Divers Women Part 2

"Seems to me, if I were you, I would remember that to-day is Sunday, and not be quite so sharp with my tongue."

Then his solemn duty done, he returned to his mental comparison of prices. Also, there was Dwight Brower, a young fellow of nineteen or so, who acted unaccountably. Instead of lounging around, according to his usual custom, hovering between piazza and dining-room, whistling softly, now and then turning over the pile of old magazines between whiles, in search of something with which to pa.s.s away the time, he pa.s.sed through the hall on his return from church, and without exchanging a word with anyone went directly to his room. Once there, he turned the key in the lock, and then, as though that did not make him feel quite enough alone, he slipped the little bra.s.s bolt under it, and then began pacing the somewhat long and somewhat narrow floor. Up and down, up and down, with measured step and perplexed, anxious face, hands in his pockets, and his whole air one of abandonment to more serious thought than boys of nineteen usually indulge.

What has happened to Dwight? Something that is not easily settled; for as the chickens sputter in the oven below, and the water boils off the potatoes, and the pudding is manufactured, and the cloud deepens and glooms, he does not recover his free-and-easy air and manner. He ceases his walk after a little, from sheer weariness, but he thrusts out his arm and seizes a chair with the air of one who has not time to be leisurely, and flings himself into it, and clasps his arms on the table, and bends his head on his hands and thinks on.

The holy hours of the Sabbath afternoon waned. Mr. Brower exhausted the stock column, read the record of deaths by way of doing a little religious reading, tried a line or two of a religious poem and found it too much for him, then rolled up a shawl for a sofa-pillow, put the paper over his head to s.h.i.+eld him from the October flies, and went to sleep. Jennie went in and out setting the table, went to the cellar for bread and cake and cream, went to the closet up-stairs for a gla.s.s of jelly, went the entire round of weary steps necessary to the getting ready the Sunday feast, all the time with the flush on her cheek and the fire in her eye that told of a turbulent, eager, disappointed heart, and not once during the time did she think of the solemn words of prayer or hymn or sermon, or even _benediction_, of the morning. She had gotten her text in the church aisle. It was, "Wherewithal shall I be clothed, in order to sit down at the marriage-supper of Mrs. Jamison's son and daughter?" And vigorously was it tormenting her. What an infinitely compa.s.sionate G.o.d is ours who made it impossible for Dr. Selmser, as he sat alone in his study that afternoon, to know what was transpiring in the hearts and homes of some of his people!

Those chickens sputtered themselves done at last, and the hot and tired mother, with still the anxious look on her face, stooped and took them from their fiery bed, and the father awoke with a yawn to hear himself summoned to the feast. It was later than usual; many things had detained them; four o'clock _quite_, and before the army of dishes could be marshaled back into shape, the bell would certainly toll for evening service. "Let the fear of the Lord be upon you." And _He_ said, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."

Dwight Brower was summoned, too, from his room; and his mother, who had just realized the strangeness of his absence, looked up as he came in, and said:

"Are you sick to-day, Dwight?"

"No, ma'am," he answered.

And something in his voice made her look again; and something in his face made her keep looking, with a perplexed, half-awed air. What had happened to Dwight? What change had come to him amid the afternoon hours of that Sabbath day? Very different experiences can be pa.s.sing in the same house at the same time.

It was only across the street from the Browers' that little Mrs.

Matthews poured coffee for herself and husband, while Mollie, the cook, stood on the side-piazza and sang in a loud, shrill, and yet appreciative tone, "There is rest for the weary." Little Mrs.

Matthews had glowing cheeks, though she had done nothing more serious than exchange her silken dress for a wrapper, and lie on the sofa and finish the closing chapters of George Eliot's last new novel, since her return from church. Aye, it is true. She had been a listener in the same sanctuary where the earnest charge had rung, "Take heed what ye do; let the fear of the Lord be upon you." At least Mrs. Matthews had taken her handsomely clothed little body to church; I will not say that her mind was there, or that she had heard much of the sermon. Some of it, however, she undoubtedly _had_ heard, and she proved it at this point, breaking in upon Dr. Matthews' musings as he stirred his second cup of coffee:

"Dr. Matthews, how do you like being preached at?"

"Preached at?" the doctor echoed, with a sleepy air.

"Yes, preached at. I'm sure, if you were not asleep this morning, you must have heard yourself all but called by name. Who else could Dr.

Selmser have been hinting at when he burst forth with such a tirade on whist parties? It isn't a week since we had ours, and he almost described what we had for supper."

"Fudge!" said Dr. Matthews. He was occasionally more apt to be expressive than elegant in his expressions. "What do you suppose he knows about our party? There were a dozen, I dare say, that very evening, and as many more the next evening. They are common enough, I am sure. And he didn't say anything personal, nor anything very bad, anyhow. They all take that position--have to, I suppose; it's a part of their business. _I_ don't like them any the less for it. I wouldn't listen to a preacher who played whist."

Mrs. Matthews set her pretty lips in a most determined way, and answered, in an injured tone:

"Oh, well, if you like to be singled out in that manner, and held up as an example before the whole congregation, I'm sure you're welcome to the enjoyment; but as for me, I think it is just an insult."

"Stuff and nonsense!" echoed the doctor. "How you women can work yourselves into a riot over nothing. Now you know he didn't say any more than he has a dozen times before. In fact, he was rather mild on that point, I thought; and I concluded he considered he had said about all there was to be said in that line, and might as well slip it over. There wasn't a personal sentence in it, anyhow. The doctor is a gentleman. More than that, I don't believe he knows we had a whist party. If he set out to keep track of all the _parties_ there are in his congregation it would make a busy life for him. Your conscience must have reproached you, Maria."

"Well, some people are less sensitive than others, I suppose. I _know_ men who wouldn't like to have their wives talked about as freely as yours was from the pulpit this morning. I tell you, Dr.

Matthews, that he meant _me_, and I know it, and I don't mean to stand it, if you do."

"How will you help it?" the doctor asked, and he laughed outright.

It did seem ridiculously funny to him. "A tempest in a thimble," he called it. His wife was given to having them.

"What will you do about it? Fight him, or what? It's a free country, and the man has a right to his opinions, even if _you_ don't agree with him. Better hush up, Maria. I don't believe in duels, and they are against the law in this country besides; you are powerless, you see."

It is a pity he said that. Mrs. Dr. Matthews being a woman, and being a member of that church, knew she was _not_ powerless. And women of her stamp are sure to be _dared_ by random, half-earnest sentences, to show the very utmost that their weak selves can do. As truly as I tell you the story here to-day, that is the way the ferment began. "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." Aye, and a little acid _sours_ the whole lump. Do you think Mrs. Dr. Matthews sallied out directly her meal was concluded, and openly and bitterly denounced Dr. Selmser as a pulpit slanderer? She did nothing of the sort. She chose her time and place and persons with skill and tact, and said, "Didn't they think, just among themselves, not intending to breathe it outside for the world, that Dr. Selmser was getting a _little_ unpopular among the young people? He was so _grave_--almost stern.

She felt distressed sometimes lest they should cultivate a feeling of fear toward him. She _did_ think it was so important that the young people should be attracted."

Watching her opportunity--and it is wonderful how many opportunities there are in the world, if one only watches for them--she remarked at Mrs. Brower's that Dr. Selmser was just a little inclined, she thought, to pay rather too much attention to families like the Harrisons. It was natural, she supposed. Ministers were but human, and of course with their wealth and influence they could make their home very attractive to him; but she always felt sorry when she saw a clergyman neglecting the poor. Dr. Selmser certainly had called at Mr. Harrison's twice during this very week. Of course he might have had business--she did not pretend to say. But there were _some_ who were feeling as though their pastor didn't get time to see them very often. He ought to be willing to divide his attentions.

Now Mrs. Brower belonged by nature to that type of woman who is disposed to keep an almanac account with her pastor. She knew just how many calls Dr. Selmser made on her in a year, and just how far apart they were. It really needed but a suggestion to make her feel doubly alert--on the _qui vive_, indeed--to have her feelings hurt.

So of course they were _hurt_.

In point of fact, there is nothing easier to accomplish in this jarring world than to get your feelings injured. If you are bent on being slighted there is no manner of difficulty in finding people who apparently "live and move and breathe" for no other purpose than to slight you. And as often as you think about them, and dwell on their doings, they increase in number. A new name is added to the list every time you think it over; and the fair probability is that every single person you meet on that day when you have just gone over your troubles will say or do, or leave unsaid or undone, that which will cruelly hurt you. I tell you, dear friend, it becomes you to keep those feelings of yours hidden under lock and key, out of sight and memory of anyone but your loving Lord, if you don't want them _hurt_ every hour in the day.

CHAPTER IV.

SOME PEOPLE WHO WERE FALSE FRIENDS.

Did a woman ever start out, I wonder, with the spirit of turmoil and unrest about her, that she did not find helpers? Especially if she be one of a large congregation she comes in contact with some heedless ones--some malicious ones--some who are led into mischief by their undisciplined tongues--some who have personal grievances. And there are always some people in every community who stand all ready to be led by the last brain with which they come in contact; or, if not that, they are sure to think exactly as Dr. Jones and Judge Tinker and Prof. Bolus do, without reason as to why or wherefore. This cla.s.s is very easily managed. A little care, a judicious repet.i.tion of a sentence which fell from the doctor's or the judge's or the professor's lips, and which might have meant anything or _nothing_, by the slightest possible changes of emphasis, can be made to mean a little or a great deal. It wasn't slow work either--not half so slow as it would have been to attempt the building up of someone's reputation; by reason of the law of gravitation the natural tendency is downward, so prevalent in human nature, and by reason of the intense delight which that wise and wily helper, Satan, has in a _fuss_ of any sort. Do Mrs. Dr. Matthews the justice of understanding that she didn't in the least comprehend what she was about; that is, not the magnitude of it. She only knew that she had been stung, either by her conscience or else by Dr. Selmser. She chose to think it was Dr. Selmser, and she felt like repaying him for it. He should be made to understand that people wouldn't bear everything; that he must just learn to be a little more careful about what he said and did. "Take heed what ye do; let the fear of the Lord be upon you."

Yes, _she_ heard the text, and was thinking of her party all the time. Did she think that certain things which occurred in her parlours on that evening were not in accordance with the text? Then did she think to blot out the text by showing her ability to stir up a commotion? What _do_ such people think, anyway?

There came a day when even Mrs. Dr. Matthews herself stood aghast over what had been done, and didn't more than half recognise her hand in the matter, so many helpers she had found--non-temperance men, men of antagonistic political views, men who winced at the narrowness of the line drawn by their pastor--a line that shut out the very breath of dishonesty from the true Church of Christ--men and women who were honest and earnest and _petty_--who were not called on enough, or bowed to enough, or consulted enough, or ten thousand other pettinesses, too small or too _mean_ to be advanced as excuses, and so were hidden behind the general and vague one that, on the whole, Dr. Selmser didn't seem to "draw;" the "young people" thought him severe or solemn or _something_; his sermons were not "just the thing--did not quite come up to the standard," whatever that may mean.

So the ball grew--grew so large that one day it rolled toward the parsonage in the shape of a letter, carefully phrased, conciliatory, soothing--meant to be; "every confidence in his integrity and kindness of heart and good intentions," and every other virtue under the sun. But, well, the fact was the "young people" did not feel quite satisfied, and they felt that, on the whole, by and by, toward spring, perhaps, or when he had had time to look around him and determine what to do, a _change_ would be for the best, both, for himself and for the cause. Indeed, they were persuaded that he himself needed a change--his nervous system imperatively demanded it.

Let me tell you what particular day that letter found its way to the parsonage: a rainy, dreary day in the early winter, when the ground had not deliberately frozen over, and things generally settled down to good solid winter weather, but in that muddy slushy, transition state of weather when nothing anywhere seems settled save clouds, dun and dreary, drooping low over a dreary earth; came when the minister was struggling hard with a nervous headache and sleeplessness and anxiety over a sick child; came when every nerve was drawn to its highest tension, and the slightest touch might snap the main cord. It didn't snap, however. He read that long, wise, carefully-written, _sympathetic_ letter through twice, without the outward movement of a muscle, only a flush of red rising to his forehead, and then receding, leaving him very pale. Then he called his wife.

"Mattie, see here, have you time to read this? Wait! Have you nerve for it? It will not help you. It is not good news nor encouraging news, and it comes at a hard time; and yet I don't know. We can bear any news, can't we, now that Johnnie is really better?"

With this introduction she read the letter, and the keen, clear gray eye seemed to grow stronger as she read.

"Well," she said, "it is not such _very_ bad news; nothing, at least, but what you ministers ought to be used to. We can go. There is work in the world yet, I suppose."

"Work in the Lord's vineyard, Mattie, for _us_, if he wants us. If not, why then there is rest."

Shall I tell you about that breaking up? about how the ties of love, and friends.h.i.+p, and sympathy were severed? You do not think that the whole church spoke through that letter? Bless you, no. Even Mrs. Dr.

Matthews cried about it, and said it was a perfect shame, and _she_ didn't know what the officers meant. For her part, she thought they would never have such another pastor as Dr. Selmser. And I may as well tell you, in pa.s.sing, that she did what she could to cripple the usefulness of the next one by comparing him day and night, in season and out of season, with "dear Dr. Selmser." There are worse people in the world than Mrs. Dr. Matthews.

Did he stay all winter and look about him and decide what to do? You know better than that. He sent his resignation in the very next Sabbath; and some of those letter-writers were hurt, and thought he had more Christian principle than that; and thought that ministers, of all men, should not be so hasty in their acts. It showed a bad spirit.

_They_ went home after that--Dr. Selmser and his wife--to _her_ mother's home. So many people have _her_ mother's home to go to.

Blessed mothers! He was so glad to get to her. He needed change and rest, and the letter-writers had spoken truthfully. Did he take cold in packing and travelling? Was he overworked? Were the seeds of the disease running riot in his system during that early fall? Were they helped along any by that letter? Who shall tell? We know this much: he took to his bed, and he was no longer pale or quiet; the flush of fever and the unrest of delirium were upon him. He rolled and tossed and muttered; and it was always of his work, of his cares, of his responsibilities--never of _rest_; and yet rest was coming to him on swift wing. The Lord of the vineyard knoweth when his reapers have need of soft, cool days of glory, to follow weeks of service.

Rapidly they come to him; but the river must be crossed first, and first there must be a severing of earth-ties, a breaking of cords stronger than life. Never mind, the King knows about this, too; and it must be, and _is_, and _shall be_, well. The rest came--all that we on this side knew of it--a pulseless heart, a shrouded form, lips of ice, forehead of snow, hush and silence. Just the other side of the filmy veil which we call "Time," what was the appearance of it there? He knows, and has known these many years. And, thank G.o.d, the wife of his love knows now, but we do not. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart, the things that are prepared" for them.

What said the elegant modern church, that during the process of this change was undergoing a candidating siege? Why, they met in decorous a.s.semblage, and pa.s.sed resolutions, and had them printed, and draped the pulpit in mourning, and sent a delegation of the church to the funeral, with knots of the finest _crepe_ streaming from their shoulders; and, on the Sabbath following, the quartette choir sang the funeral dirge in such a way as to melt almost the entire audience to tears. And then they went home, some of them, and remarked that the candidate who occupied their pulpit that morning had an exceedingly awkward way of managing his handkerchief, and didn't give out notices well. They didn't believe he would "draw" the "young people."

Now, what of all this story of one Sabbath day? Is it overdrawn? Do you say there are no such people as have been described? I beg your pardon, there _are_. It is _not_ a story; it is a truthful repet.i.tion of Sabbath conversations. Would that such Sabbath desecrations were rare. They are not. You will remember that out of a congregation of five hundred I have not given you a description of a dozen people.

The difficulty is that a dozen people can and _do_ set in commotion large bodies of humanity, and bring about results of which they themselves do not dream.

About that minister: If he sunk under such a common matter as having certain ones in a church disaffected with him, it shows a weak mind, do you say? He should have expected trials, and disappointments, and coldness, and disaffection. "The servant is not greater than his lord." All true; he had preached that doctrine to himself for twenty years, and earnestly strove to live by it. I do not say that he sunk under the humiliation; only, don't you remember the fable of the last straw that broke the camel's back? What I _do_ say is, that he had borne hundreds and thousands of "straws." Also, remember it was _the Lord_ who called him from work. a.s.suredly he did not call himself. I think the master said: "Let him come; it is enough; and we need him here."

Then what about the unfinished work that he left? What about the midnight prayer over that sermon, the wrestling for a sign of fruit?

Was it in vain? There is fruit that you and I do not see, oftentimes.

Do you remember the young man, Dwight Brower, and the Sabbath afternoon communion that he had with himself? Not with himself alone; the world, the flesh, and the devil were in full strength before him; and not _them_ only--the angel of the covenant was there beside him.