Poganuc People

With all his soul he was seeking a revival of religion; a deep, pathetic earnestness made itself felt in his preaching and prayers, and the more spiritual of his auditors began to feel themselves sympathetically affected. Of course, all the church members in good standing professed to believe truths which made life a sublime reality, and religion the one absorbing aim. The New Testament gives a glorified ideal of a possible human life, but hard are his labors who tasks himself to keep that ideal uppermost among average human beings.

The coarse, the low, the mean, the vulgar, is ever thrusting itself before the higher and more delicate nature, and claiming, in virtue of its very brute strength, to be the true reality.

New England had been founded as a theocracy. It had come down to Dr. Cushing's time under laws and customs specially made and intended to form a Christian State, and yet how far it was below the teachings of the New Testament none realized so deeply as the minister himself.

He was the confidant of all the conflicts between different neighborhoods, of the small envies, jealousies and rivalries that agitated families and set one part of his parish against another. He was cognizant of all the little unworthy gossip, the low aims, the small ambitions of these would-be Christians, and sometimes his heart sank at the prospect.

Yet the preaching, the prayers, the intense earnestness of the New England religious life had sometimes their hour of being outwardly felt; the sacred altar-flame that was burning in secret in so many hearts threw its light into the darkness, and an upspringing of religious interest was the result.

The quarrel which had separated Zeph Higgins from the church had spread more or less unwholesome influence through the neighborhood, and it was only through some such divine impulse as he sought that the minister could hope to bring back a better state of things. In this labor of love he felt that he had a constant, powerful co-operative force in the silent, prayerful woman, who walked by Zeph's side as a guardian angel. Had it not been for her peculiar talent for silence and peace the quarrel would have gone much farther and produced wider alienation; but there is nothing that so absolutely quenches the sparks of contention as silence. Especially is this the case with the silence of a strong, determined nature, that utters itself only to God. For months Zeph had been conscious of a sort of invisible power about his wife – a power that controlled him in spite of himself. It was that mysterious atmosphere created by intense feeling without the help of words.

People often, in looking on this couple, shook their heads and said, "How could that woman ever have married that man?"

Such observers forget that the woman may see a side of the man's nature that they never see, and that often the chief reason why a man wins a woman's heart is that she fancies herself to have discerned in him that which no other could discern, an undiscovered realm peculiarly her own. The rough, combative, saturnine man known as Zeph Higgins had had his turn of being young, and his youth's blossoming-time of love, when he had set his heart on this Mary, then an orphan, alone in the world. Like many another woman, she was easily persuaded that the stormy, determined, impetuous passion thus seeking her could take no denial; was of the same nature with the kind of love she felt able to give in return – love faithful, devoted, unseeking of self, and asking only to bless.

But, in time, marriage brought its revelations, and life lay before her a bare, cold, austere reality, with the lover changed into the toiling fellow-laborer or the exacting master.

A late discernment of spirit showed her that she was married to a man whose love for her was all demand, who asked everything from her and had little power of giving in return; that, while he needed her, and clung to her at times with a sort of helpless reliance, he had no power of understanding or sympathizing with her higher nature, and that her life, in all that she felt most deeply and keenly, must be a solitary one.

These hours of disillusion come to many, and are often turning points in the soul's history. Rightly understood, they may prove the seed-bed where plants of the higher life strike deepest root. Mary Higgins was one of those who found in her religion the strength of her soul. The invisible Friend, whose knock is heard in every heart-trial, entered in to dwell with her, bringing the peace which the world cannot give; and henceforth she was strong in spirit, and her walk was in green pastures and by still waters.

They greatly mistake the New England religious development who suppose that it was a mere culture of the head in dry metaphysical doctrines. As in the rifts of the granite rocks grow flowers of wonderful beauty and delicacy, so in the secret recesses of Puritan life, by the fireside of the farm-house, in the contemplative silence of austere care and labor, grew up religious experiences that brought a heavenly brightness down into the poverty of commonplace existence.

The philosophic pen of President Edwards has set before us one such inner record, in the history of the wife whose saintly patience and unworldly elevation enabled him to bear the reverses which drove him from a comfortable parish to encounter the privations of missionary life among the Indians. And such experiences were not uncommon among lowly natures, who lacked the eloquence to set them forth in words. They lightened the heart, they brightened the eye, they made the atmosphere of the home peaceful.

Such was the inner life of her we speak of. At rest in herself, she asked nothing, yet was willing to give everything to the husband and children who were at once her world of duty and of love. Year in and out, she kept step in life with a beautiful exactness, so perfect and complete in every ministry of the household that those she served forgot to thank her, as we forget to thank the daily Giver of air and sunshine. Zeph never had known anything at home but neatness, order, and symmetry, regular hours and perfect service.

His wife had always been on time, and on duty, and it seemed to him like one of the immutable laws of nature that she should do so. He was proud of her housekeeping, proud of her virtues, as something belonging to himself, and, though she had no direct power over his harsher moods of combativeness and self-will, she sometimes came to him as a still small voice after the earthquake and the tempest, and her words then had weight with him, precisely because they were few, and seldom spoken.

She had been silent all through the stormy quarrel that had rent him away from his church. Without an argument where argument would only strengthen opposition, she let his will have its way. She went with him on Sundays to the Episcopal Church, and sat there among her sons, a lowly and conscientious worshiper, carefully following a service which could not fail to bring voices of comfort and help to a devout soul like hers. Nevertheless, the service, to any one coming to it late in life and with no previous training, has its difficulties, which were to her embarrassing, and to him, in spite of his proud self-will, annoying. Zeph had the Spartan contempt for everything æsthetic, the scorn of beauty which characterized certain rough stages of New England life. He not only did not like symbolic forms, but he despised them as effeminate impertinences; and every turn and movement that he was compelled to make in his new ritualistic surroundings was aggravating to his temper. To bend the knee at the name of Jesus, to rise up reverently when the words of Jesus were about to be read in the Gospel of the day, were acts congenial to his wife as they were irksome to him; and, above all, the idea of ecclesiastical authority, whether exercised by rector, bishop or church, woke all the refractory nerves of opposition inherited from five generations of Puritans. So that Zeph was as little comfortable in his new position as his worst enemy could have desired. Nothing but the strength of his obstinate determination not to yield a point once taken kept him even outwardly steady. But to go back to his church, to confess himself in the wrong and make up his old quarrel with the Deacon, would be worse than to stay where he was.

The tenacity and devotion with which some hard natures will cleave to a quarrel which embitters their very life-blood is one of the strange problems of our human nature. In the hereditary form of family prayer that Zeph Higgins used every day, there was the customary phrase "We are miserable sinners;" and yet Zeph, like many another man who repeats that form in the general, would rather die than confess a fault in any particular; and in this respect we must admit that he was not, after all, a very exceptional character. How often in our experience do we meet a man brave enough, when once fully committed, to turn a square corner and say "I was wrong"? If only such have a stone to cast at Zeph Higgins, the cairn will not be a very high one.

Zeph never breathed an opposing word when his wife, every Friday evening, lighted the lantern, and with all her sons about her set off to the evening prayer-meeting in the little red school-house, though after his quarrel with the Deacon he never went himself. Those weekly meetings, when she heard her minister and joined in the prayers and praises of her church, were the brightest hours of her life, and her serene radiant face, following his words with rapt attention, was a help and inspiration to her pastor.

"There is a revival begun over there," he said to his wife as they were riding home from one of his services. "It is begun in the heart of that good woman. She has long been praying for a revival, and I am confident that her prayers will be answered."

They were answered, but in a way little dreamed of by any one.

The prayers we offer for heavenly blessings often come up in our earthly soil as plants of bitter sorrow.

So it proved in this case.

CHAPTER XXIV.

"IN SUCH AN HOUR AS YE THINK NOT."

One morning in the latter part of spring Zeph Higgins received a shock which threw his whole soul into confusion.

His wife, on rising to go forth to her wonted morning cares, had fainted dead away and been found lying, apparently lifeless, on the bed, when her husband returned for his breakfast.

Instantly everything was in commotion. The nearest neighbor was sent for, and restoratives applied with such skill as domestic experience could suggest, and one of the boys dispatched in all haste for the doctor, with orders to bring Nabby at once to take her mother's place.

The fainting fit proved of short duration, but was followed by a violent chill and a rise of fever, and when the doctor arrived he reported a congestion of the lungs threatening the gravest results.

Forthwith the household was to be organized for sickness. A fire was kindled in the best bed-room and the patient laid there; Mis' Persis was sent for and installed as nurse; Nabby became housekeeper, and to superficial view the usual order reigned. Zeph went forth to the labors of the field, struggling with a sort of new terror; there was an evil threatening his house, against the very thought and suggestion of which he fought with all his being. His wife could not, should not, ought not to be sick, – and as to dying, that was not to be thought of! What could he do without her? What could any of them do without her? During the morning's work that was the problem that he kept turning and turning in his mind – what life would be without her. Yet, when Abner, who was working beside him, paused over his hoe and stood apparently lost in thought, he snapped a harsh question at him with a crack like the sound of a lash.

"What ye doin' there?"

Abner started, looked confused and resumed his work, only saying, "I was thinking about Mother."

"Nonsense! Don't make a fool of yourself. Mother'll come all right."

"The doctor said" – said Abner.

"Don't tell me nothin' what the doctor said; I don't want to hear on't," said Zeph, in a high voice; and the two hoes worked on in silence for a while, till finally Zeph broke out again.

"Wal! what did the doctor say? Out with it; as good say it 's think it. What did the doctor say? Why don't you speak?"

"He said she was a very sick woman," answered Abner.

"He's a fool. I don't think nothin' o' that doctor's jedgment. I'll have Dr. Sampson over from East Poganuc. Your mother's got the best constitution of any woman in this neighborhood."

"Yes; but she hasn't been well lately, and I've seen it," said Abner.

"That's all croakin'. Don't believe a word on't. Mother's been right along, stiddy as a clock; 'taint nothin' but one o' these 'ere pesky spring colds she's got. She'll be up and 'round by to-morrow or next day. I'll have another doctor, and I'll get her wine and bark, and strengthenin' things, and Nabby shall do the work, and she'll come all right enough."

"I'm sure I hope so," said Abner.

"Hope! what d'ye say hope for? I ain't a goin' to hope nothin' 'bout it. I know so; she's got to git well – ain't no two ways 'bout that."

Yet Zeph hurried home an hour before his usual time and met Nabby at the door.

"Wal, ain't your mother gettin' better?"

There were tears in Nabby's eyes as she answered,

"Oh, dear! she's been a raisin' blood. Doctor says it's from her lungs. Mis' Persis says it's a bad sign. She's very weak – and she looks so pale!"

"They must give her strengthenin' things," said Zeph. "Do they?"

"They're givin' what the Doctor left. Her fever's beginnin' to rise now. Doctor says we mustn't talk to her, nor let her talk."

"Wal, I'm a goin' up to see her, anyhow. I guess I've got a right to speak to my own wife." And Zeph slipped off his heavy cowhide boots, and went softly up to the door of the room, and opened it without stopping to knock.

The blinds were shut; it seemed fearfully dark and quiet. His wife was lying with her eyes closed, looking white and still; but in the center of each pale cheek was the round, bright, burning spot of the rising hectic.

Mis' Persis was sitting by her with the authoritative air of a nurse who has taken full possession; come to stay and to reign. She was whisking the flies away from her patient with a feather fan, which she waved forbiddingly at Zeph as he approached.

"Mother," said he in an awe-struck tone, bending over his wife, "don't you know me?"

She opened her eyes; saw him; smiled and reached out her hand. It was thin and white, burning with the rising fever.

"Don't you feel a little better?" he asked. There was an imploring eagerness in his tone.

"Oh, yes; I'm better."

"You'll get well soon, won't you?"

"Oh, yes; I shall be well soon," she said, looking at him with that beautiful bright smile.

His heart sank as he looked. The smile was so strangely sweet – and all this quiet, this stillness, this mystery! She was being separated from him by impalpable shadowy forces that could not be battled with or defied. In his heart a warning voice seemed to say that just so quietly she might fade from his sight – pass away, and be forever gone. The thought struck cold to his heart, and he uttered an involuntary groan.

His wife opened her eyes, moved slightly, and seemed as if she would speak, but Mis' Persis put her hand authoritatively over her mouth. "Don't you say a word," said she.

Then turning with concentrated energy on Zeph, she backed him out of the room and shut the door upon him and herself in the entry before she trusted herself to speak. When she did, it was as one having authority.

"Zephaniah Higgins," she said, "air you crazy? Do you want to kill your wife? Ef ye come round her that way and git her a-talkin' she'll bleed from her lungs agin, and that'll finish her. You've jest got to shet up and submit to the Lord, Zephaniah Higgins, and that's what you hain't never done yit; you've got to know that the Lord is goin' to do his sovereign will and pleasure with your wife, and you've got to be still. That's all. You can't do nothin'. We shall all do the best we can; but you've jest got to wait the Lord's time and pleasure."

So saying, she went back into the sick-room and closed the door, leaving Zeph standing desolate in the entry.

Zeph, like most church members of his day, had been trained in theology, and had often expressed his firm belief in what was in those days spoken of as the "doctrine of divine sovereignty."

A man's idea of his God is often a reflection of his own nature. The image of an absolute monarch, who could and would always do exactly as he pleased, giving no account to any one of his doings, suited Zeph perfectly as an abstract conception; but when this resistless awful Power was coming right across his path, the doctrine assumed quite another form.

The curt statement made by Mis' Persis had struck him with a sudden terror, as if a flash of lightning had revealed an abyss opening under his feet. That he was utterly helpless in his Sovereign's hands he saw plainly; but his own will rose in rebellion – a rebellion useless and miserable.

His voice trembled that night as he went through the familiar words of the evening prayer; a rush of choking emotions almost stopped his utterance, and the old words, worn smooth with use, seemed to have no relation to the turbulent tempest of feeling that was raging in his heart.

After prayers he threw down the Bible with an impatient bang, bolted for his room and shut himself in alone.

"Poor Father! he takes it hard," said Nabby, wiping her eyes.

"He takes everything hard," said Abner. "I don't know how we'll get along with him, now Mother isn't round."

"Well, let's hope Mother's goin' to get well," said Nabby. "I can't – I ain't goin' to think anything else."

CHAPTER XXV.

DOLLY BECOMES ILLUSTRIOUS

At the Parsonage the illness in Zeph's household brought social revolution.

The whole burden of family ministration, which had rested on Nabby's young and comely shoulders, fell with a sudden weight upon those of Mrs. Cushing. This was all the more unfortunate because the same exigency absorbed the services of Mis' Persis, who otherwise might have been relied on to fill the gap.

But now was Dolly's hour for feeling her own importance and assuming womanly cares. She rushed to the front with enthusiasm and attacked every branch of domestic service, with a zeal not always according to knowledge but making her on the whole quite an efficient assistance. She washed and wiped dishes, and cleared, and cleaned, and dusted, and set away, as she had seen Nabby do; she propped herself on a stool at the ironing-table and plied the irons vigorously; and, resenting the suggestion that she should confine herself to towels and napkins, struck out boldly upon the boys' shirts and other complicated tasks, burning her fingers and heating her face in the determination to show her prowess and ability.

"Dolly is really quite a little woman," she overheard her mother saying to her father; and her bosom swelled with conscious pride and she worked all the faster.

"Now, you boys must be very careful not to make any more trouble than you can help," she said with an air of dignity as Will and Bob burst into the kitchen and surprised her at the ironing-table. "Nabby is gone, and there is nobody to do the work but me."

"Upon my word, Mrs. Puss!" said Will, stopping short and regarding the little figure with a serio-comic air. "How long since you've been so grand? How tall we're getting in our own eyes – oh my!" and Will seized her off the ironing stool and, perching her on his shoulder, danced round the table with her in spite of her indignant protests.

Dolly resented this invasion of her dignity with all her little might, and the confusion called her mother down out of the chamber where she had been at work.

"Boys, I'm astonished at you," said she. Now Mrs. Cushing had been "astonished" at these same boys for about thirteen or fourteen years, so that the sensation could not be quite overpowering at this time.

"Well, Mother," said Will, with brisk assurance, setting Dolly down on her stool, "I was only giving Dolly a ride," and he looked up in her face with the confident smile that generally covered all his sins, and brought out an answering smile on the face of his mother.

"Come now, boys," she said, "Nabby has gone home; you must be good, considerate children, make as little trouble as possible and be all the help you can."

"But, Mother, Dolly was taking such grown-up airs, as if she was our mother. I had just to give her a lesson, to show her who she was."

"Dolly is a good, helpful little girl, and I don't know what I should do without her," said Mrs. Cushing; "she does act like a grown-up woman, and I am glad of it."

Dolly's face flushed with delight; she felt that at last she had reached the summit of her ambition: she was properly appreciated!

"And you boys," continued Mrs. Cushing, "must act like grown-up men, and be considerate and helpful."

"All right, Mother; only give the orders. Bob and I can make the fires, and bring in the wood, and fill the tea-kettle, and do lots of things." And, to do the boys justice, they did do their best to lighten the domestic labors of this interregnum.

The exigency would have been far less serious were it not that the minister's house in those days was a sort of authorized hotel, not only for the ministerial brotherhood but for all even remotely connected with the same, and all that miscellaneous drift-wood of hospitality that the eddies of life cast ashore. The minister's table was always a nicely-kept one; the Parsonage was a place where it was pleasant to abide; and so the guest-chamber of the Parsonage was seldom empty. In fact, this very week a certain Brother Waring, an ex-minister from East Poganuc, who wanted to consult the Poganuc Doctor, came, unannounced, with his wife and trunk, and they settled themselves comfortably down.

Such inflictions were in those days received in the literal spirit of the primitive command to "use hospitality without grudging;" but when a week had passed and news came that Mrs. Higgins was going down to the grave in quick consumption, and that Nabby would be wanted at home for an indefinite period, it became necessary to find some one to fill her place at the Parsonage, and Hiel Jones's mother accepted the position temporarily – considering her services in the minister's family as a sort of watch upon the walls of Zion. Not that she was by any means insensible to the opportunity of receiving worldly wages; but she wished it explicitly understood that she was not going out to service. She was "helpin' Mis' Cushing." The help, however, was greatly balanced in this case by certain attendant hindrances such as seem inseparable from the whole class of "lady helps."

Mrs. Jones had indeed a very satisfactory capability in all domestic processes; her bread was of the whitest and finest, her culinary skill above mediocrity, and she was an accomplished laundress. But so much were her spirits affected by the construction that might possibly be put on her position in the family that she required soothing attentions and expressions of satisfaction and confidence every hour of the day to keep her at all comfortable. She had stipulated expressly to be received at the family table, and, further than this, to be brought into the room and introduced to all callers; and, this being done, demeaned herself in a manner so generally abused and melancholy that poor Mrs. Cushing could not but feel that the burden which had been taken off from her muscles had been thrown with double weight upon her nerves.

After a call of any of the "town-hill" aristocracy, Mrs. Jones would be sure to be found weeping in secret places, because 'Mrs. Colonel Davenport had looked down on her,' or the Governor's lady 'didn't speak to her,' and she 'should like to know what such proud folks was goin' to do when they got to heaven!' Then there was always an implication that if ministers only did their duty all these distinctions of rank would cease, and everybody be just as good as everybody else. The poor body had never even dreamed of a kingdom of heaven where the Highest was "as him that serveth;" and what with Mrs. Jones's moans, and her tears, and her frequent sick headaches, accompanied by abundant use of camphor, Mrs. Cushing, in some desperate moments, felt as if she would rather die doing her own work than wear herself out in the task of conciliating a substitute.