And so the winter wore away.
January, February, March, passed; and when April
came in there were only here and there, on the hillocks,
bits of bare ground to tell that the spring was coming.
“And to think that all my father’s
fields are sown and growing green by this time and
the violets and the primroses out in all the dales!”
said Mrs Morely, with a sudden rush of homesick tears.
Mrs Grattan was with her, paying a
long day’s visit; for they had been all the
morning talking cheerfully of many things.
“Our winter is long,” she said.
“Oh, so long and dreary!”
sighed Mrs Morely. “No, you must not think
me discontented and unthankful,” she added, meeting
Mrs Grattan’s grave looks. “Only
a little homesick now and then. If I were sure
that all was well with ” She hesitated.
“`I will trust, and not be afraid,’”
said Mrs Grattan, softly.
They had not spoken much to one another
about their troubles, these two women.
Mrs Morely’s reserve, even at the time of little
Ben’s death, had never given way so far as to
permit her to speak of her husband’s faults
and her own trials. And Mrs Grattan’s sympathy,
though deep, had been silent expressed
by deeds rather than by words. She knew well
how full of fear for her husband the poor wife’s
heart had been all the winter; but she could not approach
the subject until she herself introduced it.
“`I will trust, and not be afraid,’”
said Mrs Morely, repeating her friend’s words.
“I can do naught else; and not always that.”
“`Lord, increase our faith!’” murmured
Dolly.
There was a pause, during which Mrs
Morely went about, busy with some household matter.
When she sat down again, she said:
“You must not think I am pining
for home. If I were sure that it is well with
my husband, nothing else would matter.”
“You have good hope that it
is well with him,” said Mrs Grattan.
“Oh, I do not know. I
cannot tell. I can only leave him in God’s
hand.” But she did not speak very hopefully.
“And surely there’s no
better thing to do for him than that,” said Mrs
Grattan.
“I know it. But I have
hoped so many times, and so few of the poor souls
who have gone so far astray as he has done come back
to a better life. I fear no more than I hope.”
There was a long pause after that,
and then, in a voice that seemed quite changed, Mrs
Grattan said, “I never told you about Stephen
and me, did I?”
“No. I know that you have
had some great trouble in your life, like mine indeed,
your husband has told me that: that is all I know.”
“Well, it’s not to be
spoken of often. But, just to show what the Lord
can do when He sets out to save a poor creature to
the uttermost, I will tell you what He has done for
Stephen and me. It must be told in few words,
though. It shakes me to go back to those days.
“We were born in Vermont as
good a State as any to be born and brought up in.
It was quite a country place we lived in. My
father was a farmer a grave, quiet man.
My mother was never very strong; and I was the only
one spared to them of five children. We lived
a very quiet, humble sort of life; but, if ever folks
lived contented and happy, we did.
“Stephen was one of many children too
many for them all to get a living on their little
stony farm; and his father sent his boys off as soon
as they were able to go, and Stephen, who was the
second son, was sent to learn the shoemaker’s
trade in Weston, about twenty miles away.
“We had kept company, Stephen
and me as boys and girls will, you know
before he went; and it went on all the time he was
learning his trade, whenever he came home on a visit.
When his time was out, he stayed on as a journeyman
in the same place; but he fell into bad hands, I suppose,
for it began to come out through the neighbours, who
saw him there sometimes, that he wasn’t doing
as he ought to do; and when my father heard from them
that they had seen him more than once the worse for
liquor, he would let him have nothing more to say to
me.
“You will scarcely understand
just how it seemed to our folks. There was hardly
a man who tasted liquor in all our town in those days.
To have been betrayed into taking too much just once
would have been to lose one’s character; and
when my father heard of Stephen’s being seen
a good many times when he was not able to take care
of himself, it seemed to him that it was a desperate
case. I think he would as lief have laid me
down in the graveyard beside my little brothers, as
have thought of giving me to Stephen then.
“I didn’t know how much
I thought of him till there was an end put to his
coming to our house. I believe I grew to care
more about him when other folks turned against him.
Not that I ever thought hard of my father: I
knew he was right, and I didn’t mean to let him
see that I was worrying; but he did see it, and when
Stephen came home and worked, sometimes at his trade
and sometimes on his father’s farm, a year quite
steady, he felt every day more and more like giving
it up, and taking him into favour again. He
never said so, but I am sure my mother thought so,
and sometimes I did too.
“My mother died that fall, and
we had a dreadful still, lonesome winter my
father and me; and when after a while Stephen came
to see me, as he used to do, my father didn’t
seem to mind. And pretty soon Stephen took courage
and asked the old man for me. He said that I
would be the saving of him, and that we would always
stay with him in his old age which came
on him fast after my mother died. So, what with
one thing and what with another, he was wrought on
to consent to our marriage: but I do believe
it was the thought of helping to save a soul from
death, that did more than all the rest to bring him
round.
“Things went well with us for
a while for more than two years nearly
three; but then one day Stephen went to Weston, and
got into trouble; and the worst was, having begun,
he couldn’t stop. It was a miserable time.
My father lost faith in Stephen after that, and Stephen
lost faith in himself, and he got restless and uneasy,
and it was a dreadful cross to him to have to stay
at father’s, knowing that he wasn’t trusted
and depended on as he used to be. And I suppose
it was a cross to father to have him there; for when
I spoke of going away, though he said it would break
his heart to part from me, his only child, he said,
too, that it would not do to part husband and wife,
and perhaps it would be better to try it, for a while
at least. So we went to live in Weston, and
Stephen worked at his trade.
“Then father married again.
He was an old man, and it never would have happened
if I could have stayed with him. But what could
he do? He couldn’t stay alone. The
woman he married was a widow with children, and I
knew there never would be room for me at home any more.
“We had a sad time at Weston.
I had always lived on a farm, and, though Weston
wasn’t much of a place then, it seemed dreadful
close and shut-up and dismal to me. I was homesick
and miserable there, and maybe I didn’t do all
I might have done to make things pleasant for Stephen,
and help to keep him straight. It was a dreadful
time for him, and for me too.
“Well, after a while our children
were born twin boys. Stephen was
always tender-hearted over all little children; and
over his own I couldn’t tell you
what he was. It did seem then as though, if he
could get a fair start and begin again, he might do
better, for his children’s sake. So, when
I got well, I made up my mind that I would ask a little
help from father, and we’d go west.
“I knew I never could go home
to stay now. But, when I saw the old place for
the last time, I thought my heart would break.
It wasn’t much of a place. There were
only a few stony fields of pasture-land, and a few
narrow meadows; but, oh, I thought, if my babies had
only been born when we were in that safe, quiet place,
it might have been so different! And my father
was so feeble and old, and helpless-like, I could not
bear to think of going so far away that I could never
hope to see him again.
“But there was no help for it.
It would give Stephen another chance; and so, with
the little help my father could give us, we went out
west and settled.
“So we left the old life quite
behind, and began again. We had a hard time,
but no harder than people generally have who go to
a new country. Stephen kept up good courage,
and stuck to his work; and I helped him all I could;
and if I was sometimes a little discouraged and homesick,
he never guessed it. And I never was much
of either; for I was busy always, and there was my
babies ” Dolly’s voice broke
into a shrill wail as she spoke the word, and she
sat with her face hidden a little while before she
could go on again.