 CHAPTER XXIII. There was something wonderfully pleasant about Mrs. Smith's kitchen. In the strictest sense of the word, it was not a kitchen at all, all the rougher household work having been banished, with the large cookstove, to a small outer room, but the Smiths liked the homely, old-fashioned name and clung to it for this larger room. A wonderfully bright rag carpet adorned the floor, a carpet that was in truth an artistic study, the colors having been arranged with the greatest care, and with a special regard to brightness. The whitewashed walls were hung with many pictures. Some of them cheap prints, many of them really fine engravings, the hoarded treasures of years. They hung in cheap frames, or were merely tacked to the walls, but every one of them, whether cheap or fine, was in itself a treasure. Then the chairs were as unlike as possible to the usual kitchen furniture. In fact, as my Mary said, they were unlike themselves. No two were mates, and yet they were not an incongruous happening of different patterns. Each one was a study. Solomon's special property was a somewhat high, wide-seated, wooden-backed creature, with spring-casters in front and none at the back, which gave it a curious, swinging motion. It was upholstered in a brilliant cushion of small and intricate patchwork, containing, so Mrs. Smith triumphantly informed me once, a bit of every woolen dress she ever wore from the time she was a year-old baby, and Solomon remembered those in which he used to draw her to school on his sled. Her chair was a low-seated, high-backed arm rocker, upholstered also with home but in sober hue, being decorous stripes of gray and black woolen, fashioned of strips from Solomon's worn-out coats and pantaloons. Then there was my special chair, a flag-bottomed rocker of the Olden style, with a peculiarly easy back, and a gay cushion stuffed with feathers from Mrs. Smith's own geese, and covered with bright strips of her own knitting. Mrs. Favourite, a white-flagged, green-painted little sewing chair, sat up hurt and sparkling against the wall, one or two respectable, broad-banded, very old-fashioned splints keeping it company. The Smiths, like ourselves, were very fond of open great fires, and clung to them as late in the season as the weather would admit, but, unlike ourselves, they were blessed with an old-fashioned fireplace wherein the traditional black lug could blaze and snap and sparkle as in the Olden time. I never wondered over Solomon's fondness for poking the coals. He had such a royal chance in that great, wide-mouthed fireplace. Into this cozy room, with a bed of coals and brands in just the right state for poking, we were ushered on that spring evening. The small, square stand, just large enough to hold the lamp in a book or two, besides the Bible which always lay on it, and generally open, was drawn quite near to the hearth, just for the sake of being sociable, Mrs. Smith said. I had heard her remark that she felt sorry for the fireplace when spring grew late. It kind of seemed to her it must know that its shining was over, and that it must lie in blackness and shadow for a long, long time. We sit close up to it as long as we can, and make its last fires as bright as the spring weather will anyways stand. She had said with a half-regretful smile. There they sat together, Solomon in his chair on the hearth, his comfortably-slippered feet spread out on the bright, braided mat, which was almost thick enough to serve as a footstool. His wife just opposite him, not so far away but that she could lean forward on occasion and rest an emphatic hand on his knee, her inevitable knitting in her lap but a book in her hand and an evangelist which had apparently just slipped from her lap to the floor. I remember thinking, as I took my special chair, that the whole bright, homely scene would make a picture for an artist. My Laura had an artist's soul, and I could see her eyes brighten and soften with the beauty of it all. But those other eyes saw a reflection of the ape and monkey caricature which he had tried to draw for us, I suppose. At least they showed no appreciation of the sweet homeliness to which we had introduced him. I do not think I ever liked my prospective son-in-law less than I did that evening. We were most cordially received. Mrs. Smith's homely old face glowed genially over the sight of Laura at her hearthstone again. Yet, with the rare tact which was so marked a trait in her character, she made no comment on the length of time that the child had stayed away. She was equally cordial in receiving Norman, and told him with a smile which should have redeemed her face from all ugliness in his eyes, that she used to know his father well and a better man never lived in the town. You've got his eyes, she said earnestly, and I hope and trust you have his good heart. He was pleasant enough, though he thanked her with too much ceremoniousness for her good opinion of his father, and disclaimed all expectation, I almost said all intention, of ever being so good a man as his father. Then Mrs. Smith, brimful of talk as usual, went back to the subject that had evidently occupied her thoughts when we came. I was just taking dips into the new version, and Solomon and I was talking over some of the changes. We hadn't had it but a little while. I brought it home with me, you know. This to Laura. Well, sir, what do you think of the new version? I waited somewhat curiously for Norman's answer. I had not enough faith in his religious life to believe that he had made a very careful study of either the new or the old version for some time. But he was a man who always had opinions to express, whether or not he had them at hand to live by. I think, he said with promptness, that it represents a great deal of time and money wasted, which might have been used to better advantage. Mrs. Smith was evidently astonished at the answer. Why, do you know? She said eagerly, I can't think it. I have been awaiting for that book to come out as eager as a little girl for a new dolly. Same to me I couldn't wait till they got it ready, though as it happened I did, and a good while after. The Lord filled my hands so full of work of one kind in another that I hadn't time for no new versions. But when I got hold of it I was tickled. Seems to me that whatever makes the Bible's a might-planer to plain people can't be a waste of time or money, can it? But has it made it any planer? Read Norman. I don't know of anything in it that amounts to much in the way of plainness, I'm sure. And again I could not help wondering whether he really knew what was in it. Oh, I do! The old lady said in quiet positiveness, We've found some things, haven't we, Solomon? When you came in we had just been talking about the Lord's prayer. Now I suppose if there is any one thing we ought to understand pretty well it's them verses of the prayer we've been praying ever since we got in and out of our cradles. And yet I don't think I understood it till I got hold of the new version. I've about held my breath over that prayer a good many times, in a kind of a scare, you know. The fact is, I've been a peppery body all my life. Never Solomon knows I could go off as quick as a Lucifer match, quicker a good deal than the worthless things they make nowadays. Oh, now Maria, show! These were the first words that Solomon had uttered since he had given us greeting. After this effort he leaned forward and poked the firebrand so effectually that it sent up a shower of sparks. It's so, said his wife. That's been my thorn in the flesh all my life, and will be something of a thorn I'm afraid as long as I have any flesh. And by streaks I find it most awful hard to forgive folks. Mean snaky folks, you know, that slip around doing slimy things. Not to me specially, though I've borne my share of slime in my day, but kind of general slipping around, doing of things that you hate. You know what I mean. Well, I've come to that before now, many a time, when I've just had to hold my breath and think, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Says I, hold on Mrs. Solomon Smith, do you really want that? Are you sure you want the Lord to forgive you just exactly as you forgive Susan Barker? She was a young woman that tried me most awful in her time. For about two years she was a regular thorn. She's been in heaven these dozen years. I've no kind of doubt of it. I was with her when she went, and I knew the Lord sent his angels, and they was waiting all around there before she died. Think of me having hard work to forgive her just because she had made some mistakes, said things here and there she no business to. And gone quite a while without a taken of them back. And I, acting as though I'd never done nothing wrong in my life, couldn't see my way clear to forgiving her. But that's just the kind of mean creatures we are. Well, many a time she's given me a stab right on my knees, and I'd wait and I'd have to own up. No Lord, I don't believe I can do it. I believe I want a better forgiveness from you than I've given to her. I feel kind of gaudy this minute when I think of her. And there was days at a time when I'd slip around that prayer, all on account of Susan Barker. And she wasn't the only one either. There was times when I had quite a number of them that didn't do right or say right, and seemed to be bothering around me as sure as I got down on my knees to pray that particular prayer. For this Frank statement Norman roared. He was entirely capable of seeing the ludicrous side of a question. But I'm utterly unable to see what the new version has to do with this trouble, he said, as soon as he could command his voice. Why, don't you see what I did? I had just sense enough to know that it would be an awful thing to pray to God to forgive me as I had forgiven my brothers, if I hadn't done my part just right. And so I thought I could make it all right by slipping around the Lord's prayer, and making up one of my own, and leaving them out of it altogether, till I got ready to write down out and out forgive them in the fashion that I saw plain enough the Lord must forgive me if it was going to do me any good. But now look at the new version. Give us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Don't you see that shows the work is all done? It is just plain sailing. Lord, I've forgiven Susan Barker the best I know how. Now forgive me. I don't know as I make my meaning plain, but it is most dreadful plain to me that there's no slipping around it. The Lord's prayer don't make us ask the Lord to treat us just exactly as we have done our enemies, but it says in plain English, we've done our best. We forgive them before we come to our knees. I don't know as you see through it. I'm not good at making other folks understand. But I know if I'd had the new version while I was on thorns with Susan Barker, I'd have understood that leaving out the Lord's prayer didn't do no good, that he expected us to forgive before we come to him with any prayer at all about anything else. And if we hadn't done it, and couldn't do it, every living thing we had a right to pray about was, Lord, give me the heart to forgive them, and let that be settled before we talk to him about forgiving us. Then I am glad for one that they put Satan into that prayer. Put Satan into it? Repeated Norman with an astonished stare, and then going off into a perfect roar of laughter, while Laura exclaimed as to what her friend could mean. Why, yes, child, put him in there himself in so many words. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. That's the way we've prayed it, you know. Now I'm an ignorant old woman, and didn't understand it. And that's what I say the new version is good for such as me. I couldn't seem to make it mean anything but this. Lead us not into temptation, but if we do succeed in getting in, in spite of you, why deliver us from the evil of it? That don't sound reverent maybe. I mean it reverent, but I didn't understand it. Now I pray, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Him that's forever after us, going around like a roaring lion, and liking nothing in life so much as to lead us right into the thickest temptation he can. Deliver us from him, amen, I say, with all my heart. And when I speak him right out on my knees to Christ, and recognize him as an awful enemy, I seem to sense the thing that for this purpose was the Son of Man manifested to destroy the works of the devil. And I somehow feel sureer that he can do it. But now there's something I want to ask you. I saw the other day, in a paper, that some folks thought it was a kind of triumph for the infidels and scoffers that we had got out a new version, and I don't see how it can be. What does it mean? It is true, said Norman briskly, the young man liked to impart information as well as any person I ever saw. You see, it plainly proves what they have been saying all along, that our old Bible is full of errors, and that we have outgrown it and are dissatisfied with it. And they say, in a few years you will have outgrown this new version, and you will need another and another, and the thing will go on as man increases in knowledge until he gets a Bible to suit him. And there is altogether too much truth in the thing to have it in any sense agreeable to thinking people. That is my objection. The fact is, we didn't need a new version. The old one was good enough. There are a few changes which, as you say, make things plainer. But those have been explained again and again by commentaries, and to put an argument into the mouths of infidels that we had outgrown our old Bible and had to have a new one made for us, has overbalanced all the good that the slight changes might have done. Norman delivered this lecture with the air of one who had settled an important question for all time. Mrs. Smith was leaning forward in an attitude of fixed and eager attention. Her lips moved several times, as one who had a great deal to say and was burning with the desire to say it, yet she did not interrupt him. So that argument upsets itself, knocks it end-wise. It was the slow, grave voice of Solomon that said this. We need a new version to show them folks that we don't want a new Bible, and haven't got one and can't get it. Don't you see you've said yourself that the changes don't amount to nothing, only to make things a little planer than they was before? Here's them infidels, been a-harping ever since I could read, and I don't know how much before, about our Bible being full of mistakes, not to be trusted. You couldn't meet a single pop-n-j just out of college, but he would try to sputter to you about the original and the dreadful mistakes in our translation. Now here we've had the smartest scholars we could find in the world at work for the best part of their lives, doing the thing all over again, and what have they made out? Why there ain't a doctrine changed a hair's breadth. The road to heaven and the road to hell is just as straight in the new version as it is in the old, and the way to escape the one place and get to the other is the same old way, and Jesus Christ is the beginning and middle and end of it all, just as he always was, and there ain't an honest infidel among them but can see it, and if he goes to harping about not being satisfied with the old Bible and wanting of a new one, he shows that he's a fool right in the face of his own argument, whereupon a perfect shower of sparks went up from the hitherto smoldering fire-brand at his feet. Jesus Smith bestowed admiring glances on her husband as he sat back from the poking, and even Norman seemed roused out of his good-natured condescension to realize that Solomon Smith, however much he might resemble an ape, had let some sparks of good plain common sense out into the room. Laura moved restlessly in her chair. She believed in the new version. She supposed that most educated people did. It was a surprise to her to learn that Norman did not, though if she had known him as well as I did, she would have understood that, for all he had said, he might believe in it, or what was more probable, he might not have given it any thought. He had just been, parrot-like, repeating words that he had heard from others. The thing that had not been pleasant to Laura was to see him worsted in an argument by a plain old man. I thought at time for a change of subject. What news do you find in the paper? I asked Mrs. Solomon, indicating by a glance the evangelist at her feet. CHAPTER XXIV Why? said Mrs. Solomon, stooping to pick up the paper. This is old news. I didn't have any paper while I was away, you know, and I've been reading up. Today I come across an article which made me kind of mad, and I've been reading it over again to Solomon this evening. It is written by a man named Smith. He ain't no relation of mine, for he spells his name with a why. I'm glad enough that I don't have to claim him, for, to tell you the truth, I don't altogether like him. He writes real interesting, too, but for a smart man as he seems to be, he says rather queer things. I wonder if you've seen this. It is about most everything, and among the rest, communion wine. He says it won't greatly afflict his soul if he never sees another word on the threadbare subject. According to his notion, the Lord used whatever wine happened to be handy, either good or bad, when he had the supper with his disciples, and he does hope that the whole subject of what kind of wine to use at the sacrament may have rest for the next thousand years. Now ain't that kind of queer talk for a smart man? It is talk that is much needed, declared Norman, springing vigorously to the combat. Our fanatical temperance friends have done what they could to injure the cause. We have need of strong words and pronounced opinions from level heads. But it don't appear to me that this man's head is exactly level. He is an out-and-out temperance man. He goes on to talk about the folly of the other side, and he makes it plain enough that the folks who try to make a principle of using the other kind of wine are idiots, and then he kind of knocks things over by saying a little against his own views. The strongest logicians we have, quoth Norman, are those who can see both sides of a question. In fact, that is the foundation stone of all true argument. Any other method is fanatical ranting. Have you been troubled about that important question of what wine to use at communion? There was an air of good-humored tolerance about the self-possessed speaker, which would have been amusing if it had not been provoking. Mrs. Smith took it meekly. No, she said, reaching for her knitting and making the shining needles fly. I've never been troubled since I've settled the question. It is about thirteen years since I made up my mind that a thing which poisoned the body and killed the soul couldn't be a fit emblem for the life of that soul in Christ, and of his undying and purifying love, and so I refused to drink it. Much as I love his table I'd go without the emblems from now till I could eat them anew in my father's kingdom before I'd take fermented stuff into my mouth. You didn't know I had a trial of it, did you? This sentence addressed to me. That time I went with Jonas to church after Lita was sitting up. It was communion, you know. Well, if you'll believe it, I smelled the wine before they had got within three seats of me. Do you remember our poor Mr. Marshall, who went to ruin because he couldn't let wine alone? That smell just brought me face to face with him and his dead wife and all his awful trouble. He abending over her dead body and crying like a child, and his breath smelling of liquor then so you couldn't get away from it. There he came right along with that communion wine down the aisle, and that made me think of the other memories that some others must have mixed in with the smell. Where fathers you know, and mothers and wives, with their sons and husbands gone wrong. Do you suppose I'd touch that cup? Not for its weight in gold. Says I to myself, Mrs. Solomon Smith, you need purer and holier memories than that at the table of your Lord. I sat up straight and let that cup pass right by me, and shook my head. My pledge reads not to touch, nor taste, nor handle, and I wasn't going to break it in the house of God. What right had they to tempt me to do it, I'd like to know? Norman's face wore its superior smile. And so, my friend, you missed the communion. What a pity! If you had read your namesake's argument on the folly of having two kinds of wine, which you say yourself is an unanswerable argument, it might have relieved you. No, I didn't miss my communion, young man. The Lord can commune with his children, without the help of a drop of wine, though I own it was a trial to me to have men put a bar up between my right to use the emblem of his own planning. But you don't understand what I said about this article. I suppose I muddled it. I'm a master-hand at muddling things. It is all on the other side. He says, if you undertake to make out that folks must use intoxicating wine at the Lord's table, because he used it when he was on earth, then you are bound to make out that they must use bread without any yeast in it for the same reason. And it ought to be used, even if it gave all the Christians in the land dyspepsia, for dyspeptics can go to heaven while drunkards can't. He's sharp, you see, and sharp on the right side, too. I don't believe, mind you, that the Saviour used a drop of the stuff that makes drunkards, but even if he did, that don't prove that we ought to do it now, unless it proves, as this writer says, that we ought to use heavy bread. Oh! said Norman, sitting back discomfited. That's his dodge, is it? I don't see, but he is strongly enough on your side. Why are you quarreling with him? Just because he can't seem to stay level-headed. I like folks to be square and consistent. It shows they may be honest, you know, even if they are not on what you call the right side. But I never could understand how a body could be on both sides. You know I told you how he said he hoped the threadbare subject would be left to rest for a thousand years, and he goes on to hint that the way to do it is for each church to do as it likes, and then he says, wait, let me read the very words. It is a terrible fact that men have relapsed into drunkenness, from taking intoxicating wine on sacramental occasions. Now if that is so, what business has he or anybody else who loves the Lord Jesus Christ, and the souls he died to save, to let the subject rest? It is just that that made me mad. I say a man who can write like that and prove things as he has proved them has no business to let the thing rest for a thousand years or one year. If it puts one soul in peril, it ain't threadbare, and no Christian has a right to say it. The strong old eyes grew bright with earnestness, and the shining needles clicked very fast. Mrs. Smith had mounted one of her hobbies. A bright red spot was burning on Laura's cheek. Norman was lounging back in the splint chair she had given him, and was surveying Mrs. Smith with mild curiosity. He did not attempt to answer her. I believe he was too entirely indifferent to the whole subject to care to. I believe in temperance, he said pleasantly, but I repeat, as I said before, I think that fanaticism on the subject is to be deplored and avoided. It does harm. Oh, I suppose so! was Mrs. Smith's meek reply. Though I looked out the word in the dictionary the other day, there has been such a talk lately about fanaticism in one way and another that I wanted to know just exactly what the thing was, and it wasn't half so dreadful as I supposed. A very great enthusiasm for a subject, says Webster, and I'm sure I don't see why we need care how enthusiastic folks get over a good cause. To be sure, Webster said that schemes of fanatical folks are apt to run away with their judgment, or something of that sort, and I suppose it so. I suppose some of the ways that temperance folks have worked was lacking in judgment maybe. But then it don't seem to me that it takes a great deal of judgment to decide that when there's good, pure, unfermented wine made a purpose for the Lord's table that can be had by taking a little trouble and spending a little money, we better have it than to have the poison stuff that some folks think is wicked. I don't see much of what you call fanatics about that. I'll tell you what I have thought sometimes, as true as you live, and that is that fanatical is a word that some people have got in the habit of using when they want to do a thing that others don't think is right. If somebody tells them of it, they up and say he's a fanatic. I dare say Herod and Herodius thought that John the Baptist was a first-class fanatic. There's another thing that I think is queer, and that is the way that money will blind folks' eyes. There's that tavern down at the corners. You know what a low-lived place it has always been, Mrs. Leonard? Well, they are trying to reform it, you know. They are getting up a stock concern, and they want Solomon to go in and take two or three shares, and says he, if you will make it a temperance house and write out the papers so that it can't never be used for anything else but a temperance house, I'll take all the stock you want me to. Do you believe they would do it? They up and called him a fanatic right away. It was that day that I looked out the meaning of the word, and I ain't liked the sound of it too well ever since. She was as innocent as a child. She knew absolutely nothing about Norman's hotel stock. It was simply one of those strange happenings of which this world of ours is full. The blood flamed over poor Laura's face, reaching to her very temples. But Norman laughed serenely. The second-rate tavern at the corners might be very disreputable stock. He was not prepared to say that it wasn't. He was entirely willing that Solomon Smith should think it was. But his logical mind saw no connection whatever between his investing a few hundred dollars in the tavern at the corners and having those hundred multiplied by many thousands invested in the St. Pierre with its massive many storied walls and its aristocratic furnishings. Was it harder or easier for Laura that he was so obtuse? He seemed disinclined to pursue the subject of temperance further. There was no opportunity for displaying his powers of oratory. He was not annoyed by the narrow view which this old couple took in regard to all these matters. He was simply indifferent. They were at liberty to think exactly what they pleased, so long as they did not disturb him, and he was not easily disturbed. One further thrust which Mrs. Smith gave, which did actually bring a flush to his cheek. I know you agree with me on that, she said, referring to the investment, for you was brought up to it. Twenty years ago, don't you remember Solomon? They wanted his father to build a hotel here, a real good one, and led it to Timothy Doyle, and they represented to him that there was more money to be made by it than any other way. And says he, gentlemen, I don't do it. None of my money shall be spotted with rum. I'll keep it clean from that curse, whatever else I do. That was your own father, young man, and I heard him say the very words. That's something to be proud of. You see, it wasn't then as it is now, a kind of a matter of course with Christian people. He was away ahead of the times. Norman laughed, albeit his face, as I said, was flushed. The world moves, he said, and people's views change. Then he turned entirely away from the subject, as one who thought it was worn out and would have no more of it. And Laura looked as though she was wearied with all subjects. I was trying to determine in my mind whether a suggestion to go home would be too abrupt when Solomon Smith, who had been utterly silent during the last discussion, and indeed had worn a look that indicated him as thinking gravely about something else, now made known the subject of his thoughts in slow, serious tones. Job Simmons is sick. Is that so? questioned his wife, forgetting alike her stocking and her guests, and ready with instant sympathy in face and voice. How did you hear? Much sick? Dreadful sick, I guess. In a bad way, the doctor said. I met him when I was coming from the crossroads. He had the doctor. Then they must think he's bad. What appears to be the matter? Solomon Smith leaned forward, reached for the tongs, carefully laid two smoldering bits of stick that had fallen apart in such close connection that a friendly blaze sprang up between them, restored the tongs to their corner, and sat back in his chair before he made slow answer. He's got the fever. What the fever they are having in the city! I expect that's the fever. Really? Interrupted Norman, in a more interested tone than he had used before that evening. I hope that wretched fever isn't going to break out among your poor people here. It has been very fatal in the lower portion of the city. Hardly a case recovered, one of the physicians told me. I was panic-stricken, Laura, when I heard of your being with a fever patient. I thought at first it was the same disease. Mrs. Smith did not seem to hear this. Her knitting still lay in her lap, and she was looking at her husband in a thoroughly startled way that seemed singular to me, knowing, as I did, how free from panic her nature was. But what will Job do for care? She asked at last. Yes, said Solomon. There's the rub. Then I—why isn't his wife a capable woman? She ain't any woman at all to speak of, said Mrs. Smith, not sharply, but as if she were stating a recognized and undeniable fact. What little there was of her before is about took out with the chills she's been having this spring. They live in a low, marshy place, and the cellar is damp. And they're poor, poorer than usual this spring. They can't hire no help, and I don't know as there'd be anybody to hire if they could. Folks is dreadful panic-struck about that fever. Miss Perkins was telling me today that she wouldn't go into it a bit quicker than she would into smallpox. I don't know as she's to blame. They do say that folks that are over it, taking care of the sick, are pretty near certain to get it. And she's got children to think about. Solomon, what are they doing now down to Job's? They're doing just about as bad as they can. Nobody's there, only Jim Beers, and he ain't no good in sickness, you know. Then there was a moment of silence, not of idleness, where we were all engaged with the fire. Solomon reached for the tongs, and poked and poked, and relayed with skillful touches, until from the dying embers there burst a glow of beauty, and the flames shot up to the low ceiling and set all the pictures in frames of gold. When he once more laid aside the tongs, he put his old worn hands on his knees, and looked straight into his wife's gray eyes, and said, Maria, I suppose I ought to go. It seems to me I can feel yet the stillness that there was for a moment. I can almost hear the great sigh which broke it, and the quiet words, Solomon, I don't know but you are right. Then after another moment, who's to stay with him tonight? There's nobody to stay unless I be. And did you think of going to-night? Well, there it is. There he lies alone upstairs in that uncomfortable room, and there she is downstairs with the child and the chills, and here I be sitting by the fire. Did you tell the doctor, Solomon? I told him you and me would talk the thing over, and that Job would likely be took care of somehow. I could not keep my eyes away from poor Laura's white, startled face. One might almost have supposed that Job Simmons was her dear friend, and to think of him as ill and suffering put her in mortal terror. Across my mind there flashed her of late, oft-repeated hint, or it might almost be called challenge, that she should like to see Mrs. Smith tried with anything that in the remotest degree touched her, Solomon, that she might be made to realize what a cross was. I wonder if Laura thought she was being put to the test, and whether there occurred to the child the possibility that it might be in part for her sake. Had she a dim feeling that, perhaps, the Lord had said to her, hast thou considered my servant, Mrs. Solomon Smith, that there is none like her in the earth, a perfect and an upright woman, one that feareth God and escheweth evil? Was she dimly conscious that in spirit she might have answered? Doth she fear God for naught? Hast thou not made a hedge about her, and about her house, and about all that she hath on every side? Solomon, said Mrs. Smith, a whole minute of silence and consideration having passed. There's that beef broth, hadn't I better put it in a pail, and you warm it in the night to hearten you up. And maybe Job can have a spoonful of it. And do you think you could manage the big blue comforter? They haven't got a comfortable spot for a watcher to lie down in rest between times. CHAPTER XXV The days that followed were full of unrest. There were some things on which we settled. One was that Job Simmons was very alarmingly ill, stricken with the fever which had proved so serious in a neighboring city. And from the first the disease took that fierce hold upon him which it is apt to on the overworked and ill-fed poor. Another fixed point was that Solomon Smith, without talk other than that which he may have had with his wife, took up his abode at the rundown farm where the Simmons family struggled, and did not come home at all. That little sleeping he managed to secure was done on a cot stretched by Job's bedside. His wife, Solomon's not Job's, saw to it that he had food of the best carefully prepared. Well, she used to explain, with a thoughtful air, and the faraway look in her eyes when questioned as to why her husband should have felt called upon to leave his home and his work to look after one who was no kin to him. Job's Simmons had to be took care of, you know. It wouldn't do to leave him there suffering. And you know what she is. She can't take care of nobody. And Solomon said there wasn't anybody to be had, for love or money, so far as we knew. And so there was nothing else to do, don't you see? No, they didn't see. Very few people would have seen a clear, plain, matter-of-fact duty before them, and taken it up in the way that Solomon Smith and his wife did it. We, his neighbors and friends, made certain efforts to help. We said to one another that he was too old a man to undergo such constant fatigue and loss of rest, and efforts were made to secure a paid substitute. But it was a sickly spring, and nurses were in demand, and it was soon discovered that Solomon Smith was right. Neither love nor money could secure a watcher for Job's Simmons, except that surely it was love which had already secured him a faithful and patient nurse. Not such a love as we give to our kindred. Not that which grows out of similarity of tastes and plans and aims. Job's Simmons was a good, well-meaning, plotting, unfortunate, rather stupid soul, with a genius for losing his crops in critical seasons, and making poor bargains at all seasons, and getting sick on very slight provocation. He and Solomon Smith could not really be said to have much in common. Yet love held the latter steadily at the sick bedside. The love embodied in the commission. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Yes, Job was one of the brethren. As the days passed, and the struggle with life and death grew fiercer, we who talked over poor Job's case at home, used to say, with half-drawn sighs, that there was great comfort in remembering that if he should die, which seemed probable, he would enter into rest, and certainly his laborious life had known no earthly rest. Meantime, one of the most restless waiters, watching as an outsider to see how all this was to end, was my Laura. She seemed shocked over the good man's going into the midst of danger to nurse one who was nothing to him. It almost seemed as if she resented the unselfish Christian spirit which had taken him to this place of fatigue and danger. So strangely miserable was she over it all, that I think there were times when she longed to accuse Mrs. Smith of caring nothing for her husband, because she did not urge his staying away. But for one who had so persistently declared that the dear old ladies one idea in life was her husband, this mode of fault-finding would hardly do. He will not get the fever, Mama! She said to me one day, and she said it impatiently. We were speaking of Solomon Smith. I am not afraid that he will get it. Such people never do. They live a charmed life. They can do wonderful things, bear fatigue, and go through trials and dangers, and never get touched. What sort of people, Laura? Oh, a few specially favored ones! Almost a very few who are shielded from all of life's bitternesses. We were quite alone, and I felt that I must speak plainly. Daughter, I said, has your life been such a bitter one hither, too, that you are moved to envy Mr. and Mrs. Smith their brighter lot? She flushed under the question, and I think realized the folly of her words as they sounded to me. So I knew, better than she thought I did, about the real unrest in her heart. Dear child, I said, and I am sure I spoke with tenderness, for my heart felt very gentle with the poor young thing. Isn't it time you gave over the folly of trying to account for your old friend's strong, true, unselfish Christian character on any other ground than that of one whose life is hid with Christ in God? You have tried to change her into a narrow-minded, selfish, fanatical old woman. Have you succeeded? You are waiting, apparently, to see whether poor, weak, little Lita will prove to have a strong enough hold on Christ to lead her safely through life's temptations, or whether your cousin Irving's influence will pull her down. If the latter is the case, you seem to imagine that you will thus, in some way, be relieved from personal responsibility. I used to think that you entirely believed in our poor old friend, but I see I am mistaken. Satan is tempting you to throw aside her love and the respect you have had for her, and name her Christian life self-will and ignorance. But daughter, suppose he succeeds and you cast aside our dear old lady's true living as worthless, and suppose poor Lita makes a failure of it. What then? Do you remember the question Mrs. Smith asked you that evening after Lita's marriage? Didn't she ask whether you thought the Lord Jesus Christ made a failure of life? Don't you sometimes hear his voice asking, What is that to thee? Follow thou me. She was weeping bitterly by this time. She interrupted me suddenly. It is not that, she said. Mama, you do not understand. I do not distrust her religion. I never said so. You know I respect her, Mama. But she may make mistakes. No one is perfect. And I do not want to think she is right about all questions. That is, I do not want to think her opinions and actions are the result of her Christian experience, because, well, if what she lives is Christianity, it condemns other lives too much. I do not want them condemned. How well I understood the miserable type of Christian living which that term other lives covered. Norman Eastlake had been gone for some days, but the shadow of his sham religion hung all over her. She could not get away from it. Constantly the old argument was being gone over in her heart. If these two old people are right about this, about that, about a dozen things which he directly condemns by word and act, then I must condemn his life as unworthy of his profession, and that I will not do. I felt the necessity for treading very carefully during these days. Evidently my daughter was being called upon to make grave decisions, such as would perhaps influence all her future. I could not get away from the feeling that she was, perhaps without fully realizing it, being called upon to decide between Christ and Norman Eastlake. Yet I did not dare to tell her so. In trying to influence her, I felt myself at a very great disadvantage because she recognized my unspoken disapproval of the young man. During the conversation to which I have referred I quoted this first. He that taketh not up his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me. It was in answer to her confession that Mrs. Smith's life put to blush all other lives, and Norman's name had not been mentioned between us. But she instantly answered me with a burst of tears and these words, Oh, Mama, I know you do not like Norman. You never have, and I'm afraid you never will. It is very hard on him, and it is very hard on me, but I shall never give him up. Has anybody asked you to do so, daughter? I asked her, and it was all that I could trust myself to say. Meantime the days went by, and the struggle between life and death in that shabby farmhouse just out of town went on. Presently, contrary to the expectations of everyone the attending physician included, it became apparent that Job Simmons, little wisened up, half-alive man that he was, was to come off Victor. He was getting well. His sickly wife told me it herself, with a one smile, and a sentence about Solomon Smith which had more energy in it than I had judged her capable of. Them Smiths, she said, ain't of the common kind, I tell you. If there was more folks of their sort the world would be a good enough place to live in, and I'd just as soon live in it as not. But I tell you you might go a thousand miles in all directions, and never see their like again. I repeated the eulogy at our family tea-table, and drew from Laura first a laugh, and then a burning blush. What is the matter with the child? Her father asked me that same evening. She doesn't seem like herself. She hasn't, in fact, since you came home, and it has been worse since Norman went away. I had to confess to him that I was afraid our daughter was struggling with her own convictions of right. This belief grew upon me. For one evening, when we were alone, and I, in much fear and trembling, and I doubt not with much bungling, was trying to speak a word in answer that should not do more harm than good. She burst forth suddenly with this. Mama, I do not want to be a Christian. I cannot be one indeed. I should be a fanatic. I should carry things to extremes. I am certain of it. And that would spoil my life. Oh, Mama, don't you know it would? I had no answer ready, and she went on hurriedly. Almost all the time we were away, I thought about it. I admired Auntie Smith, but I thought many of her views were peculiar and old-fashioned, the outgrowth of her rugged nature, and I do not mean to be disrespectful, but I thought that both you and Papa had been brought up under peculiarly strict influences and held some views as a result that could not be expected from young people. Still, I thought that young Christians would develop in that direction as they grew older. I admired the development, and I used to say to myself that when I was an old woman I would be, not a gentle low-voiced woman like you, but noisy and rugged and pronounced in many ways. You know I cannot be like you, Mama, so then I used to think I would be like Auntie Smith. But then Lita became so changed. I could not help seeing that she was already growing like you. Young as she is, Mama. She is taking up advanced questions of Christian life and settling them as you would, not as young people do. She is not waiting to grow old. I can see it in her letters. She is moving right on. And, stranger than that, she is taking Irving with her. Besides, there was Erskine, you know, a professor of religion and not a bit better than the rest of them. Not so good I have often thought as many who made no profession. But all that is changed. I hear a great deal about him in one way and another, and he is actually growing like Auntie Smith. Mama, you don't understand it, but I cannot be such a Christian as that. It would make my life miserable, and I cannot be any other kind, for I see that it is the only right way. I know you cannot imagine what I mean, but I understand myself. It seemed to me there was but one answer to this question, and though with troubled voice I gave it. I comprehend you, I think, daughter, fully, and I can only say to you what I have said before. He that taketh not up his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me. There came presently a new element of disturbance into her life. She came to me one evening with an open letter from Erskine, a long, cordial, genial letter, detailing work that he was doing and work that he was planning, seeming to expect her approval as a matter of course. And there was such an air of breezy energy about it all, and such evident ignorance of the fact that he was doing any more or any different from what a disciple of Christ would do, of course, that I understood what the child meant by telling me that he was growing like Mrs. Solomon Smith. The young man had repudiated utterly those former days of profession. He believed them to be mere profession, and felt sure that he had known nothing of the love of Christ as a renewing power until after his meeting with Mrs. Smith. He dated his conversion from the evening in which he took her in his carriage to church. This was not Erskine's first letter, but it was the longest and most communicative, and had that about it which made me understand why Laura sought her mother in perplexity. I don't know what to do, Mama. I enjoy his letters, of course. Any person of sense might. And I like him. His friendship is worth having, but—and he may mean nothing at all, but friendship probably does not. And yet, Mama, don't you know what I mean? You always know what I mean before I say it. I understand you, dear, I said, and if I were you I would be entirely frank with Erskine. He is a good, sensible young man. Let him know that you enjoy his sense and his letters, just as a young lady engaged to be married might enjoy the friendship of a dozen good men. But how could I tell him? It would seem to him as though I was afraid he thought more of me than merely as a friend, and I have no reason to do so. I couldn't do that, Mama. And her cheeks flushed over it. But I assured her that I thought she could. Erskine had been too intimately associated with us as a member of the same family and as a special friend of Irving's for us to treat him other than as a valued friend. If her belief was correct, that he thought of her only as a pleasant acquaintance to whom he would like occasionally to write a friendly letter, her frank confidence reposed in him could do no harm but good. And if, on the other hand, there was a possibility that he was growing interested in her, frankness might save much future harm. All the time I think I was talking more for Laura's sake than Irskine's. I found myself nourishing the hope that her eyes were being opened to the contrast which his character presented beside Norman East Lakes. It was not that I would have counseled her to the breaking of solemn pledges, unless indeed she had reached the point where she herself felt it would be wrong to keep them. But if she were to realize in bitterness some day that she had made a mistake, I prayed God that the knowledge might not come too late. I am not one of those who believe that a bad promise should be kept, nor would I ever counsel one to go to the marriage altar with solemn pledges on her lips to which her heart said nay. That is simply adding sin to sin, and the way out of sin is not to shut one's eyes and add another. At the same time I hold a promise as a very sacred thing, so sacred that the necessity for breaking it should be mourned and wept and prayed over. So sacred that, before it is made at all, every step of the way in which it leads should be looked over on one's knees. The remedy lies not in adhering to false vows and so making a mockery of life, but in being so careful, so conscientious, so earnest that the first mistake is not made. I turned almost with a sigh from the fact that there was no wavering about Laura. She was so sure indeed that, however unhappy Norman's peculiar views might make her, she belonged to him that she did not even understand my probing. But as the days passed and Job's Simmons crept out among us again, and Solomon Smith came home, and life at the little brown house in the hollow settled into its won'ted calm, much of Laura's nervousness began to wear away. The period of anxiety lest our old friend should take the fever was passed, and the doctor said cheerily that his good constitution and good wife had brought him safely through. And Laura seemed satisfied to go back, in a degree at least, to her old warm feeling for Mrs. Smith. Vexing questions were dropping into the background. She seemed growing content to let Norman have his type of religion and the Smith's theirs, and for herself to do without any. No Christian mother needs to be told that my heart was not at rest. Laura was the child of many prayers. I did not believe that the dear Lord would let her make such a disastrous compromise with Satan as to try to stand on neutral ground because one type of Christian life was too strongly marked for her to be willing to take up its crosses, and the other too weak to command her respect. The solemn question was, how would he lead this poor, foolish lamb into his pasture? CHAPTER XXVI. Things that folks plan for never happen. This Mrs. Smith said to me one lovely spring morning when I had walked over to see her and planned for more fresh eggs. She said it with a grateful smile playing about her mouth and a satisfied look in her eyes. Now there's Solomon. I really did think he would get the fever. I laid awake nights to get ready for it. I planned who to get to look after the house and the critter, and I hunted up the bundles of all linen and things, such as his wanted and sickness, and whenever I sent any round to Job's Simmons I laid some out for Solomon. And whenever the doctor asked for this or that about the house for Job's comfort I set right about getting it ready for Solomon. After he came home I put things straight every night regular without saying anything to him, you know, so that if he should be took before morning I'd know just where to lay my hand on everything. If ever I planned and fixed and fussed about anything it was the way I'd do for him when he had the fever, and he ain't no signs of it about him. I must say I think it is wonderful, broke of his rest as he was, and lifting hard and puttering all day as well as all night. Ain't it wonderful now that he escaped? It is the Lord's mercy. I wish I knew how to be grateful enough. Poor old lady, all the time the shadows were gathering around her so softly and sweetly that she did not perceive them. At least she let none of us know it if she did. Solomon was kind of tuckered out to-night, and I coaxed him up to stay at home. She said to me one evening after prayer meeting, as she was getting into our carriage to ride home, having walked the mile and a half thither. He ain't quite so strong as usual, somehow. The warm weather is coming on pretty early, you see, and then he's had such a hard pull it stands to reason that it will take him a while to get over it. One Sunday she came to church all day without him. Solomon ain't sick, and he ain't well. She said an answer to inquiries. I don't know exactly what ails him. Tuckered out, I call it. He don't seem to have no strength to spare. And no wonder he used it up a good ways ahead. I tell him that by fall he'll catch up, if he is careful, and be all right. You see, Solomon is older than he was. Spoken in a half-confidential tone, as if it were an admission that she made reluctantly and would like as little said about it as possible. And of course, watching in care, tells on him. It was a very unusual thing to see Solomon Smith's seat in church vacant. It gave me a strange sort of pang to look at the old lady sitting alone. If there had been a stalwart son or a cheery-faced daughter beside her, it would have been different. Not long thereafter, we went, Laura and I, to take our friend aloof of a new kind of cornbread Mary had been learning to make. We found her in the neat kitchen, which, in its summer dress of fresh whitewash, and green sweet-smelling boughs in the fireplace, and a pot of June roses smiling from the mantelpiece, looked in its way quite as inviting as the more glowing attire in which winter found it. Mrs. Smith had a way of her own of marking the seasons. The red curtains which glowed all winter at her kitchen windows were replaced by plain white ones. White tidies, carefully stitched into place with cord, covered the wolves with which the favorite chairs were upholstered. Even the floor mats were of a lighter, more subdued hue, and in various ways the mistress of the house had made her a bold say, it is summer. On this day the door leading into the large and roomy summer sleeping-room, which generally stood open in the afternoon, revealing glimpses of a very chamber of peace, was closed. Mrs. Smith, glancing toward it, lowered her voice. Solomon has gotten to lie down. He is having a nice long nap, and he needs it. He went out in the lower field this morning for about an hour, and I never see anybody look so tired as he did when he come in. I coaxed him to lie down right away, and he did, and this afternoon he went of his own accord and laid down again. He ain't been no hand to take a nap in the daytime, but he dot, too. When folks get to be his age they need it, I think. I did not want to be a Job's comforter, but I could not help saying. Do you think your husband seems as well as usual this summer? She laid down the seam she was sewing, and looked at me with grave earnest eyes for a moment before she answered. Well, now, he don't, that's a fact, but I don't think strange of it. The doctor thinks he ain't quite right. He wants him to take a tonic. He's been talking to me about it this very morning. I was out in the yard when he rode by, and I wanted to know how that Adam's boy is, so I stopped him, and then I was saying that Solomon wasn't real churk, and he said he told him more than a week ago he ought to take beer or porter, or some of them things. But land Solomon won't. I know as well as I want to, that he won't, and I ain't the one to coax him to, either. I don't mean, she hastened to explain, catching a glimpse of the descent and disapproval in Laura's eyes, that I would be opposed to it if we thought it was necessary. Solomon wouldn't, either. I suppose we would about as soon take that as any other poison, if it seemed to be the right thing to do. But you see, we both believe that other tonics will do just as well, and not have the same objection to them that these have. But, said Laura, belligerence in every tone, I should suppose that you would be willing to accept a physician's opinion. You say the doctor advised it. Surely he ought to be supposed to know what should be done. Well, I don't know, speaking thoughtfully. You see, child, there's doctors and doctors, and you can't believe in Amal, for they contradict each other about nearly everything, and if you undertake to follow one man's notions, you may comfort yourself with the thought that you are going right contrary to the notions of another, who is just as smart, and has a good a chance of knowing as the first one. I don't see anything for it, but to study up some things and decide for yourself, and that's just what we've done a good while ago about this tonic business. Fact is, you've got to study it up. It belongs to the temperance question, and we read everything we could get hold of on both sides, and we talked with some that know a good deal, and one day, when I was in New York, a year or so ago, that time I went to take care of my niece's cousin, you know, I happened across that big doctor that everybody praises and runs to consult, at least them that can get money enough. A lady that boarded in this house where my niece's cousin lived was relation to him, and she thought a great deal of fanny, that's the cousin, and she sent for him to come and see her when she was at the worst. And he came, and he was as good as though he hadn't been great at all. He come two or three times, and one day, when he sat waiting to go upstairs, I had a chance, and I up and asked him his opinion about tonics. Well, he came down on the whole thing stronger than I thought any of them ever did. He said he believed the whole system of prescribing rum for strengthening medicine was of the devil, and brought forth the devil's fruits in nine cases out of ten. Them was his very words. They was pretty strong, I thought, but coming from him when they were thinking about. Solomon and I thought them over, and put one thing in another together that we heard here and there, and we made up our minds that we didn't believe in rum tonics and couldn't take them. So you see, I ain't the one to coax him to back down on that. Why, this very doctor, this morning, owned that there was other things that he supposed would do about as well. Only they was harder to get and more expensive. As far as that goes, doctor, says I, Solomon and I agreed a good while ago to obey the Lord, even if it was expensive now and then. I said them very words. It seemed a queer thing to me to be talking about expense, when I was talking about right and wrong, and the danger of doing harms to folks' souls. Anti-Smith, interrupted Laura, do you really mean that you are afraid if your husband took a tonic of some sort, for a few weeks while he is run down, he might become a drunkard? No child, I don't know as I can say I'm the least might afraid of it. I ought to be, I suppose, for the Bible warns us against that very thing. Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall, it says. But I can't help somehow, feeling so sure of Solomon's standing, that I haven't a speck of fear. But I'll tell you what we are both afraid of, and that is his influence. There is folks that don't stand firm, it's all you can do to keep them up, with all the props you can put around them, pledges and examples and all that. Shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? That's the verse that comes bowsing out at me, the minute I think about Solomon swallowing a drop of the stuff. You see, child, it has all been up lately, and had itself talked over. As soon as the fever left Job Simmons, the doctor began to talk tonic to him, says he to Solomon, the man will die in spite of you if he doesn't have brandy every little while. I don't know how he's going to get it, it's expensive stuff, but he'll slip through our fingers if he doesn't have it. Well, Solomon went straight to Job about it. Where Job, you know, was away down in the gutter in his younger days, and Solomon he told him just what the doctor said. He didn't feel that he ought to take the responsibility of doing any other way, and says he, it ain't the expense Job that needn't stand in the way a minute, what you need you're to have, and the doctor says if you don't have any brandy you may die, now what do you say? When Solomon says he'll never forget the way in which Job looked at him out of them great sunken eyes, says he, then Solomon, I'll die, I will so, not a drop of brandy for me. Some folks say Job ain't got much spunk, but if he hasn't he's got grace, for it took some, I guess, to get him through that place with his wife a-crying over him, and the doctor telling him what would happen. Not a drop of brandy did he take, and the doctor himself says he never see any one come up faster, and yet he goes and prescribes the tonic again the first thing. Laura arose at once, she was ready to go home. I did not know it then, but long afterwards I saw the letter that she had received that morning. One sentence was as follows. I'm rather under the weather just now, nothing to signify, a little run down with irregular hours and overexertion. The city has been pretty gay this spring, several weddings in high life, and matters of that sort have rather knocked me up. But you have no cause for anxiety, the doctor says I will be all right in a few weeks. He prescribes a glass of old ale on rising, and perhaps after each meal. I shall not need so much as that, I presume, but I am trying the prescription sparingly with excellent results already. I think about the time that Mrs. Smith quoted poor Job Simmons's words, then Solomon I'll die, I will so, not a drop of brandy for me. Those contrasting words stung her. After that the shadows deepened rapidly. Solomon Smith took no tonic, at least of an alcoholic nature. Indeed, before three more days had passed it became apparent to the doctor that he needed more than a tonic. There came speedily a morning in which, assaying to rise with the dawn as usual, Solomon Smith fell back with something very like a groan, and owned that he felt too weak and miserable to move. His alert wife moved skillfully, and in a very brief space of time tried to rally his strength with a bit of nourishing broth while she waited for the doctor, for whom she had quietly sent a messenger. She spoke cheerily both to him and the doctor when he came. It was an uncommon week kind of morning. She didn't feel near as jerk as usual herself, and Solomon had overdone the day before. He would be all right in a little while, she guessed, but she had thought it safest to call the doctor. She said much the same two days later when I spent an hour with her. Solomon is getting a rest. He needed it, had needed it all the spring, and folks like him couldn't rest unless the Lord took them gently and laid them on their backs. He didn't suffer any to speak of, had no pain. He was just tuckered out. Her face was bright when she talked, and she kept her needle going busily, finishing a garment for her husband that she fancied would be cooler and more comfortable for him. Meantime he slept. He sleeps a good deal, she said brightly. I think that shows he needs it. Being tired is a dreadful kind of feeling, and nothing will do for it so quick as sleep. There was nothing we could do to help her, she was sufficient to the occasion. So there was no object in lingering. Cheerful our hostess certainly was, but as certainly she was quiet. Her usually busy tongue was hushed, and her brain engaged with the effort to keep all the outside world quiet and to hear the first sound which came from that sick room. We went away feeling that, although on the surface nothing looked like it, still it was a sick room. When we met the doctor and stopped to inquire as to the state of things, he shook his head gravely. Yonder is a wonderful nurse, Mrs. Leonard, but she can't nurse her husband back into strength. Mama, what does he mean? Said Laura, her face white. Does he think that Mr. Smith is going to die? I didn't know what he meant, but I was afraid and I told Laura so. She seemed wonderfully shaken by our fears, more so than it seemed to me her interest in our friends would account for. She talked about it a great deal, and went about with a white anxious face. It will kill Auntie Smith, I think. She said to Mary, she is so utterly deceived, or else we are. I daresay we are the ones who are frightened after all. She doesn't think him sick, and why shouldn't she know better than the rest of us? But if he should be really sick, it will be a dreadful shock to her. She is so entirely unprepared for it. Mama, you do not think he can be going to die, do you? I did not know. I hardly knew what to think. He was not a man to give up and lie down weakly and fancy himself sick. But as the days passed he certainly did not gain in strength, and yet he had no fever and no pain. What was the matter with him? Worn out, the doctor said briefly, on being interrogated. He was too old a man to bear the fatigue of that long watching. If he had had a son it would never have been allowed. I wonder that his wife did not use her influence. A poor exchange to nurse Job Simmons back to life and take him instead. We would get along without Job, I suppose, but real solid, honest men like Solomon Smith are scarce. If he only hadn't gone to take care of Job Simmons. This Laura said to Mrs. Smith one morning, when we were waiting to take a message from her to the doctor. I was very sorry that she said it. There is nothing to make a sharper thrust in a burdened heart than that dreary, if you hadn't done thus and so. But Mrs. Smith did not seem to take it that way. She went on quietly folding the paper on which she had been writing, while she made answer. Well, you know, child, we haven't got that to think about. And it is a mercy we haven't just now, when there is so much to tend to. There wasn't anything else to do, you see. The duty stared us right straight in the face, and there wasn't nothing to decide about it. He was sick and had to be took care of, and there was nobody to do it. And if, whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, didn't mean Job's Simmons and Solomon? Why, then Solomon said he was sure he didn't know what it did mean, and so you know that settled it. Chapter 27 The Last Chapter Of Mrs. Solomon Smith Looking On By Pansy The Slipper Box Recording Is In The Public Domain Chapter 27 Deliverance There came a summer afternoon, which we, who spent it in a little brown house in the hollow, never forgot. For in the large pleasant room opening from the pleasant kitchen, a wonderful scene transpired, a wonderful guest-held audience, taking with him when he went away one of the number, and taking us, who stayed behind, even to the gate of the city. The room was in perfect order and neatness. No little thing had been forgotten. The white curtains were looped back enough to let in the glory of the western sky as the sun was setting. The white cloth on the little table by the bedside had the folding creases still in it, showing that thoughtful hands had made it fresh that day. The spread on the bed was as white and as carefully arranged as usual. A fresh glass of full-blown roses stood on the table by the east window, and sent ever and a none a breath of perfume through the room. Solomon Smith's large chair, in a fresh tidy of purest white, was drawn up beside the bed, as if its owner were expected to rise pretty soon and rest in it again. But one look at the worn face, from which the white hair was brushed carefully back, would have told those wise in translating such expressions, that earthly resting places were not for him any more. Solomon Smith was tired out, so tired that nothing on this side could rest him, and he had been sent for to go home. Beside him, sitting erect and quiet, her face illumined by a tender smile, her tender eyes fixed on his face, her warm hand clasping his, which was growing cold, sat Mrs. Solomon Smith. We had come in, Laura and I, all unprepared for the scene. About the same as usual had been the message which we had received from the house in the hollow even that very morning, and none knew at that early hour that that day was to be the day of days in which one of the redeemed should be presented for the first time, in all the glory of his new attire, at the Palace of the King. So unprepared are we for great events, when they are right at our door. Let us go and see how he is this afternoon, I had said to Laura as we rose from the dinner table. I will take him a little of this lemon jelly, it is so cold, a taste of it might refresh him. I had no idea what refreshment they were making ready for him in his father's house. Seems to me he lingers in that same condition a long time. If I were Mrs. Smith I should want to try a change of physicians. The weather is cooler now, he ought to be gaining strength a little. This Mr. Leonard said, and I resolved, as I made ready for the walk, to give a hint to that effect to the wife, if opportunity offered. Just so unprepared as that we were. It was the doctor who opened the door to us, and who said, you may step inside the room, she saw you coming up the walk and she wishes to have you. Mama, Laura said, he must be better, you go in, I will wait here. But the doctor held open the door and motioned her on, and then in another moment we saw that face with its strange seal of immortality. I recognized it at once, as those do who have watched it before, but Laura stopped, startled and frightened, and Mrs. Solomon Smith glanced toward her for an instant with a reassuring smile. Maria! It was her husband's voice, low, feeble, yet in the stillness of the room, distinct to us all. I wouldn't have gone and left you if I could have helped it. If I'd had the planning of it, it would have seemed selfish, but I couldn't help it, Maria, so it must be right, you know. There was a wistful pleading in the tone, almost like that of one asking forgiveness for a possible wrong. Her answer was prompt, steady, reassuring. Yes, Solomon, it is all right. You and I know that. We can trust him. You was never selfish in your life, husband. You have thought of me from first to last, and if you had your way, you would bear it all now. But the Lord sees that his way is the best. You and the children will be looking out for me. Then he smiled, a loving, grateful smile. You're going to the very gate with the old man, and going to cheer him up to the last. I'll tell the children all about it. This was her answer. Silence fell upon them for a little. The old man closed his eyes and seemed to be resting, and the warm hand that held his cold one began to make little soothing passes down the wrinkled palm. Then she laid her other hand on his forehead, and wiped tenderly the drops gathering there, and the room was still. The door opened very softly, and the shadow of Job's Simmons slipped in. I had heard how he had fairly haunted the house, longing to do and trying to do beyond his strength, so eager to show his gratitude for one who had almost given his life for him. Laura had said one day that if Mr. Smith should die, she shouldn't think his wife could endure to look at Job's Simmons ever again. I thought of it now, for she glanced up a moment when the shadow slipped in, and once more she smiled and nodded her head innocent of his coming. You won't disturb him, I think, the doctor said in a low tone, whereupon the eyes of the sick man unclosed and rested on Job, on whose poor, sunken face there was a look as of mortal pain, and his hollow eyes were dim with unshed tears. He had not seen Solomon Smith for days, and the thought that he was actually going, I learned afterwards, had come to him almost as suddenly as it had to us. But Solomon Smith, looking at him, with the death film gathering on his eyes, still recognized the face over which he had watched so long and well, and spoke, Ah, Job, I've got ahead of you somehow. I didn't think it, but he's sent for me first. Be faithful and follow on. Poor Job, I give my life for you this minute, he murmured. I'm worth nothing to nobody, and you are needed. And then there came over the face on the bed that rare bright smile. He gave his life for me long ago, and he'll take care of all I am leaving. Won't he, Maria? Quick and firm came the answer. Yes, Solomon, we can trust him, you and me. Silence again, and closed eyes. The doctor moved nearer, spoke to me in a low whisper. He will not speak again, I think. Will you go around near to his wife? But even as he spoke, those eyes unclosed again, and there had come over them a marvellous change. The languor of disease and weariness was gone out of them. They seemed to glow. There was a flush on his face as if there might be the coming of health and youth, and his voice rang out and filled that room, not a note of weakness in it. Maria! Yes, Solomon, I'm right here. Maria, my eyes have seen the king in his beauty. Steady and true was the answer. I, and they shall behold the land that is very far off. It was in time, I am sure, for the quickened hearing to catch the sound of the triumphant promise, and close upon it came the fulfilment. For even as the sound of the last word died away, the doctor said, He is gone. Yes, said Mrs. Smith, and I am here. It would be impossible for me to tell you of the depth of controlled pain revealed in those few steadily spoken words. There was even a note of astonishment in them, as if for a moment she could hardly believe that he had actually gone to that land very far off and left her behind. When had he ever been known to leave her behind? She had gone on journeys, errands of comfort or duty several times, but never before, since their lives had been made one more than forty years ago, had he gone to another town or city even for a night and left her. Those who looked to see Mrs. Solomon Smith cry out, or faint, did not understand her. She sat for a moment as one dazed. She reeled for a moment on rising, as one who was giddy. Then she drew her usually straight-form erect and looked about her. You are all good friends, she said, and you will do what is right, and you will let me go upstairs and be all alone. If I am bereft of my husband, I am bereft, and yet I am not alone. My heart trusted in him, and I am helped. Then she turned and walked slowly and steadily from the door. Mama, said Laura to me, hours after that. Everything had been done that we could do in the little brown house, and after vainly urging its bereft mistress to come home with us, we had come away, leaving Job Simmons and his wife in charge. It was the way she would have it. In her earliest loneliness she remembered that poor man's broken-hearted, almost remorseful grief, and his longing desire to do something. Laura had at first given way to such a passionate outburst of grief, as seemed utterly unnatural to those who did not know her as her mother did. But it told me plainly that all the unrest of the past, which had been scaled over by a film of ice for a few weeks, had broken forth again and had her in possession. As I say, it was hours afterwards that she made this confession. Mama, to be able to endure trial as Auntie Smith did today would be worth giving up everything for. But I never could do it. I never could. It was no time in which to ask her what that it covered. So I said simply this. Don't you remember her words? My heart trusted in him, and I am helped. Do you think she bore it alone? You have never tried his strength, Laura. What a strangely mingled thing our life is, and how surely and steadily and swiftly the Lord is working when we do not see his hand nor hear his step. I wept much over my daughter that night. I saw only too plainly that she realized that her earthly vows actually held her away from making surrender to the Lord. She understood that the sort of Christian she must be, Norman Eastlake neither was nor could enjoy in her, and that their lives would be discordant. Yet she could not resolve to settle the great personal question first and leave the second until she could ask him, as her guide, to point out the way he would have her take. Did I think he would leave her stumbling in that mire until her feet were over the precipice? My faith seemed to be no stronger than that, yet he was making the way plain even then. It was the very next day but one, the afternoon on which we laid Solomon Smith's tired-out body to rest under the green and flowery sod, that Laura came to me with an open letter, saying simply this, Mama, read that. Then she vanished up the stairs. It was in Norman's handwriting, and began as was usual with him, my dear Laura. It was the only sentence that was usual, and yet it sounded common place enough. The miserable formula that has been used by dishonorable men ever since sin and sorrow began. A series of platitudes about feeling deeply, painfully, that their tastes and aims were not in common, that he was not calculated to make her happy, that they had both been very young, and that, in short, he realized that with both of them it had been a mistake, and like an honorable man he hastened to release her from an engagement which he felt sure was becoming distasteful to her, and a great deal more in the same strain. I did not wait to read it all. I let it drop from my hands while I clasped them, and the first words I said were, Thank God for deliverance! And yet I fear I almost hated the source through which it came. Too well I realized that it might be months, possibly years, before my Laura could see deliverance in it. I remember I thought confusedly of the words. It must needs be that offences come, but woe unto him by whom the offence cometh. It was several days thereafter that I went alone to visit my stricken friend. I had not seen her since she had laid her dead away. I had shrunk from the first call almost as much as Laura had. Indeed, I was inclined to think with the child that the sort of exaltation in which she had borne the parting, when it passed, would leave her in the depths. It was the only condition in which Laura could conceive of her, knowing with what rare devotion she had loved her husband for almost half a century. I remember just how pleasant the familiar room looked as I stepped into it that summer afternoon. Everything was exactly as usual. The square stand on which the Bible always rested stood in its place by Solomon's vacant chair. A fresh tidy was fastened to the chair. The mat on which his feet had always rested when he sat there was spread before it. The Bible was open and his spectacles lay on the page. It is just as Solomon left it. She said quietly, following my glance, and pausing in the seam she was sewing to turn a tender look on it. That last day he sat up, he read, and left the Bible open, and I didn't use that one. I wanted to leave it somehow, and it was open. Where do you think? Why, at a verse for me. They looked steadfastly towards the heaven as he went up. Now, you see, I know as well as though I heard him say it, that Solomon wants me to keep his thoughts away from the grave, and keep them steadfastly towards heaven. That's where he is, and if I can keep my eyes looking there, I shall see him soon, coming in the clouds with Jesus. It won't do to look at graves. I had gone to try in comfort, but the Master had been there before me, and instead of trying to bind up a broken old heart, I sat and told her of a young one that human folly and unselfishness had brought very low. I could not get away from the thought that the Lord had given this old saint of his some work to do for my child. She heard me through without any interruptions, safe to ask now and then a keen question which showed me that she saw beyond the surface. Will you let the child come and stay a day or two with me? she asked at last. Tell her I'm lonesome, and her sweet young face will harden me up. I would like to have her come. I love the child. I will go, said Laura suddenly when I gave her the invitation. She had been going around the house with a white, quiet face for a week or more. She had shut herself within herself, refusing to let even her mother enter into her bitterness. Please don't mention him again, Mama. Was all the answer I received when I tried once to speak to her of Norman East Lake? I knew she shrank terribly from coming into contact with Mrs. Smith's keen eyes, and was going there because it was a cross that she meant to try to bear. Partly by accident, and partly by design, I let the days pass until nearly two weeks were gone before seeing Laura again, other than as I met her riding or walking with Mrs. Smith. Company came to us in the meantime, and Laura sent me a coaxing little note, begging that she might be excused from seeing them, and saying that she believed she was a comfort to Auntie Smith. And, anyway, the Blessed Old Saint was a comfort to her, such as she should thank God for, for ever. I took heart at this, and thanked him on my knees that night, that he had one disciple among us who was looking steadfastly toward heaven all the time. There was a sweet quiet in Laura's face and voice when at last she returned to me, and she came into the parlour of her own will to entertain the collars with which our house was full all the afternoon. It was quite dusk before we had opportunity for a word alone together. Then she came to me, and, kneeling beside me, put her lips to my cheek as she gave her sweet message,—'Mama, he did not reject me! I have given myself to him for time and for eternity. And, oh, Mama, he has showed me joy already in his service. I am not going to be a broken-hearted little idiot. I am a servant of Christ.' I tell you,' said Mrs. Solomon, with a strong light on her grave face. There's two kinds of idols. One kind is made of clay, and all the Lord has to do when he wants to free a child from that is to let it crumble to pieces before her eyes. And then there's some that are made of solid gold, and when he has to take them away he makes a place for them in his temple above.