A Silent Singer

by Clara Morris

I found that “Old John,” in his fancied quarrel with the Church, had suffered cruelly. He had neglected his duties, and had then been unhappy because of that neglect. He was very bitter and deeply wounded, and that day he exclaimed sadly: “It’s hard, madam—it’s hard that a man should be made to lose his soul!”

“Never say that again, John!” I cried. “There is just one man created who can lose your soul for you, and that man is John Hickey.”

He looked at me a moment, then putting one forefinger on my arm he asked, solemnly: “Madam Clara, are you talking as a Catholic or as a Protestant, now?”

Laugh I had to, though I saw it hurt the poor, bewildered one before me and belied the tears in my own eyes. But I made answer quickly: “I’m speaking neither as Catholic nor Protestant, but simply as a woman, who, like yourself, has a soul, and does not want to lose it! Don’t look so unhappy! Your Church is beautiful, great and powerful, but there is One who is greater, more beautiful and more powerful. In all the ages there has been but One who left the unspeakable joy of Heaven to come to earth to suffer and toil, to love and lose, to hope and despair, and finally to give up His perfect life to an ignominious death, because His boundless love saw no other way to save us from the horror of eternal death! He paid too great a price for souls to cast them easily away. There is but one Saviour for us all, be we what we may! There is but one God whose smile makes Heaven. We travel by different paths—oh, yes! We wear different liveries, some showing the gorgeous vestments of the stately Catholic, some the solemn drab of the Quaker, others black robes. But the paths all lead to the one place, and the great questions are, do we love the One we seek, and have we loved and helped those we traveled with? John, make Christ your Church, and the mightiest cannot harm you!” and, catching up the scant fold of my riding-habit, I turned and fled from the only sermon I ever preached in my life, while from behind me came certain familiar sentences, such as, “Yis, yis! Ye’re fine horses, that ye are, but it’s too soon for water yit, y’r know, because,” etc., etc., but all spoken in so husky a voice it might have been a stranger’s.

Anxious, economical old body, from the early fall he began to watch over the welfare of our house. We, sleeping in it, knew no sooner of a loosened shutter than did “Old John,” who immediately began a still-hunt for the offender. But his drollest habit, I think, was the making of a slow, close search over all the grounds, and even out into the road, after every storm, seeking for possible slates torn from the roof. On one of my homecomings from a long season he met me with a small bill for mending the roof, and he anxiously explained that he did it, he knew, without orders, but if he hadn’t, it would have got worse and made a leak and would have ruined thousands of dollars’ worth of beautiful frocks up there! Please bear in mind that the figures mentioned are “Old John’s,” not mine.

I assured him it was all right. I thought his face would clear, but no, not yet. He carefully produced a large, flat package from under his table, and when the package was gravely opened, there lay a collection of broken slates. John had saved them all as his witnesses, and he would take up the best of them and explain: “If it had broken this way, instead of that way, it might have been replaced, but as it was, do you think now, ma’am, that I could have done any different?” The second assurance satisfied him, and his face resumed its usual contented look.

So we all moved our wonted ways until that lovely spring day, when a pale-faced messenger ran up to the house to say, “Oh, madam! Old John has had a fall, and he’s hurt bad!”

I thrust my feet into a pair of bed-room slippers, being myself ill at the time, flung a loose gown about me, and, with my mother, hurried with all possible speed down to the stable. He was stretched out—not sitting—in a horribly unnatural position on a chair. His face was ghastly, his eyes dim, his pulse almost unfindable. I gave him a stimulant, praying inwardly that I might not be doing wrong. I learned from the others that he had washed the pony phaeton, and was pushing it backward to its place when he had slipped and fallen heavily, face forward, on those cruel cobblestones.

I was convinced he was seriously injured, and leaving my mother attending to his wants and directing the men how to get him to his room, I hurried back to the house, wishing at every step that my husband would come, and hastily telephoned for the doctor. When the doctor and Mr. H—— were both on the spot and I could retire to the background, I was surprised at my feeling of profound depression. “Old John” had had two falls far and away worse than this one, but that look on his face, it was neither age nor pain—though both were there—that so impressed me. It was a look of hopeless finality, and accepting it as a warning, I hastened to inquire if John would see a priest, and lo! as I had thought, the old faith was warm within him, since he answered readily that he’d see the priest, if we would be so kind.

But here the doctor interfered, saying he should prefer the patient to be kept quiet, and to my eager protest made answer: “He is really safe for the night; the morning will tell whether he is fatally injured or not, and I promise I will give you ample notice.”