Black Edith Ferguson
A Princess in Calico
‘What makes P’liney so different?’ queried Leander of Stephen and John, as they rested from their daily task of cutting wood. ‘She used ter be as mad as hops if yer mussed up yer clothes, an’ now she only laughs an’ sez, “Never mind, if it’s a stain that soap will conquer.”’
‘An’ she’s always singin’ too,’ said John thoughtfully; ‘if mother didn’t scold so it would be real pleasant.’
‘I’d like to know why it is, though,’ repeated Leander thoughtfully.
‘Because she belongs to the King,’ said the clear, sweet voice of his step-sister from the doorway, ‘and she wants you all to belong to Him too.’
When she went back into the house, she found Lemuel brandishing a broomstick over the frightened Polly.
‘Why, Lemuel, what are you doing?’
‘I’ve casted the devils out of her,’ exclaimed that youth triumphantly, ‘an’ they’ve gone inter the pig pen, whole leguns of ‘em, an’ they’re kickin’ orful!’
Chapter IX
A Lost Letter
Seven years had gone by, and every day of each successive month had been full to overflowing of hard work for Pauline.
‘Dear Tryphosa,’ she whispered to herself with a smile, ‘you little thought, when you gave me that new beatitude, what constant friends the grey angel of Drudgery and I were to be.’
She climbed slowly up the narrow stairs to her room, and shaded the lamp that it might not disturb Polly’s troubled sleep, – poor Polly, who would be an invalid for life. Then she sat down with a sigh of relief to read Belle’s last letter. It had been a hard day, her step-mother had been more than usually restless, and the farm-work had been very heavy, for Martha Spriggs was home on a visit; every nerve in her body seemed to quiver with the strain.
‘My dearest Paul,’ Belle wrote, ‘I can hardly see for crying, but I promised her that you should know at once.
‘Tryphosa went away from us to “the other shore” last night. We were all there – her “inner circle” as she used to call us – all except you, and she seemed to miss you so. I never knew her to grow fond of any one in so short a time, but she took you right into her heart from the first. If I had not loved you so much I should have been jealous, but who could be jealous of you, you precious, brave saint?
‘I have heard of the gate of heaven, but last night we were there.
‘Dick was supporting her in his arms, poor Dick, he was so fond of her, and it was so hard for her to breathe – and we were all gathered round her, our hearts breaking to think it was the last time. She has suffered terribly lately, but at the last the pain left her, and she lay with the very rapture of heaven on her dear face, talking so brightly of how we should do after she had gone. It was just as if she were going on a pleasure trip, and we were to follow later. She turned to me with her lovely eyes all aglow with joy, and said: —
‘“Give my Bible to the dear child in the valley” (that was what she always called you), “and tell her ‘the miles to heaven are but short and few.’”
‘She had a message for us all, and then, suddenly, just as the dawn broke, a great light swept over her face and she turned her head and whispered, “Jesus!” just as if He were close beside her, and then – she was gone.
‘I shall never forget it. I have always thought of Death as the King of Terrors, but last night it was the coming of the Bridegroom for His own.’
With a low cry Pauline’s head dropped. There could never be anyone just like ‘my lady,’ and she had gone away.
The hours passed silently, as she sat benumbed in the grasp of her great sorrow.
Suddenly she sprang up. Her father was calling her from the foot of the stairs.
‘Mother’s had a bad turn. Send Stephen for the doctor, and come, quick!’
She hurried down, and mechanically heated water, and did what she could to help the stricken woman, but before the doctor could reach the house, the Angel of Death had swept over the threshold, and Pauline and her father were left alone.
‘Here’s a letter for yer, Pawliney. Don’t yer wish yer may git it?’ and Lemuel, the irrepressible, waved it at her tantalisingly from the top of the tall hickory, where he had perched himself, like the monkey that he was.
She saw the Boston post-mark, and stretched out her hands for it longingly.
‘Bring it down, there’s a dear boy.’
‘Not much! I bet Leander that I could make you mad, an’ he bet his new jack-knife that I couldn’t. I’m goin’ to chew it up. It’s orful thin, ’taint no good anyhow. You won’t miss it, P’liney,’ and crushing the letter into a small wad he put it into his capacious mouth.
It was, as Lemuel said, ‘awful thin,’ not much like the volumes which Belle usually wrote. She had not been able to distinguish the writing, but, of course, it must be from Belle. The two cousins had grown very near to each other as the years rolled by, and a summer never passed without some of her uncle’s family spending a week or two in Sleepy Hollow. Those were Pauline’s red-letter days – the bright, scintillating points where she was brought into touch again with the world of thought and light and beauty.
‘Throw it down to me, Lemuel, dear.’
‘Can’t,’ said the boy coolly, ‘I’m goin’ ter tie it to Poll’s balloon, an’ let go of the string, an’ then it’ll go straight to heaven,’ and, with the letter reposing in his cheek, he began to sing vociferously: —
‘“I want ter be an angel,
An’ with the angels stand;
A crown upon my forehead,
A harp within my hand.”
‘Git mad now, P’liney, quick, fer I want that knife orful.’
A cry from Polly made Pauline hurry into the house to find that Martha Spriggs had slipped while passing the child’s couch, and upset a bowl of scalding milk, which she was carrying, right over the little invalid’s foot. In the confusion which followed, Pauline forgot Lemuel and her longed-for letter. When she went out to look for him he was gone.
‘Give it to me now, Lemuel,’ she said, as he came into supper; ‘you’ve had enough fun for to-day.’
‘Can’t P’liney. I used it fer a gun wad to shoot a squirrel with, an’ the cat ate the squirrel, letter an’ all. Yer don’t want me ter kill the cat, do yer, P’liney?’
‘Oh! Lemuel,’ she cried softly, ‘how could you? How could you do it?’
She sighed sorrowfully. She had tried so hard to make Lemuel a good boy, but nothing seemed to touch him, and, young as he was, the neighbours had begun to lay the blame of every misdeed upon his shoulders, and Deacon Croaker predicted with a mournful shake of his head, ‘No good will ever come of Lemuel Harding. He’s a bad lot, a bad lot.’
‘Sing to me!’ cried Polly, ‘the pain’s awful!’ and taking the weary little form in her arms, Pauline sang herself back into her usual happy trust.
She would not tell Belle her letter had been destroyed. She must shield Lemuel.
‘I’m doing my best,’ she said to herself, ‘God understands.’
‘Ain’t yer mad yit?’ whispered Lemuel anxiously, as he peered into the bright peaceful face on his way to bed.
The hand that stroked his tumbled hair was very gentle.
‘No, Lemuel, only sorry that my boy forgot the King was looking on.’
With a shame-faced look the boy’s hand sought his pocket, but Satan whispered, ‘She may be mad to-morrow,’ and he crept away.
‘What are you teasing Pauline about?’ asked Stephen, as he went upstairs.
‘Ain’t doin’ nuthin’,’ was the sullen reply.
‘Yes, you are. She don’t hev sorrowful looks in her eyes unless you’re cuttin’ up worse than common. You’ve just got to leave off sudden, or I’ll give you something you won’t ever forgit.’
‘Ain’t goin’ ter be bossed by nobody,’ said the boy doggedly, as he reached his room. ‘Was goin’ ter give her the old letter to-morrow, anyway, but now I don’t care if she never gits it,’ and opening the chest which held his few treasures, he deliberately shut up the letter in an old tin box, and went to bed.
‘Father is gettin’ so mortal queer,’ said Stephen discontentedly. ‘First he tells me to top-dress the upper lot, and then right off he wants me to harness up and go to the mill. I don’t see how a feller’s to know what to do. Most wish I’d gone West with Leander, it’s a free life there, and he’s his own master.’
‘“One is our Master, even Christ,”’ Pauline quoted softly. ‘Don’t go, Stephen, you and Lemuel are the only ones on the farm now, and father is getting old.’
She spoke sadly. She had noticed with a sinking heart how ‘queer’ her father was.
The years had slipped by until Polly was seventeen. A very frail little body she was, but always so patient and sweet, that Pauline never grudged the constant care.
Two of the boys had taken the shaping of their own lives and gone away, and Susan Ann had a home of her own with two little freckled-faced children to call her mother.
‘We’ll jog along together, Stephen,’ she said in her bright, cheery way. ‘Father forgets now and then, but he doesn’t mean any harm, and it’s only one day at a time, you know.’
Stephen looked at her admiringly.
‘You’re a brick, Pawliney, and I guess if you can stand it, I ought to be able to, with you round making the sunshine. I’d be a brute to go and leave you and Lem with it all on your shoulders’; and the honest, good-hearted fellow went in to give Polly a kiss before he started for the mill.
Clearing out an old trunk next day Pauline came across a soiled, tumbled envelope. It was the letter which Lemuel had tucked away and forgotten while he waited for her to ‘get mad.’
She opened it eagerly. It was from Richard Everidge.
‘I should like to come down and see you,’ he wrote, ‘in Sleepy Hollow, that is, if you care to have me, and it is quite convenient. Do not trouble to write unless you want me. If I do not get an answer I shall know you do not care.’
Richard Everidge had been married for three years now, and had a little girl.
She clasped her hands with one quick cry of pain. What must he have thought of her all these years? Her friend, who had always been so kind! so kind!
‘Pawliney!’ called her father, in the querulous accents of one whose brain is weakening. ‘Pawliney, I wish you’d come down and sing a little, the house is terrible lonesome since mother’s gone.’
And Pauline sang, in her full, sweet tones: —
‘“God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform.”’
‘God is good, Pawliney?’
‘Yes, father.’
‘He never makes mistakes?’
‘Oh, no, father.’
‘You believe that, Pawliney?’
‘Yes, yes, I know it, father.’
And her voice rang out triumphantly in another stanza: —
‘“Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace:
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.”’
Chapter X
The Angel of Patience
‘Here’s the mortgage money, Pawliney,’ said Stephen, as he handed her a roll of bank-notes. ‘It’s not due for a month yet, but I’ll be away for a week at the Bend, and if father gets hold of it he’ll take it to make matches of, as like as not. You’d better stow it away somewheres till the time comes.’
‘Very well, Stephen, I’ll put it in my strong box, and carry the key in my pocket. You won’t be away at the Bend any longer than you can help, Stephen? It’s such a comfort to have you in the house.’
They were standing by the light waggon, which Lemuel had brought round from the barn, ready for Stephen’s journey.
‘Don’t know about the comfort part, Pawliney,’ said Stephen, with a queer choke in his voice. ‘Seems like as if we all depended on you for that commodity. But I’ll be as quick as I kin. Good-bye, all of you. Git along, Goliath.’
Three days had passed since his departure, and Pauline stood in the doorway feasting her eyes on the lights and shadows which grouped themselves about the distant hills, when Lemuel brushed past her, clad in his Sunday best.
‘Why, Lemuel!’ she cried astonished, ‘you haven’t had your supper yet. Where are you going?’
‘To China,’ was the brusque response. ‘I’ve hed enuff of Sleepy Hollow, an’ bein’ ordered round by an old man with his head in the moon. It’s “Lemuel, do this,” an’ before I git started it’s “Lemuel, do the t’other thing.” You kin stand it ef you’re a mind ter; I won’t.’
‘But, Lemuel!’ gasped Pauline, ‘what will Stephen say?’
‘I don’t care what he says,’ said the boy roughly. ‘Stephen ain’t my boss.’
‘Oh, Lemuel, you can’t mean it!’ cried Pauline, as she followed him down the path to the main road.
‘See if I don’t!’ And he strode away from her, and vaulted over the gate.
‘But what will father do?’
‘Git somebody that’s ez loony ez himself. I ain’t,’ was the jeering reply.
‘Lemuel, you mustn’t go, it will kill father!’ and Pauline stretched out her hands to him appealingly.
A mocking laugh was the only reply as he disappeared round a bend of the road.
Pauline went slowly back to the house feeling bruised and stunned.
‘Pawliney,’ piped her father in his shrill voice, ‘where’s Lemuel? I told him to take the horse to the forge, and hoe the potatoes, and weed the onions, and go to the woods for a load. I don’t see how I’m to get through with such a lot of heedless boys around. What hev you done with him? You just spoil them all with your cossetin’.’
‘It will all come right, father,’ said Pauline soothingly. ‘Lemuel has gone away for awhile.’
‘Away!’ echoed the old man suspiciously. ‘Away, Pawliney? Did you know he was going?’
‘Yes, father; he will be back by-and-by, and Stephen will be home next week.’
She paced her room that night with a heavy heart. There was no way to hinder the misguided boy. Before Stephen could follow him he would be on the sea. He had often declared he meant to be a sailor. Suddenly she stopped, thunder-struck. The lid of her strong box had been forced open! With an awful dread at her heart she lifted it and looked in. The money was gone!
With a bitter cry she fell upon her knees. ‘A thief!’ Her Lemuel. The boy that she had borne with and prayed over all these years! And the money was due in a month! What should she do? Stephen must never know – Stephen, with his stalwart honesty and upright soul. His anger would be terrible, and she must shield Lemuel all she could. Poor Lemuel!
All night long she pondered sorrowfully. When the morning came she went to Deacon Croaker.
‘I hear you are behindhand with your wool,’ she said, in her straightforward way. ‘I will spin it for you if you like, and, Deacon, may I ask you as a favour to let me have the money in advance?’
The deacon looked at her curiously.
‘Hard up, air ye, Pawliney? Well, well, don’t colour up so, we all hev our scarce times. I ain’t partial to payin’ forehanded, but you was awful kind to Mis’ Croaker when her rheumatiz was bad on her, an’ I ain’t one ter forgit a favour. Cum in, Pawliney, while I git the money. Mis’ Croaker will be rale pleased; she thinks you’re the best spinner in the valley.’
‘No, thank you, I will wait out here.’
The old man hobbled into the house, and she stood waiting, clothed in her sorrow and shame.
‘So Lemuel’s ben an’ tuk French leave?’ he said, as he handed her the money. ‘Well, well, I allers did say that boy’d be a heart break tew ye, Pawliney. Well, what’s gone’s forgot. Don’t fret over him, Pawliney, he was a bad lot, a bad lot. Ye’er well rid of him, my dear.’
‘I never shall forget him,’ Pauline said gravely, ‘and he can’t get away from God, Deacon Croaker.’
She counted the bills as she hurried along. It would just make enough, with the butter money. That was all she had for clothes for herself and Polly – but Polly had enough for a while, and she could go without.
In the evenings, long after the others were in bed, she paced up and down the kitchen, spinning Deacon Croaker’s wool into smooth, even threads, but her heart ached as she prayed for her boy, and often, when in the still watches of the night Polly kept her vigils with pain, she heard her cry softly: —
‘Lemuel, Lemuel, oh! how could you, how could you do it?’
Her uncle’s family were living abroad now, and it was from Paris that Belle wrote, announcing her engagement to Reginald Gordon.
‘Just imagine, Paul,’ the letter went on, ‘I, of all possible people, a missionary’s wife! But the fact of the matter is, my precious saint, your splendid, consecrated life made me tingle with shame to my finger tips when I thought of my aimless existence, and when I remembered how you took up your cross and followed your Master to Sleepy Hollow, there seemed to be no reason why I should not follow Him to Africa. If it will comfort you, I want you to know that you have been the guiding star which has led me out of the sloth of my selfishness into active work for the King.’
The years slipped by peacefully after that. Her father grew daily more childish, and needed more constant watching, but she found time to read to Polly many a snatch from her favourite authors, and Tryphosa’s Bible lay always open near her hand.
At last the day came when, in the full noontide, her father had called to her in his weak voice, ‘It’s gettin’ dark, Pawliney, and Lemuel’s not come home.’
And she had answered with her brave, sweet faith, ‘Not yet, father, but he’ll come by-and-by. God knows.’
‘Yes, God knows,’ said the old man with a peaceful smile, ‘I think I’ll go to sleep now, I’m very tired. You’ve been a good girl, Pawliney; a good girl. God bless you, my dear.’
When the evening came Pauline laid her hand softly on the wrinkled brow, from which the shadows had forever lifted. ‘Dear old father,’ she whispered, ‘how little I thought, when I wished you and I could leave Sleepy Hollow, that you would be the first one to go away!’