"I guess that I am wiser than you."
"I used to think that I understood people; I have come to the conclusion that I do not understand even my own self."
"Do you like garnet? I want a garnet in some material this winter. Gus says that I am a b.u.t.terfly."
"Yes, you are pretty in warm colors."
Tessa drew a chair to the open window and sat a long time leaning her elbows on the sill with her face towards the Harrison Homestead. Felix had always been so proud of the old house with its tiled chimney-pieces, with its ancient crockery brought from Holland and the iron bound Bible with the names of his ancestors; for two hundred years the place had been held in the Harrison name, a great-great-grandfather having purchased the land from the Indians. He had said once to her, "I have a good old honest name to give to you, Tessa." She would have worn his name worthily for his sake; if it might be,-but her father would hold her back,-why should she not sacrifice herself? Was not Felix worthy of her devotion? What other grander thing could she ever do? The moon was rising; she changed her position to watch it and did not leave it until it stood high above the apple orchard.
XIV.-WHEAT, NOT BREAD.
Early one evening Tessa was writing alone in her own chamber; Dinah was spending a few days in Dunellen; while Dinah was away she wrote more than usual out of her loneliness.
Becoming wearied she laid the neat ma.n.u.script away and began scribbling with a pencil on a half sheet of foolscap; the disconnected words revealed the thoughts that had been troubling her all day.
"Counsel. Waiting. Asking. Deception. Years and years. Oh, I _want_ to go to heaven."
A tap at the door sounded twice before it broke upon her reverie; absent-mindedly she opened the door, but the absent-mindedness was lost in the flash of light that burst over her face when she recognized, in the twilight, the one person in all the world whom she wished to see.
"Oh, I was wishing for you! Did some good spirit send you."
"I have been feeling all day that you wanted me," said the little woman suffering herself to be drawn into the room. "What are you doing?"
"Feeling wicked and miserable and wanting to go to heaven."
"You are not the kind to go to heaven, you are the kind to stay on earth; what would you do in heaven if you do not love to do G.o.d"s will on earth?"
Tessa drew her rocker nearer the open window and seated her guest in it, moved a low seat beside it, and sat down folding her hands in her lap.
"What shall I do on earth?" she asked.
"What you are told."
"I can not always see or hear what I must do."
"That"s a pity."
"Can you?"
"I could not once; I can now."
"How can you now?"
"Because I desire but one thing-and that is always made plain to me."
"But how can you get over _wanting_ things?"
"I can not."
"I do not understand."
"I mean only this, dear child; I do want things, but I want G.o.d"s will most of all."
"Sometimes I think I do, and then I _know_ that I do not. Do you think,"
lowering her voice and speaking more slowly, "that He ever _deceives_ any body?"
"He sometimes, oftentimes, allows them to be deceived,-is that what you mean?"
"He does not do it."
"No, but He allows others to do it."
"Not-when-they pray-about it and ask what they may do-would He let somebody who prayed be deceived?"
Miss Jewett was removing her gloves. She smoothed out each finger and thumb before she spoke, and laid them on the window-sill.
"I have been trying to think-oh, now, I know! Do you not remember one whom He permitted to be deceived after asking His counsel?"
"No. I thought the thing impossible. I do not see how such a thing can be."
"It can be; it has been. What for, do you suppose?"
"To teach some lesson. I am learning-oh, how bitterly!-that His teaching is the best of His gifts."
"So it is, child; but oh, how we have to be crushed before we can believe it. Is your life so hard? It appears a very happy life to me."
"So every one else thinks. I suppose it would be, but that I make my own trials; _do_ I make them? No, I don"t! How can I make things hard when I only do what seems the only right thing to do. Tell me about that somebody who was deceived-like me," she added.
"He was a priest; he ministered before the Lord, and he believed in David, because he was an honorable man, and high in the king"s household; so when David came to him and said: "The king hath commanded me a business, and hath said unto me, Let no man know it," of course, he believed him, and when he asked him for bread the old priest would have given it, not thinking that in harboring the king"s son-in-law he was guilty of treason; but he had no bread; he had nothing but the shew-bread, which only the priests might eat. He did not dare give him that until he asked counsel of the Lord. No priest had ever dared before, and how could he dare? But David and his men were starving, they dared go to no one else for help; but the priest didn"t know that, poor, old, trustful man, so he asked counsel, and having obtained permission, he gave to David the hallowed bread. That was right, because our Lord approves of it; then David asked for Goliath"s sword, and he gave him that, and went to sleep that night as sweetly as the night before, I have no doubt, because he had asked counsel of the Lord and followed it."
"Did any harm come to him?" asked Tessa, quickly.
"Harm! He lost his head; Saul slew him for treason; and he pleaded before the king: "And who is so faithful among all thy servants as David, which is the king"s son-in-law, and goeth at thy bidding, and is honorable in thine house?" G.o.d could have warned him or have brought to his ears the news that David was an outlaw, but He suffered him to be deceived and lose his life for trusting in the man who was telling him a lie."
After a silence Tessa said: "He _had_ to obey! I"m glad that he obeyed; I believe that was written just for me. I asked G.o.d once to let somebody love me, and I trusted him, because I thought that G.o.d had given him to me-and it has broken my heart with shame. I did not know before that He let me be deceived; I knew that I was obeying Him, but I thought that my humiliation was my punishment for doing I knew not what."
"Now I know the secret of some of your articles that I have cried over; not less than ten people told me how much they were helped by that article of yours, "Night and Day.""
"I have three letters that I will show you sometime; I know that my trouble has worn a channel in my heart through which G.o.d"s blessing flows; except for that I should have almost died."
"You do not look like dying; your eyes are as clear as a bell, and there"s plenty of fun in you yet."
"The fun and sarcasm are a little bit sanctified, I think; I never say sharp things nowadays."
"Perhaps the answer to your prayer has not all come yet; sometimes the answer is given to us to spoil it or use as we please, just as the mother gives the child five cents in answer to his coaxing, and the hap or mishap of it is in his hands. Perhaps He has given you the wheat, and you must grind it and bake it into bread; be careful how you grind and how you knead and bake! To some people, like Sue Greyson, He gives bread ready baked, but you can receive more, and therefore to you He gives more-more opportunity and more discipline. To be born with a talent for discipline, Tessa, is a wonderful gift, and oh, how such have to be taught! Would you rather be like flighty Sue?"