Читать книгу The Gold Brick - Ann S. Stephens - Страница 16

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A little way over the hill from Mrs. Allen's dwelling, stood a low, red farm house which covered a good deal of ground, and possessed many pleasant surroundings, such as marked the more thrifty class of farmers in those days. Rows of stiff, Lombardy poplars stood in lines before the house, looking more like mammoth umbrellas, verdant in color, and shut up for the season, than any thing else. Tall, cinnamon roses clambered up the front, while a whole forest of lilac and snowball bushes cast their shadows on the rich sward of the door yard. At the back was a fine apple orchard which filled the air all around with the delicate perfume of its blossoms in the spring-time, and gave out a rich, fruity odor in the autumn. A well sweep pencilled its slender shadow along the plantain leaves that grew rank at the back door, and beyond that, the distant outlines of a cider-mill could be imperfectly seen through the orchard boughs.

Every thing seemed natural to the stern man, as he drew near the homestead. He could not remember a time when the old place did not look thrifty and comfortable, as it appeared then. A few dry branches bristled here and there among the poplars, speaking of progressive age, like gray hairs in the head of a strong man, but they were scarcely perceptible in the moonlight, and Thrasher could see no change since the years of his boyhood.

The family sitting room was back of the house, and through the windows a gleam of light shot along the grass. Thrasher passed through the yard, and, pausing beneath the window, looked in. The paper blind was partly rolled up, and he thus commanded a view of the entire room.

Two old people sat together on the hearth, where a few embers lay smouldering. A round, cherry wood stand stood between them, from which towered a massive brass candlestick, supporting the only light that burned in the room.

The old lady was knitting. What a sweet, benign expression slept on her face! How softly the white hair was folded under her cap! The pure, healthy bloom on her cheek was something wonderful. It made you in love with the beauty of old age.

The old man was reading aloud; the great family bible lay open before him, and his deep, reverential voice could be distinctly heard through the imperfectly closed window. As Thrasher looked, the old man removed the spectacles from his eyes, and laid them on the page he had been reading, while he listened smilingly to some observation that his wife had made, but which, with her lower and softer tones, Thrasher had lost.

"How many times have we read this chapter together, Eunice—so many that neither you nor I can remember them; but every reading brings out something new—something more holy than we ever found before. Isn't that your experience?"

"Yes," answered the old lady, taking a seamstitch with serene precision as she spoke. "It seems to me, husband, that one never learns really what is in the Bible till old age comes on. When we were young, I can remember being so tired when the morning chapter was read, and full of other thoughts, that I am sorry to remember now. That is the reason I always had so much charity for our Nelson. Poor child, he never could sit still through a whole chapter—boy or man!"

"I'm afraid," answered the old man, with a heavy sigh. "I'm a'most afraid, Eunice, that we neglected to perform our whole duty to the boy at the start. He was such a bright child, that we wandered off into ambition and worldly pride where he was concerned. Now, that we are getting old, and a'most as good as childless, this idea troubles me more than a little. Maybe, if you and I had been a little more strict with the boy, he'd have got over them roving notions, and stayed at home."

"I don't know," said the old lady, putting on her glasses to loop up a stitch, while a shade of trouble came to her face. "It seems to me as if nothing would ever have kept Nelson on the farm. He was too high strung for that. But what then? Every body isn't of the same idea, you know; and if the education we gave our son helped to unsettle him for our way of life, it fitted him for another. Remember, he went out first mate this time."

"He's a brave boy, any way," said the old man, kindling with the subject; "and if the season of grace has not reached his soul yet, we must only pray the more earnestly."

"Yes," whispered the mother. "Pray without ceasing, and in every thing give thanks!"

"If we did not kneel to the throne of grace in his behalf so often as we might have done in our younger days, we must make up for it now, for our son will some day make a shining light in the house of the righteous," continued the father. "I feel it. I know it, Eunice."

The old lady sighed.

"I'm afraid that even now I pray that he may come back to his home, before I think of his eternal salvation, for that wish is always uppermost with me."

The old man smiled reprovingly, and shook his head.

"Ah, Eunice!"

"I can't help it," sighed the mother, confessing her weakness, with a deprecating smile. "He is my only child—all the precious, earthly blessing we have. I can't help being proud and fond of him."

"How could you, when I, a strong man—one that the brethren sometimes look up to, as all the church members will admit—can't keep back the pride of having a son like that. There's no denying it. Nelson is a young man that must put a temptation of pride into his parents' path. It seems to me as if I were a stronger man and you a handsomer woman for having a son like him."

"So honorable, so handsome," murmured the old lady.

"So strong and energetic," responded the father.

"Ah, if he would but come once more to see his old father and mother."

The old lady bent over her knitting, and pretended to search for a false stitch, but it was only to conceal the tears that swelled tenderly into her eyes.

Thrasher could bear no more. The man loved his parents, and those soft tears in his mother's eyes brought moisture to his own. How innocent and childlike the old people were, in comparison with him. Satan, when looking over the flow'ry walls of Paradise, must have felt as he did, listening to that household conversation.

The old man took up his glasses again, and began to read. The mother kept on with her work, listening, with meek faith, to the holy words that fell from her husband's lips. All at once she started, dropped the knitting in her lap, and listened.

"It is his step!"

The old man raised his face from the Bible, and listened, also.

"Yes, Eunice, it is!"

The door opened, and their son stood on the threshold—a strong, handsome fellow, such as the father had described him. There was no outcry of joy, no wordy demonstrations; but a tender gladness possessed the old people. The mother kissed him, almost timidly. There was something that awed her tenderness in this powerful young man, though he did tremble in her gentle embrace.

"My son, you are welcome home—oh, my son!"

There was something hearty and patriarchal in this welcome of the father. The noble old Christian that forgave his prodigal son must have spoken much after the same fashion.

They shook hands—the father and son—with a firm, lingering clasp, while the mother looked on, smiling through her tears. With your genuine New England housemother, hospitality is always the servitor of affection. The night dew lay heavily on her son's garments. He looked pale and tired. The mother's heart rose pitifully in her bosom; she insisted upon raking open the fire, and getting a warm cup of tea; even went so far as to offer a cider-brandy sling, with toasted crackers floating on the top.

Thrasher yielded himself to her tender care. It was wonderful how submissive and grateful that strong-willed man had become under womanly influences. He declined tea, but accepted the glass of smoking drink which the mother prepared. Soon the old man took a tumbler, also, and praised it greatly; for religious men and elders of the church, in those times, thought it no sin to make themselves comfortable with a glass of hot drink before bedtime, never dreaming that their limited indulgence might lead to excess in the coming generation—excess which even legal enactments have failed to remedy. Having no fear and no conscientious scruples on the subject, the old man enjoyed his glass, and filled that of his son more than once; for, somehow, the color would not come genially to the young man's face, and after the first glow of his reception had passed off, he seemed depressed, almost gloomy.

The old lady took her seat again on the patchwork cushion of blue and red cloth which Thrasher could remember from his childhood, and attempted to resume her knitting; but the plump little hands trembled so much that she gave it up, and drawing back into the shadow, had a sweet, motherly cry all to herself. It was pleasant to hear those two voices blending together in their talk. It was heaven to know that the whole family sat on one hearth again. She could not be thankful enough. What had she done to merit so much happiness at the hands of the Lord.

This pious under-current of feelings mingled with the conversation as it went on between the two men, leaping rapidly from subject to subject, as always happens when members of one family have been long separated. While the mother was wrapped in dreamy thanksgivings, the old man, not less grateful or affectionate, fell to questioning his son about his voyage, the fate of the ship, and the terrible scenes which had been enacted at St. Domingo, while she lay in the harbor of Port au Prince.

Thrasher went into the thrilling details. He was naturally eloquent, and the intense interest manifested by his parents, made his pictures as graphic as the reality; but another person might have remarked, though his parents did not, that he avoided mentioning either his own share or that of Captain Mason in these exciting events.

"But how long did this last, Nelson? Was the brig kept in harbor all the time? Some of the neighbors began to fear that she was lost; but your mother and I hoped and prayed, didn't we, mother?"

The mother smiled on her son, answering:

"Nelson always knows that we hope and pray when he is upon the great deep."

"But where is the brig now; at her port?" questioned the father, after a brief pause.

"No, we were compelled to abandon her; one of the most terrible storms I ever faced on sea or land, took us unprepared. It swept us clean from stem to stern. Another hour and we should have gone down like a handful of drift wood—for days and days we floated on the ocean, no sails, our masts gone, nothing to rig new ones with. The men were discouraged, some of them threatening mutiny; for a negro and a little boy that came on board at Port au Prince, the only creatures that I know of who escaped the massacre, were missing just after the storm, and the fellows would believe that I had something to do with it, so they sulked and threatened until I began to fear for my life. Nothing but our own great peril prevented them rising.

"At last, the brig sprang a leak, and what with working at the pumps night and day, hard commons and no drink—for I staved the casks in—they had plenty to do without turning on me. It was enough to put down any rebellion to hear the water rushing and gurgling into the hold, faster, a great deal, than all hands could pump it out. So while working for their own lives, they forgot to take mine."

"Thank God for this great deliverance," said the old man, solemnly.

The son paused an instant, and then went on.

"The water gained on us; we worked desperately, but the brig sunk lower, and lower, till we had scarcely a hope left."

"Then," whispered the mother "you thought of us, my son."

"Of his God," said the old man, devoutly; "he prayed to God and so found safety."

Thrasher was no hypocrite; he remembered how different the scene had proved to any thing his parents imagined, and felt rebuked by their simplicity.

"Yes, mother, I did think of you both with an aching heart. As for prayers, we sailors have little time for them. But I was telling you of our condition; it was forlorn enough. The men gave out and refused to work. Persuasions went for nothing—threats were of no use. They were tired out and wanted to die. You have no idea, father, how reckless such men are."

"No, son; I couldn't imagine it."

"At last, when all was given up, and we had nothing to do but die, a sail hove in sight."

"Thanks be to God!" ejaculated the old man, lifting his clasped hands, while tears stole softly down the mother's cheek.

"'Sail O!' That was a shout which filled us with new life. We tore off our jackets, we searched for fragments of the old sails, our voices rose in wild, hoarse shouts, that sounded awfully along the waters. At first, she did not see us, but seemed steering another way. Our despair broke forth in one mighty shriek! It reached them—we could see a commotion on the deck. Breathless with expectation, grouped together like so many ghosts, we watched her slacken sail, and bear down upon us. Then the strongest man among us burst into tears! That moment I shall never, never forget!"

"Not while there is a merciful God to thank!" said the father, shaking the tears from his cheek as a lion flings dew-drops from his mane. Low sobs broke from the darkened portion of the room. During her son's narration the good mother had sunk unconsciously to her knees, and lay prostrate before her God, trembling with thankfulness.

Thrasher went on:

"We took to the friendly vessel, all but three persons. They would not leave the wreck. No persuasion could move them. It was a terrible thing, but the ship sailed away, leaving them to their fate!"

"And who were these men, my boy?"

"Rice, old Mr. Allen's son."

"God help the poor woman."

"With the negro and boy I told you of. They had taken the boat and put out to sea alone—after drifting five or six days hither and yon, they were taken up by the vessel that afterward saved us. They saw the wreck and came to her in the first boat. When Rice refused to abandon the brig they sat down by his side, and so we were compelled to leave them."

"And is this all?—did you never hear of them again?" inquired the mother, rising to her feet.

"No; we never heard of them after that. They drifted off with the wreck, and what became of them no one can tell."

"This will be sorrowful news for our neighbor. Husband, I wish some other person than our son had brought it."

Thrasher arose hastily.

"Good night, mother. Shall I sleep in the old room?"

His voice shook, and he seemed greatly disturbed.

"Yes, yes, my son. You are tired out. Go up to your old room."