Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and the First Christmas of New England Part 8

"Mother, don't you know me?"

She looked at him one moment with that still earnestness peculiar to herself, and then fell into his arms. "O my son, my son!"

There were a few moments of indescribable confusion, during which Diana retreated, pale and breathless, to a neighboring window, and stood with her hand over the locket which she had always worn upon her heart.

After a few moments he came, and she felt him by her.

"What, cousin!" he said; "no welcome from you?" She gave one look, and he took her in his arms. She felt the beating of his heart, and he felt hers. Neither spoke, yet each felt at that moment sure of the other.

"I say, boys," said James, "who'll help bring in my sea chest?"

Never was sea chest more triumphantly ushered; it was a contest who should get near enough to take some part in it's introduction, and soon it was open, and James began distributing its contents.

"There, mother," said he, undoing a heavy black India satin and shaking out its folds, "I'm determined you shall have a dress fit for you; and here's a real India shawl to go with it. Get those on and you'll look as much like a queen among women as you ought to."

Then followed something for every member of the family, received with frantic demonstrations of applause and appreciation by the more juvenile.

"Oh, what's that?" said Sam, as a package done up in silk paper and tied with silver cord was disclosed.

"That's--oh--that's my wife's wedding-dress," said James, unfolding and shaking out a rich satin; "and here's her shawl," drawing out an embroidered box, scented with sandal-wood.

The boys all looked at Diana, and Diana laughed and grew pale and red all in the same breath, as James, folding back the silk and shawl in their boxes, handed them to her.

Mrs. Pitkin laughed and kissed her, and said, gaily, "All right, my daughter--just right."

What an evening that was, to be sure! What a confusion of joy and gladness! What a half-telling of a hundred things that it would take weeks to tell.

James had paid the mortgage and had money to spare; and how he got it all, and how he was saved at sea, and where he went, and what befell him here and there, he promised to be telling them for six months to come.

"Well, your father mustn't be kept up too late," said Mrs. Pitkin. "Let's have prayers now, and then to-morrow we'll be fresh to talk more."

So they gathered around the wide kitchen fire and the family Bible was brought out.

"Father," said James, drawing out of his pocket the Bible his mother had given him at parting, "let me read my Psalm; it has been my Psalm ever since I left you." There was a solemn thrill in the little circle as James read the verses:

"They that go down to the sea in s.h.i.+ps, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven; they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet, so he bringeth them unto their desired haven. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!"

When all had left the old kitchen, James and Diana sat by the yet glowing hearth and listened to the crickets, and talked over all the past and the future.

"And now," said James, "it's seven years since I left you, and to-morrow is the seventh Thanksgiving, and I've always set my heart on getting home to be married Thanksgiving evening."

"But, dear me, Jim, we can't. There isn't time."

"Why not?--we've got all the time there is!"

"But the wedding-dress can't be made, possibly."

"Oh, that can wait till the week after. You are pretty enough without it!"

"But what will they all say?"

"Who cares what they say? I don't," said James. "The fact is, I've set my heart on it, and you owe me something for the way you treated me the last Thanksgiving I was here, seven years ago. Now don't you?"

"Well, yes, I do, so have it just as you will." And so it was accomplished the next evening.

And among the wonders of Mapleton Miss Briskett announced it as chief, that it was the first time she ever heard of a bride that was married first and had her wedding-dress made the week after! She never had heard of such a thing.

Yet, strange to say, for years after neither of the parties concerned found themselves a bit the worse for it.

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS OF NEW ENGLAND.

The sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic coast of America may well be a terror to navigators. They present an inexorable wall, against which forbidding and angry waves incessantly dash, and around which s.h.i.+fting winds continually rave. The approaches to safe harbors are few in number, intricate and difficult, requiring the skill of practiced pilots.

But, as if with a pitying spirit of hospitality, old Cape Cod, breaking from the iron line of the coast, like a generous-hearted sailor intent on helpfulness, stretches an hundred miles outward, and, curving his sheltering arms in a protective circle, gives a n.o.ble harborage. Of this harbor of Cape Cod the report of our governmental Coast Survey thus speaks: "It is one of the finest harbors for s.h.i.+ps of war on the whole of our Atlantic coast. The width and freedom from obstruction of every kind at its entrance and the extent of sea room upon the bay side make it accessible to vessels of the largest cla.s.s in almost all winds. This advantage, its capacity, depth of water, excellent anchorage, and the complete shelter it affords from all winds, render it one of the most valuable s.h.i.+p harbors upon our coast."

We have been thus particular in our mention of this place, because here, in this harbor, opened the first scene in the most wonderful drama of modern history.

Let us look into the magic mirror of the past and see this harbor of Cape Cod on the morning of the 11th of November, in the year of our Lord 1620, as described to us in the simple words of the pilgrims: "A pleasant bay, circled round, except the entrance, which is about four miles over from land to land, _compa.s.sed about to the very sea_ with oaks, pines, junipers, sa.s.safras, and other sweet weeds. It is a harbor wherein a thousand sail of s.h.i.+p may safely ride."

Such are the woody sh.o.r.es of Cape Cod as we look back upon them in that distant November day, and the harbor lies like a great crystal gem on the bosom of a virgin wilderness. The "fir trees, the pine trees, and the bay," rejoice together in freedom, for as yet the axe has spared them; in the n.o.ble bay no s.h.i.+pping has found shelter; no voice or sound of civilized man has broken the sweet calm of the forest. The oak leaves, now turned to crimson and maroon by the autumn frosts, reflect themselves in flushes of color on the still waters. The golden leaves of the sa.s.safras yet cling to the branches, though their life has pa.s.sed, and every brus.h.i.+ng wind bears showers of them down to the water. Here and there the dark spires of the cedar and the green leaves and red berries of the holly contrast with these lighter tints. The forest foliage grows down to the water's edge, so that the dash of the rising and falling tide washes into the s.h.a.ggy cedar boughs which here and there lean over and dip in the waves.

No voice or sound from earth or sky proclaims that anything unwonted is coming or doing on these sh.o.r.es to-day. The wandering Indians, moving their hunting-camps along the woodland paths, saw no sign in the stars that morning, and no different color in the sunrise from what had been in the days of their fathers. Panther and wild-cat under their furry coats felt no thrill of coming dispossession, and saw nothing through their great golden eyes but the dawning of a day just like all other days--when "the sun ariseth and they gather themselves into their dens and lay them down." And yet alike to Indian, panther, and wild-cat, to every oak of the forest, to every foot of land in America, from the stormy Atlantic to the broad Pacific, that day was a day of days.

There had been stormy and windy weather, but now dawned on the earth one of those still, golden times of November, full of dreamy rest and tender calm. The skies above were blue and fair, and the waters of the curving bay were a downward sky--a magical under-world, wherein the crimson oaks, and the dusk plumage of the pine, and the red holly-berries, and yellow sa.s.safras leaves, all flickered and glinted in wavering bands of color as soft winds swayed the gla.s.sy floor of waters.

In a moment, there is heard in the silent bay a sound of a rush and ripple, different from the lap of the many-tongued waves on the sh.o.r.e; and, silently as a cloud, with white wings spread, a little vessel glides into the harbor.

A little craft is she--not larger than the fis.h.i.+ng-smacks that ply their course along our coasts in summer; but her decks are crowded with men, women, and children, looking out with joyous curiosity on the beautiful bay, where, after many dangers and storms, they first have found safe shelter and hopeful harbor.

That small, unknown s.h.i.+p was the _Mayflower;_ those men and women who crowded her decks were that little handful of G.o.d's own wheat which had been flailed by adversity, tossed and winnowed till every husk of earthly selfishness and self-will had been beaten away from them and left only pure seed, fit for the planting of a new world. It was old Master Cotton Mather who said of them, "The Lord sifted three countries to find seed wherewith to plant America."

Hark now to the hearty cry of the sailors, as with a plash and a cheer the anchor goes down, just in the deep water inside of Long Point; and then, says their journal, "being now pa.s.sed the vast ocean and sea of troubles, before their preparation unto further proceedings as to seek out a place for habitation, they fell down on their knees and blessed the Lord, the G.o.d of heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all perils and miseries thereof."

Let us draw nigh and mingle with this singular act of wors.h.i.+p. Elder Brewster, with his well-worn Geneva Bible in hand, leads the thanksgiving in words which, though thousands of years old, seem as if written for the occasion of that hour:

"Praise the Lord because he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. Let them which have been redeemed of the Lord show how he delivereth them from the hand of the oppressor, And gathered them out of the lands: from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south, when they wandered in deserts and wildernesses out of the way and found no city to dwell in. Both hungry and thirsty, their soul failed in them.

Then they cried unto the Lord in their troubles, and he delivered them in their distresses. And led them forth by the right way, that they might go unto a city of habitation. They that go down to the sea and occupy by the great waters: they see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep.

For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, and it lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to heaven, and descend to the deep: so that their soul melteth for trouble. They are tossed to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and all their cunning is gone. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He turneth the storm to a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. When they are quieted they are glad, and he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be."

As yet, the treasures of sacred song which are the liturgy of modern Christians had not arisen in the church. There was no Watts, and no Wesley, in the days of the Pilgrims; they brought with them in each family, as the most precious of household possessions, a thick volume containing, first, the Book of Common Prayer, with the Psalter appointed to be read in churches; second, the whole Bible in the Geneva translation, which was the basis on which our present English translation was made; and, third, the Psalms of David, in meter, by Sternhold and Hopkins, with the music notes of the tunes, adapted to singing. Therefore it was that our little band were able to lift up their voices together in song and that the n.o.ble tones of Old Hundred for the first time floated over the silent bay and mingled with the sound of winds and waters, consecrating our American sh.o.r.es.