he, 'I don't know how it is with the rest of you, but for my part I feel that this has been a profitable year for my soul. I feel,' says he, 'that I have grown in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord, that my faith has been strengthened, that patience has had her perfect work in me, and that I'm nearer to the kingdom than I ever was'; and he went on this way for about ten minutes, and Sally Ann whispered to me and says she, 'If one-half o' that's true, the Lord ought to send down a chariot of fire and take Uncle Jim up to heaven this very night.'

"Then Uncle Jerry Amos got up and says he, 'Brethren, I thank the Lord that during the past year I have grown more charitable toward my fellow men.' And to save our lives we couldn't help laughin' at that, for if there was anything Uncle Jerry didn't need it was more charity. I ricollect when old man Abner Simpson died--he was a mighty mean man, so mean that Parson Page had a heap o' trouble to preach the right kind of a funeral sermon about him--and right after the funeral Uncle Jerry heard some o' the neighbors talkin' about him and says he: 'Boys, ain't you ashamed to be talkin' this way about the dead? Don't you know you mustn't say anything but good about the dead, or the livin' either, for that matter?' And Bush Elrod says, 'Now, Uncle Jerry, you know nobody could say anything good about old man Abner; you couldn't yourself.' And Uncle Jerry says: 'Yes, I can. Jest give me time, and I can think o' plenty o' good things to say about him.' And he stood and thought and thought, and the rest o' the men laughin' at him, and Bush Elrod says, 'You'll have to give it up, Uncle Jerry.' But Uncle Jerry says, 'No, there never was a human bein' that somethin' good couldn't be said about him.' And pretty soon he slapped his side and says he: 'I've got it! He had a good appetite.' That's why we all had to laugh when Uncle Jerry said he'd grown more charitable toward his fellow men.

"Well, all the men folks got up and told what progress in grace they'd made durin' the year, and I ricollect Sam Amos sayin' it was astonishin' how many saints there was in Goshen church, but nobody knew anything about 'em till we had an experience-meetin'. After the experiences had all been give in we sung another hymn and had another prayer. Then the clock struck eleven, and Parson Page said, 'We will spend a little time in forming good resolutions for the coming year.' And after we'd set there a while makin' our resolutions and had some more singin' and prayin', he said, 'Brethren and sisters, let us give the remaining minutes of the old year to silent prayer for grace that will help us to keep the good resolutions we've made for the new year that is so close at hand.' And we all bowed our heads feelin' mighty solemn, everything so still you could hear the folks around you breathin' and the old clock back o' the pulpit tickin', tickin' away the minutes o' the old year. And we set there expectin' every minute to hear the first stroke o' twelve.

"I ricollect Abram had rheumatism in the muscles of his neck that winter, and leanin' over was mighty painful to him; so pretty soon he straightened up, but all the rest of us kept our heads bowed on the back o' the pew in front of us, and waited for the clock to strike. Somehow or other the time seemed mighty long, and everybody begun to feel restless. Sam Amos was in the pew jest across the aisle from me and Abram and I saw him take out his watch and look at it, and Uncle Jim Mathews dropped off to sleep and got to snorin', and that set the young folks to laughin', and everybody got tired leanin' their heads over so long, and every now and then somebody would straighten up, till at last everybody was settin' up straight except two or three that was fast asleep. And still the clock didn't strike, and I reckon we'd 'a' stayed there till daylight if it hadn't been for Sam Amos. Everybody knew there was something wrong, but nobody had the courage to git up and say so except Sam. He rose up in his pew and says he, 'Neighbors, I don't want to disturb this watch-meetin', but it looks to me like one of two things has happened: either the new year's got lost on the way or the old year's took a notion to stay with us a little longer, and,' says he, 'I move that somebody goes behind the pulpit and sees if there ain't somethin' wrong with the clock.'

"Well, Parson Page he got up and went up the pulpit steps--I ricollect he had to step over Martin Luther's legs; Martin Luther was lyin' over on his face sound asleep--and he stooped down and looked at the clock, and then he threw up his hands and says he: 'Why, bless my soul! It's nearly one o'clock.'

"Well, with that the young folks begun to laugh scandalous, and everybody jumped up and begun talkin' at once. Abram says, 'The strikin' part o' that clock must be out o' fix.' And Parson Page says, 'That can't be, for I carried it to town last week and had it put in order especially for this occasion.' And Milly Amos says, 'Why didn't some o' you men folks look at your watches instead o' lettin' us sit here wastin' all this good time?' And Sam Amos says, 'I did look at mine, but it didn't do much good, for I forgot to wind it last night, and it had stopped at half-past five in the mornin' or the evenin', I couldn't tell which.' And Silas Petty said his watch hadn't been keepin' good time lately, and he didn't think it was worth while to look at it. And Parson Page said he laid his watch on the bureau and forgot to put it back in his vest pocket when he put on his Sunday clothes. And somebody says, 'Maybe the clock struck and we didn't hear it.' And Abram says: 'I'm pretty certain the strikin' part o' that clock is out o' fix. Probably it got jarred bringin' it over here.'

"Jest then the old clock struck one, as loud and clear as you please. And Parson Page says: 'Do you hear that? There's nothing wrong with the clock; it must be our ears that are out of fix.' And Silas Petty says: 'There's nothin' the matter with my ears. It's my opinion some o' those rascally boys have been foolin' with the clock jest to play a trick on us. They've had a mighty good chance at it, sprawlin' around here on the floor and the clock out o' sight behind the pulpit.' Little Sam Amos and the Crawford boys they spoke up and says they, 'We never touched the clock,' and Milly says: 'You can't lay it on little Sam. He's been fast asleep for the last two hours.' And somebody says, 'Where's Martin Luther?' and we all looked around, and Parson Page says, 'Why, he must be here; he was sound asleep on the floor when I stepped up here to examine the clock.' And Sam Amos says, 'Look a-yonder, will you?' and he p'inted toward the winder, and there was Martin Luther up on the winder-sill outside, with his face right up against the glass and his nose all flattened out, and grinnin' like a Cheshire cat. And as soon as he saw us lookin' at him, he dropped down to the ground and give a whoop like a wild Indian and went tearin' down the road as hard as he could foot it in the direction of Schuyler Hall.

"Well, honey, it was right aggravatin'. You know country folks have to work hard and git up early, and there we'd lost a good hour o' sleep all for nothin', and a madder set o' folks you never saw, all but the young folks. They laughed and laughed, and of course that made us all still madder. Silas Petty and Dave Crawford begun blessin' Martin Luther and sayin' what ought to be done to him and how they was goin' to let Brother Wilson know about this as soon as day broke, and Sam Amos he listened to 'em a while and then says he: 'Now here it is, the new year jest an hour old, and you church-members are breakin' every one o' your good resolutions about keepin' your temper and bein' charitable to your neighbors. Can't you make allowances for a boy?' And Uncle Jerry says: 'That's right, Sam. What's the use in takin' notice of a boy's pranks? We've all been boys once--all except the women folks--and there ain't one of us that hasn't rocked houses and stole watermelons and robbed orchards and disturbed meetin' and done all the rest o' the devilment that boys delight in. But jest let a boy play a joke on us and we forgit all about the sins of our youth. To hear us talk, a person would think that we was born sixty years old.' Says he: 'All we've lost is an hour's sleep, and we can make that up by goin' to bed earlier to-morrow night. Now, why not overlook this little caper of Martin Luther's and begin the new year in a good humor with everything and everybody?'

"And Sam Amos he begun to laugh, and he laughed till he had to set down, and he kept on till Milly got skeered and beat him in the back to make him stop, and finally he got his breath and says he, 'I'm laughin' to think how we all looked settin' here at one o'clock in the mornin' waitin' to hear the clock strike twelve.' And then he started out again, and we laughed with him, and everybody went home in a good humor. I ricollect me and Abram had an argument on the way home about whether it was worth while to go to bed or not. Abram said it was worth while to go to bed if you couldn't sleep but a half-hour, but betwixt laughin' and ridin' in the cold air I was so wide awake I felt like I never wanted to sleep again; and I went to work and cleaned up the house and cut out some sewin' and had breakfast ready by half-past four. I never made that sleep up, child, and I never felt any worse for it. You know what the Bible says, 'As thy days so shall thy strength be,' and when a person's young, there's strength for the day and more besides."

Aunt Jane dropped her knitting and rested her head against the patchwork cover of the high-backed chair. Like a great wall of shelter and defense, we felt around us the deep stillness of a midwinter night in the country. The last traveler had gone his homeward way over the pike hours ago, and in the quiet room we could hear now and then those faint noises made by shrinking timbers, as if the old house groaned in the icy clutch of the December cold, and, louder and clearer than by day, the voice of the clock ticking away the last hours of the old year.

What is there in the flight of years to sadden the heart? Our little times and seasons are but fragments of eternity, and eternity is ours. The sunset on which we gaze with melancholy eyes is a sunrise on the other side of the world, and the vanishing days can take from us nothing that may not be restored by some day yet unborn. Eternity! Immortality! If mortal mind could but fathom the depth of these ideas, they would be as wells of peace in which all trouble, all regret, would be forever drowned. But as Aunt Jane and I sat alone by her deserted hearth we saw the shadows of the night deepening while the fire burned low, and in our hearts we felt another and a darker shadow cast by the wing of the passing year. And, breaking our dreams, the clock struck ten. Aunt Jane gave a start, and the ball of yarn fell from her lap. She picked it up before I could reach it, and winding the yarn and rolling the stocking around the ball she called in her wandering thoughts and entered instantly into the life of the present hour.

"Light the lamp, child," she said, "and hand me my Bible. The Scripture's got a word suitable for every season, and I'll read you the psalm that Parson Page read the night the clock didn't strike."

Reverently she laid the heavy calf-bound volume across her knees, and turning the leaves with swift and certain fingers she found the ninetieth psalm as readily as the twentieth-century woman finds Sordello in her complete Browning. Centuries ago, a Hebrew, standing on one of the mountain peaks of old age, saw in a vision the little lives and the little deeds of men outlined against a background of the "eternal years of God." He put the vision into words, and because they held a universal thought, a burden of the soul in every age and clime, those words have outlasted kingdoms and dynasties. I had often heard the rhythmic lines rolling from priestly lips and echoing under cathedral arches, but never had they moved me as now, when by the dying fire in the last hours of a dying year, I heard them, half chanted, half read, in the tremulous voice of an old woman whose feet were on the same height and whose eyes beheld the same vision:

"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

"Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst
formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to
everlasting, thou art God.

"Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children
of men.

"For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it
is past, and as a watch in the night.

"Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in
the morning they are like grass which groweth up.

"In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it
is cut down, and withereth....

"For all our days are passed away in thy wrath; we spend our
years as a tale that is told.

"The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by
reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength
labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away....

"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts
unto wisdom....

"O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be
glad all our days.

"Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted
us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.

"Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their
children.

"And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish
thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands
establish thou it."

Aunt Jane removed her glasses and folded her withered hands over the sacred pages. "You know, child," she said, "the Bible's the word of God. I ain't questionin' that. But it looks like to me there's some o' the words of man in it, too. Now this psalm I've jest read is the very one to read at a watch-meetin' on New-year's eve because it's all about time and life and the passin' o' the years, but there's some o' the verses I'd like to leave out. There's that tenth one about 'the days of our years' and the strength of our years. I reckon we all feel like sayin' such things when we git tired and it looks like we haven't done the work we set out to do, but that's the sort o' feelin' to keep to ourselves. It don't do any good to tell such feelin's. And when a man can say that the Lord has been his dwellin' place in all generations, he oughtn't to turn right around and say that the strength of his years is jest labor and sorrow. The trouble with some folks is that they're always lookin' back and countin' the years wherein they have seen evil, but they don't ricollect that the Lord's promise is to make us glad accordin' to the evil years. Trouble has got to come to us, child, but whenever it comes we ought to know there's happiness comin' to make up for it jest like this psalm says, 'Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.' I've lived pretty near eighty years, and I've had my share o' trouble, but I'm far from sayin' that the strength of my years is nothin' but labor and sorrow. I never had a sorrow that I didn't know there was a happiness comin' to make up for it. I've spent my life 'as a tale that is told,' and I'm nearly to the end of it, but I'd be right glad, child, if I could go back to the beginnin' and have it told all over again."

It is easy to pronounce a benediction on life when life is in its morning; but with the darkness of the long night closing around us the words that rise most often to human lips are the words of the cynic king who, from "the dazzling height of a throne," surveyed the magnificent ruin of his years and said,

"Vanity of vanities; all is vanity."

God once looked at a seething chaos which he called his world and pronounced it good. Only a divinity could do this. And only the divinity in man enables one to look back on the chaos of sorrow, ecstasy, hope, despair, labor, failure, sin, and suffering which we call life and say, "It is all good; I would live it again if I might."

Aunt Jane closed her Bible and laid it on the mahogany centre-table. "Half-past ten o'clock," she said, glancing at the clock in the corner. "I sometimes think, honey, that I'd like to watch the old year out once more, for there's somethin' about the night that the day hasn't got. But I'm too old to lose sleep unless there's a good reason for it, so cover up the fire and we'll sleep the old year out instead o' watchin' it out. This night's no more'n any other night, and it's jest as Parson Page said, every day's a New-year's day."

_By the author of "The Land of Long Ago."_

AUNT JANE OF KENTUCKY

_By_ ELIZA CALVERT HALL

Illustrated by Beulah Strong. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50

Aunt Jane is perfectly delightful.--_The Outlook_, New York.

A book that plays on the heart strings.--_St. Louis
Post-Despatch._

What Mrs. Gaskill did in "Cranford" this author does for
Kentucky.--_Syracuse Herald._

A prose idyl. Nothing more charming has appeared in recent
fiction.--MARGARET E. SANGSTER.

These pages have in them much of the stuff that makes genuine
literature.--_Louisville Courier Journal._

Where so many have made caricatures of old-time country folk,
Eliza Calvert Hall has caught at once the real charm, the real
spirit, the real people, and the real joy of living which was
theirs.--_New York Times._

Have you read that charming little book written by one of your
clever Kentucky women--"Aunt Jane of Kentucky"--by Eliza Calvert
Hall? It is very wholesome and attractive. Be sure that you read
it.--THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS
254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON

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End of Project Gutenberg's The Land of Long Ago, by Eliza Calvert Hall