Part 15 (1/2)

I have seen David Brower stop and look at me while I have been digging potatoes, with a sober grin such as came to him always after he had swapped 'hosses' and got the worst of it. Then he would show me again, with a little impatience in his manner, how to hold the handle and straddle the row. He would watch me for a moment, turn to Uncle Eb, laugh hopelessly and say: 'Thet boy'll hev to be a minister. He can't work.'

But for Elizabeth Brower it might have gone hard with me those days.

My mind was always on my books or my last talk with Jed Feary, and she shared my confidence and fed my hopes and s.h.i.+elded me as much as possible from the heavy work. Hope had a better head for mathematics than I, and had always helped me with my sums, but I had a better memory and an apt.i.tude in other things that kept me at the head of most of my cla.s.ses. Best of all at school I enjoyed the 'compositions'--I had many thoughts, such as they were, and some facility of expression, I doubt not, for a child. Many chronicles of the countryside came off my pen--sketches of odd events and characters there in Faraway. These were read to the a.s.sembled household. Elizabeth Brower would sit looking gravely down at me, as I stood by her knees reading, in those days of my early boyhood. Uncle Eb listened with his head turned curiously, as if his ear were c.o.c.ked for c.o.o.ns. Sometimes he and David Brower would slap their knees and laugh heartily, whereat my foster mother would give them a quick glance and shake her head. For she was always fearful of the day when she should see in her children the birth of vanity, and sought to put it off as far as might be. Sometimes she would cover her mouth to hide a smile, and, when I had finished, look warningly at the rest, and say it was good, for a little boy. Her praise never went further, and indeed all those people hated flattery as they did the devil and frowned upon conceit She said that when the love of flattery got hold of one he would lie to gain it.

I can see this slender, blue-eyed woman as I write. She is walking up and down beside her spinning-wheel. I can hear the dreary buz-z-z-z of the spindle as she feeds it with the fleecy ropes. That loud crescendo echoes in the still house of memory. I can hear her singing as she steps forward and slows the wheel and swings the cradle with her foot:

'On the other side of Jordan, In the sweet fields of Eden, Where the tree of Life is blooming, There is rest for you.

She lays her hand to the spokes again and the roar of the spindle drowns her voice.

All day, from the breakfast hour to supper time, I have heard the dismal sound of the spinning as she walked the floor, content to sing of rest but never taking it.

Her home was almost a miracle of neatness. She could work with no peace of mind until the house had been swept and dusted. A fly speck on the window was enough to cloud her day. She went to town with David now and then--not oftener than once a quarter--and came back ill and exhausted.

If she sat in a store waiting for David, while he went to mill or smithy, her imagination gave her no rest. That dirt abhorring mind of hers would begin to clean the windows, and when that was finished it would sweep the floor and dust the counters. In due course it would lower the big chandelier and take out all the lamps and wash the chimneys with soap and water and rub them till they shone. Then, if David had not come, it would put in the rest of its time on the woodwork. With all her cleaning I am sure the good woman kept her soul spotless. Elizabeth Brower believed in goodness and the love of G.o.d, and knew no fear. Uncle Eb used to say that wherever Elizabeth Brower went hereafter it would have to be clean and comfortable.

Elder Whitmarsh came often to dinner of a Sunday, when he and Mrs Brower talked volubly about the Scriptures, he taking a sterner view of G.o.d than she would allow. He was an Englishman by birth, who had settled in Faraway because there he had found relief for a serious affliction of asthma.

He came over one noon in the early summer, that followed the event of our last chapter, to tell us of a strawberry party that evening at the White Church.

'I've had a wonderful experience,' said he as he took a seat on the piazza, while Mrs Brower came and sat near him. 'I've discovered a great genius--a wandering fiddler, and I shall try to bring him to play for us.'

'A fiddler! why, Elder!' said she, 'you astonish me!'

'Nothing but sacred music,' he said, lifting his hand. 'I heard him play all the grand things today--”Rock of Ages”, ”Nearer My G.o.d, to Thee”, ”The Ma.r.s.eillaise” and ”Home, Sweet Home”. Lifted me off my feet! I've heard the great masters in New York and London, but no greater player than this man.'

'Where is he and where did he come from?'

'He's at my house now,' said the good man. 'I found him this morning. He stood under a tree by the road side, above Nortlrup's. As I came near I heard the strains of ”The Ma.r.s.eillaise”. For more than an hour I sat there listening. It was wonderful, Mrs Brower, wonderful! The poor fellow is eccentric. He never spoke to me. His clothes were dusty and worn. But his music went to my heart like a voice from Heaven. When he had finished I took him home with me, gave him food and a new coat, and left him sleeping. I want you to come over, and be sure to bring Hope.

She must sing for us.'

'Mr Brower will be tired out, but perhaps the young people may go,' she said, looking at Hope and me.

My heart gave a leap as I saw in Hope's eyes a reflection of my own joy.

In a moment she came and gave her mother a sounding kiss and asked her what she should wear.

'I must look my best, mother,' she said.

'My child,' said the elder, 'it's what you do and not what you wear that's important.'

'They're both important, Elder,' said my foster mother. You should teach your people the duty of comeliness. They honour their Maker when they look their best.'

The spirit of liberalism was abroad in the sons of the Puritans. In Elizabeth Brower the ardent austerity of her race had been freely diluted with humour and cheerfulness and human sympathy. It used to be said of Deacon Hospur, a good but lazy man, that he was given both to prayer and profanity. Uncle Eb, who had once heard the deacon swear, when the latter had been bruised by a kicking cow, said that, so far as he knew, the deacon never swore except when 'twas necessary. Indeed, most of those men had, I doubt not, too little of that fear of G.o.d in them that characterised their fathers. And yet, as shall appear, there were in Faraway some relics of a stern faith.

Hope came out in fine feather, and although I have seen many grand ladles, gowned for the eyes of kings, I have never seen a lovelier figure than when, that evening, she came tripping down to the buggy. It was three miles to the white Church, and riding over in the twilight I laid the plan of my life before her. She sat a moment in silence after I had finished.

'I am going away, too,' she remarked, with a sigh.

'Going away!' I said with some surprise, for in all my plans I had secretly counted on returning in grand style to take her back with me.

'Going away,' said she decisively.