The Measure of a Man Part 35

"You may safely do so, mother. How is Lucy?" "Quite well, and the new baby is the finest little fellow I ever saw. Harry says they are going to call him John. Harry is very fond of thee."

"To be sure he is and I am fond of him. I wonder how they manage for cash? Do you think they need it? Have they asked you for any?"

"Not a farthing. Lucy makes the income meet the outgo. The farm feeds the family and Harry earns more than a little out of the music and song G.o.d put into him."

"A deal depends on a man's wife, mother."

"Everything depends on her. A man must ask his wife whether he is to do well with his life or make a failure of it. What wilt thou do with thyself while Jane is in London?"

"I am going to stay with you mostly, mother. There will be painters and paperers and cleaners in my home and a lot of dirt and confusion."

"Where is thy economy now, John?"

"When G.o.d turns again and blesses Hatton, He will come with both hands full. The mill is in beautiful order, ready for work at any moment. I will make clean and fair my dwelling; then a blessing may light on both places."

It was in this spirit he worked and as the days lengthened his hopes and prospects strengthened and there was soon so much to do that he could not afford the time for uncalled anxiety. He was quickly set at rest about his wife and daughter. Jane wrote that they had received a most affectionate welcome and that Martha had conquered her uncle and aunt's household.

Uncle is not happy, if Martha is out of sight [she wrote] and Aunt is always planning some new pleasure for her. And, John, Uncle is never tired of praising your pluck and humanity. He says he wishes the Almighty had given him such an opportunity; he thinks he would have done just as you have done. It was a little strange that Uncle met a great Manchester banker the other day, and while they were talking of the trouble, now so nearly over, this man said, "Gentlemen, a great many of us have done well, but there is a cotton-spinner in the Yorks.h.i.+re wolds that has excelled us all--one John Hatton. He mortgaged and sold all he had and kept his looms going till the war was practically over. His people have not been idle two months. What do you think of that?"

Some man answered, he did not think it was extraordinary, for John Hatton of Hatton-Elmete was of the finest blood in England. He could not help doing the grand thing if it was there to be done.

And then another man took it up and said your blood and family had nothing to do with your conduct. Many poor spinners would have done as you did, if they had been your equals in money. Then the first speaker answered, "We can do without any of your 'equality' talk, Sam Thorpe. What the cream is, the cheese is. Chut! Where's your equality now?" Uncle told me much more but that is enough of praise for you, at once. Martha and I are very happy, and if all the news we hear is true, I expect you to be living by the factory bell when we get home. Dear, good John, we love you and think of you and talk of you all the day long.

JANE.

Jane's letters came constantly and they gave to this period of getting ready for work again a sense of great elation. If a man only pa.s.sed John on the hill or in the corridors of the mill during these days, he caught spirit and energy and hope from his up-head and happy face and firm step. At the beginning of May the poor women had commenced with woeful hearts to clean their denuded houses, and make them as homelike as they could; and before May was half over, peace was won and there were hundreds of cotton s.h.i.+ps upon the Atlantic.

John's finished goods were all now in Manchester warehouses, and Greenwood was watching the arrival of cotton and its prices in Liverpool. John had very little money--none in fact that he could use for cotton, but he confidently expected it, though ignorant of any certain cause for expectation.

As he was eating dinner with his mother one day, she said, "Whatever have you sent Greenwood to Liverpool for?"

"To buy any cotton he can."

"But you have no money."

"Simpson and Hager paid me at once for the calicoes I sent them. I shall be getting money every day now."

"Enough?"

"I shall have enough--some way or other--no fear."

"I'll tell you what, John. I can lend you twenty thousand pounds. I'll be glad to do it."

"O mother! Mother! That will be very salvation to me. How good you are!

How good you are!" and there was a tone in John's voice that was perhaps entirely fresh and new. It went straight to his mother's heart, and she continued, "I'll give you a check in the morning, John. You are varry, varry welcome, my dear lad."

"How can you spare me so much?"

"Well, I've been saving a bit here and there and now and then for thirty years, and with interest coming and coming, a little soon counts up.

Why, John, I must have been saving for this very strait all these years.

Now, the silent money will talk and the idle money roll here and there, making more. That is what money is cut round for--I expect."

"Mother, this is one of the happiest hours in my life. I was carrying a big burden of anxiety."

"Thou need not have carried it an hour; thou might hev known that G.o.d and thy mother would be sufficient."

The next morning John went down the hill with a check for twenty thousand pounds in his pocket and a prayer of rest in his heart and a bubbling song on his lips. And all my readers must have noticed that good fortune as well as misfortune has a way of coming in company. There is a tendency in both to pour if they rain, and that day John had another large remittance from a Manchester house and the second mail brought him a letter which was as great a surprise as his mother's loan.

It was from Lord Harlow and read as follows:

JOHN HATTON, MY GOOD FRIEND,

I must write you about three things that call for recognition from me. The first is that I am forever your debtor for the fresh delightful company of your little daughter. I have become a new man in her company. She has lifted a great burden from my heart and taught me many things. In my case it has been out of the mouths of babes I have heard wisdom. My second reason for grat.i.tude to you is the n.o.ble and humane manner in which you have taken the loss and privations this war entailed. The name of Hatton has been thrice honored by your bearing of it and I count my niece the most fortunate of women to be your wife. She and Martha have in a large measure helped to console me for the loss of my dear son. The third call for recognition is, that I owe you some tangible proof of my grat.i.tude. Now I have a little money lying idle or nearly so, and if you can spend it in buying cotton, I do not know of any better use it can be put to. I am sending in this a check on Coutts' Bank for ten thousand pounds. If it will help you a little, you will do me a great favor by setting poor men and women to work with it. I heard dear little Martha reading her Bible lesson to her mother this morning. It was about the man who folded his talent in a napkin and did nothing with it. Take my offer, John, and help me to put my money to use, so that the Master may receive His own with usury, when he calls for it.

Yours in heart and soul, HARLOW.

John answered this letter in person. He ran down to London by a night train and spent a day with Jane and Martha and his uncle and aunt. It was such a happy day that it would hardly have been possible to have duplicated it, and John was wise to carry it back to Hatton untouched by thought or word, by look or act which could in any way shadow its perfection. He had longed to take his wife and child back to Hatton with him, but Lady Trelawney was to give a children's May garden-party on the eighteenth of May and Martha had been chosen queen of the May, and when her father saw her in the dress prepared for the occasion and witnessed her enthusiasm about the ceremony and the crowning of herself queen, he put down all his personal desires and gave a ready consent to her stay in London until the pageant was over. Then Jane dressed her in the lace and satin of her coronation robe, with its spangled train of tulle, put on her bright brown hair the little crown of s.h.i.+ning gilt and mock jewels, put in her hand the childish scepter and brought her into the drawing-room and bade all make obeisance to her. And the child played her part with such a sweet and n.o.ble seriousness that everyone present wondered at her dignity and grace, and John's eyes were full as his heart and the words were yet unknown to human tongues that could express his deep love and emotion. Perhaps Lord Harlow made the best and truest of commentaries when he said,

"My dear friends, let us be thankful that we have yet hearts so childlike as to be capable of enjoying this simple pleasure; for we are told that unless we become as little children, we are not fit for the kingdom of heaven."

The next day soon after noon John was in his factory, but the image of his child still lived in his eyes. His vision was everywhere obstructed by looms and belts and swirling bands, but in front of them there was a silvery light and in its soft glow he saw--he saw clearly--the image of the lovely May Queen in her glimmering dress of s.h.i.+ning white with the little gilt crown on her long brown hair. Nor could he dismiss this phantom until he went up to Hatton Hall and described her fairy Majesty to his mother.

"And when are they coming home, John?" asked Mrs. Hatton. "Jane's house is as fine as if it was new and Martha's governess is wearying for her.

Martha ought to be at her lessons now. Her holiday is over by all rights."

"The festival will be on the twenty-eighth, and they will come on the thirtieth if the weather be fine."

"What has the weather to do with it?"

"Well, Jane does not like to travel in wet weather. It drabbles her skirts and depresses her spirits--always."

"Dear me! It is a pity she can't order the weather she prefers. I was taught when a year or two younger than Martha six lines that my mother bid me remember as long as I lived. I have not forgot to mind them yet."

"Why didn't you teach them to me?"

"You never feared rain--quite the other way."

"Tell them to me now, mother. It is your duty, you know," and John laughed and bent forward and took in his large brown hand the plump, small, white one she put out to meet his.

"Well then, listen John, and see thou mind them:

"The rain has spoiled the farmer's day, Shall weather put my work away?

Thereby are two days lost.

Nature shall mind her own affairs, I will attend my proper cares, In rain or sun or frost."

And the days went busily forward and John though he counted off day by day was happy. Every loom he had was busy overtime. His manufactured goods, woven in such stress and sorrow, were selling well, his cotton sheds were filling rapidly. Men and women were beginning to sing at their work again, for as one result of the day John spent with Harlow, his lords.h.i.+p had opened a plain, good, and very cheap furniture store, where the workers in cotton factories could renew on easy installments the furniture they had sold for a mouthful of bread. It was known only as "The Hatton Furniture Store" and John Hatton, while denying any share in its business, stood as guarantee for its honesty, and no one was afraid to open an account there. It really seemed as if Hatton village had never before been so busy, so hopeful, and so full of life. The factory bell had never sounded so cheerful. The various societies and civic brotherhood meetings never had been so crowded and so cordial. Old quarrels and grudges had died out and had been forgotten forever while men and women broke their last crust of bread together or perhaps clemmed themselves to help feed the children of the very man that had wronged them. Consequent on these pleasant surroundings, Hatton Chapel was crowded, the singing-pew held the finest voices in the countryside, and there was such a renewal of religious interest that Greenwood chose the most jubilant hymn tunes he could find in all Methodist Psalmody.

Then suddenly in spite of all these pleasant happenings strange misgivings began to mix with John's days and cross and darken his hours of rest. Every morning he got his London letter, always full of love and satisfactions, yet uncalled-for and very unlikely apprehensions came into his thoughts and had power to shake his soul as they pa.s.sed. He was angry at himself. He called himself ungrateful to G.o.d who had so wonderfully helped him. He prayed earnestly for a thankful, joyful spirit, and he a.s.sumed the virtue of cheerfulness though he was far from feeling it. But he said nothing of this delusive temper to his mother.

He was in reality ashamed of his depression, for he knew