CHAPTER XVII
IN another town than Dexter the events narrated in the last chapter would have proved a nine days' wonder, gained their meed of golden gossip, and then given way to some newer sensation. But not so here. This little town was not so prolific in startling episodes that she could afford to let such a one pass with anything less than the fullest comment. The sudden return of Tom Brent, his changed life, and his death were talked of for many a day. The narrative of his life was yet to be a stock camp-meeting sermon story, and the next generation of Dexterites was destined to hear of him. He became a part of the town's municipal history.
Fred's disappearance elicited no less remark. Speculations as to his whereabouts and his movements were rife. The storm of gossip which was going on around them was not lost on Eliphalet Hodges and his wife. But, save when some too adventurous inquirer called down upon himself Mrs. Hodges' crushing rebuke or the old man's mild resentment, they went their ways silent and uncommunicative.
They had heard from the young man first about two weeks after his departure. He had simply told them that he had got a place in the office of a packing establishment. Furthermore, he had begged that they let his former fellow-townsmen know nothing of his doings or of his whereabouts, and the two old people had religiously respected his wishes. Perhaps there was some reluctance on the part of Mrs. Hodges, for after the first letter she said, "It does seem like a sin an' a shame, 'Liphalet, that we can't tell these here people how nice Fred's a-doin', so 's to let 'em know that he don't need none o' their help. It jest makes my tongue fairly itch when I see Mis' Smith an' that bosom crony o' her'n, Sallie Martin, a-nosin' around tryin' to see what they kin find out."
"It is amazin' pesterin', Hester. I'm su'prised at how I feel about it myself, fur I never was no hand to want to gossip; but when I hear old Dan'l Hastings, that can't move out o' his cheer fur the rheumatiz,—when I hear him a-sayin' that he reckoned that Fred was a goin' to the dogs, I felt jest like up an' tellin' him how things was."
"Why on airth did n't you? Ef I'd 'a' been there, I'd—"
"But you know what Freddie's letter said. I kept still on that account; but I tell you I looked at Dan'l." From his pocket the old man took the missive worn with many readings, and gazed at it fondly, "Yes," he repeated, "I looked at Dan'l hard. I felt jest like up an' tellin' him."
"Well, no wonder. I'm afeard I 'd 'a' clean furgot Freddie's wishes an' told him everything. To think of old Dan'l Hastings, as old he is, a-gossipin' about other people's business! Sakes alive! he needs every breath he's got now fur his prayers,—as all of us pore mortals do now," added Mrs. Hodges, as she let her eyes fall upon her own wrinkled hands.
"Yes, we're old, Hester, you an' I; but I'm mighty glad o' the faith I've been a-storin' up, fur it's purty considerable of a help now."
"Of course, 'Liphalet, faith is a great comfort, but it 's a greater one to know that you 've allus tried to do yore dooty the very best you could; not a-sayin' that you 'ain't tried."
"Most of us tries, Hester, even Dan'l."
"I ain't a-goin' to talk about Dan'l Hastings. He's jest naturally spiteful an' crabbed. I declare, I don't see how he's a-goin' to squeeze into the kingdom."
"Oh, never mind that, Hester. God ain't a-goin' to ask you to find a way."
Mrs. Hodges did not reply. She and her husband seldom disagreed now, because he seldom contradicted or found fault with her. But if this dictum of his went unchallenged, it was not so with some later conclusions at which he arrived on the basis of another of Fred's letters.
It was received several months after the settlement of the young man in Cincinnati, and succeeded a long silence, "You will think," it ran, "that I have forgotten you; but it is not so. My life has been very full here of late, it is true, but not so full as to exclude you and good Aunt Hester. I feel that I am growing. I can take good full breaths here. I could n't in Dexter: the air was too rarefied by religion."
Mrs. Hodges gasped as her husband read this aloud, but there was the suspicion of a smile about the corners of Eliphalet's mouth.
"You ask me if I attend any church," the letter went on. "Yes, I do. When I first left, I thought that I never wanted to see the inside of a meeting-house again. But there is a young lady in our office who is very much interested in church work, and somehow she has got me interested too, and I go to her church every Sunday. It is Congregational."
"Congregational!" exclaimed Mrs. Hodges. "Congregational! an' he borned an' raised up in the Methodist faith. It's the first step.
"He wasn't borned nothin' but jest a pore little outcast sinner, an' as fur as the denomination goes, I guess that church is about as good as any other."
"'Liphalet Hodges, air you a-backslidin' too?"
"No: I'm like Freddie; I'm a-growin'."
"It's a purty time of life fur you to be a-talkin' about growin'. You 're jest like an old tree that has fell in a damp place an' sen's out a few shoots on the trunk. It thinks it 's a-growin' too, but them shoots soon wither, an' the tree rots; that's what it does.
"But before it rotted, it growed all that was in it to grow, didn't it. Well, that's all anybody kin do, tree or human bein'." He paused for a moment. "I ain't got all my growth yit."
"You kin git the rest in the garden of the Lord."
"It ain't good to change soil on some plants too soon. I ain't ready to be set out." He went on reading:
"'I'm not so narrow as I was at home. I don't think so many things are wrong as I used to. It is good to be like other people sometimes, and not to feel yoreself apart from all the rest of humanity. I am growing to act more like the people I meet, and so I am—'" the old man's hand trembled, and he moved the paper nearer to his eyes—"'I—' What 's this he says? 'I am learning to dance.'"
"There!" his wife shot forth triumphantly. "What did I tell you? Going to a Congregational church an' learnin' to dance, an' he not a year ago a preacher of the gospel."
Eliphalet was silent for some time: his eyes looked far out into space. Then he picked up the paper that had fluttered from his hand, and a smile flitted over his face.
"Well, I don't know," he said. "Freddie's young, an' they 's worse things in the world than dancin'."
"You ain't a-upholdin' him in that too, air you? Well, I never! You'd uphold that sinful boy ef he committed murder."
"I ain't a-upholdin' nothin' but what I think is right."
"Right! 'Liphalet Hodges, what air you a-sayin'?"
"Not that I mean to say that dancin' is right, but—"
"There ain't no 'buts' in the Christian religion, 'Liphalet, an' there ain't no use in yore tryin' to cover up Freddie's faults."
"I ain't a-tryin' to cover nothin' up from God. But sometimes I git to thinkin' that mebbe we put a good many more bonds on ourselves than the Lord ever meant us to carry."
"Oh, some of us don't struggle under none too heavy burdens. Some of us have a way of jest slippin' 'em off of our shoulders like a bag of flour."
"Meanin' me. Well, mebbe I have tried to make things jest as easy fur myself as possible, but I ain't never tried to make 'em no harder fur other people. I like to think of the Master as a good gentle friend, an' mebbe I ain't shifted so many o' the burdens He put on me that He won't let me in at last."
"'Liphalet, I didn't say what I said fur no slur ag'in' you. You're as good a Christian man as— well, as most."
"I know you didn't mean no slur, Hester. It was jest yore dooty to say it. I've come to realise how strong yore feelin' about dooty is, in the years we've been together, an' I would n't want you to be any different."
The calm of old age had come to these two. Life's turbulent waters toss us and threaten to rend our frail bark in pieces. But the swelling of the tempest only lifts us higher, and finally we reach and rest upon the Ararat of age, with the swirling floods below us.
Eliphalet went on with the letter. "He says some more about that little girl. 'Alice is a very nice and sensible girl. I like her very much. She helps me to get out of myself and to be happy. I have never known before what a good thing it was to be happy,—perhaps because I have tried so hard to be so. I believe that I have been selfish and egotistical.' Freddie don't furgit his words," the old man paused to say. "'I have always thought too much of myself, and not enough of others. That was the reason that I was not strong enough to live down the opposition in Dexter. It seems that, after all your kindness to me, I might have stayed and made you and Aunt Hester happy for the rest of your days.' Bless that boy! 'But the air stiffed me. I could not breathe in it. Now that I am away, I can look back and see it all—my mistakes and my shortcomings; for my horizon is broader and I can see clearer. I have learned to know what pleasure is, and it has been like a stimulant to me. I have been given a greater chance to love, and it has been like the breath of life to me. I have come face to face with Christianity without cant, and I respect it for what it is. Alice understands me and brings out the best that is in me. have always thought that it was good for a young man to have a girl friend.'"
For an instant, Mrs. Hodges resumed her old manner. A slight wave from the old flood had reached the bark and rocked it. She pursed her lips and shook her head. "He furgot Elizabeth in a mighty short time."
"Ef he had n't he'd ought to be spanked like a child. Elizabeth never was the kind of a mate fur Freddie, an' there ain't nobody that knows it better than you yoreself, Hester, an' you know it."
Mrs. Hodges did not reply. The wavelet had subsided again.
"Now jest listen how he ends up. 'I want you and Aunt Hester to come down and see me when you can. I will send for you in a week or two, if you will promise to come. Write to me, both of you. Won't you? Your changed boy, Fred.' Changed, an' I'm glad of it. He's more like a natural boy of his age now than he ever was before. He's jest like a young oak saplin'. Before he allus put me in mind o' one o' them oleander slips that you used to cut off an' hang ag'in' the house in a bottle o' water so's they'd root. We'll go down, won't we, Hester? We'll go down, an' see him."
"Not me, 'Liphalet. You kin go; but I ain't a-goin' nowhere to be run over by the cars or wrecked or somethin'. Not that I'm so powerful afeared of anything like that, fur I do hope I'm prepared to go whenever the Master calls; but it ain't fur me to begin a-runnin' around at my age, after livin' all these years at home. No, indeed. Why, I could n't sleep in no other bed but my own now. I don't take to no sich new things."
And go Mrs. Hodges would not. So Eliphalet was forced to write and refuse the offered treat. But on a day there came another letter, and he could no longer refuse to grant the wish of his beloved boy. The missive was very brief. It said only, "Alice has promised to marry me. Won't you and Aunt Hester come and see me joined to the dearest girl in the world?" There was a postscript to it: "I did not love Elizabeth. I know it now."
"Hester, I'm agoin'." said Eliphalet.
"Go on, 'Liphalet, go on. I want you to go, but I'm set in my ways now. I do hope that girl kin do something besides work in an office. She ought to be a good housekeeper, an' a good cook, so's not to kill that pore child with dyspepsy. I do hope she won't put saleratus in her biscuits."
"I think it's Freddie's soul that needs feedin.'"
"His soul'll go where it don't need feedin', ef his stomach ain't 'tended to right. Ef I went down there, I could give the girl some points."
"I don't reckon you'd better go, Hester. As you say, you 're set in yore ways, an' mebhe her ways 'ud be diff'rent; an' then— then you'd both feel it."
"Oh, I suppose she thinks she knows it all, like most young people do."
"I hope she don't; but I'm a-goin' down to see her anyhow, an' I'll carry yore blessin' along with mine."
For the next week, great were the preparations for the old man's departure, and when finally he left the old gate and turned his back on the little cottage it was as if he were going on a great journey rather than a trip of less than a hundred miles. It had been a long time since he had been on a train, and at first he felt a little dubious. But he was soon at home, for his kindly face drew his fellow-passengers to him, and he had no lack of pleasant companions on the way.
Like Fred, the noises of the great station would have bewildered him, but as he alighted and passed through the gate a strong hand was laid on his shoulder, and his palm was pressing the palm of his beloved son. The old carpet-bag fell from his hands.
"Freddie Brent, it ain't you?"
"It's I, Uncle 'Liph, and no one else. And I'm so glad to see you that I don't know what to do. Give me that bag."
They started away, the old man chattering like a happy child. He could not keep from feasting his eyes on the young man's face and form.
"Well, Freddie, you jest don't look like yoreself. You 're— you're—"
"I'm a man, Uncle 'Liph."
"I allus knowed you'd be, my boy. I allus knowed you'd be. But yore aunt Hester told me to ask you ef— ef you 'd dropped all yore religion. She's mighty disturbed about yore dancin'."
Brent laughed aloud in pure joy.
"I knowed you had n't," the old man chuckled.
"Lost it all? Uncle 'Liph, why, I've just come to know what religion is. It's to get bigger and broader and kinder, and to live and to love and be happy, so that people around you will be happy."
"You're still a first-rate preacher, Freddie."
"Oh, yes, Uncle 'Liph; I've been to a better school than the Bible Seminary. I have n't got many religious rules and formulas, but I'm trying to live straight and do what is right."
The old man had paused with tears in his eyes. "I been a-prayin' fur you," he said.
"So has Alice," replied the young man, "though I don't see why she needs to pray. She's a prayer in herself. She has made me better by letting me love her. Come up, Uncle 'Liph. I want you to see her before we go on to my little place."
They stopped before a quiet cottage, and Fred knocked. In the little parlour a girl came to them. She was little, not quite up to Fred's shoulder. His eyes shone as he looked down upon her brown head. There were lines about her mouth, as if she had known sorrow that had blossomed into sweetness. The young man took her hand. "Uncle 'Liph," he said, "this is Alice."
She came forward with winning frankness, and took the old man's hand in hers. The tears stood in his eyes again.
"This is Alice," he said; "this is Alice." Then his gaze travelled to Fred's growing face, and, with a sob in his voice that was all for joy, he added, "Alice, I'm glad you're a-livin'."
the end