Part 9 (1/2)
Mother clung to me and wept Father turned the leaves of the book with hands that trembled in spite of himself, and read:--
”Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy nalory for thy mercy--”
His voice faltered and broke
The old town turned out, to the last man and woman, and crowded the Doo when I bore Her ho the street that led to ”the Castle” had seen a strange procession of poor and aged woardens in the scant sunlight of the long Northern winter--”loved up,” they say in Danish for ”grown”; in no other way could it be done They were pensioners on her oing away And it was their flowers she hen I led her down the church aisle my wife, my own
The Castle opened its doors hospitably at last to the carpenter's lad When they fell to behind us, with father, ood-bys from the steps, and the wheels of the mail-coach rattled over the cobblestones of the silent streets where old neighbors had set lights in their s to cheer us on the way,--out into the open country, into the orld,--our life's journey had begun Looking steadfastly ahead, over the bleak moor into the unknown beyond, I knew intrustfully on my shoulder and her hand was in mine; and all ell
[Illustration: ”Out into the open country into the orld--our life's journey had begun”]
CHAPTER VIII
EARLY MARRIED LIFE; I BECOME AN ADVERTISING BUREAU; ON THE ”TRIBUNE”
It was no easy life to which I brought ho when I thought ho friends I had to offer her for those she had left, and how very different was the whole setting of her new home At such times I set my teeth hard and promised myself that some day she should have the best in the land She never ord or look betrayed if she, too, felt the pang We were comrades for better or worse from the day she put her hand in mine, and never was there a ht she played softly to herself the old airs from home, the tune was smothered in a sob that was not for my ear, and shortly our kitchen resounded with theon record, I did not hear I had drunk that cup to the dregs, and I knew I just put on a gingham apron and turned in to help her Two can battle with a fit of homesickness much better than one, even if never a word is said about it And it can very rarely resist a man with an apron on I suppose he looks too ridiculous
Besides, housekeeping in double harness was a vastly differentby anyabout it; but ere there to find out, and exploring together was fine fun We started fair by laying in a stock of everything there was in the cook-book and in the grocery, from ”mace,” which neither of us kneas, to the prunes which we never got a chance to cook because we ate theether before we could find a place where they fitted in The deep councils we held over the disposal of those things, and the strange results which followed sometimes! Certain rocks ere able to steer clear of, because I had carefully charted theo, for instance, which swells so when cooked You would never believe it
But there were plenty of unknown reefs I ine as the e bird I was corinning ”devil,” up to the house every half-hour for bulletins as to hoas getting on When I ca yet, andit with a strained look and with cheeks which the fire had dyed afor anything
With the chicken so As I said, I don't knohat it was, and I don't care The skin was all drawn tight over the bones like the covering on an umbrella frame, and there was no end of fat in the pan that we didn't knohat to do with But our supper of bread and cheese that night was aMy mother, as a notable cook, neverthose things better Who cares, anyhow?
Haveeyelashes, and have they arch ways? And do they pout, and have pet names? Well, then, are not these of the very essence of cookery, all the dry books to the contrary notwithstanding? So housekeepers, but it will be a wise husband with the proper sense of things, not a motherly person at all, rite it
They h to eat, but that is not the best part of cooking by long odds
There is one housekeeping feat of which Elisabeth says she is ashamed yet I am not I'll bet it was fine It was that cake we took soelse rong It was not put to soak, or to sizzle, in the oven, or whatever it was Like le-blessed pancake, it did not rise, and in the darkness before I caled it out of the house; only to behold, with a hbor-wo, exa People _are_ curious But they elco our household They discovered there, if they looked right, the sweetest and altogether the bravest little housekeeper in all the world And what does a cake ht?
In my editorial enthusiasot a rest for a season while I transferred -house My wife teasesclearlylaht and th and breadth of the land, or at least of South Brooklyn ”Ours,” I cried, weekly ”to fulfil its destiny, -house!” and the politicians applauded They were glad to be let alone So were the beats ere behind in their bills, and whose chahty cha advertise, whereas I had been lean and poor I was happy, that was it; very, very happy, and full of faith in our ability to fight our way through, coift of a prophet to ain as the paid editor ofuntenable It was an agreement entered into teed myself when I sold the paper not to start another for ten years in South Brooklyn So I would have to begin life over again in a new place
I gave theit all fro with fate
It was not It was a true to it to come on, all that could crowd in Tould beat the world
Before I record the onset that ensued, I ret, though it h even now Non-resistance never appealed to me except in the evildoer who has been knocked down for cause I suppose it is wicked, but I promised to tell the truth, and--I always did like Peter for knocking off the ear of the high priest's servant If only it had been the high priest's own ear! And so when the Rev Mr--no, I will not mention narieveson sale Sundays, if I re that ”never in the most anxious days of the war had he looked in a newspaper on the Sabbath”; and when ill luck would have it that on the same Sunday I beheld his Reverence, as a choleric arden, I drew editorial parallels which were not soothing to the reverend te in common sense, or he would never have called upon me with his whole board of deacons in the quiet of the Sunday noon, right after church, to demand a retraction I have no hope that a sense of the hu found its way into the clerical consciousness when I replied that I never in thetimes transacted business on Sunday; for if it had, ould have been friends for life But I know that it ”struck in” in the case of the deacons They went out struggling with their mirth behind their pastor's back I think he restrained hi the ainst me, with bell, book, and candle, then and there
About that tiht it without any definite idea of what to do with it I suppose it ought to be set down as foolishness and a waste of money
And yet it was to play an i for ave me, that work could not have been carried out as it was
That is not to say that I recoic lantern in his cellar, or the proh the world were a kind of providential rue sale
I should rather say that no effort to in any way add to one's stock of knowledge is likely to coencies, and that Providence has a way of ranging itself on the side of the ency does come In other words, that to ”trust God and keep your powder dry” is the plan for all ti up the house My two friends, Mackellar and Wells, took a sys, which ell, because, being a druggist, Wells knew about as and could prevent trouble on that tack It was before the day of charged tanks The gas we s, in a fraave the necessary pressure Mackellar volunteered to be the weight, and sat on the bags, at our first seance, while Wells superintended the gas and I read the written directions We were getting along nicely when I careat caution in the distribution of the weight ”You are working,” read the text, ”with two gases which, if allowed to mix in undue proportion, have the force and all the destructive power of a bo fell into a tremble on his perch He had not dreamed of this; neither had we I steadied hiesture
”Sit still,” I co of the rack, the pressure were to be suddenly relieved, the gas froht be sucked into the other, with the result of a disastrous explosion'”