The Rev. Hyler, minister, farmer, father of seven sons, was himself a seventh son, and had he been examined at his birth with that closeness of scrutiny given to first-born babies, I’m positive the word “failure” could have been found plainly stamped upon his small person. He was a tall, gray, narrow man, and seemed always to have a bitter taste in his mouth. Black-coated, white-tied and pale, he seemed to have been pressed between the leaves of some old volume of sermons and left there till all the color and sap had dried out of him as it might dry out of a pressed violet or pansy. Perpetual ill-humor had stamped to the very bone the three-lined frown he wore between his eyebrows. He was an educated man and full of information—that was of no use to him. He could give statistics as to the number of the inhabitants of Palestine, but he could not tell whether an unsatisfactory field required topdressing or under-draining. He had been an instructor, a teacher; had, in fact, been at the head of one of the State colleges, but failed and came back, much embittered, to the small church he had left with such high hopes; but finding he had provided himself with more mouths than his salary could well fill he had taken to farming, at which he seemed to be the greatest failure of all.
Narrow and cold by nature, soured by disappointment, he loved but one person on earth, and that person was his first-born child, his only daughter, Linda. He admired her, he was proud of her, he loved her, truly and tenderly, beyond a doubt; but, alas, as surely beyond a doubt, his was a jealous and a selfish love, and she, with eyes whose power and penetration fully equalled their rare beauty of coloring, read him through and through, as she might have read a book! Saw the dry, gray man’s weakness of resolve, his bitter temper, his small tyrannies, and worse—far worse, because that was a most repellant sin—his hypocrisy; saw all these things and with no touch of sympathy for any one of them, but, with what seemed almost divine compassion, she gave him reverent service and such tender, loyal love as many a better father fails all his life to win.
And this sweet Linda, woman-grown—this young lady who had “come out,” and had had a season of social gaiety in the city—who—oh, wondrous being! had had real “for true” lovers—she stooped from her high estate to honor me with her attention, her conversation—even, to a certain point, her confidence—while I had only reached that humiliating stage in life where old ladies could refer to me as a “growing-girl.” And this condescension filled me with such joy—such stupendous pride—I marvel it did not precede a mighty fall. But, looking back upon it all, I think I see a pathetic reason for that unequal companionship. My mother, knowing me to be painfully sensitive to suffering or sorrow, kept from me the knowledge that the girl I so loved was slowly dying, a victim of that fell disease, consumption! Her days were so surely numbered that no one had the faintest hope that she would see the yellowing of the leaves that now danced greenly on the trees. I saw her pale and very, very fragile, and only loved her more. I saw her faint sometimes, but I had seen other women faint when I knew they were not ill, and, to my childish ideas, anyone who rose from her bed and dressed each day must surely be quite well. So it came about that in my eyes alone she belonged still to the world of the living—in my face alone could she read love without anxiety, and when she laughed, as she often did, it was only in my eye she found a hearty, gay response, for every other glance was full of anguished pity.
If my ignorance was not bliss, it was, at least, I truly think, a comfort to her, since by its help she could forget for a time, at least, that she was doomed and set aside as having nothing more to do with life. And my profound interest and naïf admiration egged her on to tell me of the gay, sweet past—such an innocent, pitifully short past it was—of her small triumphs and her pretty frocks. Sometimes she would even show me her few girlish trinkets, but I was quick to observe that if I ever asked about her future use of them a sort of shudder passed over her white face and her eyes would close quickly for a moment; then she would answer evasively, gently; yet there was a flatness in the tones of her voice, and she would surely remark, “that she would try now to doze a little.”
It was not long before my observation brought me closer to her tender heart, while slowly I learned, little by little, something of the weight of the cross this fragile girl was bearing on her trembling shoulders.
Mrs. Hyler was, I think, the most disconcerting person in this uncomfortable family. Her manner toward them was that of a moderately devoted housekeeper—head nurse, who presumed slightly by reason of her long service. The last scant drop of kindness—the last ray of warmth of affection—I dare not use a stronger word—was for her Linda! But we must remember that for four and twenty years she had listened to what the Rev. Hyler “was going to do,” and had suffered from what the Rev. Hyler “did not do,” and there was no hope left in her.
I shall not introduce her sons individually, but will simply state that between the Spanish-looking eldest one—brave, loyal, honest and kind—and the impish youngest, with the face of a blond seraph and a heart like a nether mill-stone, there were five others, each one striving to be—or so it seemed—as unlike his brothers as possible. In all their lives they had found but two subjects they could agree upon; on these, however, they were as one boy. Their honest, hearty love for “Sister Linda” was one subject, and a fixed determination to “get even” with their father was the other.
Linda Hyler loved music profoundly, and she had not only natural talent, but powers of concentration and a capacity for hard work that might have made an artist of her. And the poor child had had her opportunity—for one with means and power and the inclination to use them, attracted by the purity and volume of her voice and by her earnest ambition, had offered to assist her to that stern training, so difficult in those days to obtain, even when one had the money to pay for it. But if she had talent, she also had a father, and he with the bitter taste seemingly strong in his mouth, refused the kindly offer, giving no nobler reason for his act than that “she was his only daughter and he would miss her far too much.” She pleaded with him in vain, and had the pain of seeing her one opportunity float away from her, taking on, as it went, all the airy grace, all the glancing beauty of a bubble floating in the sunshine.
Had her father not provided so much material for its building, the cross she bore might not have been so heavy. Up to the time of our arrival, Linda had managed to sit a little while each day before the battered old organ that stood in an otherwise empty room. To any other family it would have been the parlor—to this family it was a thing without a name. But even as you have seen a timid, lonely woman appear at her window, whistling loudly and wearing a man’s hat—by means of which she convinces would-be burglars of the presence there of a large and very destructive man—so these parlor windows were well curtained, that the occasional humped-over, slow-driving passer-by might be convinced that this parlor held—(as much ingrain-horse-hair-worsted-crocheting, and high art plaster cats, with round black spots and heavy coats of varnish as any)—and I suppose that one trick was quite as convincing as the other—any way, there sat Linda in that dreary room, before the organ, drawing from its sulky and unwilling interior sounds of such solemn sweetness as made one pray involuntarily; and sometimes she played simply an accompaniment—sitting with lifted face and closed eyes, the veins swelling in her throat, but no sound coming from her moving lips. Already I had become her second shadow, and so I’d creep into the empty room after her, and listen to her playing, and once when I was greatly moved, she turned to me and said: “Little Sister”—the pet name she had graciously bestowed on me—“what does that make you think of?”
And without a pause I answered eagerly: “A church—not,” I hurriedly explained, “not our church, but a great one with pictures, and lots of people, and lights and sweet-smoke!”