“Well,” said she, looking aghast, and sinking into her chair anew, “I declare, if I hadn’t forgot that!”
But she was a person who “made it a point” to carry her point in all domestic arrangements and controversies with her lord; and partly on this principle, and partly, we hope, from a worthier motive, she rallied, and added,–
“But I’ll risk it, if you will, James. An’ I’m more in danger ’n you are, bein’ I’m so fleshy. You can hide most anywhere in the woods, and they couldn’t find ye any more ’n a needle in a haymow; an’ I never could stand it to think on’t that we’d been sich cowards–”
“Cowards!” interrupted her husband, goaded by this; for on the matter of size and courage he was specially sore–a wound which his spouse took care to keep open. “Cowards!” and, bristling about, and striking his feet together, he 208 bustled out, and, with commendable energy, soon had the horse in the buggy before the door. Tom sprang in, as the kind-hearted woman passed him a bountiful supply of provisions, saying, as she wiped her eyes with her apron,–
“I hope next time you come this way you’ll be alive an’ well; but I’m dreadful afeard the Injuns’ll git ye.” The latter remark seemed to have more effect upon her husband than Tom, for the flush disappeared from his cheeks again.
The ponderous wife watched the wagon until it was out of sight, then, with much pains, fastened the little window and the outer door, and, going to her trunk, took from thence a copy of the Bible, and sat down and read a chapter–a duty which she always performed on extra occasions, and especially in times of danger. It mattered not to her what chapter she read; and she now opened to the genealogical records in First Chronicles. She was a poor reader at best; but she struggled on with those names of foreign accent, feeling much safer with the exercise, while her thoughts were far away, following Tom and her husband. In truth, she had done a good deed, and one that had cost her a real sacrifice, in sending away her husband with the horse to accompany the lad; and the consciousness of this began to fill her with happiness, calmed as she was by the feeling of security which the 209 use of the good Book imparted. Hers was a simple-hearted faith; but who shall say that she was not accepted and blessed according to the measure of her light?
Who would not choose to be such a one, with her defective knowledge and her weak superstition,–as some would call it,–than the proud sceptic, ever croaking, like some hideous night-bird, as he turns his bleared eyes away from the beams of the Sun of Righteousness, “No God, no Bible, no Saviour, no Heaven of blessedness, no Immortality,” wandering through life without hope and God in the world, and, at death, taking a frightful “leap in the dark”!