At ten o'clock precisely we heard the great bell rung by Tabitha, who until then kept watch at the house. While it was ringing, a family came in of which I must speak more particularly, because I feel already that I shall speak of it often. This family has only recently arrived in the neighborhood. The father, I think, is Southern born; the mother must be from the North. They brought all their children, down to the baby, three years old, that listened with all its eyes, as the rest with all their hearts. They had been here only twice before; but the perfect unity of this little family, which seemed always influenced by one feeling, moved by one will, the anxious watchfulness of the parents, the close dependence of the children, had already greatly interested me. This man and woman have certainly known more prosperous, if not better days. The lines of their faces, their whole bearing, tell of successive reverses, worthily, though not resolutely borne,—of a down-hill path long trodden by patient, but unresisting feet. There are no signs of struggle against adverse fortune. But, in such a struggle, how often do the charm and joy of life perish, torn and trampled by their very rescuers! These people have maintained their equanimity, if not their cheerfulness. They have no reproaches for themselves or each other. The bench was for this family. The father, the mother with the baby in her lap, the daughter, and the second son filled it; the eldest sat at his mother's feet, and, when he was particularly moved or pleased by anything that was read, looked up to her to see if he was right. A great gravity held the whole group,—deepest on the elder faces, and gradually shading off into the undue tranquillity of the infantile look.
When Tabitha came, she brought the little white vase with Harry's flowers, and put it on the table, where, indeed, it ought to have been.
I seldom read the whole of a sermon. I like to keep more time for the Bible. And then I omit those passages which I foresee might provoke questions which I should not dare to assume the responsibility of answering. I do not presume to take upon myself the office of religious teacher. I only strive, in the absence of one, to keep alive in myself and those near me a constant sense of God's presence and care, and of the bond which, uniting us to Him, unites us to each other. This I do by reading the words of those who have had this sense most strongly and have expressed it most vividly.
Of the sermon I had chosen I read the first paragraph, and then, turning over nine pages, began with the Privileges of Friendship. I do not know whether this discourse of South's is to others what it is to me. Perhaps there is something in it particularly adapted to my needs,—or perhaps it is because it came to me first at a time when I was very eager for the assurances it gives; but I never read it without feeling a new inflow of peace and security. At least some of those who heard it with me that day felt with me. Harry I was sure of beforehand. When we broke up, and I went forward to speak to the strangers on the bench, it seemed to me that their anxieties were soothed by something softer than patience. An indefinable change had passed over the whole family. They all seemed lightened of a part of the habitual burden. I took them up to my mother. She asked them to be sure and come on Easter Sunday; they accepted in earnest; but with their poor little wagon and poor old mule they will hardly encounter the rain and the mud to-day.
I was so intent on my letter, that I forgot the weather, until, writing the word rain, I looked towards the window. It does not rain, and has apparently held up for some time. And now I hear a racket in the road, and a stumping, that can come only from the poor little wagon and the poor old mule.
Afternoon, 3 o'clock.
It is raining again; but I think our friends had time to reach their homes before it began. We have had a happy day, notwithstanding its dull promise. I read an Easter sermon,—"Because it was not possible that he should be holden of it." The text itself is more than a thousand sermons.
The name of the family that was arriving this morning when I left off writing is Linton. They are from Western Virginia. They stayed with us for an hour after the reading was over. Our interest in them is still increased. Winford came again. I asked him to stay; he declined; but I think he was pleased at being invited. The Hanthams came, mother and daughter. They arrived at the last moment, and went at the closing of the book. The corner in which the table stood was curtained off, so that there was no visible sign of unusual hospitality; but they had perhaps heard of the custom of the day. Mrs. Hantham would not have been inexorable; but she was summoned away by a gesture a little too imperative, perhaps, from a daughter to her mother. Davis Barton came on horseback, without his father. I set him off again at one o'clock; for the sky threatened, and his road home was a difficult one at best.
But let me go back to last Sunday. I was just at the breaking-up of our little assembly by the pine.