Chapter XXIX: The Old and the New

IT is not because there is not much concerning the Morgan family which would be pleasant to me to tell that I pass in silence a stretch of years. It is simply that the lengthening chapters remind me it is high time to have done with them; and yet there are certain things that I must tell. Therefore it is that I drop you into the midst of June roses again, after a lapse of five busy, earnest years. Back at the old farmhouse, which really was not the old farmhouse at all; and yet it was—that is, it was in a new dress. A corner had been put on here, a bay-window there, a piazza at the south side, and a wide old-fashioned porch at the east, until really the house would not have recognized itself. Within, not a single room, from the yellow painted kitchen onward, remained the same. Was this the new house, planned years before? Well, not exactly. The new house was built, and built with the bricks and mortar, just as it had been planned on paper, and a gem of a house it proved to be; but its location was next to the church, in the village, and Dorothy and the minister were the occupants.

"It isn't exactly a parsonage," Father Morgan said, "and yet it is; at least the minister lives in it, and is welcome to, of course, for it belongs to his wife; but if another minister should come in his place, why then I suppose it couldn't be called a parsonage."

At present there is no prospect that another minister will come in Mr. Butler's place. The people like both him and his wife. That is a strange statement, I am aware—almost an unnatural story; and yet every one knows that there are a few parishes left in which the people continue to stand by a faithful pastor even after a lapse of years. Dorothy had certain advantages. To be sure, Mr. Butler had done what is supposed to be an unwise thing—married the daughter of one of his parishioners; but it will be remembered that in her early girlhood she had almost no acquaintances with the people of the village. She had not mingled with them in any capacity. They knew no more of her character, and almost as little of her life, as they would have done had she lived a thousand miles away; and, somehow, the one whom they used, on rare occasions, to speak of as "that Morgan girl," seemed to the people an entirely different person from their minister's wife, as in truth she was. So, as if to verify the promise about "all things working together for good," the very obscurity in which Dorothy had spent her girlhood worked well for her in her present sphere. So Dorothy reigned in the new house, and ruled it well, and her mother had grown used to looking upon her as a married woman and a housekeeper, ay, and a mother.

Lewis Morgan had not a little to do with the successful ministrations of his brother-in-law. When he, after his period of mental depression and discouragement, rallied at the time of Dorothy's conversion, and tasted anew the joy of working for Christ, he took what perhaps I may reverently term a new lease of spiritual life, and gave himself up to joyful service, since which time he had been eagerly busy for the Master, the refrain of his song still being, "How sweet the work has been!" Imagine what such a wide-awake, prudent, faithful Christian could be to a pastor. Imagine the alert eyes he could have to the needs, and the wishes, and the whims of the people. Imagine the kind suggestions he could offer to a pastor younger than himself, who not only thoroughly respected, but loved him as a brother. Certainly Lewis Morgan, heavy though the cross had been to give up what is called active work for Christ, was yet as active in his way, and perhaps fully as successful, as though he were from the pulpit preaching the gospel. I make that distinction because Lewis Morgan, in his class, in the prayer-meeting, in his daily life, was assuredly preaching the gospel.

The renovated farmhouse was still large enough for the two families. Yet the new house—the other new house—was in process of building. Louise's plan again. One of the prettiest of houses; but that too was in the village, and it was planned with special reference to the needs of Dr. John Morgan. Yes, he was going to settle down in the little village. No, I forget; the word "little" really does not apply to it very well. It had, during these years in which I remember I have said almost nothing about it, sprung into life and growth, aided by the junction of another railroad, and a large machine-shop; and Dr. John had accepted a partnership with the gray-haired physician who had held the practice in village and on hillside for miles around during the space of forty years. Just as soon as the new house was finished and furnished (and it was nearly done), he was going to begin housekeeping.

Every cheery, sweet-smelling room in the Morgan farmhouse had a sort of gala look on this afternoon of which I write. They were such pretty rooms! I wish I could describe them to you—simple, quiet-toned, in keeping with the wide-stretching green fields and the glowing flowers, and so pretty! Bright, clear carpets, in tasteful hues and graceful patterns; muslin curtains, looped with ribbons to match the carpets; easy-chairs, nearly every one of them of a pattern peculiar to itself; wide, low couches, with luxurious pillows, inviting you to lounge among them; books and papers and pictures in profusion; Louise's piano and Louise's guitar in convenient positions, and Louise's tasteful finger-touches everywhere. Who can describe a simple, pretty room? It is easy to tell the colour of the carpet, and the position of the furniture; but where is the language in which to describe that nameless grace, speaking of comfort and ease and home, that hovers over some rooms, and is utterly lacking in others?

Upstairs, in the room that was once Louise's, and which she had vacated now for the more sunny side of the house, special care had been exercised. It was a fair pink and white abode; the carpet was a sprinkling of pink moss-rose buds on a mossy ground; the white curtains were looped with pink ribbons; the cool, gray furniture, of that peculiar tint of gray that suggests white, was adorned with delicate touches of Louise's skill, in the shape of moss-rose buds that matched the carpet; the toilet-stand was a mass of delicate white drapery, through whose thinness a suspicion of pink glowed; and the very china had been deftly painted in the same pattern; easy-chairs and large old-fashioned rockers occupied cosy nooks, and Louise, her face aglow with merry satisfaction, had adorned them with the veritable tidies which she had brought from home as a bride, or with others made after a like pattern, to look like the identical ones. She was arranging real roses with unsparing hand in the mantel vases, on the little toilet-table, wherever she could find a spot for a vase to stand. Then came Nellie and stood in the door—herself a vision of beauty—in flowing curls, and spotless white garments, made after the latest and most approved fashion for young misses of thirteen, and with a flutter of blue ribbons about her, from the knot fastened in some deft way among the curls to the dainty bows perched on her slippers. She made a little exclamation, indicative of her happy satisfaction in the appearance of all about her, and Louise turned.

"Will this do for a bride?" she asked, her smiling eyes taking in Nellie as a very satisfactory part of the picture.

"It is too lovely for anything," Nellie said in genuine girl parlance; "and it looks just exactly like Estelle."

Louise laughed; she had been thinking something very like that herself. Don't imagine that I think I have startled you now with a bit of news; I have given you credit for penetration enough to have surmised, long ago, that the gala day was in honour of a coming bride, and the bride none other than Estelle herself. I did not propose to say much about that; such things are so constantly occurring in all well-regulated families that you would have been stupid, indeed, not to have foreseen it.

Louise did not, however; she had been as blind as a bat about it, though the old story was lived right before her very eyes. Glad eyes they were, however, when they took in the facts. Louise loved her brother John. Was he not the one whom God used at last to bring her darling Estelle to a knowledge of his love?

"Louise," said Nellie, coming back to commonplaces as soon as the eyes had taken in all the beauty, "mother wants you. She wants you to see if you think the table looks overloaded, and whether you think the turkey platters haven't too much dark meat on them, and half-a-dozen other things that I have forgotten; won't you come right away?"

"In three minutes," said Louise; but she had hardly time to attend in person to all these important matters when Nellie's voice shouted through the house,—

"There they come! There's the carriage; it has just driven through the archway. Oh, I wonder what John thought of the archway!"

When I tell that it was decorated with evergreen, on which there glowed, in roses arranged by Nellie's own fair hands, the words, "Welcome Home!" you will be sure that John liked it. Then the family gathered on that south piazza to greet the bride and groom. The aroma of coffee was stealing through the house, and the spacious dining-table, spread its entire length in the large dining-room, did almost look burdened with its weight of dishes for the wedding-feast.

Mother Morgan tarried to cover a cake-basket before she hurried to the piazza. Give one moment's time to her. Her face had grown younger; it was smooth and fair, and set in calmness. Her dress was a holiday one of soft, neutral-tinted silk, and her white lace cap, which Louise's fingers had fashioned, was wonderfully becoming to her pleasant face. Dorothy had seated herself, matronly fashion, in one of the large easy-chairs with which the piazza abounded, for the fair bundle of muslin and lace bobbing around in her lap was too restless to admit of a standing position, although admonished thus: "Do, little Miss Louise, sit still, and receive your new auntie with becoming dignity."

Little Miss Louise's papa had just dropped her ladyship out of his arms, and gone forward to open the gate for the family carriage, which, with Lewis for driver, was just emerging from the shade of the evergreens. At this moment came Father Morgan from the small room at the right of the piazza, with a pompous specimen of three-year-old boyhood perched serenely on his shoulder. He was John Morgan, junior, and liked no place so well as his grandfather's shoulder. The carriage wound around the lawn, and drew up before the piazza door, and they all—father, mother, sisters, and baby—went down to meet it. And as Estelle's bright and beautiful face, a little matured since we first knew her, but rarely beautiful still, appeared in view, and her eager arms were thrown around Mother Morgan's neck, that lady, as she heartily gave back loving kisses, said, in a voice which I am not sure you would recognize, so little have you known of her in these latter days,—

"Welcome home, my daughter!"

I wonder if I have told you that the carriage contained others beside the bride and groom? Louise had not forgotten it, for her own father and mother were actually come to pay the long-promised visit. It had been arranged that they should meet the young couple returning from their wedding trip and travel with them homeward. Louise had been home several times in the last five years, but father and mother were just fulfilling a long-made promise to visit her; and here at last were they all gathered under the Morgan roof, the two families unbroken.

They went to the spacious dining-room, and sat them down to the bountiful wedding-feast; and among them all only two had vivid recollections just then of the contrast between that home-coming and the greeting that was given Louise and Lewis on that winter night. Mrs. Dorothy Butler remembered it, it is true; but such important matters had filled Mrs. Dorothy's mind in the intervening years, and everything was so utterly changed to her, that she much doubted sometimes whether she really had not dreamed all those strange earlier experiences, and only lived through these later years. To Estelle the house was new, of course, and really handsome, and everything was delightfully improved. But Estelle did not know that hearts and faces had greatly improved. She could not imagine Mother Morgan in her straight calico without a collar; she could not see John in his shirt-sleeves, his pants tucked within his boots, as Louise saw him in imagination at that moment.

Ah! There were sweeter contrasts than those. When the bright evening drew to its close, Nellie wheeled the little centre-table close to her father's chair, and set the student lamp on it. And Farmer Morgan opened the large old Bible which always had its place of honour on that centre-table, and read: "Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies." And then Farmer Morgan said, with reverent voice, "Let us pray," and the two families, brought together by ties that reach into eternity, bowed together, and Father Morgan commended them all to the care of the God whom at last he and his house served.

They talked about old times just a little, the next morning, both upstairs and down. Louise, lingering in Estelle's room, listening well pleased to her lavish praise of all its adorning, said suddenly,—

"Do you remember this, Estelle?"

"Yes; indeed I do. The very tidy that Fannie Brooks made for your wedding present; and there is that white one I made. O Louise, isn't it funny? Do you remember my asking you what you were going to do with all those tidies?"

"Yes, dear. I told you I would find use for them, and you see I have. Do you remember, also, that you assured me that morning how impossible it would be for you ever to leave papa and mamma and go away with a stranger as I was doing?"

"Well," said Estelle, with an amused, half-ashamed little laugh, "I didn't go away with a stranger; I came with John. You see I didn't know him then."

And again Louise wondered what she would have said of him if she had.

Downstairs, an hour or so afterward, she lingered in the sitting-room to say a few loving words to her own dear mother, and while there Mother Morgan passed the piazza windows, young John by the hand, he loudly discoursing to her as to the beauties of a certain insect which she was being dragged by his eager hand to see.

"Mother spoils him," Louise said, with a complacent laugh, as the boy's shrill voice floated back to them. "She will go anywhere and do anything that he coaxes her to."

"The idea of mother SPOILING anybody!" said Dr. John, with incredulous voice and laughing eyes.

"Well, she certainly does. I suppose all grandmothers do."

Then she went about the pretty task of straightening the books and papers, and restoring the sitting-room to its yesterday's freshness.

"I am glad mothers don't spoil their children," her mother said, satisfaction in her voice, as she watched Louise moving among the disordered elements, bringing order out of confusion.

"I didn't spoil her, did I, Lewis? What a lovely home you have had here all these years! I am glad you have demonstrated the folly of the saying that no house is large enough for two families. How could anything be better than the arrangement which you have here? Mrs. Morgan was telling me this morning that when you talked for a time of going to housekeeping it almost made her sick. I'm very glad you didn't. Little John gives Louise care enough without the responsibilities of housekeeping; though your mother says, Lewis, that she takes a great deal of care from her. I think she has rather an exaggerated opinion of you, Louise; perhaps she is trying to spoil you."

"She is a remarkable little woman, you will have to admit," Lewis said, in a half-laughing tone, but regarding his wife with eyes in which she saw earnestness and tender feeling. "I am glad you brought her up so well, mother; there are not many who would have succeeded with the problem of two families in one house as she has done."

"Yes," said the mother emphatically; "and then there is another thing to be taken into consideration. She had unusual surroundings. Anybody can see that your mother is an unusual woman. Probably Louise's experience has been exceptional. I really believe at heart that there are not many houses large enough for two families. I trembled for Louise. I used to watch every letter critically for signs of failure. You see I did not know your father and mother. I did not feel so anxious about the father; they always get along well with daughters-in-law if the mothers do. But I worried a good deal, unnecessarily I can see now. Still it is, after all, an exceptional case. Don't you think so?"

Lewis turned slowly round from the mantel against which he had been leaning and regarded his wife with a curious look—eyes that were brimming with a mischievous light, and yet had behind the light a suggestion even of tears. His voice, when he spoke, had also that curious hint of pent-up feeling.

"Yes, it is an exceptional case. Very few daughters-in-law have such experiences. I do consider my mother an unusual woman, and my wife an unusual wife. And I tell you in all honesty, mother, that we of the Morgan family thank God every day of our lives for the vine from your branch that was grafted into ours."

THE END.