 Chapter 9 of Aunt Jane's Hero The next day he received cards for Ms. Fitzsimmons wedding, which was to take place in a fashionable church, and a note from that young lady, requesting him to act as groomsmen on the occasion. He was seriously annoyed, yet to refuse was impossible, and as an interview was necessary, he had to call. All the handsome young men had been killed off in this horrid war, she said, as they met, and had he foot is such a beauty that I wanted her to have you to stand up with. This quasi-compliment did not melt the hard heart with which Horace stood before her. So he had got to be set over against Harriet foot, and would be thought to be returning to her set. Aunt Jane will be sure to bring them both to the wedding, he thought, and what will they think? And then he suggested to the bride-elect that it would not be a very graceful progress up the broad aisle of the church if he came limping in the procession. Oh, that need not trouble you, she cried. I like to display my hero friends. We choose you on purpose, Hattie and I. It is all the fashion now to make much of those who have fought for our beloved country. So there he was. I wish I could get married tomorrow, he thought, if only to escape this farce, our beloved country indeed. And then there had to be a rehearsal of the marriage ceremony before that ceremony took place, and he got all mixed up with the old set in such a way that he felt like a fly caught in a web. At last the wedding day arrived, and Ms. Fitzsimmons, all lace and diamonds, was made to promise to love and honor an insignificant-looking little man, with his hair parted in the middle, who looked not a little frightened, as he well might. No one would have suspected who witnessed the scene in the church that day that a fierce and cruel war was raging in the country. The display of dress and fashionable array of spectators offered a fearful contrast to the poverty and wretchedness covering, as with a gloomy pall, so large a part of it. Horace reproached himself for participating in this pageant, and his heart wandered away from the elaborate lady on his arm to a little modest figure that he felt must be there, though he would not have profaned her by a look if he had known where. Quite late in the evening, after the brilliant bridal reception was over, he encountered Tom White in the supper room, who blushed like a girl as he asked if he could have an interview with him the next morning. Fancying he had gained a new client, Horace named an early hour of the following day and went home jaded and out of spirits. The world he had just left had never looked so hollow and unsatisfactory. He hoped he should never have to enter it again. At the appointed hour, Tom White made his appearance, and after any amount of circumlocution finally blurted out his business in this wise. I say, Captain Wheeler, we can't both have her, and I can't endure the suspense any longer. I made her acquaintance before you did, and never cared for anybody else. Now, I'll act fairly and squarely, if you will. You may propose first, and if she accepts you, I'll retreat and leave the field to you. If she refuses, I want you to quit it and let me try my chance, which is poor enough, I know. Horace, thus challenged, knew not what to say. Must he own his secret to this Tom White? But then that young gentleman had already taken possession of it. I think, said Tom, waxing bold, as he saw that his rival shrank from him, that if I can be frank and speak out, you can't. It will not cost you any more than it does me. But it is not the thing, said Horace, to make proposals to young ladies in their absence from home. You must at least wait till they return. Oh, that's an old-fashioned notion, cried Tom. My mother, who is the pink of propriety, says that their aunt has given her sanction to my plan. That is, as far as it concerns myself. Of course, I have not compromised you. Let me then suggest that you take the matter into your own hands. Propose to both of them, if you choose. I will not stand in your light. You can offer a position that it is not probable I ever can do. And in all events, I am not prepared or disposed to pay my addresses to any young lady at present. I ask your pardon, then, said Tom. I had quite the contrary impression. And really, when I come to think of it, and realize that whatever your feelings are towards her, she has such a preference for you, I hardly dare take a step in the matter. But before you made your appearance, she did seem fond of me. Indeed, said Horace, striely, and with great inward disgust. Yes, don't you think it is a little peculiar when a young lady gives you her photograph? Why, yes, decidedly so, said Horace, burning with secret rage. To be sure it was done in a hasty moment, and she wouldn't accept mine in return, but laughed at me for offering it. Indeed she is always laughing at me, as you must have seen. May I inquire of whom you are speaking, asked Horace, to whom it suddenly occurred that it did not seem like Maggie to be always laughing at anybody. Why, of Miss Annie Wyman, of course, replied Tom. Ah, well, my dear fellow, that field is quite open to you. I have no thought of addressing that peacock young lady, and if she was fond of you once, she is no doubt fond of you still. Go ahead, I wish you all sorts of good luck. He was so relieved that he could hardly help hugging Tom, and Tom could have leaped for joy. I'll do it, he declared, the first chance I get, or at least as soon as I get courage. And then the new client walked away, and Horace drew a long breath. If he does not care for her, why should she care for him, he thought. I'll go to-night, and watch her more closely than ever. And so he did. But Maggie met him with a parent indifference. She had seen him figuring in a worldly scene, apparently quite at home in it, and felt more out of sympathy with him than she had ever done. She had been led to believe that since the loss of his limb he had cut himself off from fashionable society, and devoted himself to all she loved best. But here he was at a gay wedding, with a stylish, elegantly dressed young lady on his arm, laughing and talking with her, as with one with whom he felt unequal terms. She believed the pain this gave her was due to the sense that his Christian tone was lower than she had fancied it. In a measure this was true, but perhaps some lower sentiments mingled unconsciously with the higher ones. Perhaps she felt that he who could choose the society of a Harriet foot could hardly really value her own. Yet the contrast between her serene face and modest attire, and the scene he had witnessed and shared in at the wedding, was making her dear to him, and he knew it. That scene had revealed to him how changed he was since the days when he used to see cappiness among them, how much less and yet how much more he expected from life. Annie, meanwhile, was as attentive to him as ever, full of gay and fearless talk, like one sure of the ground on which she walked, but as silent towards Tom White as Maggie was towards him. For Tom was there, as large as life, swelling with his secret, yet close at Maggie's side, for if she wasn't the rose, hadn't she dwelt near the rose? Our mag is going home to-morrow, Annie said at last. One of the children has the measles, and of course they'll all have it, and she thinks mother will need one of us to help her through the siege. Why don't you go, then? asked Taurus, vexed to think of losing sight of Maggie. I can't tear myself away from you, she returned, laughing. These words ought to have fallen upon Tom's ears like balm, for they could not have been spoken in that open way by one whose heart secretly belonged to him she addressed. But he was obtuse enough to take them literally, and to become so downcast that everybody was relieved to see him soon take himself off. The four then drew close together around the fire, and talked of Maggie's departure. Horace now learned for the first time that she lived in the little town of Stafford, four miles off the railroad. Do you make the journey alone, asked Horace? Oh yes, Aunt Jane sends John with me to the station, and he gets my ticket and sees me off, and my father meets me at Grafton. We have then only the four miles to drive. The next morning beheld the unaccustomed sight of Horace Wheeler arraying himself for the day by gaslight, and seven o'clock found him at the station, just as Maggie, a little behind time, came driving up. She gave a great start of joy when she saw him, but he did not see it, and as it did not suit him to be recognized by John, he sculpt off. How could I be so foolish, Maggie asked herself? Why should I fancy, even for a moment, that he came to see me off? But then he may have come for Annie's sake. John, having seen her safely in her seat, at once took his departure, and Horace instantly appeared. He had had no special design in coming, had made no program, did not know what he meant to say. There were only a few minutes before the train was off, but in those few minutes both were so embarrassed, said such stupid things, that in after days neither could recall a single word. But he went away a happy man, for the time, at least, and the train hardly dashed more rapidly on its way than did Maggie's joyous heart. Maggie has come home nicer than ever, said the hero of the measles to his brother that night. She couldn't be any nicer, was the reply. She kissed me twice when she went away, but she kissed me four times when she got back, persisted the hero. Ah, you foolish little man, it was not you she kissed. It was not necessary for you to come home, Maggie, dear, said her mother. I thought it was. Besides, I wanted to come. And so she slipped into her old place, the same, yet not the same, hardly daring to whisper to herself the sweet secret that had been but half betrayed, wondering if she had betrayed her own, the knowledge of which had come to her in a sudden flash in those few trembling minutes in the train. It was one of those stormy nights on which Horace chose to visit Aunt Jane, with the hope to have her all to himself. For this little old lady, with her bright ways and straightforward yet not unkind words, was in great demand, and it was long since he had had a private interview with her. But now he knew that Annie had gone to dine with Mr. Aunt's mother, and that her dangerous ears, so ready to prick up at the sound of news, were safely out the way, and he had made his mind to open up his heart to Aunt Jane like a son. But it was not easy. He did not know when or how to begin, and sat holding the ball from which she was knitting in his hands, wishing she would speak first. Aunt Jane, he at last got out, you are so skilled at reading my heart that I don't believe it is necessary to tell you what is in it. No, she replied with much feeling, you need not. There are many good things in it, and among those good things I see my little Maggie. Do I not? And do you think there is any chance for me? Ah, that is a question I cannot answer. You know I have often told you that grills have a great knack at keeping their likings and dislikings to themselves. What am I to do then? Why, you are to act in your usual straightforward way, and write and tell her how you feel, like a man. Oh, I couldn't write. I must see her. I am going to Stafford tomorrow, unless you advise against it. But I do advise against it. You'd catch the measles. I've had them. Maggie will not be able to see you. Those boys are her regular tyrants when they're sick. There's another thing I want to consult you about. A friend of mine has a paper in his possession on which his name is scribbled some score of times. Should he presume that the lady who wrote it did this because she particularly cared for him? If he is as modest as most men, he will presume it, whatever I may say. I should advise your friend to put that paper into the fire, and think and speak of it no more. Such a document might be the result of mere idleness. Well, an old crumpled yellow envelope is not much of a document, save in the hands of a lover, and horizontally followed Aunt Jane's suggestion. But notwithstanding the measles, I am tempted to go to Stafford, he went on, and upset a vase of flowers on the table to show his zeal. At all events, you need not sop up water with one of my best handkerchiefs, or what is better, you need not upset my vases. I ask your pardon, Aunt Jane, he said so meekly that her kind old heart yearned over him. I did not observe that it was your handkerchief. I have heard that love is blind, she replied. Well, if you will go, let me post you up as to the trains. You will go by the early one, six or half past six. You will reach Grafton in time for the stage to Stafford. You'll take your supper at the tavern, get yourself up in your most enchanting style, and reach the parsonage a little after seven. You will find no one at home saved Mrs. Wyman and the boys. Mr. Wyman will be at the prayer meeting down in the cellar of his meeting house. And Maggie, after nursing the boys all day, will be there too. I know her mother's ways well enough for that. So you can chat with Mama till they get home. By the by, I hardly think you know what a truly religious girl my Maggie is. A single sentence on that head was my first attraction to her, he replied, lingering with his hat in his hand. I could not love a young lady now who is not truly and deeply religious. Oh, Aunt Jane, how you have changed me. How God has changed you, you mean. To think that a simple little country girl like Maggie Wyman has won the heart that none of the attractive young ladies here, with all their advantages, have ever touched. Goodbye, my dear boy. I congratulate you, and myself, too, in advance. Thank you for those kind words, he said, with much feeling. He had not made up his mind to the step he was now about to take without much reflection and much prayer. It was a very serious, weighty thing with him, so different from his proposal to Miss Fitzsimmons that he shuddered to think what would have become of him if she had accepted him. But he was resolved to be very cool and quiet with Maggie, so that she need not be moved by compassion to accept him. And if she refused him, he meant to be yet more cool and quiet, and never let her know the pain she had given him. On his journey he tried to think how he should manage things, provided he should find Mrs. Wyman home and alone, as, according to Aunt Jane, he was likely to do. Should he introduce himself and tell her his errand? What? Speak to a perfect stranger of the secret he had guarded so jealously that he had found it hard to reveal to his second mother, Aunt Jane? His beating heart warned him to lay no plans but to trust itself to Providence, and let it have its own way. Meanwhile, Maggie was enacting the sweet daughter and sister, unconscious that he about whom she quarreled so much with herself was every moment drawing nearer. She had a habit of holding silent conversations with him, which vexed her extremely, as she moved about her household tasks and sat at the long seam she had to sew, or went up to the village street on her little errands. She was telling him all she ever did, and then, detecting herself in it, would break off suddenly with great confusion and self-approach. Today she fancied she had gained great dominion over herself in this respect, for she had no such temptations. But the truth was, the children had made her read to them, or tell them stories so diligently that she had not had time to think. Maggie, dear, said her mother, I want you to go to the meeting tonight. It will do you good after being shut up all day. But they say you can carry the measles about in your hair, returned Maggie. I can change my clothes, but I can't leave my hair at home very conveniently. I think that's all nonsense, said Mrs. Wyman. Besides, there won't be any children there this cold night, and all the grown folks are safe. And I can sit near the door and slip out without speaking to anyone, said Maggie, who really wanted to go. She usually went to the evening meetings in her every day dress, which was simple enough, but as she had now to change it, she put on a pretty blue one, in which Horace had seen her, and she well remembered his saying that girls should never wear any other color. Here he is again, she said to herself. I am so ashamed of myself, I don't know what to do. How he would despise me if he could see my thoughts. She slipped into the lecture room and took her seat in a dark corner, feeling very little in her own eyes, and intending, as she had said, to slip out and come home the instant the meeting was over. But she came out into the darkness with her arm in a man's arm, her hand clasped in his hand, trembling, flushed, triumphant. How they managed it, no mortal knows. What he said to her, if he said anything, he never told. She never could tell what she said to him, for she never spoke a word. The very utmost that could afterwards be got out of either of them was this, that Horace happened to come to the meeting, and happened, which was true, to step into the seat near the door, where she happened to be sitting, and what was more natural than for him to see her safely home. Maggie frightened her mother not a little by tumbling into her arms and bursting out crying. But it did not take long to tell the rest of the story and to make up a fire in the parlor where Horace sat freezing and introduce him as Aunt Jane's particular friend. And then they took him right in with such delicious simplicity, never cumbering their heads with the question how their country ways would strike him, and loving him right off because he loved our Maggie. He went through the form of spending his nights at the tavern, but there was precious little formality of any other sort. Maggie took him into the kitchen and made him break eggs, which, however, she would not trust him to beat, introduced him into the nursery, and constrained him to tell stories about his army life, and invited him to shovel a path for her to the well. If he loved her when she sat quietly and demurely in Aunt Jane's parlor, how did he feel now that he saw what a gladsome, happy little creature she was, perfectly at ease, kindly affection towards everybody, yet reserving the depth and tenderness of her nature for him alone? Aunt Jane, Annie, and Tom White were sitting together one evening at the close of the week, Annie behaving like one possessed. Tom cast down in silent when in came Horace. All rose to meet him when, without ceremony, he took Aunt Jane in his arms and kissed her, and then Annie. I left them all well at your house this morning, he said to the astonished young girl, ah, Mr. White, I'm very happy to see you. And he looked as if he would kiss him, too. You have been to Stafford? You have been to our house, cried Annie? Don't go, Mr. White, she said, seeing that young man about to make a precipitate retreat. And what did they say? Do they want me to come home? Did you see Maggie? I did see Maggie, he returned, in a tone that told his story, whereupon Annie began to cry. Tom White's heart concluded to begin to beat again, and Aunt Jane cried and laughed and called herself an old fool. Sit down and tell us all about it, she said at last. I have lived a year since I saw you, he replied, and it would take a year to tell about it. But he began his story with great animation, and the eager talker and the eager listener did not observe that Tom and Annie had miraculously disappeared. I thought he was in love with you, said Tom, and that is the reason I never dared to speak out. And I thought you loved him. Indeed, I don't know what I didn't think, and when he rushed in just now and caught you and kissed you, I came near fainting away on the spot. I never would have forgiven you if you had, she declared, and how absurd it was in you to fancy I cared for him, when you might have seen only you are such a dear, blind old goose. Well, it is not fair to listen any longer. It suffices that two more souls had got into that earthly paradise wherein lovers have walked ever since Adam and Eve walked in the garden, perfectly convinced that there was never any experience to be compared to theirs. And now, having conducted Aunt Jane's hero and his heroine to the threshold of a new life, shall we discreetly allow them to cross it alone? Or shall we cross it with them, and look into the prose that follows the poem? Or is there to be another poem, and no prose? CHAPTER X The year that had opened so eventfully for Horace and Maggie proved to be the final year of the war, and the first beautiful days of October were celebrated in the little stafford personage by two simple weddings. Both Maggie and Annie were to leave the home where they had spent their happy childhood, and sail forth upon an unknown sea. Indeed, Annie was to do this literally, for Tom was going to take her to Europe, and she was in a state of great bewilderment between him and his presence and his radiant delight over her. Maggie, on the contrary, was going to be established in an obscure street, the wife of a poor man. She was going to meet with embarrassments and endure privations, lonely hours lay before her, and hours that would require all her courage and fortitude. But she was more than fearless. She was thoroughly happy to live with Horace. What could she ask besides? When his marriage was decided on, Horace had many consultations with Aunt Jane, inclining to the opinion, which she was always ready to fight, that with his limited and uncertain means it would be best to give up the long talked of little home. If we live in that street nobody will come near us, he objected, when Aunt Jane, after endless drives, had at last found a home in which he could afford to live. Besides, I want to put Maggie into a spot more worthy of her. Yes, but you can't live like a rich man, and at the same time be a poor one. I know, but this is such a low, vulgar sort of street, and the house looks worthy of the street. Yes, there was a pause of some moments. The truth is, I want you to set an example to the hosts of young men who are living unsatisfactory bachelor boarding house lives. In nine cases out of 10, pride lies at the bottom of these lives. Because they can't begin where their fathers and mothers left off, they won't begin at all. They dry up and stagnate for want of an object. Look at Ned Long. He is a man of real talent. If he had a wife and children and were forced to exert himself, he would make his mark in this world. As it is, he contents himself with just making a living. Am I not right? Yes, you are. But if I had a wife and half a dozen children, I should not work harder than I do now, so your remarks do not apply to me. Because you are expecting a wife. Now, I know that I am urging you to a career that will require very great moral courage. And I know that it was easier for you to face the cannon's mouth on the field of battle than it is now to face what people will say. We are cowards, all of us cowards. This roused him. I'll take the house, he said, with decision. After all, it is nobody's business how and where I live. And Maggie is so unworldly and loves you, and is besides so independent that she will be just as happy in an obscure as in an aristocratic street. And now, as to the furnishing of the house, what sum can you afford to spend upon that? Four, of course, Maggie's father can give her very little besides his blessing. I have what my father left me at his death. Where he lived, and as he lived, it was quite a sum. In this city, it is next to nothing at all. And, ashamed to speak the words, he wrote the figures on a card and handed it to her. Why, this will do nicely, cried she. You must remember that Maggie has been used to very simple things, and that she will contend herself with very few. I am sure the parsonage was as pretty as a picture, said Horace. Yet there was not an expensive article in it. Its pleasant, home-like air was given it by the girls. They both have some taste. Maggie has a good deal, and you, too, can have a parlor as pretty as a picture if you will let me send for her and let us furnish your house to suit ourselves. I shall be only too thankful, he said. So Maggie came, the happiest little thing to be imagined, and showed that she had as wise a head as she had loving a heart. She would not so much as look at such a pulstery as Horace had fancied indispensable to housekeeping, but cut and planned and fitted with her own hands till she had made a little bower of bliss out of the house whose outside looked so shabby and that was so home-like within. Horace was not allowed to set foot in it, but was obliged to live on what faith he had in Aunt Jane and in Maggie, till he brought the latter home as his wife and found himself sitting with her at their own cozy breakfast table. Why, what have you done to this old house, he cried? It looks as fresh and cheery as this bright morning. I am sure Aunt Jane has slyly used her own purse in addition to ours. No, that she hasn't, cried Maggie, in great triumph. She sat opposite him, looking like a rose, a pink, not a red rose, and he took her in as part of the picture that satisfied and gladdened his eyes. He was so happy. This little home was so different from any home he had ever known that he fancied he had never been happy before. He could reach across the small table and catch her hands, and did catch them. If they had been red once, they were not red now, though somewhat plump and childlike. And now must I leave this little paradise and go off to my office, he said, as they at last rose from this their first meal together as husband and wife? Not yet, said Maggie. We haven't had prayers yet, you know. When she brought the Bible, her father's parting gift, and placed it in his hands. He had not thought of this. It startled him a little, as suggesting that he was now at the head of a household, yet the thought was pleasant. He felt himself twice the man he had done, as he took the book from his wife, and the simple, almost boyish prayer he offered, as she knelt by his side, came from a very happy, thankful heart. It is not necessary to tell how many times they took leave of each other that morning. Perhaps nobody knows. But at last he got away, and Maggie watched him till he was out of sight, and would gladly have gone with him if she might. And now, if she had been at a boarding-house, she would have had a long, tedious day before her. As it was, she had dinner to order, and her trunks to unpack, and many a little touch to give the rooms they had occupied. And the dinner was a study. She wanted everything to be agreeable to Horace, yet she knew she had precious little money to work with. Fortunately, she had never in her life known what it was to get along save on the strictest economy. She thought of many things she knew how to make to perfection, but was astonished to find she must not make them, because milk and eggs, the great staples at home, cost so much here. And when she went into the kitchen to consult with the angelic being there, she found her to be far more human than divine, and not at all disposed to an invasion of her domains. I thought, Maggie began, that I would have a beefsteak pudding for dinner, for one thing, and there ain't no beefsteak left, quoth Biddy. Where is it, then? Gave it away. Don't do that again, Biddy. We shall have to live economically, and everything is very high. I don't think I shall suit, quoth Biddy. I ain't fond of economical ladies, nor of stingy ones either. I can't live in a place where they begrudge a morsel to the poor. We don't begrudge it, said Maggie, unruffled. She was too happy to make herself wretched about trifles. But we choose to give what we have to give with our own hands, not through yours. I don't think I shall suit, repeated Biddy, and chip the edge off of one of the new plates by banging it into the dishpan. Very well, said Maggie. You need not stay unless you choose. I know how to do everything that is done in the house, and I can get my husband's dinner as well as you can, and shall enjoy doing it, too. She ain't easy to put down, reflected Biddy. I thought she was so sweet-spoken that she had no spunk, but there's only two of them. It's an easy place, and I'm going to stay. And then she produced the beef steak, which she had only given away prospectively to one of her numerous cousins, and paid some heed to Maggie's directions about dinner, though with a lower incontinence, and a further injury to plates and platters. Here was prose with the vengeance. I'll get along with her somehow, thought Maggie. It is foolish to let such little things annoy one, but she was annoyed, and when she went upstairs and found in what a slatternly way her room had been summarily arranged, she was annoyed again, for there were the marks of two dirty hands on the new white quilt, and of the same soiled fingers on both doors. After this I will take care of my room myself, she said to Biddy. Suit yourself, was the glum reply. I ain't fond of chamber work. But the next morning, as she was sweeping her room after the final litter of unpacking, Biddy marched in with a white charlatan dress over her arm, and a host of pink ribbons in her hands. Look here, change work, will ye? I've got the dress to trim against the ball tonight, and can't make the bows to suit me. Maggie was perfectly bewildered by the audacity of this proposal. Oh, Biddy, she cried, do you spend your hard earnings for such finery as this? I suppose it's nobody's business how I spend them, returned Biddy. I don't approve of young girls like you going to ball, said Maggie. Think how much more respectable it is to stay at home and sew and read, and dress according to your station. I can't read, and I ain't fond of sewing. Let me teach you to read, then, cried Maggie eerily. It ain't no use, and then ladies as think the poor girl, as has worked hard all day, ain't to have no fun when it comes at night, ain't no ladies. Maggie made no reply. What would Horace think if, when he came home at night, he found her getting dinner instead of flying to meet him nicely dressed as he expected? She felt herself under bondage, and Biddy felt it, too. Aunt Jane came uninvited but very welcome guest to lunch, and as she had secured Biddy's services she made all sorts of inquiries that brought the whole truth to light. Dear me, this won't do, said she. This crane gave her an excellent character, but you want a quiet respectful servant, not one of those wild, saucy young things. Never mind. Let her stay her month out, and then dismiss her. I suppose, dear, you expected to meet with Trials? Yes, Aunt Jane, but not just these. However, one can stand anything for a month. And how is my boy? Horace? Oh, he's well, and as happy as possible. You ought to have seen him when he came home last night. However, I'm glad you didn't, and he's so good to me. I'm getting so conceited and silly. It does me good to hear it, quoth Aunt Jane, but don't expect too much. Horace will have his hard days, and you'll have yours. It won't always be sailing on a glass sea, but you must determine to be happy whatever be tides. But they sailed on something very like it, week after week. He aggravated Maggie, and a good many people aggravated Horace. But when he came home at night to the cozy little parlor and the loving little wife, and they had their simple dinner together, and he sat on the sofa with the plump yet elastic figure cuddled close to his side, he felt that he could defy the whole world. And she forgot that it had any bitties in it. There was peculiar tenderness in Maggie's love for her husband. He could not conceal from her that he suffered, and this made her demand less from him than young wives are apt to demand. Made her give him far more than he ever dreamed of asking. So evening after evening slipped by. Sometimes they lived over again those few weeks when a mysterious power was attracting them to each other. Never worrying of those little details to which no third person could listen in patience, and sometimes lost in that delicious silence which is communion still. They did not want to go anywhere, nor to have anyone come to see them. Yet there were two evenings of each week which broke in upon these luxurious habits. One was the prayer meeting, and on one they dined regularly at Aunt Jane's. So the months slipped away, and Bitty was replaced by a modest looking maiden, who moved about as if she had a cannonball tied to each foot, but who soon began to love her quiet home, and to serve Maggie with real devotion. I hope you will be contented and happy with us, said Maggie, when Mary made her appearance. If anything goes wrong, come right away and tell me. Are you fond of reading? I don't think anything will go wrong, said Mary, looking admiringly at the sweet face that smiled on her so kindly. I'm always contented where families is kind to me. Yes, I'm very fond of reading of an evening, when my work is done up. I hope you won't be wanting to go to balls and such things, said Maggie. Oh, no, ma'am. I'm a quiet body. Too quiet, folk says, she added with a smile. Horace, said Maggie, lifting her head from his shoulder that evening, I want to say something to you, if I can only get courage. Well, say on, little one, he returned. I've been thinking that we've been living in a horribly selfish way since we got married. That's what we got married for, he replied, laughing. Oh, no, or at least that wasn't all of it. You know how much we used to talk about being hospitable and opening our doors to people who lived in boarding houses or people in trouble, and you haven't been to mission school since I came here. I know it, he said, but it has been so nice and cozy here at home. Oh, Maggie, you can't imagine what it is to live year after year in other people's houses, eat at their tables, go in and out with nobody caring when you do it and where you go. No, I can't imagine it, she said. But Horace, well, dearie, we haven't been living at all as I expected to live. I had a picture of our home in my mind before I came here, very different from the reality. Go on, he said tenderly. Do you mind my speaking out, she asked? Will you promise not to be hurt or offended? He satisfied her with sweet words or something that took the place of words, and she went on, glad that the room had not been lighted and that he could not see her face. I thought we both were so much in earnest, so really and truly consecrated to God that our loving each other would know why they fraud him. But I was mistaken. We give all the time we can snatch from other duties to each other. But he gave us to each other, did he not? Yes, yes, but not to decrease our love to him. You are getting morbid, Maggie, dear. Surely we love him no less, after all his goodness to us than we did before. I don't like to pass judgment on you, she said, but I don't know that I love him less. I have been completely absorbed in you. You have been the atmosphere I breathe, and my heart has risen to fever heat or sunk to zero at your pleasure. Well, he said complacently, and drew her nearer, but she gently freed herself. And before I loved you I could have said that of my savior, and now I can't. Horace was startled by her earnestness. You are a little darling, he said, twice as good as I am. Don't go to accusing yourself. I do not see how such a tremendous event as marriage can take place without a convulsion. You will get back again to where you were before. I hope so, she said, but it will not be by accident nor without your help. The helping will all come from the other side, he said. I shall lean on you, Maggie, my pet. Maggie was disappointed. She had fancied that if she once broke the ice, she should get a hearty response from Horace, and that they should at once begin to walk hand in hand in a new life together. After a time, she said, it says in the Bible that the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and that Christ gave himself for it that he might sanctify and cleanse it. This is what I thought you would be to me, what you would do for me. Horace gave a long, deep sigh. No wonder you are disappointed then. Maggie, you little women who stay at home and have nothing to do but be as good as angels can form no idea to what temptations we men are exposed. We are driven into the world. We see its worst side. We breathe its air and become assimilated to it. And instead of coming home to set ourselves up as examples, we want to find our examples waiting there for us. We may not have your temptations, replied Maggie, but we have our own. Temptations just as peculiar to us and just as hard to resist as yours are to you. For instance, take any warm-hearted girl who marries for love, and in nine cases out of ten she will make an idol out of her husband. Now this idol may have a more agreeable, plausible aspect than the ugly idol called money, but the one shuts out Christ just as effectually as the other does. Now you are talking just like a book. I didn't mean to, said Maggie humbly. You dear little thing, cried Horace, you are determined to turn me into an idolater. And then they sat quietly, side by side, hand in hand. Maggie was frightened at herself and happy in her husband's love. After all, what more did she want? So this evening slipped away as others had done. And the day ended, like all their married days, by their offering their evening prayer together and offering none apart. On the following Sunday the morning sermon was on family life, and the preacher laid great stress on several points on which neither Horace nor Maggie had reflected before, especially on its individuality. And he drew a beautiful picture of a home which had Christ for its central object, while all else was subordinate to him. Contrasting it with one where self reigned under a refined mask, yet reigned still. There is nothing individual or characteristic about our little home, said Maggie, on their way from church. I suppose there are thousands just like it. I doubt if there are a thousand Maggie's returned, Horace. And to me the word home means Maggie. She smiled gratefully. She always thought it condescending in people to love her. And then she said, Dr. Phillips must have a delightful home of his own, or he could not have drawn such a picture of one. That does not follow. It is said that shoemaker's children always go unshawed. Indeed, I do not believe that such a home as he depicted exists anywhere on earth. Maggie made no reply. The sermon had impressed her greatly, and she determined to act upon one part of it immediately. The hints in regard to servants. She had already invited Mary to come into prayers, and Mary had made no reply, but had not accepted the invitation. So she made one more attempt, while attending to some little point connected with dinner. Mary colored, but answered respectfully, yet very decidedly, that her religion forbade her doing so. But we pray to the same God, the same Savior that you do, urged Maggie. The priest forbids it, said Mary, and I never go against his orders. Very well, then we'll try, you and I, to see which will serve God most faithfully in our different ways, and you must not be frightened if I speak of him now and then. I shall not try to shake your faith, but to strengthen it. If you love him, and if I love him, it will seem natural to say so sometimes, won't it? I declare I could have stood and heard her talk all day, Mary afterwards confided to a friend. It's a pity she is a Protestant, but there is some good ones among them. And while she was wiping away a few tears, Maggie was reproaching herself that she had not spoken more wisely, and eloquently, and tingling with fear and shame. This little effort to acknowledge Christ in her household reacted, however, upon her own soul. She had not felt so strong in him since her marriage. Something she fancied lost had come back to her, and as she was running about after dinner, putting the room in which they had dined to rights, and turning it into a parlor again, she burst out into such a joyous hymn that Horus was quite surprised. Let's come over the little woman now, he cried from the sofa, where he had been lying half asleep. Oh, Horus, if you only knew, if I only could tell you, but I can't, only that I'm so happy! And then she slipped softly away to her own room, and begged the Lord Jesus never to let her get away from him again, and he heard and answered her. So that night, when Horus said he was unusually tired, and wanted to get into his nest early, she found courage to say what she had been wanting to say all along. Horus, dear, I'm afraid we've both forgotten, in the new delight of praying together, what the Bible says about praying in secret. But we are one now, dearie, said Horus. Yes, in a sense we are, but in another we are two, and ought to have things to say to God that we can't say to each other, and I want you to let me go upstairs half an hour before you do. Then you can have the parlor to yourself. Mary goes to bed at nine, and no one will interrupt you. Horus replied by taking her in his arms without a word. She stood leaning against him some moments, never dearer to him than now that she had owned to a higher allegiance, and he never knew what it had cost her to do it. But from this moment she was more cheerful, and more loving than before, and so more lovable, and he needed a part of his quiet half-hour at night in which to thank God that he was no longer homeless or wifeless. CHAPTER XI of Ant Jane's Hero This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jean A. Ant Jane's Hero by Elizabeth Prentice CHAPTER XI. I'm awful sorry, but I've broke a plate, proclaimed Mary one morning when Horus was giving into Maggie's hands the usual scanty supply for household expenses. I am sorry, said Maggie, for Biddy broke two and chipped the edges of several more. I just let him slip out of my hands, the suds made him slippery and down they went, pursued Mary. And it turned out that the one broken plate meant three, so chipped and scalloped as to be unfit for use. And I'm sure I don't know how it happened, but here's all the cuffs and collars milledude. It's just the weather, and my own is among them. Mary, do try to be careful, said Maggie. Mr. Wheeler only gives me just enough for the table, and nothing for wear and tear. How should he when everything in the house is new? He's a nice gentleman, said Mary, and won't mind giving you a little more. I'm awful sorry I've been so unlucky. Maggie looked troubled. Horus was finding it hard to keep up even their simple little establishment. He had owned that when she had laughingly told him he kept her too short of money, and now there were plates to buy and new collars and cuffs to be got. And such perplexities were constantly occurring. Mary was faithful and economical, and devotedly attached to her young mistress. But she would make sour bread every now and then, and had a regular habit of breaking the china and scorching the table linen. Everybody knows what fearful prices had to be paid for the real necessities of life at this time, and how hard many who had been almost rich found it to live. Without saying much to each other about it, both Horus and Maggie were getting careworn. He was afraid he would not make enough to make inevitable expenses, and she was afraid she was extravagant, or hadn't a faculty of getting along with a little. Yet she was really doing wonders. If she had only known it. On the evening of this particular day Horus came home a good deal out of sorts. He had had a most unpleasant business encounter for one thing, and a couple of hundred dollars lent to a friend, and now do, was not forthcoming. He must have it when quarter day came round, and it was coming as fast as it could, and his friend declared, with tears, that he would pay it by that time, but the case seemed anything but hopeful. He did not mean to trouble Maggie about it, and hold her so when she at last got it out of him. "'Dear me, what is a wife good for if she may not cheer a man when he is downcast?' cried she. You have said more than once that you did not decide to get married till you had asked God to direct you about it, and don't you suppose he did? You are not sorry you are married, are you, dear Horus? Sorry!' he repeated, and snatched her from the low seat she had taken at his knee. Why, it wasn't living before I had you. But having me you have increased your cares. Hadn't we better break up housekeeping, and let me go home till these high prices come down?' she asked, demurely, and well knowing what he would say, or, rather, what he would do. "'It is for you, I care,' he said after a time. I hate to keep you ground down so and to give you no luxuries.' "'I call it a luxury to have a husband,' she said, laughing. I'm sure that isn't one of the necessaries of life. Or wasn't a little while ago. Dear Horus, I did not expect anything I have not gained. I am more than happy, more than contented, and I do not believe we are going to want for any good thing. My father always said he hoped his children would begin at the little end of life. You've cheered me up wonderfully,' he declared. I came home feeling such a weight on my mind. If worst comes to worst, I can let Mary go, and get a little girl to run on errands, and have a woman to wash and do the rest myself. So don't worry till I come to the end of my resources. Why, if you can't afford to keep this house, we'll move out of town where we can have a cheaper rent. We're not tied to New York.' "'I don't know about that,' he said. I'm lame-er than usual today, and need to be nearer my office instead of going farther from it.' And then Maggie was all tenderness, and was down on her knees in a minute before the suffering limb. Oh, how literally on her knees! For much as she loved her husband for himself, here was a tie between them, only less sacred than death. "'I want to have Aunt Jane to dinner to-morrow,' said Maggie, when Horace felt easier in body and mind. You know we haven't had her all this time except to lunch, and then she didn't see you.' "'Yes, I know, but could she put up with our plain ways after her own luxurious table?' "'She never has a luxurious table, except for visitors. And nothing could be planer than the style at our little Stafford Parsonage, and she spent several summers there.' "'I should so like, though, to spread an ample table, and exercise a large-hearted hospitality,' said Horace. "'So should I,' returned Maggie, but I'm not going to make myself wretched, because I can't. I know Aunt Jane will love to come, and I am ashamed that I have let a silly pride prevent my asking her, or rather pride and selfishness, for it has been so pleasant to have you all to myself that I have not wanted any one else.' So Aunt Jane came, in one of her best and sweetest moods, and they had a simple little dinner, ever so much pleasant chat, and some loving motherly words from her at parting that did them both good. It cost Horace something to take down the family Bible and say, "'We have made up our minds, Maggie, and I, to have prayers directly after dinner, Aunt Jane, and she says visitors must make no difference.' But when he had said it there stole over him such sweet peace as he had never known in all his life before. Both Aunt Jane and Maggie caught its tone in the prayer he offered, and wondered once it came. At the close of the evening, as the young husband and wife stood alone together before the parlor fire, Horace made confession to Maggie on this wise. "'Do you know, dear, I wanted to put off having prayers till after Aunt Jane had gone? Was I ashamed of Jesus, or what was it?' Maggie looked up in great surprise. "'Why, when you were in the army, were you ashamed to show your colors?' she asked. "'No, I was proud of them. Proud to flaunt them in the very face of the enemy.' "'An Aunt Jane is not an enemy,' said Maggie. "'I have always had this shyness,' said Horace. "'It is strange,' said Maggie thoughtfully, for an ordinary worldly matters. "'You are not shy.' "'But don't you think it is natural to conceal our deepest, most sacred thoughts and feelings?' "'Thoughts and feelings are one thing,' said Maggie, and acts are another. It seems to me it would sound very oddly for a soldier to say that his patriotism lays so deeply in his heart that he must hide his colors. "'Dear Horace, let us show ours.' But Maggie, darling, in those days when I secretly loved you, I could not have spoken of it to a living soul. I hid my love with the most jealous care.' "'Yes, but while it had so little vitality that you could hide it, but how much of a secret did you make of it when you stood at my side and proclaimed that you would love, honor, and cherish me till death should us part, and such a decided I will that everybody in the church heard it?' Horace smiled. "'Yes, and I would do it again,' he cried, if I could get a chance. And if our love to Christ has in it real life and force, won't it speak out just so? Can it hold its peace?' "'I never knew till now what a coward I had been,' said Horace. "'I positively thought that I shrank from betraying my love to Christ, for I do love him, Maggie, because it was so sacred a principle. I think now that its poverty and its infancy kept it silent.' "'I think I understand you,' said Maggie, after a little silence. You have been mixed up with people who sheffled religion out of the way as something to come in play on one's deathbed, but as unfit to mix up gracefully with daily life. How little I thought when I saw you at Ms. Fitzsimmons' wedding that you would ever be anything to me! How I fought against myself that day for admiring you!' And then, of course, Horace said some of the foolish, yet passing sweet things he was wont to say to his little wife. And she found it hard to get away from him to that retreat upstairs that was the tower of all her strength. Left alone, Horace thanked God for giving him this wise, fearless, loving wife. Never so dear to him as now when she had tacitly rebuked his cowardice and revealed him to himself. And as to Maggie herself, in a few sweet, childlike words, she asked that she and her husband might walk hand in hand, heavenward, keeping step, and told her saviour about the perplexities in which she was involved, exactly as she would have told the story to a dear, earthly friend. She went to sleep serenely and without a care, wondering why she had suffered herself to grow anxious and troubled when she could cast herself on one who had control of all the silver and gold on earth. But the next day brought new difficulties, and as if in mockery of the pressure on their domestic life came a long letter from Annie, who was wandering over Europe without a care, indulging herself in all sorts of luxuries, and having, as she declared, the nicest time in the world. Think now if you could have some of these nice times, cried Horace. With Tom White asked Maggie in a tone that said all the most insatiable, Hart could ask. And yet after a little Horace fell into a reverie, now only too frequent. The incessant petty economies he was forced to practice wearied him. By nature he was disposed to ample expenditure, both for himself and others, and hated everything small and prosaic. Do put away that work, he said at last, a little impatiently, and come and talk to me, Maggie. Surely you can do your needlework during the day. Yes, I can, she said cheerfully, laying aside her work. I was only doing a little for our sewing circle. We call ourselves poor and make a great time about it, but just fancy living upon four hundred dollars a year, as the Western missionary does for whom we are now working. You might as well say fancy our living in an Irish shanty or in one room in a tenement house. Well, said Maggie, I could be happy in an Irish shanty or in one room in a tenement house provided I could keep it clean. Dear Horace, you can put on as long a face as you please, but I am going to be contented and in good spirits as long as I stay in a world where I can experience what I have done today. And what was that? cried Horace, rousing himself. If you won't think it's just my silliness, I'll tell you. After you went downtown this morning, and I had started for the day, what taking counsel of God was involved in Maggie's doing that, I tried to think what I could do in the way of comforting somebody besides myself, and what I should do it with. You are so fond of soup made of old bones that I hadn't a scrap of meat to spare, and—now, Maggie, that is adding insult to injury, said Horace—it is bad enough to give a man nothing but soup for his dinner, without insinuating that he is charmed with that arrangement. It doesn't hurt one too fast—occasionally, retorted Maggie, who was proud, with reason of her soups, besides you had a nice bit of beef steak after it. A bit, indeed. I am glad I am not such a carnivorous animal as you are, she returned, while you ought to see all the fresh meat eaten in my father's house in the course of the year. But it would be far better for him if he left off his picks, his donuts, his tea, and his coffee, and had a good generous slice of beef or mutton in their place. Here, behind the age, my dear, you would know where his headaches come from. Am I? Well, go back to the point. I had heard, through Mary, that there was a family nearerly opposite, where a sick child was dragging out a weary little life, sometimes lying alone all day while her mother was off at work, or gossiping with the neighbors, and I thought I'd just run over and see it. Well, asked Horace, as she paused. I don't believe I can tell it, she said, trying not to cry. Oh, Horace, we call ourselves poor and we chafe under our little cares and economies, and if we dared we should say we wondered why the Lord kept us from the luxuries he gives so many others. You'll get hardened to the horrors of city life, said Horace, laying his hand tenderly on her head. That I never shall, she cried, to think that poor little child, only a stone's throw from our dear little home was lying there all alone, with nothing on, literally nothing but a small shawl, no fire, no bed-stead, no food, no compassionate loving words, nothing for companionship, but its sufferings, its dreariness, its hopelessness, and I had gone there empty-handed. And what did you do, my darling, asked Horace, greatly touched by Maggie's emotion. There was only one thing I could do. I hadn't brought her anything, and I hadn't a word to say, and I just took the poor little creature in my arms and kissed her, till my tears wet her thin white cheeks, and the two arms flung themselves round my neck, and the child clung to me as a drowning man clings to a straw, and was such a wail of grief and joy and loneliness and gladness. And then I knelt down with a little figure still in my arms, and thanked the Lord that if he hadn't given me money or eloquent lips, he had given me a heart warm enough and big enough to take in and love and cherish hundreds of such children, yes, and hundreds upon hundreds. Come, my Maggie, stop crying, said Horace, and I'll live on soup all the days of my life. All the soup in the world wouldn't have put the life into that child's breast that love and sympathy did, she answered, only to think, it kept saying, a lady has kissed me. I don't wonder at her delight, said Horace. I can remember a time when a few had come and caught me in your arms and kissed me. Hush, you foolish boy! Well you won't look disgusted if I pinch you a little at your breakfast tomorrow, will you? For I came home and stole a part of it, and made a little broth for the starved creature. And Horace, we're not poor, we're rich, just as long as we've got two loving hearts beating in our bosoms, and can defy any living creature to ask more from them than they can give. Yes, we are rich, said Horace, or at least I am. In the dearest and best little wife that ever crossed a human threshold. CHAPTER 12 Those whom marriage or other circumstances brings to a great city often complain that everybody lets them alone. They come, perhaps, from a community where they have been known to all about them, persons of importance in their sphere, and are chilled and surprised to find themselves quite lost and unnoticed in the crowd they now enter. The truth is there are any number of people in it just as good, just as nice, just as agreeable as themselves, and unless they put on some badge that shall distinguish them from the rest, they will live unknown and die unlamented, saved by some very limited circle of their own. Now, is there such a badge? Yes. If you who feel lonely, unknown, isolated will go about labeled ready for hard work, work will come to you, and with it congenial friends and co-workers. With no design save that of doing good. Maggie was entering warmly into the interest of the church to which Horace had brought her. She was always at the prayer meeting, always at the sewing circle, always at the mission school, always on hand when special cases demanded special work. She talked little and did much. Her early training fitted her for all sorts of practical duty, and her habits of industry enabled her to accomplish wonders, and although she had no money to give, she was becoming very necessary and very much beloved in a rich church, where at first blush one would say there was no lack of service. It takes all sorts of stones of all sizes and shapes to build the walls of a church. Let no one refuse to be one of those stones, however small, misshapen, or ordinary he may be. Also what was loving her husband and making a bright happy home for him, her class at mission school, her little girls at the industrial school, her sick child across the way, and many a deed done by her right hand that her left hand never knew anything about, our Maggie was one of the busiest and one of the happiest little creatures to be found anywhere. You could not tell why when she opened the door and came into a room the atmosphere at once grew sweet and fragrant. Why whenever you thought of her you wanted to take her into your arms and kiss her? Or why if you were in trouble you wanted to run and tell her all about it? And those who only knew her as she was now would have found it hard to believe that it was not the hand of nature, but the hand of grace that had given her these subtle charms. Yet all the sunshine that warmed you and the love that satisfied you and the sympathy that soothed you were the reflection of his goodness and love and tenderness with whom Maggie lived and walked. She was with him so constantly, talked with him so intimately, was so conscious of being at peace with him, that her happiness flowed over its bounds and ran to encircle and gladden you. Quarter day had come and gone. At the very last moment Horace had been able to pay his rent and that care was off his mind, but work was coming in upon him that made it necessary to give up most of his evenings to it, and this was hard for him and hard for Maggie, who after longing for him all day dreaded to see books and papers brought out to exclude her at night, but they were so happy in each other that they needed this discipline and that of their poverty and unconsciously to themselves they profited by it. One Monday morning Maggie had been unusually busy about her household tasks and had not had time to put off her working dress when a carriage drove up to the door and misfit Simmons, that was, drawing her skirts daintily away from the dirty street, was announced in an Ostracan voice by Mary. For an instant Maggie's heart beat and her cheek flushed. Horace had honorably told her of his episode with that young lady, and she knew there was no point at which they should sympathize. And then her dress! It never occurred to her that she could go upstairs, deliberately take down her hair and rearrange it, put on another dress, a couple of bracelets, an extra bow or two, etc., after the manner of not a few of her sex who think your precious time of no value provided they get themselves up in style. She went into the parlor there for simply and frankly, met her aristocratic guest with true hospitality rather than furblows, and was so perfectly at ease that Miss Shadi couldn't either put her down nor out of countenance. I have long been intending to call on you, Mrs. Wheeler, but my numerous engagements have hitherto prevented I hope you will waive all ceremony and come to us on Friday evening just to select party, a mere little social visit. We make very few visits, Maggie replied. Mr. Wheeler can hardly spare an evening now. He brings his work home, however, and that makes it a little less lonely for me. I shall depend on you for Friday night, however. Tell Mr. Wheeler he must not forget his old friends, though you are perhaps not aware, on what intimate terms we were. Yes? Well, really, I feel highly honoured to find he has spoken of me to you. Good morning. Remember me to him. Friday evening at eight o'clock. And then she swept out of the little parlor, and Maggie stood spellbound for an instant, and then broke forth into a gay laugh that would have greatly scandalised the departed guest had she heard it. I do hope Horace won't make me go, thought she. I shouldn't like to say what I think of her. How dare such creatures call to see creatures like me! And then she laughed again, and frisked back to her unfinished work more gaily than ever. Was this the laugh of contempt? By no means. It was the song of a bird that has soared high and lingered long in an atmosphere far above this world. We shall have to go, said Horace, when Maggie told him of the invitation, but she will soon drop us, never fear. But why must we go? We have no interest in common with such people. Why, all I can talk about is what we shall have for dinner when dinner is to be got without money, and what my mission children are to wear, and what I am to teach them, and what they said to me last Sunday. Don't be absurd, child, said Horace, looking at her flushed, pretty face with pride. It will do them good to hear something from a world they never entered. What have you got to wear? Will my black silk do? No, indeed. She said it was to be a very social little party. Yes, that's the stereotyped word, but it means nothing at all. I remember my first entrance into fashionable life. The invitation was for seven o'clock, and the words very socially were underscored. Aunt Jane, who never goes to large parties, was deceived, as well as I, and as she chose to have me escort her, we reached the house not long after the appointed hour. Aunt Jane was very plainly dressed, and so were the very few guests we found there. But our hostess was all ablaze with diamonds, and threw everybody into the shade till two mortal hours had passed, when low a host of birds of paradise came flocking in, till the large rooms were crowded almost to suffocation. We got no supper till half past eleven, by which time we were ready to sink with fatigue, and Aunt Jane took a vow never to make another social visit during her natural life. And why can't we do the same? Well, we are not elderly widows, and people would think us odd. Then let them think so. What do we care what they think? But in this case we must go. Mrs.—what's her name? Mrs. Reid. Mrs. Reid, well, fancy, you are afraid to trust me in her charming presence if we declined to go. Maggie laughed heartily. Then suppose you go without me. I don't really think I've got anything that is fit for a regular party dress. Where would you ward a Mrs. White's the evening we dined there? You looked so lovely, then, Maggie. But I should have to get a new pair of gloves. And oh, Horace, we should not be able to walk, and if we took a carriage—it would cost money, yes, I know that—but just this once won't ruin us. No, but it will not end at this once if we begin to go to large parties. What a nuisance it is to have to count every penny so, said Horace. You really want to go, then? I cannot say that exactly. But I must own that I should like to let that set of people see my little wife. If that is all, I will not go, said Maggie, decidedly. Dear Horace, why can't we take a position of our own? We don't care for the world, and it doesn't care for us. And we can't afford to keep up with it, either. Oh, to all intents and purposes I have done with the world, replied Horace. But I rather thought we ought to look into it now, and then, if only to make sure there is nothing in it we want, and that we have nothing to give it. But if you say so, we'll cut loose from it, and make a new one for ourselves. Not for ourselves, but for everybody we can help or comfort. Now that miserable rent is paid, I'll tell you what I want to do. Well, my little woman speak on and speak fast, for I've hard worked before me tonight. I'll speak as slowly as I can, said Maggie, who could be mischievous once she chose. I want to get up a nice little supper next Sunday night and have your mission boys to tea. They wouldn't come. Leave that to me. I'll get round them. We'll have them to tea. Then we'll read a chapter. Oh, we'll read round. Boys always like that, and have prayers and sing a little, and then I'll go down and read to Mary in the kitchen. And you can talk to them, and get at them, as you can't do at school. Then on the Sunday after, I'll have my girls. And shall I have to go and stay with Mary, asked Horace to merely? No. After prayers you shall go and spend one hour with Aunt Jane. She misses the Sunday evening visits used to make after you are wounded, and I don't think you ought to give them up. I do not see how an own mother could have done more for you than she has done. If ever a man let himself be pulled about by the nose, I am that man, said Horace. Well, get up your little suppers and whatever else you like. Only now I must really attend to these papers. Kiss me, and let me go. Which she did, but he wouldn't go. This little wife charmed him. He knew not why, and he did not feel like work after his long day at the office. I don't know, he said, untieing at last the red tape that secured a roll of papers. Whether I most like or most love you. Was that remark addressed to those papers, or to me, asked Maggie, in a way that provoked the tossing of them all on the table where they spent the rest of the evening untouched? I'll have stood prunes for one thing, said Maggie, and buns for another. Boys always like buns, and donuts. I wish we could afford to give them some oysters. We might, just for once, said Horace. But it isn't going to be for once. It is going to be ever so many times. Well, I know what I'll have. There are plenty of good things that don't cost much. Only they are not genteel. But we don't set up to be genteel. The next Sunday, Maggie scared every boy in Horace's class with a tiny little note in which she called him, Dear Bob, or Dear Jim, as the case might be, told him what she was going to have for supper, and coaxed him to bring his Bible, and surely come. Are you going, Bob, coaxed Jim? No, I ain't got anything to wear. I ain't either. What do you suppose she wants of us? To convert us, I guess, were upon seven separate grins on as many separate faces. Cold suppers as prime, suggested Bill Rooney. I'm going. She knowed I'd come looking like sixty. She saw me last Sunday, and she seen me this. If you're going, I am, said Bob. Let's all go, squealed little Tim Weaver, who never remembered having all he wanted to eat at any one time in his life. What's this at the end? Your aff, friend. I say, what kind of a friend is that? It means she'll be fronted if we don't go, said Jim. And the captain says he wants us. The thing ended in this wise. The doorbell rang at six o'clock, and the seven boys stamped into the house, looking like seven prisoners about to be sentenced. There was a scuffle in the hall as to who should go into the parlor first, which was summarily ended by Jim's aiding little Tim's entrance by the skilful application of his foot to the small of his back, sending that young man into the august presence of the captain and Maggie with a jerk that took away his breath. Seven hard faces looked up into Maggie's, and seven hard little fists were clasped by her loving hand, and then they got awkwardly into seven chairs, and looked as if they would like to run away. Bob had got on his elder brother's jacket, lent for the occasion, and was nearly buried alive in it. Jim had outgrown his jacket, which came only a little way below his arms, and girded about him like a belt. Little Tim could hardly walk for he wore his mother's shoes, which fell off at every step, and even when he sat in his chair with his young lugs dangling in the air. He blushed and put them on, and they fell off, and were put on again in spite of his loudly whispered admonition, I say, you old shoes you, you'd better stay on if you know what's good for you. But now tea was ready, and Maggie got them around her little table somehow. Now, boys, she said pleasantly, we always shut our eyes and fold our hands and ask God to bless our food before we taste it, and you'll do just as we do, I'm sure. The seven pairs of eyes shut themselves together like a vice, and the rough hands were folded as an immortal grip. Only little Tim couldn't help pecking as he afterwards confessed to see whether all the promised things were on the table. Maggie had provided as she would have done for her own brothers if she had seven of them, and was greatly surprised and disappointed to find how little these boys ate in proportion. There were various reasons for this. In the first place they were frightened half out of their wits. They had none of them the vigorous health of boys born of pure and healthy parents, nor had they been accustomed to the full meals to which the children of Plenty are invited thrice every day. Still, they had a certain pleasure at sitting at a well-ordered table, and in drinking tea with a captain and his dear little wife, and little Tim did full justice to all the good things. If the others did not, indeed he never heard the last of his feats on this occasion, as each of his comrades made an exact inventory of all he consumed, and never forgot one of its items. The reading round at prayer has proved an excruciating task to those who read and to those who listened. Not one of the boys read slowly or distinctly, or with a particle of life and spirit. Still a chapter was got through somehow, and then they all knelt down together while Horace prayed for them as he had never done before. After this came the singing, and it was pleasant to hear the seven young boys reiterating, yes, Jesus loves me, over and over, till it did seem that they must truly believe what they sang. Ah, how little it was to him! What sort of uncouth, ill-clad bodies held the souls he loved? Perhaps there was not in all the city a group over which his heart yearned more tenderly than over this. Maggie skipped away after the singing, as she had said she should, that Horace might talk freely to his boys and went down into the kitchen, but Mary had gone to bed. So she sat by the fire there, silently praying for each boy by name, and that Horace might touch and gain their hearts and lead each one to Christ. And last she heard them go shuffling out, and ran gladly upstairs, right into two arms that were waiting for her there. They have enjoyed it, I am sure they have, said Horace, and I don't know when I have had such a pleasant evening. How happy we are, Maggie! Yes, indeed, she cried. No one on earth could be more so. The next Sunday evening went off still better. The girls were not so shy as the boys had been. The true women slumbered in each of them, and told them to sit at the table as Maggie did, not a foot from it, and after Horace had gone away they clustered around their teacher with hugs and kisses and admiring glances, and let her talk to them as she pleased. They were all clamorous to come again, and Maggie promised they should, for her heart yearned over them with love and pity. Meanwhile Horace was giving Aunt Jane an animated account of the evening with his boys, making her smile at one moment, and filling her eyes with tears the next. You are forming just such a Christian home as I hoped you would, she said, and you may depend upon it that in blessing others you will find the richest blessing life can bring. It is all Maggie's doing, returned Horace. I should never have thought of such a thing myself. Much less should I have believed that it could be such a fountain of pure joy. But it is not every man who would at once have yielded to his Maggie's wishes, said Aunt Jane. I particularly like it in you, Horace, because you naturally like to lead. Oh, I lead now, he said quickly. Maggie never sets up her will against mine. Aunt Jane smiled. She could see the silken cord of love by which Maggie was drawing him along and rejoiced in it. I wanted to see you alone, she went on, to tell you how very glad I am that you have conquered your reluctance to pray at our evening meetings. That was Maggie's doing, too, here, you replied. I know I am not gifted in that line. What is being gifted, she interrupted. Why, one can't exactly define it, but surely we all know what it means. If it means being far-fetched and original and striking, then I will allow that you are not. But if it means really speaking to the Lord Jesus like one used to it, in the language of simple love and faith, without rhetoric or flourish or parade, then, dear Horace, you are so far gifted that it is your duty to lead us in our prayers whenever you are asked. Thank you, Aunt Jane. You have taken a perfect load off my mind. But I want to take a mother's privilege and suggest one thing, that it would not be a mist to do to every young man who prays in public. You all repeat the name of God too often. And if no friend has courage to tell you of it at the outset, the habit becomes fixed. I know it is a very delicate matter to criticize a prayer. But I do it in tenderest love, I might say, pride. For when I think of what you were aiming at a few years ago and what you love and are aiming at now, I could cry for joy. And so could I, he said, while his eyes grew moist with grateful tears. When I think of those days, days of perfect health and comparative freedom from care, for I had only myself to think of them, and these days when I suffer the inconvenience and privation of one limb less than I was born with, and the constant restriction of limited means, I am astonished at the superficial views of life that made me count getting into society again when it was only a sad, irreparable loss. God has been very good to you, she said musingly. Yes, and what he has given me in Maggie no tongue can tell. Why he should create and then give her to me I cannot imagine. You don't know what she is. As I have not been married to her five months, perhaps I do not, she answered with a smile, but I have known her a great many years, and her happiness in you, and yours in her does my old heart good. And now, before you go, let us kneel down and thank God for all he has given us, especially what he has given us, in himself. Well, it was not a gifted prayer that went up from his lips that night as Horace knelt side by side with his almost mother, but it told a story of love and faith that brought them very near to Christ and to each other, and sent him home, a very happy man. And there he found Maggie, waiting to tell him all about her evening, with all sorts of amusing things mixed up with the graver ones, and so ended a day that had, had in it, and that had given to many others some of the gladdest sunshine of life. Let those who do not believe it try it for themselves. End of Chapter 12 CHAPTER XIII of Aunt Jane's Hero This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jean A. Aunt Jane's Hero by Elizabeth Prentice, Chapter 13 Though Maggie had once said there was nothing characteristic and individual about her new home, that could not be said now. For the sun shone on very few that were so poor yet so rich, so strictly, often painfully, economical, yet so hospitable, so full of care, yet so free from care. Both Horace and Maggie had to trim their sails very closely. And those who know what it is to count the cost of every little item know there is no poetry in the mere counting. Yet those who know nothing about these weary-some details are ignorant, too, of many a little innocent joy borne thereof or rather borne in spite of them. When Mr. Rainer, the great millionaire, carried home to his wife one day a set of diamonds fit for a princess, she was proud and pleased, and on great occasions decked herself in them with no little estate. But when Horace brought to Maggie a bunch of fragrant violets, with one or two words that sparkled with the love he offered with them, it is no exaggeration, none whatever, to say that this gift awakened more joy in her heart than her apparently more favored sister-woman could be made to feel at any price. How often she had passed the poor girls and poor old women who sold those bouquets by the wayside, and refused herself the luxury of buying one. And now it had come to her fragrant with a love of the heart she loved best. And then, when after close consultation they went out together and bought some household treasure, long needed, and at last attainable, how content they were and how astonished the five dollars could go so far. Their identity with the mission school had given them good, estimable friends. There had been several simple entertainments given to the teachers which they had hardly adjoined. And now spring had come, bringing among many other pleasant things a basket of eggs for Maggie's own hens at home, and her father and mother had come, too, for a little visit. We'll have all the mission and all the Sunday school teachers some evening this week, said Maggie. I want my father and mother to see how nice they are. Besides, we've visited ever so many of them. Yes, said Horace a little dubiously. Only our rooms are small. When I took this house I thought we should never undertake to entertain visitors in it. You didn't know what sort of a Maggie you were going to marry, she said, laughing at his doubtful face. I know what you are thinking of. Oysters and ice cream. But I am not. I am going to have cake and coffee, no more and no less. The boys have sent eggs, and mother has brought butter. I shall make the cake, and it will sure to be good. But nothing but cake and coffee, said Horace. Yes, dear, what we can afford, not what we can't. I'm not ashamed that I can't get up splendid suppers, and I should be ashamed to ape the style of those who do. What an independent little piece it is, cried Horace, going off to his office, conquered, if not convinced. Maggie wrote off some of her invitations and promised a pie to a boy who was kicking up his heels in idleness across the street if he would deliver them, and ran around to see other friends who live near. Almost everybody came. Everybody had a good time. Everybody enjoyed the cake and coffee and the agreeable host and sweet little wife. But when there came signs of departure, Maggie went to Horace and whispered, we'll have prayers before they go, shouldn't we? Oh, would you? Yes indeed, why not? It will look so odd. Will it? But we don't care how it looks. It is the right way. I'm sure it is. Well, and his momentary doubt and embarrassment gave way when a few minutes later he heard the voice of his Maggie's father in such a prayer as befitted a Christian home, where the master of the feast was acknowledged as a welcome guest. He was glad that he had this fearless wife, who was never ashamed of her flag, yet never paraded it, glad when he was under her gentle, loving guidance. And Maggie, unconscious of this guidance, was glad she had such a good man for her husband, who always took such a decided stand on the right side. She enjoyed the visit of her father and mother with all her heart, and they enjoyed it well all theirs as well they might. I want you to know, darling, her mother said at parting, that if anything should happen to us, your father and I should leave you without one anxious thought. We love Horace almost as well as we do you. He is a noble, true-hearted man. These words fell sweetly on Maggie's ear. You can't think how kind he is to me, she said, but it worries him that we have to pinch so. It comes harder on him than on me, because I've always been used to it. It will not hurt either of you as long as you have health. And if that fails, God will provide for you in some way, said her father. He is rich, and could give you more now if he saw that it would be good for you. Never forget that. I never do, said Maggie. I would not have you think we are either of us discontented, but sometimes when we dine out and I see the beautiful linen and the delicate cut glass and all the luxuries of that sort, it does shoot through me. Just shoots, you know? Well, Maggie, would you like to indulge in such treasures? But such shots will not kill my little Maggie, said her mother. Not even wound her very sorely. No, but I thought I ought to tell you that I am not an angel, said Maggie, laughing, yet with some feeling, though I do want to be one. It would not take long, nor be very hard work to turn her into one, her mother said afterwards, referring to this remark made in a sweet, shame-faced way. She is a chip of the old block, was the reply, made in a tone that did the heart of the minister's wife good. Maggie went home to spend the month of August, Horace spending his Sundays with her. She went to please her parents and the boys rather than herself, for it grieved her to leave her husband hard at work and alone. And she did not like to leave her scholars, either. They loved her so dearly, and she was getting such influence over them. Still she had a happy month at the dear old parsonage, saw all her old friends, said and did a great many kind things, and wrote letters to Horace that filled him with pride and joy. So the first year of their married life was drawing to an end in a sunshiney way. Annie and her Tom were expected home, and Aunt Jane had put some business into the hands of Horace that promised to be very lucrative. They breathed more freely, and Maggie promised herself the great joy of doing more through the approaching winter, for a set of poor folks she had in hand than she had done before. As has been already observed, the house in which they lived was in an obscure street, not far from a number of tenement houses, wherein dwelt swarms of ill-conditioned men, women, and children, whether owing to this fact or to some other, about the middle of September Horace began to suffer with pains in his head, of which he did not at first speak to Maggie, but she soon perceived his flagging appetite and loss of strength and expressed her uneasiness. It is nothing but the heat, Horace declared, I always find this early September weather trying, I shall be all right in a day or two. But he grew worse rather than better, and the doctor whom Maggie at last called in uttered two words that completely disheartened her, for she had seen not a little typhus fever in her own village home, and dreaded it as those who dwell in cities dread the smallpox. And Horace so soon became unconscious of all about him that the floods of tears she shed did him no harm. She had never been a coward before. She had been a courageous, cheerful nurse, repeatedly, when there had been serious illness in her father's house. But now she cried day and night. The thought of having to live without Horace was so fearful that she found no spot on which to rest. She fancied his death, his funeral, her going back to live at home, and could have shrieked at the bare image. What sort of a home would it be? Why the mountains that stood around it would lie before her like a dead plane. The fields and groves would be covered with a black pall for evermore. And then she hung over Horace and begged him to speak to her once more, only once, and tell her he forgave the little faults which now loomed up before her imagination as so many crimes. In this state Aunt Jane found her, when on her return to town on the first of October, she drove leisurely down to see them, ignorant of what was going on. My poor child, I don't know you, she said, taking the drooping figure in her arms. Is this my courageous? Is this my Christian Maggie? Oh, I don't know who it is, answered Maggie, and she went on crying in such a sorrowful, heartbreaking way that, notwithstanding Aunt Jane's tacit reproof, she began to cry too, till neither of them had a tear left. Now we shall feel better and be able to talk, she said, smiling and drawing Maggie closer. Tell me all about it. Tell me what makes you so hopeless. Maggie told the whole story quietly, but pitifully. The hard part of it is that I can't pray, she added. If I kneel down, I just go to crying, and can't say a word. I know it is all right, and that I ought to be willing to let him go if God says so. But the bare thought of having to live without him makes me shiver. I do not want to try to make you fancy that it would not be a very grievous thing to give him up, said Aunt Jane. But I want you to listen to what I am now about to say, because I mean a great deal by it. Do you remember the story of the sickness of David's child, how during those seven days he fasted and wept and prayed, and when he heard that it was dead, he arose from the earth and washed and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Lord, and worshiped? Yes, it has puzzled me. But I understand it, and so do all who have had a similar experience, or have observed it in others. God does not give beforehand the grace with which to bear his blows. He does not heal before he smites. In your terror at the thought of parting with Horace, you left entirely out of account the sustaining power that would hold you up and bear you through those awful moments. You suffered in advance and holy in your own strength. How many persons I have heard say, I am a marvel to myself. This blow, so long dreaded, has not slain me as I ever believed it would. I stagger under it, but I live to wonder at the strength God gives me, and in which I bear it, just as the massive people dread death and declare that they shall shrink from it at last, yet for all that the dying grace comes in the dying hour. Maggie made no reply, but received those words thoughtfully into her heart. Shall I go in now and see Horace, asked Aunt Jane? If you are not afraid of taking the fever, said Maggie, and then wondered how she could use the word afraid to one who she well knew understood not its meaning. What doctor have you, was the next question, as they stood together by the unconscious sufferer? Oh, I did not know whom to send for. You were away, and so is everybody I knew. I got the one who resides nearest, Dr. Page. I never heard of him. The next time he comes, ask him if he is willing I should send my doctor also. They sat down together in silence, but it was the silence before God. Then Aunt Jane said, there is just one thing I want to say if you can bear it, darling. Could you believe, if you did not know it, that out of a repulsive caterpillar there could emerge a bright winged butterfly? But I want you to believe, because I know it is true, that joy emerges from sorrow, and sores on wings far more beautiful than any earthly analogy can paint. If God takes away your husband, he will give you something better in his place. Maggie listened as we listened to a distant strain of music, not quite catching its refrain, not sure whether it comes from heaven above or from the earth beneath, yet soothed and quieted by it. And then they talked no more, but sat watching the day slowly depart, and if Maggie could not pray, Aunt Jane could. Yet though they loved Horace like a son and realized now how very dear he was and knew, no human soul knew better, all Maggie would have to pass through if he were taken away, she did not ask for his life. Thy will be done, thy will be done, was all she could say, or would have said if every life that beautified this earth to her lay trembling in the balance. But as night drew on she found her strength failing. She was courageous and full of faith, but all that does not turn a living, quivering human soul into a stone. All her own past sorrows were recalled by the scene before her, and the warm sympathies that made her a comforter reacted sharply upon both heart and brain. I shall have to go home, she said, but I will send someone to spend the night with you, and tomorrow I will get a nurse. Don't open your mouth on that point, she added, as she caught Maggie's look of dismay. This is one of those emergencies when friends must stand by each other. You must let me have the gratification of doing for you and Horace what little extras his illness will require. You have been alone with him in your cares too much as it is. Maggie tried to smile her thanks and did smile, but it was with a look that made Aunt Jane hasten downstairs into her carriage and out of the way. Meanwhile all was peace in the Stafford Parsonage. Maggie had written once since Horace's illness, but not in a way to alarm her parents, for she knew they could not come to her, could not because it costs money to make journeys, and except in a case of life or death she might not send for them. They might not come, twice in one year. She had never felt the bitterness of poverty as she did now, yet she was too well acquainted with its trials to writhe under this new form of probation. But three days later she found herself in the motherly arm she had yearned for, and that Aunt Jane felt she ought to have about her, now that Horace lay just trembling between two worlds. For those three days had made his case look almost hopeless, and a few more such would bring the whole sad story to an end. Maggie had ceased to hope. She had given him up, and wept no more. But none of the strength, none of the joy of which Aunt Jane had spoken, had come to her. Nor did she feel that she wanted either. Just to take the fever and die too, she said to her mother, that's all I want. Are your father and mother, your sisters and your brothers really so little to you, my darling? Mrs. Wyman asked, with such a pang, is only a maternal heart can feel? Everything has changed. Everything is spoiled, was the mournful reply. Is God changed? Oh, I don't know. I thought I loved him, but now I can't love anybody. I feel like a hard stone. You are worn out, dear child, that Aunt Jane. I wish I could see you cry as you did at first. Don't be bitter against yourself. If dear Horace goes, you will be the first to yield to God's will. But now you are physically exhausted, and even he is unreal. Believe me. Believe me, she said earnestly. You will get back to him. He will not leave you to suffer alone. She ought to go to bed and to sleep, said her mother tearfully. I never expected to live to see the time when this child, always so obedient and docile, would resist my will, as she is doing now. Something in these words went to Maggie's heart. She said in her sweetest way, I did not know I was resisting your will, mother. Have you asked me to go to bed? Yes, dear, over and over and over again. I did not hear it. Nothing gets into my head now. All people say flies over it. I will do whatever you like. Then they led her away, thankfully. This night was to decide Horace's case, and they dreaded it for her. She fell asleep the moment her head touched the cool pillow, and slept on and on. And as if he had been only waiting for this, Horace slept too. The nurse gave him stimulants from hour to hour, rousing him for them with difficulty, and then they sat and watched again in silence. Aunt Jane's physician came in the morning before he had had his breakfast. Maggie had won his heart by her tireless devotion to her husband. After examining his patient, he turned to the anxious faces studying his, and he said quietly, he is saved. There were a few moments of joyful tears, and he then added, When he wakes, let him see no one but his wife, and let her be perfectly quiet and natural, as if nothing had happened. It is easy to prescribe, said Aunt Jane, through her tears, and then she stole softly to tell Maggie. After her long night's rest, Maggie was calm, even peaceful. Do not be afraid to tell me the worst, she said. I am ready for it now. I have come to tell you the best, was the reply, and then she added the doctor's directions. Maggie rose and dressed in silence. He is going to get well, she said to herself. But this world has changed to me forever and forever. If there is such a thing as entire, absolute, uncompromising consecration to God, I will know what it means. She went to her husband's side, and all the rest withdrew. What passed in her soul as she knelt there with his hand in hers, no human language can describe. Some would call it by one name, and some by another. To all it would be, even if experienced a great mystery. At last he opened his eyes and saw her. I have overslept, haven't I, he said, trying to rise. No, darling, it is still early. Go to sleep again, she said steadily. He kissed her, his feeble fingers closed a little over hers, just as they had done many a time when she had answered just so. She had got him back again. He was hers. But was she his? Was everything going to fall back again into the old groove? We shall see.