The Story of a Life

by J. Breckenridge Ellis

It was September, 1867 that Oliver Carr asked Mattie Myers to go with him to Australia. For six months she hesitated, refused, wavered. It was not a question of devotion to each other, but of loyalty to the life-ideal of each. Going to Australia meant three or five or seven years away from Mattie's chosen vocation. She weighed at its full value the argument that she could teach in Melbourne; of course, she could teach; but teaching must necessarily be subordinate to missionary work. Mattie did not undervalue the importance of missionary labors; but neither did she undervalue the importance of touching girls' lives in the school room.

In the struggle, McGarvey and Williams, as we have seen, took opposite sides; McGarvey was for his pupil, Oliver; Williams was for his pupil, Mattie. Each looked at the question from his point of view. To the President of the Bible College, what was more important than carrying the Bible across the sea? To the President of Daughters' College, teaching was the exalted vocation of woman—Let O. A. Carr do his man's work, he argued; and let Mattie Myers do her woman's work.

And there was brother Joe, who had done so much for Mattie—the brother whom she feared she might love too well—pleading, arguing, exhorting. "Let Oliver go to Australia," he insisted, "and when he comes back—at the end of his five or seven years, then, if you and he think as much of each other as you do now, why—" But the proposition seemed quite safe, so he added with a stout heart, "then you can get married!" But on this side of the five years, No! Never! And when words fail him, and arguments need to be rested, each having done service so often for want of new ones—Joe gets his flute and sits on the piazza with Mattie, these balmy spring evenings of 1868, and plays and plays—plays always the old familiar melodies, the airs that are wrapped up with her most sacred memories—"Old Kentucky Home," and "Home, Sweet Home," and—we fear—"Bonnie Blue Flag" that carries up the bars and would sweep the stars from the Heaven of Union blue.

"I Will Go."

All this is too much for Mattie; her own conscience, the advice of Williams, "that prince of instructors," as she calls him, and beloved Joe; all cry out against Australia. She writes to Oliver—

"I pray that the love of God may strengthen you to accomplish your holy mission, and bring you back to waiting hearts in your own Kentucky land. I may regret the decision that prevents me from going with you. I may, after you are gone, regret that my hand is not to help you; I weep to labor with you. I do not know. But I have tried to enlighten my conscience, and it must not be disregarded. Go, and give to the weary rest, and to those that thirst, of the well of living water. Though I must suffer, there is a morn and land beyond it all. Go, and work for God."

In these days when evangelistic work would permit Oliver to come to Lancaster, he visited Mattie Myers as her accepted suitor. After her day's work in the schoolroom, she listened to his reading of "Lady of Lyons," and after the "Lady of Lyons" had had her say, talk would drift to Australia. It was at the conclusion of such a talk at Mt. Carmel—how earnest we may imagine—when Joe was not there—that we may take for granted—the young teacher rose with the solemnity of one who takes an irretrievable step, having counted all the costs—"I will go!"

Those are her words. And having spoken, the matter is settled. Let poor Joe play his flute-airs, and look mournfully into space; let Williams say what he will, or Pinkerton, or anybody else. Mattie has spoken. That means a wedding-day on March the twenty-sixth.

Not that Joe understands how unalterable is her mind. Indeed, he is in no condition to bear the truth. That voyage seems to him a death, the going out from his life of the dearest object of his affections. He grows wild when she tries to make him understand her mind. When Oliver reasons with him, he no longer answers with arguments, but with mere incoherent passion, partly anger, partly despair. So this is what we will do; we will go to Mt. Carmel without telling Joe,—yonder at the home of the sister, Mrs. O'Bannon, where we first met, whence we took that Spring-wagon excursion to the ineffective spring of Æsculapia. Mattie will take the stage that comes down to Maysville. Oliver will be standing upon the pike, out of sight of any kinsman's house. Mattie will order the stage to stop. He will get in—off we will go.