SACKCLOTH AND ASHES

Just at dusk one cold, rainy night late in August, a shabby, weary, wet, old man plodded through the dripping woods, across the stone bridge, and up the road toward Parker. He had come a long way through mud and moisture, and was very tired, yet the first three farmhouses he passed by with scarcely a glance. But as he neared the fourth one, he eagerly scanned the place as if familiar with its surroundings, and listened intently for the sound of voices, seeming disappointed at the result, for apparently not a creature was stirring indoors or out. Not even old Towzer came to challenge him as he unlatched the gate and approached the house, and not a ray of light shone out into the darkness from window or door, though it was yet early evening. The place was as silent as a grave. Puzzled, the man made a circuit of the cottage, but neither saw nor heard anything of the occupants.

“I wonder what has happened,” he thought to himself. “Guess I won’t knock, it might scare them if they have gone to bed. Maybe they are away visiting. I will just slip into the barn and go to bed in the hay. Lucky I had a big dinner, I am not in the least hungry now, and if they are at home I can get breakfast here in the morning I guess.”

He had tramped many long miles since dawn, trying to reach this town before nightfall, and was so worn out with his exertions that he fell asleep almost as soon as he had burrowed a comfortable bed in the sweet-scented hay, nor did he awake until the new day was several hours old. The sun was shining he could tell that from the bright light in the barn, but it was not the sunshine which had awakened him.

The first thing he was conscious of as he opened his eyes to unfamiliar surroundings was the sound of voices close by, and the patter of feet on the loose boards overhead. Cautiously he lifted himself on his elbow and looked about him, but at first he saw only an untidy confusion of garden tools, boxes, bags and other truck, piled promiscuously about wherever space would accommodate them. Then as his eyes became more accustomed to the light, he discovered a slender, brown-haired girl in a faded, dingy, calico gown huddled on top of a pile of empty grain sacks in the darkest corner of the barn. Her face was turned from him, but from her attitude and the sound of an occasional sniff, he judged that she had been crying. Her companion on the rafters overhead was out of range of his vision; but as she scrambled noisily over the loose board floor, which extended only half way across the building, he could catch a glimpse of red now and then, and once a bare, brown foot appeared in view, but that was all. Not daring to make his presence known for fear of frightening the two sisters, he drew silently back into his hiding place to await their departure.

Sniff, sniff, sniff! The slender shoulders of the girl in the corner began to heave, and she buried her face deeper among the grain sacks. Silence on the rafters for a brief moment; then a voice said severely, “’F I was you, Faith Greenfield, I’d stop crying and go into the house and help Gail. She is trying to do the washing herself so’s to save money.”

“’F I was you, Peace Greenfield,” was the tart reply, “I’d try to mind my business once in a while, and not be forever poking my nose into other folks’ affairs.”

“Guess this is my affair as much as ’tis yours!” answered Peace sharply, and the listener in the hay below fancied there was the suggestion of a sob in her voice.

“It’s none of your affair if I want to come out here by myself, but you can’t even let me alone here. You are always snooping around to see what I am doing.”

“I am not snooping!” was the indignant denial. “I’m hunting eggs for breakfast, and I was here first, ’cause I saw you come in bawling.”

“Bawling!” Faith leaped to her feet in wild fury. “You know well enough why I am crying. You would be crying, too, if you cared like I do.”

“I can cry with my heart without stopping to cry with my eyes,” Peace answered soberly. “I haven’t time to sit down and bawl. Someone’s got to run errands and help Gail. S’posing we all sat up and cried all the time like you are doing. Who would get breakfast and dinner and supper, I’d like to know? And who would ’tend to the work?”

“Who wants any breakfast or dinner or supper? I am sure I don’t! I haven’t the heart to eat. I can’t eat!”

“Dr. Bainbridge told us we must, and so did Mr. Strong; and he told us to keep busy, too. It helps you to forget the ache if you work.”

“Forget! You don’t care; that’s why ” There was a sudden movement on the rafters above, and an egg came hurtling through the barn, smashing on the wall close by Faith’s head so close that a shower of little yellow spatters flew over her face and dress. “Peace Greenfield!”

“You haven’t got half what you deserve,” said a tense, hard voice from above. “I ought to have slung the whole batch, even if we’d had to go without breakfast. I’d like to know how you can tell whether you care more than the rest of us. You think you are the only one that knows how to be sorry.”

There was a sudden silence deep, ominous, it seemed to the man in the hay, and he ventured to peep out at the combatants, but all he saw was Faith standing rigid and white-faced in the corner. When she spoke, her voice was frigid in its intensity.

“Come down from those beams, Peace Greenfield, and take the rest of those eggs to the house!”

“I am coming down as fast as I can,” began Peace’s voice, equally frigid. Then there was a sound of ripping, a dreadful clatter, a dull thud, and Faith rushed forward with the agonized scream, “Oh, Peace, Peace, are you hurt? I am sorry I was ugly! You do care! Open your eyes, Peace! Oh-h-h-h!”

The tramp started up in dismay, to behold Peace huddled in a heap at the foot of the ladder, with frantic Faith bending over her. Before he had stepped from the haymow, however, there was a rush of feet from without, and four frightened girls dashed into the barn, followed by a tall, young man in clerical garb; and the shabby figure slunk back into his hiding place without making his presence known.

“What’s the matter?”

“How did it happen?”

“Is she dead?”

“Run for the doctor!” cried the excited voices.

“Oh, Gail, I’ve killed her, I’ve killed her!” sobbed Faith.

“Stand back, girls,” quietly commanded the minister, pushing the trembling quartette almost roughly aside. “Let me examine her. Perhaps she is only ”

“I’m every bit all right,” exclaimed Peace crossly, winking her brown eyes dazedly. “The fall stunted me, I guess. I lit on my head. So did the eggs. Mercy me! What a mess!”

“But look at her face!” wailed frightened and penitent Faith. “She has turned black, and so have her hands!”

She certainly had changed her color.

At Faith’s despairing cry, the victim of the fall raised one of her brown hands and looked at it fixedly; then said briefly, “That’s ashes. It’s on my face, too. It will wash off, won’t it?”

Without reply, the minister lifted her to her feet and drew her into the doorway where the sunlight fell upon her. The sisters looked at the grotesque picture, and exclamations of horror and dismay burst from their lips.

“Peace, what have you done to yourself?”

“Are you sick?”

“What have you got on?”

She presented a strange appearance, truly, draped in dirty, ragged burlap, with face, hands and hair covered with ashes, and smeared from head to foot with broken eggs and bits of eggshell.

The tramp hid his face in the hay to stifle his chuckles, the minister covered his twitching lips with his hands, but the little group of sisters gazed at the apparition with only horror in their eyes.

Then, to everyone’s amazement, Peace began to cry. In an instant Gail had slipped her arms around her, and had drawn the brown head down on her shoulder, where for a moment the child sobbed heartbrokenly. Then, with a mighty gulp, she swallowed back her grief and explained, “I heard Hope reading about the people who put on ash-cloth and sashes I mean sackcloth and ashes whenever any one of their family died, so’s the angels would let the soul into heaven. No one did that when papa died and we don’t know whether he ever got to heaven or not but he’s a man and could take care of himself, s’posing he didn’t get in. With mother it’s different, though. She’s a ninvalid, and I couldn’t bear to think of her outside the gates all alone with none of us to take care of her so I put on potato sacks that’s sackcloth, ain’t it? and ashes. The eggs got there by mistake. They were whole when I began to climb down that ladder.”

The picture was so ludicrous, the explanation so piteous, that between their wild desire to laugh and the stronger desire to cry, it was a hysterical group who closed in once more about the grotesque little figure, while the earnest-hearted, sympathetic young preacher swept away Peace’s fears, and gave her the comfort and assurance she sought.

“Sackcloth and ashes were merely outward signs of mourning for nations in ages past,” he told her. “It didn’t help anyone get into heaven. It didn’t even show how great were their sorrow and grief; and when people came to realize that, they ceased to follow the custom. God knows how sorrowful we are, for He can read our very thoughts. It doesn’t need sackcloth and ashes to carry our loved ones home, dear. They lived good, noble, true lives in His sight while they were here on earth, and now He has taken them home inside the Gates to live with Him always.”

“You are sure?” hiccoughed Peace.

“Perfectly sure! The Bible tells us so.”

“Where? I want to see for myself.”

He drew a worn Testament from his pocket, turned to the Fourteenth Chapter of St. John, and slowly, impressively read those beautiful words, “In my Father’s house are many mansions,” explaining his understanding of the passage so clearly, so comfortingly that finally the tears were dried and the aching hearts soothed.

At length the grief-stricken company repaired to the house for their belated breakfast, while the tramp, touched to the quick by the pathos of the scene he had just witnessed, made his way across the fields and through the woods, leaving only a crumpled ten-dollar bill among the grain sacks to tell of his visit.