Not Pretty, but Precious; And Other Short Stories Part 7

"It is a delightful and meritorious thing to be pious, no doubt," I said to myself, "but it has not improved the manner of my dear Bessie: on the contrary, I should say it has entirely shaken her nerves, and given her palpitation of the heart."

When we reached the chapel we found quite a number and variety of youths already collected around the door, and when we went into a large and airy room, well lighted and filled with seats, a goodly selection awaited us there.

A lady stood on a small platform with a bell in her hand: she had a large, bony figure, and a long, bony face, and turned her eyes toward us without changing their expression into any beam of recognition, as she used her voice without any softening tone or tender cadence whatever:

"Miss Haines, good-afternoon. Mary Bryan, where's your brother? John Mott, you have dropped your tract. Miss Pennyman, glad to see you. Sarah Harper, give your sister a seat."

Bessie had pushed me on her attention between the monotonous sentences she jerked out at her scholars, and she gave me five words just like the rest, and dropped me off again.

Bessie seemed to become calmer after she had looked around the room once in a hasty, fluttered way, and placing a chair for me, she threw herself energetically into her philanthropic work.

I never knew before what a serious thing it was to be a Sunday-school teacher, or how varied the requirements for such duty were. Thirst seemed to be a prevailing agony among the scholars, and it seized its victims as an epidemic does--without warning. They would just reach their seats and drop into them listlessly, or gain them by energetic contest with some previous intruder, and after an empty stare around them would be taken with a sudden pang, expressed in writhing, shaking the right hand wildly and gasping, "Teacher, I want a drink! I want a drink!"

Then they were subject to a terrible vacillation on the subject of their hats: they would almost consign them to the care of a monitor appointed to hang them on the pegs made and provided, when a sense of their preciousness would suddenly present itself to their minds, and they would rescue them wildly, and throw themselves on the defensive while they sat upon or otherwise protected the contested article of dress.

There were six windows with broad sills in the room, and every child seemed beset with a pa.s.sionate desire to leave its seat and lodge itself in a surrept.i.tious manner on one of these perches, as if they had been posts of honor.

Whether bits of bright tin, gla.s.s bottle-stoppers, ends of twine, broken sticks and marbles were accessions to biblical instruction, or were only so considered by the pupils themselves, did not transpire, but poor Bessie seemed to find them stumbling-blocks in her path, and Miss Pepper had no sooner confiscated one lot than another appeared in circulation and broke the story of Joseph's coat into a parenthetical narrative:

"Israel loved Joseph so much that as a particular proof of his parental regard (James Moore, stop putting that stick in your brother's eye) he prepared a variegated garment known as a 'coat of many colors.' (John Mink, take that marble out of your throat, or you'll swallow it.) The bestowal of this beautiful gift (Mary Dunn, put your ticket away, and, Sally Harris, let her hair alone) awakened feelings akin to envy and bitterness in (Jane Sloper must not borrow her cousin's bonnet in Sunday-school) the bosoms of his perverted brethren. (Hugh Fraley will leave those strings at home, and, William Grove, stop climbing over the bench.) Alas! what sorrow can evil and disobedient sons, too little conscious (d.i.c.ky Taylor, bring that insect to me) of the sacrifices and prayerful struggles of their venerable parents (no, Henry, not another drink), call down upon their already care-burdened minds!"

Of course I felt sure that Miss Pepper was in earnest and meant to do good, but I suspected that she had not what my uncle called "a gift" with children, and I saw how much harder it made it for Bessie, who really was a natural teacher, and who contrived to rule with a steady but gracious firmness, and to win with a sweet simplicity that explained itself to the minds of little ones.

I wondered not a little at her infatuation on the Pepper question when I saw how contrary their ways and influence were. There were plenty of nice, interesting little girls among the two hundred, and some very well-behaved boys too; but Bessie set herself to win the unruly, and it was a lesson to thoughtless me to see her do it. One terrible little soul, with a thin, wiry body and tight-cropped head, fell into a conflict with a square-set, hard-faced boy, and they rolled under the seats together just as Miss Pepper had succeeded in raising the ill-used Joseph out of the pit with words of three syllables. Bessie went to the rescue, and separated and inverted the combatants, only the soles of whose boots had been visible a moment before. She sat down with them, and although I could not hear her words, I saw that they were slowly smoothing the angry creases of both the thin and the square face.

"Then let him stop a-callin' me 'Skinny,'" was the last outbreak of the injured lean one, and his antagonist confessed--

"I won't say nothin' to you no more if you stop grinning 'Flathead' at me."

Before Miss Pepper had succeeded in describing the paraphernalia of Eastern travel and the approach of the Ishmaelites, the two were induced to shake hands silently across their gentle mediatrix, whose face suddenly grew radiant with the sweetest blush I ever saw as the door opened and a new feature was added to the scene.

I do not mean to detract from the good impulses or high motives of my dear girl when I say that this was the key that opened the subject to me, and made it bright and plain. It wore the form of a truly good and good-looking young gentleman, who had just enough of the clergyman in his appearance to show that he honored his holy calling above all things. He gave Bessie a glance that set my heart at rest--for I naturally felt anxious that the blush and brightness and other signs should not be thrown away on an unappreciative object--and then he went right into his work. Oh dear! what a difference! One could not imagine, without seeing for one's self, what a beautiful sympathy could do with material that a hard, dry purpose could only irritate. Of course he bowed to me, and met Miss Pepper like an old friend, and then he began, and in beginning caught every single wandering mind, and held it with that mysterious fascination which individualizes, and convinces each one that he is the particular soul addressed.

He had been spending the hour of his absence from us in the chamber of a little fellow, one of our number, who had been terribly hurt by the machinery of a factory in which he worked. He took every one of us there with him, awakening our liveliest interest, and making us anxious to be helpful to every suffering fellow-creature. Some of us had to cry a little at the kind remembrances the poor crushed child sent us, and we felt quite self-reproachful that we had not thought more of him, and been quieter and more orderly in every way. Then, without any dry, hard preaching, he planted that lesson, left it to take root without digging it up again with personal exhortation, and told us something else. Surely no one could have better divined just what we wanted to know, and just how we would have liked it related. Love first of all; then cheerfulness, simplicity, and a strong, earnest enthusiasm that made attention compulsory and the attraction irresistible.

I do not believe I ever felt better satisfied in my life than when he closed and the orderly dismission began: then he turned to Bessie, and I saw that my friend had found the mission of heart-and soul-work, and was being drawn heavenward by the hand she loved. Such a timid tenderness as pervaded his every look and word! such a sweet consciousness as lighted hers! I laughed at my folly about Tom, and felt that I should be delighted to see him at Haines', and introduce him to the dear, good clergyman whom Bessie had the good sense to appreciate.

The Rev. Charles Pepper was the nephew of Miss Mary. I soon changed my prejudiced opinion of that lady into a clearer view of her merits. She was the Paul that planted: being a woman of wealth and strong religious bias, she had built the mission chapel, gathered together the children and taught them, while her good nephew added the superintendence of the school to his church duties in a different quarter.

"Bessie, does your father know--?" I began as we went homeward together.

She interrupted me: "About Miss Pepper? Oh yes, indeed! She called to ask his permission for me to teach them, and has been at our house twice since.

"You know I don't mean her at all," I said, laughing. "I mean her nephew, Bessie Haines."

But Bessie faltered: she had not the courage to speak freely, since it was evident they had not spoken so to each other yet. She knew she loved and was beloved, but could not force the delicate secret into words, since it was yet unavowed between them.

"All I am afraid of, Bess," said I, determined to make her practical, for she was as ethereal as if she and her love meant to live in the clouds all their days--"all I am afraid of is, that your father's vision may threaten your peace; for, rely on it, Bess, it is about you and you alone, or why should uncle keep praying for you as a 'young damsel,' and 'handmaiden,'

and 'female pilgrim,' and all that?"

Bessie seemed troubled, but she could not be brought to confidence until the minister had opened his heart to her. I saw that, and though I had never had a warning dream in my life, I felt it was my mission to help her.

The Rev. Charles and I had had a little, a very little, talk, but I saw that Bessie had named me to him--that pleased me; that he was very desirous of gaining my good-will--that pleased me too. So I had happened to say that I admired church architecture, particularly Gothic: some one had said that his church belonged to that style, and he immediately, offered to take us to examine it. I asked him to call for us next day, and he delightedly promised that he would.

I told Bessie, and the ungrateful creature was alarmed and nervous, and gave way to all sorts of nonsense; but I consoled her and admired him in a way that seemed to give her satisfaction. The next morning I made a startling discovery. I went into the little bookroom that opened out of the great old-fas.h.i.+oned back parlor, where uncle and Mr. Haines sat every morning with Scott and Clarke and Cruden open before them: I went in very quietly, and didn't make much noise when there. Mr. Haines was talking in a slow, set way, and I could hear the scratching of a pen over stiff paper.

"Would you mention my reasons for recording this, my dear Daniel?" he said to Uncle Pennyman.

"I have set them down at the commencement," said my uncle, who was acting as scribe. "I have said that, your mind being clear and your feelings at ease, you retired to your couch on the night of the 28th of October; that the form of your dear wife seemed waiting for you, since you became conscious of her presence immediately after your sinking asleep; and so on."

"Yes," said Mr. Haines, witty a deep sigh: "it is a great thing, no doubt, to be so guided in the visions of the night, and I have many times considered myself greatly favored by the knowledge of the ministry of my dear wife's blessed spirit; but, friend Daniel, if she had been a little more explicit in this instance it would have been a great comfort to me.

Follow me now, friend Daniel. You have got it down to where she spoke.

Well, she raised her hand and seemed to point to the couch of Dorcas Elizabeth" (that was what Bess had been baptized, and was called by her father on solemn occasions)--"my thoughts had been dwelling on the child, and her increasing age and future duties--and she said, 'Marry her wisely to Thomas,' and repeated the words three times."

I heard the scratching pen and Mr. Haines' depressed, uncertain sigh, and my own heart sank heavily. There was no Thomas to marry her to but our Tom, and such a thing was simply preposterous and wicked. I could not, I would not, bear even to think of it.

Oh, good Mrs. Haines, departed so long ago! why should you come back troubling us about such, things? and, above all, why could you not as well have said Charles as Thomas?

"I have that set down," said Uncle Pennyman. Mr. Haines sighed again in that anxious, uncertain way of his:

"During the first day after the visitation, Daniel, I could not recall whether my wife's appearance said, 'To Thomas, marry her wisely,' or as we now put it down; but since you have set it clearly before me, and your son will so soon be here, I feel that I am justified in having it stated in that way, and that Providence is guiding me."

Oh how my heart rose against Uncle Pennyman as I listened! He was the one to blame for such a shameful, foolish notion stealing into Mr. Haines'

head! Left to himself, any name would have suited him equally well, and here was Tom's thrust in without any earthly reason. It was really dreadful! I could scarcely stand on my feet when I remembered how Tom loved his adopted father, and with what unselfish devotion he always spoke of him. "If he's told that it will be a family blessing, he never will have the heart to deny them and grieve Uncle Pennyman. Poor Tom! he is so shockingly unselfish himself that he would rather enjoy a sacrifice than otherwise, I suppose." So ran my thoughts, and I grew desperate.

Desperation awakens courage. Tom would be there in the evening, and if anything could be done it had to be done at once.

I slipped out silently as I came: no one heard me. I did not mean that they should do so, for, to confess the truth, I was listening on purpose.

I dressed to go out with Mr. Pepper; so did Bessie, though I must say she was very nervous and uncertain about it. "You know papa does not know him in--in the character of a friend of mine," she said, hesitatingly. "Miss Pepper introduced him, and that is all."

"But that is no reason why it should be all," I said to myself, and paid no attention to her little bashful fussiness.

When he arrived, I saw in his eyes that he meant to take advantage of the opportunity I was making for him, and so I boldly carried out my plan. We started, and had gone a block or two when I discovered that they were becoming unaware of my existence and completely absorbed in each other.

"Poor dears!" I thought, "let them have a still better chance." So I stopped in the most natural way possible at a window where tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs were displayed, and began to stare at some ribbon. "The very shade!" I said: "I would not miss it for anything. Pray go on slowly, and I'll join you presently. Keep on till you reach the church--I know the way. And be sure you stay till I come. No, you shall not come in: I insist that you go right on, and do not bother. I have a sort of pride in making bargains, and they never can be made in company, you know." I laughed and wouldn't listen to their waiting, and managed it so well that they went away as unsuspecting and tender as two lambs. I waited till they were out of sight, and then I started straight for home.

I was in high glee till Mrs. Tanner came up stairs.

"There are great preparations making for Mr. Tom," said she with a portentous face. "Mr. Haines has given more orders about his reception than I ever knew him to issue before; and, what seems strange, he actually insists on my calling him Mr. Thomas, when I never can get my tongue round anything but Mr. Tom, in the world."

Both seemed threatening--the preparations and the name; and when Mrs.

Tanner asked where Miss Bessie was, and heard that she had gone out, she shook her head and said that she was afraid her pa wouldn't like it. This convinced me that she too had guessed the nature of the vision, and made me more than ever anxious to save poor Bessie and Tom from mutual unhappiness. The first effort was made, and I must consider the next step.

I felt nearly sure that by this time the two dear Sunday-school workers had become personal in their conversation, and taking up my position on the broad sofa in the quiet, shady back parlor, I set myself to thinking out the plan. It was a great, solidly-furnished old room, staid and handsome like the rest of the house, and meant for comfort in every particular. Over the mantelpiece, and directly opposite to me, was a life-size picture of Mrs. Haines, a very young lady with a mild shyness of expression and a great deal of flaxen hair. She had died when Bessie was a baby, and was altogether a more childlike and undecided person than her daughter. The wonder therefore was that she should have become so dictatorial in the visions of the night, and undertaken to control the family affairs after so many years, never having meddled with them while there was a living opportunity.

I was just thinking how useless it would be to appeal to Uncle Pennyman without--without saying something about Tom (and that under the circ.u.mstances could not be thought of: it made me burn all over merely to have it in my mind for a moment), when I became drowsy, and had not time to question the feeling until I was sound asleep.

A murmur of voices roused me, or perhaps I was going to wake at any rate, for they were singularly low, and the speakers quite unconscious of my presence. I looked up, and in the faint light coming between the bowed shutters and lace curtains I saw the Rev. Charles and Bessie directly under the portrait of Mrs. Haines. He had thrown his arm around her, and, although she struggled just a little in the embrace, held her to his heart.

"Oh, I cannot believe it," she was saying: "it is like a dream. And Winnie too!--to forget all about dear Winnie just because I am so happy. It is selfish and unkind, dear, I am afraid."