Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories Part 10

Here I'll die, n.o.body by.

Who'll cry?

Not I!

The bag'll be found, It's safe and sound.

There'll be no snow Where I shall go; There'll be no storm, It will be warm.

Good-night!

Good-night!"

It was good-night indeed for the poorhouse poet. In his pocket was found a worn sc.r.a.p of paper, on which was pencilled his simple creed:--

"The tickets buy For when we die, For where we go We fix below.

Death clears the track; We can't come back!

"Somehow, I guess, If we confess, And say, 'Forgive!'

Up there we'll live.

Conductors quail, And kings prevail.

When G.o.d has said, 'Alive or dead, I own that man,'

He save him can."

In Johanson there still was life. He had been found lying close to the dead poet, as if trying to share with him his little remaining vital warmth. The doctor, the pastor's wife, and Gull were soon doing all that was possible to call him back to life. In a few days he was almost well, for broken down though he was, he still had some of the vigour of his naturally strong const.i.tution.

The funeral was over. Johanson was apparently dozing, lying on his sofa, now in its form for the day; while Gull and the cellar-master were chatting together in low, whispering tones.

Gull, who had prepared the body of the poorhouse poet for interment, now talked over all the items of the expense with evident satisfaction, and concluded by saying, "It was a beautiful corpse. It really was a pleasure to lay him out, he looked so sweet and quiet when it was all done."

The cellar-master, who had been helped into a sleigh to attend, remarked that it was a charming funeral; he did not know when he had enjoyed himself so much as on the late occasion.

"What luck he had to come in for the bell!" said Gull; "he was just in the nick of time. It was really quite a grand funeral, with the three coffins--the baby and the old woman and our young man--and the mourners for all. The pastor did it beautiful too, and the bell sounded so solemn. It is, of course, another thing when the big bell is rung for some high body that is carried out. We may be thankful that we have the little bell rung once a week for poor folks' funerals in this parish; it is not so everywhere."

"It would seem more solemn to see the pastor in his black gloves if he didn't wear them always," said the cellar-master. "Why does he do it? I never happened to meet anybody that knew. He's still-like himself, and n.o.body likes to ask him questions. Some people say it is to make him look grand with fine folks, and to kind of put down them that have bare hands used to work."

"Don't you know about his hands?" asked Gull, with surprise. "I've known it so many years, it seems as if everybody must have heard that."

"I don't happen to have inquired into the matter," said the cellar-master, somewhat humiliated. "I have never been one to gossip."

"Why, I was there when it happened," broke out Gull, eager to tell her story to a new listener. "He was stable-boy when I was housemaid at the major's. My lady was sitting in the carriage one day, and Lars--we called him Lars then--was standing holding the horses. My lady had sent the coachman in for his cape, for it was getting cold--just like her.

The horses took fright at a travelling music-man who came along, and must begin just then to play. Off they started full run, dragging Lars, who hung on to the reins until they stopped. He'd have held on to those reins, I'm sure, till he died (what he began he always stuck to); and my lady sitting there in the carriage half scared to death. The fingers on his left hand were cut to the bones. They were long healing, and a sight to be seen then at the best. The right wasn't much better, dragged along the road as it had been. My lady always liked Lars after that. He had always been for reading; and when he took it into his head he wanted to be a priest, she helped him, and other folks helped him too. He changed his name, as poor fellows do when they go to Upsala. When my lady and the major were taken off so sudden with the fever, he kept on at his learning. He wouldn't have given up if he'd had to starve. But he didn't, for one way and another he got on. And then what a wife he picked up, and a little money with her too; not that it's enough to wipe out old scores. Those Upsala debts hang after him, as they have after many another. He's got them all in one hand now, they say, so that he hasn't to pay on them more than once a year, and that time is just coming on. You can see it in him as well as you can see in the west when there'll be snow next morning. He's rubbed through so far, but it sits heavy. I'm not in their kitchen for an odd bit of work now and then for nothing. I see what I see, and I hear what I hear. Beda is lonely like, and she's pleased to have somebody to talk out to. What if the pastor and his wife should find out who's who!" she continued, pointing over her shoulder at the supposed sleeper.

The cellar-master gave a stupid look at her mysterious face.

"That's the major's son over there," she whispered--"Alf, who ran off and never came back. I must tell somebody, if I should die for it. But you mustn't breathe it to a living soul."

"Not that beautiful young fellow! No, no; you don't make me believe that. Don't I remember him? This one isn't a bit like him--an ugly, worthless-looking old tramp. He was a wild chap, Alf. My wife used to tell me it was a shame to let him come there and drink--drink down a gla.s.s as if he couldn't swallow it quick enough, and then another, and then go out to the stable-boy, who was there to help him home. But that's not Alf. I'd know that handsome fellow anywhere among a million."

"But that _is_ Alf," she whispered. "When he was almost frozen to death, the doctor told me to open his breast and rub him well; and I did. But what did I find there, hanging on to a black string, but his mother's picture, in a little locket she gave him when he was a little fellow; and he was so fond of it then he would wear it outside his clothes, where everybody could see, he said. He's willing enough to hide it now; he don't want to shame such parents, and that's the only good thing I see about him. I found it out, and I know it; but I won't tell anybody but you."

"That's Alf! And I helped to make him so! My wife said I'd rue the day.

Now I do. It's very fine to be called 'cellar-master' when you sit fast in the poorhouse; but it's a bad business dragging people down. Think what Alf was and see what he is! I don't want to talk any more to-day.

You go, Gull. I've got something to think about."

Johanson, lost in his own thoughts, had not noticed the whispered conversation till his own name of the past was mentioned. After that, in bitter repentance he heard the galling words that penetrated his inmost soul. Now he understood Gull's new politeness to him, and the kindly willingness with which she saved him in his degradation, for his mother's sake. She could not treat him like a common tenant of the poorhouse, and he was sure she would keep his secret. With the cellar-master it might be a different thing. That his companions knew him was an added humiliation. He had deserved it all; but there was One who had called Himself the Friend of sinners, and that Friend had received even him, a poor prodigal who had returned to his Father's house.

CHAPTER VII.

A HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

The pastor had fallen into the pleasant habit of having his wife with him when he wrote his sermons. Alone in the morning he made his researches and his copious notes for his compilation. In the evening he talked over with his wife the subject in hand, before the work of writing really began. She found him one night, shortly before Christmas, sitting dolorously before his table covered with papers, while an unusual cloud overshadowed his face.

"I cannot even think how to begin, wife," he said; "my thoughts will run in quite another direction. I feel all the weight of the new year upon me. Those old debts of mine, that I can never hope to clear off, hang upon me like a hopeless weight. A few years less at Upsala, and a good deal less debt, would have been a far better preparation for such a parish as this."

The pastor's wife was not at all cast down by this sorrowful lament. It had long been a familiar strain to her. She answered cheerily,--

"You had nothing to do with the arrangements as to what you were to learn at Upsala, and how long you must be there. You worked hard, and denied yourself almost the necessaries of life, as you well know. Now you are here and at your higher mission, which _must_ be faithfully performed. So you will have to throw all these cares overboard. Just when we are to remember that 'G.o.d so loved the world,' we must not forget that He loves us still, every one of us. We here in this little parsonage are under His care, and He is not going to let us have burdens heavier than we can bear. We live simply enough; there is no faring 'sumptuously every day' here, as all the parish knows. I have thought out a little help. We will not give each other anything for Christmas.

If gifts are but an expression of love, we do not need that kind of expression between us. For Elsa I have made a big rag doll, dressed in a fine peasant dress, from the sc.r.a.ps in my piece-bag. We will have a little Christmas-tree on a table for a variety, and I have put tinsel round nuts to hang upon it with the pretty red apples from the garden; and as to candles, we have enough left from last year. We will all learn that beautiful carol we had sent us by mail yesterday. Our good Beda, she must not be disappointed. I have my uncle's last present to me in money, which I shall share with her, and give her the dress from my aunt that I have not yet made up for myself. The rest of aunty's present will do to make Christmas cheery for the poorhouse people and the hard-pinched folks in the parish, who look for a little from us at this time. So now all those troublesome matters are blown away. As for the interest on the old debts, that is not to be paid until January; and we will leave that to the loving Lord, who has given us so many blessings, and see now after the sermon with cheerful, thankful hearts. Come, dear; now I am ready to hear about it."

And they did begin on the sermon, and it was the best the pastor had ever written. Something of the sweet cheerfulness and loving grat.i.tude of the wife had made its way among the sound theological quotations and the judicious condensations. There was new life in the whole, which now came really from the pastor's uplifted soul, and would find its way to the stirred hearts of the hearers.

Christmas morning came, and little Elsa was early at the poorhouse. She had a present for Johanson. It was but a bit of work on perforated paper, done by her own hands--a lamb outlined in gay silk; but it was a _lamb_, and she felt that meant something between her and Johanson, and it did.

He was moved when he took it, and thanked her with good wishes for Christmas from the depths of his heart.

"I am so happy, Johanson," she said, "for papa and mamma are so glad. I heard them say, 'Now the past is all wiped away, and we can begin the new year as free from care as the birds.' I have often heard mamma say that the past is all, all wiped away when we are sorry for what we have done and want to do better, and I am always so glad about that. But this, I am sure, meant something different; for they said something about a letter, and then they looked together at a paper as if they could kiss it, and said, 'We must thank G.o.d for it, and ask Him to bless an unknown friend with His best blessings.' And they just talked to G.o.d where they sat, as they do sometimes. Papa has been sorrowful lately, but he really looked to-day like mamma when she is the happiest."

The child had found Johanson bowed, sitting with his head in his hands, while his thoughts were far back in his sinful, sorrowful past. He had felt as if he had hardly a right to welcome the day when the Saviour was born. Now his face beamed with joy; but he only said, "I am glad you are all so happy. I am sure you will be pleased again when you see something in church to-day."

Many weeks before Christmas, Johanson had asked permission to go into the church, and to have a tall ladder carried in with him. The pastor was astonished at the request. The permission had been granted. No results of the matter had, however, appeared. The same permission had been given the day before. There had been some hammering then, he understood, but had no misgivings in the matter, as he had begun to trust Johanson as an upright, honest man.

There were surprise and delight on all faces when they entered the church for the early service on Christmas morning. Of course there was a perfect blaze of light within, but that they had expected. The golden cross was gone; the red curtain had disappeared; the old picture, now but a ragged canvas, had been removed, and in its place was a beautiful painting. It represented the Lord Jesus, sitting with a glory round His benign countenance, welcoming a penitent, weary pilgrim from afar, who knelt to receive His blessing. Below was the legend, "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out."

The carol that was sung was the same that the pastor's wife had chosen to be used at the lighting of the tree in her own home the evening before. The rural choir had practised it well, and it sounded out over the old church like angelic music.

At the first notes Johanson started and covered his face with his hands.

A moment later, though he held no notes to follow, his beautiful voice rang out loud and clear and in full harmony with the other singers.

When the service was over, there was a crowd lingering in the aisles, praising and admiring the beautiful picture and the new carol; but Johanson was soon alone in the poorhouse, with "Hosanna! hosanna!" in his heart.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BEATA CHARITY.

Gull had come to the cellar-master with a choice bit of news to tell. A stranger had bought the land where the major's home and stood, and buildings were to be put up there immediately. The long lonely spot was soon a busy scene, as the architect, with plans in hand, was hurrying about among the skilful workmen.