Chapter 24

THE CARPENTER.

The day was a more than commonly busy one, so that the usual hours of lessons in Mrs. Barclay's room did not come off. It was not till late in the afternoon that Lois went to her friend, to tell her that Mrs. Marx would send her little carriage in about an hour to fetch her mother, and that Mrs. Barclay also might ride if she would. Mrs. Barclay was sitting in her easy-chair before the fire, doing nothing, and on receipt of this in formation turned a very shadowed face towards the bringer of it.

"What will you say to me, if after all your aunt's kindness in asking me, I do not go?"

"Not go? You are not well?" inquired Lois anxiously.

"I am quite well--too well!"

"But something is the matter?"

"Nothing new."

"Dear Mrs. Barclay, can I help you?"

"I do not think you can. I am tired, Lois!"

"Tired! O, that is spending so much time giving lessons to Madge and me! I am so sorry."

"It is nothing of the kind," said Mrs. Barclay, stretching out her hand to take one of Lois's, which she retained in her own. "If anything would take away this tired feeling, it is just that, Lois. Nothing refreshes me so much, or does me so much good."

"Then what tires you, dear Mrs. Barclay?"

Lois's face showed unaffected anxiety. Mrs. Barclay gave the hand she held a little squeeze.

"It is nothing new, my child," she said, with a faint smile. "I am tired of life."

Looking at the girl, as she spoke, she saw how unable her listener's mind was to comprehend her. Lois looked puzzled.

"You do not know what I mean?" she said.

"Hardly--"

"I hope you never will. It is a miserable feeling. It is like what I can fancy a withered autumn leaf feeling, if it were a sentient and intelligent thing;--of no use to the branch which holds it--freshness and power gone--no reason for existence left--its work all done. Only I never did any work, and was never of any particular use."

"O, you cannot mean that!" cried Lois, much troubled and perplexed.

"I keep going over to-day that little hymn you showed me, that was found under the dead soldier's pillow. The words run in my head, and wake echoes.

'I lay me down to sleep, With little thought or care Whether the waking find Me here, or there.

'A bowing, burdened head--'"

But here the speaker broke off abruptly, and for a few minutes Lois saw, or guessed, that she could not go on.

"Never mind that verse," she said, beginning again; "it is the next. Do you remember?--

'My good right hand forgets Its cunning now. To march the weary march, I know not how.

'I am not eager, bold, Nor brave; all that is past. I am ready not to do, At last, at last!--'

I am too young to feel so," Mrs. Barclay went on, after a pause which Lois did not break; "but that is how I feel to-day."

"I do not think one need--or ought--at any age," Lois said gently; but her words were hardly regarded.

"Do you hear that wind?" said Mrs. Barclay. "It has been singing and sighing in the chimney in that way all the afternoon."

"It is Christmas," said Lois. "Yes, it often sings so, and I like it. I like it especially at Christmas time."

"It carries me back--years. It takes me to my old home, when I was a child. I think it must have sighed so round the house then. It takes me to a time when I was in my fresh young life and vigour--the unfolding leaf--when life was careless and cloudless; and I have a kind of home-sickness to-night for my father and mother.--Of the days since that time, I dare not think."

Lois saw that rare tears had gathered in her friend's eyes, slowly and few, as they come to people with whom hope is a lost friend; and her heart was filled with a great pang of sympathy. Yet she did not know how to speak. She recalled the verse of the soldier's hymn which Mrs. Barclay had passed over--

"A bowing, burdened head, That only asks to rest, Unquestioning, upon A loving breast."

She thought she knew what the grief was; but how to touch it? She sat still and silent, and perhaps even so spoke her sympathy better than any words could have done it. And perhaps Mrs. Barclay felt it so, for she presently went on after a manner which was not like her usual reserve.

"O that wind! O that wind! It sweeps away all that has been between, and puts home and my childhood before me. But it makes me home-sick, Lois!"

"Cannot you go on with the hymn, dear Mrs. Barclay? You know how it goes,--

'My half day's work is done; And this is all my part-- I give a patient God My patient heart.'"

"What does he want with it?" said the weary woman beside her.

"What? O, it is the very thing he wants of us, and of you; the one thing he cares about! That we would love him."

"I have not done a half day's work," said the other; "and my heart is not patient. It is only tired, and dead."

"It is not that," said Lois. "How very, very good you have been to Madge and me!"

"You have been good to me. And, as your grandmother quoted this morning, no thanks are due when we only love those who love us. My heart does not seem to be alive, Lois. You had better go to your aunt's without me, dear. I should not be good company."

"But I cannot leave you so!" exclaimed Lois; and she left her seat and sank upon her knees at her friend's side, still clasping the hand that had taken hers. "Dear Mrs. Barclay, there is help."

"If you could give it, there would be, you pretty creature!" said Mrs. Barclay, with her other hand pushing the beautiful masses of red-brown hair right and left from Lois's brow.

"But there is One who can give it, who is stronger than I, and loves you better."

"What makes you think so?"

"Because he has promised. 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.'"

Mrs. Barclay said nothing, but she shook her head.

"It is a promise," Lois repeated. "It is a PROMISE. It is the King's promise; and he never breaks his word."

"How do you know, my child? You have never been where I am."

"No," said Lois, "not there. I have never felt just _so_."

"I have had all that life could give. I have had it, and knew I had it. And it is all gone. There is nothing left."

"There is this left," said Lois eagerly, "which you have not tried."

"What?"

"The promise of Christ."

"My dear, you do not know what you are talking of. Life is in its spring with you."

"But I know the King's promise," said Lois.

"How do you know it?"

"I have tried it."

"But you have never had any occasion to try it, you heart-sound creature!" said Mrs. Barclay, with again a caressing, admiring touch of Lois's brow.

"O, but indeed I have. Not in need like yours--I have never touched _that_--I never felt like that; but in other need, as great and as terrible. And I know, and everybody else who has ever tried knows, that the Lord keeps his word."

"How have you tried?" Mrs. Barclay asked abstractedly.

"I needed the forgiveness of sin," said Lois, letting her voice fall a little, "and deliverance from it."

"_You!_" said Mrs. Barclay.

"I was as unhappy as anybody could be till I got it."

"When was that?"

"Four years ago."

"Are you much different now from what you were before?"

"Entirely."

"I cannot imagine you in need of forgiveness. What had you done?"

"I had done nothing whatever that I ought to have done. I loved only myself,--I mean _first_,--and lived only to myself and my own pleasure, and did my own will."

"Whose will do you now? your grandmother's?"

"Not grandmother's first. I do God's will, as far as I know it."

"And therefore you think you are forgiven?"

"I don't _think_, I know," said Lois, with a quick breath. "And it is not 'therefore' at all; it is because I am covered, or my sin is, with the blood of Christ. And I love him; and he makes me happy."

"It is easy to make you happy, dear. To me there is nothing left in the world, nor the possibility of anything. That wind is singing a dirge in my ears; and it sweeps over a desert. A desert where nothing green will grow any more!"

The words were spoken very calmly; there was no emotion visible that either threatened or promised tears; a dull, matter-of-fact, perfectly clear and quiet utterance, that almost broke Lois's heart. The water that was denied to the other eyes sprang to her own.

"It was in the wilderness that the people were fed with manna," she said, with a great gush of feeling in both heart and voice. "It was when they were starving and had no food, just then, that they got the bread from heaven."

"Manna does not fall now-a-days," said Mrs. Barclay with a faint smile.

"O yes, it does! There is your mistake, because you do not know. It _does_ come. Look here, Mrs. Barclay--"

She sprang up, went for a Bible which lay on one of the tables, and, dropping on her knees again by Mrs. Barclay's side, showed her an open page.

"Look here--'I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst... This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.' Not die of weariness, nor of anything else."

Mrs. Barclay did look with a little curiosity at the words Lois held before her, but then she put down the book and took the girl in her arms, holding her close and laying her own head on Lois's shoulder. Whether the words had moved her, Lois could not tell, or whether it was the power of her own affection and sympathy; Mrs. Barclay did not speak, and Lois did not dare add another word. They were still, wrapped in each other's arms, and one or two of Lois's tears wet the other woman's cheek; and there was no movement made by either of them; until the door was suddenly opened and they sprang apart.

"Here's Mr. Midgin," announced the voice of Miss Charity. "Shall he come in? or ain't there time? Of all things, why can't folks choose convenient times for doin' what they have to do! It passes me. It's because it's a sinful world, I suppose. But what shall I tell him? to go about his business, and come New Year's, or next Fourth of July?"

"You do not want to see him now?" said Lois hastily. But Mrs. Barclay roused herself, and begged that he might come in. "It is the carpenter, I suppose," said she.

Mr. Midgin was a tall, loose-jointed, large-featured man, with an undecided cast of countenance, and slow movements; which fitted oddly to his big frame and powerful muscles. He wore his working suit, which hung about him in a flabby way, and entered Mrs. Barclay's room with his hat on. Hat and all, his head made a little jerk of salutation to the lady.

"Good arternoon!" said he. "Sun'thin' I kin do here?"

"Yes, Mr. Midgin--I left word for you three days ago," said Lois.

"Jest so. I heerd. And here I be. Wall, I never see a room with so many books in it! Lois, you must be like a cow in clover, if you're half as fond of 'em as I be."

"You are fond of reading, Mr. Midgin?" said Mrs. Barclay.

"Wall, I think so. But what's in 'em all?" He came a step further into the room and picked up a volume from the table. Mrs. Barclay watched him. He opened the book, and stood still, eagerly scanning the page, for a minute or two.

"'Lamps of Architectur'," said he, looking then at the title-page;--"that's beyond me. The only lamps of architectur that _I_ ever see, in Shampuashuh anyway, is them that stands up at the depot, by the railroad; but here's 'truth,' and 'sacrifice,' and I don' know what all; 'hope' and 'love,' I expect. Wall, them's good lamps to light up anythin' by; only I don't make out whatever they kin have to do with buildin's." He picked up an other volume.

"What's this?" said he. "'Tain't _my_ native tongue. What do ye call it, Lois?"

"That is French, Mr. Midgin."

"That's French, eh?" said he, turning over the leaves. "I want to know! Don't look as though there was any sense in it. What is it about, now?"

"It is a story of a man who was king of Rome a great while ago."

"King o' Rome! What was his name? Not Romulus and Remus, I s'pose?"

"No; but he came just after Romulus."

"Did, hey? Then you s'pose there ever _was_ sich a man as Romulus?"

"Probably," Mrs. Barclay now said. "When a story gets form and lives, there is generally some thing of fact to serve as foundation for it."

"You think that?" said the carpenter. "Wall, I kin tell you stories that had form enough and life enough in 'em, to do a good deal o' work; and that yet grew up out o' nothin' but smoke. There was Governor Denver; he was governor o' this state for quite a spell; and he was a Shampuashuh man, so we all knew him and thought lots o' him. He was sot against drinking. Mebbe you don't think there's no harm in wine and the like?"

"I have not been accustomed to think there was any harm in it certainly, unless taken immoderately."

"Ay, but how're you goin' to fix what's moderately? there's the pinch. What's a gallon for me's only a pint for you. Wall, Governor Denver didn't believe in havin' nothin' to do with the blamed stuff; and he had taken the pledge agin it, and he was known for an out and out temperance man; teetotal was the word with him. Wall, his daughter was married, over here at New Haven; and they had a grand weddin', and a good many o' the folks was like you, they thought there was no harm in it, if one kept inside the pint, you know; and there was enough for everybody to hev had his gallon. And then they said the Governor had taken his glass to his daughter's health, or something like that. Wall, all Shampuashuh was talkin' about it, and Governor Denver's friends was hangin' their heads, and didn't know what to say; for whatever a man thinks,--and thoughts is free,--he's bound to stand to what he _says_, and particularly if he has taken his oath upon it. So Governor Denver's friends was as worried as a steam-vessel in a fog, when she can't hear the 'larm bells; and one said this and t'other said that. And at last I couldn't stand it no longer; and I writ him a letter--to the Governor; and says I, 'Governor,' says I, '_did_ you drink wine at your daughter Lottie's weddin' at New Haven last month?' And if you'll believe me, he writ me back, 'Jonathan Midgin, Esq. Dear sir, I was in New York the day you mention, shakin' with chills and fever, and never got to Lottie's weddin' at all.'--What do you think o' that? Overturns your theory a leetle, don't it? Warn't no sort o' foundation for that story; and yet it did go round, and folks said it was so."

"It is a strong story for your side, Mr. Midgin, undoubtedly."

"Ain't it! La! bless you, there's nothin' you kin be sartain of in this world. I don't believe in no Romulus and his wolf. Half o' all these books, now, I have no doubt, tells lies; and the other half, you don' know which 'tis."

"I cannot throw them away however, just yet; and so, Mr. Midgin, I want some shelves to keep them off the floor."

"I should say you jest did! Where'll you put 'em?"

"The shelves? All along that side of the room, I think. And about six feet high."

"That'll hold 'em," said Mr. Midgin, as he applied his measuring rule. "Jest shelves? or do you want a bookcase fixed up all reg'lar?"

"Just shelves. That is the prettiest bookcase, to my thinking."

"That's as folks looks at it," said Mr. Midgin, who apparently was of a different opinion. "What'll they be? Mahogany, or walnut, or cherry, or maple, or pine? You kin stain 'em any colour. One thing's handsome, and another thing's cheap; and I don' know yet whether you want 'em cheap or handsome."

"Want 'em both, Mr. Midgin," said Lois.

"H'm!-- Well--maybe there's folks that knows how to combine both advantages--but I'm afeard I ain't one of 'em. Nothin' that's cheap's handsome, to my way o' thinkin'. You don't make much count o' cheap things _here_ anyhow," said he, surveying the room. And then he began his measurements, going round the sides of the apartment to apply his rule to all the plain spaces; and Mrs. Barclay noticed how tenderly he handled the books which he had to move out of his way. Now and then he stopped to open one, and stood a minute or two peering into it. All this while his hat was on.

"Should like to read that," he remarked, with a volume of Macaulay's Essays in his hands. "That's well written. But a man can't read all the world," he went on, as he laid it out of his hands again. "'Much study is a weariness to the flesh.' Arter all, I don't suppose a man'd be no wiser if he'd read all you've got here. The biggest fool I ever knowed, was the man that had read the most."

"How did he show his folly?" Mrs. Barclay asked.

"Wall, it's a story. Lois knows. He was dreadfully sot on a little grandchild he had; his chil'n was all dead, and he had jest this one left; she was a little girl. And he never left her out o' his sight, nor she him; until one day he had to go to Boston for some business; and he couldn't take her; and he said he knowed some harm'd come. Do you believe in presentiments."

"Sometimes," said Mrs. Barclay.

"How should a man have presentiments o' what's comin'?"

"I cannot answer that."

"No, nor nobody else. It ain't reason. I believe the presentiments makes the things come."

"Was that the case in this instance?"

"Wall, I don't see how it could. When he come back from Boston, the little girl was dead; but she was as well as ever when he went away. Ain't that curious?"

"Certainly; if it is true."

"I'm tellin' you nothin' but the truth. The hull town knows it. 'Tain't no secret. 'Twas old Mr. Roderick, you know, Lois; lived up yonder on the road to the ferry. And after he come back from the funeral he shut himself up in the room where his grandchild had been--and nobody ever see him no more from that day, 'thout 'twas the folks in the house; and there warn't many o' them; but he never went out. An' he never went out for seven years; and at the end o' seven years he _had_ to--there was money in it--and folks that won't mind nothin' else, they minds Mammon, you know; so he went out. An' as soon as he was out o' the house, his women-folks, they made a rush for his room, fur to clean it; for, if you'll believe me, it hadn't been cleaned all those years; and I expect 'twas in a condition; but the women likes nothin' better; and as they opened some door or other, of a closet or that, out runs a little white mouse, and it run clear off; they couldn't catch it any way, and they tried every way. It was gone, and they were scared, for they knowed the old gentleman's ways. It wasn't a closet either it was in, but some piece o' furniture; I'm blessed ef I can remember what they called it. The mouse was gone, and the women-folks was scared; and to be sure, when Mr. Roderick come home he went as straight as a line to that there door where the mouse was; and they say he made a terrible rumpus when he couldn't find it; but arter that the spell was broke, like; and he lived pretty much as other folks. Did you say six feet?"

"That will be high enough. And you may leave a space of eight or ten feet on that side, from window to window."

"Thout any?"

"Yes."

"That'll be kind o' lop-sided, won't it? I allays likes to see things samely. What'll you do with all that space of emptiness? It'll look awful bare."

"I will put something else there. What do you suppose the white mouse had to do with your old gentleman's seclusion?"

"Seclusion? Livin' shut up, you mean? Why, don't ye see, he believed the mouse was the sperrit o' the child--leastways the sperrit o' the child was in it. You see, when he got back from the funeral the first thing his eyes lit upon was that ere white mouse; and it was white, you see, and that ain't a common colour for a mouse; and it got into his head, and couldn't get out, that that was Ella's sperrit. It mought ha' ben, for all I can say; but arter that day, it was gone."

"You think the child's spirit might have been in the mouse?"

"Who knows? I never say nothin' I don't know, nor deny nothin' I _du_ know; ain't that a good principle?"

"But you know better than that, Mr. Midgin," said Lois.

"Wall, I don't! Maybe you do, Lois; but accordin' to my lights I _don't_ know. You'll hev 'em walnut, won't you? that'll look more like furniture."

"Are you coming? The waggon's here, Lois," said Madge, opening the door. "Is Mrs. Barclay ready?"

"Will be in two minutes," replied that lady. "Yes, Mr. Midgin, let them be walnut; and good evening! Yes, Lois, I am quite roused up now, and I will go with you. I will walk, dear; I prefer it."