The Land of Long Ago Part 9

right in lettin' that s.h.i.+ftless tenant o' mine off from payin' his year's rent, I felt so sorry for his wife and children; but,' says he, 'in strict justice and accordin' to this "eye for an eye" doctrine, I ought to hold him to his contract and make him pay.'

"Well, it wasn't long after this till we begun to hear curious tales about the Crawford farm. Abram come in one day and says he, 'Jane, I never have believed in ghosts and spirits, but upon my soul,' says he, 'Miles Crawford's been tellin' me some things that make me think maybe there's such a thing after all.' And he went on to tell how Miles had had his straw stacks pulled down, and the fodder scattered all over the barn floor, and his tools carried off and hid in fence corners, and his bags o' seed spilled around, and he couldn't tell when it was done nor who did it. Of course the talk spread all over the neighborhood, and every week there'd be some new happening till folks begun to say the place was ha'nted and n.o.body liked to pa.s.s it after dark.

"Well, one day about the last day of August Abram went to town on some business or other, and I went with him. I ricollect the drouth had broke, and the gra.s.s and flowers and trees buddin' out made it look jest like spring. Well, we went joggin' along the pike, laughin' and talkin', and as we pa.s.sed Miles Crawford's place we saw Miles come out on the front porch and look up and down the road. When he saw us, he come runnin' down the path and motioned to us to stop, and when he got within speakin' distance he called out, 'If you're goin' to town, stop by Dr. Pendleton's and tell him to come out here as quick as he can, for Hannah's lost her senses.' Says he, 'She's been at the bottom of all the devilment that's been done on the farm for the last month, and this mornin',' says he, 'I set a watch and caught her at it, and she's crazy as a loon.' With that I jumped out o' the buggy, and says I, 'Drive on, Abram, I'm goin' to stay with Hannah till the doctor comes.' So Abram drove off, and I went on to the house with Miles. He was mighty excited and put out, and kept talkin' about the trouble he'd had and blamin' Hannah for it. And Hannah was rockin' herself back and forth, laughin' and cryin' and sayin', 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' I saw in a minute she was in a mighty bad fix, and I was jest wonderin' what on earth I would do till the doctor got there, and I put up a prayer that Abram wouldn't be long findin' him; but that very minute I heard the sound of two buggies on the pike.

Abram had met the doctor comin' out to Goshen, and turned around and come back with him, and the minute I saw the doctor's old broad-brimmed hat, I says to myself, 'It's all right now.' I don't reckon there ever was a man that understood women like the old doctor did, and him an old bachelor at that. I used to think it was a pity he hadn't married; he'd 'a' made such a good, kind husband. But then, bein' the man he was, he couldn't marry."

There was both paradox and enigma in this statement, and I asked for an explanation.

"Now, child," said Aunt Jane, "you're throwin' me clear off the track.

For pity's sake let me get through with one story before you start me on another. As I was sayin', the old doctor come; but with Miles ragin' around and threatenin' to send Hannah to the Asylum, and Hannah cryin' and laughin' and sayin', 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,' and me tryin' to pacify Hannah and Abram tryin' to pacify Miles, it was some time before he could come to an understandin' of the case; and when he begun to see daylight he turned around to Miles as stern as if he was reprovin' a child, and says he, 'Not another word, Miles! If you can't hold your tongue go out of the room, for every time you speak you're makin' Hannah that much worse.' And he turns around to me and says he, 'Have you any idea what Hannah means by saying "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?"' And I says, 'Doctor, do you ricollect the sermon that strange minister preached about a month ago?' Says I, 'I may be wrong, but it's my belief that that sermon helped to put Hannah in the fix she's in now.' And the doctor, he thought a minute, and then he nodded his head right slow, and says he, 'I remember that sermon. It was not a wholesome sort of a discourse for any one to listen to.' Says he, 'It might not hurt a healthy person, but if there was anyone in the congregation with a sick mind, such a person couldn't be benefited by it.' And then he says to Hannah, 'Was it that sermon that put it into your head to tear down Miles's corn shocks?' And Hannah laughed and wrung her hands together and rocked herself backward and forward, and says she, 'Yes, that was it. Miles has been undoin' my work and givin' me trouble for thirty-five years, and I've wished many a time I could pay him back and make him see how hard it was, but I couldn't bring myself to do what I wanted to do till I heard that sermon. I found out then that G.o.d wanted me to pay Miles back, and I'm glad I pulled his corn shocks to pieces, and tore down the straw stacks and scattered the bran all over the stable floor. May be he knows now how hard I have to work to keep house for him, and may be he'll be more keerful about litterin'

the house up and pullin' things to pieces.' Says she, 'I work from mornin' till night, but there's always somethin' left undone. Before I get through with the breakfast dishes and cleanin' the house and churnin', it's time to cook dinner, and by the time I've cooked dinner and cleaned up the dishes and sewed and mended a little, it's time to cook supper and attend to the milkin', and I try to see after the children, but there's always somethin' undone.' Says she, 'I believe I could ketch up with my work, if Miles would only stop undoin' what I do. But it looks like I can't keep up any longer,' says she, 'with him workin' against me all the time.' And Miles says, 'You hear that? You hear that? Talkin' about lookin' after the children, and every child grown and married and gone long ago! She's crazy, crazy as a loon!'

The doctor turned around and give Miles a look that hushed him up. And then he took hold of Hannah's hand and smoothed it right gentle and easy, and says he, 'That's right, tell me all your troubles; a trouble is easier to bear after you've told it to somebody.'

"It looked like Hannah's tongue was loosed, and she went on talkin'

harder and faster than I ever had known her to talk before. Says she, 'I never was a lazy woman, and I always kept up with my work, I always loved to work, and Miles never could say I slighted anything about the house, but now it's different. It looks like there's a change come over me. I can't do what I used to do, and there's times when I don't seem to keer how things go. I reckon it's my fault, and I'm always blamin' myself for not gittin' more done, but I can't help it. There's a change come over me, and I ain't the woman I was a year ago.'

"The doctor, he was listenin' to it all jest as kind and earnest as you please, and he nodded his head and says, 'Yes, I understand it all, and I know exactly how you feel.' And he put his fingers on Hannah's wrist and thought a minute, and says he, 'Hannah, my child,'--No matter how old a woman was, honey," said Aunt Jane, interrupting herself, "Dr. Pendleton would always say 'my child' or 'my daughter,' or 'my sister' when he was talkin' to her. Maria Petty used to say that jest the sound of his voice was as good as medicine to a sick person. And says he, 'There's one more question I want to ask you: Is there anything you can think of that you'd like to have or like to do?'

"And Hannah put her hand up to her face and burst out cryin' like a little child, and the old doctor patted her on the shoulder and says he, 'That's right; cry as much as you please,' and when Hannah had kind o' quieted down, he says again, 'Now tell me what it is you want; I know there's somethin' you want, and if you can get it, it'll make you well.' And Hannah begun cryin' again, and says she, 'If I told you what it is I want, you'd think I'm crazy sure enough, and may be I am.

My head feels heavy and dizzy,' says she, 'and sometimes I feel like I was goin' to fall backward, and I can't remember things like I used to do; I don't take any interest in my work, and I can't git to sleep at night for a long time, and I wake up at two o'clock and stay awake till daylight, and jest as I'm droppin' off, it's time to git up and cook breakfast, and I'm so tired that sometimes I wish the end of the world would come and put a stop to everything. But I don't want to go to the Asylum. Don't let Miles send me there.' And the doctor says, 'Don't you be afraid of that. Miles will never send you to an asylum while I'm alive to protect you. But you must tell me what it is you want. There's some little thing,' says he, 'that'll make you well, and you know what it is better than I do.' Well, Hannah held back like a child that's afraid of a whippin', but finally she says, 'You know that pasture at the back o' the house. I can see it from the kitchen window. Miles sowed it in clover last year, and the clover's come up since the rain and it's bloomin' now, and there's two or three big oak trees in the middle o' the field and the cows come up and lie down in the shade o' the trees; and every time I look out o' the window while I'm was.h.i.+n' dishes and makin' up bread, I think if I could jest lie down in the shade of the trees and look up at the sky all day and know there was somebody up here in the kitchen doin' my work, I'd get well and strong again.' And the doctor's eyes filled up with tears, and he patted Hannah on the back and says he, 'Poor child! Poor child!' And then he turned around to Miles, and says he, 'Miles, do you hear that?

There's nothing in the world the matter with Hannah, except that she's worked to death.' Says he, 'Go down to that pasture at once and turn the cows into some other field. Hannah shall have her wish before I leave this house.' Miles was an older man than the doctor, honey, but he minded the same as if he'd been his son; and while he was turnin' the cows out, we got some old comforts and a piller, and all of us went down to the pasture and spread the quilt under the tree.

The doctor made Hannah lay down, and says he, 'Now, shut your eyes and let the sun and the wind take care of you. They're the best nurses in the world;' and says he, 'I'll drop by again in an hour or so to see how you're getting on, and Miles will come down every little while to bring you a gla.s.s of water and something to eat. You must stay here until the sun goes down, and then come up to the house and go right to bed.'

"So we all walked back to the house, and the doctor went to the front room where he'd left his medicine case, and he picked it up and turned around and faced Miles, and says he, 'Miles, lose no time about getting some one to do your work, for Hannah's going to rest under that tree for many a day.' Says he, 'There's a time in a woman's life when every burden ought to be lifted from her shoulders, and Hannah's reached that time. She's like a worn out field that's borne its harvests year after year and needs to lie fallow for awhile.' Says he, 'Look at your seven children, your six-foot sons and your handsome daughters, and think of the little baby lying out in the burying ground. How can you talk about sending the mother of your children to the lunatic asylum, and all because she's undone a little of your work in the last few weeks, when you've been undoing hers all your married life?' Says he, 'You're a hard man, Miles; your nature's like one of the barren, rocky spots you'll come across in one of your pastures--spots where not even a blade of gra.s.s can grow.' Says he, 'You can't change your nature any more than the Ethiopian can change his color or the leopard his spots, but from this time on you've got to try to treat Hannah with a little consideration.' And I believe Miles did try. I ricollect seein' him help Hannah put on her shawl one Sunday after church, and pull it around her shoulders mighty awkward, jest as a person would, when he's doin' a thing he never did before. I don't reckon Hannah keered much about it. A man oughtn't to have to try to be kind to his wife, and when a woman comes to the end of a hard life like Hannah's, a little kindness don't amount to much. It's mighty hard to make a thing end right, honey, unless it begins right.

"Hannah got well, though, and the first time she come to church she looked ten years younger; but she never was as strong as she was before she broke down, and I always thought she died before her time.

It looked like a curious way to treat a sick person, to put her out in a field and not give her a drop o' medicine, but that was what Hannah wanted, and it made her well. You know the Bible says, 'Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.' And I reckon the cure for that kind o'

sickness is havin' the thing you've been hopin' for.

"Hannah said at first she jest laid still with her eyes shut, and felt the wind blowin' over her face, and then she got to droppin' off to sleep every little while, and after she'd begun to feel rested, she'd lay there and look up at the sky and watch the clouds floatin' past, and she said she never knew before how pretty the sky was. She'd been livin' under it all her life and never had time to look up at it.

"Did you ever think, child," said Aunt Jane, breaking off in her story, "that nearly all the work we've got to do keeps us lookin'

down? And once in awhile it's a good thing to stop work and look up at the sky. Parson Page used to say that every sunrise and moonrise and sunset was a message from heaven sayin' 'Look up! Look up! for earth is not your home.' Hannah said lookin' up at the sky was like lookin'

into deep water, and sometimes she'd feel as if her soul had left her body and she didn't know whether she was still on this earth or whether she'd died and gone to heaven; and she believed if folks would lay off from work once a year and rest under the trees the way she did, they'd live to be as old as Methuselah."

Had I not heard it once before, this homely tale of woman's work and woman's weariness, that life repeats with endless variations? Told in simple rhyme it lay between the yellowed pages of an old sc.r.a.p-book and hovered half-forgotten in a dusty corner of my brain.

"Aunt Jane," I said, "there was once a woman who felt just as Hannah Crawford did, and she put her feelings into words and called them 'A Woman's Longing:'

"'All hopes, all wishes, all desires have left me, My heart is empty as a last year's nest, O, great Earth--Mother! take me to thy bosom And give a tired child rest.

"'Nay, not a grave! Leave thy green turf unbroken!

Not death I ask,--but strength to bear my life, This endless round of strange, conflicting duties, These stale conventions and this aimless strife.

"'I have no part nor lot in such existence, And I am like a stream cut from its source; Let me go hence and quench the spirit's thirsting At those deep springs of force

"'That well unseen neath all life's myriad phases, Rousing to action, lulling to repose-- A child's first cry, a warrior's call to battle, A planet's march, the fading of a rose.

"'Give me a bed among earth's flowers and gra.s.ses, Some shadowy place from men and things apart, Where I can hear and feel the steady beating Of Nature's tireless heart,

"'Stilling the tumult of my brain, o'er-crowded With fears and fancies that have banished sleep, And losing pain and weariness forever In heaven's unfathomed deep,

"'Till I lay hold upon my dear lost birth-right, My oneness with all things that were and are, Can feel the sea's pulse mine, my breath the wind's breath, And trace my kins.h.i.+p to the evening star.

"'Then send me back to life's imperious calling, The love that crushes and the cares that irk, To strive, to fail, to strive again and conquer, Till the night cometh when no man can work.'"

Aunt Jane had dropped her knitting; her eyes glowed, and she leaned forward entranced, for the simple verses held the unfailing spells that rhythm and rhyme have cast over the soul ever since the Muses touched their golden harps on Parna.s.sus, pouring "the dew of soft persuasion on the lips of man" and "dispelling sorrow and grief from the breast of every mortal."

"Why, child," she exclaimed, drawing a breath of deep delight, "that's as pretty as any hymn. But it looks like anybody that can say things that pretty oughtn't to have the troubles that common folks has."

Ah, if the power to put a sorrowful thought into beautiful words brought with it exemption from sorrow, who would not covet the gift?

"But," continued Aunt Jane, "everybody has to have some trials. I ricollect Parson Page preachin' a sermon about that very thing. He said folks in trouble always thought their troubles was more than anybody's; and they'd look around and see somebody that appeared to be happy and they'd envy that person, when maybe that person was envyin'

them, for it's jest as the Bible says, 'There hath no trouble taken you but is common to all men.'"

And while Aunt Jane spoke I saw this life of ours as a sacramental feast. The table is long, and here sits a king and there a beggar. The cups are many, and mine may be of clay and yours of gold, but the wine, the bitter-sweet wine, is the same for all. One rapture throbs in the heart of the Romany youth who plights his troth under the forest tree, and the heart of the prince royal who kneels at the cathedral altar. The tramp-wife burying her baby by the roadside might clasp hands with the queen-mother who weeps at the door of the royal mausoleum, for on the heights of joy or in the depths of pain all men are brothers, all women sisters.

"And now, honey," said Aunt Jane, "I've wasted enough o' this pretty mornin' talkin' about old times. Spring time's workin' time and I must be up and doin'."

But I caught her hand and held her fast.

"Just one thing more, Aunt Jane," I pleaded. "Tell me what you meant by saying that being the man he was Dr. Pendleton couldn't marry?"

Aunt Jane hesitated a moment looking towards a certain flower-bed where tulips and hyacinths stood half-smothered in a drift of dead leaves. The morning hours were pa.s.sing and the garden needed the work of her hands, but my clasp was firm and the call of the past was still sounding in her heart.

"I meant jest what I said, honey," she answered, settling herself again on the old garden seat. "There's such a thing as a man lovin' a woman too well to marry her, and that's the way it was with the doctor. You might think, maybe, Dr. Pendleton come of plain folks, bein' jest a country doctor. But, no; his people was among the best and the richest in the county, and he'd had all the chances that rich people can give their children. He'd been to college and he'd travelled around and seen the world, and no young man could 'a' had a prettier prospect before him than Arthur Pendleton,--that was the doctor's name,--when he come home from his studyin' and his travellin'

and started out to practisin' medicine with his father. Young and handsome and rich, and then there was Miss Dorothy Schuyler, and he was in love with her and she was in love with him. Father used to say when a man had all that, there wasn't standin' room for a wish.

"Miss Dorothy was one o' the Virginia Schuylers, and the first time she come to visit her Kentucky cousins, she met the young doctor, and they fell in love with each other jest like Hamilton Schuyler and Miss Amaryllis, and before she went back to her home it was all settled that they'd be married the next spring. The young doctor, he made a journey to Virginia to git her father's and mother's consent; for in that day and time, child, a young man couldn't jest pick up a gyirl and walk off with her. He had to say 'By your leave' and do a little courtin' with the old folks before he could claim the gyirl.

"Well, it all looked like plain sailin' for the young doctor. His father begun givin' up his practice--took off his own shoes, you might say, and let his son step into 'em--and the weddin' day was comin', when all at once the banks got to failin' all over the country, and the Pendletons lost pretty near everything they had except their land.

Then, to make a bad matter worse, the old doctor's name was on a note, and that fell due about the time the banks failed, and he had to sell the family place and a good deal o' the land.

"They said when he got through settlin' up his affairs he says, 'Well, I've lost my money and my lands and my home, but I've saved my good name.'

"I reckon it must 'a' taken the young doctor a good while to come to an understandin' of what he'd lost. By the time you're old, losin'

comes natural to you, but it's hard for young folks to take in a big loss. But as soon as Arthur Pendleton understood that all his father had was a good name, and all he had was his father's practice, he wrote to Miss Dorothy and set her free from her promise to marry him.

"The old doctor begged him not to do it. Says he, 'Son, you've lost pretty near everything, and now you're throwing away the best of what's left.' Says he, 'Don't strip your life bare of every chance for happiness. Hold on to love, even if you have lost your money.'

"But the young doctor says, says he, 'When a man's money's gone it's no time for him to be thinkin' about love.' Says he, 'Unless a man loves a woman well enough to give her up when he's too poor to take care of her, his love's not worth much. In her father's house,' says he, 'she's lived like the lilies of the field, and the man that loves her mustn't be the one to bring her down to poverty and hard work.' So he wrote to her and told her to forget him as soon as she could, and love some other man who could give her what a woman ought to have, and she told him that if she ever loved anybody else, she'd send back the ring he'd given her. But, honey, that ring stayed on Miss Dorothy's finger till her dyin' day, and I reckon it was buried with her. Folks said they never wrote to each other any more, but every year or so Miss Dorothy'd come back to visit the Schuylers and the doctor he'd go to see her, and they used to say that he'd look at her finger before he'd look at her face, and when he'd see his ring there he'd be too happy to say a word. He'd take both her hands in his, and his eyes'd fill up with tears and he'd look down at her face, and she'd look up at him and laugh and ask him if he didn't want his ring back to give to some other gyirl.

"Well, things went on this way one year after another, the doctor workin' and Miss Dorothy comin' and goin' and both of 'em hopin', I reckon, and lookin' forward to marryin' some day; for she was young and so was he, and when folks are young they always feel certain of havin' their own way with life, and it's easy for 'em to wait and hope for the things that's out o' reach. But nothin' seemed to go right with the doctor. If he saved up a little money and put it in the bank, or bought a piece o' property, bad luck was sure to come along and pull down everything he'd built up. His father's health broke down, and of course he had to ease the old man's way to the grave; his youngest brother had to be educated, and first one thing and then another kept comin' up and puttin' Miss Dorothy further off.

"But the older they got, the more they loved each other; and Miss Dorothy, she'd come and go every summer, till finally one summer she didn't come; and the next summer the doctor went to Virginia to see her, and come back lookin' like an old, old man; and not long afterwards he come into church one Sunday with a band o' black c.r.a.pe around his hat, and then we knew Miss Dorothy was dead."

"But wasn't Miss Dorothy willing to marry the doctor in spite of his poverty?" I asked.

"I reckon she must 'a' been," responded Aunt Jane. "When a woman waits all her life for a man, like Miss Dorothy did for the doctor, it stands to reason she's willin' to marry him any time."