Part 4

Three years had passed before I saw him again, three vivid, crowded years for me! Success had perched upon the lonely, little banner I had carried into that strange campaign where each one fights according to his own individual plan, and I was back in the old city, and because of that success was in great haste to seek my lowly, old friends out--for self respect, even a suspicious pride, renders it very hard for the lowly to make the first advance toward one who has risen ever so slightly. I had heard nothing of them during my absence, and standing at the door waiting a good, long wait--for Emily, like most large bodies, moved slowly--I said to myself: “I shall not see the dear, old ‘Bull’ for a couple of hours yet, as he will surely be sleeping now, but by six o’clock--” and then the door opened, and Mrs. Emily was before me, quite unchanged--and had taken me into a big comfortable embrace--and kissed me warmly and loudly, and expressed her gratification so noisily that I wondered she was not afraid of waking her husband--and then she led the way to the sitting-room, without one word of warning or explanation--which was so like Emily--and crying out, “My, Mr. Brockwell, but here _is_ some one you’ll be glad to see,” she moved aside and left me in the doorway, where I stood quite still, the smile of welcome drying stiffly on my lips, while with pained astonishment I stared at--Mr. Brockwell (?)--oh, yes; that thick thatch of hair was neither whiter nor thinner than before. There was the splendid, old torso with all its depth of chest and breadth of shoulder. But why was he in that dread wheel-chair? Why were his great limbs covered with a quilt? and, worst of all, why that strange expression in his face? Meeting that piteous, appealing glance, I felt the tears begin to fall, for I realized that in spite of the presence here of Mr. Brockwell--old Bull Brockwell was no more! The painful silence was broken by the trembling voice of Emily: “Father, I clean forgot to tell her--anything--and--and, I declare, she does take it right hard--don’t she, now?” and she slipped out of the room, wiping her own eyes furtively as she went!

As I crossed the room toward him, his chin sank upon his breast, and shaking his old head slowly, he sadly murmured: “From him that _hath not_, shall be taken away even that which he _hath_!”

I took his great hand between both of mine, and my lips were just forming the words: “Surely this is but temporary?” when he raised his eyes, and, looking into them, I saw that hope was dead and buried there. I sank upon my knees beside him and said: “Tell me about it, Mr. Brockwell.” He glanced towards his wife’s room, but I persisted gently: “No--I want you to tell me,” for my true sympathy had bridged the years between us, and we were like old friends.

In low tones he told his simple, commonplace story. It was the construction he put upon the usual that made it seem unusual, and brief and simple as his story was, it was intensely characteristic. He had started earlier than usual to his night’s work, and was swinging his coffee-pail to the measure of the old hymn, “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand,” when, turning into a cross-street, he found himself in a crowd of running men and women, and in a few moments was in the midst of all the turmoil and commotion attending a fire, and he soon saw there was cause for the cries of the women and the curses of the men. There had been a nasty accident, and it had come to the first engine approaching the fire. It had been a case of strange driver and a too-short turn, and there, in a terrible heap, lay one horse flat, the other on its knees, and behind them a partly overturned engine. Worst of all, not only were its own services lost, but it was keeping other engines from entering the street, save by a long detour. Now, if ever there was a demand for lifting-power that demand was made right there, and old Brockwell sat down his coffee-pail and began to remove his heavy coat (it was early November then), when he learned quite suddenly that the burning house was a haunt of evil doers, was in fact a place that honest folk turned their faces from as they passed, and for the moment he hesitated, then flinging his coat fiercely off, he shouted: “Help! men, help! That fire _must_ be quenched, to give those people one last chance to save themselves from eternal fire,” and the “old Bull” was with the firemen, working with a will and showing such splendid lifting-power that the crowd cheered the “gray old Hercules” lustily, and among other happenings some “company’s hose” had burst, and many were wetted thoroughly, among them old Brockwell. A church clock had boomed out the hour, and it was time for him to go on to his work, and then he felt how wet he was. He might have gone home and changed his clothing and only have been a little late in getting to the store. There was no one to make comment or to report his action, but he would be late, and he was proud, (the old man’s lips had twisted painfully in uttering that word), proud of his punctuality, and--well--he had gone on to the store, wet as he was, and the night had been long, and now and then, strange, deep, burning pains, that seemed a mile long, had run from hip to heel, but he had watched the night out--and--and he would never watch again--that was all. He had, in fact, “scuttled his own ship,” but in ignorance, lass! In ignorance, not in villainy. Yes, it was rheumatism first. He hadn’t minded that so very much, because he had the awful pain to fight, but _this_ (again that piteous twist of the lips), _this_ partial paralysis--well there was nothing even to fight now.

Had I not seen hope dead in his eye? His head sank low on his breast. I touched my lips to his hand, and whispered, “How you have suffered!” His eyes closed wearily, and he answered lowly: “I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping,” then, almost with a sob, he said: “Aye, aye--in very truth my sin hath found me out!”

I started almost angrily, exclaiming: “Your sin? What sin? You have loved--at least you have feared God all your life long! His word has ever been upon your lips. You have striven to obey His laws--what sin has found you out?” He raised his head, crying: “And to think I was so blind--so self-satisfied! To think how I tried to keep the boys from going to perdition by way of Sunday ball, and the girls by way of their vanity in their bits of ribbons! The blind ‘leading the blind,’ in good truth! Even when I was stricken I did not understand, until a neighbor made my sin plain to me.”

“Ah,” I said, “and had that neighbor removed the beam from his own eye, that he could see so very plainly the mote in yours?”

“I do not know,” he answered, “but he said that pride went before a fall. And when I looked a bit surprised he added, ‘you have been eaten up with vanity and puffed up with pride all your life, because of your great strength,’ and oh, lass! lass! I was sore ashamed! Ah, well, I have no strength to sin with now--I am just naught but a useless, old hulk, or what is worse, ‘a derelict!’”

“No,” I said, “a ‘derelict’ is a menace and a floating danger to many men--you are no derelict!”

But he, shaking his clenched hand above his head in impotent sorrow, went on: “Worse! I’m worse than a danger to men! Men are strong and can save themselves, but here I hang like a mill-stone about the neck of that poor woman there--my wife, and she’ll have to bear the dragging and the weight for years and years. For, mind you, I’m not like to die. The doctors say these things inside of me that they call ‘organs’ are all sound and strong, and that a man lives _by them_, not his legs, and so I’m to sit here rusting away, and watching her grow sick at the sight of me!”

Two slow, difficult tears stood chill and unshed in his eyes, and I felt, with a pang, how great must be the storm of sorrow that could cast its spray into those stern, old eyes.

“I don’t suppose,” he went on, “that she realizes it yet; she’s good as gold. She takes care of me, helpless as I am, always just as smiling and pleasant, and sets right by me, and don’t even go to church--just talks a little over the fence with the neighbors, so she can come and tell me what’s going on. Why, she even offered to give up gum, and she a needing it for her digestion so, ’cause she thought it might make me restless-like (and there is a kind of gum, you know, that squeaks a good deal when it’s new); but I ain’t so selfish as all that. But, oh, if I could just die decently, as a man should when he’s no more use, and not be a burden and a drag! For, you see, Emily’s a mighty fine figure of a woman, and she might easily find a new home, with some good, sound man for a husband--who would protect her, and not sit, as I do, waiting for the day to come when his wife will look at him with loathing.”

“Mr. Brockwell,” I cried, “do you know that you are cruel to yourself and unjust to your wife?” He looked hard at me, but made no answer. “Your wife was always proud of you!” His face quivered--I had struck a wrong note--I hurried on: “proud of your character and standing, and of the pretty, little home you had so hardly earned, and now, oh, believe me, dear old friend, I know her heart better than you do yet--now she is proud to be the world for you, to be your feet, your nurse, your companion, your friend as well as wife.”

He sadly shook his head: “She is a slave,” he said. “Yes, if you will, she is a slave to her love for you, therefore she is a happy slave. You have said, yourself, that she smiles on you constantly. She never looked better in her life, and why does she call you ‘father’ now?”

His face brightened a little. “Yes,” he answered, “she has called me ‘father’ ever since the--the--(how he shrank from the word) since the paralysis came upon me--yes, ever since.”

“And,” I went on, “can’t you see what that means? She used to call you Mr. Brockwell--but when your cruel affliction came upon you she felt the absolute need of some term of endearment, because she loved you.” Still, with the perversity of unhappiness, he exclaimed: “But Emily didn’t say that. She never told me that she--she--”

“Oh, indeed,” I broke in, “and have you given her a chance to tell you? Have you ever asked her if she loved you still?” And the old man, with a mind full of clean and wholesome memories, blushed at the question with a swift swirl of color in his cheeks that a girl of eighteen might have envied. “Have you?” I persisted. “Come, now, let us have a little fair play. You know she can’t speak first. You know that, like every other modest, self-respecting woman, she must be dumb about her feelings--her emotions, until the man breaks the silence. You know she has been trained to silence from her earliest girlhood. Yet, knowing all that, you gnaw your heart in bitterness, because she does not dare lay her arms about your neck and assure you of her faithful love.”

His eyes glowed, his great hands opened and shut nervously. He stammered and stumbled over his few words: “You think I haven’t steered a straight course with Emily, eh? You actually believe, if I take a new tack, eh?--if I tell her how I--how,--well, how things are with me--that she’ll come around to the helm--I mean--” and then suddenly his face fell and, shaking his fist in impotent rage at his helpless limbs, he cried: “Oh, she can’t, she can’t! Look at the miserable ‘old hulk,’ just rottin’ slowly away between the tides of Time and Eternity, and talk of a woman lovin’ it--a-a-h!”

I saw Emily’s troubled face at the door and swiftly waved her away. Then I said, as brightly as I could: “Well, all ‘hulks’ are not despised! I saw a real one a few weeks ago!” He looked up quickly. “Where?” he asked.

“By the sea,” I answered. “What kind of a hulk was it--some unfinished failure of a ‘tub,’ I suppose?”

“No, a wreck! A great, gaunt-ribbed thing; stately even in its ruin. The waves--” He caught my dress as I rose to my feet. “Tell me about the ‘hulk,’ lass, tell me!” He pleaded just as a child pleads for a story.

“Very well,” I said, “I’ll tell you, but you must let me go to the spare room to lay off my hat. I’m going to stay all night, if your wife will let me!” I laughed at his request “for me to hurry,” and said: “Mr. Brockwell, before I go, I want to say just one more word about your wife. _You_ may doubt, but I am certain, _certain_, that should you have your cruel wish and die to-morrow, and should Emily be spared for many, many years to come, at the very end she will lie at your side, and will carry your name to her grave”; and as I passed Emily I whispered eagerly: “Don’t be angry with me; I’ll explain later, but, for God’s sake, go straight to your husband and kiss him!” The tears rushed into her eyes--she nodded her head and passed into the room where he sat.

I loitered long over the removal of my hat and wrap; I even waited to bathe my reddened eyes, and then, as I slowly descended the tiny staircase, Emily’s voice, mildly indignant, came up to me, crying, “Oh, father, how could you, how could you?” and from the deep, bass rumble that followed there escaped these words: “A mighty fine figure of a woman, Emily!”

Then I sneezed loudly and entered the room to find them discussing the rival merits of “beaten” and “raised” biscuit, one of which we were to have for “tea.” Mrs. Brockwell, being of a slow and peaceful nature, naturally preferred “raised” biscuit, but Mr. Brockwell, being more aggressive, took a great interest in the “beating” process. Once he asked, indeed, if _he_ might not beat the dough, and Emily delightedly assented, putting a big, white apron about him and bringing everything close to his chair. But the poor, old giant’s second blow had split the bread-board, and that had been the end of biscuit-beating for him. While Emily was pounding vigorously, if somewhat slowly, at her dough, I told my old friend of that other hulk, bleached white as chalk by the blazing sun, lying high upon the beach, listing over so that it made a sort of shelter for people to sit under, with the fine, pale sand slowly filling it--slowly piling up about it; how, when I saw it, the ocean which had cast it there was stretched out waveless beneath the sun, with only a slow, deep, regular heave, that was like the breathing of some mighty monster at rest. I told him of that awful night when the signals of distress were sent up into the pitiless sky, and were seen and heard by helpless, distracted men and women on shore; and how, in the gray morning, they were astounded to see the big ship high upon the beach, and dumbfounded when they saw she was a coffin, for there was the body of a woman there. Slight and young and small of foot and hand, and a Catholic, since a “scapula” was about her neck--and that was all. How the young stranger had been buried on the high land overlooking the sea and the wreck, and how, down below and up above, both were waiting, one for utter destruction, the other, for a glorious resurrection; and meantime the old hulk had become not only a landmark, but a thing beloved. Oh, yes; he need not shake his head, for that old hulk was the loyal friend of all true lovers. The great, gray, maimed thing sheltered many a shrinking pair from prying eyes. Brown, young rustics, who were fairly stricken dumb in the “sittin’-rooms” of their sweethearts, here, in the velvety, black shadow of the friendly, old hulk, found their tongues, and told swiftly and well the one old story that is ever new; while, as to summer nights--why, the old hulk was the trysting-place of lovers from half the countryside. It was so public, and yet so sheltered--so protecting. And it was so wise, the gray, old, sand-filled thing--it knew so much of Love, and Love’s dear brother, Death!--so much--good God, so much! and yet was silent--ever silent!

Half the young married women of the little town had received their engagement rings within the sheltering arms of the old hulk, and some of them had carried their little children there, later on, that they might take their first, uncertain steps upon the soft, pale sands that were drifting ever higher about the bleaching wreck, just as one might take the first spring blossoms to some spot that was sacred to us.

That noble ship that on even keel, with mighty spread of snowy canvas, had sat the water a living thing of strength and beauty, had had a commercial value only, but wrecked, it had become a precious thing to them all, garlanded with the tenderest sentiments of both men and women, draped with the radiant hopes of youth, and each day gilded anew with ever-living love. As it sank deeper in the sand, so it sank deeper in their memories--their beloved “old hulk”!

The old man had listened so closely to my story that I was somewhat puzzled when he remarked on my last word: “If I was sure and certain that Emily was telling the truth about that patch-work, I don’t know but what I might get to be more that sort of hulk myself, lass! If I could just be of a little use--ever so little, but real!--I could get along, but I don’t want to be fooled, like a child, into doing _useless_ things. The Lord says: ‘A man should rejoice in his work!’ but a man can’t rejoice if it’s only make-believe work!”

I began dimly to comprehend, and, proceeding cautiously, I remarked “that it would not be easy to deceive him, and I did not believe anyone would try!” He looked doubtful and, lowering his voice so that his wife might not hear him, asked: “You know what a master hand Emily is at piecing patch-work, don’t you?”

I did know! I recalled the really handsome quilts she had shown me. It was the only way she had to gratify her natural love of color, and the workmanship was exquisite. The quilting in “fan” and “shell” and “diamond” forms equalling the piecing. Indeed, patch-work was a fine art in Mrs. Brockwell’s hands. “Yes, I knew!”

Then his keen, old, blue eyes took fast hold upon mine and, in an aggressive tone, he made this astonishing statement: “Well, Emily can’t cut out any of her patch-work herself. She can’t cut any two pieces exactly alike, to save her life!” Oh, Emily, Emily! poor, bungling, loving Sapphira! I understood and thought fast while those piercing, old eyes held me! I tried to laugh naturally, as I exclaimed: “Well, there’s a pair of us, then! I have lovely pieces--enough for two quilts, but I can’t cut pieces alike, and am ashamed to ask anyone to do it for me; so there they lie!”

“Oh, you!” he impatiently answered, “but Emily, now!” I thought of those quilts upstairs, while he went on: “See this thing, now!” He pointed to the small quilt over his knees. I required no invitation, goodness knows! for the ugly, ill-made thing had forced my attention long ago. No two pieces matched in length; they were puckered and stretched (the old man called them “we-wahed”).

“That’s _her_ cutting,” he announced! I was about to explain, when I saw Emily behind him in the kitchen-door frantically signing me to keep quiet. “Oh, dear!” I moaned to myself, “what about those quilts upstairs?”

“Yes;” he went on, “that’s a woman’s cuttin’ out! Yes (argumentatively), I saw her do it! And think of those quilts upstairs! (Ah, I thought!) Why, Emily says she would have had enough for herself and for her daughters’ marrying, if she could have got her first husband to cut her pieces for her! (O, Emily!) but she had to beg and beg, and he wouldn’t cut a single piece for a whole year sometimes. She says he was ashamed to do it, she reckons! Well!” he hotly ejaculated, “I’m not ashamed to do _anything_ for _my_ wife, unless”--he cooled suddenly again--“unless she’s only making believe so as to give me employment!”

“Well,” I said, “if you choose to doubt your wife, after looking at that awful quilt, you may. But you can’t well suspect _me_, and if you will cut pieces for one quilt for me I’ll give you silk enough for a quilt for yourself. Will you do it?”

The last suspicion faded! He threw back his head and laughed: “Will I? You’ll see! Say, lass, just step over to the sta’board side of that sewing machine and hand me up that cuttin’ board, and I’ll show you what’s the matter with the ‘cuttin’ out’ of all you women. You see,”--he spoke with an air of growing authority as he unrolled some bits of calico--“you will just have your pattern cut out of a bit of cotton or delaine, and then you smack that down onto, perhaps, _several pieces_ of goods together, never mind whether bias or straight, just to save time. Great guns! save time! Look at _that_ thing over my knees! Well, _I_ take the ‘sun observation,’ and I get my pattern all right, and _then_ I cuts her out in good, stiff pasteboard, ma’am, and if it’s a hard pattern, like ‘bride in the mist’ or ‘the risin’ sun,’ I have the thing cut out of a thin sheet of tin. A--a--ho! I don’t make no mistakes, even with ‘brides in the mist,’ when I’ve a good, tin pattern to work by!”

As so often happens, enthusiasm was too much for his grammar. He talked and planned all through tea and right along to bed time, and I carried the big Bible to him and placed it open upon his lap. His hand instinctively began to turn the leaves in the front of the volume, but I rested my hand on the place I had selected, and, laughing, I said: “You have chosen for three whole years, _I’m company_ to-night, and you must let me choose!”

He laughed a little and yielded, but when he saw my choice was from the New Testament, he frowned heavily, then cleared his brow as with an effort and read. He was not so familiar with the script as usual, and he read slowly and carefully, and when he came to that gentle, generous invitation and that all-comprehending promise, “Come to me _all ye_--_all ye_--who are weary and heavy laden--and I will give you rest!” he stopped! To this day I believe I felt the old man’s thought, which was of the astounding comprehension by Jesus of his one craving wish--not for great joy--not for the inheritance of the earth--no, not for anything but that which was promised: “_Rest_.”

“Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest!” Slowly, with trembling lips, he repeated the words a second time. Then he leant forward, tore a bit from the evening paper, and placing it as a marker, he closed the book. Emily and I knelt, and for once I felt no sense of the ridiculous in hearing a poor, finite creature explaining matters to the Infinite Being who knows all things. Very humbly the old believer explained to the God he had made so fearsome to himself why he lifted his voice in prayer in this unseemly attitude, instead of on his knees in humble, _loving_ humility!

I gasped--I felt Emily’s hand slip over and grasp mine--which proved lucky later on. Never before had that word been heard in that way, in this house of faith. But, oh, when the old man asked forgiveness for having wickedly doubted for a time the perfect truthfulness of one very near to him--his truest friend--Emily gave a plunge and tried to pull away from me. “I can’t,” she gasped. “I can’t bear it! I must confess my lie!”

“Oh!” I moaned under cover of his bass rumble, “keep still! He’s so happy now! Confess to heaven!” She tried again to pull her hand away. I clung tight, and putting my lips close to her ear, whispered: “_He_ will forgive you because of your love! You know,” I muttered wildly, “much shall be forgiven because she loved much! That’s not it, but you know what I mean!”

The bass rumble stopped suddenly--so did I--but thank heaven, Emily’s spurt of remorseful courage was over--her loving falsehood unconfessed! The rumble was resumed, and all was well!