The Harvest of Years Part 36

It was a cold day in December, 1856, when we were startled to see Jane coming over the hill in such a hurried way that we feared something was the matter with the children. These children were dear to me. Hal and Mary had a beautiful boy two and a half years old, but no bud had as yet nestled against my heart.

I met her at the gate and asked, "What's the matter with the children?"

"Go into the house, Emily _De_-mond, 'taint the children, it's me." She wanted us all to sit down together.

"Oh! dear, dear me, what can I do? I'm out of my head almost."

We gathered together in the middle room, and waited for her to tell us, but she sat rocking, as if her life depended on it, full five minutes before she could speak--it seemed an hour to me--finally she screamed out:

"He's come back!"

"Whom do you mean?" I cried, while mother and Aunt Hildy exchanged glances.

"He came last night; he's over to the Home, Miss Patten, d'ye hear?"

"Jane," said Aunt Hildy in a voice that sounded so far away it frightened me, "do you mean Daniel?"

"Yes, yes; he's come back, and he wants me to forgive him, and I must tell it, he wants me to marry him. I sat up all night talkin' and thinkin' what I can do."

"Jane," said Aunt Hildy, in that same strange voice, "has he got any news?"

"Both of 'em dead. Oh, Miss Patten, you'll die, I know you'll die!"

"No, I shan't. I died when they went away."

"What can I do, Miss Patten? Oh, some of you _do_ speak! Mis' _De_-mond, you tell; you are allus right."

Clara crossed the room, and kneeling on the carpet before her, said:

"My dear soul, is it the one you told me of?"

"Yes, yes," said Jane, "the very one; gall and worm-wood I drank, and all for him; he ran away and--"

"Yes," added Aunt Hildy, "tell it all. Silas and our boy went with him, father and son, and Satan led 'em all."

"Has he suffered much?" said Clara.

"Oh, yes, marm, but he says he can't live without me! He hain't never been married; I'm fifty-four, and he's the same age."

"Jane," said Clara, "I guess it will be all right; let him stay with you."

"How it looks," interrupted Jane; "they'll all know him."

"Never mind. The Home is a sort of public inst.i.tution now; let him stay, and in three weeks I'll tell you all about it."

"Get right up off this floor, you angel woman, and lemme set on the sofy with you," said Jane.

Louis and I left the room, and after an hour or so Jane went over the hill, and Aunt Hildy stepped as firmly as before she came. Poor Aunt Hildy, this was the sorrow she had borne. I was glad she knew they were dead, for uncertainty is harder to bear than certainty. I wondered how it came that I should never have known and dimly remembered something about some one's going away strangely, when I was a little girl. My mother had, like all Aunt Hildy's friends, kept her sorrow secret, and she told me it was a rare occurrence for Aunt Hildy to mention it even to her, whom she had always considered her best friend.

If Jane had not herself been interested, it would have leaked out probably, but these two women, differing so strangely from each other, had held their secrets close to their hearts, and for twenty-five long years had nightly prayed for the wanderers.

Aunt Hildy's husband was a strange man; their boy inherited his father's peculiarities, and when he went away with him was only sixteen years of age.

Daniel Turner was twenty-nine, and the opinion prevailed that he left home because he was unwilling to marry Jane, although they had been for several years engaged, and she had worked hard to get all things ready for housekeeping. He was not a bad-looking man, and evidently possessed considerable strength.

Clara managed it all nicely, and when the three weeks' probation ended, they were quietly married at Mr. Davis', and Mr. Turner went to work on the farm which Jane had for many years let out on shares. He worked well through the rest of the winter, and the early spring found him busy doing all that needed to be done.

He was interested in our scheme, and felt just pride in the belongings of the Home, which was really settling into a permanency. We sometimes had letters of interrogation and of encouragement as well, from those who, hearing of us, were interested.

Louis often said the day would come when many inst.i.tutions of this kind would be established, for the object was a worthy one, and no great need can cry out and not finally be heard, even though the years may multiply ere the answer comes.

"Changes on every hand," said Mr. Davis, "and now that the pulpit has come down nearer to the people, and I can send my thoughts directly into their hearts, instead of over their heads, as I have been so often forced to do, we may hope that the chain of our love will weld us together as a unit in strength and feeling. I almost wish our town could be called New Light, for it seems to me the world looks new as it lies about us. The lantern of love, we know, is newly and well trimmed, and I feel its light can never die; it may give place to one which is larger, and whose rays can be felt further, but it can never die. I really begin to believe there is no such thing as death. I dislike the word, for it only signifies decay. I call it change, and that seems nearer right."

"So it is, Mr. Davis," said Clara, as he talked earnestly with us of his interest in the children and the people about us, "for, even as children are gradually changing into men and women, so shall our expanding lives forever climb to reach the stature of our angelhood, which must come to us when we let the perishable garments fall, and the mortal puts on its immortality. If we all could only see that our Father will help us to shape these garments even here; could we know that st.i.tches daily taken in the garment that our soul desires are necessary that it may be ready for us when we enter there,--how great would be the blessing! This would relieve death of its clinging fears, and our exit from earth and entrance to the waiting city would be made as a pleasant journey.

"Louis, dear boy, feels all this, and if the cold hearts of speculative men could be warmed and softened into an unfolding life, he would not constantly do battle with the wrong; but truth is mightier than error.

G.o.d's love must at last be felt, and when the delay is over, how many hearts, now deaf to his entreaties, will say with one accord, 'we are sorry, if we could live our days over, we would help you!'"

Louis did do battle, that is true; he paid due respect to people of all cla.s.ses, but fearlessly and trustfully he dealt, both by word and practice, vigorous blows against all enslaving systems. He said to us sometimes, that when he went to the mill--as he constantly did, working until every one of the twenty boys to whom he promised liberty, found it--he came in contact with three different conditions; he cla.s.sified them as mind, heart and soul. "When I talk to them," he said, "or if I go there on my mission and speak no words, I hear their souls say 'he is right and we are wrong;' I hear the earthly hearts whisper hoa.r.s.ely, 'curse the plans of that fellow, he is in our way;' and the worldly policy of the mind steps forth upon the balcony of the brain and says, 'treat him well, it is the best policy to pursue, for he has money.'

Yes, my Emily, I thank G.o.d for the fortune my father left me, hidden in the silver service. It shall all be used. You and I will use it all. And was the bequest not typical, its very language being 'a fortune in thy service, oh, my father!'"

"I never thought of this; how wonderful you are, Louis," I said.

"And you, my Emily, my companion, may our work be the nucleus around which shall gather the work of ages yet to be, for it takes an age, you know, to do the work of a year--almost of a day."

Our lives ran on like a strong full tide, and all our s.h.i.+ps were borne smoothly along for four full years. An addition had been made to Jane's house, and her husband proved loyal and true, so good and kind and earnest in his work that Aunt Hildy said:

"I have forgotten to remember his dark days, and I really don't believe he'd ever have cut up so ef Silas had let him alone."

Good Mrs. Davis had sought rest and found it, and a widowed niece came as house-keeper. John Jones was growing able to do the work he promised the girls and boys down South, and lectured in the towns around us, telling his own story with remarkable eloquence for one who had no early advantages. He was naturally an orator, and only needed a habit of speaking to make apparent his exceptional mental capacity. Aunt Hildy was not as strong when 1860 dawned upon us, and she said on New Year's evening, which with us was always devoted to a sort of recalling of the past:

"Don't believe I'll be here when sixty-one comes marchin' in."

Clara looked at her with a strange light in her eyes, and said:

"Dear Aunt Hildy, wait for me, please; I'd like to go just when you do."

It was the nineteenth day of April this year, when an answer to a prayer was heard, and a little wailing sound caused my heart to leap in grat.i.tude and love. A little dark-eyed daughter came to us, and Louis and I were father and mother. She had full dark eyes like his, Clara's mouth, and a little round head that I knew would be covered with sunny curls, because this would make her the picture I had so longed to see.

"Darling baby-girl, why did you linger so long? We have waited till our hope had well-nigh vanished," and the dark eyes turned on me for an answer, which my heart read, "It is well."

Louis named her "Emily Minot Desmonde." It was his wish, and while, as I thought, it ill suited the little fairy, I only said:

"May she never be called 'Emily did it.'"

"May that be ever her name," said Louis, "for have you not yourself done that of which she will be always proud, and when we are gone will they who are left not say of you, 'Emily did it'?

"Ah! my darling, you have lost and won your t.i.tle, and it comes back shaped and gilded anew, for scores of childish lips have echoed it, and 'Emily did it' is written in the indelible ink of the great charity which has given them shelter."