I do not see what this green ditch-water is to me. And I think, Joel,”—
“It’s more to ye nor all yer States’-rights as I’m sick o’ hearin’ of. It’s carpets, an’ bunnets, an’ slithers of railroad-stock, an’ some color on Margot’s cheeks,—ye’d best think o’ that! That’s what it is to ye! I’m goin’ to take stock myself. I’m glad that gell’ll git rest frum her mills an’ her Houses o’ Deviltry,—she’s got gumption fur a dozen women.”
He went on muttering, as he gathered up his pint-pot and bottle,—
“I’m goin’ to send my Tim to college soon’s the thing’s in runnin’ order. Lord! what a lawyer that boy’ll make!”
Mrs. Howth’s brain was still muddled.
“You are better pleased than you were at the election,” she observed, placidly.
“Politics be darned!” he broke out, forgetting the teachings of Mr. Clinche. “Now, Mem, dun’t ye muddle the mester’s brain t’-night wi’ ‘t, I say. I’m goin’ t’ ‘xperiment myself a bit.”
Which he did, accordingly,—shutting himself up in the smoke-house, and burning the compound in divers sconces and Wide-Awake torches, giving up the entire night to his diabolical orgies.
Mrs. Howth did not tell the master, for one reason: it took a long time for so stupendous an idea to penetrate the good lady’s brain; and for another: her motherly heart was touched by another story than this Aladdin’s lamp of Joel’s wherein burned petroleum. She watched from her window until she saw Holmes crossing the icy road: there was a little bitterness, I confess, in the thought that he had taken her child from her; but the prayer that rose for them both took her whole woman’s heart with it, and surely will be answered.
The road was rough over the hills; the wind that struck Holmes’s face bitingly keen: perhaps the life coming for him would be as cold a struggle, having not only poverty to conquer, but himself. But he is a strong man,—no stronger puts his foot down with cool, resolute tread; and to-night there is a thrill on his lips that never rested there before,—a kiss, dewy and warm. Something, too, stirs in his heart, like a subtile atom of pure fire, that he hugs closely,—his for all time. No poverty or death shall ever drive it away. Perhaps he entertains an angel unaware.
After that night Lois never left her little shanty. The days that followed were like one long Christmas; for her poor neighbors, black and white, had some plot among themselves, and worked zealously to make them seem so to her. It was easy to make these last days happy for the simple little soul who had always gathered up every fragment of pleasure in her featureless life, and made much of it, and rejoiced over it. She grew bewildered, sometimes, lying on her wooden settle by the fire; people had always been friendly, taken care of her, but now they were eager in their kindness, as though the time were short. She did not understand the reason, at first; she did not want to die: yet if it hurt her, when it grew clear at last, no one knew it; it was not her way to speak of pain. Only, as she grew weaker, day by day, she began to set her house in order, as one might say, in a quaint, almost comical fashion, giving away everything she owned, down to her treasures of colored bottles and needlework’s, mending her father’s clothes, and laying them out in her drawers; lastly, she had Barney brought in from the country, and every day would creep to the window to see him fed and chirrup to him, whereat the poor old beast would look up with his dim eye, and try to neigh a feeble answer. Kitts used to come every day to see her, though he never said much when he was there: he lugged his great copy of the Venus del Pardo along with him one day, and left it, thinking she would like to look at it; Knowles called it trash, when he came. The Doctor came always in the morning; he told her he would read to her one day, and did it always afterwards, putting on his horn spectacles, and holding her old Bible close up to his rugged, anxious face. He used to read most from the Gospel of St. John. She liked better to hear him than any of the others, even than Margaret, whose voice was so low and tender: something in the man’s half-savage nature was akin to the child’s.
As the day drew near when she was to go, every pleasant trifle seemed to gather a deeper, solemn meaning. Jenny Balls came in one night, and old Mrs. Polston.
“We thought you’d like to see her weddin’-dress, Lois,” said the old woman, taking off Jenny’s cloak, “seein’ as the weddin’ was to hev been to-morrow, and was put off on ‘count of you.”
Lois did like to see it; sat up, her face quite flushed to see how nicely it fitted, and stroked back Jenny’s soft hair under the veil. And Jenny, being a warm-hearted little thing, broke into a sobbing fit, saying that it spoiled it all to have Lois gone.
“Don’t muss your veil, child,” said Mrs. Polston.
But Jenny cried on, hiding her face in Lois’s skinny hand, until Sam Polston came in, when she grew quiet and shy. The poor deformed girl lay watching them, as they talked. Very pretty Jenny looked, with her blue eyes and damp pink cheeks; and it was a manly, grave love in Sam’s face, when it turned to her. A different love from any she had known: better, she thought. It could not be helped; but it was better.
After they were gone, she lay a long time quiet, with her hand over her eyes. Forgive her! she, too, was a woman. Ah, it may be there are more wrongs that shall be righted yonder in the To-Morrow than are set down in your theology!
And so it was, that, as she drew nearer to this To-Morrow, the brain of the girl grew clearer,—struggling, one would think, to shake off whatever weight had been put on it by blood or vice or poverty, and become itself again. Perhaps, even in her cheerful, patient life, there had been hours when she had known the wrongs that had been done her, known how cruelly the world had thwarted her; her very keen insight into whatever was beautiful or helpful may have made her see her own mischance, the blank she had drawn in life, more bitterly. She did not see it bitterly now. Death is honest; all things grew clear to her, going down into the valley of the shadow; so, wakening to the consciousness of stifled powers and ungiven happiness, she saw that the fault was not hers, nor His who had appointed her lot; He had helped her to bear it,—bearing worse himself. She did not say once, “I might have been,” but day by day, more surely, “I shall be.” There was not a tear in the homely faces turning from her bed, not a tint of color in the flowers they brought her, not a shiver of light in the ashy sky, that did not make her more sure of that which was to come. More loving she grew, as she went away from them, the touch of her hand more pitiful, her voice more tender, if such a thing could be,—with a look in her eyes never seen there before. Old Yare pointed it out to Mrs. Polston one day.
“My girl’s far off frum us,” he said, sobbing in the kitchen,—“my girl’s far off now.”
It was the last night of the year that she died. She was so much better that they all were quite cheerful. Kitts went away as it grew dark, and she bade him wrap up his throat with such a motherly dogmatism that they all laughed at her; she, too, with the rest.
“I’ll make you a New-Year’s call,” he said, going out; and she called out that she should be sure to expect him.
She seemed so strong that Holmes and Mrs. Polston and Margaret, who were there, were going home; besides, old Yare said, “I’d like to take care o’ my girl alone to-night, ef yoh’d let me,”—for they had not trusted him before. But Lois asked them not to go until the Old Year was over; so they waited downstairs.
The old man fell asleep, and it was near midnight when he wakened with a cold touch on his hand.
“It’s come, father!”
He started up with a cry, looking at the new smile in her eyes, grown strangely still.
“Call them all,
