CHAPTER VI.

“THERE’S LIFE IN HIM YET.”

In due time it appeared that this silent boy had been taking careful note of the household arrangements and the routine of work. James had hitherto slept till called to breakfast, but one morning Mr. Whitman at rising found the fire built, the teakettle on, the horses fed, and James up and dressed. As they were about to go to milking he took the pail from Mrs. Whitman and said he would milk.

“You may take this pail, James, and I’ll take another; the sooner the cows are out the better. Sometime when I’m in a hurry, or when it rains, you can milk my cows.”

After breakfast James, without being told, began to clean the horses. They were harvesting the last of the potato crop, and Mr. Whitman, wishing to ascertain how much the boy really knew in regard to handling horses, asked him if he could put the horses on the cart and bring it out at night to haul in the potatoes as they sorted them on the ground. James replied that the harnesses were not like those to which he had been accustomed, but thought he could get them on. At the time he came with the cart, it was evident that he was no novice in handling horses, and that the animals knew it as he backed up his load to the cellar door in a workmanlike manner.

Mr. Whitman expressed his approbation very decidedly, and Peter said afterwards,—

“Father, he was ever so much pleased that you told him to bring out the cart, and that you liked what he did.”

“How do you know that? What did he say?”

“He didn’t _say_ anything, but I have got so that I can tell when he is pleased.”

Saturday evening came, work was cleared up early, and preparation made for the Sabbath in accordance with the custom of our forefathers.

“This boy, husband, must not grow up among us like a heathen. He must go to meeting, and I must make him a good suit of clothes to go with.”

“He is farther removed from being a heathen if, as is reported of him, he will neither swear, lie nor steal, than some among ourselves who go to meeting every Sabbath and yet are guilty of all three. I intend that he shall not only go to meeting but to school as well.”

“I thought the only thing that made you ever think of getting a boy at all, was to have his help in the short days of winter, as the children have not time to do the chores before they go, and after they get home, from school.”

“True, but since I have learned that he is ignorant of everything that he ought to know, except what he learned by rote from the lips of that minister, I feel that it becomes my duty to send him to school. A boy who has made so good use of what he does know, in spite of poverty and persecution, certainly deserves to be further instructed.”

“Then I must teach him his letters. I never would send one of my own children to school till they knew their letters; I won’t him.”

“How will you ever get the time with all you have to do?”

“I’ll take the time, and Bertie can help me.”

“I’ll help you, mother. I’m going to teach him to tell the time of day by the clock. I asked him if he would like to have me teach him, and he said he would. He can swim and fire a gun first rate. I got him to talk a little yesterday; he said he worked with a farmer who gave him powder and small shot and kept him shooting sparrows that eat up the grain. And after that he was all summer with the gamekeeper on a nobleman’s place, and used to shoot hawks and owls; he says they call ‘em vermin there; and he used to drive horses for weeks together.”

There were no Sabbath-schools in those days, but after meeting on Sabbath afternoon Mr. Whitman catechized his children. They were all assembled in the kitchen, and he put to Peter the first question:

“What is the chief end of man?” Peter replied,—

“To glorify God and enjoy him forever;” when James exclaimed abruptly,—

“I know that man.”

“What man?”

“God. Mr. Holmes used to tell me about him; and he’s a Lord, too,—he made the Lord’s prayer and the Bible, and made me, and every kind of a thing that ever was, or ever will be.”

“Mercy sakes, James!” cried Mrs. Whitman, holding up both her hands in horror; “God is not a man.”

“I thought he was a great big man, bigger than kings or queens; and I heard a minister what came to the workhouse read in the Bible, ‘The Lord is a man of war.’”

“He is indeed greater than all other beings; but he is not a man, but a spirit, and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

“What is a spirit?”

“Don’t you know what a spirit is, what your own spirit is?”

“No.”

“Oh, dear! What shall we do with him, Mr. Whitman? We shall be accountable for him; we must get the minister to come and talk with him.”

“Tut, the minister would not do any better with him than yourself, not as well. Wait till he goes to school, and when he comes to obtain knowledge in general, he’ll find out the distinction between flesh and spirit. All will come about in proper time and place, as it has with our children—they had to learn it, and so will he.”

“What else did Mr. Holmes tell you?” said Mrs. Whitman.

“He told me the prayer and said God made it, said you must remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Mustn’t work that day nor play; that you mustn’t lie nor steal nor swear for God didn’t like it, and if you did he wouldn’t like you. He told me the commandments. Then I promised him I would say the prayer every night and morning, and I have. I promised him I would never lie nor steal nor swear, and I never did. I would be cut in pieces first.”

“Where do you think you will go to when you die?”

“I shall go to heaven. Mr. Holmes said he expected to go there, and if I did as he told me, I would go there and be with him. I want to go there to see him. He’ll take me on his knees and kiss me just as he used to do; nobody ever loved me only Mr. Holmes, and I never loved anybody else only him.”

“Didn’t he never tell you about your mother?”

“Yes, and said she died praying for me; and gave me a bible that was my mother’s, her name is in it, but I can’t read it, though I know where it is.”

He drew a bible from his breast pocket and pointed with his finger to the fly-leaf, on which was written “Estelle Whitneys, her book, bought while at service at Bolton Le Moors.”

Bertie, who had become intensely interested in this narration, entreated that he might have the sole care of instructing James, and as the evenings were now quite long, the time after supper was devoted to that purpose. As they took supper at an early hour this afforded them a good opportunity, James being excused from milking and all other work at that hour. James stipulated that he should first of all be taught to tell the time by the clock. He was soon able to tell the hours and half hours and quarters, and by the next Sabbath had mastered the minutes and seconds.

It was the intention of Mr. Whitman to ascertain and bring out the capabilities of the boy by leaving him as much as possible to his own direction, hoping in that way to stimulate thought, and cultivate a spirit of self-reliance. He had engaged to haul another load of wheat to the miller, and also wanted to have some corn (that the old grandfather had shelled) ground, and the horses required shoeing, and as James had recovered from his lameness, and was able to carry the bags of grain into the mill, resolved to entrust him with the errand.

Mrs. Whitman demurred at this, saying that the horses had not done much work of late, and were full of life; that he did not know anything about James, whether he was capable of driving a team with a valuable load on a long hilly road or not. Besides he knew neither the way to the mill, nor to the smith’s shop.

“I’ve watched his movements with the horses, and I’ll risk him. He is altogether different from one of our boys, who are quite likely to undertake more than they can perform, and will hesitate at nothing. I’ll ask him, and if he is willing to do it, I’ll let him go, and send Bert with him to show him the way, and tell the miller and blacksmith what I want done.”

“Why don’t you send Peter with him, and then all will go right?”

“That would be just to take the business out of his hands and spoil the whole thing; whereas I want to put it into his hands and give him the sole management of the team.”

James professing his readiness to go, the pair set out taking their dinner with them. Bertie was heard chattering, expatiating upon the good qualities of the horses, and telling James their names, ages, and pedigree, till his voice became inaudible in the distance.

“If he rides eight miles with Bert and don’t talk any, he will do more than I think he can,” said Mr. Whitman, as he looked after them, not without a shade of anxiety upon his face as he remarked the rate at which the spirited team whirled the heavy load down a long reach of descending ground, snorting as they travelled. It passed off however, as he saw that James had them well in hand, and stopped them to breathe at the foot of the first sharp rise. They returned, having accomplished their errand, and after James had eaten his supper and retired, Mr. Whitman said to Bertie,—

“I did not expect you for an hour and a half, as you had to get a grist ground, and the horses shod, and one of them shod all round.”

“Everything worked just as well as it could. There was no grist in the mill, and Mr. Lunt turned our corn right up. I took the horses right to the blacksmith’s and found Joe Bemis sitting on the anvil smoking his pipe. Wasn’t I glad! So he went right at the horses. When I got back James had carried in every bag of the wheat, and the grist was in the wagon, and all we had to do was to feed the horses, eat ourselves, and start. Mother Whitman, we found the prettiest place to eat! a little cleft in the rocks, a birch tree growing out of it. Father, a bag of wheat is just nothing to James, he’s awful strong.”

“What did Mr. Lunt say to him?”

“Don’t you think he didn’t know him?”

“Didn’t know him?”

“No, sir; and asked me who that man was with the team; and when I told him it was the redemptioner you had of Mr. Wilson he wouldn’t believe it for ever so long, and said he didn’t look like the same man. No, he don’t father; he gets up and sits down quicker, and he was just pale, but now there’s a little red spot in the middle of each cheek. His cheeks were hollow and the skin was drawn tight over the bone, and looked all glossy, same as the bark on a young apple-tree where the sheep rub against it in the spring. He looked kinder,—what is it you call it mother, when you talk about sick folks?”

“Emaciated?”

“That’s it; he looked emaciated but he don’t now.”

“How did you find the road?”

“They have been working on the road in the Showdy district, and it was very bad, and the worst hills are there, too.

“If I had known that, I would not have put on so much load. Did you have any trouble? Did James have to strike the horses, or did he get stuck?”

“He never struck them nor spoke to them, only chirruped, ‘cept once, and that was on Shurtleffs hill. The nigh wheel sunk into a hole into which they had hauled soft mud, and he said ‘Lift again Frank!’ Then old Frank straightened himself, and took it out with a great snort, and when he stopped him on top of the hill I could see the muscles on the old fellow’s shoulder twitch and quiver.”

“Did he talk with you any, going to the mills?” said the mother.

“Never opened his mouth from the time we started till we got there, but once; when he said it was a noble span of horses.”

“Then you think it is safe to send him with a team?”

“Safe, mother? he knows all about it. How to guide four horses or six, and the horses know it, and do what he asks ‘em to. Frank thinks he knows, and Dick does just as Frank tells him, for Dick hasn’t any mind of his own.”

“How do you know what Frank thinks?”

“Mother, you may laugh, but I know what Frank thinks just as well as I know what our Maria thinks. And he likes James, too; for when he hears his step he’ll begin to look, and when James pats him he’ll bend his neck and put his nose on his shoulder. Frank wouldn’t do that to anybody he didn’t like.”

“Shouldn’t think,” said Peter, “he’d be very good company on the road if he wouldn’t say anything.”

“When he sat down to eat he talked a lot. Said he never saw an ox yoked in England,—that they did all their work with horses; called ‘em bullocks and killed ‘em for beef; said they didn’t have any of our kind of corn there, and the farmers gave their horses beans for provender, and only a few oats, and that they fatted their hogs on peas and barley. He said the beans they gave their horses were larger than ours. That they had no woods, only scattering trees in the hedges, and all their land, except where it was too rocky to plough, was just like our fields. They would plough and plant and sow it ever so long, and then make pasture of it and plough up what was pasture before, and keep twice as many cattle on the same ground as we do.”

“I never thought,” said Mrs. Whitman, “that he would talk so much as that; or that he knew so much about any kind of business.”

“Why mother, he knows more than I do, if I am his teacher.”

“I asked him why he, and the men who came over in the vessel with him, couldn’t work in England and get their living, instead of going to the poorhouse, or selling themselves to come over and work.”

“What did he say to that?” inquired the father.

“He said there were so many folks wanted to work, there was no work for them, and because there were so many, the farmers would only give those they did hire just enough to keep alive; and if they were taken sick, or lame, or had no work, they must go to the workhouse.

“He said they used to send him away to farmers, and they would keep him all summer, make him work very hard, and not give him half so much to eat as he had at the workhouse, and after they got their harvest all in, carry him back and say he was good for nothing, so as not to keep him in the winter.

“I asked him if the workhouse folks ever drove him off, he said no, but it seemed so much like begging to ask them, that rather than do it he had gone three days without anything but water and a little milk.

“I asked him how he came to think of coming here. He said he knew winter was coming on, he had no work, no clothes, and not a friend in the world, and one day after the rest of the boys had been abusing him and calling him a fool, and showing him things they had stolen, he put some stones in his pocket and went down to the water to kill himself, but something told him not to, and he flung ‘em away. And the next day Mr. Wilson came along and asked him to go to America, and he thought he couldn’t be in any worse place, and couldn’t suffer any more so he came.”

“What did you say to that?”

“Father, I’d rather not tell.”

“You cried,” said Maria, “I know he did, father, he’s most crying now.”

“I couldn’t help it May, and I guess you couldn’t have helped it neither, if you had only seen how pitiful he looked, and how sad his voice sounded.”

“What did he say when he found you cried?”

“He put his arm round me and said ‘don’t cry Bertie,’ and said he was sorry he made me feel bad. I tell you, all of you, I love him, I know he’s good as he can be, and I knew he was from the first, ‘cause I saw Frank loved him. Frank knows I tell you.”

“I suppose Frank will love anybody who’ll feed and make much of him.”

“No he won’t father, because there was Mike Walsh who stole your coat, and ran off after you overpaid him, would feed him and try every way to get the right side of him, but he couldn’t, and Frank would bite him whenever he could get a chance; and you know father he couldn’t catch him in the pasture.”

“Did he talk with you on the way home?”

“Never opened his mouth only to say ‘yes,’ or ‘no,’ or ‘don’t know.’”

“I shouldn’t think you’d like him so much as though he talked more, I shouldn’t,” said Maria.

“Who wants anybody all the time a gabbing just like Matt Saunders when she comes here to help mother draw a web into the loom, her tongue going all the time like a pullet when she’s laid her first egg. I’ve heard mother say it was just like the letting out of water, but when James says anything there’s some sense to it,” retorted Bertie resolved in the enthusiasm of friendship that no fault should be found in his _protégé_.

“Ain’t you glad you took him, father?”

“I took him because I thought it to be my duty, and I think we always feel best when we have done our duty,” replied the cautious parent.

“I am!” exclaimed the grandparent, “what a sin and a shame it would have been for a young able-bodied man like that to have remained starving in rags, scorned by the sweepings of a workhouse, because he could find no work by which to earn his bread, had too much pride of character to beg, and too much principle to steal.”

“Aye,” said Alice Whitman, “and suppose he had been driven by misery to take his own life. But now he is in a fair way to make a good and useful member of society. As far as I am concerned, he shall have as kind usage as any child of mine, for I believe he was sent to us.”

“The prayers of good persons are always heard, but are not always answered at once; and I have no doubt it was the prayer of that Christian mother that stood in the way to stay his hand when he thought to commit murder upon himself.”

“You need not be afraid, Jonathan Whitman, to do for and trust that lad. His father was a hard working Christian man, and his mother a hard working Christian woman. There’s no vile blood in his veins, he was born where the birds sang, and the grass grew around the door-step, if he did find shelter in a workhouse. You’ll honor yourself and bring a blessing upon your own hearthstone by caring for him.”

“Amen,” exclaimed the grandparent, laying his great wrinkled hand in benediction upon the head of his son’s wife.

In making such minute inquiries of Albert in respect to the conversation between himself and James, Mr. Whitman was influenced by a stronger motive than mere curiosity. He knew, for he was a keen observer, that James would unbosom himself to this innocent, enthusiastic and artless boy in a manner that he would not to any other; and he wanted to get at his inward life that he might thoroughly know, and thus understandingly, guide and benefit him.

Reflecting upon what he had heard, he drew from it this inference, and said within himself, “There’s life in him yet.”