Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories

by Sarah S. Baker

"It would seem more solemn to see the pastor in his black gloves if he didn't wear them always," said the cellar-master. "Why does he do it? I never happened to meet anybody that knew. He's still-like himself, and nobody likes to ask him questions. Some people say it is to make him look grand with fine folks, and to kind of put down them that have bare hands used to work."

"Don't you know about his hands?" asked Gull, with surprise. "I've known it so many years, it seems as if everybody must have heard that."

"I don't happen to have inquired into the matter," said the cellar-master, somewhat humiliated. "I have never been one to gossip."

"Why, I was there when it happened," broke out Gull, eager to tell her story to a new listener. "He was stable-boy when I was housemaid at the major's. My lady was sitting in the carriage one day, and Lars—we called him Lars then—was standing holding the horses. My lady had sent the coachman in for his cape, for it was getting cold—just like her. The horses took fright at a travelling music-man who came along, and must begin just then to play. Off they started full run, dragging Lars, who hung on to the reins until they stopped. He'd have held on to those reins, I'm sure, till he died (what he began he always stuck to); and my lady sitting there in the carriage half scared to death. The fingers on his left hand were cut to the bones. They were long healing, and a sight to be seen then at the best. The right wasn't much better, dragged along the road as it had been. My lady always liked Lars after that. He had always been for reading; and when he took it into his head he wanted to be a priest, she helped him, and other folks helped him too. He changed his name, as poor fellows do when they go to Upsala. When my lady and the major were taken off so sudden with the fever, he kept on at his learning. He wouldn't have given up if he'd had to starve. But he didn't, for one way and another he got on. And then what a wife he picked up, and a little money with her too; not that it's enough to wipe out old scores. Those Upsala debts hang after him, as they have after many another. He's got them all in one hand now, they say, so that he hasn't to pay on them more than once a year, and that time is just coming on. You can see it in him as well as you can see in the west when there'll be snow next morning. He's rubbed through so far, but it sits heavy. I'm not in their kitchen for an odd bit of work now and then for nothing. I see what I see, and I hear what I hear. Beda is lonely like, and she's pleased to have somebody to talk out to. What if the pastor and his wife should find out who's who!" she continued, pointing over her shoulder at the supposed sleeper.

The cellar-master gave a stupid look at her mysterious face.

"That's the major's son over there," she whispered—"Alf, who ran off and never came back. I must tell somebody, if I should die for it. But you mustn't breathe it to a living soul."

"Not that beautiful young fellow! No, no; you don't make me believe that. Don't I remember him? This one isn't a bit like him—an ugly, worthless-looking old tramp. He was a wild chap, Alf. My wife used to tell me it was a shame to let him come there and drink—drink down a glass as if he couldn't swallow it quick enough, and then another, and then go out to the stable-boy, who was there to help him home. But that's not Alf. I'd know that handsome fellow anywhere among a million."

"But that is Alf," she whispered. "When he was almost frozen to death, the doctor told me to open his breast and rub him well; and I did. But what did I find there, hanging on to a black string, but his mother's picture, in a little locket she gave him when he was a little fellow; and he was so fond of it then he would wear it outside his clothes, where everybody could see, he said. He's willing enough to hide it now; he don't want to shame such parents, and that's the only good thing I see about him. I found it out, and I know it; but I won't tell anybody but you."

"That's Alf! And I helped to make him so! My wife said I'd rue the day. Now I do. It's very fine to be called 'cellar-master' when you sit fast in the poorhouse; but it's a bad business dragging people down. Think what Alf was and see what he is! I don't want to talk any more to-day. You go, Gull. I've got something to think about."

Johanson, lost in his own thoughts, had not noticed the whispered conversation till his own name of the past was mentioned. After that, in bitter repentance he heard the galling words that penetrated his inmost soul. Now he understood Gull's new politeness to him, and the kindly willingness with which she saved him in his degradation, for his mother's sake. She could not treat him like a common tenant of the poorhouse, and he was sure she would keep his secret. With the cellar-master it might be a different thing. That his companions knew him was an added humiliation. He had deserved it all; but there was One who had called Himself the Friend of sinners, and that Friend had received even him, a poor prodigal who had returned to his Father's house.