The Land of Long Ago Part 10

"Oh! Then why in the world didn't she tell him so?" I exclaimed.

The bodies of my lovers were dust and their souls with the saints these many years, but Aunt Jane had called from the dead "each frustrate ghost"; the pathos of her tale thrilled me sharply and I could not stay my cry of regret over "The counter these lovers staked"--and lost.

Aunt Jane turned toward me and looked over her gla.s.ses with frank astonishment in her clear old eyes. More than once had I shocked her with sentiments discordant with her own ideals of life and conduct, but never so severely as now. She delayed her reply as if to give me a gracious opportunity to recall my unseemly words. Then--

"Child," she said, in a low voice, "you know such a thing wouldn't be fittin' for a young gyirl to do. Why that'd be pretty near as bad as Miss Dorothy askin' the doctor to marry her. No matter how much a woman loves a man, she's got to sit still and wait till he asks her to marry him, and if he never asks her, why, all she can do is to marry somebody else or stay an old maid. With the raisin' you've had, I oughtn't to have to tell you that."

"Oh! Of course!" I hastily a.s.sented. "A woman can't ask a man to marry her. But isn't it sad to see people losing their happiness in this way?"

"Now, that's the curious part of it, child," said Aunt Jane. "It's mighty mournful while I'm tellin' it, but if you'd known the doctor and Miss Dorothy, you never would 'a' thought they were losin'

anything. At first, you must ricollect, they had hopes to keep their spirits up, and as long as you've got hope, child, you've got everything. Of course there must 'a' come a time when they stopped hopin', and I reckon that was when their hair begun to turn gray and their eyesight failed. It's a time that comes to all of us, honey, and when it does come, we generally find that we've got grace to give up the things we've been wantin' so long; and that's the way it was with Miss Dorothy and the doctor. To see them two, after they'd pa.s.sed their youth, walkin' together and ridin' together and comin' into church and settin' side by side in the same pew, singin' out o' the same hymn book,--why it was the prettiest sight in the world. Mighty few old married couples ever looked as happy as Miss Dorothy and the doctor, old maid and old bachelor as they were.

"Plenty of folks, though, thought jest as you do, and Mother was one of 'em. She never had any patience with the way Dr. Pendleton and Miss Dorothy behaved about marryin'. Says she, 'You put an old married woman and an old maid together, and you can't tell which is which. A woman's got to lose her good looks and her health whether she marries or not, and while she's about it, she might as well lose 'em for her husband and her children instead o' stayin' single and dryin' up all for nothin'.' They said Judge Elrod undertook to reason with the doctor once about the folly of two people stayin' single when they loved each other. He p'inted out to him that Miss Dorothy was gittin'

on in years, and that a woman ought to be willin' to put up with a few hards.h.i.+ps if she loved a man. And the doctor, he listened, and shook his head and says he, 'Yes, she's fading, fading, but--G.o.d be thanked!--it's no fault of mine. The hand of time has touched her; her pretty curls are turning gray and the pretty color's leaving her cheek; but her hands are as soft and white as they were when I put my ring on her finger. She's never known a hards.h.i.+p or carried a burden.

She'll go to her grave like a rose that's touched by the frost, and I can bear to be parted from her that way. But if I'd put a hards.h.i.+p or a burden on her and she'd died under it, I'd never be able to look my own soul in the face.'

"That's the way he looked at it, and nothin' could ever make him change his mind. I reckon the doctor's way o' lovin' was somethin'

like Hamilton Schuyler's."

With these words Aunt Jane closed the treasure-chest of memory and walked briskly away to look after the welfare of the tulips and hyacinths.

A little story of a great love! And as I pondered it, the country doctor became a knight of a finer chivalry than that which once stirred the blood under a coat of mail, or guided a lance-thrust to an enemy's heart. In every man's soul there is a field of valor, lonely, perhaps unknown; and he is the true knight who enters the lists against himself and strikes down every impulse of man's nature that would harm the woman he loves. And how rich the guerdon of such a victory, and the recompense of the beloved one for whose sake he strives and conquers!

The pitying world looks on and measures the unwed lovers' loss, but who can measure their gain? Theirs is the bliss which Psyche had before she lit the fatal lamp. They hold forever in their hearts "the consecration and the poet's dream"; and, undimmed by disillusionment, the mirage of youthful love hovers over each solitary path, lighting the twilight of age, the night of death and melting at last into the dawn of heaven's unending day.

VII

THE REFORMATION OF SAM AMOS

[Ill.u.s.tration]

VII

THE REFORMATION OF SAM AMOS

All day the land had lain dreamily under an enchantment soon to be broken by the rude counter-spells of the coming winter.

A frost so light that it was hardly more than a cold dew had rested that morning on the early chrysanthemums and late roses; but the wind that shook the leaves from the crimson maples was a south wind; the midday sun held the tropic warmth of August, and over the brightening hills lay a tender, purple haze. Summer was dead, but its gentle ghost had come back to the earth, and it was Indian summer, the season that has no name or place in any calendar but the poet's. The sun had set, and the mist that veiled the horizon had caught its last rays, holding the light lingeringly, fondly, in its folds and spreading it far to the north and south in a soft splendor of color that no other season can show. Not pink, not crimson, but such a color as an artist might make if he crushed together on his palette the rose of summer and the leaf of autumn. The chill of the coming night was in the air, but still we lingered at the gate, Aunt Jane and I, with our faces toward the west.

"I wonder how many folks are watchin' this sunset," she remarked at last. "Old Job Matthews, after he got converted at the big revival back yonder in the thirties, used to look for the second comin' of the Lord, and every sunset and sunrise he'd stand and look at the sky and say, 'Maybe the King of Glory is at hand.' Once the old man declared he saw a chariot in the clouds, and it does look like, child, that somethin' ought to happen after a sight like this, or else it ain't worth while to git it up jest for a few people like you and me to look at."

As she spoke there was a quick, sharp clang of hoofs on the macadamized road, and a horse and rider pa.s.sed in the twilight. The clean, even gait of the horse and the outlines of its head showed it to be of n.o.ble blood; and as it trotted past with an air of proud alertness, we could see that the dumb animal realized the double share of responsibility laid upon it. For the hand that held the bridle was limp and nerveless, the rider's head was sunk on his breast, and the brain of the man that should have guided the brain of the horse was locked in a poison-stupor.

Long and wistfully Aunt Jane gazed after the horse and its rider, and the gathering darkness could not hide the divine sorrow and pity that looked out from her aged eyes. Sighing heavily she turned from the gate, and we went back to the shadowy room where the "unlit lamp" and the unkindled fire lay ready for the evening hours.

The fireplace was filled with brush cleared that day from the flower-beds, dry stems that had borne the verdure and bloom of a spring and now lay on their funeral pyre, ready to be translated, as by a chariot of fire, into the elemental air and earth from whence they had sprung.

Aunt Jane struck a match under the old mantel and, stooping, touched the dead ma.s.s with the finger of flame.

Ah! the first fires of autumn! There is more than light and more than heat in their radiance. But as I watched the flames leap with exultant roar into the gloom of the old chimney, my heart was with the lonely man homeward bound, his sorrowful, helpless figure a silhouette against the sunset sky, and Aunt Jane, too, looked with absent eyes at the fire she had just kindled.

"Yes, child," she said, answering my thought, "it's a sad, sad sight; I've watched it for a lifetime and I'm clean tired of it,--seein' 'em go out in the mornin' straight and strong and handsome as a Kentucky man ought to be, and comin' home at night with hardly strength enough to handle their reins, and less sense than the horse that's carryin'

'em. I trust that man'll reach home safe, for somewhere up the road there's a woman waitin' for him. She's cooked a hot supper for him and the biscuits are in the pan, and she's put the coffee on the back o'

the stove to keep it from boilin' too long, and the meat's in the dish in front o' the stove, and she's lookin' out o' the window and goin' to the gate every few minutes, strainin' her eyes and her ears lookin' down the road and listenin' for the sound of a horse's feet.

And maybe there's a baby asleep in the cradle, and another child waitin' for Father; and when he comes, the child'll run from him, and his wife'll cry her eyes out, and n.o.body in that house'll feel like eatin' any supper to-night. Well, may the Lord give that woman grace to be as patient with her husband as Milly Amos was with Sam, and maybe she'll reap the same reward."

"Was Sam Amos a drunkard?" I asked in surprise.

"Well, no," said Aunt Jane, judicially, "Sam wasn't, to say, a drunkard. A drunkard, according to my notion, is a man that's born with whiskey in his veins. He's elected and predestined to drink, you might say, and he ain't to be blamed when he does drink. Sam wasn't that sort of a man; but once in his life it looked mightily like he was goin' to be a drunkard. Sam come of a sober family, and there wasn't any manner of reason for him to take to drink, but Dr.

Pendleton used to say there was a wild streak in nearly every person, and sooner or later it was bound to break out in one way or another.

It was the wild streak in Brother Wilson, I reckon, that sent him into the army before he went to preachin', and the same wild streak put it into Sam's mind to drink whiskey, when his father and grandfather never touched it. How it started I don't know, but I reckon the coffee house must 'a' been the beginnin' of it. I can ricollect well the time when that was opened in town. They had a sort of a debatin' society in that day,--Lyceum, they called it, but Sam Amos called it the Jawin'

Club. Dr. Brigham and Judge Grace and Judge Elrod and Colonel Walker and all the big men o' the town belonged to it, and they used to meet in the doctor's office and argue about everything that was done in the town or the State. One question they had up was whether the Whigs or the Democrats had the best party, and they argued till pretty near one o'clock in the mornin', and the meetin' come mighty near breakin' up in a fight. Well, when the coffee-house got its license they had a debate about that, and Dr. Brigham, he was in favor of the license, he got up to make a speech, and, says he, 'What would this State be without whiskey?' And Judge Grace, he was against it,--he jumped up and shook his fist at the doctor and says he, 'A heap more peaceable place than it is with it.' And that made the doctor mad, but he went on like he hadn't heard it. Says he, 'You jest shut your eyes and say the word "Kentucky," and what'll you see? Why, you'll see a gla.s.s o'

toddy or a mint julep, and a pretty woman smilin' over 'em,'--and Judge Grace he hollers out, 'No, you won't! No, you won't! You may see the toddy and the julep and the woman, but the woman won't be smilin'; she'll be cryin' her eyes out over the stuff that makes a brute of her husband and her son.' This made the doctor madder still, but he kept right on, and says he, 'Think of the poetry that's been written about wine and whiskey--

"'"Fill up, fill up The brimmin' cup"--

and all the rest o' the songs about drinkin'! And no wonder,' says he, 'for where'll you find a prettier sight than a clear gla.s.s tumbler with a sprig o' mint and a silver spoon in it and two or three lumps o' sugar dissolvin' in the julep?' And the Judge says, 'All right! All right! Keep your toddy and your julep in a gla.s.s tumbler and look at 'em and write poetry about 'em, and I won't say a word against 'em.

But,' says he, 'when they get inside of a man, where's your poetry then?' Says he, 'It'll take some mighty plain prose to fit that situation,' says he.

"Well, they had it up and down and back and forth, and finally their friends had to hold 'em to keep 'em from comin' to blows. But as I was sayin', that coffee house was the beginnin' of Sam Amos's troubles and Milly's. The coffee house was a sociable sort of a place, and Sam was a sociable sort of a man, and it was natural for him to go there and see his friends and talk with 'em, and the first thing we knew he was drinkin' with 'em; not much, but enough to unsettle his brain and make him talk wild and act foolish. And he went on followin' the same old beaten track that men 'a' been walkin' since the days of Noah. And at last he got to neglectin' his farm, and he'd go to town every week and come home in such a condition that it wasn't safe for Milly and the children to be in the same house with him. Folks used to say that the first drink made Sam a fool, and the second drink made him a devil, and the third drink put the fool and the devil to sleep.

"Sam was as smart a man as you'd find anywhere, and many a time I used to feel for Milly when he'd mortify her before company by sayin'

foolish things he never would 'a' said if he'd been in his right senses. I ricollect once she had a parlor full o' company and she was showin' an ambrotype of her brother David, and somebody pa.s.sed it to Sam and he took it and looked at it right hard, and says he, 'Shuh!

that don't look half as much like Dave as he looks like himself.' And another time, one county court day, me and Abram happened to be standin' on the corner in front o' the old drug store, and Sam come a staggerin' up and laid his hand on Abram's shoulder and looked him straight in the eye like he had somethin' mighty important to say, and says he, 'Uncle Abram, I want to tell you right here and now, and don't you ever forgit it; if there's anything I do despise it's one thing more'n another.' I don't believe Abram ever got through laughin'

at that. And if Sam had only stopped at the first gla.s.s that made a fool of him, his drinkin' would 'a' been a small matter. But the man that can stop at one gla.s.s don't live in Kentucky, child, and so Sam went from the first gla.s.s to the second and from the second to the third and from that to the gutter. And many a time the neighbors had to pick Sam up and bring him home, for betwixt the shame of seein' him in that condition and the danger of bein' with him, Milly had to stop goin' to town.

"I ricollect one county court day me and Abram happened to be pa.s.sin'

along in front o' the old Methodist Church, and Sam come walkin' out o' Jockey Alley leadin' his big bay mare--Jockey Alley, child, is the alley that runs from State Street clean back to the street leadin'

over to the old footbridge, and everybody that had a horse or a mule or a colt to swap, why, they'd go to that alley and do their swappin'

every county court day.

"Well, as I was sayin', Sam come along leadin' his bay mare. That mare was the pride of Sam's heart. He used to say there was more good blood in that bay mare of his than in any six families in the state o'

Kentucky. Sam was a mighty fine judge o' horse flesh, and he got his love for horses from his father and his grandfather, old Harrison Amos. The old man was one o' the biggest horse raisers in the state, and he made his thousands out of it, too. But folks that went to his farm used to say it was like huntin' a hen's nest to find the house where the family lived, the house was so little and there was so many big fine barns and stables. Somebody asked him once why he didn't build a better house for his children to live in, and the old man says, 'I believe in puttin' my money where I am certain of gettin'

good returns.' Says he, 'There's no manner of certainty in children.

You can put good blood into a boy and do your best to bring him up in the way he should go, and after all you've spent on him he'll lose every race he goes into, and you'll find you've got a scrub on your hands. But,' says he, 'you breed a horse right, and train him in his gaits whilst he's young, and there ain't one chance in a thousand of your losin' money on that horse. Of course,' says he, 'I think more of my boys than I do of my horses, but when it comes to investin' money, a man must be governed by his judgment and his common sense, not by his feelin's.'

"They said the old man went down to New Orleans one winter on some business and left his son Joe in charge o' the stock farm, and when he got back he went out to the stables, the first thing, to look at his horses, and when he got through, there was four of his thoroughbreds missin'. And, says he, 'Joe, where's May Queen?' and Joe says, 'Why, Father, she's dead; died right after you left.' And the old man said, 'Well, where's Dixie Gyirl,' and Joe says, 'Why, Father, I'm mighty sorry to have to tell you, but Dixie Gyirl, she's dead,--died pretty near the same time May Queen died.' And the old man says, 'Well, where's Annie Laurie and Nelly Gray?' And Joe says, 'Father, I'm mighty sorry, but they died just like Dixie Gyirl and May Queen.' And the old man looked at Joe for a minute, and says he, right slow and earnest, 'Well, Joe, why didn't you die, too?'