Chapter 14

And bravely did Johnny struggle not to mind the cold and pain, but it would not do; he began to cry, when the master, who never thought of exercising anything but severity towards those who laboured for him, told him sternly that if he did not stop his bawling in a moment, he would send him home. This was enough for Johnny; anything was better than to go back and be a burden on his mother; he worked to the best of his ability until noon. At noon, he managed to get thoroughly warm, behind the stove, while eating his dinner. Still, the sufferings of the child, with his insufficient clothing, were very great; but nobody seemed to think of the _hired boy_ being an object of sympathy, and thus it continued. The rule seemed to be to get all that was possible out of him, and his little frame was so weary at night, that he had hardly time to feel rested, until called with the dawn to renew his labour. A monthly Sunday however, was the golden period looked forward to in his day-dreams, for it had been stipulated by his parent, that on Saturday evening every four weeks, he was to come home, and stay all the next day. And when the time arrived, how nimbly did he get over the ground that stretched between him and the goal of his wishes! How much he had to tell! But as soon as he began to complain, his mother would say cheerfully, although her heart bled for the hardships of her child,

“Never mind, you will get used to work, and after awhile, when you grow up, you can rent a farm, and take me to keep house for you.”

This was the impulse that prompted to action. No one can be utterly miserable who has a hope, even a remote one, of bettering his condition; and with a motive such as this to cheer him, Johnny persevered; young as he was, he understood the necessity. But how often, during the four weary weeks that succeeded, did the memory of the Saturday night he had spent at home come up before his mental vision! The fresh loaf of rye bread, baked in honour of his arrival, and eaten for supper, with maple molasses--the very molasses he had helped to boil on shares with Farmer Thrifty's boys in the spring. What a feast they had! Then the long evening afterwards, when the blaze of the hickory fires righted up the timbers of the old cabin with a mellow glow, and mother looked so cheerful and smiled so kindly as she sat spinning in its warmth and light. And how even father had helped to pop corn in the iron pot.

Ah! that was a time long to be remembered; and he had ample opportunity to draw comparisons, for he often thought his master cared more for his cattle than he did for him, and it is quite probable he did; for while they were warmly housed he was needlessly exposed, and his comfort utterly disregarded. If there was brush to cut, or fence to make, or any out-door labour to perform, a wet, cold, or windy day was sure to be selected, while in _fine weather_ the wood was required to be chopped, and, generally speaking, all the work that could be done under shelter. Yet we dare say Farmer Watkins never thought of the inhumanity of this, or the advantage he would himself derive by arranging it otherwise.

John Cole had been living out perhaps a year. He had not grown much in this period; his frame had always been slight, and his sunken cheeks and wasted limbs spoke of the hard usage and suffering of his present situation. The family had many delicacies for themselves, but the _work boy_ they knew never was used to such things, and they were indifferent, as to what his fare chanced to be. He generally managed to satisfy the cravings of hunger on the coarse food given him, but that was all. About this time it happened that the farmer was digging a ditch, and as he was afraid winter would set in before it was completed, Johnny and himself were at work upon it early and late, notwithstanding the wind whistled, and it was so cold they could hardly handle the tools. While thus employed, it chanced that they got wet to the skin with a drizzling rain, and on returning to the house the farmer changed his clothes, drank some hot mulled cider, and spent the remainder of the evening in his high-backed chair before a comfortable fire; while the boy was sent to grease a wagon in an open shed, and at night crept to his straw pallet, shaking as though in an ague fit. The next morning he was in a high fever, and with many a “wonder of what had got into him,” but without one word of sympathy, or any other manifestation of good-will, he was sent home to his mother. Late in the evening of the same day a compassionate physician was surprised to see a woman enter his office; her garments wet and travel-stained, and, with streaming eyes, she besought him to come and see her son.

“My Johnny, my Johnny, sir!” she cried, “he has been raving wild all day, and we are afraid he will die.”

Mistaking the cause of the good man's hesitation, she added, with a fresh burst of grief, “Oh! I will work my fingers to the bone to pay you, sir, if you will only come. We live in the Gap.”

A few inquiries were all that was necessary to learn the state of the case. The benevolent doctor took the woman in his vehicle, and proceeded, over a mountainous road of six miles, to see his patient. But vain was the help of man! Johnny continued delirious; it was work, work, always at work; and pitiful was it to hear his complaints of being cold and tired, while his heart-broken parent hung over him, and denied herself the necessaries of life to minister to his wants. After being ill about a fortnight, he awoke one evening apparently free from fever. His expression was natural, but he seemed so weak he could not speak. His mother, with a heart overflowing with joy at the change she imagined favourable, bent over him. With a great effort he placed his arms about her neck; she kissed his pale lips; a smile of strange meaning passed over his face, and ere she could unwind that loving clasp her little Johnny was no more. He had gone where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest; but her hopes were blasted; her house was left unto her desolate; and as she watched, through the long hours of night, beside the dead body, it was to our Father who art in Heaven her anguished heart poured itself out in prayer. Think of this, ye rich! who morning and evening breathe the same petition by your own hearthstones. Think of it, ye who have authority to oppress! Do not deprive the poor man or woman of the “ewe lamb” that is their sole possession; and remember that He whose ear is ever open to the cry of the distressed, has power to avenge their cause.

THE THIEF AND HIS BENEFACTOR.

“CIRCUMSTANCES made me what I am,” said a condemned criminal to a benevolent man who visited him in prison. “I was driven by necessity to steal.”

“Not so,” replied the keeper, who was standing by. “Rather say, that your own character made the circumstances by which you were surrounded. God never places upon any creature the necessity of breaking his commandments. You stole, because, in heart, you were a thief.”

The benevolent man reproved the keeper for what he called harsh words. He believed that, alone, by the force of external circumstances, men were made criminals. That, if society were differently arranged, there would be little or no crime in the world. And so he made interest for the criminal, and, in the end, secured his release from prison. Nor did his benevolence stop here. He took the man into his service, and intrusted to him his money and his goods.

“I will remove from him all temptation to steal,” said he, “by a liberal supply of his wants.”

“Have you a wife?” he asked of the man, when he took him from prison.

“No,” was replied.

“Nor any one but yourself to support?”

“I am alone in the world.”

“You have received a good education; and can serve me as a clerk. I therefore take you into my employment, at a fair salary. Will five hundred dollars be enough?”

“It will be an abundance,” said the man, with evident surprise at an offer so unexpectedly liberal.

“Very well. That will place you above temptation.”

“And I will be innocent and happy. You are my benefactor. You have saved me.”

“I believe it,” said the man of benevolence.

And so he intrusted his goods and his money to the man he had reformed by placing him in different circumstances.

But it is in the heart of man that evil lies; and from the heart's impulses spring all our actions. That must cease to be a bitter fountain before it can send forth sweet water. The thief was a thief still. Not a month elapsed ere he was devising the means to enable him to get from his kind, but mistaken friend, more than the liberal sum for which he had agreed to serve him. He coveted his neighbour's goods whenever his eyes fell upon them; and restlessly sought to acquire their possession. In order to make more sure the attainment of his ends, he affected sentiments of morality, and even went so far as to cover his purposes by a show of religion. And thus he was able to deceive and rob his kind friend.

Time went on; and the thief, apparently reformed by a change of relation to society, continued in his post of responsibility. How it was, the benefactor could not make out; but his affairs gradually became less prosperous. He made investigations into his business, but was unable to find anything wrong.

“Are you aware that your clerk is a purchaser of property to a considerable extent?” said a mercantile friend to him one day.

“My clerk! It cannot be. His income is only five hundred dollars a year.”

“He bought a piece of property for five thousand last week.”

“Impossible!”

“I know it to be true. Are you aware that he was once a convict in the State's Prison?”

“Oh yes. I took him from prison myself, and gave him a chance for his life. I do not believe in hunting men down for a single crime, the result of circumstances rather than a bad heart.”

“A truly honest man, let me tell you,” replied the merchant, “will be honest in any and all circumstances. And a rogue will be a rogue, place him where you will. The evil is radical, and must be cured radically. Your reformed thief has robbed you, without doubt.”

“I have reason to fear that he has been most ungrateful,” replied the kind-hearted man, who, with the harmlessness of the dove, did not unite the wisdom of the serpent.

And so it proved. His clerk had robbed him of over twenty thousand dollars in less than five years, and so sapped the foundations of his prosperity, that he recovered with great difficulty.

“You told me, when in prison,” said the wronged merchant to his clerk, “that circumstances made you what you were. This you cannot say now.”

“I can,” was the reply. “Circumstances made me poor, and I desired to be rich. The means of attaining wealth were placed in my hands, and I used them. Is it strange that I should have done so? It is this social inequality that makes crime. Your own doctrine, and I subscribe to it fully.”

“Ungrateful wretch!” said the merchant, indignantly, “it is the evil of your own heart that prompts to crime. You would be a thief and a robber if you possessed millions.”

And he again handed him over to the law, and let the prison walls protect society from his depredations.

No, it is not true that in external circumstances lie the origins of evil. God tempts no man by these. In the very extremes of poverty we see examples of honesty; and among the wealthiest, find those who covet their neighbour's goods, and gain dishonest possession thereof. Reformers must seek to elevate the personal character, if they would regenerate society. To accomplish the desired good by a different external arrangement, is hopeless; for in the heart of man lies the evil,--there is the fountain from which flow forth the bitter and blighting waters of crime.

JOHN AND MARGARET GREYLSTON.

“AND you will really send Reuben to cut down that clump of pines?”

“Yes, Margaret. Well, now, it is necessary, for more reasons than”----

“Don't tell me so, John,” impetuously interrupted Margaret Greylston. “I am sure there is no necessity in the case, and I am sorry to the very heart that you have no more feeling than to order _those_ trees to be cut down.”

“Feeling! well, maybe I have more than you think; yet I don't choose to let it make a fool of me, for all that. But I wish you would say no more about those trees, Margaret; they really must come down; I have reasoned with you on this matter till I am sick of it.”

Miss Greylston got up from her chair, and walked out on the shaded porch; then she turned and called her brother.

“Will you come here, John?”

“And what have you to say?”

“Nothing, just now; I only want you to stand here and look at the old pines.”

And so John Greylston did; and he saw the distant woods grave and fading beneath the autumn wind--while the old pines upreared their stately heads against the blue sky, unchanged in beauty, fresh and green as ever.

“You see those trees, John, and so do I; and standing here, with them full in view, let me plead for them; they are very old, those pines, older than either of us; we played beneath them when we were children; but there is still a stronger tie: our mother loved them--our dear, sainted mother. Thirty years it has been since she died, but I can never forget or cease to love anything she loved. Oh! John, you remember just as well as I do, how often she would sit beneath those trees and read or talk sweetly to us; and of the dear band who gathered there with her, only we are left, and the old pines. Let them stand, John; time enough to cut them down when I have gone to sit with those dear ones beneath the trees of heaven;” and somewhat breathless from long talking, Miss Margaret paused.

John Greylston was really touched, and he laid his hand kindly on his sister's shoulder.

“Come, come, Madge, don't talk so sadly. I remember and love those things as well as you do, but then you see I cannot afford to neglect my interests for weak sentiment. Now the road must be made, and that clump of trees stand directly in its course, and they must come down, or the road will have to take a curve nearly half a mile round, striking into one of my best meadows, and a good deal more expense this will be, too. No, no,” he continued, eagerly, “I can't oblige you in this thing. This place is mine, and I will improve it as I please. I have kept back from making many a change for your sake, but just here I am determined to go on.” And all this was said with a raised voice and a flushed face.

“You never spoke so harshly to me in your life before, John, and, after all, what have I done? Call my feelings on this matter weak sentiment, if you choose, but it is hard to hear such words from your lips;” and, with a reproachful sigh, Miss Margaret walked into the house.

They had been a large family, those Greylstons, in their day, but now all were gone; all but John and Margaret, the two eldest--the twin brother and sister. They lived alone in their beautiful country home; neither had ever been married. John had once loved a fair young creature, with eyes like heaven's stars, and rose-tinged cheeks and lips, but she fell asleep just one month before her wedding-day, and John Greylston was left to mourn over her early grave, and his shivered happiness. Dearly Margaret loved her twin brother, and tenderly she nursed him through the long and fearful illness which came upon him after Ellen Day's death. Margaret Greylston was radiant in the bloom of young womanhood when this great grief first smote her brother, but from that very hour she put away from her the gayeties of life, and sat down by his side, to be to him a sweet, unselfish controller for evermore, and no lover could ever tempt her from her post.

“John Greylston will soon get over his sorrow; in a year or two Ellen will be forgotten for a new face.”

So said the world; Margaret knew better. Her brother's heart lay before her like an open book, and she saw indelible lines of grief and anguish there. The old homestead, with its wide lands, belonged to John Greylston. He had bought it years before from the other heirs; and Margaret, the only remaining one, possessed neither claim nor right in it. She had a handsome annuity, however, and nearly all the rich plate and linen with which the house was stocked, together with some valuable pieces of furniture, belonged to her. And John and Margaret Greylston lived on in their quiet and beautiful home, in peace and happiness; their solitude being but now and then invaded by a flock of nieces and nephews, from the neighbouring city--their only and well-beloved relatives.

It was long after sunset. For two full hours the moon and stars had watched John Greylston, sitting so moodily alone upon the porch. Now he got up from his chair, and tossing his cigar away in the long grass, walked slowly into the house. Miss Margaret did not raise her head; her eyes, as well as her fingers, seemed intent upon the knitting she held. So her brother, after a hurried “Good-night,” took a candle and went up to his own room, never speaking one gentle word; for he said to himself, “I am not going to worry and coax with Margaret any longer about the old pines. She is really troublesome with her sentimental notions.” Yet, after all, John Greylston's heart reproached him, and he felt restless and ill at ease.

Miss Margaret sat very quietly by the low table, knitting steadily on, but she was not thinking of her work, neither did she delight in the beauty of that still autumn evening; the tears came into her eyes, but she hastily brushed them away; just as though she feared John might unawares come back and find her crying.

Ah! these _way-side_ thorns are little, but sometimes they pierce as sharply as the gleaming sword.

“Good-morning, John!”

At the sound of that voice, Mr. Greylston turned suddenly from the book-case, and his sister was standing near him, her face lit up with a sweet, yet somewhat anxious smile. He threw down in a hurry the papers he had been tying together, and the bit of red tape, and holding out his hand, said fervently,

“I was very harsh last night. I am really sorry for it; will you not forgive me, Margaret?”

“To be sure I will; for indeed, John, I was quite as much to blame as you.”

“No, Madge, you were not,” he quickly answered; “but let it pass, now. We will think and say no more about it;” and, as though he were perfectly satisfied, and really wished the matter dropped, John Greylston turned to his papers again.

So Miss Margaret was silent. She was delighted to have peace again, even though she felt anxious about the pines, and when her brother took his seat at the breakfast table, looking and speaking so kindly, she felt comforted to think the cloud had passed away; and John Greylston himself was very glad. So the two went on eating their breakfast quite happily. But alas! the storm is not always over when the sky grows light. Reuben crossed the lawn, followed by the gardener, and Miss Margaret's quick eye caught the gleaming of the axes swung over their shoulders. She hurriedly set down the coffee-pot.

“Where are those men going? Reuben and Tom I mean.”

“Only to the woods,” was the careless answer.

“But what woods, John? Oh! I can tell by your face; you are determined to have the pines cut down.”

“I am.” And John Greylston folded his arms, and looked fixedly at his sister, but she did not heed him. She talked on eagerly--

“I love the old trees; I will do anything to save them. John, you spoke last night of additional expense, should the road take that curve. I will make it up to you; I can afford to do this very well. Now listen to reason, and let the trees stand.”

“Listen to reason, yourself,” he answered more gently. “I will not take a cent from you. Margaret, you are a perfect enthusiast about some things. Now, I love my parents and old times, I am sure, as well as you do, and that love is not one bit the colder, because I do not let it stand in the way of interest. Don't say anything more. My mind is made up in this matter. The place is mine, and I cannot see that you have any right to interfere in the improvements I choose to make on it.”

A deep flush stole over Miss Greylston's face.

“I have indeed no legal right to counsel or plead with you about these things,” she answered sadly, “but I have a sister's right, that of affection--you cannot deny this, John. Once again, I beg of you to let the old pines alone.”

“And once again, I tell you I will do as I please in this matter,” and this was said sharply and decidedly.

Margaret Greylston said not another word, but pushing back her chair, she arose from the breakfast-table and went quickly from the room, even before her brother could call to her. Reuben and his companion had just got in the last meadow when Miss Greylston overtook them.

“You, will let the pines alone to-day,” she calmly said, “go to any other work you choose, but remember those trees are not to be touched.”

“Very well, Miss Margaret,” and Reuben touched his hat respectfully,

“Mr. John is very changeable in his notions,” burst in Tom; “not an hour ago he was in such a hurry to get us at the pine.”

“Never mind,” authoritatively said Miss Greylston; “do just as you are bid, without any remarks;” and she turned away, and went down the meadow path, even as she came, within quick step, without a bonnet, shading her eyes from the morning sun with her handkerchief.

John Greylston still sat at the breakfast-table, half dreamily balancing the spoon across the saucer's edge. When his sister came in again, he raised his head, and mutely-inquiringly looked at her, and she spoke,--

“I left this room just to go after Reuben and Tom; I overtook them before they had crossed the last meadow, and I told them not to touch the pine trees, but to go, instead, to any other work they choose. I am sure you will be angry with me for all this; but, John, I cannot help it if you are.”

“Don't say so, Margaret,” Mr. Greylston sharply answered, getting up at the same time from his chair, “don't tell me you could not help it. I have talked and reasoned with you about those trees, until my patience is completely worn out; there is no necessity for you to be such an obstinate fool.”

“Oh! John, hush, hush!”

“I will not,” he thundered. “I am master here, and I will speak and act in this house as I see fit. Now, who gave you liberty to countermand my orders; to send my servants back from the Work I had set for them to do? Margaret, I warn you; for, any more such freaks, you and I, brother and sister though we be, will live no longer under the same roof.”

“Be still, John Greylston! Remember _her_ patient, self-sacrificing love. Remember the past--be still.”

But he would not; relentlessly, stubbornly, the waves of passion raged on in his soul.

“Now, you hear all this; do not forget it; and have done with your silly obstinacy as soon as possible, for I will be worried no longer with it;” and roughly pushing away the slight hand which was laid upon his arm, Mr. Greylston stalked out of the house.

For a moment, Margaret stood where her brother had left her, just in the centre of the floor. Her cheeks were very white, but quickly a crimson flush came over them, and her eyes filled with tears; then she sat down upon the white chintz-covered settle, and hiding her face in the pillows, wept violently for a long time.