Stories by American Authors Volume IV Part 7

An ox team with a load of grain creaked up the hill and stopped at the mill door. The driver, seeing Friend Barton's broad-brimmed drab felt hat against the dark interior of the barn, came down the short lane leading from the mill past the house and farm-buildings.

"Fixin' up for travellin', Uncle Tommy?"

Vain compliments were unacceptable to Thomas Barton, and he was generally known and addressed as "Uncle Tommy" by the world's people of a younger generation.

"It is not in man that walketh to direct his own steps, neighbor Gordon. I am getting myself in readiness to obey the Lord, whichever way He calls me."

Farmer Gordon cast a shrewd eye over the premises. They wore that patient, sad, exhumed look which old farm-buildings are apt to have in early spring. The roofs were black with rain, and brightened with patches of green moss. Farmer Gordon instinctively calculated how many "bunches o' s.h.i.+ngle" would be required to rescue them from the decline into which they had fallen, in spite of the hectic green spots.

"Wal, the Lord calls most of us to stay at home and look after things, such weather as this. Good plantin' weather; good weather for breakin'

ground; fust-rate weather for millin'! This is a reg'lar miller's rain, Uncle Tommy. You ought to be takin' advantage of it. I've got a grist back here; wish ye could manage to let me have it when I come back from store."

The grist was ground and delivered before Friend Barton went in to his supper that night. Dorothy Barton had been mixing bread, and was wiping her white arms and hands on the roller towel by the kitchen door, as her father stamped and sc.r.a.ped his feet on the stones outside.

"I do believe I forgot to toll neighbor Gordon's rye," he said, as he gave a final rub on the broom Dorothy handed out to him. "It's wonderful how careless I get!"

"Well, father, I don't suppose thee'd ever forget, and toll a grist twice!"

"I believe I've been mostly preserved from mistakes of that kind," said Friend Barton gently. "It may have been the Lord who stayed my hand from gathering profit unto myself while his lambs go unfed."

Dorothy put her hands on her father's shoulders. She was almost as tall as he, and could look into his patient, troubled eyes.

"Father, I know what thee is thinking of; but do think _long_. It will be a hard year; the boys _ought_ to go to school; and mother is so feeble."

Friend Barton's "concern" kept him awake long that night. His wife watched by his side, giving no sign, lest her wakeful presence should disturb his silent wrestlings. The tall, cherry-wood clock in the entry measured the hours as they pa.s.sed with its slow, dispa.s.sionate tick.

At two o'clock Rachel Barton was awakened from her first sleep of weariness by her husband's voice whispering heavily in the darkness.

"My way is hedged up! I see no way to go forward. Lord, strengthen my patience, that I murmur not, after all I have seen of Thy goodness. I find daily bread is very desirable; want and necessity are painful to nature; but shall I follow Thee for the sake of the loaves, or will it do to forsake Thee in times of emptiness and abas.e.m.e.nt?"

There was silence again, and restless tossings and sighings continued the struggle.

"Thomas," the wife's voice spoke tremulously in the darkness, "my dear husband, I know where thy thoughts are tending. If the Spirit is with thee, do not deny it for our sakes, I pray thee. The Lord did not give thee thy wife and children to hang as a millstone round thy neck. I am thy helpmeet, to strengthen thee in his service. I am thankful that I have my health this spring better than usual, and Dorothy is a wonderful help. Her spirit was sent to sustain me in thy long absences.

Go, dear, and serve our Master, who has called thee in these bitter strivings! Dorothy and I will keep things together as well as we can.

The way will open--never fear!" She put out her hand and touched his face in the darkness; there were tears on the furrowed cheeks. "Try to sleep, dear, and let thy spirit have rest. There is but one answer to this call."

With the first drowsy twitterings of the birds, when the crescent-shaped openings in the board shutters began to define themselves clearly in the shadowy room, they arose and went about their morning tasks in silence. Friend Barton's step was a little heavier than usual, and the hollows round his wife's pale brown eyes were a little deeper. As he sat on the splint-bottomed chair by the kitchen fireplace, drawing on his boots, she laid her hands on his shoulders, and her cheek on the worn spot on the top of his head.

"Thee will lay this concern before meeting to-morrow, father?"

"I had it on my mind to do so,--if my light be not quenched before then."

Friend Barton's light was not quenched. Words came to him without seeking, in which to "open the concern which had ripened in his mind,"

of a religious visit to the meeting const.i.tuting the yearly meetings of Philadelphia and Baltimore. A "minute" was given him encouraging him in the name of, and with the full concurrence of, the monthly meetings of Nine Partners, and Stony Valley, to go wherever the Truth might lead him. While Friend Barton was thus freshly anointed, and "abundantly encouraged," his wife, Rachel, was talking with Dorothy in the low upper chamber, known as the "wheel-room."

Dorothy was spinning wool on the big wheel, dressed in her light calico short-gown and brown quilted petticoat; her arms were bare, and her hair was gathered away from her flushed cheeks and knotted behind her ears. The roof sloped down on one side, and the light came from a long low window under the eaves. There was another window (shaped like a half moon high up in the peak), but it sent down only one long beam of sunlight, which glimmered across the dust and fell upon Dorothy's white neck.

The wheel was humming a quick measure, and Dorothy trod lightly back and forth, the wheel-pin in one hand, the other upraised holding the tense, lengthening thread, which the spindle devoured again.

"Dorothy, thee looks warm:--can't thee sit down a moment, while I talk to thee?"

"Is it anything important, mother? I want to get my twenty knots before dinner." She paused as she joined a long tress of wool at the spindle.

"Is it anything about father?"

"Yes, it's about father, and all of us."

"I know," said Dorothy, stretching herself back with a sigh. "He's going away again!"

"Yes, dear. He feels that he is called. It is a time of trouble and contention everywhere,--'the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few.'"

"There are not so _many_ 'laborers' _here_, mother, though to be sure, the harvest--"

"Dorothy, my daughter! don't let a spirit of levity creep into thy speech. Thy father has striven and wrestled with his urgings. I've seen it working on him all winter; he feels now it is the Lord's will."

"I don't see how he can be so sure," said Dorothy, swaying gloomily to and fro against the wheel. "I don't care for myself,--I'm not afraid of work,--but _thee's_ not able to do what thee does _now_, mother. If I have outside things to look after, how can I help thee as I should? The boys are about as much dependence as a flock of barn swallows!"

"Don't fret about me, dear; the way will open. Thy father has thought and planned for us; have patience while I tell thee. Thee knows Walter Evesham's pond is small and his mill is doing a thriving business?"

"Yes, I know it!" Dorothy exclaimed. "He has his own share, and ours too--most of it!"

"Wait, dear, wait! Thy father has rented him the ponds to use when his own gives out. He is to have the control of the water, and it will give us a little income, even though the old mill does stand idle."

"He may as well take the mill, too. If father is away all summer it will be useless ever to start it again. Thee'll see, mother, how it will end if Walter Evesham has the custom and the water all summer. I think it's miserable for a young man to be so keen about money."

"Dorothy, seems to me thee's hasty in thy judgments. I never heard that said of Walter Evesham. His father left him with capital to improve his mill. It does better work than ours; we can't complain of that. Thy father was never one to study much after ways of making money. He felt he had no right to more than an honest livelihood. I don't say that Walter Evesham's in the wrong. We know that Joseph took advantage of his opportunities, though I can't say that I ever felt much unity with some of his transactions. What would thee have, my dear? Thee's discouraged with thy father for choosing the th.o.r.n.y way, which we tread with him; but thee seems no better satisfied with one who considers the flesh and its wants!"

"I don't _know_, mother, _what_ I want for myself. It doesn't matter, but for thee I would have rest from all these cruel worries thee has borne so long."

She buried her face in her mother's lap and put her strong young arms about the frail, toil-bent form.

"There, there, dear. Try to rule thy spirit, Dorothy. Thee's too much worked up about this. They are not worries to me. I am thankful we have nothing to decide, one way or the other--only to do our best with what is given us. Thee's not thyself, dear. Go down-stairs and fetch in the clothes, and don't hurry; stay out till thee gets more composed."

Dorothy did not succeed in bringing herself into unity with her father's call, but she came to a fuller realization of his struggle.

When he bade them good-by, his face showed what it had cost him, but Rachel was calm and cheerful. The pain of parting is keenest to those who go, but it stays longer with those who are left behind.

"Dorothy, take good care of thy mother!" Friend Barton said, taking his daughter's face between his hands and gravely kissing her brow between the low-parted ripples of her hair.

"Yes, father," she said, looking into his eyes. "Thee knows I'm thy eldest son."

They watched the old chaise swing round the corner of the lane, then the pollard willows shut it from sight.

"Come, mother," said Dorothy, hurrying her in at the gate. "I'm going to make a great pot of mush, and have it hot for supper, and fried for breakfast, and warmed up with mola.s.ses for dinner, and there'll be some cold with milk for supper, and we shan't have any cooking to do at all."

They went round to the kitchen door. Rachel stopped in the wood-shed, and the tears rushed to her eyes.

"Dear father! How he has worked over that wood, early and late, to spare us!"

We will not revive Dorothy's struggles with the farm-work and with the boys. They were an isolated family at the mill-house; their peculiar faith isolated them still more, and they were twelve miles from meeting and the settlement of Friends at Stony Valley. Dorothy's pride kept her silent about her needs, lest they might bring reproach upon her father among the neighbors, who would not be likely to feel the urgency of his spiritual summons.