Part 11

The parsonage, built of wood and stone, a story and a half, with the trumpet vine climbing luxuriously to its low roof, had passed its birthday of three-score years and ten. It was old, and it looked as if it felt old.

The gate was swung wide open, the path leading to the closed front door was weed-grown, the flower beds on each side of the path were a mass of wild, bright bloom.

“How pretty! How like a picture!” exclaimed Judith, in admiration; “there’s a grape-vine running up an apple tree, and there’s the old oaken bucket. What a pity for no one to live here.”

“Somebody stays here,” said Roger.

“Is it the parsonage? How can they neglect it so?”

“Whoa, Daisy. The farmers are all busy. King should learn to use a scythe, and a lawn-mower; he’s a born hermit. If he wanted to he could find a housekeeper; he forgets he hasn’t any.”

“But there’s no one at home.”

“Oh, yes, he’s at home. He’s expecting me. The study is in the rear; he lives in that.”

“But where is his sunshine?”

“He finds that. He’s the best man to find sunshine I know. He is the sunshine himself.”

The “sunshine” came around the corner of the house, a long linen duster crowned with a soft gray felt hat; beneath the hat a tawny beard, and the bluest eyes shining through a tangle of eyebrows.

“I had given you up.”

“Never give me up,” said Roger in a sunshiny voice. “I’m always on hand, when I am not on foot. Miss Mackenzie, Mr. King. But, excuse me, you have seen each other in Bensalem.”

“I have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Mackenzie; I hope she has not forgotten me.”

“Judith never forgets. Will you let her go around and browse while we have our drive? Judith, you don’t mind staying alone?”

“It is not a very nice place for a lady to stay in,” the bachelor housekeeper hastened to say; “I fear I forget when sweeping-day comes, and I always forget to wash the dishes.”

“Judith will do that for you. Don’t forget, Judith,” he warned.

“The woman who comes once a week is ill, and has not been here for two weeks; I am really ashamed to have Miss Judith come into the house.”

“She isn’t ashamed, she likes it. Give her your hand, Dick, and help her out; I must hold Daisy.”

Judith stepped down and stood beside the linen duster and gray hat, fervently wishing she had stayed at home.

“Roger, how long will you be gone?” she inquired, faint-heartedly.

“Till supper-time—we have business on hand—if you don’t have supper ready for us I’ll lose you on the way home.”

“There’s bread in the house, and butter and milk and eggs—but the dishes—,” excused the embarrassed housekeeper.

“Trust a girl to wash dishes. Will you wear that duster?”

“I have a coat under it. Wait until I show Miss Judith in; my study is the only fit place.”

“Show her the kitchen, there’s where you need a visitor.”

“The front door is locked,” apologized Mr. King. “I am sorry to take you to the back hall door.”

Judith’s courtesy and kindliness failed her; Roger deserved a scolding for bringing her to such a forlorn place; what could she do with herself two or three hours?

The doorway into which she was shown led into a narrow carpeted hall; the study door stood open; books in book-cases, on the floor, on a table, books and dust, a coat on a chair; the light from two windows streamed in.

“If you care for books you will find something to do—the latest magazines are somewhere. My housekeeper had to leave suddenly, and to get another has been impossible. I wish I might make you comfortable. I’d like to put Kenney under the pump for bringing you. Would you rather I would take you to a neighbor?” he asked, brightening.

“Oh, no; I like it—I shall like it,—here, in a few minutes,” she said with fervent kindliness.

“Don’t get us any supper; Mr. Kenney was only joking,” he added as he disappeared.

It was rather a cruel kind of a joke, she thought, as Daisy sped down the road; she would run away and walk home, seven miles, if she dared. But Roger would be hurt; he had brought her for the drive, and had no idea of the dismalness of the desolate old place.

She threw off hat and gloves, and braced herself for action of some kind. Roger would expect supper. It was not difficult to find the kitchen; there was no fire, a fire could hardly be expected; there appeared to be nothing in the room but piles and piles of dirty dishes. There were kindlings in a basket near the stove, and wood in the box behind the stove; there was a sink and a pump; with fire and water she could wash dishes.

If Marion had only come, too, what fun it would have been. It would be rather desolate fun all alone.

She discovered soap in a dish on the sink, and towels, clean towels, hanging on a heavy cord behind the stove. The room, like the study, was flooded with the afternoon sunshine. And there were pictures out of the window; she had never yet found a window that did not frame a picture. She could not be lonely with pictures and sunshine.

In five minutes the wood fire was crackling; the sunshine and the fire were two companions she loved, and then, Marion often laughed at her enthusiasm for washing dishes. For once in her life, she would tell Marion, she had dishes enough to wash.

If she might only heat the oven and make biscuits. That would be a surprise. With a feeling that she was intruding she opened a closet door; a loaf of bread, a plate of butter, a paper of soda crackers, a small basket of eggs, a tin quart of milk, a bag of salt was the quick inventory she made—then she found a bag of flour on the floor, a basket of potatoes, a ham from which slices had been cut, and a jug of molasses. Hot biscuits, ham and eggs, coffee, there must be coffee; what a splendid supper she might have. There were no remains of a dinner; perhaps he had forgotten to get any dinner, or he might have been invited out; he should have one supper—if there were only time.

Roger told her once that she had the feet and fingers of a fairy; she said to herself that she needed them that afternoon.

At that very moment when feet and fingers were busy in his kitchen, how her young enthusiasm would have been kindled could she have heard the story he was telling Roger.

“It has been a tug for me, something to go through with. You do not know unless you have had something of the sort happen to you. It may end in my going away. She is everything to be desired, and more than I deserve. A splendid looking girl, a college graduate, just the wife for a minister, keen as a flash, quick at repartee, as spicy as a magazine article, born to command, a perfect lady, with a winning manner, and I can’t love her if it kills me. I’ve been down on my knees begging the Lord to make me love her: and she is no more to me than a picture, or a statue, or a character in a book. It unmans me to feel how her heart has gone out to me. She is as brave about it as she can be.”

“How, in the name of wonder, do you know it then?” asked Roger, in astonishment.

“I know it because I cannot help knowing it. If you do not know how I know it I cannot tell you. Her mother knows it, and how she watches me. They say Frederick Robertson married in a like way; he was afraid he had been dishonorable. But this is none of my doing.”

“I can believe that, old fellow.”

“What am I to do?”

“Steer clear of her.”

“All my steering will not keep me clear of her. We are constantly brought together.”

“Introduce me. You will be nowhere.”

Richard King would not laugh; the very telling his trouble appeared treason in his eyes.

“I know what is the matter,” ejaculated Roger, suddenly. “You have seen some other woman, or you would succumb.”

“I have seen several other women,” he said, thinking only of one,—the girl with a blind mother in Bensalem.

“Don’t let it drive you away from your work.”

“I think she may go away. I think her mother will send her away. I think I would rather face the cannon’s mouth than be left alone half an hour with that old lady.”

“Does she blame you?”

“Not if she has the common sense I think she has. I am the last man for a girl to fall in love with,” he added, ruefully.

“Don’t count too much on that,” advised Roger, gravely.

At six o’clock Daisy was driven around to the stable to be fed; Judith was taking her molasses cake from the oven and heeded neither voices nor footsteps.

“I told you so,” cried Roger, delighted, coming to the kitchen doorway. “See here, King, and look here, and _smell_ here.”

“Well, I think so,” exclaimed the bachelor housekeeper in dismay and delight.

“Table set, too,” declared Roger, stepping into the tiny dining-room. “No table-cloth; how is that, Judith?”

“I couldn’t look around for things,” said Judith, flushing; “I was afraid every minute of intruding. I haven’t looked into places any more than I could help.”

“Miss Judith, I am ashamed—”

“You are grateful, you lucky dog,” interrupted Roger. “We are as hungry as tramps, Judith; our host stopped at the store and bought sugar cakes and cheese to treat us on, not knowing the feast he was bringing his guest home to.”

Biscuits, molasses cake, ham and eggs and coffee.

Judith’s eyes were demure and satisfied; she had never had such a good time in her life.

“I can get you a table-cloth if it will not be too much trouble to reset the table,” proposed the host as unembarrassed as his visitors could desire.

“Please don’t,” said Judith, “unless for your own convenience.”

“I acknowledge I haven’t seen a table-cloth on my own table since I have been my own housekeeper: but we must have napkins. I cannot do without napkins unless I am camping out.”

Judith was placed at the head of the table, she accepted the position as naturally as she did at the Bensalem parsonage when she was left to be the lady of the house; she poured the delicious coffee, ate her biscuits with a perfect relish, and listened to story, repartee, experiences, plans for work with an appreciation that added zest to the conversation.

“Well, Judith, what do you think of your afternoon?” inquired Roger, when Daisy was trotting the second mile toward home.

“I never had anything like it. I didn’t mind washing the supper dishes with you looking on; but I _did_ mind having him in the kitchen.”

“He couldn’t stay out; it was nuts for him. He’s a first-rate camper, but housekeeping is one too many for him. He is one too many for himself. He wishes to be near the church, so he will not try to find board anywhere.”

“Hasn’t he a sister, or cousin, or somebody?”

“He hasn’t anybody. He wants to bring a family to the parsonage—he might have had one for the summer if he had known he would lose his housekeeper in time. He will make a break and do something. What do you think of him?”

“If I hadn’t seen that dreadful study, and that kitchen—”

“Did you go up stairs?”

“Why, _no_. Did you think I would do that? I felt myself an intruder every minute. You didn’t think I _would_ do that, Roger.”

“Well, no; now I come to think of it.”

“If I had met him away—but he is so much a part of that kitchen and study, that I’m afraid I shall not be fair to him. At first he was nothing but big, to me; big and ashamed; then nothing but red beard and eyebrows, and then eyes; his voice is as big as he is. I liked his sermon that other time you exchanged; he is a man in earnest.”

“A man burning with enthusiasm! He came to Meadow Centre—his parish covers three miles in two directions,—only because he was needed there. He refused twice the salary, a pitiful little salary it is, that he might try to bring that church back,—to keep it from being swallowed up; his father was born there—he has a love for the church and people; we passed a deserted church on the way here, a mile ahead of us; Meadow Centre will be another deserted church before many years—there are deserted farms in this neighborhood.”

“But the people will find a church somewhere.”

“There’s a new church where we went this afternoon; it is taking his people, his grandfather’s people.”

“I should think it would. The church is out of repair—there’s nothing pretty about it. I don’t believe he _can_ keep the people together.”

“Then he will help them scatter. He will do something for them. He wanted this experience, and he could afford to take it.”

“Did you promise to exchange Sunday?”

“Yes. I will drive home after evening service. He will stay over night with us. I wish we might keep him a week. He took me to see a place for a new church. He is a born organizer—”

“Outside of the kitchen,” laughed Judith.

“I wish he had a wife,” said Roger.

“Not for such a reason—to keep house for him,” replied Judith, in a flash of indignation.

“His grandfather and father were born in Scotland—on his mother’s side he has Scotch grit. He’ll pull himself through, but it’s rather tough on him. He makes me feel like a pampered baby. He worked his way through college; he has fed on thistles and he shows it. I wish I had,” said Roger devoutly.

“Is it too late?” asked Judith teasingly.

“I feel so small beside him,” Roger went on discontentedly; “he is the biggest and best fellow I know.”

“Roger, Roger, you tell me not to seek hard things for myself.”

Roger lapsed into silence. Judith wondered if she might not put her afternoon into her next story. Sometime what a pretty book she would make out of her short stories. She would call it: “A Child’s Outlook.” But that would be too grown up for children. Her stories were _for_ children, as well as about children. Marion had planned a summer of writing for her; she had the “plots” for five stories in her head; she had told them all to Marion as she used to tell her mother pictures; they were, all of them, founded on her own childish experiences; her childhood had been full of things—Marion said her own childhood had not been so full. Every day when she was a child had been a story. Telling her mother pictures had helped make her stories. She used to tell her mother stories about herself.

“You are too young to look back to your childhood,” Roger had once told her; “that comes with age.”

“Mother made it so real—she impressed me with its happenings. She made things happen, I understand now, because she was going away so soon. She used to say, ‘I want you to look back and remember this.’ And I read aloud to her the journal she asked me to keep the last three years—I draw upon that now.”

A summer of stories. She laughed aloud in her joy. She wished she might take her book of stories to Heaven to show to her mother.

XXI. MARION’S AFTERNOON.

“Only the present is thy part and fee, And happy thou, If, though thou didst not beat thy future brow Thou couldst well see What present things required of thee.”

—George Herbert.

More than anything else in the world Marion wished to be alone that afternoon. If it were possible she wished to understand herself. She closed the study blinds, and, in the dim light drew Roger’s study chair to the table; and, sitting down, bent forward, leaning her head on the table.

What did she wish to understand? She wished to know if the years had burnt out that impulse of friendship, or love, she had, then, toward Roger’s friend, and her own friend; she was as light-hearted to-day, but for the shame of it, as if she had never known him so pleasantly and familiarly; her excitement over the letter was—what was it?

If he should enter now she would be startled; she would be startled because of that shame, because of those words that had spoken the truth to him; she had read his letters to Judith week after week all these years; they were delightful letters, he put himself into them; Judith had written him that she always showed them to her; she did not often read the letters Judith wrote to him.

If she knew that he were coming back to—but, why should he? He had not cared beyond friendliness then; there was no reason that he should care beyond friendliness to-day. She _was_ just the same; not any prettier, not any more attractive; she was only a busy worker in her brother’s small parish. Girls always had lovers, she supposed; before she had a thought of it David Prince asked her to marry him, and she refused instantly with no thought but surprise; there had been no one else; she was twenty-one when she thought she cared for Don Mackenzie, she was twenty-six now; an impulsive girl then, a self-possessed woman now; that had been a golden experience; if there were any gold in her it had been tried in that fire.

He was her girlish ideal; he was not her woman’s ideal. Perhaps she was disappointed in him.

“Marion, Marion,” called a voice in the hall; a voice Marion loved; Aunt Affy’s voice.

“O, Aunt Affy,” springing toward the figure in the gray dress and pretty gray bonnet, “how _did_ you know I wanted you more than I ever did in my life?”

“I was sent, may be,” was the simple reply.

“I am sure you were,” said Marion, drawing her into the study and seating her on the lounge. “Now give me your bonnet.”

“But, I can’t stay a minute,” Aunt Affy protested; “Cephas had to come to the blacksmith’s, and he brought me. Rody hasn’t been so well all day, and I hate to leave her. I came to see the minister.”

“The minister’s sister will have to do this time.”

“I’m afraid she won’t. Rody has something on her mind; I thought perhaps he would come to see her and find out. She looks queer at me and will not speak. Mrs. Evans is staying with her. She hasn’t worked too hard this summer; she couldn’t; I’ve done a good deal, and we’ve had one of the Draper girls come in two days every week. I know it isn’t _that_; it’s her mind. But I’ll stay content till Cephas comes for me. Now, what is, deary?”

“It isn’t anything; only I wanted to hear you talk.”

“Bless the child,” ejaculated Aunt Affy; “I never talked in my life.”

“No, you never do; you only breathe out your spirit and your experiences; they find words for themselves; I truly believe you have nothing to do with the words; they _come_.”

Aunt Affy laughed; she thought so herself.

“Did you ever want to do anything different from your life? Were you always as satisfied as you are now?” asked Marion, taking Aunt Affy’s hard-working hand into her own pretty fingers.

Then Aunt Affy laughed again. What a tumult her far-away girlhood had been. Did girls now-a-days think so much and have such confusing thoughts and times?

“I had a longing to do a certain kind of work—very practical; and the only relief was praying to be satisfied with the having and doing it. That was a very holy state of mind, you think. I used to think so, too. Would it have been a holy state of mind if I had run next door to see my bosom friend and talked to her continually about it? My praying was simply to unburden myself. I had no bosom friend to talk to; if I had I might have told her about it instead of praying about it. And being devout I talked to God about it, instead of falling into reverie as one less devout would have done. I am not confident all my praying was prayer,” she answered, shaking her head with its two long white curls.

“Yes,” said Marion, who had felt this dimly about her own praying.

“But it held this inestimable blessing—it moved me to study about prayer, as no other experience would have done. And then, as the years went on, the comfort of what I found to believe was so satisfying that I forgot, for the while, the certain thing I was longing for. And then as it was not granted, I began to think the longing had been kept alive and craving that I might be kept alive and craving about prayer. God’s way of answering is as well worth studying as our way of asking.”

“I should think it might be worth more,” said Marion.

“I am glad to hear you say that. Some too introspective people regard more their way of asking—and in that way wander about in the dark while his way of answering is light about them.”

“But then,” Marion said, argumentatively, “don’t you see that unless your prayer were granted what you were learning would not be true; that is, if the promises are to be taken literally and exactly.”

“I do not always know about ‘literally and exactly.’ That depends upon just where we are. A child’s faith may need ‘literally and exactly.’ You and I may be growing into—not a less confident, but a more intelligent faith.”

“Let me read you something. Dr. Parkhurst says—” Marion opened the volume and read:—“‘The longings of the human spirit have their own particular beatitude, and, better than any other interpreters, make clear the meaning of the Holy Word.’”

“Read it again,” said Aunt Affy. “I’ve been all through that.”

Marion read it again, very clearly, then laid aside the book.

“But how do you know if you do give up?” she asked, feeling her own will strong within her.

“There is a great deal in your question. To give up heartily and thoroughly is a rare thing to do. It is more than giving up praying about it. It is even more than giving up wishing for it. It is giving up the place in your heart, the plan in your life that held it; it is so giving up that you can put something else in its stead. It is filling that place so full that the old desire can never get back into it again. And it is doing it of your own free will. It is like what the people might have done by taking God back again as King, and refusing to have Saul. They had the opportunity to do it.”

“Aunt Affy, _how_ have you learned to be so sure about things? You remind me of another thing Dr. Parkhurst says: ‘A Christian has more than the natural resources of thought and action.’”

“So we have. I knew nothing but that God cared for me. And I was eager, impetuous, impatient, wilful, eager for him to walk my way, in the way I should tell him about. It was years and years before his Word became to me the delight, the plain command, warning, rebuke, comfort, it is to-day. But I studied night and day with my longing heart; and he blessed every natural longing; he took not one away; he took each into his keeping and blessed it.”

“Does it take years?” faltered Marion. “I want to learn something to-day.”

“You may learn something to-day; you cannot learn all to-day. Yesterday I opened my Bible to a passage dated thirty years ago; I remember the night I marked it; I was staggered, dismayed at something that had happened to me, something that I thought God would never let happen. I read through tears; I was comforted although the words meant little to me; I was comforted as a child is comforted, snug in its mother’s arms, when the mother does not speak one word. Yesterday, being in a strait again, I read these same marked words; again they were dull and dry; I asked God to tell me what he meant.”

“Thirty years ago did you ask him to tell you?”

“No, I did not think of that. I thought I would be comforted some other way. I had not grown up to the understanding of to-day. You know there’s a _natural_ growing up to understanding God’s words. It took the happenings of these thirty years to make me understand; God worked through them. He makes us grow through the sunshine and rain of his happenings. God has to wait for our slow growing. (And I wish to impress upon you just here, that unless you read and remember and understand the Bible stories you cannot expect to find the lessons for your own life. Superficial reading will not bring out the points; one of his ways of teaching is through the natural method of your own study and memory.)