Chapter XXVII: Heart-Throbs and Commonplaces

IT is not my purpose to detail to you what was said in the Morgan family when the astounding revelations connected with that evening in the parlour were made known to them. That the revelations were astounding you can hardly doubt,—at least to certain members of the family. The father and mother would hardly have been more amazed had an angel from heaven descended and claimed their daughter Dorothy for a friend. Not that they regarded the young minister in an angelic light; but they had, although they did not admit it even to themselves, much stanch loyalty of heart to the profession. A minister was a person to respect, not so much on account of himself as because of his profession. Farmer Morgan felt this. Sneer as he might, in a sort of good-natured, tolerant way, at the inconsistencies of Christians, ministers included, he never went beyond certain general phrases, and he disliked to hear others go even so far as that. Besides, Mr. Butler had grown into the genuine affections of this family. They did not know it. Farmer Morgan would have been amazed had anybody told him that he liked Mr. Butler very much; he would have been likely to think the person mistaken; yet it was true.

As for the mother, along with her respect for the minister, and a certain sense of satisfied pride in the fact that he had actually sought her daughter for a wife, came a feeling of utter astonishment that anybody wanted Dorothy. Why, Dorothy was nothing but a child. The idea of her being married! She looked at her in a kind of maze; for several days she studied over it and tried to understand it. It had never seemed to occur to her to look upon this daughter as one growing into a woman. She had seemed to stay somewhere in the region of twelve, or at best fourteen; a girl to be directed and managed; to be told peremptorily what to wear, and where to go, and where not to go; in short, a child, to obey unquestioningly—an older child than Nellie, of course, but after all a child.

Now, in the space of one night—so it seemed to the mother—she had sprung into young ladyhood, nay, sprung over it entirely, and stood on the very verge of womanhood! Engaged to be married! What an unaccountable state of things! Dorothy actually planning to go away from home—to be gone over night, many nights, every night Dorothy to have a home of her own, to be a housekeeper, a planner, a manager! To be a minister's wife! The story grew in strangeness. The mother turned on her pillow, overwhelmed with it. She arose in the morning with a strange sense of bewilderment: she looked doubtfully at Dorothy in her brown calico, the same brown calico that she had worn every morning that week, looking much the same in every respect, and yet by a certain light in her eye, and a certain spring in her step, and a certain throbbing of her mother's heart, known to be not the same for ever.

Look at the matter from whatever standpoint you may—let the circumstances be as favourable as they will, let the congratulations be as sincere and as hearty as possible—there is always a sad side to this story of life. It speaks of great and ever-increasing change; it always has its heavy corner in the mother's heart. Still, the new order of things worked well for Dorothy. If the mother was sad, she was also glad. As I said, there was a sense of satisfied pride about it; also, there was that feeling of added dignity in being the mother of Dorothy, albeit at first the sense of respect for her that came with it was nearly overpowering. Almost it seemed to her that it was hardly the thing to send the prospective wife of her minister down to the cellar after the bread and the butter, and to skim the cream! Gradually this absurd part of the feeling wore away; but the fact that Dorothy was a young woman, and not a child, was to be consulted and conferred with, and in a measure deferred to, remained, and was helpful not only to Dorothy but to the mother. The year that followed would be one that mother and daughter would like in future years to look back upon and remember.

Lewis was unaffectedly glad and thankful. Mr. Butler had grown rapidly in his regard—all the more rapidly since he had awakened to the fact that he was not merely a critic, but a fellow-worker, bound by solemn vows to work with and sustain his pastor. That his sister Dorothy should be the chosen one filled him with astonishment, but since she was chosen he was glad; and every day he grew more fully of the opinion that Mr. Butler was a sensible man, and had made a wise choice. He had underrated his sister nearly all her life; he was almost in danger of overrating her now; but that is such a pleasant and easily forgiven failing, and withal such a rare one between brothers and sisters, that I find myself liking Lewis the better for possessing it.

As for Louise, she was a woman, a young one, with wide-open eyes and sympathetic heart: she was not surprised at all. Matters had progressed more rapidly than she had expected. She was even a trifle sorry that Dorothy had not gotten just a little further on with her German before her teacher turned into her lover, because she much feared that there would be little German taught or studied now; but then she reflected that possibly the lessons he had to teach were more important than German. At least the matter was in no sense of her planning, and the studies in which she was teacher, and in which Dorothy had made such rapid progress during the year, should still continue; and so, all things considered, Louise was glad.

I find myself lingering longer over this explanation than is needed. I designed to tell you of something else—of a winter evening near to Christmas time when, the farm work for the day being all done, the early evening had closed in upon the Morgan family, and found them in the bright, clean kitchen, at their substantial supper-table—a cheery group. Somehow this family was learning to have social suppers and cheery times together. The account Lewis was giving of a matter of interest that had occurred in the village was interrupted by a decisive rap at the outside door.

"Another tramp?" said Lewis inquiringly, as Nellie slipped from her corner and went to answer the knock. "This is the third one to-day, isn't it? Those fellows are growing more plentiful."

"Strange that they straggle away out here," the mother said. "I should think they would stay in large towns."

And then Nellie gave a startled little exclamation, possibly of terror, or perhaps only of surprise, but it caused each member of the household to turn suddenly in the direction of the door; and then they exclaimed—not in terror, certainly, for there was nothing in the young man to awaken terror, but they were too much excited to analyze the tone of the exclamations. The mother was on her feet and at the door, and while the others stared and waited, and knew not what they said nor how they felt, the mother had both arms around the intruder, and her lips for the first time for years and years to his cheek, and her heart cried out,—

"Oh, my boy! My boy!"

Now, I am sure you do not expect me to tell you what the Morgan family said to each other and to John for the next ten minutes. They do not know themselves; they could not recall afterward how they acted, nor what were the first words spoken, nor who, after the mother, spoke first. And if I should tell the tale, the probabilities are that it would sound strange and unnatural, the words, trivial in the extreme, unsuited to the occasion. It is even a chance if the speakers thereof would not declare, "I don't believe I said any such thing; it doesn't sound like me." Such scenes are better left untold. The heart-throbs, and the quivers of lip and chin, and the glances exchanged from wet eyes, cannot be described, and have much more to do with the matter than mere words.

Thus much Dorothy remembered; that after the first surprise was subsiding, before even it had time to subside, she made haste to the pantry, and coming thence with knife and plate, motioned Louise, who had taken the hint, further to the left, and arranged for John his old seat near his father, and set his chair and said, "Come, John;" and then all settled into their places again. And Farmer Morgan remembers it now with a curious, half-ashamed smile how he filled John's plate full to overflowing with the cold beans that he remembered he used to like, and then, unmindful of what he did, reached forward and added another spoonful after the plate had been passed. Well, what mattered it, whether expressed in beans or some other way, so that the heart made known the fact that it wanted to give even to overflowing to the son who was lost and is alive again. The familiar sentence hovered through Louise's mind, "Was he alive?" She looked at him stealthily, tremblingly, while Lewis talked. His face looked older, much older; worn and grave, not hard; the eyes were clear and steady, and his dress was that of a cleanly, respectable working-man. But how much hope was there that he would bring gladness with him to the old home—a gladness that would stay?

"Well," John said, pushing his chair forward so that his face was more in shadow, and the tone of the simple little word sent that thrill of expectancy through the family group which comes in unison with a feeling that something important is coming. This was after the tea-things had been cleared away and the room had assumed order and quiet. Not that there had been much bustle about the work that evening. Mrs. Morgan had done what was for her a surprising thing: she pushed her chair back from the table and sat still during all the moving to and fro from pantry to cellar, unmindful, for the first time in her life, as to whether the milk went down in the right pitcher or the bread went down at all. Louise and Dorothy had moved softly, had set back chairs noiselessly, and dried cups and plates without a sound, so as to lose no syllable of the conversation. But it was not until they were seated that John spoke that little preparatory word.

"I have a long story to tell—a very long one. I don't know where to begin or how to begin; only this, I have made up my mind to strike into the middle of it first, and to say to you, father, and to you, mother, that I want you to forgive me for everything that is past in my life that has hurt you; and I know that is a great deal. I want to tell you that I have begun life again—begun at the beginning. In short, I feel that I can honestly say, 'This your son was dead, and is alive again; was lost, and is found.'" And he turned to his mother with a smile that evidently she understood.

"Did you really get my letter?" she asked him, her voice so full of eagerness and so unlike herself that Louise could not avoid a wondering look.

"Yes," John said, "I did;" and he launched at once into the details of the series of apparent accidents which had brought him his mother's letter. "I was signing an acknowledgment of a package received for Mr. Stuart, and I had to sign my own name, so that in case of loss, you know, it could be traced to me. As I wrote my name, the carrier, who stood by, said, 'There has been a letter lying in the office up here at Station D for a person of that name. I remember it because it has neither street nor number—just the name and the city. We thought it was intended for John Y. Morgan, the mason, but he brought it back to the station; said it was none of his; said it commenced, "My dear son," and the two people who used to commence letters that way for him had been in heaven for a dozen years.'"

"I don't know what made me go after that letter," said John, after a moment's silence, his voice broken with feeling. "I am sure I had no reason and no right to expect that it was for me; but it seemed to me that I must have it, and I went for it. And, mother, that letter brought me home. There were certain things that I meant to wait to do before I came—money that I meant to earn. I had an idea of waiting until I could feel that my coming would not disgrace you. But after I read that letter I knew I ought to come right away, and after I had so decided, I could hardly wait for morning. Now, mother, father, will you take me back? Will you let me try to be to you the son I ought to have been, and never was? I don't know that I should dare to say that to you, only that I have been to my heavenly Father and found out how he can forgive, and I have found that he says, 'Like as a father pitieth his children,' and 'As one whom his mother comforteth.' And that has given me a notion of what father and mother love are. And then, mother, that letter of yours—I went down on my knees before God with it and blessed him for it."

They were crying now, every one of them save Farmer Morgan, and what he felt no one knew. He drew out his red silk handkerchief and blew his nose twice, then he leaned forward and snuffed the candle. When he presently found voice it was a husky one; but all he said was,—

"We won't talk about them days that are gone; I guess the most of us are willing to bid good-bye to them and begin again. There's a chance for improvement in us all; like as not we better try for it."

The Morgan family actually sat up that night until nearly eleven o'clock. It was an unprecedented thing for them to do. I cannot tell you what they said; I even doubt much whether I would if I could. Do not you hate to see some things attempted on paper? A little of the commonplace mixed in with it? In fact, I doubt whether there could be a true home scene without touches of what we call commonplace coming in between. For instance, in the course of the evening Louise bethought herself of the little dismantled hall chamber, and slipped away and brought comforts, and quilts, and cover, and pure linen, and towels, and wrought with rapid hand until the room took on a sense of home and occupancy again. She even went for the tidies and the vases to make it all seem as he had left it. Then she climbed to the upper shelf and got down that Bible, and I am unable to tell you what a rush of glad emotions swelled in her heart as she thought of the tender way in which John had quoted those two Bible verses, and remembered that that Bible would be to him now something besides a cumberer.

Down in the kitchen the mother, her heart filled with the most precious thoughts that ever throbbed in a mother's heart, remembered suddenly that John had been very fond of a certain kind of cake, and while he and Lewis talked, and the father, with his elbows leaning on the arms of his chair and head bent forward, listened as though ten o'clock had not been two hours after his bed-time for more than half a century, the mother gave undertone directions to Dorothy to sift flour, and "bring a yeast-cake, and a little warm water, and the big yellow bowl, and the batter-spoon, and a little salt," and with skilful fingers, and such a light in her eyes as the yellow bowl had never seen before, prepared to make the breakfast table abound with good cheer. These commonplace reachings-out after to-morrows that make good cheer for the home are certainly productive of results that dignify them.

I find myself liking to linger over that evening in the Morgan household. It was such a wonderful hour to them—something which settled down into their lives as a history—a time from which they dated. Years afterward they said, "The moonlight to-night reminds me of that evening when John came home, you know," and then silence—such sentences never used save to that innermost circle and those who in after years grew into the circle and had a right to the family histories. Yet there is little to tell about it. How very often that is the case where there is much, so very much, to feel. One train of thought, intimately connected with it, ought to be told.

There was that in the evening's history which silenced Mr. Morgan—which bewildered him. Hitherto he had professed to be, and, in fact, I think believed himself to be, a sceptic as regarded the fact of a supernatural change in human hearts. Conversion, he believed, meant simply firm resolves, decision of character, will-power. Louise was, by natural temperament and by education, different from most others; so, in his way, was Lewis. Thus Mr. Morgan had reasoned. Dorothy needed waking up, and Louise and Lewis and Mr. Butler between them had waked her up. The change, sudden and great in his own wife, had bewildered him not a little. She certainly had always possessed will enough. But he told himself, "After all, what had she done but determine to be interested in the Bible and in the church and all that? All it needed was determination." Now, here came his strong-willed son—so strong, indeed, that his will had been his one great source of trouble even from babyhood. As a wee boy he had hated to give up one inch. He had been unable to say, "I am sorry," or, "I won't do so again," or, "Forgive me," or any of the penitent phrases which fall so readily from baby lips. A scowl and dogged perseverance in his own way had been characteristics of John's babyhood. Now, what power had brought him home to say not only, "I was wrong," but "Forgive me; I want to begin again"? John saying, "Father, mother, forgive me"—saying it without being ordered or compelled by the force of circumstances! His father was staggered. Here at last was something—some strange change that could not be explained by any force of will whatever, save by admitting that something—somebody—had changed the current of the will-power.

"I believe," said Father Morgan to himself, as late that night he sat down on the edge of his bed and slowly and thoughtfully removed his boots, while Mother Morgan went to see if John did not need another coverlet,—"I believe in my soul that somehow—I don't know how, but somehow—God has got hold of John."