Have we not seen that face before? It is a touch graver than of old, and its lines have a more thoughtful significance; but all the vivacity of James Benton sparkles in that quick smile as his eye falls on the old man.
"I _thought_ you could not keep away from us long," said he, with the prompt cheerfulness of his boyhood, and laying hold of both of Uncle Lot"s hard hands.
They approached the gate; a bright face glances past the window, and in a moment Grace is at the door.
"Father! _dear_ father!"
"You"d _better_ make believe be so glad," said Uncle Lot, his eyes glistening as he spoke.
"Come, come, father, I have authority in these days," said Grace, drawing him towards the house; "so no disrespectful speeches; away with your hat and coat, and sit down in this great chair."
"So, ho! Miss Grace," said Uncle Lot, "you are at your old tricks, ordering round as usual. Well, if I must, I must;" so down he sat.
"Father," said Grace, as he was leaving them, after a few days" stay, "it"s Thanksgiving day next month, and you and mother must come and stay with us."
Accordingly, the following month found Aunt Sally and Uncle Lot by the minister"s fireside, delighted witnesses of the Thanksgiving presents which a willing people were pouring in; and the next day they had once more the pleasure of seeing a son of theirs in the sacred desk, and hearing a sermon that every body said was "the best that he ever preached;" and it is to be remarked, that this was the standing commentary on all James"s discourses, so that it was evident he was going on unto perfection.
"There"s a great deal that"s worth having in this "ere life after all,"
said Uncle Lot, as he sat by the coals of the bright evening fire of that day; "that is, if we"d only take it when the Lord lays it in our way."
"Yes," said James; "and let us only take it as we should, and this life will be cheerfulness, and the next fulness of joy."
LOVE _versus_ LAW.
How many kinds of beauty there are! How many even in the human form!
There are the bloom and motion of childhood, the freshness and ripe perfection of youth, the dignity of manhood, the softness of woman--all different, yet each in its kind perfect.
But there is none so peculiar, none that bears more the image of the heavenly, than the beauty of _Christian old age_. It is like the loveliness of those calm autumn days, when the heats of summer are past, when the harvest is gathered into the garner, and the sun shines over the placid fields and fading woods, which stand waiting for their last change. It is a beauty more strictly moral, more belonging to the soul, than that of any other period of life. Poetic fiction always paints the old man as a Christian; nor is there any period where the virtues of Christianity seem to find a more harmonious development. The aged man, who has outlived the hurry of pa.s.sion--who has withstood the urgency of temptation--who has concentrated the religious impulses of youth into habits of obedience and love--who, having served his generation by the will of G.o.d, now leans in helplessness on Him whom once he served, is, perhaps, one of the most faultless representations of the beauty of holiness that this world affords.
Thoughts something like these arose in my mind as I slowly turned my footsteps from the graveyard of my native village, where I had been wandering after years of absence. It was a lovely spot--a soft slope of ground close by a little stream, that ran sparkling through the cedars and junipers beyond it, while on the other side arose a green hill, with the white village laid like a necklace of pearls upon its bosom.
There is no feature of the landscape more picturesque and peculiar than that of the graveyard--that "city of the silent," as it is beautifully expressed by the Orientals--standing amid the bloom and rejoicing of nature, its white stones glittering in the sun, a memorial of decay, a link between the living and the dead.
As I moved slowly from mound to mound, and read the inscriptions, which purported that many a money-saving man, and many a busy, anxious housewife, and many a prattling, half-blossomed child, had done with care or mirth, I was struck with a plain slab, bearing the inscription, "_To the memory of Deacon Enos Dudley, who died in his hundredth year_."
My eye was caught by this inscription, for in other years I had well known the person it recorded. At this instant, his mild and venerable form arose before me as erst it used to rise from the deacon"s seat, a straight, close slip just below the pulpit. I recollect his quiet and lowly coming into meeting, precisely ten minutes before the time, every Sunday,--his tall form a little stooping,--his best suit of b.u.t.ternut-colored Sunday clothes, with long flaps and wide cuffs, on one of which two pins were always to be seen stuck in with the most reverent precision. When seated, the top of the pew came just to his chin, so that his silvery, placid head rose above it like the moon above the horizon. His head was one that might have been sketched for a St.
John--bald at the top, and around the temples adorned with a soft flow of bright fine hair,--
"That down his shoulders reverently spread, As h.o.a.ry frost with spangles doth attire The naked branches of an oak half dead."
He was then of great age, and every line of his patient face seemed to say, "And now, Lord, what wait I for?" Yet still, year after year, was he to be seen in the same place, with the same dutiful punctuality.
The services he offered to his G.o.d were all given with the exactness of an ancient Israelite. No words could have persuaded him of the propriety of meditating when the choir was singing, or of sitting down, even through infirmity, before the close of the longest prayer that ever was offered. A mighty contrast was he to his fellow-officer, Deacon Abrams, a tight, little, tripping, well-to-do man, who used to sit beside him with his hair brushed straight up like a little blaze, his coat b.u.t.toned up trig and close, his psalm book in hand, and his quick gray eyes turned first on one side of the broad aisle, and then on the other, and then up into the gallery, like a man who came to church on business, and felt responsible for every thing that was going on in the house.
A great hinderance was the business talent of this good little man to the enjoyments of us youngsters, who, perched along in a row on a low seat in front of the pulpit, attempted occasionally to diversify the long hour of sermon by sundry small exercises of our own, such as making our handkerchiefs into rabbits, or exhibiting, in a sly way, the apples and gingerbread we had brought for a Sunday dinner, or pulling the ears of some discreet meeting-going dog, who now and then would soberly pitapat through the broad aisle. But woe be to us during our contraband sports, if we saw Deacon Abrams"s sleek head dodging up from behind the top of the deacon"s seat. Instantly all the apples, gingerbread, and handkerchiefs vanished, and we all sat with our hands folded, looking as demure as if we understood every word of the sermon, and more too.
There was a great contrast between these two deacons in their services and prayers, when, as was often the case, the absence of the pastor devolved on them the burden of conducting the duties of the sanctuary.
That G.o.d was great and good, and that we all were sinners, were truths that seemed to have melted into the heart of Deacon Enos, so that his very soul and spirit were bowed down with them. With Deacon Abrams it was an _undisputed fact_, which he had settled long ago, and concerning which he felt that there could be no reasonable doubt, and his bustling way of dealing with the matter seemed to say that he knew _that_ and a great many things besides.
Deacon Enos was known far and near as a very proverb for peacefulness of demeanor and unbounded charitableness in covering and excusing the faults of others. As long as there was any doubt in a case of alleged evil doing, Deacon Enos _guessed_ "the man did not mean any harm, after all;" and when transgression became too barefaced for this excuse, he always guessed "it wa"n"t best to say much about it; n.o.body could tell what _they_ might be left to."
Some incidents in his life will show more clearly these traits. A certain shrewd landholder, by the name of Jones, who was not well reported of in the matter of honesty, sold to Deacon Enos a valuable lot of land, and received the money for it; but, under various pretences, deferred giving the deed. Soon after, he died; and, to the deacon"s amazement, the deed was nowhere to be found, while this very lot of land was left by will to one of his daughters.
The deacon said "it was very extraor"nary: he always knew that Seth Jones was considerably sharp about money, but he did not think he would do such a right up-and-down wicked thing." So the old man repaired to "Squire Abel to state the case, and see if there was any redress. "I kinder hate to tell of it," said he; "but, "Squire Abel, you know Mr.
Jones was--was--_what he was_, even if he _is_ dead and gone!" This was the nearest approach the old gentleman could make to specifying a heavy charge against the dead. On being told that the case admitted of no redress, Deacon Enos comforted himself with half soliloquizing, "Well, at any rate, the land has gone to those two girls, poor lone critters--I hope it will do _them_ some good. There is Silence--we won"t say much about her; but Sukey is a nice, pretty girl." And so the old man departed, leaving it as his opinion that, since the matter could not be mended, it was just as well not to say any thing about it.
Now, the two girls here mentioned (to wit, Silence and Sukey) were the eldest and the youngest of a numerous, family, the offspring of three wives of Seth Jones, of whom these two were the sole survivors. The elder, Silence, was a tall, strong, black-eyed, hard-featured woman, verging upon forty, with a good, loud, resolute voice, and what the Irishman would call "a dacent notion of using it." Why she was called _Silence_ was a standing problem to the neighborhood; for she had more faculty and inclination for making a noise than any person in the whole township. Miss Silence was one of those persons who have no disposition to yield any of their own rights. She marched up to all controverted matters, faced down all opposition, held her way l.u.s.tily and with good courage, making men, women, and children turn out for her, as they would for a mail stage. So evident was her innate determination to be free and independent, that, though she was the daughter of a rich man, and well portioned, only one swain was ever heard of who ventured to solicit her hand in marriage; and he was sent off with the a.s.surance that, if he ever showed his face about the house again, she would set the dogs on him.
But Susan Jones was as different from her sister as the little graceful convolvulus from the great rough stick that supports it. At the time of which we speak she was just eighteen; a modest, slender, blushing girl, as timid and shrinking as her sister was bold and hardy. Indeed, the education of poor Susan had cost Miss Silence much painstaking and trouble, and, after all, she said "the girl would make a fool of herself; she never could teach her to be up and down with people, as she was."
When the report came to Miss Silence"s ears that Deacon Enos considered himself as aggrieved by her father"s will, she held forth upon the subject with great strength of courage and of lungs. "Deacon Enos might be in better business than in trying to cheat orphans out of their rights--she hoped he would go to law about it, and see what good he would get by it--a pretty church member and deacon, to be sure! getting up such a story about her poor father, dead and gone!"
"But, Silence," said Susan, "Deacon Enos is a good man: I do not think he means to injure any one; there must be some mistake about it."
"Susan, you are a little fool, as I have always told you," replied Silence; "you would be cheated out of your eye teeth if you had not me to take care of you."
But subsequent events brought the affairs of these two damsels in closer connection with those of Deacon Enos, as we shall proceed to show.
It happened that the next door neighbor of Deacon Enos was a certain old farmer, whose crabbedness of demeanor had procured for him the name of _Uncle Jaw_. This agreeable surname accorded very well with the general characteristics both of the person and manner of its possessor. He was tall and hard-favored, with an expression of countenance much resembling a north-east rain storm--a drizzling, settled sulkiness, that seemed to defy all prospect of clearing off, and to take comfort in its own disagreeableness. His voice seemed to have taken lessons of his face, in such admirable keeping was its sawing, deliberate growl with the pleasing physiognomy before indicated. By nature he was endowed with one of those active, acute, hair-splitting minds, which can raise forty questions for dispute on any point of the compa.s.s; and had he been an educated man, he might have proved as clever a metaphysician as ever threw dust in the eyes of succeeding generations. But being deprived of these advantages, he nevertheless exerted himself to quite as useful a purpose in puzzling and mystifying whomsoever came in his way. But his activity particularly exercised itself in the line of the law, as it was his meat, and drink, and daily meditation, either to find something to go to law about, or to go law about something he had found. There was always some question about an old rail fence that used to run "a _leetle_ more to the left hand," or that was built up "a _leetle_ more to the right hand," and so cut off a strip of his "_medder land_," or else there was some outrage of Peter Somebody"s turkeys getting into his mowing, or Squire Moses"s geese were to be shut up in the town pound, or something equally important kept him busy from year"s end to year"s end.
Now, as a matter of private amus.e.m.e.nt, this might have answered very well; but then Uncle Jaw was not satisfied to fight his own battles, but must needs go from house to house, narrating the whole length and breadth of the case, with all the _says he"s_ and _says I"s_, and the _I tell"d him"s_ and _he tell"d me"s_, which do either accompany or flow therefrom. Moreover, he had such a marvellous facility of finding out matters to quarrel about, and of letting every one else know where they, too, could muster a quarrel, that he generally succeeded in keeping the whole neighborhood by the ears.
And as good Deacon Enos a.s.sumed the office of peace-maker for the village, Uncle Jaw"s efficiency rendered it no sinecure. The deacon always followed the steps of Uncle Jaw, smoothing, hushing up, and putting matters aright with an a.s.siduity that was truly wonderful.
Uncle Jaw himself had a great respect for the good man, and, in common with all the neighborhood, sought unto him for counsel, though, like other seekers of advice, he appropriated only so much as seemed good in his own eyes.
Still he took a kind of pleasure in dropping in of an evening to Deacon Enos"s fire, to recount the various matters which he had taken or was to take in hand; at one time to narrate "how he had been over the milldam, telling old Granny Clark that she could get the law of Seth Scran about that pasture lot," or else "how he had told Ziah Bacon"s widow that she had a right to shut up Bill Scranton"s pig every time she caught him in front of her house."
But the grand "matter of matters," and the one that took up the most of Uncle Jaw"s spare time, lay in a dispute between him and "Squire Jones, the father of Susan and Silence; for it so happened that his lands and those of Uncle Jaw were contiguous. Now, the matter of dispute was on this wise: On "Squire Jones"s land there was a mill, which mill Uncle Jaw averred was "always a-flooding his medder land." As Uncle Jaw"s "medder land" was by nature half bog and bulrushes, and therefore liable to be found in a wet condition, there was always a happy obscurity as to where the water came from, and whether there was at any time more there than belonged to his share. So, when all other subject matters of dispute failed, Uncle Jaw recreated himself with getting up a lawsuit about his "medder land;" and one of these cases was in pendency when, by the death of the squire, the estate was left to Susan and Silence, his daughters. When, therefore, the report reached him that Deacon Enos had been cheated out of his dues, Uncle Jaw prepared forthwith to go and compare notes. Therefore, one evening, as Deacon Enos was sitting quietly by the fire, musing and reading with his big Bible open before him, he heard the premonitory symptoms of a visitation from Uncle Jaw on his door sc.r.a.per; and soon the man made his appearance. After seating himself directly in front of the fire, with his elbows on his knees, and his hands spread out over the coals, he looked up in Deacon Enos"s mild face with his little inquisitive gray eyes, and remarked, by way of opening the subject, "Well, deacon, old "Squire Jones is gone at last. I wonder how much good all his land will do him now?"
"Yes," replied Deacon Enos, "it just shows how all these things are not worth striving after. We brought nothing into the world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out."
"Why, yes," replied Uncle Jaw, "that"s all very right, deacon; but it was strange how that old "Squire Jones did hang on to things. Now, that mill of his, that was always soaking off water into these medders of mine--I took and tell"d "Squire Jones just how it was, pretty nigh twenty times, and yet he would keep it just so; and now he"s dead and gone, there is that old gal Silence is full as bad, and makes more noise; and she and Suke have got the land; but, you see, I mean to work it yet."
Here Uncle Jaw paused to see whether he had produced any sympathetic excitement in Deacon Enos; but the old man sat without the least emotion, quietly contemplating the top of the long kitchen shovel. Uncle Jaw fidgeted in his chair, and changed his mode of attack for one more direct. "I heard "em tell, Deacon Enos, that the squire served you something of an unhandy sort of trick about that "ere lot of land."
Still Deacon Enos made no reply; but Uncle Jaw"s perseverance was not so to be put off, and he recommenced. ""Squire Abel, you see, he tell"d me how the matter was, and he said he did not see as it could be mended; but I took and tell"d him, ""Squire Abel," says I, "I"d bet pretty nigh "most any thing, if Deacon Enos would tell the matter to me, that I could find a hole for him to creep out at; for," says I, "I"ve seen daylight through more twistical cases than that afore now.""
Still Deacon Enos remained mute; and Uncle Jaw, after waiting a while, recommenced with, "But, railly, deacon, I should like to hear the particulars."
"I have made up my mind not to say any thing more about that business,"
said Deacon Enos, in a tone which, though mild, was so exceedingly definite, that Uncle Jaw felt that the case was hopeless in that quarter; he therefore betook himself to the statement of his own grievances.
"Why, you see, deacon," he began, at the same time taking the tongs, and picking up all the little brands, and disposing them in the middle of the fire,--"you see, two days arter the funeral, (for I didn"t railly like to go any sooner,) I stepped up to hash over the matter with old Silence; for as to Sukey, she ha"n"t no more to do with such things than our white kitten. Now, you see, "Squire Jones, just afore he died, he took away an old rail fence of his"n that lay between his land and mine, and began to build a new stone wall; and when I come to measure, I found he had took and put a"most the whole width of the stone wall on to my land, when there ought not to have been more than half of it come there.
Now, you see, I could not say a word to "Squire Jones, because, jest before I found it out, he took and died; and so I thought I"d speak to old Silence, and see if she meant to do any thing about it, "cause I knew pretty well she wouldn"t; and I tell you, if she didn"t put it on to me! We had a regular pitched battle--the old gal, I thought she would "a screamed herself to death! I don"t know but she would, but just then poor Sukey came in, and looked so frightened and scarey--Sukey is a pretty gal, and looks so trembling and delicate, that it"s kinder a shame to plague her, and so I took and come away for that time."
Here Uncle Jaw perceived a brightening in the face of the good deacon, and felt exceedingly comforted that at last he was about to interest him in his story.