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Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul clichA, 11 est filmA it partir de Tangle supArieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. ly errata ed to mt ine pelure, B9on A 1 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 ■■' ■ ' , ! , Price 2S Cents. wmmmmmmnff mt^mm fmmmmmm* t W' mmmmtim I i BY -,■ ;^^A. ■■.' '^- -LjLf.uiri ii i i i.i^ 'i ; i tf',m'riV'„ -f — 'r^t*-^ mm I HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ¥ cf> -^ ith JUu0triiti0n 'J r "N TORONTO BELFORD BROTHERS . 1 lU.. ' IJJ. 1876 "*•>■• ' s r^«»rM..» ■'•«-':-• '■' / i !' \ 1 C^U- f L* i 1 i h mi 'J'MK ClIll.DKl.N IN nil'. Cm RCIIVARI), ''*^.. BETTY'S BRIGHT IDEA. ALSO, ^ >l i f > DEACON PITKIN'S FAKM, ▲KD THE FIKST CHRISTMAS OF NEW ENGLAND. By Harriet Beecher Stowe. Mit^ |IIustratx0n. TORONTO : BELFORD BROTHERS. 1876. ■ i BETTY'S Bright Idea. " When He ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men."— Eph. iv. 8. Some say that ever, 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrate, The bird of dawning singeth all night long. And then, they say, no evil spirit walks ; The nights are wholesome ; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm, — So hallowed and so gracious is the time. AND this holy time, so hallowed and so gracious, was settling down over the great roaring, rattling, seething life-world of New York, in the good year 1875. Who does not feel its on-coming in the shops and streets, in the festive air of trade and business, in the thousand garnitures by which every store hangs out triumphal banners and solir'its you to buy something for a Christmas gift ? For it is the peculiarity of all this array of prints, confectionery, dry goods, and manufactures of all kinds, that their bravery and splendor at Christmas tide is all to seduce you into generosity, and importune you to give something to others. It says to you, "The dear God gave you an unspeakable gift ; give you a lesser gift to your brother I" Do we ever think, when we walk those busy, bustling streets, all alive with Christmas shoppers, and mingle with the rushing tides that throng and jostle through the stores, that unseen spirits may be hastening to and Iro along those same ways bearing Christ's Christmas gifts to men — gifts whose value no earthly gold or gems can represent? Yet, on this morning of the day before Christmas, were these Shining Ones, moving to and fro with the crowd, whose faces were loving and serene as the invisible stars, whose robes took no defile- ment from the spatter and the rush of earth, whose coming and going was still as the falling snow-flakes. They entered houses without ringing door-bells, they passed through apartments without opening doors, and everywhere they were bearing Christ's Christ- mias presents, and silently offering them to whoever would open their souls to receive. Like themselves, their gifts were invisible — incapable of weight and measurement in gross earthly scales. To mourners they carried joy ; to weary and perplexed hearts, peace; to souls stifling in luxury and self-indulgence they carried that 4 BETTY a BRIGHT IDEA. noble discontent that rises to aspiration for higher things. Some- times they took away an earthly treasure to make room for a heav- only one. They took health, but left resignation and cheerful faith. They took the babe from the dear cradle, but left in its place a heart *'ull of pity for the suffering on earth and a fellowship with the blessed in heaven. Let us follow their footsteps awhile. SCENE I. A YOUNG girl's boudoir in one of our American palaces of luxury, built after the choicest fancy of the architect, and furnished in all the latest devices of household decoration. Pictures, statuettes, and every form of bijouterie make the room a miracle of beauty, and the little princess of all sits in an easy chair before the fire, and thus revolves with herself: "O, dear me! Cliristmas is a bore! Such a rush and crush in the streets, such a jam in the shops, and then such a fuss thinking up presents for everybody ! All for nothing, too ; for nobody wants anything. I'm sure I don't. I'm surfeited now with pictures and jewelry, and bon-bon boxes, and little china dogs and cats — and all these things that get so thick yon can't move without upsetting some of them. There's papa, he don't want anything. He never uses any of my Christmas presents when I get them ; and mamma, she has every earthly thing I can think of, and said the other day she did hope nobody'd give her anymore worsted work! Then Aunt Maria and Uncle John, they don't want the things I give them ; they have more than they know what to do with, now. AH the boys say they don't want any more cigar cases or slippers, or smoking caps. Oh, dear!" Here the Shining Ones came and stood over the little lady, and looked down on her with faces of pity, which seemed blent with a serene and half-amused indulgence. It was a heavenly amuse- ment, such as that with which mothers listen to the foolish-wise prattle of children just learning to talk. As the grave, sweet eyes rested tenderly on her, the girl somehow grew graver, leaned back in her chair, and sighed a Uttle. "I wish I knew how to be better!" she said to herself. "I remember last Sunday's text, ' It is more blessed to give than to receive.' That must mean something ! Well, isn't there something, too, in the Bible about not giving to your rich neighbors that can give agaiii, but giving to the poor that cannot recompense you ? I don't know any poor people. Papa says there are very few deserv- ing poor people. Well, for the matter of that, there aren't many deserving rich people. I, for example, how much do I deserve to hav© all these nice things? I'm no better than the poor shop-girls BETTY S BRIGHT IDEA. ft that go trudging by in the cold at six o'clock in the morning — ugh I it makes me shiver to think of it. I know if I had to do that J shouldn't be good at all. Well, I'd like to give to poor people, if I knew any." At this moment the door opened and the maid enters "Betty, do you know any poor people I ought to get things for, this Christmas?" "Poor folks is always plenty, miss," said Betty. "O yes, of course, beggars; but I mean people that I could do something for besides just give cold vituals or money. I don't know where to hunt them up, and should be afraid to go if I did, O dear ! it's no use. I'll give it up." " Why, Miss Florence, that 'ud be too bad, afther bein' that good in yer heart, to let the poor folks alone for fear of goin' to theiD. But ye needn't do that, for, now I think of it, there's John Mor- ley's wife." •* What, the gardener father turned off for drinking?" '* The same, miss. Poor boy, he's not so bad, and he's got a wife and two as pretty children as ever you see." " I always liked John," said the young lady. " But papa is so strict about some things ! He says he never will keep a man a day if he finds out that he drinks." She was quite silent for a minute, and then broke out : " I don't care ; it's a good idea ! I say, Betty, do you know where John's wife lives ?" " Yes, miss, I've been there often." - " Well, then, this afternoon I'll go with you and see if I can do anything for them." SCENE II. An attic room, neat and clean, but poorly furnished ; a bed and a trundle-bed, a small cooking-stove, a shelf with a few dishes, one or two chairs and stools, a pale, thin woman working on a vest. Her face is anxious ; her thin hands tremble with weakness, and now and then, as she works, quiet tears drop, which she wipes quickly. Poor people cannot afford to shed tears ; it takes time and injures eye-sight. This is John Morley's wife. This morning he has risen and gone out in a desperate mood. " No use to try," he says. " Didn't I go a whole year and never touch a drop ? And now just because I fell once I'm kicked out ! No use to try. When a fellow once trips, everybody gives him a kick. Talk about love of Christ I Who believes it ? Don't see much love of Christ where I go. ICour Christians hit a fellow that's do-vy^n as hard as anybody. Ifs BETTY S BRIGHT IDEA. everybody for himself and devil take the hindmost. Well, I'll trudge up to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and see if they'll take me on there — if they won't I might as well go to sea, or to the devil," and out he flings. " Mamma," says a little voice, " what are we going to have for our Christmas ?" - It is a little girl, with soft curly hair and bright, earnest eyes that speaks. A. sturdy little fellow of four presses up to the mother's knee and repeats the question, " Sha'n't we have a Christmas, mother ?" It overcomes the poor woman ; she leans forward and breaks ■ ato sobbing, — a tempest of sorrow, long suppressed, that shakes her weak frame as ^he thinks that her husband is out of work, desperate, discouraged, and tempted of the devil, that the rent is fall- ing due, and only the poor pay of her needle to meet it with. In one of those quick flashes which concentrate through the imagination the sorrows of years, she seems to see her little home broken up, her husband in the gutter, her children turned into t'le street. At this moment there f^'oes up from her heart a despairing cry, such as a poor, hunted, tired-out creature gives when brought to the last gasp of endurance. It was like the shriek of the hare when the hounds are npon it. She clasps her hands and cries out, *' my God, help me. " There was no \ oice of any that answered ; there was no sound of foot-fall on the staircase ; no one entered the door ; and yet that agonized cry had reached the heart it was meant for. The Shin- ing Ones were with her ; they stood, with faces full of tenderness, beaminjr down upon her ; they brought her a Christmas gift from Christ— the gift of trust. She knew not from whence came the courage and rest that entered her soul ; but while her little ones stood wondering and silent, she turned and drew to herself her well-worn Bible. Hands that she did not see guided her as she turned the pages, and pointed the words : He shall cleMver the needy 'tnhen he crieth ; the poor also and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poo'" and needy, and shall save the sovls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and vioknce, and precious shall their blood he in his sight. She laid down her poor wan clieek on the merciful old book, as on her mother's breast, and gave up all the tangled skein of life into the hands of Infinite Pity. There seemed a consoling presence in the room, and her tired lieart found rest. She wiped away her tears, kissed her children, and smiled upon them. Then she rose, gathered up her finished work, and attired herself to go forth and carry it back to the shop. *• Mother," said the children softly, " they are dressing the church, and the gates are open, and people are going in and out ; mayn't we play there by the church ? " wi ai BETTY S BRIGHT IDEA. WeU, I'll ake me on leyil" and o have for nest eyes knee and her ?" id breaks at shakes '' of work, 3nt is fall- 1. In one af^fination ■oken up, reet. At cry, such the last when the *'0 my sound of yet that le Shin- derness, ift from ime the tie ones self her as she ^e needy ie shall iy. He oil their )ok, as of life •esence i upon attired ig the out ; The mother looked out on the ivy-grown walls of the church, with its flocks of twittering sparrows, and said : " Yes, my little birds ; you may play there if you'll be very good and quiet." The mother had only her small, close attic room for her darlings, and to satisfy all their cliildish desire for variety and motion, she had only the refuge of the streets. She was a decent, godly woman, and the bold magjaers and evil words of street vagrants were terrible to her ; and so, when the church gates were open for daily morning and evening prayers, she had often begged the sexton to let her little ones come in and hear the singing, and wander hand in hand around the old church walls. He was a kindly old man, j and the children, stealing round like two still, bright-eyed little I mice, had gained upon his heart, and he made them welcome / there. It gave the mother a feeling of protection to have them play near the church, as if it were a father's house. So she put on their little hoods and tippets, and led them forth, nnd saw them into the yard; and as she looked to the old gray church, with its rustling ivy bowers and flocks of birds, her heart swelled within her. *' Yea, the sparrow hath found a house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, even thine altars, Lord of hosts, my king and my God ! " And the Shining Ones walking with her said, "Fear not ; ye are of more value than many sparrows." SCENE III. The little ones went gayly into the yard. They had been soared by their mother's tears ; but she had smiled again, and that had made all right with them. The sun was shining brightly, and they were on the sunny side of the old church, and they laughed and chirped and chittered to each other as merrily as the little birds in the ivy boughs. The* old sexton came to the side door and threw out an armful of refuse greens, and then stopped a moment and nodded kindly at them. " May we play with them, please, sir?" said the little Elsie, looking up with great reverence. •• Oh, yes, to be sure ; these are done with — they are no good now," " Oh, Tottie I" cried Elsie, rapturously, "just think, he says we may play with all these. Why, here's ever and ever so much green, enough to play house. Let's play build a house for father and mother. " " I'm going to build a big house for 'em when I grow up," said Tottie, " and I mean to have glass bead windows in it." BETTY S BRIGHT IDEA. Tottie had once had presented to him a box of colored glass beads to string, and he could think of nothing finer in the future than unlimited glass beads. Meanwhile, his sister began planting pine branches upright in the snow, to make her house. " You see we can make believe there are windows and doors and a roof," she said, " and it's just as good. Now, let's make believe there is a bed in this corner, and we will lie down to sleep." And Tottie obediently couched himself in the allotted corner and shut his eyes very hard, though after p moment he remarked that the snow got into his neck. " You must play it isn't snow — play it's feathers," said Elsie. " But I don't like it," persisted Tottie, " it don't feel a bit like feathers." " Oh, well, then," said Elsie, accommodating herself to circum- stances, " let's play get up now and I'll get breakfast." Just now the door opened again, and the sexton began sweeping the refuse out of the church. There were bits of ivy and holly, and ruffles of ground-pine, and lots of bright red berries that came fly- ing forth into the yard, and the children screemed for joy. " O Tottie !" "0 Elsie !" " Only see how many pretty things — ^lots and lots I" The sexton stood and looked and laughed as he saw the little ones so eager for the scraps and remnants. '• Don't you want to come in and see the church ?" he said. " It's all done now, and a brave sight it is. You may come in." They tipped in softly, with large bright, wondering eyes. The light through the stained glass windows fell blue md crimson and yellow on the pillars all ruffled with ground-pine and brightened with scarlet bitter-sweet berries, and there were stars and crosses and mottcc^s in green all through the bowery aisles, while the organ- ist, hid in a thicket of verdure, was practicing softly, and sweet voices sung : " Hark ! the herald angels sing Glory to the new-born king." The little ones wandered up and down the long aisles in a dream of awe and wonder. " Hush, Tottie 1" said Elsie when he broke into an eager exclamation, " don't make a noise. I do be- lieve it's something like heaven," she said, under her breath. They made the course of the church and came round by the door again, where the sexton stood smiling on them. ** You can find lots of pretty Christmas greens out there," he said, pointing to the door ; perhaps your folks would like to have some." '• Oh, thank you, sir," exclaimed Elsie, rapturously. " Oh, Tottie, only think I Let's gather a good lot and go home and dr^ wl ap^ BOl the an! thil ro( Betty's bright idea. ci glass beads future than Bs upright in id doors and lake beheve 3ep." I corner and larked that id Elsie, a bit like to circum- 1 sweeping ^olly, and came fly. 'joy- ''O imgs—Iots 7 the httle he said. 3ome in." ^es. The iison and lightened d crosses ' ie organ- id sweet les in a vhen he [ do be- h. be door re," he to have "Oh, le and I dress our room for Christmas. Oh, won't mother be astonished when she comes home, we'll make it so pretty !" And forthwith the children began gathering into their little aprons wreaths of ground-pine, sprigs of holly, and twigs of crim- son bitter-sweet. The sexton, seeing their zeal, brought out to them a little cross, fancifully made of red-alder berries and pine. Then he said, " A lady took that down to put up a bigger one, and she gave it to me ; you may have it if you want it." " Oh, how beautiful," said Elsie. *' How glad I am to have this for mother ? When she comes back she won't know our room ; it will be as fine as the church." Soon the little gleaners were toddling off out of the yard — moving masses of green with all that their aprons and their little hands could carry. The sexton looked after them. " Take heed that ye dispise not these Httle ones," he said to himself, " for in heaven their angels — " A ray of tenderness fell on the old man's head ; it was from the Shining One who watched the children. He thought it was an afternoon sunbeam. His heart grew gentle and peaceful, and his thoughts went far back to a distant green grove where his own lit- tle one was sleeping. " Seems to me I've loved all little ones ever since," he said, thinking far back to the Christmas week when his lamb was laid to rest. " Well, she shall not return to me, but I shall go to her." The smile of the Shining One made a warm glow in his heart, which followed him all the way home. The children had a merry time dressing the room. They stuck good big bushes of pine in each window ; they put a little ruffle of ground-pine around mother's Bible, and they fasteded the beauti- ful red cross up over the table, and they stuck sprigs of pine or holly into every crack that could be made, by fair means or foul, to accept it, and they were immensely satisfied and delighted. Tottie insisted on hanging up his string of many-colored beads in the window to imitate the effect of the stained glass of the great church window. " It looks pretty when the light comes through," he remarked ; and Elsie admitted that they might play they were painted win- dows, with some show of propriety. When everything had been stuck somewhere, Elsie swept the floor, and made up a fire, and put on the tea-kettle, to have evorythiiig ready to strike mother favorably on her return. SCENE IV. A FREEZING, bright, cold afternoon. " Cold as Christmas I " say cheery voices, as the crowds rush to and fro into shops and atores, and come out with hands full of presents. 10 BETTY'S BRIGHT IDBA. old country he harl hpo^^ -t^ ® ^^^''* landed ia Npw V i ?" "^^^ ^ell wrth him^ni'^'"' '^ «"'"» place and sood wf^^'^^ keeping^it after niS t and 1 ""?' 'J'^ '■°»- "^ fortntht a„,T ' "'",''°'y '''•Mk gone a ^etttaf? ^^j',''« "»* S ve?^ ha°rd7^'5:"'°'^*« ^^ , just forgone vTeldW^ , greater misB,.;„„ ii f "ad brought nothing fo Tonrf anT '""," "^ ''"art • ho wa^ A"' ."^^''t be^n shouldn't lie ,m„,'JT\ "" ahead he saw ■! dHnlv^ ^ ' ^,^ ^"^ «aten boat into the East r"''^ "'"> «ood driX, and tl 1"^ f ".'"O"- Why o^ m a,t„«eth?;r «'^-. -^ - ™d t'^owh'ote^bf ;^-J; ■ should think ywhere—that ^only to Jiear oody wanted I himself and Jit ; but that ent or good- cup. John 5rk from the to drinking, aded to sign ' keeping it id all went •rmer boon- with them, ^uits of the >nly drunk t-unk night discharged > lie thuds 3h "sense anate and good, and and now, everybody iQeasure. ows have 't nobody sins are ^ John's 'feature, sness he bout the ^en with 3 of the at they I's very wrought t be in i eaten Why t ferry- auddle BETTY S BRIGHT IDEA. 11 John's steps were turning that way, when one of the Shining Ones, who had watched him all day, came nearer and took his hand. He felt no touch ; but at that moment there darted into his soul a thought of his mother, long dead, and he stopped irresolute, then turned to walk another way. The hand that was guiding him led him to turn a corner, and his curiosity was excited by a stream of people who seemed to be pressing into a building. A distant sound of singing was heard as he drew nearer, and soon he found himself passing with the multitude into a great prayer-meeting. The music grew more distinct as he went in. A man was singing in clear, penetrating tones : " What means this eager, anxious throng, Which moYes with busy haste along ; These wondrous gatherings day by day ; What means this strange commotion, say ? In accents hushed the throng reply, ' Jesus of Nazareth passeth by !' " John had but a vague idea of religion, yet something in the singing affected him ; and, weary and footsore and heartsore as he was, he sank into a seat and listened with absorbed attention : "Jesus! 'tis he who once below Man's pathway trod iu toil and woe; And burdened ones where'er he came Brought out their sick and deaf and lame. The lilind rejoiced to hear the cry, 'Jesus of Nazareth passeth by!' "Ho, all ye heavy-laden, come! Here's pardon, comfort, rest, and home. Ye wanderers from a Father's face. Return, accept his proffered grace. Ye tempted ones, there's refuge nigh — ' Jesus of Nazareth passeth by !' " A plain man, who spoke the language of plain working-men, now arose and read from his Bible the words which the angel of old spoke to the shepherds of Bethlehem : "-Fear not, for behold, 1 bring you lidings of (jreat joy, which shall be to all people, for , rmto you is born this day a Saviour^ which is Christ the Lord." The man went on to speak of this with an intense practical earn- estness that soon made John feel as if lie, individually, were being talked to ; and the purport of the speech was this : that God had sent to him, John Morley, a Saviour to save him from his sins, to lift him above his weakness, to help him overcome his bad habits ; 'c^VV' 12 BETTY'S BRjrxHT Idea. •' ""^ rai IDEA. from their «f?^^ ^as called Jesus, because he bIioIt -hat l^e^nSed-a'^FSr/".^'* "^ ^ange^t'S '^K?'^ undertake for him <,n/i^ 1 ,'• aUpowerfu,, all-mtifi,i ' u ™' -as felt how weak h^tt'^^feir '""^^""'^^hretf-^^^^ ■ '^aglir.loTotellTJ'r^ '" ^V-^' ''»* &r ot'rTndT" "^ ''^ And was this miiw t^" "^''^ ''™- ^^''' *"'' , " yes," cried Se mL trr"" ^™" *" ^^'^ ? ^tsZi?t'"^--&re'^f? i, " sireugtJi to overcome „ "ure, to wash you door. * • Messed iiDedom mi • "^.Z"" sins, and Iei,/,,„. i ' '" S^ve angels broS Jn ««' i' *^.?''"' tidings oflLT-'^rf *° ^is Christmas „iftt^ *''^ ^''^t Christmas dav nt ^"^ '^at the t«-day Hernia ^ ?"'"■' l»st world and vnT; „^™/^'' -as (?o-' -eking yo„,.t eSrylrte^^ • Awav onihr ^ ^^*^s «f gold-- : ^--^^tS:n4&^t:: I^ord, Thou hast hprp ti, • , " intense attention. twr„';rr"f«-w *» were the waters crossed; save his people bnll. This was «1, who would P—for he sorely ^«1 have com- fche way. The B to his heart. John's heart, ■eadful convic- ^ again as he ad lower, and ; to you who ^or ; to you, a oaviour to Jean, to give ^ome to his '^^y that the f was God's ^e him now, I as if there ing for you y nie. Oh, the speaker ran singing :oing forth Betty's bright idea. 18 Nor how dark was the night that the Lord went through Ere He found His sheep that was lost. Out in the desert Ee heard its cry — Sick and helpless, and ready to die." There was a throbbing pathos in the intonation, and the verse floated over the weeping throng ; when, after a pause, the strain was taken up triumphantly : " But all through the mountains thunder-riven, And up from the rocky steep, • There rose a cry to the gates of heaven, •Rejoice! I have found my sheep !" And the angels echoed around the throne, • Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own !' " All day long, poor John had felt so lonesome 1 Nobody cared for him ; nobody wanted him ; everything was against him ; and, worst of all, he had no faith in himself. But here was this Friend, seeking him, following him through the cold alleys and crowded streets. In heaven they would be glad to hear that he had become a good man. The thought broke down all his pride, all his bitter- ness ; he wept like a little child ; and the Christmas gift of Christ — the sense of a real, present, loving, pitying Saviour — came into his very soul. He went homeward as one in a dream. He passe' ^he drink- ing-saloon without a thought or wish of drinking. The expulsive force of a new emotion had for the time driven out all temptation. Raised above weakness, he thought only of this Jesus, this Saviour from sin, who he now believed had followed him and found him, and he longed to go home and tell his wife what great things the Lord had done for him. SCENE V. ' Meanwhile a little drama had been acting in John's humble home. His wife had been to the shop that day and come home with the pittance for her work in her hands. " I'll pay you full price to-day, but we can't pay such prices any longer," the man had said over the counter as he paid her. " Hard times — work dull — we are cutting down all our work-folks ; you'll have to take a third less next time." " I'll do my best," she said meekly, as she took her bundle of work and turned wearily away, but the invisible arm of the Shin- ing One was round her, and the words again thrilled through her that she had read that mornaig : " He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence, and precious shall their blood be in his sight." 14 BITTY i BSIGHT IDEA. r't - She saw no earthly helper ; she heard none and felt none, and yet her soul was sustained, and she came home in peace. When she opened the door of her little room she dre\7 back astonished at the sight that presented itself. A brisk fire was roaring in the stove, and the tea-kettle was sputtering and sending out clouds of steam. A table with a white cloth on it was drawn out before the fire, and a new tea set of pure white cups and saucers, with teapot, sugar-bowl and creamer, complete, gave a festive air to the whole. There were bread and butter, and ham- sandwiches, and a Christmas cake all frosted, with little blue and red and green candles round it ready to be lighted, and a bunch of hot-house flowers in a pretty little \ase in the centra A new stuffed rocking-chair stood on one side '^f the stove, and there sat Miss Florence DeWitt, our young Princess of Scene First, holding little Elsie in her lap, while the broad, honest coun- tenance of Betty was beaming with kindness down on the delight- ed face of Tottie. Both children were dressed from head to foot in complete new suits of clothes, and Elsie was holding with ten- der devotion a fine doll, while Tottie rejoiced in a horse and cart which he was maneuvering under Betty's superintendence. The little princess had pleased herself in getting up all this tableau. Doing good was a novelty to her, and she plunged into it with the zest of a new amusement. The amazed look of the poor woman, her dazed expressions of rapture and incredulous joy, the shrieks and cries of confused delight with which the little ones met their mother, delighted her more than any scene she had ever witnessed at the opera — with this added grace, unknown to her, that at this scene the invisible Shining Ones were pleased wit- nesses. She had been out with Betty, buying here and there whatever was wanted — and what was not wanted for those who had been living so long without work or money? She had their little coal-bin tilled, and a nice pile of wood and kindlings put behind the stove. She had bought a nice rock- ing-chair for the mother to rest in. She had dressed the children from head to foot at a ready-made clothing store, and bought them toys to their hearts' desire, while Betty had set the table for a Christmas feast. And now she said to the poor woman at last : ** Pm so sorry John lost his place at father's. He was so kind and obliging, and I always liked him ; and I've been thinking, if you'd get him to sign the pledge over again from Christmas Eve, never to touch another drop, I'll get papa to take him back. I always do get papa to do what I want, and the fact is he hasn't got anybody that suited him so well since John left. So you tell John that I mean to go surety for him ; he certainly wont fail me. Tell him I trust him.'' And Miss Florence pulled out a paper wherein, in pie witl totl totl cami himl and! Oriel BBTTT S BRIftHT IDBA. 15 i none, and yet he dre\7 back brisk fire was g and sending I it was drawn hite cups and apiete, gave a ter, and ham- little blue and Qd a bunch of '^^ the stove, cess of Scene honest coun- 1 the delight- head to "foot ^ng with ten- 3rse and cart )dence. : up all this plunged into look of the edulous joy, le little ones Jhe had ever own to her, pleased wit- •e whatever had been le of wood 1 nice rock- he children 5ught them iable for a as so kind hinking, if itmas Eve, » back. I hasn't got tell John me. TeU ' wherein, in her best round-hand, she had written out again the temperance pledge, and dated it " Christmas Eve, 1875." "Now, you come with John to-morrow morning, and bring this with his name to it, and you'll see what I'll do !" and, with a kiss to the children, the little good fairy departed, leaving the family to their Christmas Eve. What that Chribtmas 'Eve was, when the husband and father came home with the new and softened heart that had been given him, who can say ? There were joyful tears and solemn prayers, and earnest vows and purposes of a new life heard by the Shining Ones in the room that night. "And the angels echoed around the throne, Rejoice! for the Lord brings back his own." . SCENE VI. •' Now, papa, I want you to give me something special to-day, be- cause it's Cln-istmas," said the little princess to her father, as she kissed and wished him " Merry Christmas " next morning. " "What is it, Pussy — half of my kingdom ?" *' No, no, papa ; not so much as that. It's a little bit of my own way that I want." "Of course; well, what is it ?" ** Well, I want you to take John back again." Her father's face grew hard. " Now, please, papa, don't say a word till you have heard me. John was a capital gardener ; he kept the green-house looking beautiful ; and this Mike that we've got now, he's nothing but an apprentice, and stupid as an owl at that ! He'll never do in the world." " All that is very true," said Mr. De Witt, " but John drinks, and I wonH have a drinking man." " But, plpa, J mean to take care of that. I've written out the temperance pledge, and dated it, and got John to sign it, and here it is," and she handed the paper to her father, who read it care- fully, and sat turning it in his hands while his daughter went on : " You. ought to have seen how poor, how very poor they were. His wife is such a nice, quiet, hard-working woman, and has two such pretty children. I went to see them and carry them Christ- mas things yesterday, but's no good doing anything if John can't get work. She told me how the poor fellow had been walking the streets in the cold, day after day, trying everywhere, and nobody would take him. It's a dreadful time now for a man to be out of work, and it isn't fair his poor wife and children should suffer. Do try him again, papal" I { 16 Betty's bright idea. (( John always did better with the pineapplas than anybody we have tried," said Mrs. De Witt at this point. " He is the only one who really understands pineapples." At this moment the door opened, and there was the sound of chirping voices in the hall. " Please, Miss Florence," said Betty, "the little folks says they wants to give you a Christmas." She added in a whisper : " They thinks much of giving j'^ou something, poor little things — plaze take it of 'em." And little Tottie at the word marched in and o^^red the young princess his dear, beautiful, beloved string of gV' ads, and Elsie presented the cross of red berries — most dear > xier heart and fair to her eyes. " We wanted to give you something,^* she said bashfully. "Oh, you lovely dears!" cried Florence; " how sweet of you ! I shall keep these beautiful glass beads always, and put the cross up over my dressing-table. I thank you ever so much 1" " Are those John's children ?" asked Mr. De Witt, winking a * tear out of his eye — he was at bottom a soft-hearted old gentleman. " Yes, papa," said Florence, caressing Elsie's curly hair, — " see how sweet they are !" " Well — you may tell John I'll try him again." And so passed Florence's Christmas, with a new, warm sense of joy in her heart, a feeling of something in the world to be done, worth doing. " How much joy one can give with a little money I " she said to herself as she counted over what she had spent on her Christmas. Ah yes ! and how tnie that "It is more blessed to give than to receive." A shining, invisible hand was laid on her head in blessing as she lay down that night, and a sweet sense of a loving presence stole like music into her soul. Unknown to herself, she had that day taken the first step out of self-life into that life of love and care for others which brought the King of Glory down to share earth's toils and sorrows. And that precious experience was Christ's Christmas gift to her. 1 anybody we s the only one the sound of ," said Betty, istmas." She )u something, Tottie at the ear, beautiful, cross of red " We wanted 3weet of you I 3ut the cross 1 1" it, winking a d gentleman. ' hair,—" see arm sense of to be done, she said to r Christmas. ?iye than to d in blessing ing presence he had that of love and ivn to share srience was Deacon Pitkin's Farm. n We and Our Neigrhbours : Or, The Eecords of an Unfash- ionable Street. By Harriet. Beecher Stowe. 1vol. Illus- trated by Alfred Fredericks. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper covers, 76 cents. As fresh, witty and charming in style as all of Mrs. Store's works are, this new bock is likely to be the most popular story she has ever written, always excepting that exceptional book of the world, " Uncle Tom's Cabin." Her last previous novel, " My Wife and I," has run through about 50,000 copies in tlu-ee years, and is still a most popular, because eminently readable book. " We and our Neighbours," although a complete and admirable story in itself, is a sequel to " My Wife and I," taking up the prin- cipal characters of that book, and, with others added, giving a most enjoyable picture of social and city life. *• It is one of the best of Mrs. Stowe's novels ; and Mrs. Stowe is incapable of writing a poor one." — St. Louis Globe. " * We and Our Neighbours ' is written in Mrs. Stowe's genial, hearty style, with the sparkle of fun, wit, and humour, and the touches of deep pathos which characterize her work." — Worcester Spy. / fl Deacon Pitkin's Farm. CHAPTEE I. MISS DIANA. THANKSGIVING was impending in the village of Maplcion on the 20th of November, 1825. The Governor's proclamation had been duly and truly read from the pulpit the Sunday before, to the great consternation of Miss Briskett, the ambulatory dressmaker, who declared confidentially to Deacon Pitkin's wife that "she didn't see nothin' how she was goin' to get through things — and there was Saphiry's gown, and Miss Deacon Trowbridge's cloak,*and Lizy Jane's new merino, not a stroke done on't. The Governor ought to be ashamed of himself for hurrying matters]^so." It was a very rash step for Miss Briskett to go to the lenght of such a remark about the Governor, but the deacon's wife was one of the few women who are non-conductors of indiscretion, and so the Governor never heard of it. This particular Thanksgiving tide was marked in Mapleton by exceptionally charming weather. Once in a great while the incle- ment New England skies are taken with a remorseful twinge and forget to give their usual snap of September frost which generally bites off all the pretty flowers in so heart-breaking a way, and then you can have lovely times quite down through November. It was so this year at Mapleton. Though the Thanksgiving proclamation had been read, and it was past the middle of November, yet marigolds and four-o'clocks were all ablaze in the gardens, and the golden rod and purple aster were blooming over the fields as if they were expecting to keep it up all winter. It really is affecting, the jolly good heart with which these bright children of the rainbow flaunt and wave and dance and go on budding and blossoming in the very teeth and snarl of oncoming winter. An autumn golden rod or aster ought to be the symbol for pluck and courage, and might^serve a New England crest as the broom flower did the old Plantagenets. The trees round Mapleton were looking like gigantic tulip beds, and breaking every hour into new phantas-magoria of color ; and the great elm that overshowed the red Pitkin farm-house seemed IIH ^ i Hi , I ilM ' DEACON PITKIN S FARM. like a dome of gold, and sent a yellow radiance through all the doors and windows as the dreamy autumn sunshine streamed through it. The Pitkin elm was noted among the great trees of New Eng- land. Now and then Nature asserts herself and does something so astonishing and overpowering as actually to strike through the crust of human stupidity, and convince mankind that a tree is something greater than they are. As a general thing the human rpce has a stupid hatred of trees. They embrace every chance to cut them down. They have no idea of their fitness for anything but firewood or fruit bearing. But a great cathedral elm, with gbadov y aisles of boughs, its choir of whispering winds and chant- ing bi-ds, its hush and solemnity and majestic grandeur, actually conquers the dull human race and asserts its leave to be in a manner to which all hearts respond ; and so the great elms of New England have got to be regarded with a sort of pride as among her very few crown jewels, and the Pitkin elm was one of these. But wasn't it a busy time in Mapleton ! Busy is no word for it, O the choppings, the poundings, the stoning of raisins, the projec- tions of pies and puddings, the killing of turkeys — who can utter it ? The very chip squirrels in the stone walls, who have a family custom of making a market basket of their mouths, were rushing about with chops incredibly distended, and their tails had an extra whisk of thanksgiving alertness. A squirrel's Thanksgiving dinner is an affair of moment, mind you. In the great roomy, clean kitchen of the deacon's house might be seen the lithe, comely form of Diana Pitkin presiding over the roaring great oven which was to engulf the armies of pies and cakes which were in due course of preparation on the ample tables. Of course you want to know who Diana Pitkin was. It was a general fact about this young lady that anybody who g.ave one look at her, whether at church or at home, always inquired at once with effusion, "Who is she ?" — particularly if the inquirer was one of the masculine gender. This was to be accounted for by the fact that Miss Diana presented to the first view of the gazer a dazzling combination of pink and white, a flashing pair of black eyes, a ripple of dimples about the prettiest little rosy mouth in the world, and a frequent somewhat saucy laugh, which showed a set of teeth like pearls. Add to this a quick Avit, a generous though spicy temper, and a nimble tongue, and you will not wonder that Miss Diana was a marked character at Mapleton, and that the inquiryjwho she was was one of the most interesting facts of statistical information. Well, she was Deacon Pitkin's second cousin, and of course just in that ctmvenient relationship to the Pitkin boys which has all the advantages of cousinship and none of the disadvantages as may be plain to an ordinary observer. For if Miss Diana wished to ride m: DEACON PITKIN S FARM. 21 or row or dance with any of the Pitkin boys, why shouldn't she ? Were they not her cousins ? But if any of these aforenamed young fellows advanced on the strength of these intimacies a presumptive claim to nearer relationship, why, then Diana was astonished — of course she had regarded them f*s her cousins ! and she was sure she couldn't think what they could be dreaming of — "A cousin is just like a brother, you know." This was just what James Pitkin did not believe in, and now as he is walking over hill and dale from Cambridgo College to his father's house he is gathering up a decided resolution to tell Diana that he is not and will not be to her as a brother — that she must be to him all or nothing. James is the brightest, the tallest, and, the Mapletes Kob and Ike and Pete and the whole healthy, ramping train who fill the Pitkin farm-house with a racket of boots and boys. So she has made every one a tart with his initial on it and a saucy motto or two, "just to keep them from being conceited, you know." All day she keeps busy by the side of the deacon's wife — a deli- cate, thin, quiet little woman, with great thoughtful eyes and a step like a snowflake. New England had of old times, and has still, perhaps, in her farm-houses, these women who seem from year to year to develop in the spiritual sphere as the bodily form shrinks and fades. While the cheek grows thin and the form spare, the will-power grows daily stronger ; though the outer man peris'' the inner man is renewed day by day. The worn hand that 8 ms so weak yet holds every thread and controls every movement of the most complex family life, and wonders are daily accomplished by the presence of a woman who seems little more than a spirit. The New England wife-mother was the one little jeweled pivot on which all the wheel work of the family moved. '* Well, haven't we done a good day's work cousin ?" says Diana, when ninety pies of every ilk — quince, apple, cranberry, pumpkin, and mince — have been all safely delivered from the oven and car- ried up into the great vacant chamber, where, ranged in rows and frozen solid, they are to last over New Year's day I She adds, de- monstratively clasping the little woman round the neck and leaning her bright cheek against her whitening hair, " Haven't we been smart?" And the calm, thoughtful eyes turn lovingly upon her as Mary Pitkin puts her arm around her and answers : " Yes, my daughter, you have done wonderfully. We ; couldn't do without you 1" And Diana lifts her head and laughs. She likes petting, and praising as a cat likes being stroked ; but, for all that, the little puss has her claws and a sly notion of using them. sta^ neij a c) det evf wis dai CHAPTEK II. BIAH CARTER. IT was in the flush and glow of a gorgeous sunset that you might have seen the dark form of the Pitkin farm-house rising on a green hill against the orange sky. The red house, with its overhanging canopy of elm, stood out like an old missal picture done on a gold ground. 'ii DEACON Pitkin's farm. 23 Jo she does Ed, ng out of bash- and the whole 'e with a racket I. tart with his 3ep them from 3 wife-— a deh- ^1 eyes and a imes, and has 10 seem from le bodily form and the form he outer man le worn hand 3ntrols every wonders are o seems little ' was the one )f the family " says Diana, ^•y, pumpkin, ven and ear- in rows and 5he adds, de- : and leaning n't we been ly upon her fVe; couldn't petting, and tt, the httle Through the glimmer of the yellow twilight might be seen the stacks of dry corn-stalks and heaps of golden pumpkins in the neighboring fields, from which the slow oxen were bringing home a cart well laden with farm produce. It was the hour before supper time, and Biah Carter, the deacon's hired man, was leaning against a fence, waiting for his evening meal ; indulging the while in a stream of conversational wisdom which seemed to flow all the more freely from having been dammed up through the labors of the day. Blah was, in those far distant times of simpUcity a " mute in- glorious " newspaper man. Newspapers in those days were as rare and unheard of as steam cars or the telegraph, but Biah had with- in him all the making of a thriving modern reporter, and no paper to use it on. He was a walking biographical and statistical dic- tionary of all the affairs of the good folks of Mapletou. He knew every piece of furniture in their houses, and what they gave for it ; every foot of land, and what it was worth ; every ox, ass and sheep ; every man, woman and child in town. And Biah could give pretty shrewd character pictures also, and whoever wanted to inform himself of the status of any person or thing in Mapleton would have done well to have turned the faucet of Biah's stream of talk, and watched it respectfully as it came, for it was commonly conceded that what Biah Carter didn't know about Mapleton was hardly worth knowing. "Putty piece o' property, this 'ere farm," he said, surveying the scene around him with the air of a connoisseur. *' None o' yer stim pastur land where the sheep can t get their noses down through the rocks without a iile to sharpen 'em ! Deacon Pitkin did a putty fair stroke o' business when he swapped off his old place for this 'ere. That are old place was all swamp land and stun pastur; wa'n't good for raisin' nothin' but juniper bushes and bull frogs. But I tell yen" proceded Biah, with a shrewd wink, *'that are mortgage pinches the deacon ; works him lILo a dose of aloes and picry, it does. Deacon fairly gets lean on't." *' Why," said Abner Jenks, a stolid plow boy to whom this stream of remark was addressed ; "this 'ere place ain't mortgaged, is it.^ Du tell, naow!" "Why, yia; don't ye know that are? Why there's risin' two thousand dollars due on this 'ere farm, and if the deacon don't scratch for it and pay up squar to the minit, old Squire Norcross'U foreclose on him. Old squire hain't no bowels, I tell yen, and the deacon knows he hain't : and I tell you it keeps the deacon dancin' lively as com on a hot shovel." "The deacon's a master hand to work," said Abner; " 8o*fi the boys." " Wal, yis, the deacon is," said Biah, turning contemplatively to the farmhouse ; ' ' there ain't a crittur in that are house that there mSm 24 DEACON PITKIN S FARM. 11" i ain't the most work got out of 'em that ken be, down to Jed and Sam, the little una. They work like tigers, every soul of 'em, from four o'clock in the morning' as long as they can see, and Mis' Pitkin she works all the evening — woman's work ain't never done, they say." "She's a good woman, Mis' Pitkin is," said Abner, "and she's a smart worker." In this phrase Abner solemnly expressed his highest ideal of a human being. " Smart ain't no word for 't," said Biah, with alertness. "Declar for 't, the grit o' that are woman beats me. Had eight children right along in a string 'thout stoppin', done all her own work, never kep' no gal nor nothin' ; allers up and dressed ; allers to meetin' Sunday, and to the prayer-meetin' weekly, and never stops workin': when 'tain't one thing it's another — cookin', washin', ironin', mak- ing butter and cheese, and 'tween spells cuttin' and sewin', and if she ain't doin' that, why, she's braidin' straw to sell to the store or knitting — she's the perpetual motion ready found. Mis' Pitkin is." "Want ter know," said the auditor, as a sort of musical rest in this monotone of talk. "Ain't she smart, though !" " Smart ! Well, I sliould think she was. She's over and into everything that's goin' on in that house. The deacon wouldn't know himself without her ; nor wouldn't none of them boys, they just live out of her ; she kind o' keeps 'em all up." "Wal, she ain't a hefty woman, noaw," said the interlocutor, who seemed to be possessed by a dim idea that worth must be weighed by the pound. "Law bless you, no ! She's a little crittur ; nothin' to look to, but every bit in her is live. She looks pale, kind o' slips round still like moonshine, but where anything's to be done, there Mis' Pitkin is ; and her hand allers goes to the right spot, and things is done afore you know it. That are woman's kind o' still ; she'll slip off and be gone to heaven some day afore folks know it. There comes the deacon and Jim over the hUl. Jim walked home from college day 'fore yesterday, and turned right in to-day to help get in the taters, workin' right along. Deacon was awful grouty." " What was the matter o' the deacon ? " Oh, the mortgage kind o' works him. The time to pay comes round putty soon, and the deacon's face allers goes down long as yer arm. 'Tis a putty tight pull havin' Jim in college, losin' his work and bavin' term bills and things to pay. Them are college {6U<3 charges itp, I tell you. I seen it worka the deacon, I heard him a-jawin' Jim 'bout it." " What made Jim go to College ?" said Abner with slow wonder in his heavy face. "Oh, he allers was sot on eddication, and Mis' Pitkin she's sot on't, too, in her softly way, and softly women is them that giner- 'lly carries their p'ints, fust or last. DEACOy PITKIN S FARM. 25 v^n to Jed and Y soul of 'em, I see, and Mis' 't never done, , "and she's a est ideal of a less. **Declar Jight children n work, never rs to meetin' stops work-in': ironin', mak- Jewin', and if o the store or is' Pitkin is." usical rest in ver and into 3on wouldn't a boys, they interlocutor, rth must be to look to, 3 round still Mis' Pitkin ags is done le'll slip off 'here comes ^om college 5 get in the pay comes ai long as losin' his are college I, I heard •w wonder she's sot lat giner- 4 J i " But there's one that ainH softly ! " Biah suddenly continued, as the vision of a black-haired, bright eyed girl suddenly stepped forth from the doorway, and stood shading h^r face with her hands, look- ing towards the sunset. The evening light lit up a jaunty spray of golden rod that she had wreathed in her wavy hair, and gave a glow to the rounded outlines of her handsome form. " There's a sparkler for you ! And no saint, neither!" was Biah's comment. " That crittur has got more prances and capers in her than any three-year old iilly I knows on. He'll be cunning that ever gets a bridle on her." " Seme says she's going to hev Jim Pitkin, and some says it's BiU," said Abner, delighted to be able to add his mite of gossip to the stream while it was flowing. •' She's sweet on Jim while he's round, and she's sweet on Bill when Jim's up to college, and between um she gets took round to everything that going. She gives one a word over one shoulder, and one over t'other, and if the Lord above knows what's in that gal's mind or what she's up to, he knows more than I do, or she either, else I lose my bet." Biah made this admission with a firmness that might have been a model to theologians or philosophers in general, '^here was a point, it appeared, where he was not omniscient. ..lis universal statistical knowledge had a limit. CHAPTEK III. THE SHADOW. THEKE is no moment of life, however festive, that does not involve the near presence of a possible tragedy. When the concert of life is playing the gayest and airiest music, it requires only the change of a little flat or sharp to modulate into the minor key. There seemed at first glance only the elements of joyousness and gayety in the sun >undings at the Pitkin farm. Thanksgiving was come — the family, iiealthy, rosy, and noisy, were all under the one roof-tree. There was energy, youth, intelHgence, beauty, a pair of lovers on the eve of betrothal — just in that misty, golden twilight that precedes the full sunrise of avowed and accepted love — and yet behind it all was walking with stealthy step the shadow of a coming sorrow. " What in the world ails James? " said Diana as she retreated from the door and surveyed him at a distance from her chamber window. His face was like a landscape over which a thunder- 26 DEACON PlTKIJf'S FAEM. ■;l '1 cloud has drifted, and be walked beside bis fatber witb a peculiar air of proud displeasure and repression. At that moment the young man was struggling with the bitterest sorrow that can befall youth — the breaking up of his life purpose. He had just come to a decision to sacrifice his hopes of education, his man's ambit.on, his love, his home and family, and become a wanderer on the face of the earth. How this befell requires a sketch of character. Deacon Silas Pitkin was a fair specimen of a class of men not uncommon in New England — men too sensitive for the severe physical conditions of New England life, and therefore both suffer- ing and inflicting suffering. He was a man of the finest moral traits, of incorruptible probity, of scrupulous honor, of an exacting conscientiousness, and of a sincere piety. But he had begun life with nothing ; his whole standing in the world had been gained inch by inch by the most unremitting economy and self-denial, and he was a man of little capacity for hope, of whom it was said, in popular phraseology, that he " took things hard." He was never sanguine of good, always expectant of evil, and seemed to view life like a sentinel forbidden to sleep and constantly under arms. For such a man to be harassed by a mortgage upon his home- stead was a steady wear and drain upon his vitality. There were times when a positive horror of darkness came down upon him — when his wife's untroubled, patient hopefulness seemed to him like recklessness, when the smallest item of expense was an intolerable burden, and the very daily bread of life was full of bitterness; and when these paroxysms were upon him, one of the heaviest of his burdens was the support of his son in college. It was true that he was proud of his son's talents and sympathized with his love for learning— he had to the full that sense of the value of education which is the very vital force of the New England mind — and in an hour when things looked brighter to him he had given his consent to the scheme of a college education freely. James was industrious, frugal, energetic, and had engaged to pay the most of his own expenses by teaching in the long winter vacations. But unfortunately this year the Mapleton Academy, which had been promised to him for the winter term, had been taken away by a little maneuver of local politics and given to another, thus leaving him without resource. This disappoint- ment, coming just at the tinie when the yearly interest upon the mortgage was due, had brought upon his father one of those paroxysms of helpless gloom and disconrrgement in which the very world itself seemed clothed in sack-cloth. From the time that he heard the Academy was gone, Deacon Silas lay awake nights in the blackness of darkness. "We shall all go to the poorhouse together — that's where it will end," he said, as he tossed restlessly in the dark. f I th^ cas li&i DBAOON PITKIN 8 FABM. 27 vith a peculiar ih the bitterest is life purpose, of education, and become a 'ell requires a 3s of men not )r the severe re both suffer- finest moral f an exacting id begun life been gained d self-denial, Q it was said, i." He was d seemed to tantly under a his home- There were upon him — to him like intolerable erness; and viest of his true that he lis love for education —and in an his consent engaged to ong winter Academy, had been given to isappoint- rest upon e of those which the 5, Deacon ' We shall end," he it." I'd this she " Oh no, no, my dear," said his wife, with those serene eyes that had looked through so many gloomy hours ; ''we must cast our care on God." " It's easy for women to talk. You don't have the interest ironey to pay, you are perfectly reckless of expense. Nothing would do but James must go to college, and now see what it's bringing us to ! " '* Why, father, 1 thought you yourself were in favor of **Well, I did wrong then. You persuaded me into it. no business to have listened to you and Jim and got all lo.id on my shoulders." Yet Mary Pitkin knew in her own calm, clear head that liad not been reckless of expense. The yearly interest money was ever before her, and her own incessant toils had wrought no small portion of what was needed to pay it. Her butter at the store commanded the very highest price, her straw braid- ing sold for a little more than that of any other hand, and she had calculated all the returns so exactly that she felt sure that the interest money for that year was safe. She had seen her husband pass through this nervous crisis many times before, and she had learned to be blamed in silence, for she was a woman out of whom all selfness had long since died, leaving only the tender pity of the nurse and the consoler. Her soul her Saviour, the one ever-present, inseparable friend ; it did no good to speak to her husband, she spoke to for him, and so was peaceful and peace-giving. Even her husband himself felt her strengthening, rest-giving power, and for this reason he bore down on her with the burden of all his tremors and his cares ; for while he disputed, he yet believed her, and rested upon her with an utter helpless trust, as the good angel of his house. Had she for a moment given way to apprehension, had her step been a thought less firm, her eye less peaceful, then indeed the world itself would have seemed to be sinking under his feet. Meanwhile she was to him that kind of relief which we derive from a person to whom we may say every- thing without a fear of its harming them. He felt quite sure that, say what he would, Mary would always be hopeful and courageous; and he felt some secret idea that his own gloomy forebodings were of service in restricting and sobering what seemed to him her tor sanguine nature. He blindly reverenced, without ability fully to comprehend, her exalted religious fervor and the quietude of soul 'jhat it brought. But he did not know through how many silent conflicts, how many prayers, how many tears, how many hopes resigned and sorrows welcomed, she had come into that last refuge of sorrowful souls, that immovable peace when all life's anguish ceases and the will of God becomes the final rest. But, unhappily for this present crisis, there was, as there often rested on and when her God wm 28 »EAeON PITKIN 3 FARM. iV is in family lifp just enough of the father's nature in the son to bring them ir .o collision with each other. James had the same nervously anxious nature, the same intense feeling of responsibility, the same tendency towards morbid earnestness ; and on that day there had come collision. His father had poured forth upon him his fears and apprehen- sions in a manner which implied a censure on his son, as being willing to accept a life of scholarly ease while his father and mother were, as he expressed it, " working their lives away." ** But I tell yoTx, father, as God is my witness, I mean to pay all ; you shall not suffer ; interest and principal — all that my work would bring — I engage to pay back." "You ! — you'll never have anything ! You'll be a poor man as JcTig as you live. Lost the Academy this Fall — that tells the stoy !" *' But, father, it wasn't my fault that I lost the Academy." " It's no matter whose fault it was — that's neithev here nor there — you lost it, and here you are with the vacation before you and nothing to do ! There's your mother, she's working herself to death ; she never gets any rest. T expect she'll go off in a con- sumption one of these days." ** There, there, Tather ! that's enough! Please don't say any more. You'll see I will find something to do ! " There are words spoken at times in life that do not sound bitter though they come fron^. a pitiable depth of anguish, and as James turned from his father he had taken a resolution that convulsed him with pain ; his strong arms quivered with the repressed agony, and he hastily sought a distant part of the field, and began cutting and stacking corn-stalks with a nervous energy. "Why, ye work like thunder ! " was Biah's comment. " Book I'amin' hain't spiled ye yet ; your arms are good for suthin*." " Yes, my arms are good for something, and I'll use them for something," said Jim. There was raging a tempest in his soul. For a young fellow of a Puritan education in those days to be angry with his father was somewhat that seemed to him as awful a sacrilege as to be angry with his God, and yet he felt that his father had been bitterly, cruelly unjust towards him. He had driven economy to the most stringent extremes ; he had avoided the intimacy of his class fol- lows, lest he should be drawn into needless expenses ; he had borne with shabby clothing and mean fare among better dressed and richer associates, and been willing to bear it. He had studied faithfully, unremittingly, for two years, but at the moment he turned from his father the throb that wrung his heart was the giving up of all. He had in his pocket a letter from his townsman and schoolmate, Sam Allen, mate of an East Indiaman just fitting out at Salem, and it said : . a t an( off, * cej i da^ wh ^1 do 4 W( ■k wo m to I ^^^ 1 tol 1 a 1 m sac M hea I ^^" m ver m he DEACON PITKIN S FARM. 29 3 in the son to had the same f responsibility, id on that day and apprehen- son, as being ler and mother )) ean to pay all ; that my work a poor man as -that tells the lon't say any sound bitter and as James at convulsed ressed agony, )egaR cutting nt. " Book ithin'." ise them for g fellow of a 8 father was to be angry len bitterly, to the most lis class fel- e had borne I and richer faithfully, umed from ', up of all. choolmate, Salem, and " We are going to sail with a picked crew, and we want one just such a fellow as you for third mate. Come along, and you can go right up, and your college mathematics will be all the better for us. Come right off, and your berth will be ready, and away for round the world !" Here, to be sure, was immediate position — wages — employment — freedom from the intolerable burden of dependence ; but it was ac- cepted at the sacrifice of all his life's hopes. True, that in those days the experiment of a sea-faring life had often, even in instances which he recalled, brought forth fortune and an ability to settle down in peaceful competence in after life . But there was Diana. Would she wait for him ? Encircled on all sides with lovers, would she keep faith with an adventurer gone for an indefinite quest ? The desponding, self- distrusting side of his nature said, *' No. Why should she ?" Then, to go was to give up Diana — to make up his mind to have her belong to some other. Then there was his mother. An unutterably reverential pathos always to him encircled the idea of his mother. Her life to him seemed a hard one. From the outside, as he viewed it, it was all self- sacrifice and renunciation. Yet he knew that she had set her heart on an education for him, as much as it could be set on any thing earthly. He was her pride, her hope ; and just now that very thought was full of bitterness. There was no help for it ; he must not let her work herself to death for him ; he would make the household vessel lighter by throwing himself into the sea, to sink or swim as might happen ; and then, perhaps, he might come back with money to help them all. All this was what was surging and boiling in his mind when he came in from his work to the snpper that night. CHAPTEK IV. THE GOOD-BY. DIANA PITKIN was like some of the fruits of her native hills, full of juices which tend to sweetness in maturity, but which when not quite ripe have a pretty decided dash of sharpness. There are grapes that require a frost to ripen them, and Diana was somewhat akin to these. She was a mettlesome, warm-blooded creature, full of the energy and audacity of youth, to whom as yet life was only a frolic and a play spell. Work never tired her. She ate heartily, slept peace- fully, weiit to bed laughing, and got up in merry humor in the morning. Diana's laugh was as early a note as the song of birds. Such a nature is not at first sympathetic. It has in it some of the II i In It ; i. 80 DEACON PITKIN S FARM. unconscious cruelty which belongs to nature itself, whose sunshine never pales at human trouble. Eyes that ha^e never wept cannot comprehend sorrow. Moreover, a lively girl of eighteen, looking at life out of eyes which bewilder others with their brightness, does not always see the world truly, and is sometimes judged to be heartless when she is only immature. Nothing was further from Diana's thoughts than that any grave trouble was overhanging her lover's mind — for her lover she very well knew that James was, and she had arranged beforehand to herself very pretty little comedies of life, to be duly enacted in the long vacation, in which James was to appear as the suitor, and she, not too soon nor with too much eagerness, was at last to acknowledge to him how much he was to her. But meanwhile he was not to be too presumptuous. It was not set down in the cards that she should be too gracious or make his way too easy. When, therefore, he brushed by her hastily, on entering the house, with a flushed cheek and frowning brow, and gave no glance of admira- tion at the pretty toilet she had found time to make, she was sUghtly indignant. She was as ignorant of the pang which went like an arrow through his heart at the sight of her as the bobolink which whirrs and chitters and tweedles over a grave. She turned away and commenced a kitten-like frolic with Bill, who was always only too happy to second any of her motions, and readily promised that after supper she would go with him a walk of half a mile over to a neighbour's, where was a corn-husking. A great golden lamp of a harvest moon was already coming up in the fading flush of the evening sky, and she promised herself much amusement in watching the result of her maneuver on James. " He'll see at any rate that I am not waiting his beck and call. Next time, if he wants my company he can ask for it in season. I'm not going to indulge him in sulks, not I. These college fellows worry over books till they hurt their digestion, and then have the blues and look as if the world was coming to an end." And Diana went to the looking-glass and're-arranged the spray of golden-rod in her hair and nodded at herself defiantly, and then turned to help get on the supper. The Pitkin folk that night sat down to an ample feast, over which the impending Thanksgiving shed its hilarity. There was not only the inevitable great pewter platter, scoured to silver brightness, in the center of the table, and piled with solid masses of boiled beef, pork, cabbage and all sorts of vegetables, and the equally inevitable smoking loaf of rye and Indian bread, to accom- pany the pot of baked pork and beans, but there were specimens of all the newly-made Thanksgiving pies filling every available space on the table. Diana set special value on herself as a pie artist, and she had taxed her ingenuity this year to invent new varieties, which were receiyed with burst of applause by the boysi Ms f 1 a 62 r ' ai h a V( >. la F ^'.■' A fe ha . ■" i 1 ab th DEACON Pitkin's farm. 31 ^hosG sunshine er wept cannot Sfhteen, looking leir brightness, es judged to be that any grave lover she very beforehand to enacted in the ihe suitor, and was at last to meanwhile he m in the cards easy. When, house, with a ce of admira- lake, she was ig which went s the bobolink •olio with Bill, I motions, and ;h him a walk husking. A coming up in lerself much James, eck and call. it in season, ollege fellows hen have the And Diana jolden-rod in rned to help feast, over There was d to silver olid masses es, and the I, to accom- 9 specimens y available If as a pie invent new the boy^, These sat down to the table on democratic equality — Biah Carter and Abner with all the eons of the family, old and young, each eager, hunger and noisy ; and over all, with moonlight calmness, and steadiness Mary Pitkin ruled and presided, dispensing to each his portion in due season, while Diana, restless and mischievous as a sprite, seemed to be possessed with an elHn spirit of drollery, venting itself in sundry little tricks and antics which drew ready laughs from the boys and reproving glances from the deacon. For the Deacon was that night in (me of his severest humors. As Biah Carter afterwards remarked of that night, " You could feel there was thunder in the air somewhere round. The deacon had got on about his longest face, and when the deacon's f,ace is about down to the wust, why, it would stop a robin singin' — there couldn't nothin' stan' it." To-night the severely cut lines of his face had even more than usual of haggard sternness, and the handsome features of .James beside him, in their fixed gravity, presented that singular likeness which often comes out between father and son in seasons of mental emotion. Diana in vain sought to draw a laugh from her cousin. In pouring his home-brewed beer she contrived to spatter him, but he wiped it off without a smile, and let pass in silence some arrows of raillery that she had directed at his somber face. When they rose from table, however, he followed her into the pantry. " Diana, will you take a walk with me to-night ?" he said, in a voice husky with repressed feeling. "To-night ! Why, I have just promised Bill to go with him over to the husking at the Jenk's. Why don't you go with us ? We're going to have lots of fun, "she added with an innocent air of not perceiving his gravity. **T can't," he said. "Besides, I wanted to talk with you alone. I had something special I wanted to say." " Bless me, how you frighten one ! You look solemn as a hearse ; but 1 promised to go with Bill to-night, and I suspect an- other time will do just as well. What you have to say will keep^ 1 suppose," she said mischievously. He turned away quickly. "I should really like to know what's the matter with you to- night, " she added, but as she spoke he went up stairs and shut the door. "He's cross to-night," was Diana's comment. "Well, he'll have to get over his pet. I shan't mind it ! " Up-stairs in his room James began the work of putting up the bundle with which he was to go forth to seek his fortune. There stood his books, silent and dear witnesses of the world of hope and culture and refined enjoyment he had been meaning to enter. He was to know them no more. Their mute faces seemed to look at ■; 11 |l ■ ''' i W I 82 DEACON PITKIN » FARM. him^mournfuUy as parting friends. He rapidly made his se ection, for that night lie was to be off in time to reach the vessel before she'sailed, and he felt even glad to avoid the Thanksgiving festivi- ties' for which he had so little rehsh. Diana's frohcsome gaiety seemed heart-breaking to him, on the same principle that the poet sings : " How can ye chant, ye little birds. And I sae weary, fu' o' care ? " To the heart struck through with its first experiences of real suffer- ing all nature is full of cruelty, and the young and light-hearted are a large part of nature. " Siie has no feeling," he said to himself. " Well, there is one reason the more for my going. She won't break her heart for me ; nobody loves me but mother, and it's for her sake I must go. She mustn't work herself to death for me." And then 1 3 sat down in the window to write a note to be given to his mother after he had sailed, for he could not trust himself to tell her what he was about to do. He. knew that she would try to persuade him to stay, and he felt^faint-hearted when he thought of her. " She would sit up early and late, and work for me to the last gasp," he thought, " but father was right. It is selfish of me to take it," and so he sat trying to fashion his parting note into a tone of cheerfulness. " My dear mother," he wrote, "jthis will come to you when I have set off on a four year's voyage round the world. Father has convinced me that it's time for me to be doing something for myself ; and I couldn't get a school to keep — and, after all, educa- tion is got other ways than at college. It's hard to go, because I love home, and hard becaiise you will miss me — though no one else will. But father may rely upon it, I will not be a burden on him another day. Sink or swim, I shall never come back till I have enough to do for myself, "^d you too. So good-bye, dear mother. I know you will always pray for me, and wherever I am I shall try to do just as I think you would want me to do. I know your prayers will follow me, and I shall always be your affectionate son. " P. S. — The boys may have those chestnuts and walnuts in my room — and in my drawer there is a bit of ribbon with a locket on it I was going to give to cousin Diana. Perhaps she won't care for it, thoughVfcbut if she i^does,*^she is^welcome to it — it may put her in mind of old times." And this is all he said, with bitterness in his heart, as he leaned on ihe window and looked out at the great yellow moon that was shining so bright as to show the golden hues of the overhanging elm bows and the scarlet of an adjoining maple. A light ripple of laughter came up from below, and a chestnut DEACON PITKIN H FARM. 83 thrown np struck him on the hand, and ho saw Diana and Bill step from out the shadowy porch. " There's a chestnut for yon, Mr. Owl," she called, gaily, if you will stay moping up there ! Come, now, it's a splendid evening ; won't you come ?" " No, thank you. I sha'n't bo missed," was the reply. ** That's true enough ; the loss is your own. Good bye, Mr, Philosopher." "Good -by, Diana." Something in the tone struck strangely through her heart. It was the voice of what Diana never had felt yet— deep suffering — and she gave a little shiver. ** What an awfully solemn voice James has sometimes," she said ; and then added, with a laugh, "it would make his fortune as a Methodist minister.'* The sound of the light laugh and little snatches and echoes of gay talk came back like heartless elves to mock Jim's sorrow. " So much for her," he said, and turned to go and look for his mother. CHAPTEE V. MOTHER AND SON. I a chestnut HE knew where he should find her. There was a little, low work-room adjoining the kitchen that was his mother's sanctum. There stood her work-basket — there were always piles and piles of work, begun or finished ; and there also her few books at hand, to be glanced into in rare snatches of leisure in her busy life. The old times New England house mother was not a mere unre- flective drudge of domestic toil. She was a reader and a thinker, keenly appreciative in intellectual regions. The literature of th.at day in New England was sparse ; but whatever there was, whether in this country or in England, that was noteworthy, was matter of keen interest, and Mrs. Pitkin's small library was very dear to her. No nun in a convent under vows of abstinence ever practiced more rigorous self-denial than she did in the restraints and government of intellectual tastes and desires. Her son was dear to her as the fulfillment and expression of her unsatisfied craving for knowledge, the possessor of those fair fields of thought which duty forbade her to explore. James stood and looked in at the window, and saw her sorting and arranging the family mending, busy over piles of stockings and shirts, whSe on the table beside her lay her open Bible, and she 8 '^1 84 DEACON PITKIN'S FARM. If: If m m I '-*«ii, B FARM. , was singing to herself t« i •*«. --4e,eadirohl'or4r ^^-. - of the W- Oar shelter from ?rJ°/'""«' An ind -b ^' °« e&alt4*eT^ "*^' thought ofa^llivZl ^-^""^^ «o busy with fh ^^^^^^^tening hair The very look of «^f •^•^* ^^^ ^a^e upher ]ff«T^^' *^® ^atch- Of a man's vi Jr anrJ ? T' P^^s^ting with ]if« « ^^t?''^ ^'""S^ing one of weariSs anf f '°i^'' ^« ^othe^s life 'i/''^. ^^« heart full tion. Cain he C ^'?:^Sery, of constant nn."'"^ *° ^^^ to be but her victory w/« *^' ?^^^' ^^^ays sTlS^''^^ self-abnega- "«."^Sf "?""" i.iS -^^^^^ Jv?'/" 1" ^'^^ ^''id gai y " ll?'^"': ^'"P working... 74»eS^^^^^^^^ I had ♦^^^^ is drudgerT Pm' i^^^^^-work done for fi ^or\Xrr-l '; Al^^-7 1?&i» f gone I a.. DEACON Pitkin's farm. 86 one of the favor- 5 now. I had " With all my heart," she added, taking up the Bible and kissing his forehead as she put it into his hands. There was a struggle in his heart how to say farewell without saying it — without letting her know that he was going to leave her. He clasped her in his arms and kissed her again and again. *' Mother," he said, " if I ever get into heaven it will be through you." " Don't say that,my son — it must be through a better friend than I am — who loves you more than I do. I have not died for you — He did." " Oh, that I knew where I might find him, then. You I can see — Him I cannot." His mother looked at him with a face full of radiance, pity and hope. " I feel sure you wlll,^' she said. " You are consecrated," she added, in a low voice, laying her hand on his head. " Amen," said James, in a reverential tone. He felt that she was at that moment — as she often was — silently speaking to One invisible of and for him, and the sense of it stole over him like a benediction. There was a pause of tender silence for many minutes. " Well, I must not keep you up any longer, mother dear — it's time you were resting. Good night." And with a long embrace and kiss they separated. He had yet fifteen miles to walk to reach the midnight stage that was to convey him to Salem. As he was starting from the house with his bundle in his hand, the sound of a gay laugh came through the distant shrubbery. It was Diana and Bill returning from the husking. Hastily he con- cealed himself behind a clump of old lilac bushes till they emerged into the moonlight and passed into the house. Diana was in one of those paroxysms of young girl frolic which are the effervescence of young, healthy blood, as natural as the gryations of a bobolink on a clover head. James was thinking of dark nights and stormy seas, years of exile, mother's sorrows, home perhaps never to be seen more, and the laugh jarred on him like a terrible discord. He watched her into the house, turned, and was gone. CHAPTEE VI. GONE TO SEA. A LITTLE way on his moonlight walk James' ears were saluted by the sound of some one whistling and crackling through the bushes, and soon Biah Carter emerged into the moonlight, having been out tP the same husking where Diana and Bill hs^d I . 86 DEACON PITKIN S FARM. been enjoying themselves. The sight of him resolved a doubt which had been agitating James' mind. The note to his mother which was to explain his absence and the reasons for it were still in his coat-pocket, and he had designed sending it back by some mes- senger at the tavern where he took the midnight stage; but here was a more trusty party. It involved, to be sure, the necessity of taking Biah into his confidence. James was well aware that to tell that acute individual the least particle of a story was like starting a gimlet in a pine board — there was no stop till it had gone through. So he told him in brief that a good berth had been offered him on the EcLstern Star, and he meant to take it to relieve his father of the pressure of his education. ** Wal naow — you don't say so," was Biah's commentary. *' Wal, yis, 'tis hard sleddin' for the deacon — drefful hard sleddin'. Wal, naow, s'pose you're disapp'inted — shouldn't wonder — jes' so. Eddi- cation's a good thing, but 'taint the only thing naow ; folks lams a sight rubbin' round the world — and then they make money. Jes' see, there's Cap'n Stebbins and Cap'n Andrews and Cap'n Merry- weather — all livin' on good farms, with good, nice houses, all got goin' to sea. Expect Mis' Pitkin'll take it sort o' hard, she's so sot on you ; but she's allers sayin' things is for the best, and maybe she'll come to think so 'bout this — folks gen'ally does when they can't help themselves. Wal, yis, naow — goin' to walk to the cross- road tavern? better not. Jest wait a minit and I'll hitch up and take ye over." "Thank you, Biah, but I can't stop, and I'd rather walk, so I won't trouble you." *'Wal, look here — don't ye want a sort o' nest-egg? I've got fifty silver dollars laid up : you take it on venture and give me half what it brings." *' Thank you, Biah. If you'll trust me with it I'll hope to do something for us both." Biah went i^^to the house, and after some fumbling brought out a canvas bag, which he put into James' hand. "Wanted to go to sea confoundedly myself, but there's Mariar Jane — she won't hear on't, and turns on the water-works if I peep a single word. Farmin's drefful slow, bu' when a feller's got a gal he's got a cap'n ; he has to mind orders. So you jes trade and we'll go sheers. I think consid'able of you, and I expect you'll make it go as fur as anybody." "I'll try my best, you may believe, Biah," said James, shaking the hard hand lieartily, as he turned on his way towards the cross- roads tavern. The wholo village of Maplowood on Tlianksgiving Day morning was poaaessed of tlie fact that James Pitkin had gone off to sea in the Eastern Star, fi>r Biah had felt all the sense of importance which the possession of a startling piece of intelligence gives to DEACON Pitkin's farm. 87 one, and took occasion to call at the tavern and store on his way up and make the most of his information, so that by the time the bell rang for service the news might be said to bo everywhere. The minister's general custom ou Thanksfjiving Day was to get off a political sermon reviewing the State of New England, the United States of America, and Europe, Asia, and Africa ; but it may be doubted if all the affairs of all these continents produced as much sensation among the girls in the singers' seat that day as did the news that James Pitkin had gone to sea on a four years' voyage. Curious eyes were cast on Diana Pitkin, and many were the whispers and speculations as to the part she might have had in the move ; and certainly s]io looked paler and graver than usual, and some thought they c<. nld detect traces of tears on her cheeks. Some noticed in the tones of her voice that day, as they rose in the soprano, a tremor and pathos never remarked bejfore — the unconscious utterance of a new sense of sorro-"', awakened in a soul that up to this time had never known a grief. For the letter had fallen on the heads of the Pitkin family like a thunderbolt. Biah came in to breakfast and gave it to Mrs. Pitkin, saying that James had handed him that last night, on his way over to take the midnight stage to Salem, where he was going to sail on the Easteryi Star t )-day — no doubt he's off to sea by this time. A confused* sound of exclamations wont up around the table, while Mrs. Pitkin, pale and calm, read the letter and then passed it to her husband without a word. The bright, fixed color in Diana's face had meanwhile been slowly ebbing away, till, with cheeks and lips pale as ashes, she hastily rose and left the table and went to her room. A strange, new, terrible pain — a sensation like being choked or smothered — a rush of mixed emotions — a fear- ful sense of some inexorable, unalterable crisis having come of her girlish folly — overwhelmed her. Again she remembered the deep tones of his good-by, and how she had only mocked at his emotion. She sat down and leaned her head on her hands in a tearless, con- fused sorrow. Deacon Pitkin was at first more shocked and overwhelmed than his wife. His yesterday's talk with James had no such serious purpose. It had been only the escape-valve for his hypochondriac forebodings of the future, and nothing was farther from his thoughts than having it bear fruit in any such decisive movement on the part of his son. In fact, he secretly was proud of his talents and his scholarship, and had set his heart on his going through college, and had no more serious purpose in what he said the day before than the general one of makiiii' his son feel the dif- ficulties and straits he was put to for him. Young men were tempted at college to be too expensive, he thought, and to forget what it cost their parents at homo. In short, the whole thing had been merely the passing off of a paroxysm of hypochondria, and 88 DEACON Pitkin's farm. he had already begun to be satisfied that he should raise his inter- est money that year without material difficulty. The letter showed him too keenly the depth of the suffering he had inflicted on his son, and when he had read it he cast a sort of helpless, questioning look on his wife, and said, after an interval of silence : *' Well, mother ! " There was something quite pathetic in the appealing look and voice. " Well, father," she answered in subdued tones ; " all we can do now is to leave it." Leave it ! Those were words often in that woman's mouth, and they expressed that habit of her life which made her victorious over all troubles, that habit of trust in the Infinite Will that actually could and did leave every accomplished event in His hand, without mur- mur and without conflict. If there was any one thing in her unifoj'mly self-denied life that had been a personal ambition and a pergonal desire, it had been that her son should have a college education. It was the centre of her earthly wishes, hopes and efforts. That wish had been cut off in a moment, that hope had sunk under her feet, and now only remained to her the task of comforting the undisciplined soul Avhose unguided utterances had wrought the iftischief. It was not the first time that, wouudod by a loving hand in this dark struggle of life, she had suppressed the pain of her own hurt that he that had wounded her might tho better forgive himself. '* Dear father," she said to him, when over and over he blamed himself for his yesterday's harsh words to his son, " don't worry about it now ; you didn't mean it. James is a good boy, and he'll see it right at last ; and he is in God's hands, and we must leave him there. He overrules all." When Mrs. Pitkin turned from her husband she sought Diana in her room. * ** Oh, cousin ! cousin ! " said the girl, thrownig herself into her arms. ** Is this true ? Is James gone ? Can't we do any thing ? Can't we get him back ? I've been thinking it over. Oh, if the ship wouldn't sail 1 and I'd go to Salem and beg him to come back, on my knees. Oh, if I had only known yesterday ! Oh, cousin, cousin ! he wanted to talk with me, and I wouldn't hear him ! — oh, if I only had, I could have persuaded him out of it ! Oh, why didn't I know ? " " There, there, dear child ! We must accept it just as it is. now that it is done. Don't feel so. We must try to look at the good." '* Oh, show me that letter," said Diana ; and Mrs. Pitkin, hoping to tranquilize her, gave her James's note. ** He thinks I don't care for him," she said, reading it hastily. '* Well, I don't won- der ! But I do care ! I love him better than anybody or anything DEACON Pitkin's farm. 89 yht Diana in 18 it is. now under the sun, and I never will forget him ; he's a brave, noble, good man, and V shall love him as long as I live — I don't care who knows it ! Give me that locket, cousin, and write to him that I shall wear it to my grave." " Dear child, there is no writing to him." " Oh, dear ! that's the worst. Oh, that horrid, horrid sea! It's Hke death — you don't know where they are, and you can't hear from them — and a four years' voyage ! Oh, dear ! oh, dear !" "Don't, dear child, don't; you distress me," said Mrs. Pitkin. "Yes, that's just like me," said Diana, wiping her eyes. " Here I am thinking only of myself, and you that have had your heart broken are trying to comfort me, and trying to comfort Cousin Silas. We have both of us scolded and flouted him away, and now you, who suffer the most of either of us, spend your breath to com- for us. It's just like you. But, cousin, I'll try to be good and comfort you. I'll try to be a daughter to you. You need some- body to think of you, for you never think of yourself. Let's go in his room," she said, and taking the mother by the hand they crossed to the empty room. There was his writing-table, there his forsaken books, his papers, some of his clothes hanging in his closet. Mrs. Pitkin, opening a drawer, took out a locket hung upon a bit of blue ribbon, where there were two locks of hair, one of which Diana recognized as her own and one of James's. She hastily hung it about her neck and concealed it in her bosom, lay- ing her hand hard upon it, as if she would still the beatings of her heart. " It seems like a death," she said. " Don't you think the ocean is like death — wide, dark, storiry, unknown ? We cannot speak to or hear from them that are on it." "But people can and do come back from the sea'" said the mother soothingly. "I trust, in God's own time, we shall see James back." " But what if we never should? Oh, cousin ! I can't help think- ing of that. There was Michael Davis, — you know — the ship was never heard from." " Well," said the mother, after a momenta's pause and a choking down of some rising emotion, and turning to a table on which lay a Bible, she opened and read : " If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me." The Thee in this psalm was not to her a name, a shawdow, a cipher, to designate the unknowable — it stood fbr the inseparable Heart- friend — tlie Father seeing in secret, on whose bosom all her tears of sorrows had been shed, the Comfrter and Guide forever dwelling in her soul, and giving peace where the world gave only trouble. Diana beheld her face as it had been the face of an ungel. She kissed her, and turned away in silence. samm 40 DKACON Pitkin's farm. CHAPTEE VII THANKSGIVING AGAIN. M ' 1: " I! '.i; f :fil SEVEN years had passed and once more the Thanksgiving tide was in Mapleton. This year it had come cold and frosty. Chill driving autumn storms had stripped the painted glories from the trees, and remorseless frosts had chased the hardy ranks of the asters and golden-rods back and back till scarce a blossom could be found in the deepest and most sequestered spots. The great elm over the Pitkin farm-house had been stripped of its golden glory, and now rose against the yellow evening sky, with its infinite deli- cacies of net work and tracery, in their way quite as beautiful as the full pomp of summer foliage. The air without was keen and frosty, and the knotted twigs of the branches knocked against the roof and rattled and ticked against the upper window panes as the chill evening wind swept through them. Seven long years had passed since James sailed. Years of watching, of waiting, of cheerful patience, at first, and at last of resigned sorrow. Once they heard from James, at the first port where the ship stopped. It was a letter dear to his mother's heart, manly, resigned and Christian ; expressing full purpose to work with God in whatever calling he should labour, and cheerful hopes of the future. Then came a long, long silence, and then tidings that the Eastern Star had been wrecked on a reef in the Indian Ocean ! The mother >^ad given back her treasure into the same beloved hands whence she first received him. " I gave him to God, and God took him,*' she said. " I shall have him again in God's time." This was how she settled the whole matter with herself. Diana had mourned with all the vehement intensity of her being, but out of the deep baptism of sorrow she had emerged with a new and nobler nature. The vain, trifling, laughing Un- dine had received a soul and was a true woman. She devoted her- self to James's mother with an utter self-sacrificing devotion, re- solved as far as in her lay to be both son and daughter to her. She read, and studied, and fitted herself as a teacher in a neigh- bouring academy, and persisted in claiming the right of a daughter to place all the amount of her earnings in the family purse. And this year there was special need. With all his care, with all his hard work and that of his family, Deacon Silas never had been able to raise money to annihilate the debt upon the farm. There seemed to be a perfect fatality about it. Let them all make what exertions they might, just as they were hoding for a sum that should exceed the interest and begin the work of settling the principal would come some loss that would throw them all back. One year their bam was burned just as they had housed their hay. On another a valuable horse died, and then there were fits of sick- DEACON Pitkin's farm. 41 !e, and then ire, with all ness among the children, and poor crops in the field, and low prices in the market ; in short, as Biah remarked, *' The deacon's luck did seem to be a sort o' streaky, for do what you might there's always suthin' to put him back." As the younger boys grew up the deacon had ceased to hire help, and Biah had transferred his services to Squire Jones, a rich landholder in the neighbourhood, who wanted some one to overlook his place. The increased wages had enabled him to give a home to Maria Jane and a start in life to two or three sturdy little American citizens who played around his house door. Nevertheless, Biah never lost sight of the ''* dea- con's folks" in his multifarious cares, and never missed an oppor- tunity either of doing them a good turn or of picking up any stray item of domestic news as to how matters were goir.:. on in that in- terior. He had privately broached the theory to Miss Briskett, ** that arter all it was James that Diany (he always pronounced all names as if they ended in y) was sot on, and that she took it so hard, his goin' off, that it did beat all ! Seemed to make another gal of her ; he shouldn't wonder if she'd come out and jine the church." And Diana not long after unconsciously fulfilled Biah'a predictions. Of late Biah's good ofiices had been in special requisition, as the deacon had been for nearly a month on a sick bed with one of those interminable attacks of typhus fever which used to prevail in old times, when the doctor did everything he could to make it certain that a man once brought down with sickness never should rise again. But Silas Pitkin had a constitution derived through an inde- finite distance from a temperate, hard-working, godly ancestry, and so withstsod both death and the doctor, and was alive and in a con- valescent state, which gave hope of his being able to carve the tur- key at his Thanksgiving dinner. The evening sunlight was just fading out of the little " keeping- room," adjoining the bed-room, where the convalescent now was able to sit up most of the day. A cot bed had been placed there, designed for him to lie down upon in intervals of fatigue. At pre- sent, however, he was sitting in his arm-chair, complacently watching the blaze of the hickory fire, or following placidly the motions of his wife's knitting needles. There was an air of calmness and repose on his thin, worn features that never was there in days of old : the haggard, anxious lines had been smoothed away, and that spiritual expression which sickness and sorroiv sometimes develops on the human face reigned in its place. It was the "clear shining after rain." "Wife," he said, "read me something I can't quite remember out of the Bible. It's in the eighth of Deuteronomy, the second verse." » Mrs. Pitkin opened the big family Bible on the stand, and read, 42 DEACON Pitkin's farm. "And thou shalt remembor all the way in which the Lord thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee and to prove thee and to know what is in thy heart, and whether thou wouldst keep his commandments or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live> "There, that's it," interrupted the deacon. ** That's what I've been thinking of as I've lain here sick and helpless. I've fought hard to keep things stra^ht and clear the farm, but it's pleased the Lord to bring me low. I've had to lie still and leave all in His hands." "And where better could you leave all ?" said his wife with a radiant smile. "Well, just so. I've been saying, 'Here I am. Lord ; do with me as seemeth to thee good,' and I feel a great quiet now. I think it's doubtful if we make up the interest this year. I don't know what Bill may get for the hay : but I don't see much prospect of raisin' on't ; and yet I don't worry. Even if it's the Lord's will to have the place sold up and we be turned out in our old age, 1 don't seem to worry about it. His will be done." There was a sound of rattling wheels at this moment, and anon there came a brush and flutter of garments, and Diana rushed in, all breezy with the freshness of out-dtfor air, and caught Mrs, Pit- kin in her arms and kissed her first and then the deacon with effusion. " Here I come for Thanksgiving," she sai^. in a rich, clear tone, "and here," she added, drawing a roll of bills from her bosom, and puting it into the deacon's hand, " here's the interest money for this year. I got it all myself, because I Wi^ ated to show you I could be good for something." "Thank you, dear daughter," said Mrs. Pitkin. "T felt sure some way would be found, and now I see tvhat.'* She added pat- ting her rosy cheek, "a very pleasant, pretty way it is, too." "I was afraid that Uncle Silas would worry and put himself back again about the interest money," said Diana. " Well, daughter," said the deacon, "it's a pity we should go through all we do in this world and not learn anything by it. I hope the Lord has taught me not to worry, but just do my best and leave myself and everything else in his hands. We can't help ourselves ; we can't make one hair white or black. Why should we wear out our lives out fretting ? If I'd a known tJiat years ago it would a' been better for us all." "Never mind, father, you know it now," said his wife, with a face serene as a star. In this last gift of quietude of soul to her husband she recognized the answer to her prayers of years. DEACON PITKIN*S FARM. 48 his wife with a Lord ; do with ** "Well now," said Diana, running to the window, **I should like to know what Biah Carter is coming here about." **0h, Biah's been very kind tons in this sickne&s," said Mrs. Pitkin, as Biah's feet resounded on the scraper. '*Good evenin', Deacon," said Biah, entering, *' Good evenin', Mrs. Pitkin. Sarvant, ma'am, to Diana — " how ye all geitin' d enough to be in your church nor one of the saints, I come for an arm of flesh to them, and so, here goes on my armour." And as he spoke, he buried his frank, good-natured countenance in an iron headpiece, and Rose hastened to help him adjust his corslet. The clang of armour, the bustle and motion of men and children, the barking of dogs, and the cheary Heave-o ! of the sailors marked the setting off of the party which comprised some of the gravest and wisest, as well as the youngest and most able-bodied of the ship's company. The impatient children ran in a group and clustered on side of the ship to see them go. Old Deb, with her two half-grown pups, barked and yelped after her master in the boat, running up and down the vessel's deck with piteous cries of impatience. " Come hither, dear old Deb," said little Love Winslow, running up and throwing her arms round the dog's rough neck ; **thou must not take on so ; thy master jwill be back again ; so be a good dog now, and lie down." And the great rough mastiff quited down under hei- caresses, and sitting down by her'she patted and played with her, with her little thin hands. " See the darling," said Rose Standish, '' what a way that baby hatu ! In all the roughness and the terrors of the sea she hath been like a little sunbeam to us — yet she is so frail !" " She hath been marked in the womb by the troubles her mother bore, " said old Margery, shaking her head. "She never had the ways of other babies, but hath ever that wistful look — and her eyes are brighter than they should be. Mistress Winslow will nev- er raise that child — now mark me !'' *' Take care !" said Rose, *'let not her mother hear you." " Why, look at her beside of Wrestling Brewster, or Faith Carver. They are flesh and blood, and she looks as if she had been made out of sunshine. 'Tis a sweet babe as ever was ; but fitter for the kingdom of heaven than our rough life — deary me ! 'a hard time we have had of it. I suppose it's all best, but I don't know." ''Oh, never talk that way, Margery," said Rose Standish ; *' we must all keep up heart, our own and one another's.'* *'Ah, well-a-day ! I suppose so ; but then I look at my good Master Brewster and remember how, when I was a girl, he was at our good Queen Elizabeth's court, ruffling it with the best, and everybody said that there wasn't a young man that had good for- tune to equal his. Why, Master Davidson, the Queen's Secretary of State, thought all the world of him ; and when he went to Hol- land on the Queen's business, he must take him along ; and when he took the keys of the cities there, it was my master that he trusted them to, who used to sleep with them under his pillow. I remember when he cq,me home to the Queen's ..ourt, wearing the th FIRST CHRISTMAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 55 aresses, and th her little p, or Faith great gold chain that the States had given him. Ah me ! I little thought he would ever come to a poor man's coat then ." " Well, good Margery," said Rose, "it isn't the coat but the heart under it — that's the thing. Thou hast more cause of pride in thy master's poverty than in his riches." "May be so— I don't know," said Margery, " but he hath had many a sore trouble in worldly things — driven and hunted from place to place in England, clapt into prison, and all he had eaten up with fines and charges and costs." ** All that is because he chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season," said Rose ; **he shall have his reward by-and-by." " Well, there be good men and godly in Old England that get to heaven in better coats and with easy carriages and fine houses and servants, and I would my master had been of such. But if he must come to the wilderness 1 will come with him. Gracious me ! what noise is that ?" she exclaimed, as a sudden report of firearms from below struck her ear. "I do believe there is that Frank Billington at the gunpowder ; that boy will never leave, I do be- lieve, till he hath blown up the ship's company." In fact, it appeared that young Master Frank, impatient of the absence of his futher, had toled Wrestling Brewster and two other of the boys down into the cabin to show them his skill in manag- ing his father's fowling-piece, had burst the gun, scattering the pieces about the cabin, Margery soon appeared, dragging the culprit after her. " Look here now, Master Mtalapert, see what you'll get when your father comes home ! Lord a mercy ! here was half a keg of powder standing open ! Enough to have blown us al? up ! Here, Master Clarke, Master Clarke, come and keep this boy with you till his father come back, or we be all sent sky high before we know." At even tide the boat came back laden to the water's edge with the first gettings and givings from the new soil of America. There is a richness and sweetness gleaming through the brief records of these men in their journals, which shows how the new land was seen through a fond and tender medium, half poetic ; and its now products lend a savor to them of somewhat foreign and rare. Of this day's expedition the record is thus : " That day, so soon as we could, we set ashore some fifteen or sixteen men well armed, with some to fetch wood, for we had none left ; as also to see what the land was and what inhabitants they could meet with. They found it be a small neck of laud on this side where we lay in the bay, and on the furthur side the sea, the ground or earth, sand-hills, much like the downs in Holland, but much better ; the crust of the earth a spit's depth of excellent black earth ; all wooded with oaks, pines, sassafras, juniper, birch, holly, vines, some ash and walnut ; the wood for the most part open and without underwood, fit either to walk or to ride in. At night our people returned and founc* -^ot any people or 66 FIRST CHRISTMAS OF NEW ENGLAND. inhabitants, and laded their boat with juniper, which smelled very sweet and strong, and of which we burned for the most part while we were there." (( See there," said little Love Winslow, " what fine red berries Captain Miles Standish hath brought." " Yea, my little maid, there is a brave lot of holly berries for thee to dress the cabin v/itlial. We shall not want for Christmas greens here, though the houses and churches are yet to come." "Yea, Brother Miles," said Elder Brewster, "the trees of the Lord are full of sap m this land, even the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted. It hath the look to me of a land which the Lord our God hath blessed." " There is a most excellent depth of black, rich earth," said Carver, "and a great tangle of grapevines, whereon the leaves in many places yet hung, and we picked up stores of walnuts under a tree — not so big as our English ones — but sweet and well-flavored." "Know ye, bretiicxn, what in this land sniejleth sweetest to me?" said Elder Brewster. "It is the smell of liberty. The soil is free — no man hath claim thereon. In Old England a poor man may starve right on his mother's bosom ; there may be stores of fish in the river, and bird and fowl flying, and deer running by, and yet though a man's children be crying for bread, an' ho catch a fish or snare a bird, he shall be snatched up and hanged. This is a sore evil in old England ; but we will make a country here for the poor to dwell in, where the wild fruits and fish and fowl shall be the> inheritance of whosoever will have them ; and every man shall have his portion of our good mother earth, with no lords and no bishops to harry and distrain, and worry with taxes and tythes." "Amen, brother!" said Miles Standish, "and thereto I give my best endeavors with sword and buckler." CHAPTEE III. CHRISTMAS TIDE IN PLYMOUTH HARBOR. FOR the rest of that month of November the Mayflower lay at anchor in Cape Cod harbor, and formed a floating home for the women and children, while the men were out exploring the country, with a careful and stoady shrewdness and good sense, to determine where should be the site of the future colony. The record of their adventures is given in their journals with that sweet homeliness of phrase which hangs about the old English of that period like the smell of rosemary in an ancient cabinet. We are told of a sort of pic-nic day, when '' our women went on shore to wash and all to refresh themselves ;" and fancy the times FIRST CHRISTMAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 57 there must have been among the little company, while the mothers sorted and washed and dried the linen, and the children, under the keeping of the old mastiffs and wirh many cautions against the wolves and wild cubs, once more had liberty to play in the green wood. For it appears in these journals how, in one case, the little spaniel of John Goodman was chased by two wolves, and was fain to take refuge between his master's legs for shelter. Good- man "had nothing in hand," says the journal, "but took up a stick and threw at one of them and hit hiui, and they presently ran away, but came again. He got a pale-board in his hand, but they both sat on their iails a good while, grinning at him, and then went their way and left him." Such little touches show what the care of families must have been in the woodland picnics, and why the ship was, on the whole, the safest refuge for the women and children. We are told, moreover, how the party who had struck off into the wilderness, "having marched through boughs and bushes and under hills and valleys which tore our very armor in pieces, yet could meet with n ) inhabitants nor find any fresh water which we greatly stood in need of, for we brought neither beer nor /ater with us, and our victual was only biscuit and Holhind cheese, and a little bottle of aqua vitse. So we were sore athirst. About ten o'clock we came into a deep valley full of brush, sweet gaile and long grass, through which we found little paths or tracks ; and we saw there a deer and found springs of water, of which we were heartily glad, and sat us down and drunk our first New England water with as much delight as we ever drunk drink in all our lives." Three such expeditions through the country, with all sorts of haps and mishaps and adventures, took up the time until near the 15th of December, when, having selected a spot for their colony, they weighed anchor to go to their future home. Plymouth Harbor, as they found it, is thus described : ♦• This harbor is a bay greater than Cape Cod, compassed with a goodly land, and in the bay two fine islands uninhabited, wherein are nothing but woods, oaks, pines, walnuts, beeches, sassafras, vines, and other trees which we know not. The bay is a most hopeful place, innumer- able stores of fowl, and excellent good ; and it cannot but be of fish in their season. Skate, cod, and turbot, and herring we have tasted of — abundance crif mussels (clams) the best we ever saw ; and crabs and lob- sters in their time, infinite. On the main land they write : •' The land is, for a spit's depth, excellent black mould and fat in some places. Two or three groat oaks, pines, walnut, beech, ash, birch, hazel, holly, and sassafras in abundance, and vines everywhere, with cherry-trees, plum-trees, and others which we know not. Many kind of herbs we found here in winter, as strawberry leaves innumerable, sorrel, yarrow, carvel, brook-lime, liver-wort, water-cresses, with great store o( leeks and onions, and ftn excellent strong kind of flax and hemp." r ; I. 58 FIRST CHRISTMAS OF NEW ENGLAND. It is evident from this description that the season was a mild one even thus late into December, that there was still sufficient foli- age hanging upon the trees to determine the species, and that the pilgrims viewed their mother-land through eyes of cheerful hope. And now let us look in the glass at them once more, on Satur- day morning of the 23rd of December. The little Mayflower lies swinging at her moorings in the harbor, while every man and boy who could use a tool has gone on shore to cut down and prepare timber for future houses. Mary Winslow and Rose Standish are sitting together on deck, fashioning garments, while little Love Winslow is playing at their feet with such toys as the new world afforded her — strings of acorns and scarlet hollyberries and some bird claws and arrow- heads and bright-colored ears of Indian corn, which Captain Miles Standish has brought home to her from one of their explorations. Through the still autumnal air may now and then be heard the voices of men calling to one another on shore, the quick, sharp ring of axes, and anon the crash of falling trees, with shouts from juveniles as the great forest monarch is laid low. Some of the women are busy below, sorting over and arranging their little household stores and stuff with a view to moving on shore, and holding domestic consultations with each other. A sadness hangs over a little company, for since their arrival the stroke of death has more than once fallen ; we find in Bradford's brief record that by the 24th of December six had died. What came nearest to the hearts of all was the loss of Dorothea Bradford, who, when all the men of the party were absent on an exploring tour, accidentally fell over the side of the vessel and sunk in the deep waters. What this loss was to the husband and the little company of brothers and sisters appears by no note or word of wailing, merely by a simple entry which says no more than the record on a gravestone, that, '* on the 7th of December, Dorothy, wife of William Bradford, fell over and was drowned." That much-enduring company could afford themselves few tears. Earthly having and enjoying was a thing long since dismissed from their calculations. They were living on the primitive Christian platform ; they ** rejoiced as though they rejoiced not," and they *' wept as though they wept not," and they ** had wive&and child- ren as though they had them not," or, as one of themselves expressed it, "We are in all places strangers, pilgrims, travellers, and sojourners ; our dwelling is but a wandering, our abiding but as a fleeting, our home is nowhere but in the heavens, in that house not made with hands, whose builder and maker is God." When one of their number fell they wore forced to do as soldiers in the stress of battle — close up the ranks and press on. * But Mary Winslow, as she sat over her sewing, dropped now and then a tear down on her work for the loss of her sister and FIRST CIIllTSTMAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 69 was a mild fficient foli- nd that the rful hope. , on Satur- the harbor, tie on shore er on deck, ing at their -strings of and arrow- )tain Miles )lorations. 3 heard the lick, sharp houts from )me of the their little shore, and arrival the Bradford's Dorothea sent on an v^essel and sband and no note or no more December, 3wned." few tears, issed from Christian and they and child- hemselves iravellers, iding but , in that >od." iS soldiers •ped now ister and counsellor and long-tried friend. From tlie lower part of the fihip floated up, at intervals, snatches of an old English ditty that Mar- gery was singing while she moved to and fro about her work, one of those genuine Englibli melodies, full of a rich, btrange mourn- fulness blent with a soothing pathos : ** Fear no more the heat o' the sun Nor the furious wint. r ragos, Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone and ta'cn thy wages." The air was familiar, and Mary Winslow, dropping her work in her lap, involuntarily joined in it: " Fear no more the frown of the great, Thou art past the tyrant's stroke ; Care no more to clothe and eat. To thee the reed is as the oak." " There goes a great tree on shore 1 " quoth Little Love Wins- low, clapping her hands. " Dost hear, mother? I've been count- ing the strokes — fifteen — and then crackle ! crackle I crackle ! and down it comes ! " " Peace, darhng," said Mary Winslow; " hear what old Margery is singing below : " If' " Fear no more the lightning's flash, Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone ; Fear not slander, censure rash — Thou hast finished joy and moan. All lovers young — all lovers must Consign to thee, and come to dust." " Why do you cry, mother ? ' said the little one, climbing on her lap and wiping her tears. " I was thinking of dear Auntie, who is gone from us." " She is not gone from us, mother." " My darling, she is with Jesus." " Well, mother, Jesus is ever with us — you tell me that — and if she is with him she is with us too — I know she is — for sometimes I see her. She sat by me last night and stroked my head when that ugly stormy wind waked me — she looked so sweet, oh, ever so beautiful I — and she made me go to sleep so quiet — it is sweet to be as she is, mother — not away from us but with Jesus." " These little ones see further in the kingdom than we," said Eose Standish. "If we would be like them we should take things easier. When the Lord would show who was greatest in His king- dom, he took a little child on his lap." ** Ah me, Rose ! " said Mary Winslow, "I am aweary in spirit with f ■ ■J ■• 60 FIRST CHRISTMAS OF NEW ENGLAND. this tossing sea-life. I long to have a home on dry land once more, be it ever so poor. The sea wearies me. Only think, it is almost Christmas time, only two days now to Christmas. How shall we keep it in these woods ? *' Aye, aye," said old Mari^ery, coming up at the moment, " a hrave miustor and to do is there now in old England ; and men and boys going foi-th singing and bearing home branches of holly, and pine, and mistletoe for Christmas greens. Oh ! 1 remember I used to go forth with them and help-dress the churches. God help the poor children, they will grow up in the wilderness and never see such brave sights as I have. They will ne\er know what a church is, such as they are in old England, with fine old windows like the clouds, and rainbows, and great wonderful arches like the very skies above us, and the brave music with the old organs rolling and the boys marching in white garments and singing so as should draw the very heart out of one. All this we have left behind in old England — ah ! well a day 1 well a day!" " Oh, but, Margery," said Mary Winslow, " we have a * better country' than old England, where the saints and angels are keep- ing Christmas ; we confess that we are strangers and pilgrims on earth." And rose Standish immediately added the familiar quotation from the Geneva Bible : '* For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a coun- try. For if they had been mindful of that country from whence l^ey canie out they had leisure to have returned. Bu* now they desire a better — that is, an heavenly ; wherefore God is not ashamed of them to be called their God." The fair young face glowed as she repeated the heroic words, for already, though she knew it not, Rose Standish was feeling the appoaching sphere of the angel life. Strong in spirit, as delicate in frame, she had given herself and drawn her martial husband to the support of a great and noble cause ; but while the spirit was ready, the flesh was weak, and even at that moment her name was written in the Lamb's Book to enter the higher life in one short month's time from that Christmas. Only one month of sweetness and perfume was that sweet rose to shed over the hard and troubled life of the pilgrims, for the saints and angels loved her, and were from day to day gently un- tying mortal bands to draw her to themselves. Yet was there nothing about her of mournfiilness ; on the contrary, she was ever alert and bright, with a ready tongue to cheer and a helpful hand to do ; and, seeing the sadness that seemed stealing over Mary Winslow, she struck another key, and, catching little Love up in her arms, said cheerily, *^ Come hither, pretty one, and Rose will sing thee a brave carol FIRST CHRISTMAS OF NEW ENGLAND. ai once , it is How and for Christmas. We won't bo dovmhearted, will we ? Hark now to what the minstrels used to sing under my window when I was a little girl : (« I saw three ships come sailing in On Christmas day, on Christmas day, I saw three ships come sailing in On Christmas day in the morning. " And what was in those ships all three On Christmas day, on Christmas day. And what was in those ships all three On Christmas day in the morning ? •* Our Saviour Christ and his lay die, On Christmas day, on Christmas day, Our Saviour Christ and his laydie On Christmas day in the morning. ** Pray, whither sailed those ships all three, On Christmas day, on Christmas day ? Oh, they sailed into Bethlehem, On Christmas day in the morning. *' And all the bells on earth shall ring On Christmas day, on Christmas day ; And all the angels in heaven shall sing On Christmas day in the morning. " Then let us all rejoice amain, On Christmas day, on Christmas day ; Then let us all rejoice amain On Christmas day in the morning." " Now, isn't that a brave ballad ? " said Rose. " Yea, and thou singest like a real English robin," said Margery, '* to do the heart good to hear thee." m carol CHAPTER IV. ELDER Brewster's Christmas sermon. SUNDAY morning found the little company gathered once more on the ship, with nothing to do but rest and r^aiember their homes, temporal and spiritual— homes backward, in old England, and forward, in Heaven. They were, every man and women of them, English to the back-bone. From Captain Jones who com- manded the ship to Elder Brewster who ruled and guided in 62 KIUST CHRISTMAS OV NEW ENGLAND. spiritural affairs, all alike were of that stock and breeding which made the Englishmen of the days of Bacon and Shakespeare, and in those days Christmas was knit into the heart of every one of them by a thousand threads, which no after years could untie. Christmsis carols had been sung to them by nurses and mothers, and grandmothers ; the Christmas holly spoke to them from every berry and prickly leaf, full of dearest household memories. Some of them had been men of substance among the English gentry, and in their prosperous days had held high festival in ancestral halls in the season of good cheer. Elder Brewster himself had been a rising young diplomat in the court of Elizabeth, in the days when the Lord Keeper of the Seals led the revels of Christ- mas as Lord of Misrule. So that, though this Sunday morning arose gray and lowering, with snow-flakes hovering through the air, there was Christmas in the thoughts of every man and woman among them — albeit it was the Christmas of wanderers and exiles in a wilderness looking back to bright home-fires across stormy waters. The men had come back from their work on shore with branches of green pine and holly, and the women had stuck them about the ship, not without tearful thoughts of old home-places, where their childhood fathers and mothers did the same. Bits and snatches of Christmas carols were floating all around the ship, like land-birds blown far out to sea. In the forecastle Master Coppin was singing : " Come, bring with a noise, My merry boys. The Christmas log to the firing ; While my good dame, she Bids ye all be free, And drink to your hearts' desiring. Drink now the strong beer, Cut the white loaf here. The while tlie meat is shredding For the rare minced pie, And the plums stand by To fill the paste that's a-kneading." '* Ah, well-a day, Master Jones, it is dull cheer to sing Christmas songs here in the woods, with only the owls and the bears for choristers. I wish I could hear the bells of merry England once » more And down in the cabin Rose Standish was hushinff little Pere< grine, the first American-born baby, with a Christmas lullaby : " This winter's night I saw a sight — A star as bright as day ; And over among, I' the us al and row,! FIRST CHRISTMAS OF NEW ENGLAND. ((g A maiden sung, Lullay, by-by, lullay ! "This lovely lay die sat and sung, And to her child she said, My son, my brother, and my father dear, Why lyest thou thus in hayd ? My sweet bird, Tho' it betide n Thou be not king ver ly ; But nevertheless I will not cease To sing, by-by, lullay ! " The child then spake in his talking. And to his mother he said. It happeneth, mother, I am a king, In crib though I bo laid, For angels bright Did down alight. Thou knowest it is no nay ; And of that Bight Thou may'st be hght To sing, by-by, lullay ! " Now, sweet son, since thou art a king. Why art thou laid in stall ? Why not ordain thy bedding In some great king his hall ? We thinketh 'tis right That king or knight Should be in good an-ay ; And them among, It weie no wrong To sing, by-by, lullay 1 •• Mary, mother, I am thy child, Tho' I be laid in stall; Lords and dukes shall worship me. And so shall kinges all. And ye shall see that kinges three Shall come on the twelfth dgy ; For this behest Give me thy breast, And sing, by-by lullay !" *'See here," quoth Miles Standish, "when my Rose singeth, the children gatb«)r round her like bees round a flower. Come, let US all strike up a goodly carol together. Sing one, sing all, girls and boys, and get a bit of Old England's Christmas before to-mor- row, when wo must to our work on shore." 64 FIRST CHRISTMAS OF NEW ENGLAND. Thereat Ro8e struck up a familiar ballad-meter of a catching rhythm, and every voice of young and old was soon joining in it : " Behold a silly,* tender Babe, In freezing winter night, In homely manger trembling lies ; Alas ! a piteous sight, ^ The inns are full, no man will yield This little Pilgrim bed ; But forced He is, with silly beasts In crib to shroud his head. Despise Him not for lying there, First what He is inquire: An orient pearl is often found In depth of dirty mire. •• Weigh not his crib, His wooden dish, Nor beasts that by Him feed; Weigh not His mother's poor attire, Nor Joseph's simple weed. This stable is a Prince's court. The crib His chair of state. The beasts are parcel of His pomp. The wooden dish His plate. The persons in that poor attire His royal liveries wear ; The Prince Himself is come from Heaven, This pomp is prized there. With joy approach, (Jhristian wight, Do homage to thy King ; And highly praise His humbled pomp, Which he from Heaven doth bring." The, cheerful sounds spread themselves through the ship like the flavor of some rare perfume, bringing softness of heart through a thousand tender memories. Anon, the hour of Sabbath morning worship drew on, and Elder Brewster read from the New Testament the whole story of the Nativity, and then gave a sort of Christmas homily Trom the words of St. Paul, in the eighth chapter of Romans, the sixth and seventh verses, whi«h the Geneva version thus renders : "For the wisdom of the flesh is death but the wisdom of the spirit is life and peace. "For the wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God, for it is not sub- ject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." " Ye know full well, dear brethren, what the wisdom of the *01d English— simplo. (( estCl New I'll wot worlc Tobil and brea] He FIRST CHRISTMAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 65 it: flesh sayeth. The wisdom of the flesh sayeth to each one, ' Take care of thyself ; look after thyself, to get and to have and to hold and to enjoy.' The wisdom of the flesh sayeth, 'So thou art warm, full, and in good liking, take thhie ease, eat, drink and be irerry, and care not how many go empty and be lacking.' But ye have seen in the Gospel this morn- ing that this was not the wisdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though he was Lord of all, became poorer than any, that we, through His poverty, might become rich. When our Lord Jesus Christ came, the wisdom of the flesh despised Him ; the wisdom of the flesh had no room for Him at the inn. " There was room enough always for Herod and his concubines, for the wisdom of the flesh set great store by them ; but a poor man and woman were thrust out to a stable ; and there was a poor baby born whom the wisdom of the flesh knew not, because the wisdom of the flesh is enmity against Gad. '* The wisdom of the flesh, brethren, ever despiseth the wisdom of God, because it kuoweth not. I'he wisdom of the flesh looi- pie, how can we better keep Christmas than to follow ii. his steps I We be a little company who have forsaken houses and lands and possessions, and come here unto the wilderness that we i. ".y pre- pare a resting place where to others shall come to reap what we shall sow. And to-morrow we shall keep our first Christmas, not in flesh pleasing and in reveling and in fulness of bread, but in small beginning and great weakness, as our Lord Christ kept it when He was ^orn in a stable and lay in a manager. "To-morrow, God willing, we will all go forth to do good, hon- est Christain work, and begin the first house-building in this our New England — it may be roughly fashioned, but as good a houM, I'll warrant me, as our Lord Christ had <»n the Christmas Day we wot of. And let us not ffint in heart because the wisdom of the world despiseth what we do. Though Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobias the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian make scorn of us, and say, * What do these weak Jews ? If a fox j;o up, he shall break down their stone wall ; yet the Lord our God is with us, and He can cause our work to prosper. " The wisdom of the Spirit seeth the grain of mustard-seed, that 5 66 FIRST CHRISTMAS OF NEW ENGLAND. ia the least of all seeds, how it shall become a great tree, and the fowls of heaven shall lodge in its branches. Let us, then, lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees, and let us hope that, like as great salvation to all people came out of small begin- nings of Bethlehem, so the work which we shall begin to-morrow shall be for the good of many nations. " It is a custom on this Christmas Day to give love presents. What love-gift giveth our Lord Jesus on this day ? Brethren, it is a great one and a precious ; as St. Paul said to the Philippians : ' For unto you it is given for Christ, not only that ye should be- lieve on Him, but also that ye should su(f't;r for His sake ;' and St. Peter also saith, " Behold, we count them blessed which endure.' And the holy Apostles rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer rebuke for the name of Jesus. "Our Lord Christ giveth as of His cup and His baptism; He giveth of the manger and the straw ; He giveth of persecutions and afflictions ; He giveth of the crowi: of thorns, and right dear unto us be these gifts. "And now will I tell these children a story, which a cunning playwright, whom I once knew in our Queen's court, hath made concerning gifts : " A great king would marry his daughter worthily, and so he caused three caskets to be made, in one of which he hid her picture. The one casket was of gold set with diamonds, the second of silver set with pearls, an«l the third a poor casket of lead. " Now it was given out that each comer should have but one choice, and if he chose the one with the picture he should have the lady to wife. " Divers kings, knights, and gentlemen came from far, but thej-^ never won, because they always snatched at the gold and the silver caskets, with the pearls and diamonds. So, when they opened thepe they found only a grinning death's-head or a fool's cap. " But anon cOmeth a true, brave knight and gentleman, who choosjeth for love alone the old leaden casket ; anrl, behold, within is the picture of her he lovetb ! and they were married with great feasting and content. "So our Lord Jesus doth nof, offer himself to us in silver and gold and jewels, but in poverty and hardness and want; but whoso chooseth them for His love's sake shall find Him therein whom his soul loveth, and shall enter with joy tf> the marriage supper of the Lamb. ' ' And when the Lord shall come again in his glory, then he shall bring worthy gifts with him, for he saith : * Bo thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life ; to him that overcometh I will give to eat of the hidden manna, and 1 will give him a white stone with a new name that no man knoweth save he that receiveth it. He that overcometh and keepeth my words, 1 will give power over the nations and I will give him the nn.rning star.' FIRST CHRISTMAS OF NEW ENGLAND. 67 who **Let us then take joyfully Christ's Chriatnias gifts of labors and adversities and crosses to-day, that when he shall appear we may have these great and wonderful gilis at his coming ; for if we suffer with him we shall also reign ; but if we deny him, he also will deny us." And so it happens that the only record of Christmas Day in the pilgrim's journal is this : ♦' Monday, the 25th, being Christmas Day, we went ashore, some to fell timber, some to saw, some to rive, and some to carry ; and so no man rested all that day. But towards night some, as they were at work, heard a noise of Indians, which caused us all to go to our nmskets ; but we heard no further, so we came aboard again, leaving some to keep guard. That night we had a sore storm of wind and rain. But at night the ship-master, caused us to have some beer aboard." So worthily kept they the first Christmas, from which comes all the Christmas cheer of New England to-day. There is no record how Mary Winslow and Rose Staudisii and others, with women and children, came ^/'hore and walked about encouraging the builders ; and how little Love gathered stores of bright checker-berries and partridge plums, and w^as made merry in seeing squirrels and wild rabbits ; nor how old Margery roasted certain wild geese to a turn at a woodland fire, and c(mserved wild cranberries with honey for sauce. In their journals the good pilgrims say they found bushels of strawberries in the meadows in December. But we, knowing the nature of things, know that these must have been cranberries, which grow still abundantly round Plymouth harbor. And at the very time that all this was doing in the wilderness, and the men were working yeomanly to build a new nation, in King James's court the ambassadors of the French King were being entertained with maskings and munimerings, wherein the staple subject of merriment was the Puritans ! So goes the wisdom of the world and it ways — and so goes the wisdom of God !