Friend Barton's "concern" kept him awake long that night. His wife watched by his side, giving no sign, lest her wakeful presence should disturb his silent wrestlings. The tall, cherry-wood clock in the entry measured the hours as they passed with its slow, dispassionate tick.
At two o'clock Rachel Barton was awakened from her first sleep of weariness by her husband's voice whispering heavily in the darkness.
"My way is hedged up! I see no way to go forward. Lord, strengthen my patience, that I murmur not, after all I have seen of Thy goodness. I find daily bread is very desirable; want and necessity are painful to nature; but shall I follow Thee for the sake of the loaves, or will it do to forsake Thee in times of emptiness and abasement?"
There was silence again, and restless tossings and sighings continued the struggle.
"Thomas," the wife's voice spoke tremulously in the darkness, "my dear husband, I know where thy thoughts are tending. If the Spirit is with thee, do not deny it for our sakes, I pray thee. The Lord did not give thee thy wife and children to hang as a millstone round thy neck. I am thy helpmeet, to strengthen thee in his service. I am thankful that I have my health this spring better than usual, and Dorothy is a wonderful help. Her spirit was sent to sustain me in thy long absences. Go, dear, and serve our Master, who has called thee in these bitter strivings! Dorothy and I will keep things together as well as we can. The way will open—never fear!" She put out her hand and touched his face in the darkness; there were tears on the furrowed cheeks. "Try to sleep, dear, and let thy spirit have rest. There is but one answer to this call."
With the first drowsy twitterings of the birds, when the crescent-shaped openings in the board shutters began to define themselves clearly in the shadowy room, they arose and went about their morning tasks in silence. Friend Barton's step was a little heavier than usual, and the hollows round his wife's pale brown eyes were a little deeper. As he sat on the splint-bottomed chair by the kitchen fireplace, drawing on his boots, she laid her hands on his shoulders, and her cheek on the worn spot on the top of his head.
"Thee will lay this concern before meeting to-morrow, father?"
"I had it on my mind to do so,—if my light be not quenched before then."
Friend Barton's light was not quenched. Words came to him without seeking, in which to "open the concern which had ripened in his mind," of a religious visit to the meeting constituting the yearly meetings of Philadelphia and Baltimore. A "minute" was given him encouraging him in the name of, and with the full concurrence of, the monthly meetings of Nine Partners, and Stony Valley, to go wherever the Truth might lead him. While Friend Barton was thus freshly anointed, and "abundantly encouraged," his wife, Rachel, was talking with Dorothy in the low upper chamber, known as the "wheel-room."
Dorothy was spinning wool on the big wheel, dressed in her light calico short-gown and brown quilted petticoat; her arms were bare, and her hair was gathered away from her flushed cheeks and knotted behind her ears. The roof sloped down on one side, and the light came from a long low window under the eaves. There was another window (shaped like a half moon high up in the peak), but it sent down only one long beam of sunlight, which glimmered across the dust and fell upon Dorothy's white neck.