"Lord, inspire me to do what is right!" prayed poor mazed Elkanah, sinking on his knees at his cot-side.
But presently, through his blinding tears, "Lord, give me strength to do the right!"
And then, when he awoke next morning, the world seemed another world to him. The foundations of his life seemed broken loose. Tears were no longer, nor prayers. But he went about slowly, and with loving hands, packing up his brushes, pallets, paints, easel,—all the few familiar objects of a life which was his no longer, and on which he seemed to himself already looking as across some vast gulf of years. At last all was done. A last look about the dismantled garret, so long his workshop, his home, where he had grown out of one life into another, and a better, as he thought,—out of a narrow circle into a broader. And then, away for the Cape. No farewells, no explanations to friends, nothing that should hold out to his sad soul any faintest hope of a return to this garret, this toil, which now seemed to him more heaven than ever before. Thus this Adam, left his paradise, clinging to his Eve.
It was the day before Thanksgiving when Elkanah arrived at home. Will any one blame him, if he felt little thankful? if the thought of the Thanksgiving turkey was like to choke him, and the very idea of giving thanks seemed to him a bitter satire? Poor fellow! he forgot that there were other hearts to whom Thanksgiving turkey seemed little tempting.
The Cape folk are not demonstrative. They have warm hearts, but the old
Puritan ice has never quite melted away from the outer shell.
"Well, Elkanah, glad to see you, boy!" said his father, looking up from his corner by the stove; "how's things in New York?" Father and son had not met for three years. But, going out into the kitchen, he received a warm grasp of the hand, and his mother said, in her low, sweet voice, "I knew you'd come." That was all. But it was enough.
How to take his sad face over to Elijah Nickerson's new house? But that must be done, too. Looking through the little sitting-room window, as he passed, he saw pale-faced Hepsy Ann sitting quietly by the table, sewing. The children had gone to bed. He did not knock;—why should he?—but, walking in, stood silent on the floor. A glad, surprised smile lit up the sad, wan face, as she recognized him, and, stepping to his side, said, "Oh, Elkanah! I knew you'd come. How good of you!" Then, abashed to have so committed herself and him, she shrank to her chair again.
Let us not intrude further on these two. Surely—Elkanah Brewster had been less than man, had he not found his hard heart to soften, and his cold love to warm, as he drew from her the story of her long agony, and saw this weary heart ready to rest upon him, longing to be comforted in his strong arms.
The next day a small sign was put up at Abijah Brewster's door:—