“I have no advice to give you, because you would take nothing kindly from me, and because I seldom give it to anyone. Every man must advise himself, after he is convinced what course he had better pursue. The world is full of people giving good advice to others, but I have thought we should all be better off if we would advise ourselves more, and others less. If I could take the good advice I am capable of giving, I should have no occasion to accept it from others. The same is true in your case; advise yourself, and see that your advice is good. I believe you will succeed over there, and I earnestly hope you will. No more need be said on the subject.”
When he began his thinking again, I thought it was to wonder why Jo should not feel grateful to him now instead of in the future (he was sure he would then), after he was dead, and in need of no evidence that the course he had pursued was right.
. . . . .
That night I resolved to remain awake to see if my mother came to me in my room. She did not disappoint me, and, coming in quietly, sat down on the foot of the bed, where she remained in deep study a long while. I could not see her face, but I was certain it was thoughtful and sad, and that she felt ill at ease, and wretched. The moon was shining outside, and she pulled aside the curtain to look at us. At last she got up, and bending over the bed kissed me tenderly. I threw my arms about her neck, and said: “Mother!”
She fell on her knees beside the bed, and sobbed in such distress that my father heard her, and came in hurriedly from the other room to inquire what was the matter. But only her sobbing answered him, and speaking to her tenderly, as if divining what had affected her, he led her away, with his arm around her.
“Your father has been thinking again,” Jo said, as the door closed upon them. “I was awake, too. Ned, never keep anything from me again.”
CHAPTER XI.
WITH REFERENCE TO A MAN WHO WAS SENT WEST TO
GROW UP WITH THE COUNTRY, OR GET KILLED.
A FEW months after the Shepherds came to Fairview, and after they had become fairly settled in their new home (they lived beyond Erring’s Ford, and on the other edge of the timber which began there), a fellow arrived who was thoroughly disliked from the moment of his appearance, because he had an insolent manner, an insolent walk, and was insolent in everything he did, to say nothing of his flashy dress and a general air of impudence. His name was Clinton Bragg, and as he appeared there in company with the Shepherds, it was soon understood that in the country from which they came their families had been intimate and friends. I think he only consented to visit Fairview church on the Sunday of his first appearance, as a geologist consents to enter a dirty pit in the earth, for the satisfaction of seeing curious specimens and formations, and he regarded the people he saw, whom he looked at with a cool stare, as a herd of peculiar beasts or a drove of something.
Mr. Shepherd had applied himself with great industry to agriculture—although it was not expected of him, as his salary was sufficient for his support—but a member of the congregation had given him the free use of a piece of land, and he devoted certain hours of each day to cultivating it. His appetite and strength (both of which had deserted him years before) had returned from this exercise, and he progressed so well that it was known that after he had remained at Fairview as long as the rules of the church allowed, he would give up preaching altogether and follow agriculture instead.
The people thought a great deal of him, as he was kind and gentle, and preached a religion less rigorous than my father’s had been, and they were useful to him in so many ways that he was greatly pleased with the people and the community, for I think he had never lived in a place before where he was of so much importance. Therefore it was plain that he was annoyed by Bragg’s impertinence, and I thought Mateel and her mother shared the feeling. He sat with them during the services, but went out in a rude way immediately after the preaching was over, giving the people to understand as plainly as he could that he thought them inferior. Through the open door from where I sat I could see him standing out at the gate like an evil spirit, and I could not help thinking that Fairview was progressing, for all sorts of people were coming in. I had never seen a man like this one before, for we knew by his manner that he lived without work.