i/Jt. -
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS: 
 
 BEING 
 
 A NARRATIVE 
 
 OF CERTAIN EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF AN 
 
 ORTHODOX MINISTER OF 
 
 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD. 
 
 f: ft / /O ^ "Vl 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER AND COMPANY. 
 
 654 BROADWAY. 
 1866.
 
 z 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year I860, by 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER AND COMPANY, 
 
 in the Clerk s Office of the District Court for the Southern District o 
 New York. 
 
 1UVEKS1DE, CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 STEREOTYPED AND PRIX TED BY 
 U. 0. IIOlCiUTON AND COMPANY.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 I. 
 
 TN the summer of 1812, when the good people of 
 -*- Connecticut were feeling uncommonly bitter about 
 the declaration of war against England, and were 
 abusing Mr. Madison in the roundest terms, there 
 lived in the town of Canterbury a fiery old gentleman, 
 of near sixty years, and a sterling Democrat, who took 
 up the cudgels bravely for the Administration, and 
 stoutly belabored Governor Roger Griswold for his 
 tardy obedience to the President in calling out the 
 militia, and for what he called his absurd pretensions 
 in regard to State sovereignty. He was a man, too, 
 who meant all that he said, and gave the best proof 
 of it by offering his military services, first to the 
 Governor, and then to the United States General com 
 manding the Department. 
 
 Nor was he wholly unfitted: he was erect, stanch, 
 well knit together, and had served with immense credit 
 in the local militia, in which he wore the title of Major.
 
 2 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 It does not appear that his offer was immediately ac 
 cepted ; but the following season he was invested with 
 the command of a company, and was ordered back 
 and forth to various threatened points along the sea 
 board. His home affairs, meantime, were left in 
 charge of his son, a quiet young man of four-and- 
 twenty, who for three years had been stumbling with 
 a very reluctant spirit through the law-books in the 
 Major s office, and who shared neither his father s ar 
 dor of temperament nor his political opinions. Eliza, 
 a daughter of twenty summers, acted as mistress of 
 the house, and stood in place of mother to a black- 
 eyed little girl of thirteen, the Major s daughter by 
 a second wife, who had died only a few years before. 
 
 Notwithstanding the lack of political sympathy, there 
 was yet a strong attachment between father and son. 
 The latter admired exceedingly the energy and full- 
 souled ardor of the old gentleman ; and the father, 
 in turn, was proud of the calm, meditative habit of 
 mind which the son had inherited from his mother. 
 " There is metal in the boy to make a judge of," the 
 Major used to say. And when Benjamin, shortly after 
 his graduation at one of the lesser New England col 
 leges, had given a hint of his possible study of the 
 ology, the Major answered with a " Pooh ! pooh ! " 
 which disturbed the son possibly weighed with him 
 more than the longest opposing argument could have
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 3 
 
 done. The manner of the father had conveyed, un 
 wittingly enough, a notion of absurdity as attaching 
 to the lad s engaging in such sacred studies, which 
 overwhelmed him with a sense of his own un worthi 
 ness. 
 
 The Major, like all sound Democrats, had always 
 been an ardent admirer of Mr. Jefferson and of the 
 French political school. Benjamin had a wholesome 
 horror of both ; not so much from any intimate knowl 
 edge of their theories, as by reason of a strong re 
 ligious instinct, which had been developed under his 
 mother s counsels into a rigid and exacting Puritanism. 
 
 The first wife of the Major had left behind her the 
 reputation of " a saint." It was not undeserved : her 
 quiet, constant charities, her kindliness of look and 
 manner, which were in themselves the best of charities, 
 a gentle, Christian way she had of dealing with all 
 the vagrant humors of her husband, and the con 
 stancy of her devotion to all duties, whether religious 
 or domestic, gave her better claim to the saintly title 
 than most who wear it. The Major knew this, and 
 was very proud of it. " If," he was accustomed to 
 say, " I am the most godless man in the parish, my 
 wife is the most godly woman." Yet his godlessness 
 was, after all, rather outside than real ; it was a kind 
 of effrontery, provoked into noisy display by the ex 
 travagant bigotries of those about him. He did not
 
 4 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 believe in monopolies of opinion, but in good average 
 dispersion of all sorts of thinking. On one occasion 
 he had horrified his poor wife by bringing home a full 
 set of Voltaire s Works ; but having reasoned her 
 or fancying he had into a belief in the entire harm- 
 lessness of the offending books, he gratified her im 
 mensely by placing them out of all sight and reach of 
 the boy Benjamin. 
 
 He never interfered with the severe home course 
 of religious instruction entered upon by the mother. 
 On the contrary, he said, " The boy will need it all as 
 an offset to the bedevilments that will overtake him 
 in our profession." The Major had a very consider 
 able country practice, and had been twice a member 
 of the Legislature. 
 
 His second wife, a frivolous, indolent person, who 
 had brought him a handsome dowry, and left him the 
 pretty black-eyed Mabel, never held equal position 
 with the first. It was observed, however, with some 
 surprise, that under the sway of the latter he was more 
 punctilious and regular in religious observances than 
 before, a fact which the shrewd ones explained by 
 his old doctrine of adjusting averages. 
 
 Benjamin, Eliza, and Mabel, each in their way, 
 waited news from the military campaign of the Major 
 with great anxiety ; all the more because he was un 
 derstood to be a severe disciplinarian, and it had been
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 5 
 
 rumored in the parish that two or three of his com 
 pany, of rank Federal opinions, had vowed they would 
 sooner shoot the captain than any foreign enemy of 
 the State. The Major, however, heard no guns in 
 either front or rear up to the time of the British at 
 tack upon the borough of Stonington, in midsummer 
 of 1814. In the defence here he was very active, in 
 connection with a certain artillery force that had come 
 down the river from Norwich ; and although the attack 
 of the British Admiral was a mere feint, yet for a 
 while there was a very lively sprinkling of shot. The 
 people of the little borough were duly frightened, the 
 Kamilies seventy-four gun-ship of his Majesty en 
 joyed an excellent opportunity for long-range practice, 
 and the militia gave an honest airing to their patri 
 otism. The Major was wholly himself. " If the ras 
 cals would only attempt a landing ! " said he ; and as 
 he spoke, a fragment of shell struck his sword-arm at 
 the elbow. The wound was a grievous one, and the 
 surgeon in attendance declared amputation to be 
 necessary. The Major combated the decision for a 
 while, but loss of blood weakened his firmness, and 
 the operation was gone through with very bunglingly. 
 Next morning a country wagon was procured to trans 
 port him home. The drive was an exceeding rough 
 one, and the stump fell to bleeding. Most men would 
 have lain by for a day or two, but the Major insisted
 
 6 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 upon pushing on for Canterbury, where he arrived 
 late at night, very much exhausted. 
 
 The country physician declared, on examination next 
 morning, that some readjustment of the amputated 
 limb was necessary, which was submitted to by the 
 Major in a very irritable humor. Friends and enemies 
 of the wounded man were all kind and full of sym 
 pathy. Miss Eliza was in a flutter of dreary appre 
 hension that rendered her incapable of doing anything 
 effectively. Benjamin was as tender and as devoted 
 as a woman. The wound healed in due time, but the 
 Major did not rally. The drain upon his vitality had 
 been too great ; he fell into a general decline, which 
 within a fortnight gave promise of fatal results. The 
 Major met the truth like a veteran ; he arranged his 
 affairs, by the aid of his son, with a great show of 
 method, closed all in due time; and when he felt 
 his breath growing short, called Benjamin, and like a 
 good officer gave his last orders. 
 
 " Mabel," said he, " is provided for ; it is but just 
 that her mother s property should be settled on her; 
 I have done so. For yourself and Eliza, you will have 
 need of a close economy. I don t think you 11 do much 
 at law ; you once thought of preaching ; if you think 
 so now, preach, Benjamin ; there s something in it ; 
 at least it s better than Fed Federalism."
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 1 
 
 A fit of coughing seized him here, from which he 
 never fairly rallied. Benjamin took his hand when he 
 grew quiet, and prayed silently, while the Major slipped 
 off the roll militant forever.
 
 II. 
 
 nnilE funeral was appointed for the second clay 
 -*- thereafter. The house was set in order for the 
 occasion. Chairs were brought in from the neighbors. 
 
 o o 
 
 A little table, with a Bible upon it, was placed in the en 
 trance-way at the foot of the stairs, that all might hear 
 what the clergyman should say. The body lay in the 
 parlor, with the Major s sword and cocked hat upon the 
 coffin ; and the old gentleman s face had never worn 
 an air of so much dignity as it wore now. Death had 
 refined away all trace of his irritable humors, of his 
 passionate, hasty speech. It looked like the face of a 
 good man, so said nine out of ten who gazed on it 
 that day ; yet when the immediate family ca-ne up to 
 take their last glimpse, the two girls being in tears, 
 in that dreary half-hour after all was arranged, and 
 the flocking-in of the neighbors was waited for, Benja 
 min, as calm as the dead face below him, was asking 
 himself if the poor gentleman, his father, had not gone 
 away to a place of torment. lie feared it ; nay, was he 
 not bound to believe it by the whole force of his educa 
 tion ? and his heart, in that hour, made only a feeble
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 9 
 
 revolt against the belief. In the very presence of the 
 ffrim messenger of the Eternal, who had come to seal 
 
 O O 
 
 the books and close the account, what right had human 
 affection to make outcry ? Death had wrought the 
 work given him to do, like a good servant ; had not he, 
 too, Benjamin, a duty to fulfill ? the purposes of 
 Eternal Justice to recognize, to sanction, to approve ? 
 In the exaltation of his religious sentiment it seemed 
 to him, for one crazy moment at least, that he would be 
 justified in taking his place at the little table where 
 prayer was to be said, and in setting forth, as one who 
 knew so intimately the shortcomings of the deceased, 
 all those weaknesses of the flesh and spirit by which 
 the Devil had triumphed, and in warning all those who 
 came to his burial of the judgments of God which 
 would surely fall on them as on him, except they re 
 pented and believed. Was he not, indeed, commis 
 sioned, as it were, by the lips of the dead man to " cry 
 aloud and spare not " ? 
 
 Happily, however, the officiating clergyman was of a 
 more even temper, and he said what little he had to say 
 in way of " improvement of the occasion " to the text 
 of " Judge not, that ye be not judged." 
 
 " We are too apt," said he, (and he was now addressing 
 a company that crowded the parlors and flowed over 
 into the yard in front, where the men stood with heads 
 uncovered,) " we are too apt to measure a man s posi-
 
 10 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 tion in the eye of God, and to assign him his rank in 
 the future, by his conformity to the external observ 
 ances of religion, not remembering, in our compla 
 cency, that we see differently from those who look on 
 from beyond the world, and that there are mysterious 
 and secret relations of God with the conscience of 
 every man, which we cannot measure or adjust. Let 
 us hope that our deceased friend profited by such to in 
 sure his entrance into the Eternal City, whose streets 
 are of gold, and the Lamb the light thereof." 
 
 The listeners said " Amen " to this in their hearts ; 
 but the son, still exalted by the fervor of that new pur 
 pose which he had formed by the father s death-bed, 
 and riveted more surely as he looked last on his face, 
 asked himself, if the old preacher had not allowed a 
 kindly worldly prudence to blunt the sharpness of the 
 Word. " Why not tell these friendly mourners," 
 thought he, " that they may well shed their bitterest 
 tears, for that this old man they mourn over has lived 
 the life of the ungodly, has neglected all the appointed 
 means of escape, has died the death of the unrighteous, 
 and must surely suffer the pains of the second death ? 
 Should not the swift warning be brought home to me 
 and to them ? " 
 
 Sudden contact with Death had refined all his old 
 religious impressions to an intensity that shaped itself 
 into a flaming sword of retribution. All this, however,
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 11 
 
 as yet, lay within his own mind, not beating down his 
 natural affection, or his grief, but struggling for recon 
 cilement with them ; no outward expression, even to 
 those who clung to him so nearly, revealed it. The 
 memorial-stone which he placed over his father s grave, 
 and which possibly is standing now within the old 
 church-yard of Canterbury, bore only this : 
 
 HERE LIES THE BODY OF 
 
 REUBEN JOHNS. 
 
 A GOOD HUSBAND ; A KIND FATHER; 
 
 A PATRIOT, WHO DIED FOR HIS COUNTRY, 
 
 IST SEPT., 1814. 
 
 And a little below, 
 
 "Christ died for all."
 
 I 
 
 III. 
 
 T will be no contravention of the truth of this epi 
 taph, to say that the Major had been always a most 
 miserable manager of his private business affairs ; it is 
 even doubtful if the kindest fathers and best husbands 
 are not apt to be. Certain it is, that, when Benjamin 
 came to examine, in connection with a village attorney, 
 (for the son had inherited the father s inaccessibility to 
 " profit and loss " statements,) such loose accounts as 
 the Major had left, it was found that the poor gentle 
 man had lived up so closely to his income whether 
 as lawyer or military chieftain as to leave his little 
 home property subject to the payment of a good many 
 outstanding debts. There appeared, indeed, a great 
 parade of ledgers and day-books and statements of ac 
 counts ; but it is by no means unusual for those who are 
 careless or ignorant of business system to make a pretty 
 show of the requisite implements, and to confuse them 
 selves in a pleasant way with the intricacy of their 
 own figures. 
 
 The Major sinned pretty largely in this way ; so that 
 it was plain, that, after the sale of all his available
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 13 
 
 effects, including the library with its inhibited Voltaire, 
 there would remain only enough to secure a respecta 
 ble maintenance for Miss Eliza. To this end, Benja 
 min determined at once that the residue of the estate 
 should be settled upon her, reserving only so much 
 as would comfortably maintain him during a three 
 years course of battling with Theology. 
 
 The younger sister, Mabel, as has already been 
 intimated, was provided for by an interest in certain 
 distinct and dividend-bearing securities, which to the 
 honor of the Major had never been submitted to the 
 alembic of his figures and " accounts current." She 
 was placed at a school where she accomplished herself 
 for three or four years ; and put the seal to her accom 
 plishments by marrying very suddenly, and without 
 family consultation, under which she usually proved 
 restive, a young fellow, who by aid of her snug for 
 tune succeeded in establishing himself in a thriving 
 business ; and as early as the year 1820, Mabel, under 
 her new name of Mrs. Brindlock, was the mistress of 
 one of those fine merchant-palaces at the lower end of 
 Greenwich Street, in New York city, which com 
 manded a view of the elegant Battery, and were the 
 admiration of all country visitors. 
 
 Benjamin had needed only his father s hint, (for 
 which he was ever grateful,) and the solemn scenes of 
 his death and burial, to lead him to an entire remmcia-
 
 14 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 tion of his law-craft and to an engagement in fervid 
 study for the ministry. This he prosecuted at first with 
 a devout old gentleman who had been a pupil of Presi 
 dent Edwards ; and this private reading was finished 
 off by a course at Andover. His studies completed, he 
 was licensed to preach ; and not long after, without 
 any consideration of what the future of this world 
 might have in store for him, he committed the error 
 which so many grave and serious men are prone to 
 commit, that is to say, he married hastily, after only 
 two or three months of solemn courtship, a charming 
 girl of nineteen, whose only idea of meeting the diffi 
 culties of this life was to love her dear Benjamin with 
 her whole heart, and to keep the parlor dusted. 
 
 But unfortunately there was no parlor to dust. The 
 consequence was that the newly married couple were 
 compelled to establish a temporary home upon the sec 
 ond floor of the comfortable house of Mr. Handby, a 
 well-to-do farmer, and the father of the bride. Here 
 the new clergyman devoted himself resolutely to Tillot- 
 son, to Edwards, to John Newton, and in the intervals 
 prepared some score or more of sermons, to all 
 which Mrs. Johns devoutly listening in their fresh state, 
 without ever a wink, entered upon the conscientious 
 duties of a wife. From time to time some old clergy 
 man of the neighborhood would ask the Major s son to 
 assist him in the Sabbath services ; and at rarer inter-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 15 
 
 vals the Reverend Mr. Johns was invited to some far 
 away township where the illness or absence of the set 
 tled minister might keep the new licentiate for four or 
 five weeks ; on which occasions the late Miss Handby 
 was most zealous in preparing a world of comforts for 
 the journey, and invariably followed him up with one or 
 two double letters, "hoping her dear Benjamin was 
 careful to wear the muffler which his Rachel had knit 
 for him, and not to expose his precious throat," or 
 " longing for that quiet home of their own, which would 
 not make necessary these cruel separations, and where 
 she should have the uninterrupted society of her dear 
 Benjamin." 
 
 To all such the conscientious husband dutifully re 
 plied, " thankful for his Rachel s expression of interest 
 in such a sinner as himself, and trusting that she would 
 not forget that health or the comforts of this world were 
 but of comparatively small importance, since this was 
 not our abiding city. He trusted, too, that she would 
 not allow the transitory affections of this life, however 
 dear they might be, to engross her to the neglect of those 
 which were far more important. He permitted himself 
 to hope that Rachel " (he was chary of endearing epi 
 thets) " would not murmur against the dispensations of 
 Providence, and would be content with whatever He 
 might provide ; and hoping that Mr. Handby and fam 
 ily were in their usual health, remained her Christian 
 friend and devoted husband, Benjamin Johns."
 
 16 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 It so happened, that, after this discursive life had 
 lasted for some ten months, a serious difficulty arose 
 between the clergyman and the parish of the neighbor 
 ing town of Ashfield. The person who served as the 
 spiritual director of the people was suspected of leaning 
 strongly toward some current heresy of the day ; and 
 the suspicion being once set on foot, there was not a 
 sermon the poor man could preach but some quidnunc 
 of the parish snuffed somewhere in it the taint of the 
 false doctrine. The due convocations and committees 
 of inquiry followed sharply after, and the incumbent 
 received his dismissal in due form at the hands of some 
 " brother in the bonds of the Gospel." 
 
 A few weeks later, Giles Elderkin of Ashfield, " So 
 ciety s Committee," invited, by letter, the Reverend 
 Benjamin Johns to come and " fill their pulpit the fol 
 lowing Lord s day " ; and added, " If you conclude 
 to preach for us, I shall be pleased to have you put up 
 at my house over the Sabbath." 
 
 " There you are," said Mr. Handby, when the matter 
 was announced in family conclave, "just the man for 
 them. They like sober, solid preaching in Ashfield." 
 
 " I call it real providential," said Mrs. Handby ; " fust- 
 rate folks, and t a n t a long drive over for Rachel." 
 
 Little Mrs. Johns looked upon the grave, earnest 
 face of her husband with delight and pride, but said 
 nothing.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 17 
 
 " I know Squire Elderkin," says Mr. Handby, medi 
 tatively, "a clever man, and a forehanded man, 
 very. It s a rich parish, son-in-law ; they ought to do 
 well by you." 
 
 " I don t like," says Mr. Johns, " to look at what may 
 become my spiritual duty in that light." 
 
 " I would n t," returned Mr. Handby : " but when 
 you are as old as I am, son-in-law, you 11 know that we 
 have to keep a kind of side look upon the good things 
 of this world, else we should n t be placed in it." 
 
 " He heareth the young ravens when they cry," said 
 the minister, gravely. 
 
 " Just it," says Mr. Handby ; " but I don t want your 
 young ravens to be crying." 
 
 At which Rachel, with the slightest possible suffusion 
 of color, and a pretty affectation of horror, said, 
 
 " Now, papa ! " 
 
 There was an interruption here, and the conclave 
 broke up ; but Rachel, stepping briskly to the place 
 she loved so well, beside the minister, said, softly, 
 
 " J hope you 11 go, Benjamin ; and do, please, preach 
 that beautiful sermon on Revelations."
 
 IV. 
 
 rilHIRTY or forty years ago there lay scattered about 
 -*- over Southern New England a great many quiet in 
 land towns, numbering from a thousand to two or three 
 thousand inhabitants, which boasted a little old-fash 
 ioned " society" of their own, which had their impor 
 tant men who were heirs to some snug country property, 
 and their gambrel-roofed houses odorous with traditions 
 of old-time visits by some worthies of the Colonial 
 period, or of the Revolution. The good, prim dames, 
 in starched caps and spectacles, who presided over such 
 houses, were proud of their tidy parlors, of their old 
 India china, of their beds of thyme and sage in the 
 garden, of their big Family Bible with brazen clasps, 
 and, most times, of their minister. 
 
 One Orthodox Congregational Society extended its 
 benignant patronage over all the people of such town ; 
 or, if a stray Episcopalian or Seven-Day Baptist were 
 here and there living under the wing of the parish, 
 they were regarded with a serene and stately gravity, 
 as necessary exceptions to the law of Divine Provi-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 19 
 
 dence, like scattered instances of red hair or of bow- 
 legs in otherwise well-favored families. 
 
 There were no wires stretching over the country to 
 shock the nerves of the good gossips with the thought 
 that their neighbors knew more than they. There were 
 no heathenisms of the cities, no tenpins, no traveling 
 circus, no progressive young men of heretical tenden 
 cies. Such towns were as quiet as a sheepfold. Saun 
 tering down their broad central street, along which all 
 the houses were clustered with a somewhat dreary uni 
 formity of aspect, one might of a summer s day hear the 
 nimble of the town mill in some adjoining valley, busy 
 with the town grist ; in autumn, the flip-flap of the 
 flails came pulsing on the ear from half a score of wide- 
 open barns that yawned with plenty ; and in winter, the 
 clang of axes on the near hills smote sharply upon the 
 frosty stillness, and would be straightway followed by 
 the booming crash of some great tree. 
 
 But civilization and the railways have debauched all 
 such quiet, stately, steady towns. There are none of 
 them left. If the iron cordon of travel, by a little diver 
 gence, has spared their quietude, leaving them stranded 
 upon a beach where the tide of active business never 
 flows, all their dignities are gone. The men of fore 
 sight and enterprise have drifted away to new centers 
 of influence. The bustling dames in starched caps 
 have gone down childless to their graves, or, disgusted
 
 20 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 with gossip at second hand, have sought more immedi 
 ate contact with the world. A German tailor, may be, 
 has hung out his sign over the door of some moulder 
 ing mansion, where, in other days, a doughty judge of 
 the county court, with a great raft of children, kept 
 his honors and his family warm. A slatternly " carry 
 all," with a driver who reeks of bad spirit, keeps up 
 uneasy communication with the outside world, travers 
 ing twice or three times a day the league of drive which 
 lies between the post-office and the railway-station. A 
 few iron-pated farmers, and a few gentlemen of Irish 
 extraction who keep tavern and stores, divide among 
 themselves the official honors of the town. 
 
 If, on the other hand, the people maintain their 
 old thrift and importance by actual contact with some 
 great thoroughfare of travel, their old quietude is ex 
 ploded ; a mushroom station has sprung up ; mush 
 room villas flank all the hills ; the girls wear mush 
 room hats. A turreted monster of a chapel from 
 some flamboyant tower bellows out its Sunday warn 
 ing to a new set of church-goers. There is a little 
 coterie of " superior intelligences," who talk of the 
 humanities, and diffuse their airy rationalism over here 
 and there a circle of the progressive town. Even the 
 meeting-house, which was the great congregational 
 center of the town religion, has lost its venerable air, 
 taken off by some new fancy of variegated painting.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 21 
 
 The high, square pews are turned into low-backed 
 seats, that flame on a summer Sunday with such gor 
 geous millinery as would have shocked the grave people 
 of thirty years ago. The deep bass note which once 
 pealed from the belfry with a solemn and solitary dig 
 nity of sound has now lost it all amid the jangle of 
 a half-dozen bells of lighter and airier twang. Even 
 the parson himself will not be that grave man of 
 stately bearing, who met the rarest fun only benig- 
 nantly, and to whom all the villagers bowed ; but some 
 new creature full of the logic of the schools and the 
 latest conventionalisms of manner. The homespun 
 disciples of other days would be brought grievously 
 to the blush, if some deep note of the old bell should 
 suddenly summon them to the presence of so fine 
 a teacher, encompassed with such pretty appliances 
 of upholstery ; and, counting their chances better in 
 the strait path they knew on uncarpeted floors and 
 between high pews, they would slink back into their 
 graves content, all the more content, perhaps, if 
 they should listen to the service of the new teacher, 
 and, in their common-sense way, reckon what chance 
 the dapper talker might have as compared with the 
 solemn soberness of the old pastor in opening the 
 ponderous doors for them upon the courts above. 
 
 Into this metamorphosed condition the town of Ash- 
 field has possibly fallen in these latter days ; but in
 
 22 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 the good year 1819, when the Reverend Benjamin 
 Johns was invited for the first time to fill its pulpit 
 of an early autumn Sunday, it was still in possession 
 of all its palmy quietude and of its ancient cheery 
 importance. And to that old date we will now trans 
 fer ourselves.
 
 V. 
 
 other day the stage-coach comes into Ash- 
 field from the north, on the Hartford turnpike, and 
 rumbles through the main street of the town, seesaw 
 ing upon jts leathern thoroughbraces. Just where the 
 pike forks into the main northern road, and where the 
 scattered farm-houses begin to group more thickly along 
 the way, the country Jehu prepares for a triumphant 
 entry by giving a long, clean cut to the lead-horses, 
 and two or three shortened, sharp blows with his 
 doubled lash to those upon the wheel ; then, moisten 
 ing his lip, he disengages the tin horn from its socket, 
 and, with one more spirited " chirrup " to his team and a 
 putulant flirt of the lines, he gives out, with tremendous 
 explosive efforts, a series of blasts that are heard all 
 down the street. Here and there a blind is coyly 
 opened, and some old dame in ruffled cap peers out, 
 or some stout wench at a backdoor stands gazing 
 with her arms a-kimbo. The horn rattles back into 
 its socket again ; the lines are tightened, and the long 
 lash smacks once more around the reeking flanks of 
 the leaders. Yonder, in his sooty shop, stands the
 
 24 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 smith, keeping up with his elbow a lazy sway upon his 
 bellows, while he looks admiringly over coach and 
 team, and gives an inquisitive glance at the nigh lead 
 er s foot, that he shod only yesterday. A flock of 
 geese, startled from a mud-puddle through which the 
 coach dashes on, rush away with outstretched necks, 
 and wings at their widest, and a great uproar of gab 
 ble. Two school-girls home for the nooning are 
 idling over a gateway, half swinging, half musing, 
 gazing intently. There is a gambrel-roofed mansion, 
 with a balustrade along its upper pitch, and quaint 
 ogees of ancient joinery over the hall-door ; and 
 through the cleanly scrubbed parlor-windows is to be 
 seen a prim dame, who turns one spectacled glance 
 upon the passing coach, and then resumes her sewing. 
 There are red houses, with their corners and barge- 
 boards dressed off with white, and on the door-step 
 of one a green tub that flames with a great pink hy 
 drangea. Scattered along the way are huge ashes, syca 
 mores, elms, in somewhat devious line ; and from a 
 pendent bough of one of these last a trio of school 
 boys are seeking to beat down the swaying nest of 
 an oriole with a convergent fire of pebbles. 
 
 The coach flounders on, past an old house with 
 stone chimney, (on which an old date stands coarsely 
 cut,) and with front door divided down its middle, with 
 a huge brazen knocker upon its right half, with two
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 25 
 
 St. Luke s crosses in its lower panels, and two dia 
 mond-shaped "lights" above. Hereabout the street 
 widens into what seems a common ; and not far be 
 low, sitting squarely and authoritatively in the mid 
 dle of the common, is the red-roofed meeting-house, 
 with tall spire, and in its shadow the humble belfry 
 of the town academy. Opposite these there comes 
 into the main street a highway from the east; and 
 upon one of the corners thus formed stands the Eagle 
 Tavern, its sign creaking appetizingly on a branch of 
 an overhanging sycamore, under which the stage 
 coach dashes up to the tavern-door, to unlade its pas 
 sengers for dinner, and to find a fresh relay of horses. 
 Upon the opposite corner is the country store of 
 Abner Tew, Esq., postmaster during the successive 
 administrations of Mr. Madison and Mr. Monroe. He 
 comes out presently from his shop-door, which is 
 divided horizontally, the upper half being open in all 
 ordinary weathers ; and the lower half, as he closes 
 it after him, gives a warning jingle to a little bell with 
 in. A spare, short, hatchet-faced man is Abner Tew, 
 who walks over with a prompt business-step to re 
 ceive a leathern pouch from the stage-driver. He 
 returns with it, a few eager towns-people following 
 upon his steps, reenters his shop, and delivers 
 the pouch within a glazed door in the corner, where 
 the postmistress ex officio, Mrs. Abner Tew, a tall,
 
 26 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 gaunt woman in black bombazine and spectacles, pro 
 ceeds to assort the Ashfield mail. By reason of this 
 division of duties, the shop is known familiarly as the 
 shop of " the Tew partners." 
 
 Among the waiting expectants who loiter about 
 among the sugar-barrels of the grocery department, 
 there presently appears with a new tinkle of the 
 little bell a stout, ruddy man, just past middle age, 
 in broad-brimmed white beaver and sober homespun 
 suit, who is met with a deferential " Good day, Squire," 
 from one and another, as he falls successively into 
 short parley with them. A self-possessed, cheery man, 
 who has strong opinions, and does not fear to express 
 them ; Selectman for the last eight years, who has 
 presided in town-meeting time out of mind ; mem 
 ber of the Legislature, and once a Senator for the 
 district. This was Giles Elderkin, Esq., the gentle 
 man who. on behalf of the Ecclesiastical Society, had 
 conducted the correspondence with the Reverend Mr. 
 Johns ; and he was now waiting his reply. This is 
 presently brought to him by the postmistress, who, 
 catching a glimpse of the Squire through the glazed 
 door, has taken the precaution to adjust her cap-strings 
 and dexterously to flirt one or two of the more ap 
 parent creases out of her dingy bombazine. The let 
 ter brings acceptance, which the Squire, having made 
 out by private study near to the dusky window, an-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 27 
 
 nounces to Mrs. Tew, begging her to inform the 
 people who should happen in from " up the road." 
 
 " I hope he 11 suit, Squire," says Mrs. Tew. 
 
 " I hope he may, hope he may, Mrs. Tew ; I hear 
 well of him ; there s good blood in him. I knew his 
 father, the Major, likely man. I hope he may, Mrs. 
 Tew." 
 
 And the Squire, having penned a little notice, by 
 favor of one of the Tew partners, proceeds to affix it to 
 the meeting-house door ; after which he walks to his 
 own house ; with the assured step of a man who is con 
 scious of having accomplished an important duty. It 
 is the very house we just now saw with the ponderous 
 ogees over its front, the balustrade upon its roof, and 
 the dame in spectacles at the window ; this latter being 
 the spinster, Miss Meacham, elder sister to the wife of 
 the Squire, and taking upon herself, with active zeal 
 and a neatness that knew no bounds, the office of house 
 keeper. This was rendered necessary in a manner by 
 the engagement of Mrs. Elderkin with a group of young 
 flax-haired children, and periodic threats of addition to 
 the same. The hospitalities of the house were fully es 
 tablished, and no state official could visit the town with 
 out hearty invitation to the Squire s table. The spinster 
 received the announcement of the minister s coming 
 with a quiet gravity, and betook herself to the needed 
 preparation.
 
 VI. 
 
 "1% /TR. JOHNS, meanwhile, when he had left the 
 -*-"-- Handby parlor, where we saw him last, and was 
 fairly upon the stair, had replied to the suggestion of 
 his little wife about the sermon on Revelations with a 
 fugitive kiss, and said, " I will think of it, Rachel." 
 
 And he did think of it, thought of it so well, that 
 he left the beautiful sermon in his drawer, and took 
 with him a couple of strong doctrinal discourses, upon 
 the private hearing of which his charming wife had 
 commented by dropping asleep (poor thing !) in her 
 chair. 
 
 But the strong men and women of Ashfield relished 
 them better. There was a sermon for the morning on 
 " Regeneration the work only of grace " ; and another 
 for the afternoon, on the outer leaf of which was written, 
 in the parson s bold hand, " The doctrine of Election 
 compatible with the infinite goodness of God." It is 
 hard to say which of the two was the better, or which 
 commended itself most to the church full of people who 
 listened. Deacon Tourtelot, a short, wiry man, with 
 reddish whiskers brushed primly forward, sitting un-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 29 
 
 der the very droppings of the pulpit, with painful erect- 
 ness, and listening grimly throughout, was inclined to 
 the sermon of the morning. Dame Tourtelot, who over 
 topped her husband by half a head, and from her great 
 scoop hat, trimmed with green, kept her keen eyes 
 fastened intently upon the minister on trial, was enlisted 
 in the same belief, until she heard the Deacon s timid 
 expression of preference, when she pounced upon him, 
 and declared for the Election discourse. It was not 
 her way to allow him to enjoy an opinion of his own 
 getting. Miss Almira, their only child, and now grown 
 into a spare womanhood, that was decorated with 
 another scoop hat akin to the mother s, from under 
 which hung two yellow festoons of ringlets tied with 
 lively blue ribbons, was steadfastly observant ; 
 though wearing a fagged air before the day was over, 
 and consulting on one or two occasions a little phial of 
 " salts," with a side movement of the head, and an in 
 quiring nostril. 
 
 Squire Elderldn, having thrown himself into a com 
 fortable position in the corner of his square pew, is 
 cheerfully attentive ; and at one or two of the more 
 marked passages of the sermon bestows a nod of ap 
 proval, and a glance at Miss Meacham and Mrs. Elder- 
 kin, to receive their acknowledgment of the same. The 
 young Elderkins (of whom three are of meeting-house 
 size) are variously affected ; Miss Dora, being turned
 
 30 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 of six, wears an air of some weariness, and having 
 dispatched all the edible matter upon a stalk of cara 
 way, she uses the despoiled brush in keeping the 
 youngest boy, Ned, in a state of uneasy wakefulness. 
 Bob, ranking between the two in point of years, and 
 being mechanically inclined, devotes himself to turning 
 in their sockets the little bobbins which form a balus 
 trade around the top of the pew ; but being diverted 
 from this very suddenly by a sharp squeak that calls 
 the attention of his Aunt Joanna, he assumes the peni 
 tential air of listener for full five minutes ; afterward 
 he relieves himself by constructing a small meeting 
 house out of the psalm-books and Bible, his Aunt Joan 
 na s spectacle-case serving for a steeple. 
 
 There was an air of subdued reverence in the new 
 clergyman, which was not only agreeable to the people 
 in itself, but seemed to very many thoughtful ones to im 
 ply a certain respect for them and for the parish. The 
 men of that day in Ashfield were intolerant of mere ele 
 gances, or of any jauntiness of manner. But Mr. Johns 
 was so calm and serious, and yet gave so earnest ex 
 pression to the old beliefs they had so long cherished, 
 he was so clearly wedded to all those rigidities by 
 which the good people thought it a merit to cramp their 
 religious thinking, that there was but one opinion of 
 his fitness. 
 
 Deacon Tourtelot, sidling down the aisle after service,
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 31 
 
 out of hearing of his consort, says to Elderkin, " Smart 
 man, Squire." 
 
 And the Squire nods acquiescence. " Sound sermon- 
 izer, sound sermonizer, Deacon." 
 
 These two opinions were as good as a majority-vote 
 in the town of Ashfield, all the more since the Squire 
 was a thorough -going Jeffersonian Democrat, and the 
 Deacon a warm Federalist, so far as the poor man 
 could be warm at any thing, who was on the alert every 
 hour of his life to escape the hammer of his wife s re 
 proaches. 
 
 So it happened that the parish was called together, 
 and an invitation extended to Brother Johns to continue 
 his ministrations for a month further. Of course the 
 novitiate understood this to be the crucial test ; and he 
 accepted it with a composure, and a lack of impertinent 
 effort to please them overmuch, which altogether 
 charmed them. On four successive Saturdays he drove 
 over to Ashfield, sometimes stopping with one or the 
 other of the two deacons, and at other times with Squire 
 Elderkin, and on one or two occasions taking his 
 wife by special invitation. Of her, too, the people of 
 Ashfield had but one opinion : that she was of a duc 
 tile temper was most easy to be seen ; and there was 
 not a strong-minded woman of the parish but antici 
 pated with delight the power and pleasure of moulding 
 her to her wishes. The husband continued to preach
 
 32 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 agreeably to their notions of orthodoxy, and at the end 
 of the month they gave him a " call," with the promise 
 of four hundred dollars a year, besides sundry odds and 
 ends made up by donation visits and otherwise. 
 
 This sum, which was not an inconsiderable one for 
 those days, enabled the clergyman to rent as a parson 
 age the old house we have seen, with the big brazen 
 knocker, and diamond lights in either half of its green 
 door. It stood under the shade of two huge ashes, at a 
 little remove back from the street, and within easy 
 walk from the central common. A heavy dentilated 
 cornice, from which the paint was peeling away in flaky 
 patches, hung over the windows of the second floor. 
 Within the door was a little entry (for years and years 
 the pastor s hat and cane used to lie upon a table that 
 stood just within the door) ; from the entry a cramped 
 stairway, by three sharp angles, led to the floor above. 
 To the right and left were two low parlors. The sun 
 was shining broadly in the south one when the couple 
 first entered the house. 
 
 " Good ! " said Rachel, with her pleasant, brisk tone, 
 
 " this shall be your study, Benjamin ; the bookcase 
 here, the table there, a nice warm carpet, we 11 paper 
 it with blue, the Major s sword shall be hung over the 
 mantel." 
 
 " Tut ! tut ! " says the clergyman ; " a sword, Rachel, 
 
 in my study ? "
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 33 
 
 " To be sure ! why not ? " says Rachel. " And if 
 you like, I will hang my picture, with the doves and the 
 olive-branch, above it ; and there shall be a shelf for 
 hyacinths in the window." 
 
 Thus she ran on in her pretty housewifely manner, 
 cooing like the doves she talked of, plotting the ar 
 rangement of the parlor opposite, of the long dining- 
 room stretching athwart the house in the rear, and of 
 
 O * 
 
 the kitchen under a roof of its own, still farther back, 
 he all the while giving grave assent, as if he listened 
 to her contrivance : he was only listening to the music 
 of a sweet voice that somehow charmed his ear, and 
 thanking God in his heart that such music was be- 
 
 O 
 
 stowed upon a sinful world, and praying that he might 
 never listen too fondly. 
 
 Behind the house were yard, garden, orchard, and 
 this last drooping away to a meadow. Over all these 
 the pair of light feet pattered beside the master. 
 " Here shall be lilies," she said ; " there, a great bunch 
 of mother s peonies ; and by the gate, hollyhocks " ; 
 he, by this time, plotting a sermon upon the vanities of 
 the world. 
 
 Yet in due time it came to pass that the parsonage 
 was all arranged according to the fancies of its mistress, 
 even to the Major s sword and the twin doves. Es 
 ther, a stout middle-aged dame, and stanch Congrega 
 tion alist, recommended by the good women of the par- 
 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 ish, is installed in the kitchen as maid-of-all-work. As 
 gardener, groom, (a sedate pony and square-topped 
 chaise forming part of the establishment,) factotum, in 
 short, there is the frowzy-headed man Larkin, who 
 has his quarters in an airy loft above the kitchen. 
 
 The brass knocker is scoured to its brightest. The 
 parish is neighborly. Dame Tourtelot is impressive in 
 her proffers of advice. The Tew partners, Elderkin, 
 Meacham, and all the rest, meet the new housekeepers 
 open-handed. Before mid-winter, the smoke of this 
 new home was piling lazily into the sky above the tree- 
 tops of Ashfield, a home, as we shall find by and by, 
 "of much trial and much cheer. Twenty years after, 
 and the master of it was master of it still, strong, 
 seemingly, as ever ; the brass knocker shining on the 
 door ; the sword and the doves in place. But the 
 pattering feet, the voice that made music, the 
 tender, wifely plotting, the cheery sunshine that 
 smote upon her as she talked, alas for us ! " All 
 is Vanity ! "
 
 VII. 
 
 TT was not easy in that day to bring together the 
 -"- opinions of a Connecticut parish that had been 
 jostled apart by a parochial quarrel, and where old 
 grievances were festering. Indeed, it is never easy 
 to do this, and unite opinions upon a new-comer, un 
 less he have some rare gift of eloquence, which so 
 dazes the good people that they can no longer re 
 member their petty griefs, or unless he manage with 
 rare tact to pass lightly over the sore points, and to 
 anoint them by a careful hand with such healing salves 
 as he can concoct out of his pastoral charities. Mr. 
 Johns had neither art nor eloquence, as commonly 
 understood ; yet he effected a blending of all interests 
 by the simple, earnest gravity of his character. He 
 ignored all angry disputation ; he ignored its results. 
 He came as a shepherd to a deserted sheepfold ; he 
 came to preach the Bible doctrines in their literalness. 
 He had no reproofs, save for those who refused the 
 offers of God s mercy, no commendation, save for 
 those who sought His grace whose favor is life ever 
 lasting. There were no metaphysical niceties in his
 
 36 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 discourses, athwart which keen disputants might poise 
 themselves for close and angry conflict ; he recog 
 nized no necessities but the great ones of repentance 
 and faith ; and all the mysteries of the Will he was 
 accustomed to solve by grand utterance of that text 
 which he loved above all others, however much it 
 may have troubled him in his discussion of Election, 
 "Whosoever ivill, let him come and drink of the 
 water of life freely." 
 
 Inheriting as he did all the religious affinities of 
 his mother, these were compacted and made sensitive 
 by years of silent protest against the proud worldly 
 sufficiency of his father, the Major. Such qualities 
 and experience found repose in the unyielding dog 
 mas of the Westminster divines. At thirty the clergy 
 man was as aged as most men of forty-five, seared 
 by the severity of his opinions, and the unshaken 
 tenacity with which he held them. He was by nature 
 a quiet, almost a timid man ; but over the old white 
 desk and crimson cushion, with the choir of singers 
 in his front and the Bible under his hand, he grew 
 into wonderful boldness. He cherished an exalted 
 idea of the dignity of his office, a dignity which 
 he determined to maintain to the utmost of his 
 power ; but in the pulpit only did the full measure of 
 this exaltation come over him. Thence he looked down 
 serenely upon the flock of which he was the appointed
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 37 
 
 guide, and among whom his duty lay. The shepherd 
 leading his sheep was no figure of speech for him ; he 
 was commissioned to their care, and was conducting 
 them old men and maidens, boys and gray-haired 
 women athwart the dangers of the world, toward 
 the great fold. On one side always the fires of hell 
 were gaping ; and on the other were blazing the great 
 candlesticks around the throne. 
 
 But when, on some occasion, he had, under the full 
 weight of his office, inveighed against a damning evil, 
 and, as he fondly hoped by the stillness in the old 
 meeting-house, wrought upon sinners effectually, it was 
 disheartening to be met by some hoary member of 
 his flock, whom perhaps he had borne particularly 
 in mind, and to be greeted cheerfully with, " Capital 
 sermon, Mr. Johns ! those are the sort that do the 
 business ! I like those, parson ! " The poor man, hu 
 miliated, would bow his thanks. He lacked the art 
 (if it be an art) to press the matter home, when he 
 met one of his parishioners thus. Indeed, his sense 
 of the importance of his calling and his extreme con 
 scientiousness gave him an air of timidity outside the 
 pulpit, which offered great contrast to that which he 
 wore in the heat of his sermonizing. Not that he for- 
 
 D 
 
 got the dignity of his position for a moment, but he 
 wore it too trenchantly ; he could never unbend to 
 the free play of side-talk. Hence he could not look
 
 38 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 upon the familiar spirit of badinage in which some 
 of his brethren of the profession indulged, without 
 serious doubts of their complete submission to the 
 Heavenly King. Always the weight of his solemn 
 duties pressed sorely on him ; always amid pitfalls he 
 was conducting his little flock toward the glories of 
 the Great Court. There is many a man narrowed 
 and sharpened by metaphysical inquiry to such a de 
 gree as to count the indirection and freedom of kindly 
 chat irksome, and the occasion of a needless blunting 
 of that quick mental edge with which he must scathe 
 all he touches. But the stiffness of Mr. Johns was 
 not that of constant mental strain ; he did not refine 
 upon his dogmas; but he gave them such hearty en 
 tertainment, and so imvrapped his spirit with their 
 ponderous gravity, that he could not disrobe in a mo 
 ment, or uncover to every chance comer. 
 
 It is quite possible that by reason of this grave 
 taciturnity the clergyman won more surely upon the 
 respect of his people. " He is engrossed," said they, 
 " with greater matters ; and in all secular affairs he 
 recognizes our superior discernment." Thus his in 
 aptitude in current speech was construed by them 
 into a delicate flattery. They greatly relished his 
 didactic, argumentative sermonizing, since theirs was 
 a religion not so much of the sensibilities as of the 
 intellect. They agonized toward the truth, if not by
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 39 
 
 intense thinking, yet by what many good people are 
 apt to mistake for it, immense endurance of the 
 prolix thought of others. 
 
 If the idea of universal depravity had been ignored, 
 as it sometimes is in these latitudinarian days, 
 or the notion of any available or worthy Christian 
 culture, as distinct from a direct and clearly defined 
 agency, both as to time and force, of the Spirit, had 
 been entertained, he would have lost half of the ele 
 ments by which his arguments gained logical sequence. 
 But, laboring his way from stake to stake of the old 
 dogmas of the Westminster divines, he fastened to 
 them stoutly, and swept round from each as a center 
 a great scathing circle of deductions, that beat wofully 
 upon the heads of unbelievers. And if a preacher 
 attack only unbelievers, he has the world with him, 
 now as then ; it is only he who has the bad taste to 
 meddle with the caprices of believers who gets the 
 raps and the orders of dismissal. 
 
 Thus it happened that good Mr. Johns came to win 
 the good-will of all the parish of Ashfield, while he 
 challenged their respect by his uniform gravity. It 
 is even possible that a consciousness of a certain 
 stateliness and stiffness of manner became in some 
 measure a source of pride to him, and that he enjoyed, 
 in his subdued way, the disposition of the lads of 
 the town to give him a wide pass, instead of brushing
 
 40 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 brusquely against him, as if he were some other than 
 the parson. 
 
 In those days he wrote to his sister Eliza, 
 " We are fairly settled in a pleasant home upon the 
 main street The meeting-house, which you will re 
 member, is near by ; and I have, by the blessing of 
 God, a full attendance every Lord s day. They lis 
 ten to my poor sermons with commendable earnest 
 ness ; and I trust they may prove to them a savor 
 of life unto life. We also find the people of the 
 town neighborly and kind. Squire Elderkin has 
 proved particularly so, and is a very energetic man 
 in all matters relating to the parish. I fear greatly, 
 however, that he still lacks the intimate favor of God, 
 and has not humbled himself to entire submission. 
 Yet he is constant in his observance of nearly all the 
 outward forms of devotion and of worship ; and we hear 
 of his charities in every house we enter. Strange 
 mystery of Providence, that he should not long since 
 have been broken down by grace, and become in all 
 things a devout follower of the Master ! I hope yet to 
 see him brought a humble suppliant into the fold. 
 His wife is a most excellent person, lowly in her faith, 
 and zealous of good works. The same may also be 
 said of their worthy maiden sister, Miss Joanna Mea- 
 cham, who is, of a truth, a matron in Israel. Rachel 
 and myself frequently take tea at their house ; and she
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 41 
 
 is much interested in the little family of Elderkins, 
 who, I am glad to say, enjoy excellent advantages, 
 and such of them as are of proper age are duly taught 
 in the Shorter Westminster Catechism. 
 
 " Deacon Tourtelot, another of our neighbors, is a 
 devout man ; and Dame Tourtelot (as she is com 
 monly called) is a woman of quite extraordinary zeal 
 and capacity. Their daughter Almira is untiring in 
 attendance, and aids the services by singing treble. 
 Deacon Simmons, who lives at quite a distance from 
 us, is represented to be a man of large means and 
 earnest in the faith. He has a large farm, and also 
 a distillery, both of which are said to be managed with 
 great foresight and prudence. I trust that the re 
 ports which I hear occasionally of his penuriousness 
 are not wholly true, and that in due time his hand 
 will be opened by divine grace to a more effectual 
 showing forth of the deeds of charity. I do not allow 
 myself to entertain any of the scandals which un 
 fortunately belong more or less to every parish, and 
 which so interrupt the growth of that Christian love 
 which is the parent of all virtues ; and I trust that 
 these good people may come in time to see that it is 
 better to live together in harmony than to foment 
 those bickerings which have led so recently to the 
 dismissal of my poor brother in the Gospel. Our 
 home affairs are, I believe, managed prudently, the
 
 42 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 two servants being most excellent persons, and my 
 little Rachel a very sunbeam in the house." 
 
 And the little sunbeam writes to Mrs. Ilandby at 
 about the same date, we will say from six to eight 
 months after their entry, 
 
 " Every thing goes on delightfully, dear mamma. 
 Esther is a good creature, and helps me wonderfully. 
 You would laugh to see me fingering the raw meats 
 at the butcher s cart to choose nice pieces, which I 
 really can do now ; and it is fortunate I can, for the 
 goodman Benjamin knows positively nothing of such 
 things, and I am sure would n t be able to tell mutton 
 from beef. 
 
 " The little parlor is nicely furnished ; there is an 
 elegant hair sofa, and over the mantel is the portrait 
 of Major Johns ; and then the goodman has insisted 
 upon hanging under the looking-glass my old sampler 
 in crewel, with a gilt frame around it ; on the table 
 is the illustrated Pilgrim s Progress papa gave me, 
 and a volume of Calmet s Dictionary I have taken 
 out of the study, it is full of such beautifid pictures, 
 and Mrs. Hannah More in full gilt. The big 
 Bible you gave us, the goodman says, is too large for 
 easy handling ; so it is kept on a stand in the corner, 
 with the great fly-brush of peacock s feathers hanging 
 over it. I have put charming blue chintz curtains in 
 the spare chamber, and arranged every thing there very
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 43 
 
 nicely ; so that before a certain event, you must be sure 
 to come and take possession. 
 
 " Last night we took tea again with the Elderkins, 
 and Mrs. Elderkin was as kind to me as ever, and Miss 
 Meacham is an excellent woman, and the little ones are 
 loves of children ; and I wish you could see them. But 
 you will, you know, quite soon. Sometimes I fall to 
 crying, when I think of it all ; and then the goodman 
 comes and puts his hand on my head, and says, 
 Rachel ! Rachel, my dear ! is this your gratitude for 
 all God s mercies ? And then I jump up, and kiss his 
 grave face, and laugh through my tears. He is a dear 
 good man. This is all very foolish, I suppose ; but, 
 mamma, is n t it the way with all women ? 
 
 " Dame Tourtelot is a great storm of a creature, and 
 she comes down upon us every now and then, and ad 
 vises me about the housekeeping and the table, arid the 
 servants, and Benjamin, giving me a great many 
 good hints, I suppose ; but in such a way, and calling 
 me my child, as makes me feel good for nothing, and 
 as if I were not fit to be mistress. Miss Almira is a 
 quiet thing, and has a piano. She dresses very queerly, 
 and, I have been told, has written poetry for the Hart- 
 fort Courant, over two stars * *. She seems a good 
 creature, though, and comes to see us often. The 
 chaise is a great comfort, and our old horse Dobbins is 
 a good, sober horse. Benjamin often takes me with
 
 44 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 him in his drives to see the parishioners who live out 
 of town. He tells me about the trees and the flowers, 
 and a thousand matters I never heard of. Indeed, he 
 is a good man, and he knows a world of things." 
 
 The tender-hearted, kind soul makes her way into the 
 best graces of the people of Ashfield : the older ones 
 charmed with that blithe spirit of hers, and all the 
 younger ones mating easily with her simple, outspoken 
 naturalness. She goes freely everywhere ; she is not 
 stiffened by any ceremony, nor does she carry any 
 stately notions of the dignity of her office, some few 
 there may be who wish that she had a keener sense of 
 thf importance of her position ; she even bursts unan 
 nounced into the little glazed corner of the Tew part 
 ners, where she prattles away with the sedate Mistress 
 Tew in good, kindly fashion, winning that stiff old 
 lady s heart, and moving her to declare to all customers 
 that the parson s wife has no pride about her, and is " a 
 dear little thing, to be sure ! " 
 
 On summer evenings, Dobbins is to be seen, two or 
 three times in the week, jogging along before the 
 square-topped chaise, upon some highway that leads 
 into the town, with the parson seated within, with slack 
 ened rein, and in thoughtful mood, from which he rouses 
 himself from time to time with a testy twitch and noisy 
 chirrup that urge the poor beast into a faster gait. All 
 the while the little wife sits beside him, as if a twitter-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 45 
 
 ing sparrow had nestled itself upon the same perch with 
 some grave owl, and sat with him side by side, watching 
 for the big eyes to turn upon her, and chirping some 
 pretty response for every solemn utterance of the wise 
 old bird beside her.
 
 VIII. 
 
 the return from one of these parochial drives, 
 t long after their establishment at Ashfield, it 
 happened that the good parson and his wife were not 
 a little startled at sight of a stranger lounging familiarly 
 at their door. A little roof jutted out over the entrance 
 to the parsonage, without any apparent support, and 
 flanking the door were two plank seats, with their ends 
 toward the street, cut away into the shape of those " set 
 tles " which used to be seen in country taverns, and 
 which here seemed to invite a quiet out-of-door gossip. 
 But the grave manner of the parson had never invited 
 to a very familiar use of this loitering-place, even by 
 the most devoted of the parishioners ; and the appear 
 ance of a stranger of some two-and-thirty years, with 
 something in his manner, as much as in his dress, which 
 told of large familiarity with the world, lounging upon 
 this little porch, had amazed the passers-by, as much 
 as it now did the couple who drove up slowly in the 
 square-topped chaise. 
 
 " Who can it be, Benjamin ? " says Rachel. 
 
 " I really can t say," returns the parson.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 47 
 
 " He seems very much at home, my dear," as in 
 deed he does, with his feet stretched out upon the 
 bench, and eying curiously the approaching vehicle. 
 
 As it draws near, his observation being apparently 
 satisfactory, he walks briskly down to the gate, and 
 greets the parson with, 
 
 " My dear Johns, I m delighted to see you ! " 
 
 At this the parson knew him, and greets him, 
 
 " Maverick, upon my word ! " and offers his hand. 
 
 " And this is Mrs. Johns, I suppose," says the 
 stranger, bowing graciously. " Allow me, Madam ; " 
 and he assists her to alight. " Your husband and my 
 self were old college-friends, partners of the same bench, 
 and I ve used no ceremony, you see, in finding him 
 out." 
 
 Rachel, eying him furtively, and with a little rus 
 tic courtesy, " is glad to see any of her husband s old 
 friends." 
 
 The parson upon his feet now shakes the 
 stranger s hand heartily again. 
 
 " I am very glad to see you, Maverick ; but I thought 
 you were out of the country." 
 
 " So I have been, Johns ; am home only upon a visit, 
 and hearing by accident that you had become a clergy 
 man as I always thought you would and were set 
 tled hereabout, I determined to run down and see you 
 before sailing asrain."
 
 48 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " You must stop with me. Rachel, dear, will you 
 have the spare room made ready for Mr. Maverick ? " 
 
 " My dear Madam, don t give yourself the least 
 trouble ; I am an old traveler, and can make myself 
 quite comfortable at the tavern yonder ; but if it s al 
 together convenient, I shall be delighted to pass the 
 night under the roof of my old friend. I shall be off 
 to-morrow noon," continued he, turning to the parson, 
 " and until then I want you to put off your sermons and 
 make me one of your parishioners." 
 
 So they all went into the parsonage together. 
 
 Frank Maverick, as he had said, had shared the same 
 bench with Johns in college ; and between them, un 
 like as they were in character, there had grown up a 
 strong friendship, one of those singular intimacies 
 which bind the gravest men to the most cheery and 
 reckless. Maverick was forever running into scrapes 
 and consulting the cool head of Johns to help him out 
 of them. There was never a tutor s windows to be 
 broken in, or a callithumpian frolic, (which were in 
 vogue in those days,) but Maverick bore a hand in 
 both ; and somehow, by a marvelous address that be 
 longed to him, always managed to escape, or at most 
 to receive only some grave admonition from the aca 
 demic authorities. Johns advised with him, (giving as 
 serious advice then as he could give now,) and added 
 from time to time such assistance in his studies as a
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 49 
 
 plodding man can always lend to one of quick brain, 
 who makes no reckoning of time. 
 
 Upon a certain occasion Maverick had gone over 
 with Johns to his home, and the Major had taken an 
 immense fancy to the buoyant young fellow, so full of 
 spirits, and so charmingly frank. " If your characters 
 could only be welded together," he used to say to his 
 son, " you would both be the better for it ; he a little of 
 your gravity, and you something of his rollicking care 
 lessness." This bound Johns to his friend more closely 
 than ever. There was, moreover, great honesty and 
 conscientiousness in the lad s composition : he could 
 beat in a tutor s window for the frolic of the thing, and 
 by way of paying off some old grudge for a black mark ; 
 but there was a strong spice of humanity at the bottom 
 even of his frolics. It happened One day, that his friend 
 Ben Johns told him that one of the bats which had done 
 terrible excution on the tutor s windows had also played 
 havoc on his table, breaking a bottle of ink, and delug 
 ing some half-dozen of the tutor s books ; " and do you 
 know," said Johns, " the poor man who has made such 
 a loss is saving up all his pay here for a mother and 
 two or three fatherless children ? " 
 
 " The Deuce he is ! " said Maverick, and his hand 
 went to his pocket, which was always pretty full. " I 
 say, Johns, don t peach on me, but I think I must have 
 thrown that bat, (which Johns knew to be hardly possi-
 
 50 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 ble, for he had only come up at the end of the row,) 
 and I want you to get this money to him, to make those 
 books good again. Will you do it, old fellow ? " 
 
 This was the sort of character to win upon the qniet 
 son of the Major. " If he were only more earnest," he 
 used to say, " if he could give up his trifling, if 
 he would only buckle down to serious study, as some 
 of us do, what great things he might accomplish ! " 
 A common enough fancy among those of riper years, 
 as if all the outlets of a man s nerve-power could be 
 dammed into what shape the possessor would ! 
 
 Maverick was altogether his old self this night at the 
 parsonage. Eachel listened admiringly, as he told of 
 his travel and of his foreign experiences. He was the 
 son of a merchant of an Eastern seaport who had been 
 long engaged in the Mediterranean trade, with a branch 
 
 o o o 
 
 house at Marseilles ; and thither Frank had gone two 
 or three years after leaving college, to fill some subor 
 dinate post, and finally to work his way into a partner 
 ship, which he now held. Of course he had not lived 
 there those seven or eight years last past without his 
 visit to Paris ; and his easy, careless way of describing 
 what he had seen there in Napoleon s day the fetes, 
 the processions, the display was a kind of talk not 
 often heard in a New England village, and which took 
 a strong hold upon the imagination of Rachel. 
 
 " And to think," says the parson, " that such a peo 
 ple are wholly infidel ! "
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 51 
 
 " Well, well, I don t know," says Maverick ; " I 
 think I have seen a good deal of faith in the Popish 
 churches." 
 
 " Faith in images ; faith in the Virgin ; faith in mum 
 mery," says Johns, with a sigh. " T is always the scar 
 let woman of Babylon ! " 
 
 " I know," says Maverick, smiling, " these things are 
 not much to your taste ; but we have our Protestant 
 chapels, too." 
 
 " Not much better, I fear," says Johns. " They are 
 sadly impregnated with the Genevese Socinianism." 
 
 This was about the time that the orthodox Louis 
 Empaytaz was suffering the rebuke of the Swiss church 
 authorities for his " Considerations upon the Divinity of 
 Jesus Christ." Aside from this, all the parson s notions 
 of French religion and of French philosophy were of 
 the most aggravated degree of bitterness. That set of 
 Voltaire, which the Major, his father, had once pur 
 chased, had not been without its fruit, not legitimate, 
 indeed, but most decided. The books so cautiously put 
 out of sight like all such had caught the attention 
 of the son ; whereupon his mother had given him so 
 terrible an account of French infidelity, and such a 
 fearful story of Voltaire s dying remorse, current in 
 orthodox circles, as had caught strong hold upon 
 the mind of the boy. All Frenchmen he had learned 
 to look upon as the children of Satan, and their Ian-
 
 52 DOCTOR JOHN S.i 
 
 guage as the language of hell. With these sentiments 
 very sincerely entertained, he regarded his poor friend 
 as one living at the very door-posts of Pandemonium, 
 and hoped, by God s mercy, to throw around him even 
 now a little of the protecting grace which should keep 
 him from utter destruction. But though this was up 
 permost in his mind, it did not forbid a grateful out 
 flow of his old sympathies and expressions of interest 
 in all that concerned his friend. It seemed to him 
 that his easy refinement of manner, in such contrast 
 with the ceremonious stiffness of the New England cus 
 toms of speech, was but the sliming over of the Ser 
 pent s tongue, preparatory to a dreadful swallowing of 
 soul and body ; and the careless grace of talk, which so 
 charmed the innocent Rachel, appeared to the exact 
 ing Puritan a token of the enslavement of his old friend 
 to sense and the guile of this world. 
 
 Nine o clock was the time for evening prayers at the 
 parsonage, which under no circumstances were ever 
 omitted ; and as the little clock in the dining-room 
 chimed the hour, Mr. Johns rose to lead the way from 
 his study, where they had passed the evening. 
 
 " It s our hour for family prayer," says Johns ; " will 
 you come with us ? " 
 
 " Most certainly," says Maverick, rising. " I should 
 be sorry not to have this little scene of New England 
 life to take back with me ; it will recall home pleas 
 antly."
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 53 
 
 The servants were summoned, and the parson read 
 in his wonted way a chapter, not selected, but desig 
 nated by the old book-mark, which was carried forward 
 from day to day throughout the sacred volume. In his 
 prayer the parson asked specially for Divine Grace to 
 overshadow all those journeying from their homes, 
 to protect them, to keep alive in their hearts the 
 teachings of their youth, to shield them from the in 
 sidious influences of sin and of the world, and to bring 
 them in God s own good time into the fold of the elect. 
 
 Shortly after prayers Rachel retired for the night. 
 The parson and his old friend talked for an hour or 
 more in the study, but always as men whose thoughts 
 were unlike : Maverick rilled and exuberant with the 
 prospects of this life ; and the parson, by a settled pur 
 pose, which seemed like instinct, making all his obser 
 vations bear upon futurity. 
 
 " The poor man has grown very narrow," thought 
 Maverick. 
 
 And yet Johns entered with friendly interest into the 
 schemes of his companion. 
 
 " So you count upon spending your life there ? " said 
 the parson. 
 
 " It is quite probable," said Maverick. " I am doing 
 exceedingly well ; the climate, bating some harsh winds 
 in winter, is enjoyable. Why should n t I ? " 
 
 " It s a question to put to your conscience," says
 
 54 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 Johns, "not to me. A man can but do his duty, as 
 well there as here perhaps. A little graft of New 
 Englandism may possibly work good. Do you mean to 
 marry in France, Maverick ? " 
 
 A shade passed over the face of his friend ; but re 
 covering himself, with a little musical laugh, he said, 
 
 " I really can t say : there are very charming women 
 there, Johns." 
 
 " I am afraid so," uttered the parson, dryly. 
 
 " By the way," said Maverick, " you will excuse 
 me, but you will be having a family by and by," 
 at which the parson fairly blushed, " you must let me 
 send over some little gift for your first boy ; it sha n t 
 be one that will harm him, though it comes from our 
 heathen side of the world." 
 
 " There s a gift you might bestow, Maverick, that I 
 should value beyond price." 
 
 " Pray what is it ? " 
 
 " Live such a life, my friend, that I could say to any 
 boy of mine, Follow the example of that man. " 
 
 " Ah," said Maverick, with his easy, infectious laugh, 
 " that s more than I can promise. To tell the truth, 
 Johns, I don t believe I could by any possibility fall 
 into the prim, stiff ways which make a man commenda 
 ble hereabout. Even if I were religiously disposed, or 
 should ever think of adopting your profession, I fancy 
 I should take to the gown and liturgy, as giving a little
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 55 
 
 freer movement to my taste. You don t like to think 
 of that, I 11 wager." 
 
 " You might do worse things," said the parson, sadly. 
 
 " I know I might," said Maverick, thoughtfully ; " I 
 greatly fear I shall. Yet it s not altogether a bad life 
 I m looking forward to, Johns : we 11 say ten or fifteen 
 more years of business on the other side ; marrying 
 sometime in the interval, certainly not until I have a 
 good revenue ; then, possibly, I may come over among 
 you again, establish a pretty home in the neighborhood 
 of one of your towns ; look after a girl and boy or two, 
 who may have come into the family ; get the title of 
 Squire ; give fairly to the missionary societies ; take 
 my place in a good big family-pew ; dabble in politics, 
 perhaps, so that people shall dub me Honorable : 
 is n t that a fair show, Johns ? " 
 
 There was a thief in the candle, which the parson 
 removed with the snuffers. 
 
 " As for yourself," continued Maverick, " they 11 give 
 you the title of Doctor after a few years ! " - The par 
 son raised his hand, as if to put away the thought. " I 
 know," continued his friend, " you don t seek worldly 
 honors : but they will drift upon you ; they 11 all love 
 you hereabout, in spite of your seriousness (the parson 
 smiled) ; you 11 have your house full of children ; you 11 
 be putting a wing here and a wing there ; and when I 
 come back, twenty years hence, if I live, I shall find
 
 56 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 you comfortably gray, and your pretty wife in spectacles, 
 knitting mittens for the youngest boy, and the oldest 
 at college, and your girls grown into tall village belles ; 
 but, Johns, don t, I beg, be too strict with them ; 
 you can t make a merry young creature the better by 
 insisting upon seriousness ; you can t crowd goodness 
 into a body by pounding upon it. What are you think 
 ing of, Johns ? " 
 
 The parson was sitting with his eyes bent upon a 
 certain figure in the green and red Scotch carpet. 
 
 " Thinking, Maverick, that in twenty years time, if 
 alive, we may be less fit for heaven than we are to- 
 day." 
 
 There was a pitying kindliness in the tone of the 
 minister, as he said this, which touched Maverick. 
 
 " There s no doubt on your score, Johns, God bless 
 you ! But we must paddle our own boats ; I dare say 
 you 11 come out a long way before me ; you always did, 
 you know. Every man to his path." 
 
 " There s but one" said Johns, solemnly, " that lead- 
 eth to eternal rest." 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Maverick, with a gay smile upon 
 his face, which the parson remembered long after, " we 
 are the goats ; but you must have a little pity on us, for 
 all that." 
 
 With these words they parted for the night 
 
 Next morning, before the minister was astir, Maver-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 57 
 
 ick was strolling about the garden and the village street, 
 and at breakfast appeared with a little bunch of violets 
 he had gathered from Rachel s flower-patch, and laid 
 them by her plate. (It was a graceful attention, that 
 not even the clergyman had ever paid to her.) And he 
 further delighted her with a description of some floral 
 fete which he had witnessed at Marseilles, in the year 
 of the Restoration. 
 
 " They welcomed their old masters, then ? " said the 
 parson. 
 
 " Perhaps so ; one can never say. The French ex 
 press their joy with flowers, and they bury their grief 
 with flowers. I like them for it ; I think there s a ripe 
 philosophy in it." 
 
 " A heathen philosophy," said the minister. 
 
 At noon Maverick left upon the old swaying stage 
 coach, looking out, as he passed, upon the parsonage, 
 with its quaintly panelled door, and its diamond lights, 
 of which he long kept the image in his mind. That 
 brazen knocker he seemed to hear in later years, beat 
 ing, beating as if his brain lay under it. 
 
 " I think Mr. Frank Maverick is a most charming 
 man," said the pretty Mrs. Johns to her husband. 
 
 " He is, Rachel, and generous and open-hearted, 
 and yet, in the sight of Heaven, I fear, a miserable sin 
 ner." 
 
 " But, Benjamin, my dear, we are all sinners." 
 
 All, all, Rachel, God help us ! "
 
 IX. 
 
 TN December of the year 1820 came about a certain 
 -* event of which hint has been already given by the 
 party chiefly concerned ; and Mrs. Johns presented her 
 husband with a fine boy, who was in due time chris 
 tened Reuben. 
 
 Mrs. Handby was present at this eventful period, oc 
 cupying the guest-chamber, and delighting in all the 
 little adornments that had been prepared by the loving 
 hands of her daughter ; and upon the following Sab 
 bath, Mr. Johns, for the first time since his entrance 
 upon the pastoral duties of Ashfield, ventured to repeat 
 an old sermon. Dame Tourtelot had been present on 
 the momentous occasion, with such a tempest of sug 
 gestions in regard to the wrappings and feeding of the 
 new-comer, that the poor mother had quietly begged 
 the good clergyman to decoy her, on her next visit, into 
 his study. This he did, and succeeded in fastening her 
 with a discussion upon the import of the word baptize, 
 in which he was in a fair way of being carried by storm, 
 if he had not retreated under cover of his Greek 
 Lexicon.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 59 
 
 Mrs. Elderkin had been zealous in neighborly offices, 
 and had brought, in addition to a great basket of needed 
 appliances, a silver porringer, which, with wonderful 
 foresight, had been ordered from a Hartford jeweller 
 in advance. The out-of-door man, Larkin, took a well- 
 meaning pride in this accession to the family, walk 
 ing up and down the street with a broad grin upon his 
 face. He also became the bearer, in behalf of the 
 Tew partners, of a certain artful contrivance of tin 
 ware for the speedy stewing of pap, which, considering 
 that the donors were childless people, was esteemed a 
 very great mark of respect for the minister. 
 
 Would it be strange, if the father felt a new ambition 
 stirring in him, as he listened from his study to that 
 cry of a child in the house ? He does feel it, and 
 struggles against it. Are not all his flock his spiritual 
 children ? and is he not appointed of Heaven to lead 
 them toward the rest which is promised ? Should that 
 babe be more to him than a hundred others who are 
 struggling through life s snares wearily ? It may touch 
 him, indeed, cruelly to think it; but is not the soul 
 of the most worthless person of his parish as large in 
 the eye of the Master as this of his first-born ? Shall 
 these human ties supplant the spiritual ones by which 
 we are all coheirs of eternal death or of eternal life ? 
 And in this way the minister schools himself against 
 too demonstrative a joy or love, and prays God silently 
 that His gift may not be a temptation.
 
 60 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 For all this, however, there is many a walk which 
 would have been taken of old under the orchard trees 
 now transferred to the chamber, where he paces back 
 and forth with the babe in his arms, soothing its outcry, 
 as he thinks out his discourse for the following Sab 
 bath. 
 
 In due time Mrs. Handby returns to her home. The 
 little child pushes through its first month of venture 
 some encounter with the rough world it has entered 
 upon bravely; and the household is restored to its uni 
 form placidity. The affairs of the parish follow their 
 accustomed course. From time to time there are meet 
 ings of the " Consociation," or other ministerial assem 
 blages, in the town, when the parsonage is overflow- 
 ing, and Rachel, with a simple grace, is compelled to 
 do the honors to a corps of the Congregational brother 
 hood. As for the parson, he was like a child in all 
 household matters. Over and over he would invite his 
 brethren flocking in from the neighboring villages to 
 pass the night with him, when Rachel would decoy him 
 into a corner, and declare, with a most pitiable look of 
 distress, that not a bed was unoccupied in the house. 
 Whereupon the gooclman would quietly take his hat, 
 and trudge away to Squire Elderkin s, or, on rarer oc 
 casions to Deacon Tourtelot s, and ask the favor of 
 lodging with them one of his clerical brethren. 
 
 At other times, before some such occasion of clerical
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 61 
 
 entertainment, the little housewife, supported by Esther 
 with broom and a great array of mops, would wait upon 
 the parson in his study and order him away to his walk 
 in the orchard, an order which the poor man never 
 ventured to resist ; but, taking perhaps a pocket volume 
 of Doddridge, or of Cowper, the only poet he habitu 
 ally read, he would sally out with hat and cane, 
 this latter a gift of an admiring parishioner, which it 
 pleased Rachel he should use, and which she always 
 brought to him at such times, with a winning, mischiev 
 ous look of half-entreaty and half-command that it was 
 not in his heart to resist, and which on rare occasions 
 (that were subject of self-accusation afterward) pro 
 voked him to an answering kiss. At which Rachel : 
 
 " Now go and leave us, please ; there s a good man ! 
 And mind," (shaking her forefinger at him,) "dinner at 
 half past twelve : Larkin will blow the shell." 
 
 The parson, as he paced back and forth under the 
 apple-trees, out of sight, and feeling the need of more 
 vigorous exercise than his usual meditative gait af 
 forded, would on occasions brandish his cane and as 
 sume a military air and stride, (he remembered the 
 Major s only too well,) getting in a glow with the un 
 usual movement, and in the heat of it thanking God 
 for all the blessings that had befallen him : a pleasant 
 home ; a loving wife ; a little boy to bear the name, in 
 which, with all his spiritual tendencies, he yet took a
 
 62 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 very human pride ; health, and he whisked his cane 
 as vigorously as ever the Major had done his cumbrous 
 sword, the world s comforts ; a congregation that met 
 him kindly, that listened kindly. Was he not leading 
 them in the path of salvation, and rejoicing in the lead 
 ership ? 
 
 And then, to himself, "Be careful, careful, Benja 
 min Johns, that you take not too great a pride in this 
 work and home of yours. You are but an instrument in 
 greater hands ; He doeth with you what seemeth Him 
 best. Let not the enticements of the world be too 
 near your thought." In this way it was that the minis 
 ter pruned clown all the shoots of his natural affections, 
 lest they might prove a decoy to him, and wrapped him 
 self ever more closely in the rigors of his chosen the 
 ology. 
 
 As the boy Reuben grows, and gains a firmer footing, 
 he sometimes totters beside the clergyman in these or 
 chard walks, clinging blindly to his hand, and lifting his 
 uncertain feet with great effort over the interrupting 
 tufts of grass, unheeded by the minister, who is ponder 
 ing some late editorial of the " Boston Recorder." But 
 far oftener the boy is with the mother, burying his face 
 in that dear lap of hers, lifting the wet face to have 
 tears kissed away and forgotten. And as he thrives and 
 takes the strength of three or four years, he walks beside 
 her under the trees of the village street, clad in such
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 63 
 
 humble finery as the Handby grandparents may have 
 bestowed ; and he happens oftenest, on these strolls with 
 Rachel, into the hospitable home of the Elderkins, 
 where there are little ones to romp with the boy. Most 
 noticeable of all, just now, one Philip Elderkin, (of 
 whom more will have to be said as this story pro 
 gresses,) only a year the senior of Reuben, but of far 
 stouter frame, who looks admiringly on the minister s 
 child, and as he grows warm in play frights him with 
 some show of threat, which makes the little Reuben run 
 for cover to the arms of Rachel. Whereat the mother 
 kisses him into boldness, and tells him that Phil is a 
 good boy and means no harm to him. 
 
 Often, too, in the square-topped chaise, the child is 
 seated on a little stool between the parson and his wife, 
 as they drive away upon their visits to the outskirts of 
 the parish, puzzling them with those strange questions 
 which come from a boy just exploring his way into the 
 world of talk. 
 
 " Benjamin," says Rachel, as they were nearing home 
 upon one of these drives, " Reuben is quite a large boy 
 now, you know ; have you ever written to your friend, 
 Mr. Maverick ? You remember he promised a gift for 
 him." 
 
 "Never," said the minister, whose goodness rarely 
 took the shape of letter- writing, least of all where 
 the task would seem to remind of a promised favor.
 
 64 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " You ve not forgotten it ? You ve not forgotten Mr. 
 Maverick? " 
 
 " Not forgotten, Rachel, not forgotten to pray for 
 him." 
 
 " I would write, Benjamin ; it might be something 
 that would be of service to Reuben. Please don t for 
 get it, Benjamin." 
 
 And the minister promised.
 
 X. 
 
 TN the autumn of 1824, the minister of Ashfield 
 being still in good favor with nearly all his parish 
 ioners, and his wife Rachel being still greatly beloved, 
 a rumor ran through the town, one day, that there 
 was serious illness at the parsonage, the Doctor s horse 
 and saddle-bags being observed in waiting at the front 
 gate for two hours together. Following close upon this, 
 the Tew partners reported having received un 
 doubted information from Larkin, who still kept in his 
 old service that a daughter was born to the minister, 
 but so feeble that there were grave doubts if the young 
 Rachel could survive. The report was well founded ; 
 and after three or four days of desperate struggle with 
 life, the poor child dropped away. Thus death came 
 into the parsonage with so faint and shadowy a tread, 
 it hardly startled one. The babe had been christened 
 in the midst of its short struggle, and in this the father 
 found such comfort as he could ; yet reckoning the poor, 
 fluttering little soul as a sinner in Adam, through whom 
 all men fell, he confided it with a great sigh to God. 
 It would have been well, if his grief had rested there. 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 66 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 But two days thereafter there was a rumor on the 
 village street, flying like the wind, as such rumors 
 do, from house to house, " The minister s wife is 
 dead ! " 
 
 "I want to know!" said Mrs. Tew, lifting herself 
 from her task of assorting the mail, and removing her 
 spectacles in nervous haste. " Do tell ! It a n t possi 
 ble ! Miss Johns dead ? " 
 
 " Yes," says Larkin, " as true as I live, she s dead ; " 
 and his voice broke as he said it, the kind little 
 woman had so won upon him. 
 
 Squire Elderkin, like a good Christian, came hurrying 
 to the parsonage to know what this strange report could 
 mean. The study was unoccupied. With the famil 
 iarity of an old friend he made his way up the cramped 
 stairs. The chamber-door was flung wide open : there 
 was no reason why the whole parish might not come in. 
 The nurse, sobbing in a corner, was swaying back and 
 forth, her hands folded across her lap. Reuben, cling 
 ing to the coverlet, was feeling his way along the bed, if 
 by chance his mother s hand might catch hold upon his ; 
 and the minister standing with a chair before him, his 
 eyes turned to heaven (the same calm attitude which he 
 took at his evening prayer-meeting), was entreating God 
 to " be over his house, to strengthen him, to pour down 
 his Spirit on him, to bind up the bruised hearts, to 
 spare, spare "
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 67 
 
 Even the stout Squire Elderkin withdraws outside the 
 door, that he may the better conceal his emotion. 
 
 The death happened on a Friday. The Squire, after 
 a few faltering expressions of sympathy, asked regard 
 ing the burial. " Should it not be on Sunday ? 
 
 " Not on Sunday," said Mr. Johns ; " God help rne, 
 Squire, but this is not a work of necessity or mercy. 
 Let it be on Monday." 
 
 " On Monday, then," said Elderkin, " and let me 
 take the arrangement of it all off your thought ; and 
 we will provide some one to preach for you on the 
 Sabbath." 
 
 " No, Mr. Elderkin, no ; I am always myself in the 
 pulpit. I shall find courage there." 
 
 And he did. A stranger would not have suspected 
 that the preacher s wife lay dead at home ; the same 
 unction and earnestness that had always characterized 
 him ; the same unyielding rigidity of doctrine : " Except 
 ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish" 
 
 Once only it was in the reading of the last hymn 
 in the afternoon service his voice broke, and he sat 
 down half through. But as the song rose under the 
 old roof of the meeting-house, his courage rose with 
 it. He seemed ashamed of the transitory weakness. 
 What right had he to bring private griefs to such a 
 place ? What right had the leader to faint, when the 
 army were pressing forward to the triumph God had
 
 68 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 promised to the faithful ? So it was in a kind of 
 ecstasy that he rose, and joined with a firm, loud voice 
 in the final doxology. 
 
 One or two of the good old ladies, with a sad mis 
 conception of the force that was in him, and of the 
 divine aid which seemed vouchsafed to him during 
 the service, came to him, as he passed out, to give 
 him greeting and a word of condolence. For that 
 time only he passed them by, as if they had been 
 wooden images. His spirit had been strained to its 
 uttermost, and would bear no more. He made his 
 way home with an ungainly, swift gait, home to the 
 dear bedside, down upon his knees, struggling 
 with his weakness, praying. 
 
 At the tea-hour Esther knocked ; but in vain. An 
 hour after, his boy came, came at the old woman s 
 suggestion, (who had now the care of him,) and knelt 
 by his side. 
 
 " Reuben, my boy ! " 
 " She s in heaven, is n t she, father ? " 
 u God only knows, my son. He hath mercy on 
 whom He will have mercy." 
 
 Small as he was, the boy flushed at this : 
 " I think it s a bad God, if she is n t in heaven." 
 " Nay, Reuben, little one, blaspheme not : His ways 
 are not as our ways. Kiss her now, and we will sit 
 down to our supper."
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS, 69 
 
 And so they passed out together to their lonely 
 repast. It had been a cheerful meal in days gone, 
 this Sunday s supper. For the dinner, owing to the 
 scruples of the parson, was but a cold lunch always ; 
 and in the excited state in which the preacher found 
 himself between services, there was little of speech ; 
 even Reuben s prattle, if he ventured upon it, caught 
 a quick " Hist ! " from the mamma. But with the 
 return of Esther from the afternoon Bible-class, there 
 was a big fire lighted in the kitchen, and some warm 
 dishes served, such as diffused an appetizing odor 
 through the house. The clergyman, too, wore an air 
 of relief, having preached his two sermons, and show 
 ing a capital appetite, like most men who have ac 
 quitted themselves of a fatiguing duty. Besides which, 
 the parson guarded that old New England custom 
 of beginning his Sabbath at sundown on Saturday, 
 so that, by the time the supper of Sunday was fairly 
 over, Reuben could be counting it no sin, if he should 
 steal a run into the orchard. Nay, it is quite proba 
 ble that the poor little woman who was dead had al 
 ways welcomed cheerily the opened door of Sunday 
 evening, and the relaxing gravity, as night fell, of her 
 husband s starched look. 
 
 What wonder, if she had loved, even as much as 
 the congregational singing, the music of the birds at 
 the dusk of a summer s day ? It was hard measure
 
 70 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 which many of the old divines meted out, in exclud 
 ing from their ideas of worship all alliance with the 
 charms of Nature, or indeed with any beauties save 
 those which were purely spiritual. It is certain that 
 the poor woman had enjoyed immensely those Sab 
 bath-evening strolls through the garden and orchard, 
 hand in hand with Reuben and the minister, with 
 such keen and exhilarating sense of God s goodness, 
 of trust in Him, of hope, as was not invariably wak 
 ened by the sermons of her Benjamin. 
 
 On the evening of which we speak, the father and 
 son walked down the orchard alone. The birds sang 
 their merriest as day closed in ; and as they turned 
 upon their walk, and the good man saw through the 
 vista of garden and orchard a bright light flitting 
 across an upper window of his house, the mad hope 
 flashed upon him for an instant (such baseless fancies 
 will sometimes possess the calmest minds) that she 
 had waked, his Rachel, and was there to meet 
 him. The next moment the light and the hope were 
 gone. His fingers gave such a convulsive grip iipon 
 the hand of his little boy that Reuben cried out with 
 pain, " Papa, papa, you hurt me ! " 
 
 The parson bent down and kissed him.
 
 XL 
 
 Tf^HERE were scores of people in Ashfield who 
 -*- would have been delighted to speak consolation 
 to the bereaved clergyman ; but he was not a man to 
 be approached easily with the ordinary phrases of 
 sympathy. He bore himself too sternly under his 
 grief. What, indeed, can be said in the face of afflic 
 tion, where the manner of the sufferer seems to say, 
 " God has done it, and God does all things well " ? 
 Ordinary human sympathy falls below such a stand 
 point, and is wasted in the utterance. 
 
 Yet there are those who delight in breaking in upon 
 the serene dignity which this condition of mind im 
 plies with a noisy proffer of consolation, and an aggra 
 vating rehearsal of the occasion for it ; as if such com 
 forters entertained a certain jealousy of the serenity 
 they do not comprehend, and were determined to test 
 its sufficiency. Dame Tourtelot was eminently such 
 a person. 
 
 " It s a dreadful blow to ye, Mr. Johns," said she ; 
 " I know it is. Almiry is a most as much took down 
 by it as you are. She was such a lovely woman,
 
 72 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 she says ; and the poor, dear little boy, won t you 
 let him come and pass a day or two with us ? Almiry 
 is very fond of children." 
 
 "Later, later, my good woman," said the parson. 
 " I can t spare the boy now ; the house is too empty." 
 
 " O Mr. Johns, the poor lonely thing ! " (And 
 she says this, with her hands in black mits, clasped 
 together.) "It s a bitter blow! As I was a-sayin 
 to the Deacon, Such a lovely young woman, and such 
 a good comfortable home, and she, poor thing, enjoyin 
 it so much ! I do hope you 11 bear up under it, 
 Mr. Johns." 
 
 " By God s help, I will, my good woman." 
 
 Dame Tourtelot was disappointed to find the par 
 son wincing so little as he did under her stimulative 
 sympathy. On returning home, she opened her views 
 to the Deacon in this style : 
 
 " Tourtelot, the parson is not so much broke down 
 by this as we ve been thinkin ; he was as cool, when 
 I spoke to him to-day, as any man I ever see in my 
 life. The truth is, she was a flighty young person, 
 noways equal to the parson. I ve been a-suspectin 
 it, this long while ; she never, in my opinion, took a 
 real hard hold upon him. But, Tourtelot, you should 
 go and see Mr. Johns ; and I hope you 11 talk con 
 solingly and Scripterally to him. It s your duty." 
 
 And hereupon she shifted the needles in her knit-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS, 73 
 
 ting, and, smoothing down the big blue stocking-leg 
 over her knee, cast a glance at the Deacon which sig 
 nified command. The dame was thoroughly mistress 
 in her own household, as well as in the households 
 of not a few of her neighbors. Long before, the 
 meek, mild-mannered little man who was her hus 
 band had by her active and resolute negotiation been 
 made a deacon of the parish, for which office he 
 was not indeed ill fitted, being religiously disposed, 
 strict in his observance of all duties, and well-grounded 
 in the Larger Catechism. He had, moreover, certain 
 secular endowments which were even more marked, 
 among them, a wonderful instinct at a bargain, 
 which had been polished by Dame Tourtelot s su 
 perior address to a wonderful degree of sharpness ; 
 and by reason of this the less respectful of the towns 
 people were accustomed to say, " The Deacon is very 
 small at home, but great in a trade." Not that the 
 Deacon could by any means be called an avaricious 
 or miserly man : he had always his old Spanish milled 
 quarter ready for the contribution-box upon Collec 
 tion-Sundays ; and no man in the parish brought a 
 heavier turkey to the parson s larder on donation- 
 days ; but he could no more resist the sharpening of 
 a bargain than he could resist a command of his wife. 
 He talked of a good trade to the old heads up and 
 down the village street as a lad talks of a new toy.
 
 74 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " Squire," he would say, addressing a neighbor on 
 the Common, " what do you s pose I paid for that 
 brindle ye rlin o mine ? Give us a guess." 
 
 " Waal, Deacon, I guess you paid about ten dollars." 
 
 " Only eight ! " the Deacon would say, with a smile 
 that was fairly luminous, " and a pootty likely crit 
 ter I call it for eight dollars." 
 
 " Five hogs this year," (in this way the Deacon was 
 used to soliloquize,) "I hope to make em three 
 hundred apiece. The price works up about Christ 
 mas ; Deacon Simmons has sold his n at five, dis 
 tillery-pork ; that s sleezy, wastes in bilin ; folks know 
 it : mine, bein corn-fed, ought to bring half a cent 
 more, and say, for Christmas, six ; that 11 give a 
 gain of a cent, on five hogs, at three hundred 
 apiece, will be fifteen dollars. That 11 pay half my 
 pew-rent, and leave somethin over for Ahniry, who s 
 always wantin fresh ribbons about New- Year s." 
 
 The Deacon cherished a strong dread of formal 
 visits to the parsonage ; first, because it involved his 
 Sunday toilet, in which he was never easy, except at 
 conference or in his pew at the meeting-house ; and 
 next, because he counted it necessary on such oc 
 casions to give a Scriptural garnish to his talk, in 
 which attempt he almost always, under the authorita 
 tive look of the parson, blundered into difficulty. Yet 
 Tourtelot, in obedience to his wife s suggestion, and
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 75 
 
 primed with a text from Matthew, undertook the visit 
 of condolence, and, being a really kind-hearted man, 
 bore himself well in it. Over and over the good par 
 son shook his hand in thanks. 
 
 " It 11 all be right," says the Deacon. " Blessed 
 are the mourners, is the Scripteral language, for they 
 shall inherit the earth. " 
 
 " No, not that, Deacon," says the minister, to whom 
 a misquotation was like a wound in the flesh ; " the 
 last thing I want is to inherit the earth. They shall 
 be comforted, that s the promise, Deacon, and I 
 count on it." 
 
 It was mortifying to his visitor to be caught nap 
 ping on so familiar a text ; the parson saw it, and 
 spoke consolingly. But if not strong in texts, the Dea 
 con knew what his strong points were ; so, before leav 
 ing, he invites a little off-hand discussion of more 
 familiar topics. 
 
 " Pootty tight spell o weather we ve been havin , 
 Parson." 
 
 " Rather cool, certainly," says the unsuspecting 
 clergyman. 
 
 " Got all your winter s stock o wood in yit ? " 
 
 " No, I have n t," says the parson. 
 
 " Waiil, Mr. Johns, I ve got a lot of pastur -hickory 
 cut and corded, that s well seared over now, and 
 if you d like some of it, I can let you have it very 
 reasonable indeed."
 
 76 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 The sympathy of the Elderkins, if less formal, was 
 none the less hearty. The Squire had been largely 
 instrumental in securing the settlement of Mr. Johns, 
 and had been a political friend of his father s. In 
 early life he had been engaged in the West India 
 trade from the neighboring port of Middletown ; and 
 on one or two occasions he had himself made the 
 voyage to Porto Rico, taking out a cargo of horses, 
 and bringing back sugar, molasses, and rum. But 
 it was remarked approvingly in the bar-room of the 
 Eagle Tavern that this foreign travel had not made 
 the Squire proud, nor yet the moderate fortune 
 which he had secured by the business, in which he 
 was still understood to bear an interest. His pater 
 nal home in Ashfield he had fitted up some years 
 before with balustrade and other architectural adorn 
 ments, which, it was averred by the learned in those 
 matters, were copied from certain palatial residences 
 in the "West Indies. 
 
 The Squire united eminently in himself all those 
 qualities which a Connecticut observer of those times 
 expressed by the words, " right down smart man." Not 
 a turnpike enterprise could be started in that quarter 
 of the State, but the Squire was enlisted, and as share 
 holder or director contributed to its execution. A 
 clear-headed, kindly, energetic man, never idle, prone 
 rather to do needless things than to do nothing ; an ar-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 77 
 
 dent disciple of the Jeffersonian school, and in this com 
 bating- many of those who relied most upon his sagacity 
 in matters of business ; a man, in short, about whom it 
 was always asked, in regard to any question of town or 
 State policy, " What does the Squire think ? " or " How 
 does the Squire mean to vote ? " And the Squire s 
 opinion was sure to be a round, hearty one, which he 
 came by honestly, and about which one who thought 
 differently might safely rally his columns of attack. 
 The opinion of Giles Elderkin was not inquired into for 
 the sake of a tame following-after, that was not the 
 Connecticut mode, but for the sake of discussing and 
 toying with it : very much as a sly old grimalkin toys 
 with a mouse, now seeming to entertain it kindly, 
 then giving it a run, then leaping after it, crunching a 
 limb of it, bearing it off into some private corner, giv 
 ing it a new escape, swallowing it perhaps at last, and 
 appropriating it by long process of digestion. And 
 even then, the shrewd Connecticut man, if accused of 
 modulating his own opinions after those of the Squire, 
 would say, " No, I allers thought so." 
 
 Such a man as Giles Elderkin is of course ready with 
 a hearty, outspoken word of cheer for his minister. 
 Nay, the very religion of the Squire, which the parson 
 had looked upon as somewhat discursive and human, 
 giving too large a place to good works, was decisive 
 and to the point in the present emergency.
 
 78 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " It s God s doing," said he ; " we must take the cup 
 He gives us. For the best, is n t it, Parson ? " 
 
 " I do, Squire. Thank God, I can." 
 
 There was good Mrs. Elderkin who made up by 
 her devotion to the special tenets of the clergyman 
 many of the shortcomings of the Squire insisted 
 upon sending for the poor boy Reuben, that he might 
 forget his grief in her kindness, and in frolic with the 
 Elderkins through that famous garden, with its huge 
 hedges of box, such a garden as was certainly not to 
 be matched elsewhere in Ashfield. The same good 
 woman, too, sends down a wagon-load of substantial 
 things from her larder, for the present relief of the 
 stricken household ; to which the Squire has added a 
 little round jug of choice Santa Cruz rum, remember 
 ing the long watches of the parson. This may shock 
 us now ; and yet it is to be feared that in our day the sin 
 of hypocrisy is to be added to the sin of indulgence : 
 the old people nestled under no cover of liver specifics 
 or bitters. Reform has made a grand march indeed ; 
 but the Devil, with his square bottles and Scheidam 
 schnapps, has kept a pretty even pace with it.
 
 XII. 
 
 E boy Reuben, in those first weeks after his loss, 
 wandered about as if in a maze, wondering at the 
 great blank that death had made ; or, warming himself 
 at some out-door sport, he rushed in with a pleasant 
 forgetfulness, shouting, up the stairs, to the ac 
 customed door, and bursts in upon the cold chamber, so 
 long closed, where the bitter knowledge comes upon 
 him fresh once more. Esther, good soul that she is 
 has heard his clatter upon the floor, his bound at the 
 old latch, and, fancying what it may mean, has come up 
 in time to soothe him and bear him off with her. The 
 parson, forging some sermon for the next Sabbath, in 
 the room at the foot of the stairs, hears, may be, the 
 stifled sobbing of the boy, as the good Esther half leads 
 and half drags him down, and opens his door upon 
 them. 
 
 " What now, Esther ? Has Reuben caught a fall ? " 
 " No, sir, no fall ; he s not harmed, sir. It s only 
 the old room, you know, sir, and he quite forgot him 
 self." 
 
 " Poor boy ! Will he come with me, Esther ? "
 
 80 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " No, Mr. Johns. I 11 find something 11 amuse him ; 
 hey, Ruby?" 
 
 And the parson goes back to his desk, where he for 
 gets himself in the glow of that great work of his. He 
 has been taught, as never before, that " all flesh is 
 grass." He accepts his loss as a punishment for having 
 thought too much and fondly of the blessings of this 
 life ; henceforth the flesh and its affections shall be 
 mortified in him. He has transferred his bed to a little 
 chamber which opens from his study in the rear, and 
 which is at the end of the long dining-room, where 
 every morning and evening the prayers are said, as 
 before. The parishioners see a light burning in the 
 window of his study far into the night. 
 
 For a time his sermons are more emotional than be 
 fore. Oftener than in the earlier days of his settlement 
 he indulges in a forecast of those courts toward which 
 he would conduct his people, and which a merciful God 
 has provided for those who trust in Him ; and there is 
 a coloring in these pictures which his sermons never 
 showed in the years gone. 
 
 " We ask ourselves," said he, " my brethren, if we 
 shall knowingly meet there where we trust His grace 
 may give us entrance those from whom you and I 
 have parted ; whether a fond and joyous welcome shall 
 greet us, not alone from Him whom to love is life, but 
 from those dear ones who seem to our poor senses to be
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 81 
 
 resting under the sod yonder. Sometimes I believe 
 that by God s great goodness," (and here he looked, not 
 at his people, but above, and kept his eye fixed there) 
 "I believe that we shall ; that His great love shall 
 so delight in making complete our happiness, even by 
 such little memorials of our earthly affections (which 
 must seem like waifs of thistle-down beside the great 
 harvest of His abounding grace) ; that all the dear 
 faces of those written in the Golden Book shall beam a 
 welcome, all the more bounteous because reflecting His 
 joy who has died to save." 
 
 And the listeners whispered each other as he paused, 
 " He thinks of Rachel." 
 
 With his eyes still fixed above, he goes on, 
 
 " Sometimes I think thus ; but oflener I ask myself, 
 Of what value shall human ties be, or their memories, 
 in His august presence whom to look upon is life ? 
 What room shall there be for other affections, what 
 room for other memories, than those of " the Lamb that 
 was slain " ? 
 
 " Nay, my brethren," (and here he turns his eyes 
 upon them again,) " we do know in our hearts that 
 many whom we have loved fondly infants, fathers, 
 mothers, wives, may be shall never, never sit with 
 the elect in Paradise ; and shall we remember these 
 in heaven, going away to dwell with the Devil and his 
 angels ? Shall we be tortured with the knowledge that
 
 82 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 some poor babe we looked upon only for an hour is 
 wearing out ages of suffering ? No, you may say, for 
 we shall be possessed in that day of such sense of the 
 ineffable justice of God, and of His judgments, that all 
 shall seem right. Yet, my brethren, if this sense of 
 His supreme justice shall overrule all the old longings 
 of our hearts, even to the suppression of the dearest 
 ties of earth, where they conflict with His ordained pur 
 pose, will they not also overrule all the longings in re 
 spect of friends who are among the elect, in such sort 
 that the man we counted our enemy, the man we 
 avoided on earth, if so be he have an inheritance in 
 heaven, shall be met with the same yearning of the heart 
 as if he were our brother ? Does this sound harshly, 
 my brethren ? Ah, let us beware, let us beware how 
 we entertain any opinions of that future condition of 
 holiness and of joy promised to the elect, which are 
 dependent upon these gross attachments of earth, which 
 are colored by our short-sighted views, which are not 
 in every iota accordant with the universal love of Him 
 who is our Master ! " 
 
 " This man lives above the world," said the people ; 
 and if some of them did not give very cordial assent to 
 these latter views, they smothered their dissent by a 
 lofty expression of admiration ; they felt it a duty to 
 give them open acceptance, to venerate the speaker the 
 more by reason of their utterance. And yet their lim-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 83 
 
 ited acceptance diffused a certain chill, very likely, over 
 their religious meditations. But it was a chill which 
 unfortunately they counted it good to entertain, a 
 rigor of faith that must needs be borne. It is doubtful, 
 indeed, if they did not make a merit of their placid in 
 tellectual admission of such beliefs as most violated the 
 natural sensibilities of the heart. They were so sure 
 that affectionate instincts were by nature wrong in their 
 tendencies, so eager to cumulate evidences of the origi 
 nal depravity, that, when their parson propounded a 
 theory that gave a shock to their natural affections, they 
 submitted with a kind of heroic pride, however much 
 their hearts might make silent protest, and the grounds 
 of such a protest they felt a cringing unwillingness to 
 investigate. There was a determined shackling of all 
 the passional nature. What wonder that religion took a 
 harsh aspect ? As if mere intellectual adhesion to the 
 ological formulas were to pave our way to a knowledge 
 of the Infinite ! as if our sensibilities were to be out 
 raged in the march to heaven ! as if all the emo 
 tional nature were to be clipped away by the shears of 
 the doctors, leaving only the metaphysic ghost of a soul 
 to enter upon the joys of Paradise ! 
 
 Within eight months after his loss, Mr. Johns thought 
 of Rachel only as a gift that God had bestowed to try 
 him, and had taken away to work in him a humiliation 
 of the heart. More severely than ever he wrestled
 
 84 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 with the dogmas of his chosen divines, harnessed them 
 to his purposes as preacher, and wrought on with a zeal 
 that knew no abatement and no rest. 
 
 In the spring of 1825 Mr. Johns was invited by Gov 
 ernor Wolcott to preach the Election Sermon before 
 the Legislature convened at Hartford: an honorable 
 duty, and one which he was abundantly competent to 
 fulfill. The " Hartford Courant " of that date said, 
 " A large auditory was collected last week to listen to 
 the Election Sermon by Mr. Johns, minister of Ash- 
 field. It was a sound, orthodox, and interesting dis 
 course, and won the undivided attention of all the list 
 eners. "We have not recently listened to a sermon 
 more able or eloquent." 
 
 In that day even country editors were church-goers 
 and God-fearing men.
 
 XIII. 
 
 TN the latter part of the summer of 1826, a reas- 
 - enable time having now elapsed since the death of 
 poor Rachel, the gossips of Ashfield began to discuss 
 the lonely condition of their pastor, in connection with 
 any desirable or feasible amendment of it. The sin of 
 such gossip if it be a sin is one that all the 
 preaching in the world will never extirpate from coun 
 try towns, where the range of talk is by the necessity 
 of the case exceedingly limited. In the city, curiosity 
 has an omnivorous maw by reason of position, and finds 
 such variety to feed upon that it is rarely except in 
 the case of great political or public scandal personal 
 in its attentions ; and what we too freely reckon a per 
 verted and impertinent country taste is but an ordinary 
 appetite of humanity, which, by the limitation of its 
 feeding-ground, seems to attach itself perversely to pri 
 vate relations. 
 
 There were some invidious persons in the town who 
 had remarked that Miss Almira Tourtelet had brought 
 quite a new fervor to her devotional exercises in the 
 parish within the last year, as well as a new set of rib-
 
 86 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 bons to her hat ; and two maiden ladies opposite, of 
 distinguished pretensions and long experience of life, 
 had observed that the young Reuben, on his passage 
 back and forth from the Elderkins, had sometimes been 
 decoyed within the Tourtelot yard, and presented by the 
 admiring Dame Tourtelot with fresh doughnuts. The 
 elderly maiden ladies were perhaps uncharitable in 
 their conclusions ; yet it is altogether probable that the 
 Deacon and his wife may have considered, in the inti 
 macy of their fireside talk, the possibility of some time 
 claiming the minister as a son-in-law. Questions like 
 this are discussed in a great many families even now. 
 
 Dame Tourtelot had crowned with success all her 
 schemes in life, save one. Almira, her daughter, now 
 verging upon her thirty-second year, had long been 
 upon the anxious-seat as regarded matrimony ; and 
 with a sentimental turn that incited much reading of 
 Cowper and Montgomery and (if it must be told) 
 " Thaddeus of Warsaw," the poor girl united a sickly, 
 in-door look, and a peaked countenance, which had not 
 attracted wooers. The wonderful executive capacity of 
 the mother had unfortunately debarred her from any 
 active interest in the household ; and though the Tour- 
 telots had actually been at the expense of providing a 
 piano for Almira, (the only one in Ashfield,) upon 
 which the poor girl thrummed, thinking of " Thaddeus," 
 and, we trust, of better things, this had not won a
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 87 
 
 roseate hue to her face, or quickened in any percepti 
 ble degree the alacrity of her admirers. 
 
 Upon a certain night of later October, after Almira 
 has retired, and when the Tourtelots are seated by the 
 little fire, which the autumn chills have rendered nec 
 essary, and into the embers of which the Deacon has 
 cautiously thrust the leg of one of the fire-dogs, pre 
 paratory to a modest mug of flip, (with which, by his 
 wife s permission, he occasionally indulges himself,) the 
 good dame calls out to her husband, who is dozing in 
 his chair, 
 
 Tourtelot ! " 
 
 But she is not loud enough. 
 
 " TOUKTELOT ! you re asleep ! " 
 
 "No," says the Deacon, rousing himself, "only 
 thinkin ." 
 
 What are you thiukin of, Tourtelot ? " 
 
 " Thinkin thinkin ," says the Deacon, rasped by 
 the dame s sharpness into sudden mental effort, 
 " thinkin , Huldy, if it is n t about time to butcher : we 
 butchered last year nigh upon the twentieth." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " says the dame ; " what about the par 
 son ? " 
 
 " The parson ? Oh ! Why, the parson 11 take a side 
 and two hams." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " says the dame, with a great voice ; 
 "you re asleep, Tourtelot. Is the parson goin to
 
 88 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 marry, or is n t he ? that s what I want to know " ; and 
 she rethreads her needle. 
 
 (She can do it by candle-light at fifty-five, that 
 woman !) 
 
 " Oh, marry ! " replies the Deacon, rousing himself 
 more thoroughly, " waal, I don t see no signs, Huldy. 
 If he doos mean to, he s sly about it ; don t you think 
 so, Huldy ? " 
 
 The dame, who is intent upon her sewing again, 
 she is never without her work, that woman ! does not 
 deign a reply. 
 
 The Deacon, after lifting the fire-dog, blowing off the 
 ashes, and holding it to his face to try the heat, says, 
 
 " I guess Almiry ha n t much of a chance." 
 
 " What s the use of your guessin ? " says the dame ; 
 " better mind your flip." 
 
 Which the Deacon accordingly does, stirring it in a 
 mild manner, until the dame breaks out upon him again 
 explosively : 
 
 " Tourtelot, you men of the parish ought to talk to 
 the parson ; it a n t right for things to go on this way. 
 That boy Reuben is growin up wild ; he wants a 
 woman in the house to look arter him. Besides, a min 
 ister ought to have a wife ; it a n t decent to have the 
 house empty, and only Esther there. Women want to 
 feel they can drop in at the parsonage for a chat, or to 
 take tea. But who s to serve tea, I want to know ?
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 89 
 
 Who s to mind Reuben in meetin ? He broke the 
 cover off the best hymn-book in the parson s pew last 
 Sunday. Who s to prevent him a-breakin all the 
 hymn-books that belong to the parish ? You men 
 ought to speak to the parson ; and, Tourtelot, if the 
 others won t do it, you must" 
 
 The Deacon was fairly awake now. He pulled at 
 his whiskers deprecatingly. Yet he clearly foresaw 
 that the emergency was one to be met ; the manner of 
 Dame Tourtelot left no room for doubt ; and he was 
 casting about for such Scriptural injunctions as might 
 be made available, when the dame interrupted his re 
 flections in more amiable humor, 
 
 " It is n t Almiry, Samuel, I think of, but Mr. Johns 
 and the good of the parish. I really don t know if 
 Almiry would fancy the parson ; the girl is a good deal 
 taken up with her pianny and books ; but there s the 
 Hapgoods, opposite ; there s Joanny Meacham " 
 
 " You 11 never make that do, Huldy," said the Dea 
 con, stirring his flip composedly ; " they re nigh on as 
 old as the parson." 
 
 " Never you mind, Tourtelot," said the dame, sharp 
 ly ; " only you hint to the parson that they re good, 
 pious women, all of them, and would make proper min 
 isters wives. Do you think I don t know what a man 
 is, Tourtelot ! Humph ! " And she threads her needle 
 again.
 
 90 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 The Deacon was apt to keep in mind his wife s ad 
 vices, whatever he might do with Scripture quotations. 
 So when he called at the parsonage, a few days after, 
 ostensibly to learn how the minister would like his 
 pork cut, it happened that little Reuben came bound 
 ing in, and that the Deacon gave him a fatherly pat 
 upon the shoulder. 
 
 " Likely boy you ve got here, Mr. Johns, likely 
 boy. But, Parson, don t you think he must feel a kind 
 o hankerin arter somebody to be motherly to him ? 
 I most wonder that you don t feel that way yourself, 
 Mr. Johns." 
 
 " God comforts the mourners," said the clergyman, 
 seriously. 
 
 " No doubt, no doubt, Parson ; but He sometimes 
 provides comforts ag in which we shet our eyes. You 
 won t think hard o me, Parson, but I ve heerd say 
 about the village that Miss Meacham or one of the 
 Miss Hapgoods would make an excellent wife for the 
 minister." 
 
 The parson is suddenly very grave. 
 
 " Don t repeat such idle gossip, Deacon. I m mar 
 ried to my work. The Gospel is my bride now." 
 
 " And a very good one it is, Parson. But don t you 
 think that a godly woman for helpmeet would make the 
 work more effectooal ? Miss Meacham is a pattern of 
 a person in the Sunday-school. The women of the
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 91 
 
 parish would rather like to find the doors of the par 
 sonage openin for em ag in." 
 
 " That is to be thought of certainly," said the minis 
 ter, musingly. 
 
 " You won t think hard o me, Mr. Johns, for droppin 
 a word about this matter ? " says the Deacon, rising to 
 leave. " And while I think on t, Parson, I see the sill 
 under the no theast corner o the meetin -house has a 
 little settle to it. I ve jest been cuttin a few sticks o 
 good smart chestnut timber ; and if the Committee 
 thinks best, I could haul down one or two on em for 
 repairs. It won t cost nigh as much as pine lumber, 
 and it s every bit as good." 
 
 Even Dame Tourtelot would have been satisfied with 
 the politic way of the Deacon, both as regarded the 
 wife and the prospective bargain. The next evening 
 the good woman invited the clergyman begging him 
 " not to forget the dear little boy " to tea. 
 
 This was by no means the first hint which the min 
 ister had had of the tendency of village gossip. The 
 Tew partners, with whom he had fallen upon very easy 
 terms of familiarity, both by reason of frequent visits 
 at their little shop, and by reason of their steady at 
 tendance upon his ministrations, often dropped hints 
 of the smallness of the good man s grocery account, 
 and insidious hopes that it might be doubled in size at 
 some day not far off.
 
 92 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 Squire Elderkin, too, in his bluff, hearty way, had 
 occasionally complimented the clergyman upon the 
 increased attendance latterly of ladies of a certain age 
 and had drawn his attention particularly to the ardent 
 zeal of a buxom, middle-aged widow, who lived upon 
 the skirts of the town, and was " the owner," he said, 
 " of as pretty a piece of property as lay in the county." 
 
 " Have you any knack at farming, Mr. Johns ? " con 
 tinued he, playfully. 
 
 " Farming ? why ? " says the innocent parson, in a 
 maze. 
 
 " Because I am of opinion, Mr. Johns, that the wid 
 ow s little property might be rented by you, under con 
 ditions of joint occupancy, on very easy terms." 
 
 Such badinage was so warded off by the ponderous 
 gravity which the parson habitually wore, that men like 
 Elderkin loved occasionally to launch a quiet joke at 
 him, for the pleasure of watching the rebound. 
 
 When, however, the wide-spread gossip of the town 
 had taken the shape (as in the talk of Deacon Tourte- 
 lot) of an incentive to duty, the grave clergyman gave 
 to it his undivided and prayerful attention. It was 
 over-true that the boy Reuben was running wild. No 
 lad in Ashfield, of his years, could match him in mis 
 chief. There was surely need of womanly direction 
 and remonstrance. It was eminently proper, too, that 
 the parsonage, so long closed, should be opened freely
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 93 
 
 to all his flock ; and the truth was so plain, he won 
 dered it could have escaped him so long. Duty re 
 quired that his home should have an established mis 
 tress ; and a mistress he forthwith determined it should 
 have. 
 
 Within three weeks from the day of the tea-drinking 
 with the Tourtelots, the minister suggested certain 
 changes in the long-deserted chamber which should 
 bring it into more habitable condition. He hinted to 
 his man Larkin that an additional fire might probably 
 be needed in the house during the latter part of winter ; 
 and before January had gone out, he had most agree 
 ably surprised the delighted and curious Tew partners 
 with a very large addition to his usual orders, em 
 bracing certain condiments in the way of spices, dried 
 fruits, and cordials, which had for a long time been 
 foreign to the larder of the parsonage. 
 
 Such indications, duly commented on, as they were 
 most zealously, could not fail to excite a great buzz of 
 talk and of curiosity throughout the town. 
 
 " I knew it," says Mrs. Tew, authoritatively, setting 
 back her spectacles from her postal duties ; "these 
 ere grave widowers are allers the first to pop off, and 
 git married." 
 
 " Tourtelot ! " said the dame, on a January night, 
 when the evidence had come in overwhelmingly, 
 " Tourtelot ! what does it all mean ? "
 
 94 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 "D n know," says the Deacon, stirring his flip, 
 " d n know. It s my opinion the parson has his sly 
 humors about him." 
 
 " Do you think it s true, Samuel ? " 
 
 " Waal, Hulcly, I du." 
 
 " Tourtelot ! finish your flip, and go to bed : it s past 
 ten." 
 
 And the Deacon went
 
 XIV. 
 
 the latter end of the winter there arrived 
 - at the parsonage the new mistress, in the per 
 son of Miss Eliza Johns, the elder sister of the incum 
 bent, and a spinster of the ripe age of three-and-thirty. 
 For the last twelve years she had maintained a lonely, 
 but matronly, command of the old homestead of the 
 late Major Johns, in the town of Canterbury. She was 
 intensely proud of the memory of her father, and of 
 his father before him, every inch a Johns. Xo light 
 cause could have provoked her to a sacrifice of the 
 name ; and of weightier causes she had been spared 
 the trial. The marriage of her brother had always 
 been more or less a source of mortification to her. 
 The Handbys, though excellent plain people, were of 
 no particular distinction. Eachel had a pretty face, 
 with which Benjamin had grown suddenly demented. 
 That source of mortification and of disturbed intimacy 
 was now buried in the grave. Benjamin had won a 
 reputation for dignity and ability which was immensely 
 gratifying to her. She had assured him of it again 
 and again in her occasional letters. The success of
 
 96 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 his Election Sermon had been an event of the greatest 
 interest to her, which she had expressed in an epistle 
 of three pages, with every comma in its place, and full 
 of gratulations. Her commas were always in place ; 
 so were her stops of all kinds : her precision was 
 something marvelous. This precision had enabled her 
 to manage the little property which had been left her 
 in such a way as to maintain always about her estab 
 lishment an air of well-ordered thrift. She concealed 
 adroitly all the shifts if there were any by which 
 she avoided the reproach of seeming poor. 
 
 In person she was not unlike her father, the Major, 
 tall, erect, with a dignified bearing, and so trim a figure, 
 and so elastic a step even at her years, as would have 
 provoked an inquisitive follower to catch sight of the 
 face. This was by no means attractive. Her features 
 were thin, her nose unduly prominent ; and both eye 
 and mouth, though well formed, carried about them a 
 kind of hard positiveness that would have challenged 
 respect, perhaps, but no warmer feeling. Two little 
 curls were flattened upon either temple ; and her neck 
 tie, dress, gloves, hat, were always most neatly arranged, 
 and ordered with the same precision that governed all 
 her action. In the town of Canterbury she was an in 
 stitution. Her charities and all her religious observ 
 ances were methodical, and never omitted. Her whole 
 life, indeed, was a discipline. Without any great love
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 97 
 
 for children, she still had her Bible-class ; and it was 
 rare that the weather or any other cause forbade attend 
 ance upon its duties. Nor was there one of the little 
 ones who listened to that clear, sharp, metallic voice of 
 hers but stood in awe of her ; not one that could say she 
 was unkind ; not one who had ever bestowed a childish 
 gift upon her, such little gifts as children love to 
 heap on those who have found the way to their hearts. 
 
 Sentiment had never been effusive in her ; and it was 
 now limited to quick sparkles, that sometimes flashed 
 into a page of her reading. As regarded the serious 
 question of marriage, implying a home, position, the mar 
 ried dignities, it had rarely disturbed her ; and now her 
 imaginative forecast did not grapple it with any vigor or 
 longing. If, indeed, it had been possible that a man 
 of high standing, character, cultivation, equal, in 
 short, to the Johnses in every way, should woo her 
 with pertinacity, she might have been disposed to yield 
 a dignified assent, but not unless he could be made to 
 understand and adequately appreciate the immense 
 favor she was conferring. In short, the suitor who could 
 abide and admit her exalted pretensions, and submit 
 to them, would most infallibly be one of a character 
 and temper so far inferior to her own that she would 
 scorn him from the outset. This dilemma, imposed by 
 the rigidity of her smaller dignities, that were never 
 mastered or overshadowed either by her sentiment or
 
 98 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 her passion, not only involved a life of celibacy, but 
 was a constant justification of it, and made it eminently 
 easy to be borne. There are not a few maiden ladies 
 who are thus lightered over the shoals of a solitary 
 existence by the buoyancy of their own intemperate 
 vanities. 
 
 Miss Johns did not accept the invitation of her 
 brother to undertake the charge of his household 
 without due consideration. She by no means left out 
 of view the contingency of his possible future mar 
 riage ; but she trusted largely to her own influences in 
 making it such a one, if inevitable, as should not be 
 discreditable to the family name. And under such 
 conditions she would retire with serene contentment to 
 her own more private sphere of Canterbury, or, if 
 circumstances should demand, would accept the posi 
 tion of guest in the house of her brother. Nor did 
 she leave out of view her influence in the training 
 of the boy Reuben. She cherished her own hopes of 
 moulding him to her will, and of making him a pride 
 to the family. 
 
 There was of course prodigious excitement in the 
 parsonage upon her arrival. Esther had done her best 
 at all household appliances, whether of kitchen or 
 chamber. The minister received her with his wonted 
 quietude, and a brotherly kiss of salutation. Reuben 
 gazed wonderingly at her, and was thinking dreamily
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 99 
 
 if he should ever love her, while he felt the dreary 
 rustle of her black silk dress swooping round as she 
 stooped to embrace him. " I hope Master Reuben is a 
 good boy," said she ; " your Aunt Eliza loves all good 
 boys." 
 
 He had nothing to say ; but only looked back into 
 that cold gray eye, as she lifted his chin with her 
 gloved hand. 
 
 " Benjamin, there s a strong look of the Handbys ; 
 but it s your forehead. He s a little man, I hope," 
 and she patted him on the head. 
 
 Still Reuben looked wonderingly at her shining 
 silk dress, at her hat, at the little curls on either temple, 
 at the guard-chain which hung from her neck with a 
 glittering watch-key upon it, at the bright buckle in her 
 belt, and most of all at the gray eye which seemed to 
 look on him from far away. And with the same stare 
 of wonderment, he followed her up and down through 
 out the house. 
 
 At night, Esther, who has a chamber near him, 
 creeps in to say good-night to the lad, and asks, 
 
 "Do you like her, Ruby, boy? Do you like your 
 Aunt Eliza?" 
 
 " I d n know," says Reuben. " She says she likes 
 good boys ; don t you like bad uns, Esther ? " 
 
 " But you re not very bad," says Esther, whose or 
 thodoxy does not forbid kindly praise.
 
 100 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " Did n t mamma like bad uns, Esther ? " 
 
 " Dear heart ! " and the good creature gives the boy 
 a great hug ; it could not have been warmer, if he had 
 been her child. 
 
 The household speedily felt the presence of the new 
 comer. Her precision, her method, her clear, sharp 
 voice, never raised in anger, never falling to tender 
 ness, ruled the establishment. Under all the cheeri- 
 ness of the old management, there had been a sad lack 
 of any economic system, by reason of which the minis 
 ter was constantly overrunning his little stipend, and 
 making awkward appeals from time to time to the Par 
 ish Committee for advances. A small legacy that had 
 befallen the late Mrs. Johns, and which had gone to the 
 purchase of the parsonage, had brought relief at a very 
 perplexing crisis ; but against all similar troubles Miss 
 Johns set her face most resolutely. There was a daily 
 examination of butchers and grocers accounts, that 
 had been previously unknown to the household. The 
 kitchen was placed under strict regimen, into the 
 observance of which the good Esther slipped, not so 
 much from love of it, as from total inability to cope 
 with the magnetic authority of the new mistress. Nor 
 was she harsh in her manner of command. 
 
 " Esther, my good woman, it will be best, I think, to 
 have breakfast a little more promptly, at half-past 
 six, we will say, so that prayers may be over and the
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 101 
 
 room free by eight ; the minister, you know, must have 
 his morning in his study undisturbed." 
 
 " Yes, marm," says Esther ; and she would as soon 
 have thought of flying over the house-top in her short 
 gown as of questioning the plan. 
 
 Again, the mistress says, " Larkin, I think it 
 would be well to take up those scattered bunches of 
 lilies, and place them upon either side of the walk in 
 the garden, so that the flowers may be all together." 
 
 " Yes, marm," says Larkin. 
 
 And much as he had loved the little woman now 
 sleeping in her grave, who had scattered flowers with an 
 errant fancy, he would have thought it preposterous to 
 object to an order so calmly spoken, so evidently intend 
 ed for execution. There was something in the tone of 
 Miss Johns in giving directions that drew off all moral 
 power of objection as surely as a good metallic conduc 
 tor would free an overcharged cloud of its electricity. 
 
 The parishioners were not slow to perceive that new 
 order prevailed at the quiet parsonage. Curiosity, no 
 less than the staid proprieties which governed the 
 action of the chief inhabitants, had brought them early 
 into contact with the new mistress. She received all 
 with dignity and with an exactitude of deportment 
 that charmed the precise ones and that awed the 
 younger folks. The bustling Dame Tourtelot had
 
 102 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 come among the earliest, and her brief report was, 
 " Tourtelot, Miss Johns s as smart as a steel trap." 
 
 Nor was the spinster sister without a degree of cul 
 tivation which commended her to the more intellectual 
 people of Ashfield. She was a reader of " Rokeby " 
 and of Miss Austen s novels, of Josephus and of 
 Rollin s " Ancient History." The Miss Hapgoods, who 
 were the blue-stockings of the place, were charmed to 
 have such an addition to the cultivated circle of the 
 parish. To make the success of Miss Johns still more 
 decided, she brought with her a certain knowledge of 
 the conventionalisms of the city, by reason of her oc 
 casional visits to her sister Mabel, (now Mrs. Brind- 
 lock, of Greenwich Street,) which to many excellent 
 women gave larger assurance of her position and 
 dignity than all besides. Before the first year of her 
 advent had gone by, it was quite plain that she was to 
 become one of the prominent directors of the female 
 world of Ashfield. 
 
 Only in the parsonage itself did her influence find 
 its most serious limitations, and these in connection 
 with the boy Reuben.
 
 XV. 
 
 r MIIERE is a deep emotional nature in the lad, 
 -*- which, by the time he has reached his eighth year, 
 Miss Eliza having now been in the position of mis 
 tress of the household a twelvemonth, works itself 
 off in explosive tempests of feeling, with which the 
 prim spinster has but faint sympathy. No care could 
 be more studious and complete than that with which 
 she looks after the boy s wardrobe and the ordering of 
 his little chamber ; his supply of mittens, of stockings, 
 and of underclothing is always of the most ample ; 
 nay, his caprices of the table are not wholly overlooked, 
 and she hopes to win upon him by the dishes that are 
 most toothsome ; but, however grateful for the moment, 
 his boyish affections can never make their way with 
 any force or passionate flow through the stately pro 
 prieties of manner with which the spinster aunt is al 
 ways hedged about. 
 
 He wanders away after school-hours to the home of 
 the Elderkins, Phil and he being sworn friends, and 
 the good mother of Phil always having ready for him 
 a beamin<r look of welcome and a tender word or two
 
 104 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 that somehow always find their way straight to his 
 heart. He loiters with Larkin, too, by the great stable- 
 yard of the inn, though it is forbidden ground. He 
 breaks in upon the precise woman s rule of punctuality 
 sadly ; many a cold dish he eats sulkily, she sitting 
 bolt upright in her place at the table, looking down at 
 him with glances which are every one a punishment. 
 Other times he is straying in the orchard at the hour 
 of some home-duty, and the active spinster goes to 
 seek him, and not threateningly, but with an assured 
 step and a firm grip upon the hand of the loiterer, 
 which he knows not whether to count a favor or a pun 
 ishment, (and she as much at a loss, so inextricably 
 interwoven are her notions of duty and of kindness,) 
 leads him homeward, plying him with stately precepts 
 upon the sin of negligence, and with earnest story of 
 the dreadful fate which is sure to overtake all bad boys 
 who do not obey and keep " by the rules " ; and she 
 instances those poor lads who were eaten by the bears, 
 of whom she has read to him the story in the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 " Who was it they called bald - head, Reuben ? 
 Elisha or Elijah ? " 
 
 He, in no mood for reply, is sulkily beating off the 
 daisies with his feet, as she drags him on ; sometimes 
 hanging back, with impotent, yet concealed struggle, 
 which she not deiffninji to notice overcomes with
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 105 
 
 even sharper step, and plies him the more closely with 
 the dire results of badness, has not finished her 
 talk, indeed, when they reach the door-step and 
 enter. There he, fuming now with that long struggle, 
 fuming the more because he has concealed it, makes 
 one violent discharge with a great frown on his little 
 face, " You re an ugly old thing, and I don t like you 
 one bit ! " 
 
 Esther, good soul, within hearing of it, lifts her 
 hands in apparent horror, but inwardly indulges in a 
 wicked chuckle over the boy s spirit. 
 
 But the minister has heard him, too, and gravely 
 summons the offender into his study. 
 
 " My son, Reuben, this is very wrong." 
 
 And the boy breaks into a sob at this stage, which is 
 a great relief. 
 
 " My boy, you ought to love your aunt." 
 
 " Why ought I ? " says he. 
 
 " Why ? why ? Don t you know she s very good to 
 you, and takes excellent care of you, and hears you 
 say your catechism every Saturday ? You ought to 
 love her." 
 
 " But I can t make myself love her, if I don t," says 
 the boy. 
 
 " It is your duty to love her, Reuben ; and we can 
 all do our duty." 
 
 Even the staid clergyman enjoys the boy s discom-
 
 106 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 fiture under so orthodox a proposition. Miss Johns, 
 however, breaks in here, having overheard the latter 
 part of the talk : 
 
 " No, Benjamin, I wish no love that is given from a 
 sense of duty. Reuben sh an t be forced into loving his 
 Aunt Eliza." 
 
 And there is a subdued tone in her speech which 
 touches the boy. But he is not ready yet for surren 
 der ; he watches gravely her retirement, and for an 
 hour shows a certain preoccupation at his play ; then 
 his piping voice is heard at the foot of the stairway, 
 
 " Aunt Eliza ! Are you there ? " 
 
 Yes, Master Reuben ! " 
 
 Master ! It cools somewhat his generous intent ; 
 but he is in for it ; and he climbs the stair, sidles un 
 easily into the chamber where she sits at her work, 
 stealing a swift, inquiring look into that gray eye of 
 hers, 
 
 " I say Aunt Eliza I m sorry I said that you 
 know what." 
 
 And he looks up with a little of the old yearning, the 
 yearning he used to feel when another sat in that place. 
 
 " Ah, that is right, Master Reuben ! I hope we shall 
 be friends, now." 
 
 Another disturbed look at her, remembering the 
 time when he would have leaped into a mother s arms, 
 after such struggle with his self-will, and found glad-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 107 
 
 ness. That is gone ; no swift embrace, no tender hand 
 toying with his hair, beguiling him from play. And 
 he sidles out again, half shamefaced at a surrender 
 that has wrought so little. Loitering, and playing with 
 the balusters as he descends, the swift, keen voice 
 comes after him, 
 
 " Don t soil the paint, Reuben ! " 
 
 " I have n t." 
 
 And the swift command and as swift retort put him 
 in his old, wicked mood again, and he breaks out into 
 a defiant whistle. (Over and over the spinster has 
 told him it was improper to whistle in-doors.) Yet, 
 with a lingering desire for sympathy, Reuben makes 
 his way into his father s study ; and the minister lays 
 clown his great folio, it is Poole s " Annotations," 
 and says, 
 
 " Well, Reuben ! " 
 
 " I told her I was sorry," says the boy ; " but I don t 
 believe she likes me much." 
 
 " Why, my son ? " 
 
 " Because she called me Master, and said it was very 
 proper." 
 
 " But does n t that show an interest in you ? " 
 
 " I don t know what interest is." 
 
 It s love." 
 
 " Mamma never called me Master," said Reuben. 
 
 The grave minister bites his lip, beckons his boy to
 
 108 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 him, " Here, my son ! " passes his arm around 
 him, had almost drawn him to his heart, 
 
 " There, there, Reuben ; leave me now ; I have my 
 sermon to finish. I hope you won t be disrespectful 
 to your aunt again. Shut the door." 
 
 And the minister goes back to his work, ironly hon 
 est, mastering his sensibilities, tearing great gaps in 
 his heart, even as the anchorites once fretted their 
 bodies with hair-cloth and scourgings. 
 
 In the summer of 1828 Mr. Johns was called upon 
 to preach a special discourse at the Commencement 
 exercises of the college from which he had received 
 his degree ; and so sterlingly orthodox was his sermon, 
 at a crisis when some sister colleges were bolstering up 
 certain new theological tenets which had a strong taint 
 of heresy, that the old gentlemen who held rank as 
 fellows of his college, in a burst of zeal, bestowed upon 
 the worthy man the title of D. D. It was not an 
 honor he had coveted ; indeed, he coveted no human 
 honors ; yet this was more wisely given than most : his 
 dignity, his sobriety, his rigid, complete adherence to 
 all the accepted forms of religious belief made him a 
 safe recipient of the title. 
 
 The spinster sister, with an ill-concealed pride, was 
 most zealous in the bestowal of it ; and before a 
 month had passed, she had forced it into current use 
 throughout the world of Ashfield.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 109 
 
 Did a neglectful neighbor speak of the good health 
 of " Mr. Johns," the mistress of the parsonage said, 
 " Why, yes, the Doctor is working very hard, it is true ; 
 but he is quite well ; the Doctor is remarkably well." 
 
 Did a younger church-sister speak in praise of some 
 late sermon of " the minister," Miss Eliza thanked her 
 in a dignified way, and was sure " the Doctor " would 
 be most happy to hear that his efforts were appreciated. 
 
 As for Larkin and Esther, who stumbled dismally 
 over the new title, the spinster plied them urgently. 
 
 " Esther, my good woman, make the Doctor s tea 
 very strong to-night." 
 
 " Larkin, the Doctor won t ride to-day ; and mind, 
 you must cut the wood for the Doctor s fire a little 
 shorter." 
 
 Reuben only rebelled, with the mischief of a boy : 
 
 "What for do you call papa Doctor? He don t 
 carry saddle-bags." 
 
 To the quiet, staid man himself it was a wholly in 
 different matter. In the solitude of his study, how 
 ever, it recalled a neglected duty, and in so far seemed 
 a blessing. By such paltry threads are the colors 
 woven into our life ! It recalled his friend Maverick 
 and his jaunty prediction ; and upon that came to him 
 a recollection of the promise which he had made to 
 Rachel, that he would write to Maverick. 
 
 So the minister wrote, telling his old friend what
 
 110 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 grief had stricken his house, how his boy and he 
 were left alone, how the church, by favor of Provi 
 dence, had grown under his preaching, how his sister 
 had come to be mistress of the parsonage, how he 
 had wrought the Master s work in fear and trembling ; 
 and after this came godly counsel for the exile. 
 
 He hoped that light had shone upon him, even in the 
 " dark places " of infidel France, that he was not 
 alienated from the faith of his fathers, that he did 
 not make a mockery, as did those around him, of the 
 holy institution of the Sabbath. 
 
 " My friend," he wrote, " God s "Word is true ; God s 
 laws are just ; He will come some day in a chariot of 
 fire. Neither moneys nor high places nor worldly hon 
 ors nor pleasures can stay or avert the stroke of that 
 sword of divine justice which will pierce even to the 
 dividing asunder of the joints and marrow. Let no 
 siren voices beguile you. Without the gift of His grace 
 who died that we might live, there is no hope for kings, 
 none for you, none for me. I pray you consider this, 
 my friend ; for I speak as one commissioned of God." 
 
 Whether these words of the minister were met, after 
 their transmission over seas, with a smile of derision, 
 with an empty gratitude, that said, " Good fellow ! " 
 and forgot their burden, with a stitch of the heart, 
 that made solemn pause and thoughtfulness, and short, 
 vain struggle against the habit of a life, we will not
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. Ill 
 
 say; our story may not tell, perhaps. But to the mind 
 of the parson it was clear that at some great coming 
 day it icvuld be known of all men where the seed that 
 he had sown had fallen, whether on good ground or 
 in stony places. 
 
 The cross-ocean mails were slow in those days ; and 
 it was not until nearly four months after the transmis 
 sion of the Doctor s letter he having almost forgot 
 ten it that Reuben came one day bounding in from 
 the snow in mid-winter, his cheeks aflame with the 
 keen, frosty air, his eyes dancing with boyish excite 
 ment : 
 
 " A letter, papa ! a letter ! and Mr. Troop " (it is 
 the new postmaster under the Adams dynasty) " says it 
 came all the way from Europe. It s got a funny post 
 mark." 
 
 The minister lays down his book, takes the letter, 
 
 opens it, reads, paces up and down his study 
 thoughtfully, reads again, to the end. 
 
 " Reuben, call your Aunt Eliza." 
 
 There is matter in the letter that concerns her, 
 
 that in its issues will concern the boy, that rnay 
 possibly give a new color to the life of the parsonage, 
 and a new direction to our story.
 
 XVI. 
 
 ItlTISS ELIZA being fairly seated in the Doctor s 
 -*"-- study, with great eagerness to hear what might 
 be the subject of his communication, the parson, with 
 the letter in his hand, asked if she remembered an 
 old college friend, Maverick, who had once paid them 
 a vacation visit at Canterbury. 
 
 " Perfectly," said Miss Eliza, whose memory was 
 both keen and retentive ; " and I remember that you 
 have said he once passed a night with you, during 
 the lifetime of poor Rachel, here at Ashficld. You 
 have a letter from him ? " 
 
 " I have," said the parson ; " and it brings a pro 
 posal about which I wish your opinion." And the 
 Doctor cast his eye over the letter. 
 
 "He expresses deep sympathy at my loss, and al 
 ludes very pleasantly to the visit you speak of, all 
 which I will not read ; after this he says, I little 
 thought, when bantering you in your little study upon 
 your family prospects, that I too was destined to be 
 come the father of a child, within a couple of years. 
 Yet it is even so ; and the responsibility weighs upon
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 113 
 
 me greatly. I love my Aclele with my whole heart ; 
 I am sure you cannot love your boy more, though 
 perhaps more wisely." 
 
 " And he had never told you of his marriage ? " 
 said the spinster. 
 
 " Never ; it is the only line I have had from him 
 since his visit ten years ago." 
 
 The Doctor goes on with the reading : 
 
 o o 
 
 " It may be from a recollection of your warnings 
 and of your distrust of the French character, or pos 
 sibly it may be from the prejudices of my New Eng 
 land education, but I cannot entertain pleasantly the 
 thought of her growing up to womanhood under the 
 influences which are about her here. What those 
 influences are you will not expect me to explain in 
 detail. I am sure it will be enough to win upon your 
 sympathy to say that they are Popish and thoroughly 
 French. I feel a strong wish, therefore, much as 
 I am attached to the clear child, to give her the 
 advantages of a New England education and training. 
 And with this wish, my thought reverts naturally to 
 the calm quietude of your little town and of your 
 household ; for I cannot doubt that it is the same un 
 der the care of your sister as in the old time." 
 
 " I am glad he thinks so well of me," said Miss 
 Eliza, but with an irony in her tone that she was sure 
 the good parson would never detect. 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 The Doctor looks at her thoughtfully a moment, 
 over the edge of the letter, as if he, too, had his 
 quiet comparisons to make, then goes on with the 
 letter : 
 
 " This wish may surprise you, since you remember 
 my old battlings with what I counted the rigors of a 
 New England bringing-up ; but in this case I should 
 not fear them, provided I could assure myself of 
 your kindly supervision. For my little Adele, besides 
 inheriting a great flow of spirits (from her father, 
 you will say) and French blood, has been used thus 
 far to a catholic latitude of talk and manner in all 
 about her, which will so far counterbalance the grav 
 ities of your region as to leave her, I think, upon a 
 safe middle ground. At any rate, I see enough to 
 persuade me to choose rather the errors that may 
 grow upon her girlhood there than those that would 
 grow upon it here. 
 
 " Frankly, now, may I ask you to undertake, with 
 your good sister, for a few years, the responsibility 
 which I have suggested ? " 
 
 The Doctor looked over the edge of the sheet to 
 ward Miss Eliza. 
 
 " Read on, Benjamin," said she. 
 
 " The matter of expenses, I am happy to say, is 
 one which need not enter into your consideration of 
 the question. My business successes have been such
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 115 
 
 that any estimate which you may make of the moneys 
 required will be at your call at the office of our house 
 in Newburyport. 
 
 " I have the utmost faith in you, my dear Johns ; 
 and I want you to have faith in the earnestness with 
 which I press this proposal on your notice. You will 
 wonder, perhaps, how the mother of my little Adele 
 can be a party to such a plan ; but I may assure you, 
 that, if your consent be gained, it will meet with no 
 opposition in that quarter. This fact may possibly 
 confirm some of your worst theories in regard to 
 French character; and in this letter, at least, you 
 will not expect me to combat them. 
 
 " I have said that she has lived thus far under 
 Popish influences ; but her religious character is of 
 course unformed; indeed, she has as yet developed 
 in no serious direction whatever ; I think you will 
 find a tabula rasa to write your tenets upon. But, 
 if she comes to you, do not, I beg of you, grave 
 them too harshly ; she is too bird-like to be treated 
 with severity ; and I know that under all your gravity, 
 my dear Johns, there is a kindliness of heart, which, 
 if you only allowed it utterance, would win greatly 
 upon this little fondling of mine. And I think that 
 her open, laughing face may win upon you. 
 
 " Adele has been taught English, and I have pur 
 posely held all my prattle with her in the same tongue,
 
 116 DOCTOR JOHhS. 
 
 and her familiarity with it is such that you would 
 hardly detect a French accent. I am not particularly 
 anxious that she should maintain her knowledge of 
 French ; still, should a good opportunity occur, and 
 a competent teacher be available, it might be well 
 for her to do so. In all such matters I should rely 
 greatly on your judgment. 
 
 "Now, my dear Johns," 
 
 Miss Eliza interrupts by saying, " I think your friend 
 is very familiar, Benjamin." 
 
 " Why not ? why not, Eliza ? "We were boys to 
 gether." 
 
 And he continues with the letter : 
 
 " My dear Johns, I want you to consider this mat 
 ter fairly ; I need not tell you that it is one that lies 
 very near my heart. Should you determine to ac 
 cept the trust, there is a ship which will be due at 
 this port some four or five months from now, whose 
 master I know well, and with whom I should feel safe 
 to trust my little Adele for the voyage, providing 
 at the same time a female attendant upon whom I 
 can rely, and who will not leave the little voyager 
 until she is fairly under your wing. In two or three 
 years thereafter, at most, I hope to come to receive 
 her from you ; and then, when she shall have made 
 a return visit to Europe, it is quite possible that I 
 may establish myself in my own country again.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 117 
 
 Should you wish it, 1 could arrange for the attendant 
 to remain with her ; but I confess that I should pre 
 fer the contrary. I want to separate her for the time, 
 so far as I can, from all the influences to which she 
 has been subject here ; and further than this, I have 
 a strong faith in that self-dependence which seems 
 to me to grow out of your old-fashioned New England 
 training." 
 
 " That is all," said the Doctor, quietly folding 
 the letter. " What do you think of the proposal, 
 Eliza?" 
 
 " I like it, Benjamin." 
 
 The spinster was a woman of quick decision. Had 
 it been proposed to receive an ordinary pupil in the 
 house for any pecuniary consideration, her pride would 
 have revolted on the instant. But here was a child 
 of an old friend of the Doctor, a little Christian waif, 
 as it were, floating toward them from that unbelieving 
 world of France. 
 
 " Surely it will be a worthy and an honorable task 
 for Benjamin" (so thought Miss Eliza) "to redeem 
 this little creature from its graceless fortune ; possibly, 
 too, the companionship may soften that wild boy, 
 Reuben. This French girl, Adele, is rich, well-born ; 
 what if, from being inmates of the same house, the 
 two should come by and by to be joined by some 
 tenderer tie ? "
 
 118 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 The possibility, even, of such a dawn of sentiment 
 under the spinster s watchful tutelage was a delight 
 ful subject of reflection to her. It is remarkable 
 how even the cunningest and the coolest of practical- 
 minded women delight in watching the growth of 
 sentiment in others, and all the more strongly, if 
 they can foster it by their artifices and provoke it into 
 demonstration. 
 
 Miss Johns, too, without being imaginative, pre 
 figured in her mind the image of the little French 
 stranger, with foreign air and dress, tripping beside 
 her up the meeting-house aisle, looking into her face 
 confidingly for guidance, attracting the attention of 
 the simple towns-people in such sort that a distinction 
 would belong to her protegee which would be pleas 
 antly reflected upon herself. A love of distinction 
 was the spinster s prevailing sin, a distinction grow 
 ing out of the working of good deeds, if it might be, 
 but at any rate some worthy and notable distinction. 
 The Doctorate of her good brother, his occasional dis 
 courses which had been subject of a public mention 
 that she never forgot, were objects of a more than 
 sisterly fondness. If her sins were ever to meet with 
 a punishment in the flesh, they would know no sharper 
 one than in a humiliation of her pride. 
 
 " I think," said she, " that you can hardly decline 
 the proposal of Mr. Maverick, Benjamin."
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 119 
 
 " And you will take the home care of her ? " asked 
 the Doctor. 
 
 " Certainly. She would at first, I suppose, attend 
 school with Reuben and the young Elderkins ? " 
 
 " Probably," returned the Doctor ; " but the more 
 special religious training which I fear the poor girl 
 needs must be given at home, Eliza." 
 
 " Of course, Benjamin." 
 
 It was further agreed between the two that a FVench 
 attendant would make a very undesirable addition to 
 the household, as well as sadly compromise their ef 
 forts to build up the little stranger in full knowledge 
 of the faith. 
 
 The Doctor was earnest in his convictions of the 
 duty that lay before him, and his sister s consent to 
 share the charge left him free to act. He felt all 
 the best impulses of his nature challenged by the 
 proposal. Here, at least, was one chance to snatch 
 a brand from the burning, to lead this poor little 
 misguided wayfarer into those paths which are " paths 
 of pleasantness." No image of French grace or of 
 French modes was prefigured to the mind of the par 
 son ; his imagination had different range. He saw 
 a young innocent (so far as any child in his view 
 could be innocent) who prattled in the terrible lan 
 guage of Rousseau and Voltaire, who by the provi 
 dence of God had been born in a realm where all
 
 120 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 iniquities flourished, and to whom, by the further and 
 richer providence of God, a means of escape was now 
 offered. He would no more have thought of declin 
 ing the proposed service, even though the poor girl 
 were dressed in homespun and clattered in sabots, 
 than he would have closed his ear to the cry of a 
 drowning child. 
 
 Within that very week the Doctor wrote his reply 
 to Maverick. He assured him that he would most 
 gladly undertake the trust he had proposed, " hop 
 ing, by God s grace, to lead the little one away from 
 the delusions of sense and the abominations of An 
 tichrist, to the fold of the faithful." 
 
 " I could wish," he continued, " that you had given 
 me more definite information in regard to the char 
 acter of her early religious instruction, and told me 
 how far the child may still remain under the mother s 
 influence in this respect ; for, next to special inter 
 position of Divine Grace, I know no influence so 
 strong in determining religious tendencies as the early 
 instruction or example of a mother. 
 
 " My sister has promised to give home care to the 
 little stranger, and will, I am sure, welcome her with 
 zeal. It will be our purpose to place your daughter 
 at the day-school of a worthy person, Miss Betsey 
 Onthank, who has had large experience, and under 
 whose tuition my boy Reuben has been for some time
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 121 
 
 established. My sister and myself are both of opin 
 ion that the presence of any French attendant upon 
 the child would be undesirable. 
 
 " I hope that God may have mercy upon the French 
 people, and that those who dwell temporarily among 
 them may be watched over and be graciously snatched 
 from the great destruction that awaits the ungodly."
 
 XVII. 
 
 1% TEANTIME Reuben grew into a knowledge of 
 -^ all the town mischief, and into the practice 
 of such as came within the scope of his years. The 
 proposed introduction of the young stranger from 
 abroad to the advantages of the parsonage home did 
 not weigh upon his thought greatly. The prospect 
 of such a change did not soften him, whatever might 
 come of the event. In his private talk with Esther, 
 he had said, " I hope that French girl 11 be a clever 
 
 un ; if she a n t, I 11 " and he doubled up a little 
 
 fist, and shook it, so that Esther laughed outright. 
 
 Not that the boy had any cruelty in him, but he 
 was just now learning from his older companions of 
 the village, who were more steeped in iniquity, that 
 defiant manner by which the Devil in all of us makes 
 his first pose preparatory to the onslaught that is to 
 come. 
 
 " Nay, Ruby, boy," said Esther, when she had re 
 covered from her laughter, " you would n t hurt the 
 little un, would ye ? Don t ye want a little playfellow, 
 Ruby ? "
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 123 
 
 "I don t play with girls, I don t," said Reuben. 
 * But, I say, Esther, what 11 papa do, if she dances ? " 
 
 " What makes the boy think she 11 dance ? " said 
 Esther. 
 
 " Because the Geography says the French people 
 dance ; and Phil Elderkin showed me a picture with 
 girls dancing under a tree, and, says he, That s the 
 sort that s comin to y r house. " 
 
 " Well, I don t know," said Esther, " but I guess 
 your Aunt Eliza d cure the dancin ." 
 
 " She would n t cure me, if I wanted to," said Reu 
 ben, who thought it needful to speak in terms of bra 
 vado about the spinster, with whom he kept up a series 
 of skirmishing fights from week to week. The truth is, 
 the keen eye of the good lady ferreted out a great many 
 of his pet plans of mischief, and nipped them before 
 they had time to ripen. Over and over, too, she warned 
 him against the evil associates whom he would find 
 about the village tavern, where he strayed from time to 
 time to be witness to some dog-fight, or to receive a 
 commendatory glance of recognition from one Nat 
 Boody, the tavern-keeper s son, who had run away two 
 years before and made a voyage down the river in a 
 sloop laden with apples and onions to " York." He 
 was a head taller than Reuben, and the latter admired 
 him intensely : we never cease admiring those " a head 
 taller " than ourselves. Reuben absolutely pined in
 
 124 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 longing wonderment at the way in which Nat Boody 
 could crack a coach-whip, and with a couple of hickory 
 sticks could " call the roll " upon a pine table equal to a 
 drum-major. Wonderful were the stories this boy could 
 tell, to special cronies, of his adventures in the city : 
 they beat the Geography " all hollow." Such an air, too, 
 as this Boody had, leaning against the pump-handle 
 by his father s door, and making cuts at an imaginary 
 span of horses ! such a pair of twilled trousers, 
 cut like a man s ! such a jacket, with lapels to the 
 pockets, which he said " the sailors wore on the sloops, 
 and called em monkey-jackets " ! such a way as 
 he had of putting a quid in his mouth ! for Nat Boody 
 chewed. It is not strange that Reuben, feeling a little 
 of ugly constraint under the keen eye of the spinster 
 Eliza, should admire greatly the free-and-easy manner 
 of the tavern-boy, who had such familiarity with the 
 world and such large range of action. The most of us 
 never get over a wonderment at the composure and 
 complacency which spring from a wide knowledge of 
 the world ; and the man who can crack his whip well, 
 though only at an imaginary pair of horses, is sure to 
 have a throng of admirers. 
 
 By this politic lad, Nat Boody, the innocent Reuben 
 was decoyed into many a little bargain which told more 
 for the shrewdness of the tavern than for that of the 
 parsonage. Thus, he bartered one day a new pocket-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 125 
 
 knife, the gift of his Aunt Mabel, of Greenwich Street, 
 for a knit Scotch cap, half-worn, which the tavern trav 
 eler assured him could not be matched for any money. 
 And the parson s boy, going back with this trophy on 
 his head, looking very consciously at those who give an 
 admiring stare, is pounced upon at the very door-step 
 by the indefatigable spinster. 
 
 " What now, Reuben ? Where in the world did you 
 get that cap ? " 
 
 " Bought it," in a grand way. 
 
 "But it s worn," says the aunt. "Ouf! whose was 
 it?" 
 
 " Bought it of Nat Boody," says Reuben ; " and he 
 says there is n t another can be had." 
 
 u Bah ! " says the spinster, making a dash at the cap, 
 which she seizes, and, straightway rushing in-doors, 
 souses in a kettle of boiling water. 
 
 After which comes off a new skirmish, followed by 
 the partial defeat of Reuben, who receives such a comb 
 ing down (with sundry killed and wounded) as he re 
 members for a month thereafter. 
 
 The truth is, that it was not altogether from admira 
 tion of the accomplished Nat Boody that Reuben was 
 prone to linger about the tavern neighborhood. The 
 spinster had so strongly and constantly impressed it 
 upon him that it was a low and vulgar and wicked place, 
 that the boy, growing vastly inquisitive in these years,
 
 126 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 was curious to find out what shape the wickedness 
 took; and as he walked by, sometimes at dusk, when 
 thoroughly infused with the lust teachings of Miss Eliza, 
 it seemed to him that he might possibly catch a glimpse 
 of the hoofs of some devil (as he had seen devils pict 
 ured in an illustrated Milton) capering about the door 
 way, and if he had seen them, truth compels us to 
 say that he would have felt a strong inclination to fol 
 low them up, at a safe distance, in order to see what 
 kind of creatures might be wearing them. But he was 
 far more apt to see the lounging figure of the shoe 
 maker from down the street, or of Mr. Postmaster 
 Troop, coming thither to have an evening s chat about 
 Vice-President Calhoun, or William Wirt and the Anti- 
 Masons. Or possibly, it might be, he would see the light 
 heels of Suke Boody, the pretty daughter of the tavern- 
 keeper, who had been pronounced by Phil Elderkin. 
 who knew, (being a year his senior,) the handsomest 
 girl in the town. This might well be ; for Suke was 
 just turned of fifteen, with pink arms and pink cheeks 
 and blue eyes and a great flock of brown hair : not 
 very startling in her beauty on ordinary days, when she 
 appeared in a pinned-up quilted petticoat, and her curls 
 in papers, sweeping the tavern-steps ; but of a Saturday 
 afternoon, in red and white calico, with the curls all 
 streaming, no wonder Phil Elderkin, who was tall 
 of his age, thought her handsome. So it happened that
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 127 
 
 the inquisitive Reuben, not finding any cloven feet in 
 his furtive observations, but encountering always either 
 the rosy Suke, or " Scamp," (which was Nat s pet fight 
 ing-dog,) or the shoemaker, or the round-faced Mr. 
 Boody himself, could justify and explain his aunt s 
 charge of the tavern wickedness only by distributing it 
 over them all. And when, one Sunday, Miss Suke ap 
 peared at meeting (where she rarely went) in hat all 
 aflame with ribbons, Reuben, sorely puzzled at the 
 sight, says to his Aunt Eliza, 
 
 " Why did n t the sexton put her out ? " 
 
 " Put her out ! " says the spinster, horrified, 
 " what do you mean, Reuben ? " 
 
 " Is n t she wicked ? " says he ; " she came from the 
 tavern, and she lives at the tavern." 
 
 " But don t you know that preaching is for the 
 wicked, and that the good had much better stay away 
 than the bad ? " 
 
 " Had they ? " said Reuben, thoughtfully, pondering 
 if there did not lie somewhere in this averment the 
 basis for some new moral adjustment of his own con 
 duct. 
 
 There are a vast many prim preachers, both male 
 and female, in all times, who imagine that certain styles 
 of wickedness or vulgarity are to be approached Avith 
 propriety only across a church ; as if better preach 
 ing did not lie, nine times out of ten, in the touch of a 
 hand or a whisper in the ear !
 
 128 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 Pondering, as Reuben did, upon the repeated warn 
 ings of the spinster against any familiarity with the 
 tavern or tavern people, he came in time to reckon the 
 old creaking sign-board of Mr. Boody, and the pump in 
 the inn-yard, as the pivotal points of all the town 
 wickedness, just as the meeting-house was the center of 
 all the town goodness ; and since the great world was 
 very wicked, as he knew from overmuch iteration at 
 home, and since communication with that wicked world 
 was kept up mostly by the stage-coach that stopped 
 every noon at the tavern-door, it seemed to him that 
 relays of wickedness must flow into the tavern and 
 town daily upon that old swaying stage-coach, just as 
 relays of goodness might come to the meeting-house on 
 some old lumbering chaise of a neighboring parson, 
 who once a month, perhaps, would " exchange " with 
 the Doctor. And it confirmed in Reuben s mind a good 
 deal that was taught him about natural depravity, when 
 he found himself looking out with very much more 
 eagerness for the rumbling coach, that kept up a daily 
 wicked activity about the tavern, than he did for Par 
 son Hobson, who snuffled in his reading, and who 
 drove an old, thin-tailed sorrel mare, with lopped ears 
 and lank jaws, that made passes at himself and Phil, if 
 they teased her, as they always did. 
 
 So, too, he came to regard, in virtue of misplaced 
 home instruction, the monkey-jacket of Nat Boody, and
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 129 
 
 his fighting-dog " Scamp," and the pink arms and pink 
 cheeks and brown ringlets of Suke Boody, as so many 
 types of human wickedness ; and, by parity of reason 
 ing, he came to look upon the two flat curls on either 
 temple of his Aunt Eliza, and her pragmatic way, and 
 upon the yellow ribbons within the scoop-hat of Al- 
 mira Tourtelot, who sang treble and never went to the 
 tavern, as the types of goodness. What wonder, if he 
 swayed more arid more toward the broad and easy 
 path that lay around the tavern-pump, (" Scamp " lying 
 there biting at the flies,) and toward the bar-room, 
 with its flaming pictures of some past menagerie-show, 
 and big tumblers with lemons atop, rather than to the 
 strait and narrow path in which his Aunt Eliza and 
 Miss Almira would guide him with sharp voices, thin 
 faces, and decoy of dyspeptic doughnuts ? 
 
 Phil and he sauntering by one day, Phil says, 
 
 " Darst you go in, Reub ? " 
 
 Phil was under no law of prohibition. And Reuben, 
 glancing around the Common, says, 
 
 Yes, / 11 go." 
 
 " Then," says Phil, " we 11 call for a glass of lemon 
 ade. Fellows most always order something when they 
 go in." 
 
 So Phil, swelling with his ten years, and tall of his 
 age, walks to the bar and calls for two tumblers of lem 
 onade, which Old Boody stirs with an appetizing rattle 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 130 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 of the toddy-stick, dropping, meantime, a query or 
 two about the Squire, and a look askance at the par 
 son s boy, who is trying very hard to wear an air as if 
 he, too, were ten, and knew the ropes. 
 
 " It s good, a n t it ? " says Phil, putting down his 
 money, of which he always had a good stock. 
 
 " Prime ! " says Reuben, with a smack of the lips. 
 
 And then Suke comes in, hunting over the room for 
 last week s " Courant " ; and the boys, with furtive 
 glances at those pink cheeks and brown ringlets, go 
 down the steps. 
 
 " A n t she handsome ? " says Phil. 
 
 Reuben is on the growth. And when he eats dinner 
 that day, with the grave Doctor carving the rib-roast 
 and the prim aunt ladling out the sauces, he is elated 
 with the vague, but not unpleasant consciousness, that 
 he is beginning to be familiar with the world.
 
 XVIII. 
 
 "T T was some four or five months after the dispatch 
 -"- of the Doctor s letter to Maverick before the reply 
 came. His friend expressed the utmost gratitude for 
 the Doctor s prompt and hearty acceptance of his pro 
 posal. With his little Adele frolicking by him, and 
 fastening more tenderly upon his heart every year, he 
 was sometimes half disposed to regret the scheme ; but, 
 believing it to be for her good, and confident of the in 
 tegrity of those to whom he intrusted her, he reconciled 
 himself to the long separation. 
 
 It docs not come within the limits of this simple New 
 England narrative to enter upon any extended review 
 of the family relations or the life of Maverick abroad. 
 Whatever details may appear incidentally, as the story 
 progresses, the reader will please to regard as the shreds 
 and raveled edges of another and distinct life, which 
 cannot be fairly interwoven with the homespun one of 
 the parsonage, nor yet be wholly brushed clear of our 
 story. 
 
 " I want," said Maverick in his letter, " that Adele, 
 while having a thorough womanly education, should
 
 132 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 grow up with simple tastes. I think I see a little tend 
 ency in her to a good many idle coquetries of dress, 
 (which you will set down, I know, to her French blood,) 
 which I trust your good sister will see the prudence of 
 correcting. My fortune is now such that I may reason 
 ably hope to put luxuries within her reach, if they be 
 desirable ; but of this I should prefer that she remain 
 ignorant. I want to see established in her what you 
 would call those moral and religious bases of character 
 that will sustain her under any possible reverses or dis 
 appointments. You will smile, perhaps, at my talking 
 in this strain ; but if I have been afloat in these matters, 
 at least you will do me the credit that may belong to 
 hoping better things for my little Adele. It s not 
 much, I know ; but I do sincerely desire that she may 
 find some rally ing-point of courage and of faith within 
 herself against any possible misfortune. Is it too much 
 to hope, that, under your guidance, and under the quiet 
 religious atmosphere of your little town, she may find 
 such, and that she may possess herself of the consola 
 tions of the faith you teach, without sacrificing alto 
 gether her natural French vivacity ? 
 
 " And now, my dear Johns, I come to refer to a cer 
 tain allusion in your letter with some embarrassment. 
 You speak of the weight of a mother s religious influ 
 ence, and ask what it may have been. Since extreme 
 childhood, Adele has been almost entirely under the
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 133 
 
 care of her godmother, a quiet old lady, who, though a 
 devotee of the Popish Church, you must allow me to 
 say, is a downright good Christian woman. I am quite 
 sure that she has not pressed upon the conscience of 
 little Adele any bigotries of the Church. My wish in 
 this matter I am confident that she has religiously re 
 garded ; and while giving the example of her own faith 
 by constant and daily devotions, I think, as I said in my 
 previous letter, that you will find the heart of my little 
 girl as open as the sky. Why it is that the mother s 
 relations with the clu ld have been so broken you will 
 spare me the pain of explaining. 
 
 " Would to God, I think at times, that I had married 
 years ago one nurtured in our old-fashioned faith of 
 New England, some gentle, pure, loving soul ! Shall 
 I confess it, Johns ? the little glimpse of your lost 
 Rachel gave me an idea of the tenderness and depth 
 of devotion and charming womanliness of many of 
 those whom I had counted stiff and utterly repulsive, 
 which I never had before. 
 
 " Pardon me. my friend, for an allusion which may 
 provoke your grief, and which may seem utterly out of 
 place in the talk of one who is just now confiding to 
 you his daughter. 
 
 " Johns, I have this faith in you, from our college- 
 days : I know that on the score of the things touched 
 upon in the last paragraphs of my letter you will not
 
 134 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 press me with inquiries. It is enough for you to know 
 that my life has not been all plain-sailing. For the 
 present, let us say nothing of the griefs. 
 
 "As little Adele comes to me, and sits upon my 
 knee, as I write, I almost lose courage. 
 
 " Adele, I say, will you leave your father, and go 
 far away over seas, to stay perhaps for years ? 
 
 " You talk nonsense, papa, she says, and leaps 
 into my arms. 
 
 " My heart cleaves strangely to her : I do not know 
 wholly why. And yet she must go : it is best. 
 
 " The vessel of which I spoke will sail in three weeks 
 from the date of my letter for the port of New York. 
 I have made ample provision for her comfort on the 
 passage ; and as the date of the ship s arrival in New 
 York is uncertain, I must beg you to arrange with some 
 friend there, if possible, to protect the little stranger, 
 until you are ready to receive her. I inclose my draft 
 for three hundred dollars, which I trust may be suffi 
 cient for a year s maintenance, seeing that she goes 
 well provided with clothing : if otherwise, you will 
 please inform me." 
 
 Dr. Johns was not a man to puzzle himself with idle 
 conjectures in regard to the private affairs of his friend. 
 With all kind feeling for him, and Maverick s con 
 fidence in the Doctor had insensibly given large growth 
 to it, the parson dismissed the whole affair with this 
 logical reflection :
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 135 
 
 My poor friend has been decoyed into marrying a 
 Frenchwoman. Frenchwomen (like Frenchmen) are 
 all children of Satan. He is now reaping the bitter 
 results. 
 
 " As for the poor child," thought the Doctor, and his 
 heart glowed at the thought, " I will plant her little 
 feet upon safe places. With God s help, she shall 
 come into the fold of the elect." 
 
 He arranges with Mrs. Brindlock to receive the child 
 temporarily upon her arrival. Miss Eliza puts even 
 more than her usual vigor and system into her arrange 
 ments for the reception of the new-comer. Nothing 
 could be neater than the little chamber, provided with 
 its white curtains, its spotless linen, its dark old mahog 
 any furniture, its Testament and Catechism upon the 
 toilet-table ; one or two vases of old china had been 
 brought up and placed upon brackets out of reach of 
 the little hands that might have been tempted by their 
 beauty, and a coquettish porcelain image of a flower- 
 girl had been added to the other simple adornments 
 which the ambitious spinster had lavished upon the 
 chamber. Her pride as housekeeper was piqued. The 
 young stranger must be duly impressed with the advan 
 tages of her position at the start. 
 
 " There," said she to Esther, as she gave a finishing 
 touch to the disposal of the blue and white hangings 
 about the high-post bedstead, " I wonder if that will be 
 to the taste of the little French lady ! "
 
 136 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " I should think it might, marm ; it s the beautiful- 
 lest room I ever see, marm." 
 
 Reuben, boy-like, passes in and out with an air of 
 affected indifference, as if the arrangements for the 
 new arrival had no interest for him ; and he whistles 
 more defiantly than ever.
 
 XIX. 
 
 TN early September of 1829, when the orchard behind 
 -*- the parsonage was glowing with its burden of fruit, 
 when the white and crimson hollyhocks were lifting 
 their slanted pagodas of bloom all down the garden, 
 and the buckwheat was whitening with its blossoms 
 broad patches of the hill-sides east and west of Ash- 
 field, news came to the Doctor that his expected guest 
 had arrived safely in New York, and was waiting his 
 presence there at the elegant home of Mrs. Brindlock. 
 And Sister Mabel writes to the Doctor, in the letter 
 which conveys intelligence of the arrival, " She s 
 a charming little witch ; and if you don t like to take 
 her with you, she may stay here." Mrs. Brindlock had 
 no children. 
 
 A visit to New York was an event for the parson. 
 The spinster, eager for his good appearance at the 
 home of her stylish sister, insisted upon a toilet that 
 made the poor man more awkward than ever. Yet he 
 did not think of rebelling. He rejoiced, indeed, that 
 he did not dwell where such hardships would be daily 
 demanded; but remembering that he was bound to a
 
 138 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 city of strangers, he recalled the Scriptural injunc 
 tion, " Render unto Caesar the things which be Cae 
 sar s." 
 
 The Brindlocks, well-meaning and showy people, re 
 ceived the parson with an effervescence of kindness 
 that disturbed him almost as much as the stiff garni 
 ture in which he had been invested by the solicitude of 
 Miss Eliza ; and when, in addition to his double em 
 barrassment, a little saucy-eyed, brown-faced girl, full 
 of mirthful exuberance, with her dark hair banded in a 
 way that was utterly strange to him, and with coquet 
 tish bows of ribbon at her throat, at either armlet of 
 her jaunty frock, and all down either side of her silk 
 pinafore, came toward him with a smiling air, as if she 
 were confident of his caresses, the awkwardness of the 
 poor Doctor was complete. 
 
 But, catching sight of a certain frank outlook in the 
 little face which reminded him of his friend Maverick, 
 he felt his heart stirred within him, and in his grave 
 way dropped a kiss upon her forehead, while he took 
 both her hands in his. 
 
 " This, then, is little Adaly ? " 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! " laughed Adele, merrily, and, turning 
 round to her new-found friends, says, " My new 
 papa calls me Adaly ! " 
 
 The straightforward parson was, indeed, as inacces 
 sible to French words as to French principles. Adele
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 139 
 
 had somehow a smack in it of the Gallic Pandemonium : 
 Adaly, to his ear, was a far honester sound. 
 
 And the child seemed to fancy it, whether for its 
 novelty, or the kindliness that beamed on her from the 
 gravest face she had ever seen, it would be hard to say. 
 
 " Call me Adaly, and I will call you New Papa," said 
 she. 
 
 And though the parson was not a bargaining man, 
 every impulse of his heart went to confirm this ar 
 rangement. It was flattering to his self-love, if not to 
 his principles, to have apparent sanction to his preju 
 dices against French forms of speech ; and the " New 
 Papa " on the lips of this young girl touched him to 
 the quick. Wifeless men are more easily accessible to 
 demonstrations of even apparent affection on the part 
 of young girls than those whose sympathies are hedged 
 about by matrimonial relations. 
 
 From all this it chanced that the best possible under 
 standing was speedily established between the Doctor 
 and his little ward from beyond the seas. For an hour 
 after bis arrival, the little creature hung upon his chair, 
 asking questions about her new home, about the schools, 
 about her playmates, patting the great hand of the 
 Doctor with her little fingers, and reminding him sadly 
 of days utterly gone. 
 
 Mrs. Brindlock, with her woman s curiosity, seizes an 
 occasion, before they leave, to say privately to the Doc 
 tor,
 
 140 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " Benjamin, the child must have a strange mother to 
 allow this long separation, and the little creature so lov 
 ing as she is." 
 
 " It would be strange enough for any but a French 
 woman," said he. 
 
 " But Adele is full of talk about her father and her 
 godmother ; yet she can tell me scarce anything of her 
 mother. There s a mystery about it, Benjamin." 
 
 " There s a mystery in all our lives, Mabel, and will 
 be until the last day shall come." 
 
 The parson said this with extreme gravity, and then 
 added, 
 
 " He has written me regarding it, a very unfortu 
 nate marriage, I fear. Only this much he has been dis 
 posed to communicate ; and for myself, I am only con 
 cerned to redeem his little girl from gross worldly 
 attachments to the truths which take hold upon heaven. 
 
 The next day the Doctor set off homeward upon the 
 magnificent new steamboat Victory, which, with two 
 wonderful smoke-pipes, was then plying through the 
 Sound and up the Connecticut River. It was an ob 
 ject of almost as much interest to the parson as to his 
 little companion. A sober costume had now replaced 
 the coquettish one with its furbelows, which Adele had 
 worn in the city ; but there was a bright lining to her 
 little hat that made her brown face more piquant than 
 ever. And as she inclined her head jauntily to this
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 141 
 
 side or that, in order to a better listening to the old 
 gentleman s somewhat tedious explanations, or with a 
 saucy smile cut him short in the midst of them, the 
 parson felt his heart warming more and more toward 
 this poor child of heathen France. Nay, he felt almost 
 tempted to lay his lips to the little white ears that 
 peeped forth from the masses of dark hair and seemed 
 fairly to quiver with the eagerness of their listening. 
 
 With daylight of next morning came sight of the 
 rambling old towns that lay at the river s mouth, 
 being little more than patches of gray and white, 
 strewed over an almost treeless country, with some 
 central spire rising above them. Then came great 
 stretches of open pasture, scattered over with huge 
 gray rocks, amid which little flocks of sheep were ram 
 bling; or some herd of young cattle, startled by the 
 splashing of the paddles, and the great plumes of 
 smoke, tossed their tails in the air, and galloped away 
 in a fright, at which Adele clapped her hands, and 
 broke into a laugh that was as cheery as the new dawn. 
 Next came low, flat meadows of sedge, over which the 
 tide oozed slowly, and where flocks of wild ducks, 
 scared from their feeding-ground, rose by scores, and 
 went flapping off seaward in long, black lines. And 
 from between the hills on either side came glimpses of 
 swamp woodland, in the midst of which some maple, 
 earlier than its green fellows, had taken a tinge of
 
 142 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 orange, and flamed in the eyes of the little traveler 
 with a gorgeousness she had never seen in the woods 
 of Provence. Then came towns nestling under bluffs 
 of red quarry-stones, towns upon wooded plains, all 
 with a white newness about them ; and a brig, with horses 
 on its deck, piled over with bales of hay, comes drifting 
 lazily down with the tide, to catch an offing for the 
 West Indies ; and queer-shaped flat-boats, propelled by 
 broad-bladed oars, surge slowly athwart the stream, 
 ferrying over some traveler, or some fish-peddler 
 bound to the " P int " for " sea-food." 
 
 Toward noon the travelers land at a shambling dock 
 that juts into the river, from which point they are to 
 make their way, in such country vehicle as the little 
 village will supply, across to Ashfield. And when they 
 are fairly seated within, the parson, judging that ac 
 quaintance has ripened sufficiently to be put to serious 
 uses, says, with more than usual gravity, 
 
 I trust, Adaly, that you are grateful to God for hav 
 ing protected you from all the dangers of the deep." 
 
 " Do you think there was much danger, New Papa ? " 
 
 " There s always danger," said the parson, gravely. 
 " The Victory might have been blown in pieces last 
 night, and we all been killed, Adaly." 
 
 " Oh, terrible ! " says Aclele. " And did such a thing 
 ever really happen ? " 
 
 " Yes, my child."
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 143 
 
 " Tell me all about it, New Papa, please ; " and she 
 put her little hand in his. 
 
 " Not now, Adaly, not now. I want to know if 
 you have been taught about God, in your old home." 
 
 " Oh, the good God ! To be sure I have, over and 
 over and over ; " and she made a little piquant gesture, 
 as if the teaching had been sometimes wearisome. 
 
 This gayety of speech on such a theme was painful to 
 the Doctor. 
 
 " And you have been taught to pray, Adaly ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! Listen now. Shall I tell you one of my 
 prayers, New Papa ? Voyons, how is it " 
 
 " Never mind, never mind, Adaly ; not here, not 
 here. We are taught to enter into our closets when 
 we pray." 
 
 " Closets ? " 
 
 "Yes, my child, to be by ourselves, and to be 
 solemn." 
 
 " I don t like solemn people much," said Adele, in a 
 quiet tone. 
 
 " But do you love God, my child ? " 
 
 " Love Him ? To be sure I do ; " and after a little 
 pause, " All good children love Him ; and I m good, 
 you know, New Papa, don t you ? " and she turned 
 her eyes up toward him with a half-coaxing, half-mis 
 chievous look that came near to drive away all his so 
 lemnity.
 
 144 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " Ah, Adaly ! Adaly ! we are all wicked ! " said he. 
 
 Adele stared at him in amazement. 
 
 " You, too ! Yet papa told me you were so good ! 
 Ah, you are telling me now a little what you call 
 lie ! a n t you, New Papa ? " 
 
 And she looked at him with such a frank, arch 
 smile, so like the memory he cherished of the col 
 lege-boy, Maverick, that he could argue the matter 
 no further, but only patted her little hand, as it lay 
 upon the cushion of the carriage, as much as to say, 
 " Poor thing ! poor thing ! " 
 
 Upon this, he fell away into a train of grave reflec 
 tion on the method which it would be best to pursue in 
 bringing this little benighted wanderer into the fold of 
 the faithful. 
 
 And he was still musing thus, when suddenly the 
 spire of Ashfield broke upon the view. 
 
 " There it is, Adaly ! There is to be your new 
 home ! " 
 
 " Where ? where ? " says Adele, eagerly. 
 
 And straightway she is all aglow with excitement. 
 Her swift questions patter on the ears of the old gen 
 tleman thick as rain-drops. She looks at the houses, 
 the hills, the trees, the face of every passer-by, won 
 dering how she shall like them all ; fashioning to her- 
 
 o o 
 
 self some image of the boy Reuben and of the Aunt 
 Eliza who are to meet her ; yet, through all the torrent
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 145 
 
 of her vexed fancies, carrying a great glow of hope, and 
 entering, with all her fresh, girlish enthusiasms un 
 checked, upon that new phase of life, so widely differ 
 ent from any thing she has yet experienced, under the 
 grave atmosphere of a New England parsonage. 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 XX. 
 
 "]% /PISS JOHNS meets the new-comer with as large 
 ~U-*- a share of kindness as she can force into her 
 manner ; but her welcome lacks, somehow, the sympa 
 thetic glow to which Adele has been used ; it has not 
 even the spontaneity and heartiness which had belonged 
 to the greeting of that worldly woman, Mrs. Brindlock. 
 And as the wondering little stranger passes up the 
 path, and into the door of the parsonage, with her hand 
 in that of the spinster, she cannot help contrasting the 
 one cold kiss of the tall lady in black with the shower 
 of warm ones which her old godmother had bestowed 
 at parting. Yet in the eye of the Doctor sister Eliza 
 had hardly ever worn a more beaming look, and he was 
 duly grateful for the strong interest which she evidently 
 showed in the child of his poor friend. She had 
 equipped herself indeed in her best silk and with her 
 most elaborate toilet, and had exhausted all her strat 
 egy, whether in respect of dress, of decorations for 
 the chamber, or of the profuse supper which was in 
 course of preparation, to make a profound and favor 
 able impression upon the heart of the stranger.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 147 
 
 The spinster was not a little mortified at her evident 
 want of success, most notably in respect to the elabo 
 rate arrangements of the chamber of the young guest, 
 who seemed to regard the dainty hangings of the little 
 bed, and the scattered ornaments, as matters of course ; 
 but making her way to the window which commanded 
 a view of both garden and orchard, Adele clapped her 
 hands with glee at sight of the flaming hollyhocks and 
 the trees laden with golden pippins. It was, indeed, a 
 pretty scene : silvery traces of the brook sparkled in 
 the green meadow below the orchard, and the hills be- 
 
 O * 
 
 yond were checkered by the fields of buckwheat in 
 broad patches of white bloom, and these again were 
 skirted by masses of luxuriant wood that crowned all 
 the heights. To the eye of Adele, used only to the 
 bare hill-sides and scanty olive-orchards of Marseilles, 
 the view was marvelously fair. 
 
 " Tiens ! there are chickens and doves," said she, 
 still gazing eagerly out ; " oh, I am sure I shall love 
 this new home ! " 
 
 And thus saying, she tripped back from the window 
 to where Miss Eliza was admiringly intent upon the 
 unpacking and arranging of the little wardrobe of her 
 guest. Adele, in the flush of her joyful expectations 
 from the scene that had burst upon her out of doors, 
 now prattled more freely with the spinster. tossing 
 out the folds of her dresses, as they successively came
 
 148 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 to light, with her dainty fingers, and giving some quick, 
 girlish judgment upon each. 
 
 " This godmother gave me, dear, good soul ! and 
 she sewed this bow upon it ; is n t it coquette ? And 
 there s the white muslin, oh, how crushed! that 
 was for my church-dress, first communion, you know ; 
 but papa said, Better wait, so I never wore it." 
 
 Thus woman and child grew into easy acquaintance 
 over the great trunk of Adele : the latter plunging her 
 little hands among the silken folds of dress after dress 
 with the careless air of one whose every wish had been 
 petted ; and the spinster forecasting the pride she 
 would herself take in accompanying this little sprite, in 
 these French robes, to the house of her good friends, 
 the Hapgoods, or in exciting the wonderment of those 
 most excellent people, the Tourtelots. 
 
 Meantime Reuben, with a resolute show of boyish 
 indifference, has been straying off with Phil Elderkin, 
 although he has caught a glimpse of the carriage at the 
 door. Later he makes his way into the study, where 
 the Doctor, after giving him kindly reproof for not 
 being at home to welcome them, urges upon him the 
 duty of kindness to the young stranger who has come 
 to make her home with them, and trusts that Provi 
 dence may overrule her presence there to the improve 
 ment and blessing of both. It is, in fact, a little lecture 
 which the good, but prosy Doctor pronounces to the
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 149 
 
 boy ; from which he slipping away, so soon as a good 
 gap occurs in the discourse, strolls with a jaunty affec 
 tation of carelessness into the parlor. His Aunt Eliza 
 is there now, seated at the table, and Adele standing by 
 the hearth, on which a fire has just been kindled. She 
 gives a quick, eager look at him, under which his as 
 sumed carelessness vanishes in an instant. 
 
 " This is Adele, our little French guest, Reuben." 
 
 The lad throws a quick, searching glance upon 
 her, but is abashed by the look of half-confidence and 
 half-merriment that he sees twinkling in her eye. 
 The boy s awkwardness seems to infect her, too, 
 for a moment. 
 
 " I should think, Reuben, you would welcome Adele 
 to the parsonage," said the spinster. 
 
 And Reuben, glancing again from under his brow, 
 sidles along the table, with far less of ease than he 
 had worn when he came whistling through the hall, 
 sidles nearer and nearer, till she, with a coy ap 
 proach that seems to be full of doubt, meets him 
 with a little furtive hand-shade. Then he, retiring a 
 step, leans with one elbow on the friendly table, eying 
 her curiously, and more boldly when he discovers 
 that her look is downcast and that she seems to 
 be warming her feet at the blaze. 
 
 Miss Johns has watched narrowly this approach 
 of her two proteges, with an interest quite uncom-
 
 150 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 mon to her ; and now, with a policy that would have 
 honored a more adroit tactician, she slips quietly from 
 the room. 
 
 Reuben feels freer at this, knowing that the gray eye 
 is not upon the watch ; Adele too, perhaps ; at any 
 rate, she lifts her face with a look that invites Reuben 
 to speech. 
 
 "You came in a ship, did n t you?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, a big, big ship ! " 
 
 " I should like to sail in a ship," said Reuben ; 
 "did you like it?" 
 
 "Not very much," said Adele, "the deck was so 
 slippery, and the waves were so high, oh, so high ! " 
 and the little maid makes an explanatory gesture 
 with her two hands, the like of which for grace and 
 expressiveness Reuben had certainly never seen in 
 any girl of Ashfield. His eyes twinkled at it. 
 
 " Were you afraid ? " said he. 
 
 "Oh, not much." 
 
 " Because you know," said Reuben, consolingly, " if 
 the ship had sunk, you could have come on shore in 
 the small boats." He saw a merry laugh of wonder 
 ment threatening in her face, and continued author 
 itatively, "Nat Boody has been in a sloop, and he 
 says they always carry small boats to pick up people 
 when the big ships go down." 
 
 Adele laughed outright. " But how would they
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 151 
 
 carry the bread, and the stove, and the water, and 
 the anchor, and all the things? Besides, the great 
 waves would knock a small boat in pieces." 
 
 Reuben felt a humiliating sense of being no match 
 for the little stranger on sea topics, so he changed the 
 theme. 
 
 " Are you going to Miss Onthank s ? " 
 
 " That s a funny name," says Adele ; " that s the 
 school, is n t it ? Yes, I suppose I 11 go there : you go, 
 don t you ? " 
 
 " Yes," says Reuben, " but I don t think I 11 go very 
 long." 
 
 "Why not?" says Adele. 
 
 " I m getting too big to go to a girls school," said 
 Reuben. 
 
 " Oh ! " and there was a little playful malice in the 
 girl s observation that piqued the boy. 
 
 " Do the scholars like her ? " continued Adele. 
 
 " Pretty well," said Reuben ; " but she hung up a 
 little girl about as big as you, once, upon a nail in a 
 corner of the school-room." 
 
 " Quelle bete ! " exclaimed Adele. 
 
 " That s French, is n t it ? " 
 
 " Yes, and it means she s a bad woman to do such 
 things." 
 
 In this way they prattled on, and grew into a cer 
 tain familiarity ; the boy entertaining an immense
 
 152 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 respect for her French, and for her knowledge of 
 the sea and ships ; but stubbornly determined to 
 maintain the superiority which he thought justly to 
 belong to his superior age and sex. 
 
 That evening, after the little people were asleep, 
 the spinster and the Doctor conferred together in 
 regard to Adele. It was agreed between them that 
 she should enter at once upon her school duties, 
 and that particular inquiry concerning her religious 
 beliefs, or particular instruction on that score, fur 
 ther than what belonged to the judicious system of 
 Miss Onthank, should be deferred for the present. 
 At the same time the Doctor enjoined upon his 
 sister the propriety of commencing upon the next 
 Saturday evening the usual instructions in the Shorter 
 Catechism, and of insisting upon punctual attendance 
 vipon the family devotions. The good Doctor hoped 
 by these appointed means gradually to ripen the re 
 ligious sensibilities of the little stranger, so that she 
 might be prepared for that stern denunciation of 
 those follies of the Romish Church amid which she 
 had been educated, and that it would be his duty at 
 no distant day to declare to her. 
 
 The spinster had been so captivated by a certain 
 air of modish elegance in Adele as to lead her 
 almost to forget the weightier obligations of her 
 Christian duty toward her. She conceived that she
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 153 
 
 would find in her a means of recovering some in 
 fluence over Reuben, never doubting that the boy 
 would be attracted by her frolicsome humor, and 
 would be eager for her companionship. It was pos 
 sible, moreover, that there might be some appeal to 
 the boy s jealousies, when he found the favors which 
 he had spurned were lavished upon Adele. It was 
 therefore in the best of temper and with the airiest 
 of hopes (though not altogether spiritual ones) that 
 Miss Eliza conducted the discussion with the Doctor. 
 In two things only they had differed, and in this 
 each had gained and each lost a point. The Doctor 
 utterly refused to conform his pronunciation to the 
 rigors which Miss Eliza prescribed ; for him Adele 
 should be always and only Aclaly. On the other 
 hand, the parson s exactions in regard to sundry 
 modifications of the little girl s dress miscarried ; the 
 spinster insisted upon all the furbelows as they had 
 come from the hands of the French modiste ; and 
 in this she left the field with flying colors. 
 
 The next day Doctor Johns wrote to his friend 
 Maverick, announcing the safe arrival of his child at 
 Ashfield, and spoke in terms which were warm for 
 him, of the interest which both his sister and him 
 self felt in her welfare. " He was pained," he said, 
 u to perceive that she spoke almost with gayety of 
 serious things, and feared greatly that her keen
 
 154 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 relish for the beauties and delights of this sinful 
 world, and her exuberant enjoyment of mere tem 
 poral blessings, would make it hard to wean her from 
 them and to center her desires upon the eternal 
 world. But, my friend, all things are possible with 
 God ; and I shall diligently pray that she may return 
 to you, in a few years, sobered in mind, and a 
 self-denying missionary of the true faith."
 
 XXI. 
 
 ""VTO such event could take place in Ashfield as 
 -^^ the arrival of this young stranger at the par 
 sonage, without exciting a world of talk up and down 
 the street. There were stories that she came of a 
 vile Popish family, and there were those who gravely 
 believed that the poor little creature had made only 
 a hair-breadth escape from the thongs of the In 
 quisition. There were few even of those who knew 
 that she was the daughter of a wealthy gentleman, 
 now domiciled in France, and an old friend of the 
 Doctor s, who did not look upon her with a tender 
 interest, as one miraculously snatched by the hands 
 of the good Doctor from the snares of perdition. 
 The gay trappings of silks and ribbons in which she 
 paced up the aisle of the meeting-house upon her 
 first Sunday, under the patronizing eye of the stern 
 spinster, were looked upon by the more elderly 
 worshipers most of all by the mothers of young 
 daughters as the badges of the Woman of Babylon, 
 and as fit belongings to those accustomed to dwell 
 in the tents of wickedness. Even Dame Tourtelot,
 
 156 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 in whose pew the face of Miss Almira waxes yellow 
 between two great saffron bows, commiserates the 
 poor heathen child who has been decked like a lamb 
 for the sacrifice. " I wonder Miss Eliza don t pull 
 off them ribbons from the little minx," said she, as 
 she marched home in the " intermission," locked 
 commandingly to the arm of the Deacon. 
 
 " Waal, I s pose they re paid for," returns the Deacon. 
 
 What s that to do with it, Tourtelot ? " 
 
 " Waal, Huldy, we do pootty much all we can for 
 Almiry in that line : this ere Maverick, I guess, doos 
 the same. What s the odds, arter all ? " 
 
 " Odds enough, Tourtelot," as the poor man found 
 before bedtime : he had no flip. 
 
 The Elderkins, however, were more considerate. 
 Very early after her arrival, Adele had found her way 
 to their homestead, under the guidance of Miss Eliza, 
 and by her frank, demonstrative manner had estab 
 lished herself at once in the affections of the whole 
 family. The Squire, indeed, had rallied the parson not 
 a little, in his boisterous, hearty fashion, upon his in 
 troduction of such a dangerous young Jesuit into so 
 orthodox a parish. 
 
 At all which, so seriously uttered as to take the Doc 
 tor fairly aback, good Mrs. Elderkin shook her finger 
 warningly at the head of the Squire, and said, " Now, 
 for shame, Giles ! "
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 157 
 
 Good Mrs. Elderkin was, indeed, the pattern woman 
 of the parish in all charitable deeds ; not only outside, 
 (where so many charitable natures find their limits,) 
 but in-doors. With gentle speech and gentle manner, 
 she gave, may be, her occasional closet-counsel to the 
 Squire ; but most times her efforts to win him to a 
 more serious habit of thought are covered under the 
 shape of some charming plea for a kindness to herself 
 or the " dear girls," which she knows that he will not 
 have the hardihood to resist. And even this method 
 she does not push too far, making it a cardinal point 
 in her womanly strategy that his home shall be always 
 grateful to the Squire, that he shall never be driven 
 from it by any thought or suspicion of her exactions. 
 Thus, if Grace who is her oldest daughter, and al 
 most woman grown has some evening appointment 
 at Bible class, or other such gathering, and, the boys 
 being out, appeals timidly to the father, good Mrs. 
 Elderkin says, 
 
 " I am afraid your papa is too tired, Grace ; do let 
 him enjoy himself." 
 
 At which the Squire, shaking off his lethargy, says, 
 
 " Get your things, child ! " 
 
 And as he goes out with Grace, he is rewarded by 
 one of those tender smiles upon the lip of the mother 
 which captivated him twenty years before, and which 
 still make his fireside the most cherished spot in the 
 town.
 
 158 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 No wonder that the little half-orphaned creature, 
 Adele, with her explosive warmth of heart, is kindly 
 received among the Elderkins. Phil was some three 
 years her senior, a ruddy-faced, open-hearted fellow, 
 who had been well-nurtured, like his two elder brothers, 
 but in whom a certain waywardness just now appearing 
 was attributed very much, by the closely observing 
 mother, to the influence of that interesting, but mis 
 chievous boy, Reuben. Phil was the superior in age, 
 indeed, and in muscle, (as we may find proof,) but in 
 nerve-power the more delicate-featured boy of the par 
 son outranked him. 
 
 Rose Elderkin was a year younger than the French 
 stranger, and a marvelously fair type of New England 
 girl-beauty : light brown hair in unwieldy masses ; skin 
 wonderfully clear and transparent, and that flushed at a 
 rebuke, or a run down the village street, till her cheeks 
 blazed with scarlet ; a lip delicately thin, but blood- red, 
 and exquisitely cut ; a great hazel eye, that in her mo 
 ments of glee, or any occasional excitement, fairly 
 danced and sparkled with a kind of insane merriment, 
 and at other times took on a demure and pensive look, 
 which to future wooers might possibly prove the more 
 dangerous of the two. The features named make up a 
 captivating girlish beauty, but one which, under a New 
 England atmosphere, is rarely carried forward into 
 womanhood. The lips grow pinched and bloodless ;
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 159 
 
 the skin blanched against all proof of blushes ; the 
 eyes sunken, and the blithe sparkle that was so full of 
 infectious joy is lost forever in that exhausting blaze 
 of girlhood. But we make no prophecy in regard to 
 the future of our little friend Rose. Adele thinks her 
 very charming ; Reuben is disposed to rank her 
 whatever Phil may think or say far above Suke 
 Boody. And in his reading of the delightful " Chil 
 dren of the Abbey," which he has stolen, (by favor of 
 Phil, who owns the book,) he has thought of Rose 
 when Amanda first appeared ; and when the divine 
 Amanda is in tears, he has thought of Rose ; and when 
 Amanda smiles, with Mortimer kneeling at her feet, he 
 has still thought of Rose. 
 
 These four, Adele, Phil, Rose, and Reuben, are fel 
 low-attendants at the school of the excellent Miss Betsy 
 Onthank. The school-house itself is a modest one, and 
 stands upon a cross-road leading from the main street 
 of the village, and is upon the side of the little brook 
 which courses through the valley lying to the westward. 
 A half-dozen or more of sugar-maples stand near it, 
 and throw over it a grateful shade in August. In 
 March these trees are exposed to a series of tappings 
 on the part of the more mechanically inclined of the 
 pupils, Phil Elderkin being chiefest, and gimlets, 
 quills, and dinner-pails are brought into requisition 
 with prodigious results. In the heats of summer, and
 
 160 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 when the brook is low, adventurous ones, of whom 
 Reuben is chiefest, undertake to dam its current; and 
 it being traditional in the school that one day a strange 
 fisherman once took out two trout, half as long as Miss 
 Onthank s ruler, from under the bridge by which the 
 high road crosses the brook, Reuben plies every arti 
 fice, whether of bent pins, or hooks purchased from the 
 Tew partners, (unknown to Aunt Eliza, who is preju 
 diced against fish-hooks as dangerous,) to catch a third ; 
 and finding other resources vain, he punches two or 
 three holes through the bottom of his little dinner-pail, 
 to make a scoop-net of it, and manfully wades under 
 the bridge to explore all the hollows of that unknown 
 region. While in this precarious position, he is re 
 ported by some timid child to the mistress, who straight 
 way sallies out, ferule in hand and cap-strings flying, 
 and orders him to land ; which Reuben, taking warning 
 by the threatening tone of the old lady, refuses, unless 
 she promises not to flog him ; and the kind-hearted 
 mistress, fearing too long exposure of the lad to the 
 chilly water, gives the promise. But with the tell-tale 
 pail dangling at his belt, he does not escape so easily 
 the inquisitive Aunt Eliza. 
 
 The excellent Miss Onthank for by this title the 
 parson always compliments her is a type of a school 
 mistress which is found no longer : grave, stately, with 
 two great moppets of hair on either side her brow, (as
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 161 
 
 in the old engravings of Louis Philippe s good queen 
 Amelia,) very resolute, very learned in the boundaries 
 of all Christian and heathen countries, patient to a fault, 
 with a marvelous capacity for pointing out with her 
 bodkin every letter to some wee thing at its first stage 
 of spelling, and yet keeping an eye upon all the school 
 room ; reading a chapter from the Bible, and saying a 
 prayer each morning upon her bended knees, the 
 little ones all kneeling in concert, with an air that 
 would have adorned the most stately prioress of a con 
 vent ; using her red ferule betimes on little, mischiev 
 ous, smarting hands, yet not over-severe, and kind be 
 neath all her gravity. She regards Adele with a pe 
 culiar tenderness, and hopes to make herself the hum 
 ble and unworthy instrument of redeeming her from 
 the wicked estate in which she has been reared. And 
 AdMe, though not comprehending the excess of her 
 zeal, and opening her eyes in great wonderment when 
 the good woman talks about her " providential deliver 
 ance from the artful snares of the adversary," is as 
 free in her talk with the grave mistress as if she were 
 her mother confessor. 
 
 Phil and Reuben, being the oldest boys of the 
 school, resent the indignity of being still subject to 
 woman rule by a concerted series of rebellious out 
 breaks. Some six or eight months after the arrival of 
 Adele upon the scene, this rebel attitude culminates in 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 162 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 an incident that occasions a change of programme. 
 The rebels on their way to school espy a few clam 
 shells before some huckster s door, and, putting two or 
 three in their pockets, seize the opportunity when the 
 good lady s eyes are closed in the morning prayer to 
 send t\vo or three scaling about the room, which fall 
 with a clatter among the startled little ones. One, 
 aimed more justly by Reuben, strikes the grave mis 
 tress full upon the forehead, and leaves a red cut from 
 which one or two beads of blood trickle down. 
 
 Adele, who has not learned yet that obstinate closing 
 of the eyes which most of the scholars have been 
 taught, and to whom the sight recalls the painted heads 
 of martyrs in an old church at Marseilles, gives a little 
 hysteric scream. But the mistress, with face unchanged 
 and voice uplifted and unmoved, completes her relig 
 ious duty. 
 
 The whole school is horrified, on rising from their 
 knees, at sight of the old lady s bleeding head. The 
 mistress wipes her forehead calmly, and, picking up the 
 shell at her feet, says, Who threw this ? " 
 
 There is silence in the room. 
 
 " Adele." she continues, " I heard you scream, child ; 
 do you know who threw this ? " 
 
 Adele gives a quick, inquiring glance at Reuben, 
 whose face is imperturbable, rallies her courage for a 
 struggle against the will of the mistress, and then 
 bursts into tears.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 163 
 
 Reuben cannot stand this. 
 
 " / threw it, marm," says he, with a great tremor in 
 his voice. 
 
 The mistress beckons him to her, and, as he walks 
 thither, motions to a bench near her, and says 
 gravely, 
 
 " Sit by me, Reuben." 
 
 There he keeps till school-hours are over, wondering 
 what shape the punishment will take. At last, when 
 all are gone, the mistress leads him into her private 
 closet, and says solemnly, 
 
 " Reuben, this is a crime against God. I forgive 
 you ; I hope He may ; " and she bids him kneel beside 
 her, while she prays in a way that makes the tears start 
 to the eyes of the boy. 
 
 Then, home, she walking by his side, and leading 
 him straight into the study of the grave Doctor, to 
 whom she unfolds the story, begging him not to punish 
 the lad, believing that he is penitent. And the meek 
 ness and kindliness of the good woman make a Chris 
 tian picture for the mind of Reuben, in sad contrast 
 with the prim austerity of Aunt Eliza, a picture that 
 he never loses, that keeps him meekly obedient for 
 the rest of the quarter ; after which, by the advice of 
 Miss Onthank, both Phil and Reuben are transferred 
 to the boys academy upon the Common.
 
 xxn. 
 
 MEANTIME, Adele is making friends in Ashfield 
 and in the parsonage. The irrepressible buoy 
 ancy of her character cannot be kept under even by 
 the severity of conduct which belongs to the home of 
 the Doctor. If she yields rigid obedience to all the 
 laws of the household, as she is taught to do, her 
 vivacity sparkles all the more in those short intervals 
 of time when the laws are silent. There is something 
 in this beaming mirth of hers which the Doctor loves, 
 though he struggles against the love. lie shuts his 
 door fast, that the snatches of some profane song from 
 her little lips (with him all French songs are profane) 
 may not come in to disturb him ; but as her voice rises 
 cheerily, higher and higher, in the summer dusk, he 
 catches himself lending a profane ear ; the blithcness, 
 the sweetness, the mellowness of her tones win upon 
 his dreary solitude ; there is something softer in them 
 than in the measured vocables of sister Eliza ; it brings 
 a souvenir of the girlish Rachel, and his memory floats 
 back upon the strains of the new singer, to the days 
 when that dear voice filled his heart ; and he thinks
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 165 
 
 thanking Adaly for the thought she is singing with 
 the angels now ! 
 
 But the spinster, who has no ear for music, in the 
 midst of such a carol, will cry out in sharp tones from 
 her chamber, " Adele, Adele, not so loud, child ! you 
 will disturb the Doctor ! " 
 
 Even then Adele has her resource in the garden and 
 the orchard, where she never tires of wandering up 
 and down, and never wandering there but some frag 
 ment of a song breaks from her lips. 
 
 From time to time the Doctor summons her to his 
 study to have serious talk with her. She has, indeed, 
 shared the Saturday-night instruction in the Catechism, 
 in company with Reuben, and being quick at words, no 
 matter how long they may be, she has learned it all ; 
 and Reuben and she dash through " what is required " 
 and " what is forbidden " and " the reasons annexed " 
 like a pair of prancing horses, kept diligently in hand 
 by that excellent whip, Miss Johns. But the study has 
 not wrought that gravity in the mind of the child 
 which the good parson had hoped for ; the seed, he 
 fears, has fallen upon stony places. He therefore, as 
 we have said, summons her from time to time to his 
 study. 
 
 And Adele comes, always at the first summons, with 
 a tripping step, and, with a little coquettish adjustment 
 of her dress and hair, flings herself into the big chair 
 before him,
 
 166 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " Now, New Papa, here I am ! " 
 
 " Ah, Adaly ! I wish, child, that you could be more 
 serious than you are." 
 
 " Serious ! ha ! ha ! " (she sees a look of pain on 
 the face of the Doctor,) " but I will be, I am ; " and 
 with great effort she throws a most unnatural expres 
 sion of repose into her face. 
 
 " You are a good girl, Adaly ; but this is not the 
 seriousness I want to find in you. I want you to feel, 
 my child, that you are walking on the brink of a preci 
 pice, that your heart is desperately wicked." 
 
 " Oh, no, New Papa ! you don t think I m desper 
 ately wicked ? " and she says it with a charming 
 eagerness of manner. 
 
 " Yes, desperately wicked, Adaly, leaning to the 
 things of this world, and not fastening your affections 
 on things above, on the realities beyond the grave." 
 
 " But all that is so far away, New Papa ! " 
 
 " Not so far as you think, child ; they may come 
 to-day." 
 
 Adele is sobered in earnest now, and tosses her little 
 feet back and forth, in an agony of apprehension. 
 
 The Doctor continues, 
 
 " To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your 
 hearts " ; and the sentiment and utterance are so like 
 to the usual ones of the pulpit, that Adele takes cour 
 age again.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 167 
 
 The little girl has a profound respect for the Doctor ; 
 his calmness, his equanimity, his persistent zeal in his 
 work, would alone provoke it. But she sees, further 
 more, what she does not see always in " Aunt Eliza," 
 a dignity of character that is proof against all irri 
 tating humors ; then, too, he has appeared to Adele a 
 very pattern of justice. She had taken exceptions, 
 indeed, when, on one or two rare occasions, he had 
 reached down the birch rod which lay upon the same 
 hooks with the sword of Major Johns, in the study, and 
 had called in Eeuben for extraordinary discipline ; but 
 the boy s manifest acquiescence in the affair when his 
 cool moments came next morning, and the melancholy 
 air of kindness with which the Doctor went in to kiss 
 him a good-night, after such regimen, kept alive her 
 faith in the unvarying justice of the parson. Therefore 
 she tried hard to torture her poor little heart into a 
 feeling of its own blackness, (for that it was very black 
 she had the good man s averment,) she listened gravely 
 to all he had to urge, and when he had fairly over 
 burdened her with the enumeration of her wicked, 
 worldly appetites, she could only say, with a burst of 
 emotion, 
 
 " Well, but, New Papa, the good God will forgive 
 me." 
 
 " Yes, Adaly, yes, I trust so, if forgiveness be 
 sought in fear and trembling. But remember, When
 
 168 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 God created man, he entered into a covenant of life 
 with him upon condition of perfect obedience. " 
 
 This brings back to poor Adele the drudgery of the 
 Saturday s Catechism, associated with the sharp cor 
 rectives of Aunt Eliza ; and she can only offer a plead 
 ing kiss to the Doctor, and ask plaintively, 
 
 " May I go now ? " 
 
 " One moment, Adaly," and he makes her kneel 
 beside him, while he prays, fervently, passionately, 
 drawing her frail little figure to himself, even as he 
 prays, as if he would carry her with him in his arms 
 into the celestial presence. 
 
 The boy Reuben, too, has had his seasons of this 
 closet struggle ; but they are rarer now ; the lad has 
 shrewdly learned to adjust himself to all the require 
 ments of such occasions. lie has put on a leaden ac 
 quiescence in the Doctor s theories, whether with regard 
 to sanctification or redemption, that is most dishearten 
 ing to the parson. Does any question of the Doctor s, 
 by any catch - word, suggest an answer from the 
 " Shorter Catechism " as applicable, Eeuben is ready 
 with it on the instant. 
 
 Does the Doctor ask, 
 
 " Do you know, my son, the sinfulness of the estate 
 in which you are living ? " 
 
 " Sinfulness of the estate whereunto man fell ? " 
 says Reuben, briskly. " Know it like a book : Con-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 169 
 
 sists in the guilt of Adam s first sin, the want of original 
 righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, 
 which is commonly called original sin, together with all 
 actual transgressions which proceed from it. There s 
 a wasp on your shoulder, father, there s two of em. 
 I 11 kill em." 
 
 No wonder the good Doctor is disheartened, and 
 trusts more and more, in respect to his boy, to the silent 
 influences of the Spirit. 
 
 Adele has no open quarrels with Miss Johns ; she is 
 obedient ; she, too, has fallen under the influence of 
 that magnetic voice, and accepts the orders and the 
 commendations conveyed by it as if they were utter 
 ances of Fate. Yet, with her childish instincts, she 
 has formed a very fair estimate of the character of 
 Miss Eliza ; it is doubtful even if she has not fathomed 
 it in certain directions more correctly and profoundly 
 than the grave Doctor. She sees clearly that the spin 
 ster s unvarying solicitude in regard to the dress and 
 appearance of " dear Adele " is due more to that hard 
 pride of character which she nurses every day of her 
 life than to any tenderness for the little stranger. For 
 at the hands of her old godmother and of her father 
 Adele has known what real tenderness was. It is a 
 lesson children never unlearn. 
 
 " Adele, my dear, you look charmingly to-day, with 
 that pink bow in your hair. Do you know, I think pink 
 is becoming to you, my child ? "
 
 170 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 And Adele listens with a composed smile, not unwil 
 ling to be admired. What girl of any age is ? But 
 the admiration of Miss Johns does not touch her ; it 
 never calls a tear to her eye. 
 
 In the bright belt- buckle, in the big leg-of-mutton 
 sleeves, in the glittering brooch containing coils of the 
 Johns hair, in the jaunty walk and authoritative air of 
 the spinster, the quick, keen eye of Adele sees some 
 thing more than the meek Christian teacher and friend. 
 It is a sin in her to see it, perhaps ; but she cannot 
 help it. 
 
 Miss Johns has not succeeded in exciting the jeal 
 ousy of Reuben, at least, not in the manner she had 
 hoped. Her influence over him is clearly on the wane. 
 He sees, indeed, her exaggerated devotion to the little 
 stranger, which serves in her presence, at least, to 
 call out all his indifference. Yet even this, Adele, with 
 her girlish instinct, seems to understand, too, and bears 
 the boy no grudge in consequence of it. Nay, when 
 he has received some special administration of the par 
 son s discipline, she allows her sympathy to find play in 
 a tender word or two that touch Reuben more than he 
 dares to show. 
 
 And when they meet down the orchard, away from 
 the lynx eye of Aunt Eliza, there are rare apples far 
 out upon overhanging limbs that he can pluck, by dint 
 of venturous climbing, for her; and as he sees through
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 171 
 
 the boughs her delicate figure tripping through the 
 grass, and lingers to watch it, there comes a thought 
 that she must be the Amanda of the story, and not 
 Rose, and he, perched in the apple-tree, a glowing 
 Mortimer.
 
 XXIII. 
 
 TTN the year 183 -, Mr. Maverick writes to his friend 
 -*- Johns that the disturbed condition of public affairs 
 in France will compel him to postpone his intended 
 visit to America, and may possibly detain him for a 
 long time to come. He further says, " In order to 
 prevent all possible hazards which may grow out of 
 our revolutionary fervor on this side of the water, I 
 have invested in United States securities, for the bene 
 fit of my dear little Adele, a sum of money which will 
 yield some seven hundred dollars a year. Of this I 
 propose to make you trustee, and desire that you should 
 draw so much of the yearly interest as you may deter 
 mine to be for her best good, denying her no reasona 
 ble requests, and making your household reckoning 
 clear of all possible deficit on her account. 
 
 " I am charmed with the improved tone of her let 
 ters, and am delighted to see by them that even under 
 your grave regimen she has not lost her old buoyancy 
 of spirits. My dear Johns, I owe you a debt in this 
 matter which I shall never be able to repay. Kiss the 
 little witch for me ; tell her that Papa always thinks
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 173 
 
 of her, as he sits solitary upon the green bench under 
 the arbor. God bless the dear one, and keep all 
 trouble from her ! " 
 
 She, gaining in height now month by month, wins 
 more and more upon the grave Doctor, wins upon 
 Rose, who loves her as she loves her sisters, wins 
 upon Phil, whose liking for her is becoming demonstra 
 tive to a degree that prompts a little jealousy in the 
 warm-blooded Reuben, and that drives out all thought 
 of the pink cheeks and fat arms of Suke Boody. Miss 
 Johns still regards her with admiring eyes, and shows 
 all her old assiduity in looking after the comforts and 
 the silken trappings of the French guest. Day after 
 day, in summer weather, Rose and she idle together 
 along the embowered paths of the village ; the Tew 
 partners greet the pair with smiles ; good Mistress El- 
 derkin has always a cordial welcome ; the stout Squire 
 stoops to kiss the little Jesuit, who blushes at the ten 
 der affront through all the brownness of her cheek, like 
 a rose. Day after day the rumble of the mill breaks on 
 the country quietude ; and as autumn comes in, burn 
 ing with all its forest fires, the farmer s flails beat time 
 together, as they did ten years before. 
 
 At the academy, Phil and Reuben plot mischief, and 
 they cement their friendship with not a few boyish 
 quarrels. 
 
 Thus, Reuben, in the way of the boyish pomologists
 
 174 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 of those days, has buried at midsummer in the orchard 
 a dozen or more of the finest windfalls from the early 
 apple-trees, that they may mellow, away from the air, 
 into good eating condition, and he has marked the spot 
 in his boyish way with a little pyramid of stones. 
 Strolling down the orchard a few days later, he sees 
 Phil coming away from that locality, with his pockets 
 bulging out ominously, and munching a great apple 
 with extraordinary relish. Perhaps there is a thought 
 that he may design a gift out of the stolen stores for 
 Adele ; at any rate, Reuben flies at him. 
 
 " I say, Phil, that s doosed mean now, to be stealing 
 my apples ! " 
 
 " Who s stole your apples ? " says Phil, with a great 
 roar of voice. 
 
 " You have," says Reuben ; and having now come 
 near enough to find his pyramid of stones all laid low, 
 he says more angrily, " You re a thief! and you ve 
 got em in your pocket ! " 
 
 "Thief!" says Phil, looking threateningly, and 
 throwing away his apple half-eaten ; " if you call me 
 a thief, I say you re a you know what." 
 
 " Well, blast you," says Reuben, boiling with rage, 
 " say it ! Call me a liar, if you dare ! " 
 
 " I do dare," says Phil, " if you accuse me of steal 
 ing your apples ; and I say you re a liar, and be darned 
 to you ! "
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 175 
 
 At this, Reuben, though he is the shorter by two 
 or three inches, and no match for his foe at fisticuffs, 
 plants a blow straight in Philip s face. (He said af 
 terward, when all was settled, that he was ten times 
 more mortified to think that he had done such a thing 
 
 O 
 
 in his father s orchard.) 
 
 But Phil closed upon him, and kneading him with 
 his knuckles in the back, and with a trip, threw him 
 heavily, falling prone upon him. Reuben, in a frenzy, 
 and with a torrent of much worse language than he 
 was in the habit of using, was struggling to turn him, 
 when a sharp, loud voice, which they both knew only 
 too well, came down the wind, " Boys ! boys ! " and 
 presently the Doctor comes up panting. 
 
 " What does this mean ? Philip, I m ashamed of 
 you ! " he continues ; and Philip rises. 
 
 Reuben, rising, too, the instant after, and with his 
 fury unchecked, dashes at Phil again ; when the Doc 
 tor seizes him by the collar and drags him aside. 
 
 " He struck me," says Phil. 
 
 " And he stole my apples and called me a liar," 
 says Reuben, with the tears starting, though he tries 
 desperately to keep them back, seeing that Phil shows 
 no such evidence of emotion. 
 
 " Tut ! tut ! " says the Doctor, " you are both too 
 angry for a straight story. Come with me." 
 
 And taking each by the hand, he led them through
 
 176 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 the garden and house, directly into his study. There 
 he opens a closet-door, with the sharp order, " Step 
 in here, Reuben, until I hear Philip s story." This 
 Phil tells straightforwardly, how he was passing 
 through the orchard with a pocketful of apples, which 
 a neighbor s boy had given, and how Reuben came 
 upon him with swift accusation, and then the fight. 
 " But he hurt me more than I hurt him," says Phil, 
 wiping his nose, which showed a little ooze of blood." 
 
 " Good ! " says the Doctor, "I think you tell the 
 truth." 
 
 " Thank you," says Phil, " I know I do, Doctor." 
 
 Next Reuben is called out. 
 
 " Do you know he took the apples ? " asks the Doctor. 
 
 " Don t know," says Reuben, " but he was by the 
 place, and the stones thrown down." 
 
 " And is that sufficient cause, Reuben, for accusing 
 your friend ? " 
 
 At which, Reuben, shifting his position uneasily 
 from one foot to the other, says, 
 
 " I believe he did, though." 
 
 " Stop, sir ! " says the Doctor in a voice that makes 
 Reuben sidle away. 
 
 " Here," says Phil, commiserating him in a grand 
 way, and beginning to discharge his pockets on the 
 Doctor s table, " he may have them, if he wants them." 
 
 Reuben stares at them a moment in astonishment,
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 177 
 
 then breaks out with a great tremor in his voice, but 
 roundly enough, 
 
 " By George ! they re not the same apples at all. 
 I m sorry I told you that, Phil." 
 
 " Don t say By George before me, or anywhere 
 else," says the Doctor, sharply. " It s but a sneaking 
 oath, sir ; yet " (more gently) " I m glad of your 
 honesty, Reuben." 
 
 At the instigation of the parson they shake hands ; 
 after which he leads them both into his closet, beckon 
 ing them to kneel on either side of him, as he com 
 mends them in his stately way to Heaven, trusting 
 that they may live in good-fellowship henceforth, and 
 keep His counsel, who was the great Peacemaker, 
 always in their hearts. . 
 
 Next morning, when Reuben goes to reconnoiter 
 the place of his buried treasure, he finds all safe, and 
 taking the better half of the fruit, he marches away 
 with a proud step to the Elderkin house. The basket 
 is for Phil. But Phil is not at home ; so he leaves 
 the gift, and a message, with a short story of it all, 
 with the tender Rose, whose eyes dance with girlish 
 admiration at this stammered tale of his, and her 
 fingers tremble when they touch the boy s in the 
 transfer of his little burden. 
 
 Reuben walks away prouder yet ; is not this sweet- 
 faced girl, after all, Amanda ? 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 There come quarrels, however, with the academy 
 teacher not so easily smoothed over. The Doctor and 
 the master hold long consultations. Reuben, it is to 
 be feared, has bad associates. The boy makes interest, 
 through Nat Boody, with the stage-driver ; and one 
 day the old ladies are horrified at seeing the parson s 
 son mounted on the box of the coach beside the driver, 
 and putting his boyish fingers to the test of four-in- 
 hand. Of course he is a truant that day from school, 
 and toiling back footsore and weary, after tea, he can 
 give but a lame account of himself. He brings, 
 another time, a horrid fighting cur, (as Miss Eliza 
 terms it in her disgust,) for which he has bartered 
 away the new muffler that the spinster has knit. He 
 thinks it a .splendid bargain. Miss Johns and the 
 Doctor do not. 
 
 He is reported by credible witnesses as loitering 
 about the tavern in the summer nights, long after 
 prayers are over at the parsonage, and the lights are 
 out ; thus it is discovered, to the great horror of the 
 household, that by connivance with Phil he makes 
 his way over the roof of the kitchen from his cham 
 ber-window to join in these night forays. After long 
 consideration, in which Grandfather Handby is brought 
 into consultation, it is decided to place the boy for a 
 while under the charge of the latter for discipline, 
 and with the hope that removal from his town associ-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 179 
 
 ates may work good. But within a fortnight after the 
 change is made, Grandfather Handby drives across 
 the country in his wagon, with Reuben seated beside 
 him with a comic gravity on his face ; and the old 
 gentleman, pleading the infirmities of age, and giv 
 ing the boy a farewell tap on the cheek, (for he loves 
 him, though he has whipped him almost daily,) re 
 stores him to the paternal roof. 
 
 At this crisis, Squire Elderkin who, to tell truth, 
 has a little fear of the wayward propensities of the 
 parson s son in misleading Phil recommends trial 
 of the discipline of a certain Parson Brummem who 
 fills the parish-pulpit upon Bolton Hill. This dig 
 nitary was a tall, lank, leathern-faced man, of incor 
 ruptible zeal and stately gravity, who held under his 
 stern dominion a little flock of two hundred souls, 
 and who, eking out a narrow parochial stipend by 
 the week-day office of teaching, had gained large re 
 pute for his subjugation of refractory boys. 
 
 A feeble little invalid wife cringed beside him along 
 the journey of life ; and it would be pitiful to think 
 that she had not long ago entered, in way of remuner 
 ation, upon paths of pleasantness beyond the grave. 
 
 Parson Brummem received Brother Johns, when 
 he drove with Reuben to the parsonage-door, on that 
 wild waste of Bolton Hill, with all the unction of 
 manner that belonged to him ; but it was so grave
 
 180 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 an unction as to chill poor Reuben to the marrow 
 of his bones. A week s experience only dispersed 
 the chill when the tingle of the parson s big rod 
 wrought a glow in him that was almost madness. Yet 
 Reuben chafed not so much at the whippings to 
 which he was well used as at the dreariness of the 
 new home, the melancholy waste of common over 
 which March winds blew all the year, the pinched 
 faces that met him without other recognition than, 
 " One o Parson Brummem s b ys." Nor in-doors was 
 the aspect more inviting: a big red table around 
 which sat six fellow - martyrs with their slates and 
 geographies, a tall desk at which Brummem indited 
 his sermons, and from time to time a little side-door 
 opening timidly, through which came a weary wom 
 an s voice, " Ezekiel, dear, one minute ! " at which 
 the great man strides thither, and lends his great ear 
 to the family council. 
 
 Ah, the long, weary mornings, when the sun, pouring 
 through the curtainless south windows a great blaze 
 upon the oaken floor, lights up for Reuben only the cob- 
 webbed corners, the faded roundabouts of fellow-mar 
 tyrs, the dismal figures of Daboll, the shining tail-coat 
 of Master Brummem, as he stalks up and down from 
 hour to hour, collecting in this way his scattered 
 thoughts for some new argumentative thrust of the quill 
 into the sixthly or the seventhly of his next week s ser-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 181 
 
 mon ! And the long and weary afternoons, when the 
 sun with a mocking bounty pours through the dusty 
 and curtainless windows to the west, lighting only again 
 the gray and speckled roundabouts of the fagging boys, 
 the maps of Malte-Brun, and the shining forehead of 
 the Brummem ! 
 
 There is a dismal, graceless, bald air about town and 
 house and master, which is utterly revolting to the lad, 
 whose childish feet had pattered beside the tender 
 Rachel along the embowered paths of Ashfield. The 
 lack of congeniality affronts his whole nature. In the 
 keenness of his martyrdom, (none the less real because 
 fancied,) the leathern-faced, gaunt Brummem takes the 
 shape of some Giant Despair with bloody maw and 
 mace, and he, the child of some Christiana, for 
 whose guiding hand he gropes vainly : she has gone 
 before to the Celestial City ! 
 
 The rod of the master does not cure the chronic state 
 of moody rebellion into which Reuben lapses, with 
 these fancies on him. It drives him at last to an act of 
 desperation. The lesson in Daboll that day was a hard 
 one ; but it was not the lesson, or his short-comings in 
 it, it was not the hand of the master, which had been 
 heavy on him, but it was a vague, dismal sense of 
 the dreariness of his surroundings, of the starched looks 
 that met him, of the weary monotony, of the lack of 
 sympathy, which goaded him to the final overt act of
 
 182 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 rebellion, which made him dash his leathern-bound 
 arithmetic full into the face of the master, and then sit 
 down, burying his face in his hands. 
 
 The stern doctrines of Parson Brummem had taught 
 him, at least, a rigid self-command. He did not strike 
 the lad. But recovering from his amazement, he says, 
 " Very well, very well, Master Reuben, we will sleep 
 upon this ; " and then, tapping at the inner door, 
 " Keziah, make ready the little chamber over the hall 
 for Master Johns : he must be by himself to-night : 
 give him a glass of water and a slice of dry bread : 
 nothing else, sir, (turning to Reuben now,) until you 
 come to me to-morrow at nine, in this place, and ask 
 my pardon ; " and he motions him to the door. 
 
 Reuben staggers out, staggers up-stairs into the 
 dismal chamber. It looks out only upon a bald 
 waste of common. Shortly after, a slatternly maid 
 brings his prison fare, and, with a little kindly discre 
 tion, has added secretly a roll of gingerbread. Reuben 
 thanks her, and says, " You re a good woman, Keziah ; 
 and I say, won t you fetch me my cap, there s a good 
 un ; it s cold here." The maid, with great show of 
 caution, complies ; a few minutes after, the parson 
 comes, and, looking in warningly, closes and locks the 
 door outside. 
 
 A weary evening follows, in which thoughts of Adele, 
 of nights at the Elderkins , of Phil, of Rose, flash upon
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 183 
 
 him, and spend their richness, leaving him more madly 
 disconsolate. Then come thoughts of the morning 
 humiliation, of the boys pointing their fingers at him 
 after school. 
 
 " No, they sha n t, by George ! " 
 
 And with this decision he dropped asleep ; with this 
 decision ripened in him, he woke at three in the morn 
 ing, waited for the hall clock to strike, that he might 
 be sure of his hour, tied together the two sheets of 
 Mistress Brummem s bed, opened the window gently, 
 dropped out his improvised cable, slid upon it safely to 
 the ground, and before day had broken or any of the 
 towns-folk were astir, had crossed all the more open 
 portion of the village, and by sunrise had plunged into 
 the wooded swamp-land which lay three miles westward 
 toward the river.
 
 XXIV. 
 
 A T nine next morning, prayers and breakfast be- 
 ing dispatched, during which Parson Brum- 
 mem had determined to leave Reuben to the sting 
 of his conscience, the master appears in the school 
 room with his wristbands turned up, and his ferule 
 in hand, to enforce judgment upon the culprit. It 
 had been a frosty night, and the cool October air 
 had not tempted the boys to any wide movement 
 out of doors, so that no occupant of the parsonage 
 had as yet detected the draggled white banner that 
 hung from the prison-window. 
 
 Through Keziah, the parson gave orders for Master 
 Johns to report himself at once in the school-room. 
 The maid returned presently, clattering down the 
 stairs in a great fright, 
 
 " Reuben s gone, sir ! " 
 
 " Gone ? " says the tall master, astounded. lie re 
 presses a wriggle of healthful satisfaction on the part 
 of his pupils by a significant lift of his ferule, then 
 moves ponderously up the stairs for a personal visit 
 to the chamber of the culprit. The maid had given
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 185 
 
 true report ; there was no one there. Never had he 
 been met with such barefaced rebellion. Truants, 
 indeed, there had been in days gone by ; but that 
 a pupil under discipline should have tied together 
 Mistress Brummem s linen and left it draggling in 
 
 oo o 
 
 this way, in the sight of every passer-by, was an 
 affront to his authority which he had not deemed 
 possible. 
 
 An hour thereafter, and he had assigned the morn 
 ing s task to the boys (which he had ventured to 
 lengthen by a third, in view as he said, with a 
 grim humor of their extremely cheerful spirits) ; 
 established Mistress Brummem in temporary charge, 
 and was driving his white-faced nag down the road 
 which led toward Ashfield. The frosted pools 
 crackled under the wheels of the old chaise ; the 
 heaving horse wheezed as the stern parson gave his 
 loins a thwack with the slackened reins, and urged 
 him down the turnpike which led away through the 
 ill-kept fields, from the rambling, slatternly town. 
 Stone walls that had borne the upheaval of twenty 
 winters reeled beside the way. Broad scars of ocher- 
 ous earth, from which the turnpike-menders had dug 
 material to patch the wheel-track, showed ooze of 
 yellow mud with honeycombs of ice rimming their 
 edges, and supporting a thin film of sod made up of 
 lichens and the roots of five-fingers. Raw, shapeless
 
 186 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 stones, and bald, gray rocks, only half unearthed, 
 cumbered the road ; while bunches of dwarfed birches, 
 browsed by straying cattle, added to the repulsiveness 
 of the scene. Nor were the inclosed lands scarcely 
 more inviting. Lean shocks of corn that had swayed 
 under the autumn winds stretched at long intervals 
 across fields of thin stubble ; a few half-ripened 
 pumpkins, hanging yet to the seared vines, whose 
 leaves had long since been shriveled by the frost, 
 showed their shining green faces on the dank 
 soil. In other fields, overrun with a great shaggy 
 growth of rag- weed, some of the parson s flock 
 father and blue-nosed boys were lifting poor crops 
 of " bile-whites " or " merinos." From time to time, 
 a tall house jutted upon the road, with unctuous 
 pig-sty under the lee of the garden-fence and wood 
 pile sprawling into the highway, where the parson 
 would rein up his nag, and make inquiry after the 
 truant Reuben. 
 
 A half-dozen of these stops and inquiries proved 
 wholly vain ; yet the sturdy parson urged his poor, 
 heaving nag forward, until he had come to the little 
 gate-house which thrust itself quite across the high 
 road at some six miles distance from Bolton Church. 
 No stray boy had passed that day. Thereupon the 
 parson turned, and, after retracing his way for two 
 miles or more, struck into a cross-road which led
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 187 
 
 westward. There were the same fruitless inquiries 
 here at the scattered houses, and Avhen he came at 
 length upon the great river-road along which the 
 boy had passed at the first dawn, there was no one 
 who could tell any thing of him; and by noon the 
 parson reentered the village, disconsolate and hungry. 
 He was by no means a vindictive man, and could 
 very likely have forgiven Reuben the blow he had 
 struck. He had no conception of the hidden causes 
 which had wrought in the lad such burst of anger. 
 He conceived only that Satan had taken hold of him, 
 and he had strong faith in the efficacy of the rod 
 for driving Satan out. 
 
 After dinner he administered a sharp lecture to 
 his pupils, admonishing them of the evils of disobe 
 dience, and warning them that " God sometimes left 
 bad boys to their own evil courses, and to run 
 like the herd of swine into which the unclean 
 spirits entered, of which account might be found 
 in Mark v. 13, down a steep place, and be 
 choked." 
 
 The parson still had hope that Reuben might ap 
 pear at evening ; and he forecast a good turn which 
 he would make, in such event, upon the parable of 
 the Prodigal Son (with the omission, however, of the 
 fatted calf). But the prodigal did not return. Next 
 day there was the same hope, but fainter. Still, the
 
 188 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 prodigal Reuben did not return. Whereupon the 
 parson thought it his duty to write to Brother Johns, 
 advising him of the escape of Reuben, " he having 
 stolen away in the night, tying together and much 
 draggling Mrs. Brummem s pair of company sheets, 
 (no other being out of wash,) and myself following 
 after vainly, the best portion of a day, much perturbed 
 in spirit, in my chaise. I duly instructed my parish 
 ioners to report him, if found, which has not been 
 the case. I trust that in the paternal home, if he 
 has made his way thither, he may be taught to open 
 his ear to discipline, and return from iniquity. 
 Job xxxvi. 10." 
 
 The good parson was a type of not a few retired 
 country ministers in New England forty years ago : 
 a heavy-minded, right-meaning man ; utterly inacces 
 sible to any of the graces of life ; no bird ever sang 
 in his ear ; no flower ever bloomed for his eye ; a 
 man to whom life was only a serious spiritual toil, 
 and all human joys a vanity to be spurned; preach 
 ing tediously long sermons, and counting the fatigue 
 of the listeners a fitting oblation to spiritual truth ; 
 staggering through life with a great burden of theolo 
 gies on his back, which it was his constant struggle 
 to pack into smaller and smaller compass, not so 
 much, we fear, for the relief of others as of himself. 
 Let us hope that the burden like that of Christian
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 189 
 
 in the " Pilgrim s Progress " slipped away before 
 he entered the Celestial Presence, and left him free 
 to enjoy and admire, more than he found time to 
 do on earth, the beauty of that blessed angel in the 
 higher courts whose name is Charity.
 
 XXV. 
 
 T)EUBEN, meantime, pushed boldly down the 
 --^ open road, until broad sunlight warned him to 
 a safer path across the fields. He had been too 
 much of a rambler during those long Saturday af 
 ternoons at Ashfield, to have any dread of a tramp 
 through swamp-land or briers. " Who cared for wet 
 feet or a scratch ? Who cared for a rough scramble 
 through the bush, or a wade (if it came to that) 
 through ever so big a brook ? Who cared for old 
 Brummem and his white-faced nag ? " In fact, he 
 had the pleasure of seeing the parson s venerable 
 chaise lumbering along the public road at a safe 
 distance away, an hour before noon ; and he half 
 wished he were near enough to give the jolly old 
 nag a good switching across the flanks. He had 
 begged a bit of warm breakfast in the morning at 
 an outlying house, and at the hour when he caught 
 sight of his pursuer he was lying under the edge of 
 a wood, lunching upon the gingerbread Keziah had 
 provided, and beginning to reckon up soberly what 
 was to be done.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 191 
 
 His first impulse had been simply to escape a 
 good flogging and the taunts of the boys. He had 
 shunned the direct Ashfield turnpike, because he 
 knew pursuit if there were any would lead off 
 in that direction. From the river road he might 
 diverge into that, if he chose. But if he went 
 home, what then ? The big gray eyes of Aunt 
 Eliza he knew would greet him at the door, looking 
 thunderbolts. Adele, and may be Rose, would wel 
 come him in kindly way enough, but very pity 
 ingly, when the Doctor should summon him quietly 
 into his low study. For they knew, and he knew, 
 that the big rod would presently come down from 
 its place by the Major s sword, a rod that never 
 came down, except it had some swift office to per 
 form. And next day, perhaps, whatever might be 
 the kindly pleadings of Adele, (thus far he flattered 
 himself,) the old horse Dobbins would be in harness 
 to carry him back to Bolton Hill, where of a surety 
 some new birch was already in pickle for the trans 
 gressor. Or, if this mortification were spared, there 
 would be the same weary round of limitations and 
 exactions from which he longed to break away. And 
 as he sits there under the lee of the wood, seeing 
 presently Brummem s heavy cavalry wheel and retire 
 from pursuit, the whole scene of his last alterca 
 tion in the study at Ashfield drifts before him again 
 clear as day.
 
 192 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 "I m bad," (this was the way he broke out upon 
 the old man after the usual discipline,) "I know 
 I ra bad, and all the worse for the way you try to 
 make me good. There s Phil Elderkin, now, you 
 say to me, over and over, See Phil, he does n t do 
 so. But he does, only his father knows he does ; 
 he a n t punished, if he is n t in at nine o clock for 
 prayers, without telling where he s been. It s all 
 underhanded with me, and with Phil it s all above- 
 board. I have to read proper books that I don t 
 care a copper about, and so I steal em into my cham 
 ber ; and Aunt Eliza, prying about, finds Arabian 
 Nights hid under the sheets ; and then there s a row ! 
 Phil reads em ; and there s nobody forever look 
 ing over his shoulder to see what he s reading. I 
 think Phil s father trusts him more than you do 
 me." 
 
 " But, my son, you tell me you are bad, and that I 
 can t trust you." 
 
 " You can t, because you don t ; and that makes me 
 feel the Devil in me." 
 
 " My son ! " 
 
 " I know it ; you think it s a bad word ; but Phil 
 says Devil ; and it s true. And besides, you forbid my 
 going where the other boys go, and that maddens me 
 and makes me swear, and the fellows laugh ; and be 
 cause I can t go, I do something worse."
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 193 
 
 " My poor Reuben, do you know where such badness 
 will lead you ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know ; I ve heard it often enough ; it 11 
 lead to hell, I guess." 
 
 " Reuben ! Reuben ! what does this mean ? " 
 
 " I can t help it, father. There s Phil and Gus 
 Hapgood went chestnutting the other Saturday, and be 
 cause you were afraid I should n t be back before sun 
 down you kept me at home. I know I was ten times 
 worse than if I d been out chestnutting all night and 
 half Sunday. I hate Sunday ! " 
 
 " That, Reuben, is because you are wicked." 
 
 " Yes, I suppose so." 
 
 " I am glad, my son, that you see your sins and ad 
 mit them." 
 
 " There s not much comfort in that," Reuben had 
 said. " I m none the better for it." 
 
 " It s the first step, my son, toward repentance." 
 
 Reuben laughed a bitter laugh, a laugh that made 
 his father shudder. 
 
 " Sit down with me now, Reuben, and read a chap 
 ter in God s "Word ; and after it we will pray for His 
 help." 
 
 " There it is again ! " the boy had replied. " I knew 
 it would come to that ! " 
 
 " And do you refuse, Reuben ? " 
 
 " No, sir, I don t, because I know it would n t be any 
 
 VOL. i. 13
 
 194 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 use; for if I did, I should have to go up-stairs and 
 mope in my chamber, and have Aunt Eliza staring in 
 upon me as if I was a murderer. But I sha n t know 
 what you read five minutes after." 
 
 " My son, don t you know that will be an offense 
 against God ? " 
 
 " I can t help it." 
 
 " You can help it, my son ! you can ! " 
 
 And at this the Doctor, in an agony of spirit, (the 
 boy recalled it perfectly,) had risen and paced back 
 and forth in his study ; then, after a little, threw him 
 self upon his knees near to Reuben, and prayed si 
 lently, with his hands clasped. 
 
 The boy had melted somewhat at this, and still more 
 when the father rose with traces of a tear in his eye. 
 
 " Are you not softened now, my son ? " 
 
 " I always am when I see you going on that way," 
 said Reuben. 
 
 " My poor son ! " and he had drawn the boy to 
 him, gazing into the face from which the blue eyes of 
 the lost Rachel looked calmly out, moved beyond him 
 self. 
 
 If, indeed, the lost Rachel had been really there be 
 tween the two, to interpret the heart of the son to the 
 father ! 
 
 Is Reuben whimpering as the memory of this last 
 tender episode comes to his memory ? What would
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 195 
 
 Phil or the rest of the Ashfielcl fellows say to a runa 
 way boy sniffling under the edge of the wood ? Not 
 he, by George ! And he munches at his roll of gin 
 gerbread with a new zest, confirming his vagabond 
 purpose, that just now wavered, with a thought of those 
 tedious Saturday nights and the " reasons annexed," 
 and Aunt Eliza s sharp elbow nudging him upon the 
 hard pew-benches, as she gives a muffled, warning whis 
 per, " Attend to the sermon, Eeuben ! " 
 
 And so, with glorious visions of Sindbad the Sailor 
 in his mind, and a cheery remembrance of Crusoe 
 when he cut himself adrift from home and family for 
 his wonderful adventures, Reuben pushes gallantly on 
 through the woods in the direction of the river. He 
 knows that somewhere, up or down, a sloop will be 
 found bound for New York. From the heights around 
 Ashfield, he has seen, time and again, their white sails 
 specking some distant field of blue. Once, too, upon a 
 drive with the Doctor, he had seen these marvelous 
 vessels from a nearer point, and had looked wistfully 
 upon their white decks and green companion-ways. 
 
 Overhead the jays cried from the bare chestnut- 
 trees ; from time to time the whirr of a brood of par 
 tridges startled him ; the red squirrels chattered ; still 
 he pushed on, catching a chance dinner at a wayside 
 farm-house, and by night had come within plain sight 
 of the water. The sloop Princess lay at the Glasten-
 
 196 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 bury dock close by, laden with wood and potatoes, and 
 bound for New York the next morning. The kind- 
 hearted skipper, who was also the owner of the vessel, 
 took a sudden fancy to the sore-footed, blue-eyed boy 
 who came aboard to bargain for a passage to the city. 
 The truant was not, indeed, overstocked with ready 
 money, but was willing to pawn what valuables he had 
 about him, and hinted at a rich aunt in the city who 
 would make good what moneys were lacking. The 
 skipper has a shrewd suspicion how the matter stands, 
 and, with a kindly sympathy for the lad, consents to 
 give him passage on condition he drops a line into the 
 mail to tell his friends which way he has gone ; and 
 taking a dingy sheet of paper from the locker under 
 his berth, he seats Reuben with pen in hand at the 
 cabin-table, whereupon the boy writes, 
 
 " DEAR FATHER, I have come away from school. 
 I don t know as you will like it much. I walked all the 
 way from Bolton, and my feet are very sore ; I don t 
 think I could walk home. Captain Saul says he will 
 take me by the way of New York. I can go and see 
 Aunt Mabel. I will tell her you are all well. 
 
 " How is Adele and Phil and Rose and the others ? 
 I hope you won t be very angry. I don t think Mr. 
 Bmmmem s is much of a school. I don t learn so much 
 there as I learned at home. I don t think the boys
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 197 
 
 there are good companions. I think they are wicked 
 boys sometimes. Mr. Brummem says they are. And 
 he whips awful hard. 
 
 " Yr affect, son, 
 
 " REUBEN." 
 
 And the skipper, taking the letter ashore to post it, 
 adds upon the margin, 
 
 " I opened the "Within to see who the boy was ; and 
 This is to say, I shall take him Aboard, and shall be 
 off Chatham Red Quarries to-morrow night and next 
 day morning, and, if you signal from the dock, can 
 send him Ashore. Or, if this don t Come in time, my 
 berth is Peck Slip, in York. 
 
 " JOHN SAUL, Sloop Princess" 
 
 Next day they go drifting down the river. A quiet, 
 smoky October day ; the distant hills all softened in 
 the haze ; the near shores green with the fresh-spring 
 ing aftermath. Reuben lounged upon the sunny side 
 of the mainsail, thinking, with respectful pity, of the 
 poor fagged fellows in roundabouts who were seated at 
 that hour before the red desks in Parson Brummem s 
 school-room. At length he was enjoying a taste of 
 that outside life of which he had known only from 
 travelers books, or from such lucky ones as the ac-
 
 198 DOCTOR JOHXS. 
 
 complished Tavern Boody. Henceforth he, too, would 
 have his stories to tell. The very rustle of the water 
 around the prow of the good sloop Princess was full of 
 Sindbad echoes. Was it not remotely possible that he, 
 too, like Captain Saul sitting there on the taffrail smok 
 ing his pipe, should have his vessel at command some 
 day, and sail away wherever Fortune, with her iris- 
 hued streamers, might beckon ? Not much of senti 
 ment in the boy as yet, beyond the taste of freedom, or 
 what is equivalent to it in the half-taught vaga 
 bondage. As for Rose, what does she know of sloops 
 and the world ? And Adele ? "Well, from this time 
 forth at least, the boy can match her nautical experi 
 ence with an experience of his own. Possibly his hu 
 miliation and conscious ignorance at the French girl s 
 story of the sea were, as much as any thing, at the 
 bottom of this wild vagary of his. For ten hours the 
 Captain lies off Chatham Quarries, taking on additional 
 freight there ; but there is no signal from the passenger 
 dock. The next morning the hawsers were cast off, 
 and the mainsail run up again, while the Princess 
 surged away into the middle of the current. 
 
 " Now, my boy, we re in for a sail ! " said Captain 
 Saul. 
 
 " I m glad," said Reuben, who would have been 
 doubly glad, if he had known of his narrow escape at 
 the last landing.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 199 
 
 " I suppose you have n t much of a kit ? " said the 
 Captain. 
 
 The truth is, that a pocket-comb was the extent of 
 Reuben s equipment for the voyage. It came out on 
 further talk with the Captain ; and the boy was morti 
 fied to make such small show of appliances. 
 
 " Well, well," says the Captain, " we must keep this 
 toggery for the city, you know ; " and he finds a blue 
 woolen shirt, for the boy is of good height for his 
 years, and a foremast hand shortens in a pair of old 
 duck trousers for him, in which Reuben paces up and 
 down the deck, with a mortal dread at first lest the 
 boom may make a dash against the wind and knock 
 him overboard, in quite sailorly fashion. The beef is 
 hard indeed ; but a page or two out of " Dampier s 
 Voyages," of which an old copy is in the cabin, makes 
 it seem all right. The shores, too, are changing from 
 hour to hour ; a brig drifts within hail of them, which 
 Reuben watches, half envying the fortunate fellows in 
 red shirts and tasseled caps aboard, who are bound to 
 Cuba, and in a fortnight s time can pluck oranges off 
 the trees there, to say nothing of pine-apple and sugar 
 cane. 
 
 Over the Saybrook Bar there is a plunging of the 
 vessel which horrifies him somewhat ; but smooth 
 weather follows, with long lines of hills half-faded on 
 the rim of the water, and the country sounds at last all
 
 200 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 dead. A day or two of this, with only a mild autum 
 nal breeze, and then a sharp wind, with the foam 
 flying over forecastle and wood-pile, between the wind 
 ing shores, toward Flushing Bay, brings sight of 
 great white houses with green turf coming down to the 
 rocks, where the waves play and break among the 
 drifted sea-weed. Captain Saul is fast at his helm, 
 while the big boom creaks and crashes from side to 
 side as he beats up the narrowing channel, rounding 
 Throg s Point, where the light-house and old white 
 washed fort stand shining in the sun, skirting low 
 rocky islands, doubling other points, dashing at half- 
 tide through the roar and whirl of Hell Gate, Reu 
 ben glowing with excitement, and mindful of Kick! and 
 of his buried treasure along these shores. Then came 
 the turreted Bridewell, and at last the spires, the forest 
 of masts, with all that prodigious, crushing, bewilder 
 ing effect with which the first sight of a great city 
 weighs upon the thought of a country-taught boy. 
 
 " Now mind the rogues, Reuben," said Captain Saul, 
 when they were fairly alongside the dock ; " and keep 
 by your bunk for a day or two, boy. Don t stray too 
 far from the vessel, Princess, Captain Saul, remem 
 ber."
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Doctor is not a little shocked by the note which 
 -*- he receives from Reuben, and which comes too 
 late for the interception of the boy upon the river. He 
 writes to Mrs. Brindlock, begging the kind offices of 
 her husband in looking after the lad, until such time 
 as he can come down for his recovery. The next day, 
 to complete his mortification, he receives the epistle ot 
 Brother Brummem. 
 
 The good Doctor cannot rightly understand, in his 
 simplicity, how such apparent headlong tendency to sin 
 should belong to this child of prayer. At times he 
 thinks he can trace back somewhat of the adventurous 
 spirit of the poor lad to the restless energy of his father, 
 the Major; was it not possible also and the thought 
 weighed upon him grievously that he inherited from 
 him besides a waywardness in regard to spiritual mat 
 ters, and that " the sins of the fathers " were thus vis 
 ited terribly upon the children ? The growing vaga 
 bondage of the boy distressed him the more by reason 
 of his own responsible connection with the little daugh 
 ter of his French friend. How should he, who could
 
 202 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 not guide in even courses the child of his own loins, 
 presume to conduct the little exile from the heathen 
 into paths of piety? 
 
 And yet, strange to say, the character of the blithe 
 Adele, notwithstanding the terrible nature of her early 
 associations, seems to fuse more readily into agreement 
 with the moral atmosphere about her than does that of 
 the recreant boy. There may not be, indeed, perfect 
 accord ; but there are at least no sharp and fatal antag 
 onisms to overcome. If the lithe spirit of the girl 
 bends under the grave teachings of the Doctor, it bends 
 with a charming grace, and rises again smilingly, when 
 sober speech is done, like the floweret she is. And if 
 her mirth is sometimes irrepressible through the long 
 hours of their solemn Sundays, it breaks up like bub 
 bles from the deep quiet bosom of a river, cheating 
 even the grave parson to a smile that seems scarcely 
 sinful. 
 
 " Oh, that sermon was so long, so long to-day, 
 New Papa ! I am sure Dame Tourtelot pinched the 
 Deacon, or he would never, never have been awake 
 through it all." 
 
 Or, may be, she steals a foot out of doors on a Sun 
 day to the patch of violets, gathering a little bunch, 
 and appeals to the Doctor, who comes with a great 
 frown on his face, 
 
 "New Papa, is it most wicked to carry flowers or
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 203 
 
 fennel to church ? Godmother always gave me a 
 flower on holyclays." 
 
 And the Doctor is cheated of his rebuke ; nay, he 
 sometimes wonders, in his self-accusing moments, if the 
 Arch-Enemy himself has not lodged under cover of 
 that smiling face of hers, and is thus winning him to a 
 sinful gayety. There are times, too, when, after some 
 playful badinage of hers which has touched too nearly 
 upon a grave theme, she interrupts his solemn admoni 
 tion with a sudden rush toward him, and a tap of those 
 little fingers upon his furrowed cheek : 
 
 " Don t look so solemn, New Papa. Nobody will 
 love you, if you look in that way." 
 
 What if this, too, be some temptation of the Evil 
 One, withdrawing him from the grave thought of eternal 
 things, diverting him from the solemn aims of his mis 
 sion ? 
 
 There were snatches, too, of Latin hymns, taught her 
 by the godmother, and only half remembered, hymns 
 of glorious rhythm, which, as they tripped from her 
 halting tongue, brought a great burden of sacred mean 
 ings, and were full of the tenderest associations of her 
 childhood. To these, too, the Doctor was half pained 
 to find himself listening, sometimes at nightfall of a 
 Sunday, with an indulgent ear, and stoutly querying 
 with himself if Satan could fairly lurk in such holy 
 words as 
 
 " Dulcis memoria lesu."
 
 204 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 Adele, as we have said, had accepted the duties of 
 attendance upon the somewhat long sermons of the 
 Doctor and of weekly instructions in the Catechism, 
 with a willing spirit, and had gone through them cheer 
 fully, not, perhaps, with the grave air of devotion 
 which by education and inheritance belonged to the 
 sweet face of her companion, Rose. Nay, she had 
 sometimes rallied Rose upon the exaggerated serious 
 ness which fastened upon her face whenever the Bible 
 tasks came up. But Adele, with that strong leaning 
 which exists in every womanly nature toward religious 
 faith of some kind, had grown into a respect for even 
 the weightiest of the Christian gravities around her ; 
 not that they became the sources of a new trust, but, 
 through a sympathy that a heart like hers could not 
 resist, they rallied an old childish one into fresh action. 
 The strange, serious worship of those about her was 
 only a new guise so at least it seemed to her sim 
 plicity in which to approach the same good God 
 whom the godmother with herself had praised with 
 chants that rang once under the dim arches of the old 
 chapel, smoky with incense and glowing with pictures 
 of saints, at Marseilles. And if sometimes, as the 
 shrill treble of Miss Almira smote upon her ear, she 
 craved a better music, and remembered the fragrant 
 cloud rising from the silver censers as something more 
 grateful than the smoke leaking from the joints of the
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 205 
 
 stove-pipe in Ashfield meeting-house, and would have 
 willingly given up Miss Eliza s stately praises of her 
 recitation for one good hug of the godmother. she 
 yet saw, or thought she saw, the same serene trust that 
 belonged to her in the eyes of good Mistress Onthank, 
 in the kind face of Mrs. Elderkin, and in the calm look 
 of the Doctor when he lifted his voice every night at 
 the parsonage in prayer for " all God s people." 
 
 Would it be strange, too, if in the heart of a girl 
 taught as she had been, who had never known a 
 mother s tenderness, there should be so-ne hidden 
 leaning toward those traditions of the Romish faith 
 in which a holy mother appeared as one whose favor 
 was to be supplicated ? The worship of the Virgin 
 was, indeed, too salient an object of attack among 
 the heresies which the New England teachers com 
 bated, not to inspire a salutary caution in Adele and 
 entire concealment of any respect she might still feel 
 for the Holy Mary. Nor was it so much a respect 
 that shaped itself tangibly among her religious be 
 liefs as a secret craving for that outpouring of mater 
 nal love denied her on earth, a craving which found 
 a certain repose and tender alleviation in entertain 
 ing fond regard for the sainted mother of Christ. 
 
 When, therefore, on one occasion, Miss Eliza had 
 found among the toilet treasures of Adele a little 
 lithographic print of the Virgin, with the Christ s
 
 206 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 head surrounded by a nimbus of glory, and in her 
 chilling way had sneered at it as a heathen vanity, 
 the poor child had burst into tears, and carried the 
 treasure to her bosom to guard it from sacrilegious 
 touch. 
 
 The spinster, rendered watchful, perhaps, by this 
 circumstance, had on another day been still more 
 shocked to find in a corner of the escritoire of Aclele 
 a rosary, and with a very grave face had borne it down 
 for the condemnation of the Doctor. 
 
 " Adaly, my child, I trust you do not let this bau 
 ble bear any part in your devotions ? " 
 
 And the Doctor made a movement as if he would 
 have thrown it out of the window. 
 
 "No, New Papa!" said Adele, darting toward him, 
 and snatching it from his hand, with a fire in her eye 
 he had never seen there before, a welling-up for 
 a moment of the hot Proven9al blood in her veins ; 
 " de grace ! je vous en prie ! " (in ecstatic moments 
 her tongue ran to her own land and took up the echo 
 of her first speech,) then growing calm, as she held 
 it, and looked into the pitying, wondering eyes of the 
 poor Doctor, said only, " It was my mother s." 
 
 Of course the kind old gentleman never sought to 
 reclaim such a treasure, but in his evening prayer 
 besought God fervently " to overrule all things, our 
 joys, our sorrows, our vain affections, our delight in
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 207 
 
 the vanities of this world, our misplaced longings, 
 to overrule all to His glory and the good of those that 
 love Him." 
 
 The Doctor writes to his friend Maverick at about 
 this date, 
 
 " Your daughter is still in the enjoyment of ex 
 cellent health, and is progressing with praiseworthy 
 zeal in her studies. I cannot too highly commend 
 her general deportment, by which she has secured 
 the affection and esteem of all in the parish who have 
 formed an acquaintance with her. In respect of her 
 religious duties, she is cheerful and punctual in the 
 performance of them ; and I find it hard to believe 
 that they should prove only a savor of death unto 
 death. She listens to my discourse, on most occa 
 sions, with a commendable patience, and seems kindly 
 disposed toward my efforts. Still I could wish much 
 to see in her a little more burdensome sense of sin 
 and of the enormity of her transgressions. We hope 
 that she may yet be brought to a realizing sense of 
 her true condition. 
 
 " She is fast becoming a tall and graceful girl, and 
 it may soon be advisable to warn her against the van 
 ities that overtake those of her age who are still en 
 grossed with carnal things. This advice would come 
 with a good grace, perhaps, from the father. 
 
 " A little rosary found among her effects has been
 
 208 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 the occasion of some anxieties to my sister and my 
 self, lest she might still have a leaning toward the 
 mockeries of the Scarlet Woman of Babylon ; and I 
 was at first disposed to remove it out of her way. 
 But being advised that it is cherished as a gift of her 
 mother, I have thought it not well to take from her 
 the only memento of so near and, I trust, dear a rela 
 tive. 
 
 " May God have you, my friend, in His holy keep 
 ing!"
 
 XXVJL 
 
 EUBEN, taking the advice of Captain Saul, with 
 whom he would cheerfully have gone to China, 
 had the sloop been bound thither, came back to his 
 bunk on the first night after a wandering stroll through 
 the lower part of the city. It is quite possible that 
 he would have done the same, viewing the narrow 
 ness of his purse, upon the second night, had he not 
 encountered at noon a gentleman in close conversa 
 tion with the Captain, whom he immediately recog 
 nized though he had seen him but once before 
 as Mr. Brindlock. This person met him very kindly, 
 and with a hearty shake of the hand, " hoped he would 
 do his Aunt Mabel the honor of coming to stay with 
 them." 
 
 There was an air of irony in this speech which 
 Reuben was quick to perceive ; and the knowing look 
 of Captain Saul at once informed him that all the 
 romance of his runaway voyage was at an end. Both 
 Mr. and Mrs. Brindlock received him at their home 
 with the utmost kindness, and were vastly entertained 
 by his story of the dismal life upon Bolton Hill, the 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 210 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 pursuit of the parson with his white-faced nag, and 
 the subsequent cruise in the sloop Princess. Mrs. 
 Brindlock, a good-natured, self-indulgent woman, was 
 greatly taken with the unaffected country naturalness 
 of the lad, and was agreeably surprised at his very 
 presentable appearance : for Reuben at this date 
 he may have been thirteen or fourteen was of good 
 height for his years, with a profusion of light, wavy 
 hair, a thoughtful, blue eye, and a lurking humor 
 about the lip which told of a great faculty for mis 
 chief. There was such an absence, moreover, in this 
 city home, of that stiffness with which his Aunt Eliza 
 had such a marvelous capacity for investing every 
 thing about her, that the lad found himself at once 
 strangely at his ease. Was it, perhaps, (the thought 
 flashed upon him,) because it was a godless home ? 
 The spinster aunt had sometimes expressed a fear 
 of this sort, whenever stories of the Brindlock wealth 
 had reached them. Howbeit, he was on most familiar 
 footing with both master and mistress before two days 
 had gone by. 
 
 " Aunt Mabel," he had said, " I suppose you 11 be 
 writing to the old gentleman, and do please take my 
 part. I can t go back to that abominable B rum mem ; 
 if I do, I shall only run away again, and go farther : 
 do tell him so." 
 
 " But why could n t you have stayed at home, pray ?
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 211 
 
 Did you quarrel with the little French girl ? eh, Reu 
 ben ? " 
 
 The boy flushed. 
 
 " Not with Adele, never ! " 
 
 Brindlock, a shrewd, successful merchant, was, on 
 his part, charmed with the adventurous spirit of the 
 boy, and with the Captain s report of the way in which 
 the truant had conducted negotiations for the trip. 
 From all which it came about, that Mrs. Brindlock, 
 in writing to the Doctor to inform him of Reuben s 
 safe arrival, added an urgent request that the boy 
 might be allowed to pass the winter with them in 
 New York; in which event he could either attend 
 school, (there being an excellent one in her neighbor 
 hood,) or, if the Doctor preferred, Mr. Brindlock 
 could give him some light employment in the count 
 ing-room, and try his capacity for business. 
 
 At first thought, this proposition appeared very 
 shocking to the Doctor ; but, to his surprise, Miss Eliza 
 was strongly disposed to entertain it. Her ambitious 
 views for the family were flattered by it ; and she 
 kindly waived, in view of them, her objections to the 
 godless life which she feared her poor sister was lead 
 ing. 
 
 The Doctor was not fully persuaded by her, and took 
 occasion to consult, as was his wont in practical affairs, 
 his friend Squire Elderkin.
 
 212 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " I rather like the plan," said the Squire, after some 
 consideration, "quite like it, Doctor, quite like it. 
 
 " You see, Doctor," and he slipped a finger into a 
 button-hole of the good parson s, (the only man in the 
 parish who would have ventured upon such familiarity,) 
 "I think we ve been a little strict with Reuben, 
 a little strict. He s a fine, frank, straightfor ard lad, 
 but impulsive, impulsive, Doctor. Your father, the 
 Major, had a little of it, quicker blood than you or I, 
 Doctor. We can t wind up every boy like a clock ; 
 there s some that go with weights, and there s some 
 that go with springs. Then, too, I think, Doctor, 
 there s a little of the old Major s fight in the boy. I 
 think he has broken over a good many of our rules 
 very much because the rules were there, and provoked 
 him to try his strength. 
 
 " Now, Doctor, there s been a good deal of this kind 
 of thing, and our Aunt Eliza puts her foot clown rather 
 strongly, which won t be a bugbear to the boy with 
 Mrs. Brindlock ; besides which, there s your old friend, 
 Rev. Dr. Mowry, at the Fulton-Street Church close 
 by"- 
 
 " So he is, so he is," said the Doctor ; " I had for 
 gotten that." 
 
 " And then, to tell the truth, Doctor, between you 
 and I," (and the Squire was working himself into some 
 earnestness,) " I don t believe that all the wickedness
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 213 
 
 in the world is cooped up in the cities. In my opinion, 
 the small towns have a pretty fair sprinkling, a 
 pretty fair sprinkling, Doctor ; and if it s contagious, 
 as I ve heerd, I think I know of some places in coun 
 try parishes that might be called infectious. And I tell 
 you what it is, Doctor, the Devil " (and he twitched 
 upon the Doctor s coat as if he were in a political ar 
 gument) " does n t confine himself to large towns. He 
 goes into the rural deestricts, in my opinion, about as 
 regularly as the newspapers ; and he holds his ground 
 a confounded sight longer." 
 
 How much these views may have weighed with the 
 Doctor it would be impossible to say. If they did not 
 influence directly, they were certainly suggestive of 
 considerations which did have their weight. The re 
 sult was, that permission was given for the stay of 
 Reuben, on condition that Mr. Erindlock could give 
 him constant occupation, and that he should be regular 
 in his attendance on the Sabbath at the Fulton-Street 
 Church. Shortly after, the Doctor goes to the city, 
 provided, by the watchful care of Miss Eliza, with a 
 complete wardrobe for the truant boy, and bearing 
 kind messages from the household. But chiefly it is 
 the Doctor s object to give his poor boy due admonition 
 for his great breach of duty, and to insist upon his 
 writing to the worthy Mr. Brummem a full apology 
 for his conduct. He also engages his friend of the
 
 214 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 Fulton-Street parish to have an eye upon his son, and 
 to report to him at once any wide departure from the 
 good conduct he promises. 
 
 Reuben writes the apology insisted upon to Mr. 
 Brummem in this style : 
 
 " MY DEAR Siu, I am sorry that I threw Daboll 
 in your face as I did, and hope you will forgive the 
 same. 
 
 " Yours respectfully." 
 
 But after the Doctor s approval of this, the lad can 
 not help adding a postscript of his own to this effect : 
 
 " P. S. I hope old Whiteface did n t lose a shoe 
 when you drove out on the river road ? I saw you ; 
 for I was sitting in the edge of the woods, eating 
 Keziah s gingerbread. Please thank her, and give my 
 respects to all the fellows." 
 
 Miss Johns considers it her duty to write a line of 
 expostulation to her nephew, which she does, with 
 faultless penmanship, in this strain : 
 
 " We were shocked to hear of your misconduct 
 toward the worthy Mr. Brummem. I could hardly 
 believe it possible that Master Reuben Johns had been 
 guilty of such an indiscretion. Your running away
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 215 
 
 was, I think, uncalled for, and the embarkment upon 
 the sloop, under the circumstances, was certainly very 
 reprehensible. I trust that we shall hear only good 
 accounts of you from this period forth, and that you 
 will be duly grateful for your father s distinguished 
 kindness in allowing you to stay in New York. I shall 
 be happy to have you write to me an occasional epistle, 
 and hope to see manifest a considerable improvement 
 in your handwriting. Does Sister Mabel wear her 
 ermine cape this winter ? I trust we shall hear of 
 your constant attendance at the Fulton-Street Church, 
 and hear only commendation of you in whatever 
 duties you may be called to engage. Adele speaks of 
 you often, and I think misses you very much indeed." 
 
 Yet the spinster aunt was not used to flatter Reuben 
 with any such mention as this. " What can she mean," 
 said he, musingly, " by talking such stuff to me ? " 
 
 Phil Elderkin, too, after a little, writes long letters 
 that are full of the daily boy-life at Ashfield : how 
 " the chestnutting has been first-rate this year," and 
 he has a bushel of prime ones seasoning in the garret ; 
 how Sam Troop, the stout son of the old postmas 
 ter, has had a regular tussle with the master in school, 
 " hot and heavy, over the benches, and all about, and 
 Sam was expelled, and old Crocker got a black eye, 
 and, darn him, he s got it yet " ; and how " somebody 
 (name unknown) tied a smallish tin kettle to old Hob-
 
 216 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 son s sorrel mare s tail last Saturday night, and the 
 way she went down the street was a caution ! " and 
 how Nat Boody has got a new fighting-dog, and such a 
 ratter ! and how Suke, " the divine Suke, is, they 
 say, going to marry the stage-driver. Sic trasit gloria 
 
 mulie something, for I 11 be hanged, if I know 
 
 the proper case." 
 
 And there are some things this boisterous Phil 
 writes in tenderer mood : how " Rose and Adele are 
 as thick as ever, and Adele comes up pretty often to 
 pass an evening, glad enough, I guess, to get away 
 from Aunt Eliza, and I see her home, of course. 
 She plays a stiff game of backgammon ; she never 
 throws but she makes a point ; she beats me." 
 
 And from such letters the joyous shouts and merry 
 halloos of the Ashfield boys come back to him again; 
 he hears the rustling of the brook, the rumbling of 
 the mill ; he sees the wood standing on the hills, and 
 the girls at the door-yard gates ; the hum of voices in 
 the old academy catches his ear, and the drowsy song 
 of the locusts coming in at the open windows all the 
 long afternoons of August ; and he watches again the 
 glancing feet of Rose who was once Amanda 
 tripping away under the sycamores ; and the city Mor 
 timer bethinks him of another Amanda, of browner 
 hue and in coquettish straw, idling along the same 
 street, with reticule lightly swung upon her finger ;
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 217 
 
 and the boy bethinks him of tender things he might 
 have said in the character of Mortimer, but never did 
 say, and of kisses he might have stolen, (in the char 
 acter of Mortimer,) but never did steal. 
 
 And now these sights, voices, vagaries, as month 
 after month passes in his new home, fade, fade, yet 
 somehow abide. The patter of a thousand feet are on 
 the pavement around him. What wonder, if, in the 
 surrounding din, the tranquillity of Ashfield, its scenes, 
 its sounds, should seem a mere dream of the past ? 
 What wonder, if the solemn utterances from the old 
 pulpit should be lost in the roar of the new voices ? 
 The few months he was to spend in their hearing run 
 into a score, and again into another score. Two or 
 three years hence we shall meet him again, changed, 
 certainly ; but whether for better or for worse the se 
 quel will show. 
 
 And Rose ? and Adele ? 
 
 Well, well, we must not overleap the quiet current 
 of our story. While the May violets are in bloom, let 
 us enjoy them and be thankful ; and Avhen the autumn 
 flowers are come to take their places, let us enjoy those, 
 too, and thank God.
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 T~\OCTOR, we miss Reuby," said the Tew partners. 
 -*-^ And the good old people said it with feeling, 
 though, over and over, at winter s dusk, the boy had 
 given a sharp rattle to their shop-door, and the warn 
 ing bell called them away from their snug fire only to 
 see his light pair of heels whisking around the corner 
 of the Eagle Tavern. The mischief in the lad was, 
 indeed, of such elastic, irrepressible temper, that even 
 the gravest of the parishioners were disposed to regard 
 it with a frown in which a comic pardon was always 
 lurking. 
 
 Even the Tourtelots " quite missed the boy ; " 
 though over and over the brindled cow of the Deacon 
 was found to have slipped the bars, (a thing the or 
 derly creature was never known to do of her own 
 head,) and was reported at twilight by the sober-faced 
 Reuben as strolling far down upon the Common. 
 
 It is but a small bit of canvas we have chosen for 
 the painting in of these figures of ours ; and returning 
 to the old town of Ashfield, as we do now, where the 
 central interest must lie, there is little of change to de-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 219 
 
 clare, still less of dramatic incident. A serene quie 
 tude, year after year, is the characteristic of most of 
 the interior New England towns. The elections come 
 and go with their fury of previous declamation. The 
 Squire presides over the deliberations of his party, and 
 some leading Adams man presides over the delibera 
 tions of the other ; even the boys are all Jackson men 
 or Adams men ; but when the result is declared, there 
 is an acquiescence on all hands that is beautiful to be 
 hold ; and in process of time, Mr. Troop, the postmas 
 ter, yields up the mail pouches and locks and canvas 
 bags to some active little Jackson partisan with the ut 
 most suavity, and smokes off his discontent upon the 
 porch of the Eagle Tavern, under the very shadow of 
 the tall hickory pole, which for one third of its height 
 is protected by old wagon-tire heavily spiked on, 
 against the axes of zealous political opponents. 
 
 The old blear-eyed Boody is not so cheery as we 
 have seen him, although his party has won brilliant 
 success. There is a sad story of domestic grief that 
 has marked a new wrinkle in his forehead and given a 
 droop to his eye, which, had all gone fairly, he might 
 have weathered for ten years more. The glory of the 
 ringleted Suke has indeed gone, as Phil had told ; but 
 it has not gone in the way of marriage. God only 
 knows where those pink cheeks are showing their 
 graces now, not, surely, in any home of hers, not
 
 220 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 in any home at all. God only knows what repinings 
 have come, all too late, over the glitter and the tri 
 umph of an hour. The elderly, grave ones shake 
 their heads dismally over this fall, and talk of the ter 
 ribly demoralizing associations amidst which the poor 
 child has lived ; but do they ask themselves if they did 
 their best to mend them ? Decoyed toward evil fast 
 and frequently enough, without doubt ; but were there 
 any decoys, such as kind hands and welcoming words, 
 in the other direction ? The meeting-house doors have, 
 indeed, been always open, for the just and for the un 
 just. But have not the starched, good women of the 
 parish been a little disposed to count the pretty tavern- 
 keeper s daughter as outside the fold so far as all 
 social influences were concerned from the begin 
 ning ? That exuberant life in her which led to the 
 dance at a tavern ball, was there any palliative for it, 
 any hope for it, except to go on in the way of destruc 
 tion ? 
 
 But we would not judge unjustly. Certain it is, that 
 Miss Johns indulged in such scathing condemnation of 
 the poor sinner as made Aclele shiver : with the spin 
 ster at least, there would be little hope for a Magdalen, 
 or a child of a Magdalen. Xor could such as she fully 
 understand the measured and subdued tone with which 
 the good Doctor talked of a lapse from virtue which 
 had so shocked the little community. But the parson
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 221 
 
 lived so closely in that spiritual world where all his 
 labor and love centered, that he saw under its ineffable 
 light only two great ranks of people pressing toward 
 the inevitable goal : a lesser rank, which had found 
 favor of God ; and a greater, tumultuous one, toward 
 whom his heart yearned, that with wavering and doubt 
 and evil intention pressed on to destruction. What 
 mattered to him the color of the sin, or who was he to 
 judge it ? When the secret places of the heart were 
 so full of wickedness, why anathematize above the rest 
 those plague-spots which revealed themselves to mor 
 tals ? " Fearful above all others," he was wont to say, 
 " will be those sins which, being kept cautiously smol 
 dering through life, will, at the blast of the Archangel s 
 trump, blaze out in inextinguishable fire ! " 
 
 The Doctor kept himself and his pulpit mostly free 
 of that theological fermentation which in those years 
 was going on throughout New England, at least of 
 all such forms of it as marked a division in the ortho 
 dox churches. If he had a leaning, it was certainly in 
 favor of the utmost severity of Calvinism. He dis 
 trusted human philosophy, and would rather have ac 
 cepted the theory of natural inability in all its harshness 
 than see it explained away by any metaphysic subtilties 
 that should seem to veil or place in doubt the para 
 mount efficiency of the Spirit. 
 
 But though slow to accept theological reforms, the
 
 222 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 Doctor was not slow to advocate those which promised 
 good influence upon public morals. Thus he had en 
 tered with zeal into the Temperance movement ; and 
 after 1830, or 1832 at the latest, there was no private 
 locker in the parsonage for any black bottle of choice 
 Santa Cruz. His example had its bearing upon others 
 of the parish ; and whether by dint of the Doctor s 
 effective preaching, or whether it were by reason of the 
 dilapidated state of the buildings and the leaky condi 
 tion of the stills, it is certain that about this time Dea 
 con Simmons, of whom casual mention has been made, 
 abandoned his distillery, and invested such spare capi 
 tal as he chose to keep afloat in the business of his son- 
 in-law, Mr. Bowrigg of New York, who had up to this 
 time sold the Deacon s gin upon commission. 
 
 Mr. Bowrigg was a thriving merchant, and continued 
 his wholesale traffic with eminent success. In proof 
 of this success, he astonished the good people of Ash- 
 field by building, in the summer of 1833, at the insti 
 gation of his wife, an elegant country residence upon 
 the main street of the town ; and the following year, 
 the little Bowriggs two daughters of blooming girl 
 age brought such a flutter of city ribbons and silks 
 into the main aisle of the meeting-house as had not 
 been seen in many a day. Anne and Sophia Bowrigg, 
 aged respectively thirteen and fifteen, fell naturally into 
 somewhat intimate associations with our little friends,
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 223 
 
 Adele and Rose : an association that was not much to 
 the taste of the Doctor, who feared that under it Adele 
 might launch again into those old coquetries of dress 
 against which Maverick had cautioned him, and which 
 in their quiet country atmosphere had been subdued 
 into a modest homeliness that was certainly very charm 
 ing. 
 
 Miss Sophia, however, the elder of the two Bowrigg 
 daughters, was a young lady not easily balked of her 
 intent ; and conceiving a violent fondness for Adele, 
 whether by reason of the graces of her character, or by 
 reason of her foreign speech, in which she could stam- 
 meringly join, to the great mystification of all others, 
 she soon forced herself into a patronizing intimacy with 
 Adele, and was a frequent visitor at the parsonage. 
 With a great fund of assurance, a rare and unappeasa 
 ble glibness of tongue, and that lack of refined delicacy 
 which invariably belongs to such noisy demonstrative- 
 ness, Miss Sophia had after only one or two interviews 
 ferreted out from Adele all that the little stranger her 
 self knew respecting her history. 
 
 " And not to know your mother, Adele ! that s so 
 very queer ! " 
 
 Adele winces at this, but seems to so coarse an 
 observer only preoccupied with her work. 
 
 "Is n t it queer?" persists the garrulous creature. 
 " I knew a girl in the city who did not see her mother
 
 224 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 after she was three, think of that ! But then, you 
 know, she was a bad woman." 
 
 The hot Provenfal blood mounts to the cheek and 
 brow of Adele in an instant, and her eye flashes. But 
 it is quite impossible to show anger in view of the 
 stolid face of her companion, with nothing in it but an 
 unthinking, girlish curiosity. 
 
 " We will talk of something else, Sophia." 
 
 " Oh ! then you don t like to speak of it ! Dear me ! 
 I certainly won t, then." 
 
 Yet this rattle-brained girl has no real ill-nature ; 
 and it is surprising what a number of such well-mean 
 ing people go blundering about society, inflicting cheer 
 ful wounds in all directions by mere reason of their 
 bluntness and lack of all delicacy of feeling. 
 
 But it is by no means the first time the sensibilities 
 of Adele have been touched to the quick. She is ap 
 proaching that age when they ripen with marvelous 
 rapidity. There is never an evening now at that cheer 
 ful home of the Elderkins lighted up as it is with 
 the beaming smiles of that Christian mother, Mrs. 
 Elderkin but there sweeps over the mind of the poor 
 girl, at some interval in the games or the chat, a terri 
 ble sense of some great loss she has suffered, of which 
 she knows not the limits, a cruel sense of isolation 
 in which she wanders, and on which conies betimes the 
 recollection of a father s kindly face, that in the grow-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 225 
 
 ing distance makes her isolation seem even more ap 
 palling. 
 
 Rose, good soul, detects these humors by a keen, 
 girlish instinct, and, gliding up to her, passes her arm 
 around her, 
 
 " What is it now, Adele, dear ? " 
 
 And she, looking down at her, (for Adele was the 
 taller by half a head,) says. 
 
 " What a good mother you have, Rose ! " 
 
 "Only that!" and Rose laughs gleefully for a 
 moment, when, bethinking herself where the secret 
 grief lay, her sweet face is overcast in an instant, and 
 reaching up her two hands, she draws down the face 
 of Adele to hers, and kisses her on either cheek. 
 
 Phil, who is at a game of chess with Grace, pretends 
 not to see this side demonstration ; but his next move 
 is to sacrifice his only remaining castle in the most 
 needless manner. 
 
 Dame Tourtelot, too, has pressed her womanly pre 
 rogative of knowing whatever could be known about 
 the French girl who comes occasionally with Miss Eliza 
 to her tea-drinkings, and who, with a native taste for 
 music, is specially interested in the piano of Miss 
 Almira. 
 
 " It must be very tedious," says the Dame, " to be so 
 long away from home and from those that love you. 
 Almiry, now, hardly goes for a week to Cousin Jerushy s 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 at Har ford but she is a-frettin to be back in her old 
 home. Don t you feel it, Acleel ? " (The Dame is not 
 to be driven out of her own notions of pronunciation 
 by any French accents.) " But don t be downhearted, 
 my child ; it s God s providence that s brought you 
 away from a Popish country." 
 
 And she pushes her inquiries regarding the previous 
 life of Adele with an earnestness and an authoritative 
 air which at times do not fail to provoke a passionate 
 retort. To this the old lady is wholly unused ; and con 
 demning her straightway as a hot-headed Romanist, it 
 is to be feared that we must regard the Dame hence 
 forth as one disposed to look upon the least favorable 
 lights which may appear, whether in the past history 
 of Adele or in the developments to come. 
 
 The spinster, also, who is mistress of the parsonage, 
 though never giving up her admiring patronage of 
 Adele, and governing her curiosity with far more tact 
 than belongs to Dame Tourtelot, has yet shown a per 
 sistent zeal in pushing her investigations in regard to 
 all that concerned the family history of her little 
 protegee. She has lent an eager ear to all the commu 
 nications which Maverick has addressed to the Doctor ; 
 and in moments of what seemed exceptional fondness, 
 when she has toyed with the head-gear of Adele, has 
 plied the little brain with motherly questions that have 
 somehow widely failed of their intent.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 227 
 
 Under all this, Adele ripens into a certain reserve and 
 individuality of character which might never have be 
 longed to her, had the earlier circumstances of her life 
 been altogether familiar to the circle in which she was 
 placed. The Doctor fastens, perhaps, an undue reli 
 ance upon this growing reserve of hers : sure it is that 
 an increasing confidence is establishing itself between 
 them, which it is to be hoped nothing will shake. 
 
 And as for Phil, when the Squire teases him with 
 his growing fondness for the little Jesuit of the parson 
 age, the boy, though past seventeen now, and " with 
 views of his own," (as most young men have at that 
 age,) blushes like a girl. 
 
 Rose, seeing it, and her eyes flashing with sisterly 
 pride, says to herself, 
 
 " Oh, I hope it may come true ! "
 
 XXIX. 
 
 TjlROM time to time Maverick had written in reply 
 -*- to the periodical reports of the Doctor, and always 
 with unabating confidence in his discretion and kind 
 ness. 
 
 "I have remarked what you say" (he had written 
 thus in a letter which had elicited the close attention 
 of Miss Eliza) " in regard to the rosary found among 
 the girlish treasures of Adele. I am not aware how 
 she can have come by such a trinket from the source 
 named ; but I must beg you to take as little notice as 
 possible of the matter, and please allow her possession 
 of it to remain entirely unmarked. I am specially 
 anxious that no factitious importance be given to the 
 relic by opposition to her wishes." 
 
 Heavy losses incident to the political changes of the 
 year 1831 in France had kept him fastened at his 
 post ; and with the reviving trade under the peaceful 
 regime of Louis Philippe, he had been more actively 
 engaged even than before. Yet there was no interrup 
 tion to his correspondence with Adele, and no falling 
 off in its expressions of earnest affection and devotion.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 229 
 
 "I fancy you almost a woman grown now, dear 
 Adele. Those cheeks of yours have, I hope, not lost 
 their roundness or their rosiness. But, however much 
 you may have grown, I am sure that my heart would 
 guide me so truly that I could single you out from a 
 great crowd of the little Puritan people about you. I 
 can fancy you in some simple New England dress, in 
 which I would rather see you, my child, than in the 
 richest silks of those about me here, gliding up the 
 pathway that leads to the door of the old parsonage ; 
 I can fancy you dropping a word of greeting to the 
 good Doctor within his study (he must be wearing 
 spectacles now) ; and at evening I seem to see you 
 kneeling in the long back dining-room, as the parson 
 leads in family prayer. Well, well, don t forget to pray 
 for your old father, my child. I shall be all the safer 
 for it, in what the Doctor calls this wicked land. 
 And what of Reuben, whose mischief, you told me, 
 threatened such fearful results ? Sobered down, I sup 
 pose, long before this, wearing a stout jacket of home 
 spun, driving home the keow at night, and singing 
 in the choir of a Sunday. Don t lose your heart, 
 AdMe, with any of the youngsters about you. I claim 
 the whole of it ; and every day and every night mine 
 beats for you, my child." 
 
 And Adele writes back : 
 
 "My heart is all yours, papa, only why do you
 
 230 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 never come and take it ? So many, many years that 
 I have not seen you ! 
 
 " Yes, I like Ashfield still ; it is almost a home to 
 me now, you know. New Papa is very kind, but 
 just as grave and stiff as at the first. I know he 
 loves me, but he never tells me so. I don t believe 
 he ever told Reuben so. But when I sing some song 
 that he loves to hear, I see a little quirk by his tem 
 ple, and a glistening in his eye, as he thanks me, that 
 tells it plain enough ; and most of all when he prays, 
 as he sometimes does after talking to me very gravely, 
 with his arm tight clasped around me, oh, I am sure 
 that he loves me ! and indeed, and indeed, I love 
 him back again ! 
 
 " It was funny what you said of Reuben ; for you 
 must know that he is living in the city now, and hap 
 pens upon us here sometimes with a very grand air, 
 
 as fine, I dare say, as the people about Marseilles. 
 But I don t think I like him any better ; I don t know 
 if I like him as well. Miss Eliza is, of course, very 
 proud of him, as she always was." 
 
 As the nicer observing faculties of his child de 
 velop, of which ample traces appear in her letters, 
 
 Maverick begs her to detail to him as fully as she 
 can all the little events of her every-day life. He 
 has an eagerness, which only an absent parent can feel, 
 to know how his pet is received by those about her ;
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 231 
 
 and would supply himself, so far as he may, with a 
 full picture of the scenes amid which his child is 
 growing up. Sheet after sheet of this simple, girlish 
 narrative of hers Maverick delights himself with, as 
 he sits upon his balcony, after business hours, look 
 ing down upon the harbor of Marseilles. 
 
 " After morning prayers, which are very early, you 
 know, Esther places the smoking dishes on the table, 
 and New Papa asks a blessing, always. Then he 
 says, I hope Adaly has not forgotten her text of 
 yesterday. And I repeat it to him. Such a quantity 
 of texts as I can repeat now ! Then Aunt Eliza says, 
 I hope, too, that Adele will make no mistake in her 
 " Paradise Lost " to-day. Are you sure you ve not 
 forgotten that lesson in the parsing, child ? Indeed, 
 papa, I can parse almost any page in the book. 
 
 " I think, says New Papa, appealing to Miss Eliza, 
 that Larkin may grease the wheels of the chaise 
 this morning, and, if it should be fair, I will make a 
 visit or two at the north end of the town ; and I think 
 Adaly would like to go with me. 
 
 " Yes, dearly, New Papa, I say, which is very 
 true. 
 
 " And Miss Eliza says, very gravely, I am perfectly 
 willing, Doctor. 
 
 " After breakfast is over, Miss Eliza will sometimes 
 walk with ine a short way down the street, and will
 
 232 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 say to me, Hold yourself erect, Adele ; walk trimly. 
 She walks very trimly. Then we pass by the Hap- 
 good house, which is one of the grand houses ; and 
 I know the old Miss Hapgoods are looking through 
 the blinds at us, though they never show themselves 
 until they have taken out their curl-papers in the after 
 noon. 
 
 " Dame Tourtelot is n t so shy ; and we see her 
 great, gaunt figure in a broad sun-bonnet, stooping 
 down with her trowel, at work among the flower- 
 patches before her door ; and Miss Almira is reading 
 at an upper window, in pink muslin. And when the 
 Dame hears us, she lifts herself straight, sets her old 
 flapping bonnet as square as she can, and stares 
 through her spectacles until she has made us out ; 
 then says, 
 
 " Good mornin , Miss Johns. You re arly this 
 mornin . 
 
 " Quite early, says Miss Eliza. Your flowers are 
 looking nicely, Mrs. Tourtelot. 
 
 " "Well, the pi nys is blowed pretty good. Would 
 n t Adeel like a pi ny ? 
 
 " It s a great red monster of a flower, papa ; but 
 I thank her for it, and put it in my belt. Then the 
 Dame goes on to tell how she has shifted the striped 
 grass, and how the bouncing-Bets are spreading, and 
 where she means to put her nasturtiums the next
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 233 
 
 year, and brandishes her trowel, as the brigands in 
 the story-books brandish their swords. 
 
 " And Miss Eliza says, Almira is at her reading, 
 I see. 
 
 " Dear me ! says the Dame, glancing up ; she s 
 always a-readin . What with novils and histories, 
 she s injurin her health, Miss Johns, as sure as you 
 re alive. 
 
 " Then, as we set off again, the Dame calling 
 out some last word, and brandishing her trowel over 
 the fence, old Squire Elderkin comes swinging up 
 the street with the Courant in his hand ; and he 
 lifts his hat, and says, Good morning to you, Miss 
 Johns ; and how is the little French lady this morn 
 ing? Bright as ever, I see, (for he does n t wait to 
 be answered,) a peony in her belt, and two roses 
 in her cheeks. Yet my cheeks are not very red, 
 papa ; but it s his way 
 
 " After school, I go for the drive with the Doctor, 
 which I enjoy very much. I ask him about all the 
 flowers along the way, and he tells me every thing, 
 and I have learned the names of all the birds ; and 
 it is much better, I think, than learning at school. 
 And he always says, It s God s infinite love, my 
 child, that has given us all these beautiful things, and 
 these songsters that choir His praises. When I hear 
 him say it, I believe it, papa. I am very sure that
 
 234 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 the priest who came to see godmother was not a bet 
 ter man than he is. 
 
 " Then, very often, he lifts my hand in his, and 
 says, Adaly, my dear, God is very good to us, sin 
 ners though we are. We cannot tell His meaning 
 always, but we may be very sure that He has only 
 a good meaning. You do not know it, Adaly, but 
 there was once a dear one, whom I loved perhaps too 
 well ; she was the mother of my poor Reuben ; 
 God only knows how I loved her ! But He took her 
 from me. Oh, how the hand of New Papa griped 
 on mine, when he said this ! He took her from 
 me, my child ; He has carried her to His home. He 
 is just. Learn to love Him, Adaly. The love we 
 give to Him we can carry with us always. He does 
 not die and leave us. He is everywhere. The birds 
 are messengers of His, when they sing ; the flowers 
 you love come from His bounty : O Adaly, can you 
 not, will you not, love Him ? 
 
 " I do ! I do ! I said. 
 
 " He looked me full in the face, (I shall never for 
 get how he looked,) Ah, Adaly, is this a fantasy of 
 yours, said he, or is it true ? Could you give up 
 the world and all its charms, could you forego the 
 admiration and the love of all others, if only He 
 who is the Savior of us all would smile upon you ? 
 
 " I felt I could, I felt I could, papa.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 235 
 
 " But then, directly after, he repeated to me some 
 of those dreary things I had been used to hear in 
 the Catechism week after week. I was so sorry he 
 repeated them, for they seemed to give a change to 
 all my thought. I am sure I was trustful before, when 
 he talked to me so earnestly ; but when he repeated 
 only what I had learned over and over, every Satur 
 day night, then I am afraid my faith drooped. 
 
 " Don t tell me that, New Papa, said I, it is so 
 old ; talk to me as you were talking. 
 
 " And then the Doctor looked at me with the keen 
 est eyes I ever saw, and said, 
 
 " My child, are you right, and are the Doctors 
 wrong ? 
 
 " Is it the Catechism that you call the Doctors ? 
 said I. 
 
 " Yes, said he. 
 
 " But were they better men than you, New Papa ? 
 
 " l All men alike, Adaly, all struggling toward the 
 truth, all wearying themselves to interpret it in such 
 way that the world may accept it, and praise God who 
 has given us His Son a sacrifice, by whom, and whom 
 only, we may be saved. And at this he took my hand 
 and said, Adaly, trust Him ! 
 
 " By this time " (for Adele s letter is a true tran 
 script of a day) " we have reached the door of some 
 one of his people to whom he is to pay a visit. The
 
 236 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 blinds are all closed, and nothing seems to be stirring 
 but a gray cat that is prowling about under the lilac 
 bushes. Dobbins is hitched to the post, and the 
 Doctor pounds away at the big knocker. Presently 
 two or three white-headed children come peeping 
 around the bushes, and rush away to tell who has 
 come. After a little the stout mistress opens the door, 
 and wipes her fingers on her apron, and shakes hands, 
 and bounces into the keeping-room to throw up the 
 window and open the blinds, and dusts off the great 
 rocking-chair for the Doctor, and keeps saying all the 
 while that they are very back ard with the spring 
 work, and she really had no time to slick up, and asks 
 after Miss Eliza and Reuben, and the Tourtelots, and 
 all the people on the street, so fast that I wonder she 
 can keep her breath ; and the Doctor looks so calm, 
 and has no time to say anything yet. Then she looks 
 at me, Sissy is looking well, says she, and dashes out 
 to bring in a great plate of gingerbread, which I never 
 like at all, and say, No. But she says, It won t hurt 
 ye ; it a n t p ison, child. So I find I must eat a little ; 
 and while I sit mumbling it, the Doctor and she talk 
 on about a great deal I don t understand, and I am 
 glad when she bounces up again, and says, Sis would 
 like to get some posies, p raps, and leads me out of 
 doors. There s lalocs, child, and flower-de-luce 
 pick what you want.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 237 
 
 " So I go wandering among the beds along the gar 
 den, with the bees humming round me ; and there are 
 great tufts of blue-bell, and spider-wort, and moss- 
 pink ; and the white-haired grandchildren come and 
 put their faces to the paling, looking at me through 
 the bars like animals in a cage ; and if I beckon to 
 them, they glance at each other, and dash away." 
 
 Thus much of Adele s account. But there are three 
 or four more visits to complete the parson s day. Pos 
 sibly he comes upon some member of his flock in the 
 field, when* he draws up Dobbins to the fence, and his 
 parishioner, spying the old chaise, leaves his team to 
 blow a moment while he strides forward with his long 
 ox-goad in hand, and, seating himself upon a stump 
 within easy earshot, says, 
 
 " Good mornin, Doctor." 
 
 And the parson, in his kindly way, " Good morning, 
 Mr. Pettibone. Your family pretty well ? " 
 
 " Waal, middlin, Doctor, only middlin . Miss Pet 
 tibone is a-havin faintish spells along back ; complains 
 o pain in her side." 
 
 " Sorry, sorry," says the good man : and then, " Your 
 team is looking pretty well, Mr. Pettibone." 
 
 " Waal, only tol able, Doctor. That nigh ox, what 
 with spring work an grass feed is gittin kind o thin in 
 the flesh. Any news abaout, Doctor ? " 
 
 " Not that I learn, Mr. Pettibone. We re having 
 fine growing weather for your crops."
 
 238 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " Waal, only tol able, Doctor. You see, arter them 
 heavy spring rains, the sun has kind o baked the 
 graound ; the seed don t seem to start well. I don t 
 know as you remember, but in 29, along in the spring, 
 we had jist sich a spell o wet, an corn hung back that 
 season amazin ly." 
 
 "Well, Mr. Pettibone, we must hope for the best: 
 it s all in God s hands." 
 
 " Waal, I s pose it is, Doctor, I s pose it is." And 
 he makes a cut at a clover-head with the lash upon his 
 ox-goad ; then as if in recognition of the change 
 of subject he says, 
 
 " Any more talk on the street abaout repairin the 
 ruff o the meetin -house, Doctor ? " 
 
 At sundown, all visits being paid, they go jogging 
 into town again, the Doctor silent by this time, and 
 thinking of his sermon. Dobbins is tied always at the 
 same post, always the hitch-rein buckled in the third 
 hole from the end. 
 
 After tea, perhaps, Phil and Rose come sauntering 
 by, and ask if Adele will go up " to the house " ? 
 Which request, if Miss Eliza meet it with a nod of 
 approval, puts Adele by their side : Rose, with a beau 
 tiful recklessness common to New England girls of 
 that day, wearing her hat drooping half down her neck, 
 and baring her clear forehead to the falling night-dews. 
 Phil, with a pebble in his hand, makes a feint of
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 239 
 
 throwing into a flock of goslings that are waddling 
 disturbedly after a pair of staid old geese, but is ar 
 rested by Rose s prompt " Behave, Phil ! " 
 
 The Squire is reading his paper by the evening 
 lamp, but cannot forbear a greeting to Adele : 
 
 " Ah, here we are again ! and how is Madamoizel ? " 
 (this is the Squire s style of French,) " and has she 
 brought me the peony ? Phil would have given his 
 head for it, eh, Phil ? " 
 
 Rose is so bright, and glowing, and happy ! 
 
 Mrs. Elderkin in her rocking-chair, with her gray 
 hair carefully plaited under the white lace cap whose 
 broad strings fall on either shoulder, is a picture of 
 motherly dignity. Her pleasant " Good - evening, 
 Adele," would alone have paid the warm-hearted exile 
 for her walk. 
 
 Then follow games, chat, and an occasional noisy 
 joke from the Squire, until the nine o clock town-bell 
 gives warning, and Adele wends homeward under con 
 voy of the gallant Phil. 
 
 " Good-night, Adele ! " 
 
 " Good-night, Phil ! " 
 
 Only this at the gate. Then the Doctor s evening 
 prayer ; and after it, in the quiet chamber, where her 
 sweet head lay upon the pillow, dreams. With rec 
 ollections more barren than those of most of her years, 
 of any early home, Adele still dreamed as hopefully as 
 any of a home to come.
 
 XXX. 
 
 "IN the autumn of 1836, Maverick wrote to his friend, 
 -*- the Doctor, that, in view of the settled condition 
 of business, he intended to visit America some time in 
 the course of the following season. He preferred, 
 however, that Adele should not be made acquainted 
 with his expected coming. He believed that it would 
 be a pleasant surprise for his child ; nor did he wish 
 her anticipations of his arrival to divert her from the 
 usual current of her study and every-day life. 
 
 " Above all," he writes, " I wish to see her as she is, 
 without any note of preparation. You will therefore, 
 I beg, my dear Johns, keep from her scrupulously all 
 knowledge of my present intentions, (which may pos 
 sibly miscarry, after all,) and let me see, to the very 
 finest touch, whether of a ribbon or of a ringlet, how 
 far you have New-Englanclized my dear girl. I form 
 a hundred pictures in my fancy ; but every new letter 
 from her somehow disturbs the old image, and another 
 is conjured up. The only real thing in my mind is, 
 after all, a little child of eight, rosy and piquantly co 
 quettish, who slaps my cheek when I tease her, and
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 241 
 
 who, as I bid her adieu at last upon the ship s deck, 
 looks through her tears at me and waves her little 
 kerchief. 
 
 " It is quite possible that I may manage for her re 
 turn with me, (of this plan, too, I beg you to give no 
 hint,) and in view of it I would suggest that any avail 
 able occasion be seized upon to revive her knowledge 
 of French, which, I fear, in your staid household, she 
 may almost have forgotten. Tell dear Adele that I 
 am sometimes at Le Pin, where her godmother never 
 fails to inquire after her and call down blessings on 
 the dear child." 
 
 Upon this the Doctor and Miss Johns take counsel. 
 Both are not a little disturbed by the anticipation of 
 Adele s leave. The grave Doctor finds his heart 
 wrapped about by the winning ways of the little stran 
 ger in a manner he could hardly have conceived possi 
 ble on the day when he first greeted her. On the score 
 of her religious beliefs, he is not, indeed, as yet thor 
 oughly satisfied ; but he feels sure that she is at least 
 in a safe path. The old idols are broken : God, in His 
 own time, will do the rest. 
 
 The spinster, though she has become unconsciously 
 attached to Adele to a degree of which she hardly be 
 lieves herself capable, is yet not so much disconcerted 
 by the thought of any violence to her affections, for 
 all violence of this kind she has schooled herself to re- 
 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 242 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 gard with cool stoicism, but the possible interruption 
 of her ambitious schemes with respect to Eeuben and 
 Adele discomposes her sadly. Such a scheme she has 
 never given over for one moment. No plan of hers is 
 ever given over lightly ; and she has that persistent 
 faith in her own sagacity and prudence which is not 
 easily shaken. The growing intercourse with the El- 
 derkins, in view of the evident devotion of Phil, has 
 been, indeed, the source of a little uneasiness ; but 
 even this intimacy she has moderated to a certain de 
 gree by occasional judicious fears in regard to Adele s 
 exposure to the night air ; and has made the most 
 in her quiet manner of Phil s exceptional, but some 
 what noisy, attentions to that dashing girl, Sophia Bow- 
 
 rirror. 
 
 **&e 
 
 " A very suitable match it would be," she says some 
 evening, casually, to the Doctor ; " and I really think 
 that Phil, if there were any seriousness about the lad, 
 would meet his father s wishes in the matter. Adele, 
 child," (she is sitting by at her worsted,) " are you sure 
 you ve the right shade of brown there ? " 
 
 But, like most cool schemers in what concerns the 
 affections, she makes her errors. Her assurance in 
 regard to the improved habits and character of Reu 
 ben, and her iteration of the wonderful attachment 
 which the Brindlocks bear to the lad, have a somewhat 
 strained air to the ear of Adele. And when the spin-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 243 
 
 ster says, folding up his last letter, " Good fellow ! 
 always some tender little message for you, my dear," 
 Adele thinks as most girls of her age would be apt 
 to think that she would like to see the tender mes 
 sage with her own eyes. 
 
 But what of the French ? Where is there to be 
 found a competent teacher ? Not, surely, in Ashfield. 
 Miss Eliza, with grave doubts, however, suggests a win 
 ter in New York with the Brindlocks. The Doctor 
 shakes his head : 
 
 " Not to be thought of, Eliza. It is enough that my 
 boy should undergo the perils of such godless associa 
 tion : Adaly shall not." 
 
 The question, however, of the desired opportunity is 
 not confined to the parsonage ; it has currency up and 
 down the street ; and within a week the buoyant Miss 
 Bowrigg comes to the rescue. 
 
 " Delighted above all things to hear it. They have 
 a charming teacher in the city, Madame Aries, who has 
 the best accent. And now, Adele, dear, you must come 
 down and pass the winter with us. It will be charming." 
 
 It is, indeed, a mere girlish proposal at first ; but, 
 much to the delight of Miss Eliza, it is abundantly con 
 firmed by a formal invitation from Mrs. Bowrigg, a few 
 weeks after, who, besides being attracted by the man 
 ners and character of Adele, sees in it an admirable 
 opportunity for the accomplishment of her daughters
 
 244 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 in French. Her demonstrative girls and a son of 
 twenty comprise her family. For these reasons, she 
 will regard it as a favor, if the Doctor will allow Miss 
 Maverick to establish herself with them for the winter. 
 
 Miss Eliza is delighted with the scheme, but fears 
 the cool judgment of the Doctor : and she has abun 
 dant reason. 
 
 " It cannot be," he said, and was quite inexorable. 
 
 The truth is, that Mrs. Bowrigg, like a good many 
 educated with a narrow severity, had expanded her 
 views under the city influences in directions that were 
 by no means approved by the good Doctor. Hers was 
 not only a godless household, but given over to the 
 lusts of the eye and the pride of life. It was quite im 
 possible for him to entertain the idea of submitting 
 Adele to any such worldly associations. 
 
 Miss Eliza pleaded the exigencies of the case in vain ; 
 and even Adele, attracted by the novelty of the pro 
 posed situation, urged her claim in the cheeriest little 
 manner conceivable. 
 
 " Only for the winter, New Papa ; please say 
 * Yes ! " 
 
 And the tender hands patted the grave face, as she 
 seated herself with a childish coquetry upon the elbow 
 of his chair. 
 
 " Impossible, quite impossible," says the Doctor. 
 " You are too dear to me, Adaly."
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 245 
 
 " Oh, now, New Papa, you don t mean that, not 
 positively ?" and the winning fingers tap his cheek 
 again. 
 
 But for this time, at least, Adele is to lose her claim ; 
 the Doctor well knows that to suffer such endearments 
 were to yield ; so he rises brusquely, 
 
 " I must be just, my child, to the charge your father 
 has imposed upon me. It cannot be." 
 
 It will not be counted strange, if a little ill-disguised 
 petulance appeared in the face of Adele that day and 
 the next. 
 
 The winter of 183G-7 was a very severe one through 
 out New England. Perhaps it was in view of its se 
 verity, that, on or about New Year s Day, there came to 
 the parsonage a gift from Reuben for Adele, in the 
 shape of a fur tippet, very much to the gratification of 
 Miss Eliza and to the pleasant surprise of the Doctor. 
 
 Rose and Phil, sitting by the fire next day, Rose says, 
 in a timid voice, with less than her usual sprightli- 
 ness, 
 
 " Do you know who has sent a beautiful fur tippet to 
 Adele, Phil ? " 
 
 " No," says Phil, briskly. " Who ? " 
 
 " Reuben," says Rose, in a tone as if a blush ran 
 over her face at the utterance. 
 
 If there was one, however, Phil could not have seen 
 it; he was looking steadfastly into the fire, and said 
 only,
 
 246 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " I don t care." 
 
 A little after, (nothing having been said, meantime,) 
 he has occasion to rearrange the wood upon the hearth, 
 and does it with such preposterous violence that the 
 timid little voice heside him says, 
 
 " Don t, Phil, be angry with the fire ! " 
 
 It was a winter, as we have said, for fur tippets and 
 for glowing cheeks ; and Adele had now been long 
 enough under a Northern sky to partake of that exhil 
 aration of spirits which belongs to every true-born New 
 Englander in presence of one of those old-fashioned 
 snow-storms, which, all through the day and through 
 the night, sifts out from the gray sky its fleecy crystals, 
 covering the frosted high-roads, covering the with 
 ered grasses, covering the whole summer s wreck in one 
 glorious white burial ; and after it, keen frosty morn 
 ings, the pleasant jingling of scores of bells, jets of 
 white vapor from the nostrils of the prancing horses, 
 and a quick electric tingle to the blood, that makes 
 every pulse beat a thanksgiving. Squire Elderkin 
 never made better jokes, the flame upon his hearth 
 never danced more merrily, the Doctor never 
 preached better sermons, and the people never listened 
 more patiently than in those weeks of the dead of 
 winter. 
 
 But in the midst of them a black shadow fell upon 
 the little town. News came overland, (the river being
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 247 
 
 closed,) that Mrs. Bowrigg, after an illness of three 
 clays, was dead ; and the body of the poor woman was 
 to come home for burial. She had been reared, as we 
 have said, under a harsh regimen, and had signalized 
 her married escape from the somewhat oppressive for 
 malities of home by a pretty free entertainment of all 
 the indulgences accessible in her new life. Not that 
 she offended against any of the larger or lesser propri 
 eties of society, but she showed a zest for the pleasures 
 of the world, and for a certain measure of display, 
 which had been the occasion of many a sober shake of 
 the head along the streets of Ashfield, and the subject 
 of particular commiseration on the part of the good 
 Doctor. 
 
 Now that her brilliant career (as it seemed to many 
 of the staid folk of Ashfield) was so suddenly closed, 
 the Doctor could not forbear taking advantage of the 
 opportunity to press home upon his people, under the 
 influences of this somber funeral procession, the vani 
 ties of the world and the fleeting character of its wealth 
 and pride. " We may build palaces," said he, (and 
 people thought of the elegant Bowrigg mansion,) " but 
 God locks the door and assigns to us a narrower home ; 
 we may court the intoxicating air of cities, but its 
 breath, in a day, may blast our strength, and, except 
 He keep us, may blast our souls." Never had the 
 Doctor been more eloquent, and never had he so moved
 
 248 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 his people. After the evening prayer, Adele stole into 
 the study of the Doctor, and said, 
 
 " New Papa, it was well I stayed with you." 
 
 The old gentleman took her hand in his, 
 
 " Right, I believe, Adaly ; but vain, utterly vain, ex 
 cept you be counted among the elect." 
 
 The poor girl had no reply, save only to drop a kiss 
 upon his forehead and pass out. 
 
 With the opening of the spring the towns-people were 
 busy with the question, if the Bowriggs would come 
 again to occupy their summer residence, that, with its 
 closed doors and windows, was mournfully silent. But 
 soon the gardeners were set to work ; it was understood 
 that a housekeeper had been engaged, and the family 
 were to occupy it as usual. Sophia writes to Adele, 
 confirming it all, and adding, " Madame Aries had 
 proposed to make us a visit, which papa hearing, and 
 wishing us to keep up our studies, has given her an in 
 vitation to pass the summer with us. She says she 
 will. I am so glad ! We had told her very much of 
 you, and I know she will be delighted to have you as a 
 scholar." 
 
 At this Adele feels a thrill of satisfaction, and looks 
 longingly forward to the time when she shall hear again 
 from native lips the language of her childhood. 
 
 "Mafille! ma file!" 
 
 The voices of her early home seem to ring again in
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 249 
 
 her ear. She basks once more in the delicious flow of 
 the sunshine, and the perfume of the orange-blossoms 
 regales her. 
 
 "MajiUe!" 
 
 Is it the echo of your voice, good old godmother, 
 that comes rocking over the great reach of the sea, and 
 so touches the heart of the exile ?
 
 XXXI. 
 
 MADAME ARLES was a mild and quiet little 
 woman, with a singular absence of that vivacity 
 which most people are disposed to attribute to all of 
 French blood. Her age so far as one could judge 
 from outward indications might have been anywhere 
 from twenty-eight to forty. There were no wrinkles in 
 that smooth, calm forehead of hers ; and if there were 
 lines of gray amid her hair, this indication of age was 
 so contradicted by the youthfulness of her eye, that a 
 keen observer would have been disposed to attribute it 
 rather to some weight of past grief that had left its 
 silvery imprint than to the mere burden of her years. 
 
 There are those who stolidly measure a twelvemonth 
 always by its count, and age by such token as a gray 
 head; but who has not had experience of months so 
 piled with life that two or three or four of them count 
 more upon the scale of mortality than a score of other 
 and sunny ones ? Who cannot reckon such ? Who, 
 looking back, cannot summon to his thought some pas 
 sage of a week in which he seemed to stride toward the 
 END with a crazy swiftness, and under which he felt
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 251 
 
 that every outward indication of age was deepening its 
 traces with a wondrous surety? Ay, we slip, we are 
 forged upon the anvil of Time, God, who deals the 
 blows, only knows how fast ! 
 
 Yet in Madame Aries we have no notable character 
 to bring forward ; if past griefs have belonged to her, 
 they have become long since a part of her character ; 
 they are in no way obtrusive. There was, indeed, a 
 singular cast in one of her eyes, which in moments of 
 excitement such few as came over her impressed 
 the observer very strangely ; as if, while she looked 
 straight upon you and calmly with one eye, the other 
 were bent upon some scene far remote and out of 
 range, some past episode it might be of her own life, by 
 over-dwelling upon which she had brought her organs 
 of sight into this tortured condition. Nine out of ten 
 observers, however, would never have remarked the 
 peculiarity we have mentioned, and would only have 
 commented upon Madame Aries if they had com 
 mented at all as a quiet person, in whom youth and 
 age seemed just now to struggle for the mastery, and in 
 whom no trace of French birth and rearing was appar 
 ent, save her speech, and a certain wonderful aptitude 
 in the arrangement of her dress. The poor lady, 
 moreover, who showed traces of a vanished beauty, was 
 a sad invalid, and for this reason, perhaps, had readily 
 accepted the relief afforded by this summer vacation
 
 252 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 with two of her city pupils. A violent palpitation of 
 the heart, from time to time, after sudden or undue 
 exertion or excitement, shook the poor woman s frail 
 hold upon life. Possibly from this cause as is the 
 case with many who are compelled to listen to those 
 premonitory raps of the grim visitor at the very seat of 
 life Madame Aries was a person of strong religious 
 proclivities. Death is knocking at all hearts, indeed, 
 pretty regularly, and his pace toward triumph is as for 
 mally certain as a pulse-beat ; but it is, after all, those 
 disorderly summons of his, when in a kind of splen 
 etic rage he grips at our heart-strings, and then lets go, 
 which keep specially active the religious sentiment. 
 Madame Aries had been educated in the Romish faith, 
 and accepted all its tenets with the same unquestion 
 ing placidity with which she enjoyed the sunshine. 
 Without any particular knowledge of the way in which 
 this faith diverged from other Christian forms, she 
 leaned upon it (as so many fainting spirits do and will) 
 because the most available and accessible prop to that 
 religious yearning in her which craved support. So 
 instinctive and unreasoning a faith was not, however, 
 such as to provoke any proselytizing zeal or noisy dem 
 onstration. Had it been otherwise, indeed, it could 
 hardly have disturbed her position with the Bowriggs, 
 or interrupted relations with her city patrons. 
 In Ashfield the case was far different.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 253 
 
 Adele, accompanied by her friend Rose, who, not 
 withstanding the quiet remonstrances of the Doctor, 
 had won her mother s permission for such equipment 
 in French as she could gain from a summer s teaching, 
 went with early greeting to the Bowriggs. The 
 curiosity of Adele was intense to listen to the music 
 of her native speech once more ; and when Madame 
 Aries slipped quietly into the room, Adele darted 
 toward her with warm, girlish impulse, and the poor 
 woman, excited beyond bounds by this heartiness of 
 greeting, and murmuring some tender words of endear 
 ment, had presently folded her to her bosom. 
 
 Adele, blushing as much with pleasure as with a 
 half-feeling of mortification at the wild show of feeling 
 she had made, was stammering her apology, when she 
 was arrested by a sudden change in the aspect of her 
 new friend. 
 
 " My dear Madame, you are suffering ? " 
 
 " A little, my child ! " 
 
 It was too true, as the quick glance of her old pupils 
 saw in an instant. Her lips were pinched and blue ; 
 that strange double look in her eyes, one fastened 
 upon Adele, and the other upon vacancy ; her hands 
 clasped over her heart as if to stay its mad throbbings. 
 While Sophia supported and conducted the sufferer 
 to her own chamber, the younger sister explained 
 to Adele that such spasmodic attacks were of frequent
 
 254 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 occurrence, and their physician had assured them must, 
 at a very early day, destroy her. 
 
 Nothing more was needed to enlist Adele s sympa 
 thies to the full. She carried home the story of it to 
 the Doctor, and detailed it in such an impassioned way, 
 and with such interpretation of the kind lady s recep 
 tion of herself, that the Doctor was touched, and abated 
 no small measure of the prejudice he had been disposed 
 to entertain against the Frenchwoman. 
 
 But her heresies in the matter of religion remained, 
 it being no secret that Madame Aries was thor 
 oughly Popish ; and these disturbed the good Doctor 
 the more, as he perceived the growing and tender 
 intimacy which was establishing itself, week by week, 
 between Adele and her new teacher. Indeed, he has 
 not sanctioned this without his own private conversa 
 tion with Madame, in which he has set forth his re 
 sponsibility respecting Adele and the wishes of her 
 father, and insisted upon entire reserve of Madame s 
 religious opinions in her intercourse with his protegee. 
 All which the poor lady had promised with a ready zeal 
 that surprised the minister. 
 
 " Indeed, I know too little, Doctor ; I could wish she 
 might be better than I. May God make her so ! " 
 
 " I do not judge you, Madame ; it is not ours to 
 judge ; but I would keep Adaly securely, if God per 
 mit, in the faith which we reverence here, and which I
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 255 
 
 much fear she could never learn in her own land or her 
 own language." 
 
 " May be, may be, my good Doctor ; her faith shall 
 not be disturbed by me, I promise you." 
 
 Adele. with her quick ear and eye, has no difficulty 
 in discovering the ground of the Doctor s uneasiness 
 and of Miss Eliza s frequent questionings in regard to 
 her intercourse with the new teacher. 
 
 " I am sure they think you very bad," she said to 
 Madame Aries, one day, in a spirit of mischief. 
 
 "Bad! bad! Adele, why? how?" and that 
 strange tortuous look came to her eye, with a quick 
 flush to her cheeks. 
 
 " Ah, now, dear Madame, don t be disturbed ; t is 
 only your religion they think so bad, and fear you will 
 mislead me. Tenez! this little rosary" (and she dis 
 plays it to the eye of the wondering Madame Aries) 
 " they would have taken from me." 
 
 Madame pressed the beads reverently to her lips, 
 while her manner betrayed a deep religious emotion, 
 (as it seemed to Adele,) which she had rarely seen in 
 her before. 
 
 " And you claimed it, my child ? " 
 
 "Not for any faith I had in it; but it was my 
 mother s." 
 
 The good woman kissed Adele. 
 
 " You must long to see her, my child ! "
 
 256 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 A shade of sorrow and doubt ran over the face of 
 the girl. This did not escape the notice of Madame 
 Aries, who, with a terribly dejected and distracted air, 
 replaced the rosary in her hands. 
 
 " Man ange ! " (in this winsome way she was accus 
 tomed at times to address Adele) " we cannot talk of 
 these things. I have promised as much to the Doc 
 tor ; it is better so ; he is a good man." 
 
 Adele sat toying for a moment with the rosary upon 
 her fingers, looking down ; then, seeing that woe-be- 
 gone expression that had fastened upon the face of her 
 companion, she sprang up, kissed her forehead, and, 
 restoring thus as she knew she could do a cheer- 
 iness to her manner, resumed her lesson. 
 
 But from this time forth she showed an eagerness to 
 unriddle, so far as she might, the mystery of that faith 
 which the Doctor clothed in his ponderous discourses, 
 weighed down and oppressed by his prolixity, and 
 confounded by doctrines she could not comprehend, yet 
 recognizing, under all, his serene trust, and gratefully 
 conscious of his tender regard and constant watchful 
 ness. But, more than all, it was a subject of confusion 
 to her, that the prim and austere Miss Eliza, whose 
 pride and selfishness her keen eye could not fail to see, 
 should be possessed of a truer faith than the poor 
 stranger whose gentleness, and suffering so patiently 
 borne, seemed in a measure to Christianize and dignify
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 257 
 
 character. And if she dropped a hint of these doubts, 
 as she sometimes did, in the ear of the motherly Mrs. 
 Elderkin, that good woman took her hand tenderly, 
 " My dear Adele, we are all imperfect ; but God sees 
 with other eyes than ours. Trust Him, trust Him 
 above all, Adele ! " 
 
 Yes, she trusts Him, she knows she trusts Him. 
 Why not ? Whom else to trust ? No tender motherly 
 care and guidance ; the father, by these years of ab 
 sence, made almost a stranger. The low voice of her 
 native land, that comes to her ear with a charming flow 
 from the lips of her new teacher, never to speak of her 
 doubts or questionings ; the constrained love of the 
 Doctor, her New Papa, framing itself, whenever it 
 touches upon the deeper motives of her nature, in stark 
 formulas of speech, that blind and confound her ; the 
 spinster sister talking kindly, but commending the tie 
 of her hat-ribbons in the same tone with which she 
 iirges adherence to some cumbrous enunciation of doc 
 trine. And Adele cherishes her little friendships (most 
 of all with Rose) ; not alive as yet to any tenderer and 
 stronger passion that shall engross her, and make or mar 
 her life ; swinging her reticule, as in the days gone by, 
 under the trees that embower the village street ; loving 
 the bloom, the verdure, the singing of the birds, but 
 with every month now as she begins to fathom the 
 abyss of life with her own thought grown more seri- 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 ous. It is always thus : the girl we toyed with yester 
 day with our inanities of speech is to-morrow, by some 
 sudden reach of womanly thought, another creature, 
 out of range, and so alert, that, if we would conquer 
 her, we must bring up our heaviest siege-trains.
 
 XXXII. 
 
 TN the summer of 1837, Maverick, who had con- 
 -*- tinued eminently successful, determined to sail for 
 America, and to make good his promise of a visit to 
 the Doctor and Adele. It may appear somewhat inex 
 plicable that a father should have deferred to so late a 
 day the occasion of meeting and greeting an only child. 
 That his attachment was strong, his letters, full of ex 
 pressions of affection, had abundantly shown ; but the 
 engrossments of business had been unceasing, and he 
 had met them with that American abandonment of 
 other thought, which, while it insures special success, 
 is too apt to make shipwreck of all besides. He was 
 living, moreover, without experience of those tender 
 family ties which ripen a man s domestic affections, and 
 make the absence of a child most of all, an only 
 child a daily burden. 
 
 Maverick shows no more appearance of age than 
 when we saw him ten years since, placing his little 
 offering of flowers upon the breakfast-table of poor 
 Rachel, an excellently well-preserved man, dressed 
 always in that close conformity to the existing mode
 
 260 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 which of itself gives a young air, brushing his hair 
 sedulously so as to cover the growing spot of bald 
 ness, regulating all his table indulgences with the 
 same precision with which he governs his business, 
 using all the appliances of flesh-brushes and salt-baths 
 to baffle any insidious ailment, a strong, hale, cheery 
 man, who would have ranked by a score (judging 
 from his exterior) younger than the Doctor. In our 
 time the clerical fraternity are putting a somewhat 
 wiser valuation upon those aids to firm muscle and 
 good digestion which forty years ago in New England 
 their brethren gave over contemptuously to men of 
 the world. What fearful, pinching dyspepsias, what 
 weak, trembling knees and aching sides have been 
 carried into pulpits, and have been strained to the 
 propagation of spiritual doctrine, under the absurd 
 belief that these bodies of ours were not given us 
 to be cherished ! As if a Gabriel would not need 
 clean limbs and a firm hand in a grapple with the 
 ministers of misrule ! 
 
 Shall we look for a moment at the French home 
 which Maverick is leaving ? A compact country-house 
 of yellow stone upon a niche of the hills that over 
 look the blue Bay of Lyons ; a green arbor over the 
 walk leading to the door ; clumps of pittosporum and 
 of jessamine, with two or three straggling fig-trees, 
 within the inclosure ; a billiard-room and salle-a-man-
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 261 
 
 ger in the basement, and on the first floor a salon, 
 opening, by its long, heavily draped windows, upon 
 a balcony shielded with striped awning. Here on 
 many an evening, when the night wind comes in from 
 the sea, Maverick lounges sipping at his demi-tasse, 
 whiffing at a fragrant Havana, (imported to order,) 
 and chatting with some friend he has driven out from 
 the stifling streets of Marseilles about the business 
 chances of the morrow. A tall, agile Alsatian woman, 
 with a gilt crucifix about her neck, and a great deal 
 of the peasant beauty still in her face, glides into the 
 salon from time to time, acting apparently in the ca 
 pacity of mistress of the establishment, respect 
 fully courteous to Maverick and his friend, yet show 
 ing something more than the usual familiarity of a 
 dependent housekeeper. 
 
 The friend who sits with him enjoying the night 
 breeze and those rare Havanas is an open-faced, mid 
 dle-aged companion of the city, with whom Maverick 
 has sometimes gone to a bourgeois home near to Mon- 
 tauban, where a wrinkle-^faced old Frenchman in vel 
 vet skull - cap the father of his friend has re 
 ceived him with profound obeisance, brought out for 
 him his best cru of St. Peray, and bored him with 
 long stories of the times of 1798, in which he was 
 a participant. Yet the home-scenes there, with the 
 wrinkled old father and the stately mamma for part-
 
 262 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 ners at whist or boston, have been grateful to Mav 
 erick, as reminders of other home-scenes long passed 
 out of reach ; and he has opened his heart to this 
 son of the house. 
 
 " Monsieur Papiol," (it is the Alsatian woman who 
 is addressing the friend of Maverick,) " ask, then, 
 why it is Monsieur Frank is going to America." 
 
 " Ah, Lucille, do you not know, then, there is a cer 
 tain Puritan belle he goes to look after ? " 
 
 " Pah ! " says the Alsatian. " Monsieur is not so 
 young ! " 
 
 Maverick puffs at his cigar thoughtfully, a 
 thoughtfulness that does not encourage the Alsatian 
 to other speech, and in a moment more she is gone. 
 
 " Seriously, Maverick," says Papiol, when they are 
 alone again, " what will you do with this Puritan 
 daughter of yours ? " 
 
 " Keep her from ways of wickedness," said Mav 
 erick, without losing his thoughtfulness. 
 
 " Excellent ! " said the friend, laughing ; " but you 
 will hardly bring her to this home of yours, then?" 
 
 " Hardly to this country of yours, Pierre." 
 
 " Nonsense, Maverick ! You will be too proud of 
 her, mon ami. I m sure of that. You 11 never keep 
 her cribbed yonder. We shall see you escorting her 
 some day up and down the Prado, and all the fine 
 young fellows hereabout paying court to the belle
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 268 
 
 Americaine. My faith ! I shall be wishing myself 
 twenty years younger ! " 
 
 Maverick is still very thoughtful. 
 
 " What is it, my good fellow ? Is it that the 
 family question gives annoyance among your friends 
 yonder ? " 
 
 "On the contrary," says Maverick, and reaching 
 a file of letters in his cabinet, he lays before his com 
 panion that fragment of the Doctor s epistle which 
 had spoken of the rosary, and of his discovery that 
 it had been the gift of the mother, " so near, and he 
 trusted dear a relative." 
 
 " Mais, comme il est innocent, your good old friend 
 there ! " 
 
 " I wish to God, Pierre, I were as innocent as he," 
 said Maverick, and tossed his cigar over the edge of 
 the balcony. 
 
 Upon his arrival at New York, Maverick did not 
 communicate directly with the Doctor, enjoying the 
 thought, very likely, of surprising his old friend by 
 his visit, very much as he had surprised him many 
 years before. He takes boat to a convenient point 
 upon the shore of the Sound, and thence chooses to 
 approach the town that holds what is most dear to 
 him by an old, lumbering stage-coach, which still plies 
 across the hills, as twenty years before, through the
 
 264 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 parish of Ashfield. The same patches of tasseled 
 corn, (it is August,) the same outlying bushy pastures, 
 the same reeling walls of mossy cobble-stones meet 
 his eye that he remembered on his previous visit. 
 But he looks upon all wayside views carelessly, as 
 one seeing, and yet not seeing them. 
 
 His daughter Adele, she who parted from him a 
 toy-child eight years gone, whom a new ribbon would 
 amuse in that day, must have changed. That she 
 has not lost her love of him, those letters have told ; 
 that she has not lost her girlish buoyancy, he knows. 
 She must be tall now, and womanly in stature, he 
 thinks. She promised to be graceful. That he will 
 love her, he feels ; but will he be proud of her ? A 
 fine figure, a sweet, womanly voice, an arch look, a 
 winning smile, a pretty coquetry of glance, will he 
 find these ? And does he not build his pride on hope 
 of these ? Will she be clever ? Will there be traces, 
 ripened in these last years, of the mother, offen 
 sive traces possibly ? 
 
 But Maverick is what the world calls a philosopher ; 
 he hums, unconsciously, a snatch of a French song, 
 by which he rouses the attention of the spectacled 
 old lady, (the only other occupant of the coach,) with 
 whom he has already made some conversational ven 
 tures, and who has just finished a lunch which she 
 has drawn from her capacious work-bag. Reviving
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 265 
 
 now under the influence of Maverick s chance frag 
 ment of song, and dusting the crumbs from her lap, 
 she says, 
 
 "We don t have very good singin now in the 
 Glostcnbury meetin ." 
 
 " Ah ! " says Maverick. 
 
 "No; Squire Peter s darters have bin gittin mar 
 ried, and the young girls ha n t come on yit. 
 
 " You attend the Glostenbury Church, then, mad 
 am ? " says Maverick, who enjoys the provincialisms 
 of her speech, like a whiff of the lilac perfume which 
 he once loved. 
 
 " In gineral, sir ; but we come down odd spells 
 to hear Dr. Johns, who preaches at the Ashfield meet- 
 in -house. He s a real smart man." 
 
 " Ah ! And this Dr. Johns has a family, I think ? " 
 
 " Waal, the Doctor lost his wife, you see, quite 
 airly ; and Miss Johns that s his sister has bin 
 a-keepin house for him ever sence. I m not ac 
 quainted with her, but I ve heerd she s a very smart 
 woman. And there s a French girl that came to 
 live with em, goin on now seven or eight year, who 
 was a reg lar Roman Catholic ; but I kind o guess 
 the old folks has tamed her down afore now." 
 
 " Ah ! I should think that a Roman Catholic 
 would have but a poor chance in a New England 
 village."
 
 2G6 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 "Not much of a chance anywhere, I guess," said 
 the old lady, wiping her spectacles, "if folks only 
 preached the Gospil." 
 
 Even now the coach is creaking along through 
 the outskirts of Ashfield ; and presently the driver s 
 horn wakes the echoes of the hills, while the horses 
 plunge forward at a doubled pace. The eyes of 
 Maverick are intent upon every house, every open 
 window, every moving figure. 
 
 " It s a most a beautiful town," said the old 
 lady. 
 
 " Charming, charming, madam ! " and even as 
 he spoke, Maverick s eye fastens upon two figures 
 before them with a strange yearning in his gaze, 
 two figures of almost equal height : a little, coquet 
 tish play of ribbons about the head of one, which in 
 the other are absent ; a girlish, elastic step to one, 
 that does not belong to the other. 
 
 Is there something in the gait, something in the 
 poise of the head, to which the memory of Maverick 
 so cleaves? It is, indeed, Adele, taking her noon 
 day walk with Madame Aries. A lithe figure and 
 a buoyant step, holding themselves tenderly in check 
 for the slower pace of the companion. Maverick s 
 gaze keeps fast upon them, fast upon them, until 
 the old coach is fairly abreast, fast upon them,
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 267 
 
 until by a glance back he has caught full sight of 
 the faces. 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! " he exclaims, and throws himself 
 back in the coach. 
 
 " Haow ? " says the old lady. 
 
 " Mon Dieu, it is she ! " continues Maverick, speak 
 ing under intense excitement to himself, as if un 
 conscious of any other presence. 
 
 " Iliiow," urged the old lady, more persistently. 
 
 " Damn it, nothing, madam ! " 
 
 "And the old lady drew the strings of her bag 
 closely, and looked full out of the opposite window. 
 
 Within a half-hour the stage-coach arrived at the 
 Eagle Tavern. Maverick demanded a chamber, and 
 asked to see the landlord. The stout, blear-eyed 
 Boody presently made his appearance. 
 
 " How can I reach New York soonest, my friend ? " 
 
 Mr. Boody consulted his watch. 
 
 "Well, by fast driving you might catch the night- 
 boat on the river." 
 
 " Can you get me there in time ? " 
 
 " Well, sir," reflecting a moment, " I guess I 
 can." 
 
 " Very good. Have your carriage ready as soon 
 as possible." 
 
 And within an hour, Maverick, dejected, and with 
 an anxious air, was on his return to the city.
 
 268 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 Three days after, the Doctor summons Adele into 
 his study. 
 
 " Adaly, here is a letter from your father, which I 
 wish you to read." 
 
 The girl takes it eagerly, and at the first line 
 exclaims, 
 
 " He is in New York ! Why does n t he come 
 here?" 
 
 " MY DEAR JOHNS," (so his letter runs,) " I had 
 counted on surprising you completely by dropping 
 in upon you at your parsonage, (so often in my 
 thought,) at Ashfield ; but circumstances have pre 
 vented. Can I ask so large a favor of you as to 
 bring my dear Adele to meet me here ? If your 
 parochial duties forbid this utterly, can you not see 
 her safely on the river-boat, and I will meet her at 
 the wharf in New York ? But, above all, I hope you 
 will come with her. I fancy her now so accom 
 plished a young lady, that there will be needed some 
 ceremony of presentation at your hands ; besides 
 which, I want a long talk with you. We are both 
 many years older since we have met; you have had 
 your trials, and I have escaped with only a few 
 rubs. Let us talk them over. Slip away quietly, 
 if you can ; beyond Adele and your good sister, 
 can t you conceal your errand to the city ? Your
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 269 
 
 country villages are so prone to gossip, that I would 
 wish to clasp my little Adele before your towns-folk 
 shall have talked the matter over. Pray ask your 
 good sister to prepare the wardrobe of Adele for a 
 month or two of absence, since I mean she shall 
 be my attendant on a little jaunt through the coun 
 try. I long to greet her ; and your grave face, my 
 dear Johns, is always a welcome sight." 
 
 Adele is in a fever of excitement. In her happy 
 glee she would have gone out to tell all the village 
 what pleasure was before her. Even the caution 
 she receives from the Doctor cannot control her 
 spirits absolutely. She makes her little adieux, for 
 a while, under a certain control that surprises her 
 self. But when, in her light-hearted ramble, she 
 comes to say good-by to Madame Aries, toward 
 whom her sympathies seem to flow in spite of her 
 self, she cannot forbear saying, " What harm, pray, 
 can there be in this ? " 
 
 " Such a secret, chere Madame ! I am going to 
 New York, you know, with Dr. Johns, the good 
 man ! and such a secret ! don t whisper it ! Papa 
 has come, and has sent for me, and we are to 
 travel together ! " And she sprang at Madame Aries, 
 and, clasping her arms around her neck, kissed her 
 with a vehemence that might have startled even a 
 less excitable person.
 
 270 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " Is it possible, my child ! I wish you joy, with all 
 my heart" 
 
 And as if the exuberance of the wish had started 
 her old ailment into new vigor, she has clasped her 
 hands wildly over that bosom, to stay, if it might 
 be, those inordinate throbbings. 
 
 But the adieux are at last all spoken. Mrs. El- 
 derkin had said, " My child, I rejoice Avith you ; and 
 if I never see you again," (for she had her sus 
 picions that the sudden movement had some connec 
 tion with the wishes of her father,) " if I never see 
 you again, I hope you may keep always the simplic 
 ity and the love of truth I believe you have now." 
 
 Rose, almost bewildered by the gleeful excitement 
 of her friend, enters eagerly into all her arrange 
 ments, trips into her chamber to assist in her pack 
 ing, insists, over and over, that she must write often 
 and long letters. 
 
 Girls of sixteen or thereabout are prone to ex 
 pectancies of this kind. Their friendships cover 
 reams. Their promises of never-dying attachment 
 are so full, so rich ! But as the years drop these 
 girl friends into their separate spheres, with a new 
 world of interests, domestic buffetings, nursery clamor, 
 growing up around them, the tender correspondence, 
 before they know it, is gone by. And the budget of 
 sweet and gushing school-day epistles is cut through
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 271 
 
 and through with the ruthless family shears, to kindle 
 the family lamp or to light the cigar of some ex 
 acting and surly pater-familias. 
 
 "I suppose you will see Reuben in the city," 
 Rose had said, in a chance way. 
 
 " Oh, I hope so ! " said Adele. 
 
 And of Reuben neither of them said any thing 
 more. 
 
 Then with what a great storm of embraces Adele 
 parted from Rose ! A parting only for a month, 
 perhaps: both knew that. But the friendship of 
 young girls can build a week into a monstrous void. 
 God bless their dear hearts, and, if the wish be not 
 wicked, keep them always as fresh ! 
 
 " Phil, who is a sturdy and somewhat timid lover, 
 without knowing it, affects an air of composure, and 
 says, 
 
 " I hope you 11 have a good time, Adele ; and I 
 suppose you 11 forget us all here in Ashfield." 
 
 " No, you don t suppose any such thing, Mister 
 Philip," says Adele, roundly, and with a frank, full 
 look at him that makes the color come to his face ; 
 and he laughs, but not easily. 
 
 "Well, good-by, Adele." 
 
 She takes his hand, eagerly. 
 
 " Good-by, Phil ; you re a dear, good fellow ; and 
 you ve been very kind to me."
 
 272 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 Possibly there may have been a little water gather 
 ing in her eye as she spoke. It is certain that the 
 upper lip of Phil trembled as he strolled away. After 
 walking a few paces out of sight and hearing, snap 
 ping his fingers nervously the while, he used some bad 
 interjectional language, which we shall express more 
 moderately. 
 
 " Hang it, I m sorry, deused sorry ! I did n t think I 
 liked her so." 
 
 Walking, with head down, snapping those fin 
 gers of his, past his own gate a long way, (though it 
 is full dinner-hour,) mumbling again, 
 
 " By George ! I believe I ought to have said some 
 thing ; but, Jiang it, what could a fellow say ? " 
 
 He hears the coach driving off, and with a sudden 
 thought rushes home, enters quietly, goes up the stairs, 
 makes a feint as if he were entering his chamber, but 
 passes on tiptoe into the garret, opens the roof-door, 
 and from the house-top catches a last glimpse of the 
 stage-coach rattling down the south road. A wood 
 hides it presently. 
 
 " Confound it all ! " he says, with great heartiness, 
 and goes down to dinner. 
 
 " My son, you have n t a good appetite," says the 
 kindly mother. 
 
 " I ate a big lunch," says Phil. 
 
 He knew it was a whopper.
 
 XXXIIL 
 
 TT is at Jennings s old City Hotel, far down Broad- 
 -*~ way, that Maverick has taken rooms and awaits 
 the arrival of Adele. That glimpse of her upon the 
 street of Ashfield (ay, he knew it must be she !) has 
 added pride to the instinctive love of the parent. The 
 elastic step, the graceful figure, the beaming, sunny 
 face, they all haunt him ; they put him in a fever 
 of expectation. He reads over again the few last 
 letters of hers under a new light ; up and down along 
 the page, that lithe, tall figure is always coming for 
 ward, and the words of endearment are coupled with 
 that sunny face. 
 
 He even prepares his toilet to meet her, as a lover 
 might do to meet his affianced. And the meeting, 
 when it comes, only deepens the pride. Graceful ? 
 Yes ! That bound toward him, can any thing be 
 fuller of grace ? Natural ? The look and the speech 
 of Aclcle are to Maverick a new revelation of Nature. 
 Loving ? That clinging kiss of hers was worth his 
 voyage over the sea. 
 
 And she, too, is so beautifully proud of her father ! 
 She has loved the Doctor for his serenity, his large 
 
 VOL. I. 18
 
 274 DOCTOR JOHNS, 
 
 justice, notwithstanding his stiffness and his awkward 
 gravity ; but she regards with new eyes the manly 
 grace of her father, his easy self-possession, his pli 
 ability of talk, his tender attention to her comfort, hi? 
 wistful gaze at her, so full of a yearning affection, 
 which, if the Doctor had ever felt, he had counted it a 
 duty to conceal. Nay, the daughter, with a womanly 
 eye, took pride in the aptitude and becomingness of 
 his dress, so different from what she had been used 
 to see in the clumsy toilet of the Doctor, or of the 
 good-natured Squire Elderkin. Henceforth she will 
 have a new standard of comparison, to which her 
 lovers, if they ever declare themselves, must submit. 
 
 Adele, enjoying this easy familiarity with such a pat 
 tern of manhood, as she fondly imagines her father 
 to be, indulges in full, hearty story of her experi 
 ences, at school, with Miss Johns, with the Elderkins, 
 with all those whom she has learned to call friends. 
 And Maverick listens, as he never listened to a grand 
 opera in the theater of Marseilles. 
 
 " And so you have stolen a march upon them all, 
 Adele ? I suppose they have n t a hint of the person 
 you were to meet ? " 
 
 " All, at least nearly all, dear papa ; there was 
 only good Madame Aries, to whom I could not help 
 saying that I was coming to see you." 
 
 A shade passed over the face of Maverick, which it
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 275 
 
 required all his self-possession to conceal from the 
 quick eye of his daughter. 
 
 " And who, pray, is this Madame Aries, Adele ? " 
 
 " Oh, a good creature ! She has taught me French ; 
 no proper teaching, to be sure ; but in my talk with 
 her, all the old idioms have come back to me : at least, 
 I hope so." 
 
 And she rattles on in French speech, explaining 
 how it was, how they walked together in those 
 sunny noontides at Ashfield; and taking a girlish pride 
 in the easy adaptation of her language to forms which 
 her father must know so well, she rounds off a little 
 torrent of swift narrative with a piquant, coquettish look, 
 and says, 
 
 " N est ce pas, quefy suis, mon pere ? " 
 
 " Pctrfattement, ma chere" says the father, and drops 
 an admiring kiss upon the glowing cheeks of Adele. 
 
 But the shade of anxiety has not passed from the 
 face of Maverick. 
 
 " This Madame Aries, Adele, has she been long 
 in the country ? " 
 
 " I don t know papa ; yet it must be some years ; 
 she speaks English passably well." 
 
 " And she has told you, I suppose, very much about 
 the people among whom you were born, Adele ? " 
 
 " Not much, papa, and never any thing about her 
 self or her history ; yet I have been so curious ! "
 
 276 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " Don t be too curious, petite ; you might learn only 
 Df badness." 
 
 " Not badness, I am very, very sure, papa ! " 
 
 Adele is sitting on the arm of his chair, fondling 
 those sparse locks of his, sprinkled with gray. It is a 
 wholly new sensation for him ; charming, doubtless ; 
 but even under the caresses of this daughter, of whom 
 he has reason to be proud, anxious thoughts crowd 
 upon him. Are not our deepest loves measured, after 
 all, by the depth of the accompanying solicitude ? 
 
 The Doctor is met very warmly by Maverick, and 
 feels something like a revival of the glow of his youth 
 ful days as he takes his hand ; and yet they are wider 
 apart by far than when they met in the lifetime of 
 Rachel. Both feel it ; they have traveled widely di 
 vergent roads, these last twenty years. The Doctor 
 is satisfied by the bearing and talk of Maverick (what 
 ever kindness may lie in it) that his worldliness is more 
 engrossing and decided than ever. And Maverick, on 
 his part, scrutinizing carelessly, but unerringly, that 
 embarassed country manner of the parson s, that stark 
 linen in which he is arrayed by the foresight of the 
 spinster sister, and the constraint of his speech, is sure 
 that his old friend more than ever bounds his thought 
 by the duties of his sacred office. 
 
 The Doctor is, moreover, sadly out of place in that 
 little parlor of the hotel, looking out upon Broadway ;
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 277 
 
 there is no adaptiveness in his nature : he comes out 
 from the little world of his study, where Tillotson and 
 Poole and Newton have been his companions, athwart 
 the roar of the city street which sounds in his ear like 
 an echo of the murmurs of Pandemonium. Under 
 these circumstances he scarce dares to expostulate so 
 boldly as he would wish with Maverick upon the world- 
 liness of his career ; it would seem like bearding the 
 lion in his own den. Nor, indeed, does Maverick pro 
 voke such expostulation ; he is so considerate of the 
 Doctor s feelings, so grateful for his attentions to Adele, 
 so religiously disposed (it must be said) in all that con 
 cerns the daughter s education and future, and waives 
 the Doctor s personal advices with so kind and easy a 
 grace, that the poor parson despairs of reaching him 
 with the point of the sword of Divine truth. 
 
 " My good friend," says Maverick, " you have been a 
 father to my child, a better one than I have made, 
 I wish I could repay you." 
 
 The Doctor bows stiffly ; he has lost the familiarity 
 which at their last interview had lingered from their 
 boyish days at college. 
 
 "I suppose that under your teaching," continues 
 Maverick, u she is so fixed in the New England faith 
 of our fathers, that she might be trusted now even to 
 my bad guidance." 
 
 "I have tried to do my duty, Maverick. I could
 
 278 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 have wished to see more of self-abasement in her, 
 and a clearer acceptance of the doctrine we are called 
 upon to teach." 
 
 " But she has been constant in the performance 
 of all the duties you have enjoined, has n t she, Doc 
 tor ? " 
 
 " Entirely so, entirely ; but, my friend, our poor 
 worldly efforts at duty do not always call down the 
 gift of Grace." 
 
 " By Jove, Doctor, but that seems hard doctrine." 
 
 " Hard to carnal minds, Maverick ; but the evi 
 dences are abundant that justification " 
 
 " Nay, nay," said Maverick, interrupting him ; " you 
 know I m not strong in theology ; I don t want to 
 be put hors du combat by you ; I know I should be. 
 But about that little affair of the rosary, no harm 
 came of it, I hope ? " 
 
 " None, 1 believe," said the Doctor ; " but I must 
 not conceal from you, Maverick, that a late teacher 
 of hers, to whom, unfortunately, she seems very much 
 attached, is strongly wedded to the iniquities of the 
 Eomish Church." 
 
 " That would seem a very awkward risk to take, 
 Doctor," said Maverick, with more of seriousness than 
 he had yet shown. 
 
 " A risk, certainly ; but I took the precaution of 
 warning Madame Aries, who is the party in question,
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 279 
 
 against any conversation with Adaly upon religious 
 subjects." 
 
 " And you ventured to trust her ? Upon my word, 
 Johns, you give me a lesson in faith. I should have" 
 been more severe than you. I would n t have ad 
 mitted such intercourse ; and, my good friend, if I 
 should ask permission to reinstate Adele in your house 
 hold for a time, promise me that all intercourse with 
 Madame Aries shall be cut off. I know Frenchwomen 
 better than you, my friend." 
 
 The Doctor assured him that he would do as he 
 desired, and would be glad to have the father s au 
 thority for the interruption of an intercourse which 
 had almost the proportions of a tender friendship. 
 
 Maverick was thoughtful for a moment. 
 
 " Well, yes, Doctor, be gentle I know you are 
 always with the dear girl; but if there be any de 
 mur on her part, pray give her to understand that 
 what you will ask in this respect has my express sanc 
 tion. If I know myself, Johns, there is no object I 
 have so near at heart as the happiness of my child ; 
 not alone now ; but in her future, I hope to God 
 (I speak reverently, Doctor) that she may have im 
 munity from suffering of whatever kind. I wish 
 wealth could buy it ; but it can t. Mind the promise, 
 Johns ; keep her away from this Frenchwoman." 
 
 The Brindlocks, of course, with whom the Doctor
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 was quartered during his stay, took an early occasion 
 to show civilities to Mr. Maverick and his daughter; 
 and Mrs. Brindlock kindly offered her services to 
 Adele in negotiating such additions to her wardrobe 
 as the proud father insisted upon her making ; and 
 in the necessary excursions up and down the city, 
 Reuben, by the pleasant devices of Mrs. Brindlock, 
 was an almost constant out-of-door attendant. 
 
 He was no longer the shy boy Adele had at first 
 encountered. Nay, grown bold by his city experiences, 
 he was disposed to assume a somewhat patronizing air 
 toward the bright-eyed country-girl who was just now 
 equipping herself for somewhat larger contact with 
 the world. Adele did not openly resent the proffered 
 patronage, but, on the contrary, accepted it with an 
 excess of grateful expressions, whose piquant irony, 
 for two whole days, Reuben, with his blunter percep 
 tions, never suspected. "What boy of eighteen is a 
 match for a girl of sixteen ? Patronize, indeed ! But 
 suspicion came at last, and full knowledge broke upon 
 him under a musical little laugh of Adelc s, (half 
 smothered in her kerchief,) when the gallant young 
 man had blundered into some idle compliment. The 
 instinct of girls in matters of this sort is marvelously 
 quick. 
 
 But if the laugh of Adele cured Reuben of his 
 patronage, it did not cure him of thought about her.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 281 
 
 It kindled a new train, indeed, of whose drift he was 
 himself unconscious. 
 
 " Is n t she pretty ? " said Mrs. Brindlock, on a cer 
 tain occasion, upon their return from one of the ex 
 cursions named. 
 
 " Oh, so, so ! " said Reuben. 
 
 " But I think she s perfectly charming," said Mrs. 
 Brindlock. 
 
 " Pho, Aunt Mabel ! I could name ten girls as 
 pretty." 
 
 And he could. But this did not forbid his accept 
 ing his Aunt Mabel s invitation for the next day s 
 shopping. 
 
 He is not altogether the same lad we saw upon the 
 deck of the Princess, under Captain Saul. He would 
 hardly sail for China now in a tasseled cap. He 
 never will, this much we can say, at least, without 
 anticipating the burden of our story.
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 T) EUBEN has in many respects vastly improved 
 L^ under his city education. It would be wrong to 
 say that the good Doctor did not take a very human 
 pride in his increased alertness of mind, in his vivacity, 
 in his self-possession, nay, even in that very air of 
 world-acquaintance which now covered entirely the old 
 homely manner of the country lad. He thought 
 within himself, what a glad smile of triumph would 
 have been kindled upon the face of the lost Rachel, 
 could she but have seen this tall youth with his kindly 
 attentions and his graceful speech. May be she did 
 see it all, but with far other eyes, now. Was the 
 child ripening into fellowship with the sainted mother ? 
 The Doctor underneath all his pride carried a great 
 deal of anxious doubt ; and as he walked beside his boy 
 upon the thronged street, elated in some strange way 
 by the touch of that strong arm of the youth, whose 
 blood was his own, so dearly his own, he pondered 
 gravely with himself, if the mocking delusions of the 
 Evil One were not the occasion of his pride ? Was 
 not Satan setting himself artfully to the work of quiet 
 ing all sense of responsibility in regard to the lad s
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 283 
 
 future, by thus kindling in his old heart anew the van 
 ities of the flesh and the pride of life ? 
 
 " I say, father, I want to put you through now. It 11 
 do you a great deal of good to see some of our wonders 
 here in the city." 
 
 " The very voice, the very voice of Rachel ! " says 
 the Doctor to himself, quickening his laggard step to 
 keep pace with Reuben. 
 
 " There are such lots of things to show you, father ! 
 Look in this store, now. You can step in, if you like. 
 It s the largest carpet-store in the United States, 
 three stories packed full. There s the head man of the 
 firm, the stout man in a white choker ; with half a 
 million, they say : he s a deacon in Mowry s Church." 
 
 " I hope, Reuben, that he makes a worthy use of his 
 wealth." 
 
 " Oh, he gives thunderingly to the missionary socie 
 ties," said Reuben, with a glibness that grated on the 
 father s ear. 
 
 " You see that building yonder ? That s Gothic. 
 They ve got the finest bowling-alleys in the world 
 there." 
 
 " I hope, my son, you never go to such places ? " 
 
 " Bowl ? Oh, yes, I bowl sometimes : the physicians 
 recommend it ; good exercise for the chest. Besides, 
 it s kept by a fine man, and he s got one of the pret 
 tiest little trotting horses you ever saw in your life."
 
 284 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " Why, my son, you don t mean to tell me that you 
 know the keeper of this bowling-alley ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, father, we fellows all know him ; and he 
 gave me a splendid cigar the last time I was there." 
 
 " You don t mean to say that you smoke, Reuben ? " 
 said the old gentleman, gravely. 
 
 " Not much, father : but then, every body smokes now 
 and then. Mowry Dr. Mowry smokes, you know ; 
 and they say he has prime cigars." 
 
 " Is it possible ? Well, well ! " 
 
 " You see that fine building over there ? " said Reu 
 ben, as they passed on. 
 
 " Yes, my son." 
 
 " That s the theater, the Old Park." 
 
 The Doctor ran his eye over it, and its effigy of 
 Shakspeare upon the niche in the wall, as Gabriel might 
 have looked upon the armor of Beelzebub. 
 
 " I hope, Reuben, you never enter those doors ? " 
 
 " Well, father, since Kean and Mathews are gone, 
 there s really nothing worth the seeing." 
 
 " Kean ! Mathews ! " said the Doctor, stopping in his 
 walk and confronting Reuben with a stern brow, " is 
 it possible, my son, that I hear you talking in this famil 
 iar way of play-actors ? You don t tell me that you 
 have been a participant in such orgies of Satan ? " 
 
 " Why, father ! " said Reuben, a little startled by the 
 Doctor s earnestness, the truth is, Aunt Mabel goes
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 285 
 
 occasionally, like most all the ladies ; but we go, you 
 know, to see the moral pieces, generally." 
 
 " Moral pieces ! " said the Doctor, with a withering 
 scowl. " Reuben ! those who go thither take hold on 
 the door-posts of hell ! " 
 
 " That s the Tract Society building yonder," said 
 Reuben, wishing to divert the Doctor, if possible, from 
 the special objects of his reflections. 
 
 " Rachel s voice ! always Rachel s voice ! " said 
 the Doctor to himself. 
 
 " Would you like to go in, father ? " 
 
 " No, my son, we have no time ; and yet " meditat 
 ing, and thrusting his hand in his pocket " there is a 
 tract or two I would like to buy for you, Reuben." 
 
 " Go in, then," says Reuben. " Let me tell them 
 who you are, father, and you can get them at wholesale 
 prices. It s the merest song." 
 
 " No, my son, no," said the Doctor, disheartened by 
 the blithe air of Reuben. " I fear it would be wasted 
 effort. Yet I trust that you do not wholly neglect the 
 opportunities for religious instruction on the Sab 
 bath?" 
 
 " Oh, no," says Reuben, gayly. " I see Dr. Mowry 
 off and on. pretty often. He s a clever old gentleman, 
 Dr. Mowry." 
 
 Clever old gentleman ! 
 
 The Doctor walked on, oppressed with grief, silent,
 
 286 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 but with lips moving in prayer, beseeching God to 
 take away the stony heart from this poor child of his, 
 and to give him a heart of flesh. 
 
 Reuben had improved, as we said, by his New York 
 schooling. He was quick of apprehension, well in 
 formed ; and his familiarity with the counting-room of 
 Mr. Brindlock had given him a business promptitude 
 that was specially agreeable to the Doctor, whose habits 
 in that regard were of woful slackness. But religiously, 
 the good man looked upon his son as a castaway. It 
 was only too apparent that Reuben had not derived the 
 desired improvement from attendance at the Fulton- 
 Street Church. That attendance had been punctual, 
 indeed, for nearly all the first year of his city life, in 
 virtue of the inexorable habit of his education ; but Dr. 
 Mowry had not won upon him by any personal mag 
 netism. The city Doctor was a ponderously good man, 
 preaching for the most part ponderous sermons, and 
 possessed of a most imposing friendliness of manner. 
 When Reuben had presented to him the credentials 
 from his father, (which he could hardly have done, 
 save for the urgency of the Brindlocks,) the ponderous 
 Doctor had patted him upon the shoulder, and said, 
 
 " My young friend, your father is a most worthy man, 
 most worthy. I should be delighted to see you fol 
 lowing in his steps. I shall be most glad to be of ser 
 vice to you. Our meetings for Bible instruction are on
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 287 
 
 Wednesdays, at seven : the young men upon the left, 
 the young ladies on the right. 
 
 The Doctor appeared to Reuben a man solemnly 
 preoccupied with the immensity of his charge ; and it 
 seemed to him (though it was doubtless a wicked 
 thought of the boy) that the ponderous minister would 
 have counted it a matter of far smaller merit to in 
 struct, and guide, and save a wanderer from the coun 
 try, than to perform the same offices for a good fat sin 
 ner of the city. 
 
 As we have said, the memory of old teachings, for a 
 year or more, made any divergence from the severe 
 path of boyhood seem to Reuben a sin ; and these di 
 vergencies so multiplied by easy accessions as to have 
 made him, after a time, look upon himself very confi 
 dently, and almost cheerily, as a reprobate. And if a 
 reprobate, why not taste the Devil s cup to the full ? 
 
 That first visit to the theater was like a bold push 
 into the very domain of Satan. Even the ticket-seller 
 at the door seemed to him on that eventful night an 
 understrapper of Beelzebub, who looked out at him 
 with the goggle eyes of a demon. That such a man 
 could have a family, or family affections, or friendships, 
 or any sense of duty or honor, was to him a thing in 
 comprehensible ; and when he passed the wicket for 
 the first time into the vestibule of the old Park Thea 
 ter, the very usher in the corridor had to his eye a
 
 288 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 look like the Giant Dagon, and he conceived of him as 
 mumbling, in his leisure moments, the flesh from hu 
 man bones. And when at last the curtain rose, and 
 the damp air came out upon him from behind the 
 scenes as he sat in the pit, and the play began with 
 some wonderful creature in tight bodice and painted 
 cheeks, sailing across the stage, it seemed to him that 
 the flames of Divine wrath might presently be bursting 
 out over the house, or a great judgment of God break 
 down the roof and destroy them all. 
 
 But it did not ; and he took courage. It is so easy 
 to find courage in those battles where we take no 
 bodily harm ! If conscience, sharpened by the severe 
 discipline he had known, pricked him awkwardly at 
 the first, he bore the stings with a good deal of sturdi- 
 ness. A sinner, no doubt, that he knew long ago : 
 a little slip, or indeed no slip at all, had ranked him 
 with the unregenerate. Once a sinner, (thus he pleas 
 antly reasoned,) and a fellow may as well be ten times 
 a sinner : a bad job anyhow. If in his moments of 
 reflection these being not yet wholly crowded out 
 from his life there comes a shadowy hope of better 
 things, of some moral poise that should be in keeping 
 with the tenderer recollections of his boyhood, all 
 this can never come, (he bethinks himself, in view of 
 his old teaching,) except on the heel of some terrible 
 conviction of sin ; and the conviction will hardly come
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 289 
 
 without some deeper and more damning weight of it 
 than he feels as yet. A heavy cumulation of the 
 weight may some day serve him a good turn. Thus 
 the Devil twists his vague yearning for a condition 
 of spiritual repose into a pleasantly smacking lash 
 with which to scourge his grosser appetites ; so that, 
 upon the whole, Reuben drives a fine, showy team 
 along the high-road of indulgence. 
 
 Yet the minister s son had no love for gross vices ; 
 there were human instincts in him (if it may be said) 
 that rebelled against his more deliberate sinnings. 
 Nay, he affected with his boon companions an enjoy 
 ment of wanton excesses that he only half felt. A 
 certain adventurous, dare-devil reach in him craved 
 exercise. The character of Reuben at this stage would 
 surely have offered a good subject for the study and the 
 handling of Dr. Mowry, if that worthy gentleman 
 could have won his way to the lad s confidence ; but 
 the ponderous methods of the city parson showed no 
 fineness of touch. Even the father, as we have seen, 
 could not reach down to any religious convictions of 
 the son ; and Reuben keeps him at bay with a banter, 
 and an exaggerated attention to the personal comforts 
 of the old gentleman, that utterly baffle him. Reuben 
 holds too much in dread the old catechismal dogmas 
 and the ultimate " anathema maran-atha." 
 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 290 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 So it was with a profound sigh that the father bade 
 
 his son adieu after this city visit. 
 
 " Good-by, father ! Love to them all in Ashfield." 
 So like Rachel s voice ! So like Rachel s ! And the 
 
 heart of the old man yearned toward him and ached 
 
 bitterly for him. " my son Absalom ! my son ! my 
 
 son Absalom ! "
 
 XXXV. 
 
 MAVERICK hurried his departure from the city ; 
 and Adele, writing to Rose to announce the pro 
 gramme of her journey, says only this much of Reu 
 ben : " We have of course seen R , who was 
 
 very attentive and kind. He has grown tall, taller, 
 I should think, than Phil ; and he is quite well-looking, 
 and gentlemanly. I think he has a very good opinion 
 of himself." 
 
 The summer s travel offered a season of rare enjoy 
 ment to Adcle. The lively sentiment of girlhood was 
 not yet wholly gone, and the thoughtfulness of woman 
 hood was just beginning to tone, without controlling, 
 her sensibilities. The delicate attentions of Maverick 
 were more like those of a lover than of a father. 
 Through his ever-watchful eyes, Adele looked upon the 
 beauties of Nature with a new halo on them. How 
 the water sparkled to her vision ! How the days came 
 and went like golden dreams ! 
 
 Ah, happy youth-time ! The Hudson, Lake George, 
 Saratoga, the Mountains, the Beach, to us old sta 
 gers, who have breasted the tide of so many years, and
 
 292 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 flung off long ago all the iridescent sparkles of our 
 sentiment, these are only names of summer thronging- 
 places. Upon the river we watch the growth of the 
 crops, or ask our neighbors about the cost of our friend 
 Faro s new country-seat ; we lounge upon the piazzas 
 of the hotels, reading price-lists, or (if not too old) an 
 editorial ; we complain of the windy currents upon the 
 lake, and find our chiefest pleasure in a trout boiled 
 plain, with a dressing of champagne sauce ; we linger 
 at Fabian s on a sunny porch, talking politics with a 
 rheumatic old gentleman in his overcoat, while the 
 youngest go ambling through the fir woods and up the 
 mountains with shouts and laughter. Yet it was not 
 always thus. There were times in the lives of us old 
 travelers let us say from sixteen to twenty when 
 the great river was a glorious legend trailing its storied 
 length through the Highlands ; when in every opening 
 valley there lay purple shadows whereon we painted 
 castles: when the corridors and shaded walks of the 
 " United States " were like a fairy land, with flitting 
 skirts and waving plumes, and some delicately gloved 
 hand beating its reveille upon the heart ; and when 
 every floating film of the mist along the sea, whether 
 at Newport or Nahant, tenderly entreated the fancy. 
 
 But we forget ourselves, and we forget Adele. In 
 her wild exuberance of joy Maverick shares with a 
 spirit that he had believed to be dead in him utterly.
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 293 
 
 And if he finds it necessary to check from time to time 
 the noisy effervescence of her pleasure, as he certainly 
 does at the first, he does it in the most tender and con 
 siderate way ; and Adele learns, what many of her 
 warm-hearted sisters never do learn, that a well-bred 
 control over our enthusiasms in no way diminishes the 
 exquisiteness of their savor. 
 
 Maverick should be something over fifty now, and his 
 keenness of observation in respect to feminine charms 
 is not perhaps so great as it once was ; but even he can 
 not fail to see, with a pride that he makes no great ef 
 fort to conceal, the admiring looks that follow the lithe, 
 graceful figure of Adele, wherever their journey may 
 lead them. Nor, indeed, were there any more comely 
 toilets for a young girl to be met with anywhere than 
 those which had been provided for the young traveler 
 under the advice of Mrs Brindlock. 
 
 It may be true what his friend Papiol had pre 
 dicted that Maverick will be too proud of his child to 
 keep her in a secluded corner of New England. For 
 his pride there is certainly abundant reason ; and what 
 father does not love to see the child of whom he is 
 proud admired ? 
 
 Yet weeks had run by, and Maverick had never once 
 broached the question of a return. The truth was, that 
 the new experience was so charming and so engrossing 
 for him, the sweet, intelligent face ever at his side was
 
 294 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 so full of eager wonder, and he so delightfully intent 
 upon providing new sources of pleasure, and calling out 
 again and again the gushes of her girlish enthusiasm, 
 that he shrunk instinctively from a decision in which 
 must be involved so largely her future happiness. 
 
 At last it was Adele herself who suggested the in 
 quiry, 
 
 " Is it true, dear papa, what the Doctor tells me, 
 that you may possibly take me back to France with 
 you?" 
 
 " What say you, Adele ? Would you like to go ? " 
 
 " Dearly ! " 
 
 " But," said Maverick, " your friends here, can you 
 so easily cast them away ? " 
 
 " No, no, no ! " said Adele, " not cast them away ! 
 Could n t I come again some day? Besides, there is 
 your home, papa ; I should love any home of yours, and 
 love your friends." 
 
 " For instance, Adele, there is my book-keeper, a 
 lean Savoyard, who wears a red wig and spectacles, 
 and Lucille, a great, gaunt woman, with a golden cruci 
 fix about her neck, who keeps my little parlor in order, 
 and Papiol, a fat Frenchman, with a bristly mus<- 
 tache and iron-gray hair, who, I dare say, would want 
 to kiss the pet of his dear friend, and Jeannette, who 
 washes the dishes for us, and wears great wooden sa 
 bots "
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 295 
 
 " Nonsense, papa ! I am sure you have other 
 friends ; and then there s the good godmother." 
 
 " Ah, yes, she indeed," said Maverick ; u what a 
 precious hug she would give you, Adele ! " 
 
 " And then and then should I see mamma ? " 
 
 The pleasant humor died out of the face of Maver 
 ick on the instant; and then, in a slow, measured 
 tone, 
 
 " Impossible, Adele, impossible ! Come here, dar 
 ling ! " and as he fondled her in a wild, passionate way, 
 " I will love you for both, Adele ; she was not worthy 
 of you, child." 
 
 Adele, too, is overcome with a sudden seriousness. 
 
 " Is she living, papa ? " And she gives him an ap 
 pealing look that must be answered. 
 
 And Maverick seems somehow appalled by that inno 
 cent, confiding expression of hers. 
 
 "May be, may be, my darling; she was living not 
 long since ; yet it can never matter to you or me more. 
 You will trust me in this, Adele ? " And he kisses her 
 tenderly. 
 
 And she, returning the caress, but bursting into tears 
 as she does so, says, 
 
 " I will, I do, papa." 
 
 " There, there, darling ! " as he folds her to him ; 
 " no more tears, no more tears, cherie ! " 
 
 But even while he says it, he is nervously searching
 
 296 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 his pockets, since there is a little dew that must be 
 wiped from his own eyes. Maverick s emotion, how 
 ever, was but a little momentary contagious sympathy 
 with the daughter, he having no understanding of 
 that unsatisfied yearning in her heart of which this 
 sudden tumult of feeling was the passionate out 
 break. 
 
 Meantime Adele is not without her little mementos 
 of the life at Ashfield, which come in the shape of thick 
 double letters from that good girl Rose, her dear, 
 dear friend, who has been advised by the little traveler 
 to what towns she should direct these tender missives ; 
 and Adele is no sooner arrived at these postal stations 
 than she sends for the budget which she knows must be 
 waiting for her. And of course she has her own little 
 pen in a certain traveling-escritoire the good papa 
 has given her ; and she plies her white fingers with it 
 often and often of an evening, after the day s sight-see 
 ing is over, to tell Rose in return what a charming 
 journey she is having, and how kind papa is, and what 
 a world of strange things she is seeing ; and there are 
 descriptions of sunsets and sunrises, and of lakes and 
 of mountains, on those close-written sheets of hers, 
 which Rose, in her enthusiasm, declares to be equal to 
 many descriptions in print. We dare say they were 
 better than a great many such. 
 
 Poor Rose feels that she has only very humdrum
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 297 
 
 stories to tell in return for these ; but she ekes out her 
 letters pretty well, after all, and what they lack in nov 
 elty is made up in affection. 
 
 l - There is really nothing new to tell," she writes, 
 " except it be that our old friend, Miss Almira Tourte- 
 lot. astonished us all with a new bonnet last Sunday, and 
 with new saffron ribbons ; and she has come out, too, 
 in the new tight sleeves, in which she looks drolly 
 enough. Phil is very uneasy, now that his schooling is 
 done, and talks of going to the West Indies about some 
 business in which papa is concerned. I hope he will 
 go, if he does n t stay too long. He is such a dear, good 
 fellow ! Madame Aries asks after you, when I see her, 
 which is not very often now ; for since the Doctor has 
 come back from New York, he has had a new talk with 
 mamma, and has quite won her over to his view of 
 the matter. So good-by to French for the present! 
 Heigho ! But I don t know that I m sorry, now that 
 you are not here, dear Ady. 
 
 " Another queer thing I had almost forgotten to tell 
 you. The poor Boody girl, you must remember her ? 
 Well, she has come back on a sudden ; and they say 
 her father would not receive her in his house, there 
 are terrible stories about it ! and now she is living 
 with an old woman far out upon the river-road, only 
 a little garret-chamber for herself and the child she 
 brought back with her. Of course nobody goes near her,
 
 298 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 or looks at her, if she comes on the street. But the 
 queerest thing ! when Madame Aries heard of it and 
 of her story, what does she do but walk far out to visit 
 her, and talked with her in her broken English for an 
 hour, they say. Papa says she (Madame A.) must be 
 a very bad woman or a very good woman. Miss Johns 
 says she always thought she was a bad woman. The 
 Bowriggs are, of course, very indignant, and I doubt if 
 Madame A. comes to Ashfield again with them." 
 And again, at a later date, Rose writes, 
 " The Bowriggs are all off for the winter, and the 
 house closed. Reuben has been here on a flying visit 
 to the parsonage ; and how proud Miss Eliza was of 
 her nephew ! He came over to see Phil, I suppose ; 
 but Phil had gone two weeks before. Mamma thinks 
 he is fine-looking. I fancy he will never live in the 
 country again. When shall I see you again, dear, dear 
 Ady ? I have so much to talk to you about ! " 
 
 A month thereafter Maverick and his daughter find 
 their way back to Ashfield. Of course Miss Johns has 
 made magnificent preparations to receive them. She 
 surpassed herself in her toilet on the day of their ar 
 rival, and fairly astonished Maverick with the warmth 
 of her welcome to his child. Yet he could not help 
 observing that Adele met it more coolly than was her 
 wont, and that her tenderest words were reserved for 
 the good Doctor. And how proud she was to walk with
 
 DOCTOR JOHNS. 299 
 
 her father upon the village street, glancing timidly up 
 at the windows from which she knew those stiff old 
 Miss Hapgoods must be peeping out ! How proud to 
 sit beside him in the parson s pew, feeling that the eyes 
 of half the congregation were fastened on the tall gen 
 tleman beside her ! Ah, happy daughter ! may your 
 beautiful filial pride never have a fall ! 
 
 Important business letters command Maverick s 
 early presence abroad ; and, after conference with the 
 Doctor, he decides to leave Adele once more under 
 the roof of the parsonage. 
 
 " Under God, I will do for her what I can," said the 
 Doctor. 
 
 " I know it, I know it, my good friend," says Mav 
 erick. " Teach her self-reliance ; she may need it 
 some day. And mind what I have said of this French 
 woman. Adele seems to have a tendresse that way. 
 Those French women are very insidious, Johns." 
 
 " You know their ways better than I," said the Doc 
 tor, dryly. 
 
 " Good ! a smack of the old college humor there, 
 Johns. Well, well, at least you don t doubt the sacred- 
 ness of my love for Adele ? " 
 
 " I trust, Maverick, I may never doubt the sacredness 
 of your love in any direction. I only hope you may 
 direct it where I fear you do not"
 
 300 DOCTOR JOHNS. 
 
 " God bless you Johns ! I wish I were as good a man 
 as you." 
 
 A little afterwards Maverick was humming a snatch 
 from an opera under the trees of the orchard ; and 
 Adele went bounding toward him, to take the last walk 
 with him for so long, so long ! 
 
 END OF VOLUME I.
 
 DATE DUE