XIX. A MORNING WITH A SURPRISE.
“Routine of duties,
Commonplace cares.”
—F. L. Hosmer.
The years went on in quiet Bensalem and brought Judith to her eighteenth birthday; the summers and winters came and went, and the girl grew. The parsonage was “home,” and the farmhouse was “Aunt Affy’s,” as it had been ever since she could remember. One July morning, in this nineteenth year of Judith’s story, something besides the new morning was given to Marion. The parsonage under the housekeeping of the two, the woman and the girl, was a dainty, restful, and inspiring home to its three home-keepers, the minister, his sister, and Judith Mackenzie.
The relationship among the three was as simple and natural as though Judith had been born one of the sisters in that old house, with the three windows in the roof that she had made a picture of for her mother.
This July morning, an hour before dinner-time, Marion sat near the kitchen table shelling peas; she had sent Judith back to the story she was writing, and refused Roger’s help when he put his head in at the window to say that shelling peas always meant two people and a bit of confidence.
“Miss Marion,” called a voice from the kitchen-porch; “I am not fit to come in, I’m just out of the hay field. I’ve got a letter for you that’s been laid over, and a burning shame it is; and it is the second time it has happened. To excuse himself he said your box was full and this slipped out or was set aside. I gave the Bensalem postmaster a round scolding, and told him the parsonage mail was always important, and if it happened again I’d go straight to Washington and report him to Uncle Sam,” chuckled the old man to whom a letter was about the smallest thing in life.
“Uncle Cephas,” welcomed Marion, cordially, “thank you for the scolding and the letter.”
“I mustn’t come in; I brought the minister a load of hay. Don’t call him, I’ll find him. Your letter looks rather foreign.”
“Yes,” she said, trembling almost visibly after a glance at the post mark.
“Double postage too,” he said curiously.
“Yes,” she said again.
“Judith had a foreign letter last night, too.”
“Oh, yes, I see all her foreign letters,” she replied with an effort.
“I must go; don’t work too hard. So you like to be your own mistress and your own maid; no help at all this summer?”
“No; and once Judith and I did the washing; it was the best fun we ever had.”
“Our folks say you think you own Judith; but I guess you have as good a right to her as anybody. You and her Cousin Don; you do the most for her.”
He nodded, wiped his forehead with his soiled handkerchief, pushed down his tattered straw hat and went down the steps with a careful tread. Uncle Cephas was an old man—his age had come upon him suddenly. Marion watched him as he walked away; it was easier to look at the load of hay, the hayfield beyond the parsonage garden, easier to look at anything, and think of anything excepting that foreign letter. Why should Don write to her? He had not written for five long years, not once since that letter about Judith from Genoa. Was it because she had—refused him?
During all these years it never once entered her thoughts that she had refused him.
He did ask her to become his wife—if that were asking. And she had refused, if that were refusing.
“Can you have dinner in half an hour?” Roger asked, coming to the open window near the sink. “I only this minute remembered that I promised King to drive over this afternoon to talk his parish difficulties over with him. His housekeeper has gone, did I tell you? He’s keeping house by himself—has been trying it a month, or I’d take you and Judith for the drive; he would not relish your seeing his house-keeping. Don’t hurry too much; give me a cold dinner with a cup of coffee.”
“I’ll ring the bell in half an hour; Judith will help me,” she replied, hearing the sound of her own voice with every word she spoke.
The words she was speaking did not touch her own life—nothing was in her life but that letter in her hand; she had as much of it as she could bear just now, she thought she would hide it away and never open it. It was another thing to die and be buried.
Judith came and began to set the dinner table and to tell her the last pretty thing Nettie Evans said—Marion moved absently about the kitchen; the letter was pushed down in her dress pocket.
When at last she could bear the suspense no longer, she asked Judith to boil the eggs, and to bring the rice pudding from the cellar, and went up stairs to her own chamber and shut the door. If she did not have to bear this—if only it had not come to disturb her peace—she was satisfied without it. It was a long letter; it was full of something, her heart was beating so fast and choking her that she read sentence after sentence without gathering any thought or incident; it was words, words, words.
“I expect to sail for home next month; I am tired of being a stranger and a foreigner. You have never written to me beyond those two words; but I know what you have been to my Cousin Judith. I think I have grown old since you saw me; life has grown old if I have not. I know from the letters of Roger and Judith that you are just the same. Unless you are just the same I would not care to see you again. Your old friend, Don.”
She opened a drawer and laid the letter away; she would understand the rest of it when she was not in such a tumult. Did Roger know he was coming home? Judith had not told her. Had he told no one but herself? Did he expect her to tell the others? She had to take her eyes and burning cheeks down stairs, but she did not have to speak of her letter yet. And, after all, there was nothing in it to speak of. It was a letter not worth the writing.
The girl in the blue gingham, with the yellow waves of hair dropping to her waist in one long braid, was giving the last touches to the dinner table set for three; the roses in the centre of the table were from Aunt Affy’s garden.
“They are talking still—Uncle Cephas and Roger. They will never get through; they begin in the middle every time. I have been so interested that I forgot to boil the eggs. There are chops down cellar; shall I broil them? I always think of Don when I broil chops. I broiled chops for him that last time I saw him. Do you know I believe he is coming home soon? He thinks he will surprise me; but I have guessed it all summer.”
“Yes; get the chops,” replied Marion.
“And you listen there at the window,” laughed Judith; “Uncle Cephas is touching on marriage now. He told Roger he did a wrong thing when he married Jean Draper to a man who is not a Christian; she is only nineteen and does not know better, he said. Roger has been trying to argue himself right; but I don’t know how Roger could help that, do you?”
“No; Roger couldn’t help it; David Prince comes to church regularly and Roger admires him; Jean’s father and mother were willing; I think Uncle Cephas takes too much upon himself. Roger believes David Prince is a Christian and doesn’t know it. Roger knows it; and Jean does. But Roger never minds Uncle Cephas.”
Uncle Cephas was speaking with low intensity; standing at the window Marion listened: at first indignant, then she became interested. Roger would miss his appointment; perhaps he was so amused with the old man that he had forgotten his drive to Meadow Centre.
“You see, dominie, in marriage there’s a heap to look at besides young folks choosing each other, even more than parents being willing; parents may be mistaken—there’s the command that comes straight and strong. I am as interested in the marriage question as I am in all the other things that concerns the life of the church and the community; I’ve had years enough to study it theoretically,” he went on, with his deep laugh.
“Which command are you bringing down upon my head now?” inquired the minister, in a tone of good fellowship.
“Is it the dominie that asks which? You who should have all the commands, and promises, and threatenings at your tongue’s end—”
“My tongue would have no end then,” replied Roger.
“And the geography and history of the scriptures, too. I didn’t use to believe in studying the geography of the Bible until that man came from Antioch, and now I know Damascus and the land of the Chaldees, and Tyre and Sidon all by heart. Of course you know better than I do that command Joshua gave the people, and I verily believe it was more for the women than the men, as I told Affy in talking over Jean Draper’s case; women are naturally religious creatures, bless ’em.”
Judith and the chops were over the fire; Marion stood at the open window; Judith listened, and burnt her chops.
“Why, you remember,” Uncle Cephas ran on in the familiar voice with which he talked about his cattle and his crops, “that he told the people the nations should be snares and traps, and scourges in your sides and thorns in your eyes until they perished from off the good land, and the reason was, or would be, that they made marriages with them.”
“Yes, certainly,” interjected Roger impatiently.
“But that isn’t all; don’t say ‘certainly’ in such a matter of fact way; it was something else; it was making marriages ‘with the remnant,’ those that remain among you, not the round-about nations, but the among-you nations, and there’s where the danger is, I tell the young folks; young folks never know their dangers; it is the believers that don’t believe the folks that come to church and don’t confess Christ, that is the hindrance, and the ones that bring punishment of scourges and snares and traps and thorns; it is like the half of a truth that is the worst of a lie. David Prince comes regularly and listens to the truth, and if I do say it to your face, you put it powerful; and he goes away and by his actions confesses that he doesn’t believe a word you say. I labored with Jean Draper, but she only cried, like the dear girl she is, and said she couldn’t give him up; not if the whole session said so.”
“She came to me,” answered Roger, in his quietest tones, “and I told her to hold on to him and I would marry them if the session tore me to pieces.”
“I believe you would,” laughed Uncle Cephas. “Well, I’ve washed my hands. I didn’t expect to hinder anything. I suppose I can trust my minister if he hasn’t come to his gray hairs. I thought that hay was the first fruits and I’d bring it. You see Bensalem is as dear to me as the land of Israel to old Joshua and Samuel. The Lord’s eyes are always upon it, and it flows with milk and other good things. No offence, I hope,” he added in his sweet, old, slow voice.
Roger hurried into the house, and hustled Judith and her chops to the dinner table.
“I believe I’ll take you this afternoon, Judith; it’s time you began your vacation; all the other boarding-schools closed long ago. You will see the desolation of the Meadow Centre parsonage and offer your services on the spot. King can’t get a housekeeper to suit him since Mrs. Foster left. You will suit him exactly; perhaps he likes burnt chops.”
After the little bustle subsided, Marion asked: “Roger, why didn’t you tell him about Ruth of Moab—Judith and I are just reading Ruth, who married one of the chosen people, and, if Samuel wrote the story, he made the sweetest love-story that ever was written—and she was one in the direct line of the ancestry of Christ.”
“Because that would have been in confirmation of his point,” said Roger, breaking an egg carefully.
“I don’t see how,” replied Marion.
Judith listened; Roger never talked for the sake of argument; he pondered before he spoke again.
“She deliberately chose the God of Israel to be her God, giving herself to His worship and His people; Naomi had taught her; Naomi was a missionary—love of her mother-in-law was not all that decided her to leave her gods and her native land.”
“I thought it was because she loved Naomi,” said Judith, “and that was so lovely.”
“But Naomi’s son married her first,” argued Marion; “he had no right to do that.”
“Perhaps he was punished for it; perhaps both sons were punished for it; who knows?”
“But you do not think Jean has done wrong,” said Judith, sympathetically; “it will break her heart if she ever reasons herself into believing she has disobeyed.”
“Well, no,” replied Roger, dryly; “especially as David expects to confess his faith at the next communion. He would not do it before for fear that he would do it to please Jean. He did not dare tell her. He has told no one but myself.”
“Then, Roger, why didn’t you tell Uncle Cephas?” asked Judith, in astonishment.
“I thought he might as well learn that, even in Bensalem, there are some people he may misjudge. He knows Bensalem by head, once in a while, better than he knows it by heart.”
“Did you say you would take Judith to Meadow Centre,” Marion asked, bringing herself back from over the sea.
“Did I, Judith?”
“No, you said you believed you would take me,” said Judith, mischievously.
“I believe it still.”
“Would you like to go?” inquired Marion.
“I would not like to interfere with any of Roger’s beliefs.”
“Then be ready in ten minutes, or you will. I fed Daisy and she has had to eat in a hurry like her master.”
“But, Marion, I shall leave you with the dishes, and supper—”
“She couldn’t be left in better company,” Roger insisted; “don’t stop to change your dress; put on your big hat and we’ll be off.”
“Marion, do you want to be left alone?”
“More than anything else in the world,” said Marion, sincerely.