XI.
There were scores of people in Ashfield who would have been delighted to speak consolation to the bereaved clergyman; but he was not a man to be approached easily with the ordinary phrases of sympathy. He bore himself too sternly under his grief. What, indeed, can be said in the face of affliction, where the manner of the sufferer seems to say, "God has done it, and God does all things well"? Ordinary human sympathy falls below such a standpoint, and is wasted in the utterance.
Yet there are those, who delight in breaking in upon the serene dignity which this condition of mind implies with a noisy proffer of consolation, and an aggravating rehearsal of the occasion for it; as if such comforters entertained a certain jealousy of the serenity they do not comprehend, and were determined to test its sufficiency. Dame Tourtelot was eminently such a person.
"It's a dreadful blow to ye, Mr. Johns," said she, "I know it is. Almiry is a'most as much took down by it as you are. 'She was such a lovely woman,' she says; and the poor, dear little boy,—won't you let him come and pass a day or two with us? Almiry is very fond of children."
"Later, later, my good woman," says the parson. "I can't spare the boy now; the house is too empty."
"Oh, Mr. Johns,—the poor lonely thing!" (And she says this, with her hands in black mits, clasped together.) "It's a bitter blow! As I was a-sayin' to the Deacon, 'Such a lovely young woman, and such a good comfortable home, and she, poor thing, enjoyin' it so much!' I do hope you'll bear up under it, Mr. Johns."
"By God's help, I will, my good woman."
Dame Tourtelot was disappointed to find the parson wincing so little as he did under her stimulative sympathy. On returning home, she opened her views to the Deacon in this style:—
"Tourtelot, the parson is not so much broke down by this as we've been thinkin'; he was as cool, when I spoke to him to-day, as any man I ever see in my life. The truth is, she was a flighty young person, noways equal to the parson. I've been a-suspectin' it this long while; she never, in my opinion, took a real hard hold upon him. But, Tourtelot, you should go and see Mr. Johns; and I hope you'll talk consolingly and Scripterally to him. It's your duty."
And hereupon she shifted the needles in her knitting, and, smoothing down the big blue stocking-leg over her knee, cast a glance at the Deacon which signified command. The dame was thoroughly mistress in her own household, as well as in the households of not a few of her neighbors. Long before, the meek, mild-mannered little man who was her husband had by her active and resolute negotiation been made a deacon of the parish,—for which office he was not indeed ill-fitted, being religiously disposed, strict in his observance of all duties, and well-grounded in the Larger Catechism. He had, moreover, certain secular endowments which were even more marked,—among them, a wonderful instinct at a bargain, which had been polished by Dame Tourtelot's superior address to a wonderful degree of sharpness; and by reason of this the less respectful of the townspeople were accustomed to say, "The Deacon is very small at home, but great in a trade." Not that the Deacon could by any means be called an avaricious or miserly man: he had always his old Spanish milled quarter ready for the contribution-box upon Collection-Sundays; and no man in the parish brought a heavier turkey to the parson's larder on donation-days: but he could no more resist the sharpening of a bargain than he could resist a command of his wife. He talked of a good trade to the old heads up and down the village street as a lad talks of a new toy.
"Squire," he would say, addressing a neighbor on the Common, "what do you s'pose I paid for that brindle ye'rlin' o' mine? Give us a guess."
"Waäl, Deacon, I guess you paid about ten dollars."
"Only eight!" the Deacon would say, with a smile that was fairly luminous,—"and a pootty likely critter I call it for eight dollars."
"Five hogs this year," (in this way the Deacon was used to soliloquize,)—"I hope to make 'em three hundred apiece. The price works up about Christmas: Deacon Simmons has sold his'n at five,—distillery-pork; that's sleezy, wastes in bilin'; folks know it: mine, bein' corn-fed, ought to bring half a cent more,—and say, for Christmas, six; that'll give a gain of a cent,—on five hogs, at three hundred apiece, will be fifteen dollars. That'll pay half my pew-rent, and leave somethin' over for Almiry, who's always wantin' fresh ribbons about New-Year's."
The Deacon cherished a strong dread of formal visits to the parsonage: first, because it involved his Sunday toilet, in which he was never easy, except at conference or in his pew at the meeting-house; and next, because he counted it necessary on such occasions to give a Scriptural garnish to his talk, in which attempt he almost always, under the authoritative look of the parson, blundered into difficulty. Yet Tourtelot, in obedience to his wife's suggestion, and primed with a text from Matthew, undertook the visit of condolence,—and, being a really kind-hearted man, bore himself well in it. Over and over the good parson shook his hand in thanks.
"It'll all be right," says the Deacon. "'Blessed are the mourners,' is the Scripteral language, 'for they shall inherit the earth.'"
"No, not that, Deacon," says the minister, to whom a misquotation was like a wound in the flesh; "the last thing I want is to inherit the earth. 'They shall be comforted,'—that's the promise, Deacon, and I count on it."
It was mortifying to his visitor to be caught napping on so familiar a text; the parson saw it, and spoke consolingly. But if not strong in texts, the Deacon knew what his strong points were; so, before leaving, he invites a little offhand discussion of more familiar topics.
"Pootty tight spell o' weather we've been havin', Parson."
"Rather cool, certainly," says the unsuspecting clergyman.
"Got all your winter's stock o' wood in yit?"
"No, I haven't," says the parson.
"Waäl, Mr. Johns, I've got a lot of pastur'-hickory cut and corded, that's well seared over now,—and if you'd like some of it, I can let you have it very reasonable indeed."
The sympathy of the Elderkins, if less formal, was none the less hearty. The Squire had been largely instrumental in securing the settlement of Mr. Johns, and had been a political friend of his father's. In early life he had been engaged in the West India trade from the neighboring port of Middletown; and on one or two occasions he had himself made the voyage to Porto Rico, taking out a cargo of horses, and bringing back sugar, molasses, and rum. But it was remarked approvingly in the bar-room of the Eagle Tavern that this foreign travel had not made the Squire proud,—nor yet the moderate fortune which he had secured by the business, in which he was still understood to bear an interest. His paternal home in Ashfield he had fitted up some years before with balustrade and other architectural adornments, which, it was averred by the learned in those matters, were copied from certain palatial residences in the West Indies.
The Squire united eminently in himself all those qualities which a Connecticut observer of those times expressed by the words, "right down smart man." Not a turnpike enterprise could be started in that quarter of the State, but the Squire was enlisted, and as shareholder or director contributed to its execution. A clear-headed, kindly, energetic man, never idle, prone rather to do needless things than to do nothing; an ardent disciple of the Jeffersonian school, and in this combating many of those who relied most upon his sagacity in matters of business; a man, in short, about whom it was always asked, in regard to any question of town or State policy, "What does the Squire think?" or "How does the Squire mean to vote?" And the Squire's opinion was sure to be a round, hearty one, which he came by honestly, and about which one who thought differently might safely rally his columns of attack. The opinion of Giles Elderkin was not inquired into for the sake of a tame following-after,—that was not the Connecticut mode,—but for the sake of discussing and toying with it: very much as a sly old grimalkin toys with a mouse,—now seeming to entertain it kindly, then giving it a run, then leaping after it, crunching a limb of it, bearing it off into some private corner, giving it a new escape, swallowing it perhaps at last, and appropriating it by long process of digestion. And even then, the shrewd Connecticut man, if accused of modulating his own opinions after those of the Squire, would say, "No, I allers thought so."
Such a man as Giles Elderkin is of course ready with a hearty, outspoken word of cheer for his minister. Nay, the very religion of the Squire, which the parson had looked upon as somewhat discursive and human,—giving too large a place to good works,—was decisive and to the point in the present emergency.
"It's God's doing," said he; "we must take the cup He gives us. For the best, isn't it, Parson?"
"I do, Squire. Thank God, I can."
There was good Mrs. Elderkin—who made up by her devotion to the special tenets of the clergyman many of the shortcomings of the Squire—insisted upon sending for the poor boy Reuben, that he might forget his grief in her kindness, and in frolic with the Elderkins through that famous garden, with its huge hedges of box,—such a garden as was certainly not to be matched elsewhere in Ashfield. The same good woman, too, sends down a wagon-load of substantial things from her larder, for the present relief of the stricken household; to which the Squire has added a little round jug of choice Santa Cruz rum,—remembering the long watches of the parson. This may shock us now; and yet it is to be feared that in our day the sin of hypocrisy is to be added to the sin of indulgence: the old people nestled under no cover of liver specifics or bitters. Reform has made a grand march indeed; but the Devil, with his square bottles and Scheidam schnapps, has kept a pretty even pace with it.