Part 7

Time went on. Thella was fourteen; her life was a horrible routine—up before dawn in the winter, and before the sun in summer, to milk and churn, cook and scrub; no thoughts expressed in her hearing except those relating to eating, working, and the continuous bad conduct of the neighbors—this last always sufficient for a whole day’s tirade. In summer it was not so bad; there were always the whispering trees, and the fragrant flowers; the green grass, and the busy booming of the bumble bees; the lowing of the solemn-eyed cows, that came at her call. Best of all was the walk down the long, shady lane, through the grassy dell, where, in the limpid brook, the funny crabs crawled backward; and the saucy, gray squirrel chattered at her from the beech and chestnut trees on the hillside; still an added joy when “pa” followed his little girl, telling her of his coming by putting his crooked little finger in his mouth, and thus whistling shrilly. Fast as her nimble feet could carry her she ran to him, and nestling her hand in his begged him to tell her of her very own mamma. Oh, the delightful walks and talks; the sun hanging low in the west and the soft wind just stirring the leaves; a little later the softly falling dew, the gathering shadows, a belated bird hopping from branch to branch with drowsy chirp; a rabbit darting across the path, causing Thella to glance over her shoulder in quick affright and cling a little closer to “pa’s” hand at sight of the dark shadows all around her; then the great red moon lifting his round face above the treetops, lighting up the openings, and leaving the shadows darker by contrast. The sweet silence seemed deepened by the shrill cry of the cicada, and the plaintive call of the whip-poor-will; at last pa would say, “We must hurry home, we shall get a scolding.”

Thella would sigh and answer: “Yes, pa, but this is so nice,” with a loving cuddle closer to his side.

Well they knew the remark Mrs. Armitage was sure to make about their “trapezing” all over the fields.

Not long after this, all through the day Thella had been working very hard, and in the edge of the evening sat down on the porch to rest. Pa had just come in from the field looking worn out; Thella’s heart ached as she looked at him: “Poor pa, you are tired out,” she said.

“Yes, pretty tired, daughter!” he answered; hearing Mrs. Armitage coming they said no more.

She was in a fearful humor; she had quarreled with one of the neighbors, and seemed to think that the fight extended to her own family. It was quite dark on the porch, and Thella sat in the shadow so that she did not observe her.

“Where is Thella?” she angrily asked of pa, as she came in.

“Not very far away, I guess,” he answered mildly.

“Out trapezing somewhere, I suppose! I seen her whispering to that Judd Tompkins, more’n once; she’ll come to no good, I’ll tell you!”

“Sho! Sho! What’s the use of bein’ so hard, ma? Didn’t you never talk to the boys when you was young?” asked pa very mildly.

“I wish to goodness I’d never seen a pesky man; of all the shif’less, onery things a man’s the wust; and you’re about the laziest of the whole bilin’.”

Pa made no reply, but Thella rose up, white and wrathful; it is not the great things which rouse us to the depth of feeling, but the continued pin-pricking; the nag-nagging which drives us to desperation. Thella could take anything directed against herself; she thought many times that she had grown so used to it that it did not hurt much, but pa, poor pa, she could not hear the good patient soul nagged so, without a word of protest.

“You just let pa alone! You can abuse me all you like, but you needn’t misuse him on my account, he is not to blame for my shortcomings;” she sidled up to him, and clasped his arm with her two hands.

“Hoity-toity! I’m glad I have your permission to express my feelings to you, my high-flown miss; and with or without your consent, I’ll say what I please to your pa—you little trollope, you!”

She made an angry dive at Thella, who only threw up her arm and warded off the blow: “You had best not strike me,” she said in a peculiarly quiet tone.

“Come away, come away, daughter; don’t quarrel with her. Make the best of it! We can’t seem to alter things, so let’s make the best of it,” said the old man tremulously.

Thella was trembling with anger; she realized that she had made it worse for pa instead of helping him, and her heart was filled with regret and bitterness.

“Pa, you don’t have to endure such abuse; set your foot down and make her behave herself.”

“Oh, Thella, I couldn’t! Don’t you see, daughter, that I can’t quarrel with a woman? Let us take a walk down the lane,” and hand in hand they went. Nothing further was said on the subject until they turned to go in; pa drew a long sigh: “I wish your ma had a lived, but I made my bed—” he broke off abruptly, then continued in a trembling tone, “I thought I was doing the best for my little girl to give her a new ma—you see, a man that’s had a good wife is lonely, and beside, he don’t know just what to do for a little girl—and I thought—I thought—” the old voice quavered into silence piteously.

Thella stopped short and laid her hands upon his shoulders affectionately: “Yes, I know—dear pa, you are so kind; but pa—you are mistaken—you are not making the best of it; there is no good at all in this way of living; it’s just slavery for the bite you eat, and a bed to sleep in—that’s full of thorns; even your food is thrown at you as though you were a dog, and where are all the books we used to have? One might as well be a fool, if they can have no use for their brains,” she ended bitterly.

“Yes; she’s put all the books away; I’m afraid she’s burned them. Your ma liked books, Thella; we used to take such comfort reading together, but Mandy says it makes me lazy—p’raps it does. Mandy is a wonderful manager, Thella.”

“Very wonderful! She can make everybody else work while she gossips with the neighbors,” answered Thella indignantly.

“Sho, sho! Daughter you mustn’t talk that way! She’s your ma—no, she’s your stepma, you know. We must make the best of it,” he iterated weakly. Thella made no reply, though her heart burned hotly; what could she say to this crushed spirit that would not add to his trouble?

Before she let him go in she said hesitatingly; “Pa, I am going away; she is cross to you on my account, and—and—oh, pa, I do want to go to school; there’s so much that I want to know!” she said breathlessly.

He stood as though stunned: “What shall I do without you?” he cried despairingly.

Thella trembled with excitement; her heart was torn between the desire to go and the longing to remain; how could she leave her poor, heartbroken old father? but—she honestly believed that _she_—Thella never called her anything else if she could avoid it—would be less unkind to pa, if she were gone. Thella knew very well that a rancorous jealousy added force to her misuse of him; and—oh, she could not go on in this way; empty day dreams no longer sufficed her bright intelligence; she hungered and thirsted for knowledge; he had a vague understanding of higher and better things than met her everyday sight. She could no longer keep her eyes earthward; even when she cast them down for one instant, all things spoke to her of that higher life, and filled her with unutterable longing. Something of this she tried to tell pa between her sobs.

He let his hand wander gently over her crown of hair, as he said, “Yes—yes, daughter; I know how you feel. I used to have just such thoughts, and ma—your ma—used to make me feel as though I could see right up into God’s heart, and I knew—I _knew_—that I could live well enough to reach Him, sometime, I should if ma hadn’t have died; but now—I just have to make the best of it,” he finished despondently.

“But pa, hadn’t you ought to try now—for ma’s sake?”

“How can I? I never have time even to think. No, no, daughter, I must just make the best of it,” he reiterated wearily.

She had no words of comfort that had not in them a sound of mockery, so she said nothing beyond thanking him for his consent, and as she kissed him lovingly, she patted his withered cheek with her toil-roughened palms: “Poor pa! Poor pa! I love you dearly,” she said.

A tear stole down his furrowed face and wet her hands; he tremblingly murmured, “God bless my daughter!”

The next morning Mrs. Armitage screamed in vain to Thella:

“Drat her, I’ll take a strap to her, if she’s bigger’n the side of a house.”

When at last she threw open the door of the poor, bare little chamber, she found it empty. For once words failed her—she sat down on the stairs gasping.

Pa wisely kept out of her way. She missed her servant, but poor pa went about more silent than ever; it seemed that in one short month he grew visibly gray and bent; he worked on hopelessly through heat and cold. The only smile that ever crossed his face was when he received a thick letter from the village postmaster; he would hide it away in his inside pocket with trembling hands for fear Mandy would see it; a little spot of color coming into his thin old cheeks at the thought; at nightfall he would wander down the lane where he used to walk with Thella, and just to make believe that she would come to meet him, he would crook his little finger and whistle shrilly. Oh, the comfort those letters were to him; after reading them over and over again, he would hide them away in a hollow log.

Thella always wrote to him that she was well and happy; she told him nothing of the hard labor and bitter disappointments she met; her situation had been assured to her before she left home, but there were many things that were hard to bear; not the least of which was a terrible homesickness. Then, too, when she came to go to school, she found that others of the same age were far in advance of her in their studies, and consequently looked down upon her. Patient effort at last brought success; by this time her homesick feeling had worn away; she still longed to see her father, but had ever the hope before her of a home in which “pa” should have the warmest corner in winter and the brightest window when he wished it.

Later on she wrote that she was teaching; pa whispered it softly to himself: “My Thella is a schoolmam!” Such innocent pride as pa took in the fact.

After four years she wrote to him that she was married.

“Married! My little girl, married!” His old face puckered up queerly; he did not know whether to laugh or cry. She wrote that she was very happy. After that the burden of every letter was, “Pa, do come and see me.”

Sitting by the fire one evening, late in the fall, pa said, “Mandy, I am going to Adairville to-morrow.”

“I should like to know if you are possessed, you’ll do no such thing! What do you want to go there for?”

“I want to see Thella; it’s a long time since I seen her!” deprecatingly.

“Well, you won’t go trapezing after her; she run away, and you’ll not follow her.”

“She’s my child, you hadn’t ought to be so hard, Mandy,” quavered the old man.

“Well, you’ll not go, I tell you! you ain’t goin’ to spend no money running after that trollope!” answered she.

Pa sighed, but said no more; he had submitted to her rule so long that the thought of opposition did not occur to him; his shoulder seemed to bend as if beneath a heavy load; his gray head drooped lower and lower; a heavy tear or two followed the deep furrows down his cheek.

The next morning he seemed scarcely able to stir, and though her wrath enveloped him all day he seemed not to mind; he appeared like one in a dream.

When chore-time came again, she said sharply, “Ain’t you goin’ to get them cows to-night? you act as though your wits was wool-gatherin’—or like a tarnal fool!”

“Mandy, I’ve always did the best I could!” he said quaveringly, as he turned away.

“It’s poor enough, the Lord knows,” snapped she.

When pa reached the entrance to the lane he stood lost in thought for several minutes—he had forgotten all about the cows—suddenly he straightened up: “I’ve a good mind to do it! I vum, I will!” he laughed outright—a cracked, cackling laugh, that had a pitiful sound; his weak, watery eyes began to glisten; this time instead of whistling once, he whistled twice shrilly.

“Daughter, I’m coming; your old pa’s coming!” he cried gleefully.

He sat down on the hollow log where he kept his letters; he took them out, handling them over fondly; from the last one received he drew out a bill; he spelled the letter out laboriously:

“DEAR PA: Here is a little money to get you a suit of new clothes; and in my next letter I will send you enough for your fare, for, dear pa, I must see you.”

He laid the letter on his knee, smoothing it caressingly.

“Yes, daughter, so you shall; I couldn’t never wait ’till I got another letter; so I will go just as far as this money’ll carry me and I’ll walk the rest of the way. Lord! What’ll Mandy say?”

Poor pa did not know as much about traveling as do some children, so he had very little idea of his undertaking.

Two weeks later Thella was one afternoon sitting in her pleasant room. The postman had just passed, which set her to wondering why she did not hear from pa; she ever had the dread before her that his burden would become greater than he could bear, and that she would see him no more. A servant came hurriedly into the room:

“Mrs. Webster, there is an old man at the door who insists upon seeing you; I think he is crazy, he acts so queer.”

“Where is he?” asked Thella, rising.

“At the front door, where he has no business to be, of course! Oh, he said tell you that his name is Armitage——”

“Oh, it is pa—it’s pa!” cried Thella, wildly oblivious that she had nearly thrown the astonished girl over.

She seized the toilworn hands of the forlorn-looking old man; she threw her arms around his sunburned neck, and hugged him ecstatically; she fairly dragged him into the room, so great was her excited joy; she pulled forward the easiest chair, and playfully pushed him into it; she patted his hands, and kissed his snowy, straggling hair; she had no words to express her joy, grief, and surprise, except to say over and over again, “Poor pa! Poor pa! Oh, I am so glad to see you!”

He looked at her with dim old eyes, his shaking hand held in hers; “Is this pretty lady my little daughter?” he asked with a happy laugh.

“Oh, you awful flatterer,” cried Thella gayly.

Pa leaned back in his chair with a sigh of satisfaction: “This chair is awful comfortable,” he closed his eyes wearily.

“You are tired, pa, and I do not let you rest!” she said with quick compunction.

“Yes, I am tired; it was a long walk. Mandy wouldn’t let me come, so I ran away; I wouldn’t quarrel with her, so I had to make the best of it.”

“Walk! Did you walk?”

“’Most a hundred miles; it took me a long spell, but I’m glad I come. When I shut my eyes it seems as though I’m talking to your ma; your voice sounds just as hers did.”

The next morning when Thella went to call him to breakfast, he lay babbling of the green lane and Thella, his little girl; occasionally crying out piteously, “Don’t be so hard, Mandy; she’s only a little girl!” Then again, tears would course down his worn cheeks: “Oh, if ma had only lived!” Another time: “Yes, daughter; it is hard to bear, but we must make the best of it.”

It was a whole month later, and pa was lying back in an invalid chair, his head propped with soft cushions, his old face looking very placid. “What a sight of nice books you have, daughter; it would be a pleasure to stay here all my life!”

“That’s just what you are going to do, pa.” “Oh, I can’t! You know how Mandy will scold, but I’m goin’ to take all the comfort I can, while I do stay.”

Thella leaned over him, smoothing his thin, gray hair as though he were a child, a wistful tenderness in her tone:

“Mandy’ll never scold you again, pa.”

Pa sat upright, a fitful color coming into his thin cheeks: “What do you mean? Has—something—” stammered he, nervously.

“There, pa, don’t fret; yes, Mandy is—dead;” caressing the hand she held tenderly. “She took a severe cold, and was sick only three or four days.” A tear coursed down his cheek:

“Poor Mandy! Perhaps she didn’t mean to be so hard; we mustn’t judge for others, must we, now?” he questioned tremulously.

He sat silent for a long time, at last he said, “You’ve everything nice here, and the best man that ever lived; you’ve learned so many things—I don’t ’spose you would care to walk in the old lane where my _little_ girl and I used to walk; but I should like to see it once more, and then I’d be content to stay with you the rest of my days.”

Thella gave his hand a loving little pat: “Just hurry up and get well, and we will go and make believe that it is old times once more.”

It was months before pa was able to go, but at last they walked down the lane in the sweet June twilight; as of old, “bob-white” whistled to his shy brown mate; and the gray rabbit lifted his long ears inquiringly, exactly as in the past; the yellow buttercups laughed up amid the short, sweet grass just the same, and yet Thella felt a depressing sadness, and pa sighed sorrowfully: “One kind of gets used to things, Thella—no need to hurry home now, is there? It makes me sorry and lonesome.” Thella pressed his arm sympathetically, and they silently walked up the lane, past the cows, ruminatively chewing their cud; past the flock of chickens, with their many bickerings, as they sought their roost; past the silent house and into the street, closing the gate softly and reverently behind them, even as they closed the door of the past life.

A TALE OF TWO PICTURES.

It is a question open to discussion whether it is a blessing to be born with a highly sensitive organization, an artistic taste—and poverty.

The reverse was the opinion of Philip Aultman. Life seemed a failure, every venture foredoomed; and this sunny June morning, when all nature seemed to give the lie to evil prognostications, he sat in his room with the curtains of his soul pulled down, brooding over his misfortunes, not once considering that he was in fault. A maple grew just outside the window, and a little branch tapped on the uplifted sash coaxingly; the soft wind whispered through its branches, and entering lifted his curly brown locks shyly; a bluebird tilted its bright head, and swelled its throat in song of enticement; he lifted his face from the melancholy arch of his arms, and said as if in answer to the appeal: “I _will_ go out, this is of no use! Anything is better than staying within brooding over my trouble!”

As he wandered about the sweet wind seemed to blow away much of his despondency, although he still smarted with indignation against fate. Yet—what is fate? The evil we bring upon ourselves. We clasp our hands above our heads, prostrate ourselves with our foreheads in the dust, and say with the devout Oriental: “Kismet!” Thus we are absolved from all blame.

Philip had been poor all his life; not miserably indigent, though many things which go to make life comfortable were lacking. He had inherited a taste for art from his father; hard work had been the rule of his life, and as a result he was a very creditable artist, though not by any means entering into the soul of the work. It is one thing to paint a fair picture, to write an acceptable story; it is quite another thing to put your very self into your work, and endow it with a subtle life which is past all explaining.

When he was twenty-five he inherited money—worse for him; he thought that henceforward life held no need for exertion; as though food and raiment constitute all for which we should exert ourselves. He fancied that happiness lay in two things; going to sleep, and letting the enervating wind of pleasure drift him whithersoever it would; or getting astride of the billow of self-will, to ride over everything. He did not find his mistake until slice by slice his inheritance had been cut away from him, and he looked with astonished gaze upon those who, under the guise of friendship, had fastened themselves upon him in his prosperity, and now stared at him with unseeing eyes. He looked upon it as the worst misfortune which could have befallen him. He was no more shortsighted than the majority of persons; because a certain condition brings present discomfort, we rebel against it as being to our great detriment; most frequently we rebel without reason. The loss was a blessing to him, against which he railed, beat, and bruised himself.

Just at this point I take up his history.

He wandered about the woods all day, sometimes throwing himself on the grass to look up into the immeasurable depths of the ether; again, idly throwing pebbles into the flashing water; but during all that sweet, restful afternoon his soul was awakening from its lethargy; thoughts which seemed to him a glimpse of the divine, surprised his hitherto dormant intellectuality; he began to realize that life held possibilities of which he had never caught a glimpse.

Evil is but good gone astray; it is the oscillation of the pendulum; Philip had reached the adverse limit, and the pendulum of its own momentum was returning to the center of gravity. As deadly nausea is the precursor of a cleansed stomach, so he felt a thorough disgust with all the world, which meant to him—as it does to every one of us—the people with whom he was in daily association; he indignantly compared them to a flock of geese—all gabble and greed. It is a hard truth, that if we will submit to be plucked we can soon find all the worst characteristics of the worst people. He thought savagely that he desired never to see one of them again.

He took a small memorandum book from his pocket, and setting down a few figures ran them over rapidly; he laughed harshly, a sound that held the threat of a sob: “Six hundred dollars! Well, that is a great showing from fifty thousand! No wonder the elegant Mabel DeVere gave me the cold shoulder; she and her kind have no use for a man without money; then there was that little dancer—she had no further use for the goose after it was thoroughly plucked, as she took pains to tell me; she was at least honest. They are all alike, a treacherous, tricky lot!” he muttered to himself, with moody brow; but he remembered with a pang of shame that his loving, patient, helpful mother had been like none of those with whom he had associated, and his shame was that he had sought such company; it had been of his own choosing; what better was he, that he should fling at them? He was looking at himself in a new light.

He tried not to think about it, it made him restless and ashamed; but such thoughts once aroused will not be quieted; when the light is once admitted the germ of higher growth will strengthen rapidly.

“How sweet it would be to live like this,” he said thoughtfully. A sudden smile lighted the gloom of his face; “Why not? I have my outfit, and money enough to procure food and shelter whenever I desire it. It is not so very much that a person needs after all; it is what he fancies that he needs, and is much better without, that takes the money—and what his friends require,” he added with a rueful grimace.

In consequence of this determination, he took a small gripsack, together with his artist’s materials, and tossed the key of his room to his landlady, saying nonchalantly, “Take care of my things; I’ll be back sometime!”

No person can live near to nature’s heart, can share in her moods, and drink of her healing waters, and not grow purer in heart, and stronger spiritually. Philip began to lose the sense of discord, and to understand, with a feeling of humility, that he had been in fault; it was well for him to live with himself for awhile, that he might learn what kind of a man he had really been.