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Bolton Sarah Knowles
A Country Idyl and Other Stories

DUTY

“JAMES, I hear you are getting interested in Martha Wenham!” said good old Mrs. Matthews, tremblingly, to her only son, as they sat by the fire one evening after he had returned from a hard day’s work.

He had been her only support for four years, ever since her kind husband died. His sister Nellie, sweet but fragile, had leaned upon his strong arm for help, for she was unable to support herself.

Mrs. Clayton, a neighbor, had been over telling James’s mother what she had heard about the young people: that they had been seen to walk very leisurely home from singing-schools and prayer-meetings, and that, at the last church picnic, he and Martha, regardless of all the others, had sauntered off to a cool, cosey nook, and were seemingly very happy and very much absorbed, as people are wont to be under such circumstances. Martha was a very excellent girl, the daughter of a well-to-do village merchant, would make one of the best of wives, and James would be fortunate to win her; but poor Mrs. Matthews saw herself and Nellie cast upon the world, for in case James married he could no more than support his wife and the little ones that would probably be born to them. He had been a faithful son, leaving school and books that he loved, to work with his hands and earn his bread. He had been able to pay their rent, get them a few neat clothes, and buy all necessary food.

Sometimes he seemed rather quiet, as though he longed again for the school days, that he might realize his ambition to be a prominent man in the world. When either mother or daughter caught a glimpse of any such feelings, they tried to make the home pleasanter for him. Mrs. Matthews baked things he liked, and Nellie took a little picture from her scantily furnished room to hang in his, or gathered a few flowers for his table.

No wonder the dependent mother spoke anxiously about his interest in Martha Wenham.

“Yes, I like her very much, mother. I think she is the noblest girl I ever saw!”

Mrs. Matthews trembled more and more. She wanted to ask him if he ever thought of marrying her, but she could not.

Finally, after long silence, James said, as though he had been weighing the thing in his own mind, “Do you think she would make me a good wife, mother?”

“I – I think she might, James, but what would your poor mother do?” and the tears gathered in her eyes. “I’m afraid I’m a burden, James! Don’t you wish there were no obstacles in the way? Oh, James, I wonder God arranged it so!” and the fond mother could have longed to be out of the way, that her boy’s happiness might be completed.

James Matthews’s big heart was full. He had never thought of leaving his mother, and, though he loved Martha, duty was first with him always; so he put his hard hands upon his mother’s gray head and kissed her, bidding her not to fear; that he should never leave her, and that she was better than all the Marthas in the world, and as for Nellie, he’d work his fingers off for her before any other girl should take her place.

That night there was a timid knock at Martha’s door, and James Matthews was cordially welcomed. Several times before all the commonplaces were talked of he tried to tell her his errand in coming, but his courage as often failed. Martha broke the ice for him when she said, “I think, James, that day spent at the picnic was the pleasantest of my life.” What could be more delightful than to hear from her own lips the very confession he had longed to hear – that his presence was a pleasure to her, that she perhaps in some measure returned his affection?

“It was a very happy one to me,” responded James. “I have often wondered if it gave you pleasure. Martha, perhaps you do not know that I have loved you for a long time, and perhaps it is wrong for me to tell you of it, seeing that I cannot marry anybody.”

“And why not?” said Martha, a blush spreading over her fair face and losing itself in her golden hair.

“Because my mother and sister are dependent upon me, and as long as they live – and I hope it may be many years – I shall take care of them. I could love you always without marriage, but that is the only bond that can keep you mine alone and forever. Others will be seeking one so good as you are. I could not ask you to be engaged, for you might wait for years before I was able to support a third in our home, and support you as nicely as I should wish to do. You have had too many comforts to receive poverty at my hands.”

“You know I am young, James, only seventeen, and I can wait a great many years for you. I love you very much, and I have a good home to wait in; so what matter, so long as we are near each other? I’ll wait until I’m an old lady, James, if need be.”

The noble girl had answered as her pure heart had prompted.

Many a man knows how rich, and happy, and satisfied James Matthews felt that night as he came home in the moonlight. How strong his arms felt for work, and how strong his good principles seemed!

He could do anything now for mother and sister – make any sacrifice; for did not one wait for him whose encouragement was more than money, to live with whom for one year even would recompense for a score of years of labor?

Mrs. Matthews and Nellie grew happier as they saw him so cheerful, and as his wages increased with his larger experience, and more of the comforts of life were obtained, Nellie, with less anxiety and more ease, grew better.

Two years had passed, and changes had come to Martha Wenham. Her father was dead, his property gone, and her health impaired by long and weary care of him. What was left for her but to claim the hand of him for whom she had waited these two years? Refusing all others, she had been true to him. Now came the time of trial to both.

Martha was helpless, and had nowhere to look but to him. His heart clung to her now more than ever, but who could support the two who seemed to be left providentially on his hands? Many an evening he passed with her, feeling every time as though the day of parting, if it must come to that, would be unbearable; finally he resolved to marry her, take her to his home, and do all in his power for the three. It could be only a scanty subsistence he could earn for them, and by taking another upon himself, would he not spoil the happiness of them all? He might have but one meal a day for himself, and he was willing; but what poor reward for the girl who had lost so many good places in life to share penury with him!

“James, I have a plan to propose to you, though you may not second it, and indeed I do not know if it be right or best,” said Martha to him one night. “William Stillson, you know, has loved me from the time we were children together, and has always been a warm friend to me, even after I refused him. In these days of anxiety and prospective want, he has offered me again himself and his lovely home. I respect him, James, but you have my heart and he knows it. All rests with you. Shall I marry him, and thus free you from what must necessarily be a burden?”

James could not answer, and when she put her cheek upon his and held his hand, he said, “Oh, Martha, I cannot give you up!”

“My will is yours,” she said, and kissed him good-night.

It troubled him after he came home. She might be so comfortable with William, so cramped with him. His duty was plain before him. He took a pen and paper and hastily wrote:

My Martha: I release you! I know what is best for you! Marry William and be happy. There is no other course. I shall be happy because you are. My blessing go with you.

Your

James.

Four weeks after, Martha, a woman through her sufferings, and true to her womanhood in acting honestly, gave her hand to William Stillson, promising to be his faithful wife. James heard the words that separated them forever, and seemed to grow stronger for his duties at home. He never visited her, but when she bore a beautiful boy to her husband, he felt that he might love the child, and this wee one became his plaything for many a month, until they moved to a distant part of the country. Then, for the first time, though he missed the boy and the sweet face of the mother, he was no longer under restraint. He could have her in his thoughts better than in his sight.

Many a year went by quietly, even happily, to James, for we find our highest happiness in doing our daily duties. He had earned his mother and sister a lovely home, which is much for any man single handed to do; was respected in the community, well read through his industry and perseverance, and a genial and good-principled citizen.

Nellie had married a widower with several motherless children, and she was doing for others what had been done for her. Then the good mother, when her time was fully come, died and was buried, and James was left alone.

Everybody supposed he would marry now; wondered why he was a bachelor! All the married ladies pitied him for their daughters’ sakes, and ladies of uncertain ages looked wistfully in his direction. An old lady kept his house neatly, while in books and memories and social converse his days went by rapidly.

One morning the house went through an extra cleaning and arranging. An old schoolfriend, a bachelor like himself, was coming to spend several days with him, and the good housekeeper, a spinster herself, but old enough to be the mother of both of them, could not help feeling a little tremulousness with regard to the new-comer. James secretly felt more than ordinary interest in his coming, from the fact that Mrs. Stillson lived in the same place.

“I believe I have a friend in your vicinity,” said James to his friend the first evening, at the supper table.

“Ah! I suppose some flame – a maiden lady about your age, probably.”

“No. A Mrs. Stillson I refer to. We were very excellent friends when we were young.”

“Indeed! I know her very well. Have done considerable law business for her since her husband’s death. She has four children and in quite straitened circumstances.”

James Matthews felt a sudden increase of circulation about his heart.

She was free to wed him now, if she would, he thought to himself. Now he could be a father to those children, and do for them all he had longed to do for her.

When the lawyer went home, much to his surprise Mr. Matthews accompanied him.

The knock at Mrs. Stillson’s door was answered by a bright, noble-looking boy of eighteen. The mother, with the same sweet face as in her girlhood, was called in.

“Oh, James!” she said, and the tears gathered in her eyes. “I am so glad to see you once more!”

Perhaps she thought he held her hand too long and earnestly for a man who probably had a wife and children at home.

“I have thought,” she added, “if I could only see you in our present circumstances, you might be induced to take our youngest, a boy of six, and adopt him as your own.”

“Martha, may I take the boy, and take his mother with him?” said James Matthews, his heart almost too full for utterance.

The cheek was laid to his as in other days, and the old answer given, “Your will, James, is mine!”

He was satisfied now, with a happiness interwoven with it that none knew, except those who have waited long and been rewarded. The old housekeeper felt a little unpleasantly when a lady and four children were so suddenly added to their family, but soon recovered her equilibrium, and did everything for their comfort, living with them until she died.

There was considerable gossip for a time. Everybody knew now why he had not married earlier. The maiden ladies were quiet, the married ladies very polite, and James and Martha very happy in themselves and in their children.

WAIFY

“HEAVENS, a baby! Who brought such a speck of humanity to lay at my cold door? There is no love in my heart. The thing will die with me. I’ll tuck it down in the corner of the cave for to-night.”

Giles Mortimer laid the bundle on a rough pine table, put the candle close beside it, and one by one took off the garments folded about it – took them off with the same care and fear of touch as a naturalist in preparing the wings or feet of a fly for microscopic examination. He half raised it in his arms, then laid it down, walked around the cavern with a vague knowledge of a near presence, came back, took it up slowly and held it by the firelight.

It had a delicate girl-face, with half-quivering lips, and a little body perfect in proportions. Who was she? Some mother must have cared for her as long as strength or life lasted, for she was now fully ten months old. What should he do with the little waif? This triangular cave was his home. The green turf above it shut out scorching sun and chilling snow; the rude door before its opening made it seem secure from danger; the mortar he had put about the sides, the tall prairie grass he had matted over the ground floor, the old stove he had brought thither, the rustic chair he had made from the surrounding forests, and the Indian blankets he had bought for his bed, all made it comfortable, though gloomy.

Such a place might suffice for him, but how could an infant grow into grace and beauty here, leaning ever towards the light of the outer world, and longing for love that must be the elixir of life to woman?

The lips that before quivered with fear now opened with hunger. He laid her down, went out to a log box adjoining the cave, coaxed his goat to a fresh supply of milk, and the babe drank from his hand, nestled her head against his breast, and slept. She was not tucked away in a corner, but rested next his heart through that long night.

Giles Mortimer was written fatherless and motherless in boyhood. A pleasant home was sold, a small sum of money laid away, and a youth just needing a father’s care and mother’s affection was thrust upon the charities of the world. He soon found employment in a factory, and there, day by day, when others walked and laughed upon the highway, he worked and looked beyond to a successful future, saved his money carefully, dressed simply, and in a few years had nearly enough to defray the expenses of three years’ study. College days followed. Those four years brought head and hand work to Mortimer. By forethought and exertion he gained the privilege of sweeping the college chapel, took the agency of books and pictures in vacation, and in numerous other ways partially paid for his education. His companions loved him for his geniality, and admired him for his broad grasp of mind and manly soul.

Life looked full of promise. Towards what should it tend? The professions were full. Among those who held out the gospel of life to the famishing, there were too many whom Christ had never called with His especial calling. There were lawyers at every corner quarrelling for a petty office, or looking over dusty books while sighing for the bright skies. There were teachers who needed to be taught. Chemistry, geology, and philosophy had so many votaries that only one in a century rose to eminence, and the remainder, in unsatisfying mediocrity, plodded on with little happiness to themselves and still less to others.

He turned to business. Here was an opening to gain honorable power by effort of will, by energy of hand, and by vigor of mind. There was beauty to him in the smoke that curled now lazily, now swiftly, from the chimneys of a hundred manufactories. If he could not be a merchant prince to give with blessed munificence one hundred thousand dollars for homes for the poor, he might have a home for some one who loved him, and many mites to scatter in the alleys of the great cities.

With Giles Mortimer’s man-physique and mind there was a woman’s sensitiveness, and a will that could not always bear the shock of opposition. A mountain is not all quartz, studded with jasper and amethyst, nor is it all trap, brown and coarse. All lives are elements from God’s great storehouse, and earth a crucible which melts and moulds. He needed what most men need, the stimulus of love to give position or wealth or fame; the encouragement of a voice that has inspiration in it; the touch of a hand that carries hope in its pressure; the look of an eye that shines like a lone star on a dark night. He had seen some who might have walked beside him, but for his fear of taking them from a hall to a hovel.

He went to a strange city. Counting-rooms were filled, and clerkships engaged for months in advance. He knew no trade, or he might have worked and given honor to that. At last he obtained a place in a hardware establishment, and for two years, on a small salary, the student did uncongenial work to live; then the firm failed, and he was again adrift. He would have loved manufacturing; he would have been proud to have aided America with the labor of his brain and hands combined; but the old question, the one that has settled upon and crushed so many young men, came back – “What business can be carried on without money?”

Many men have struggled through poverty up to affluence. Many more have struggled in it down to a grave. There are not wanting those who tell us that every man may succeed, if he will; and yet ninety of every hundred who enter the whirlpool of trade are lost.

Like many others, when his heart was saddest he sang – sang like Carligny, who was dying when he made Paris intoxicated with his wit. No publisher was obtained for his poems; he had not found that spring that opens all portals – a name. Every house was already filled with manuscripts, every journal with hastily-written fragments. A living earned by writing was one that too often gave straw for a bed, and bread and water for food. He was growing tired of the battle. There were no victories – all defeats. Perhaps he lacked proper training of self; perhaps the now weakened physical had dimmed the mental; perhaps circumstances without were as strong as the powers within. Men were no longer brothers to him. He sighed for the freedom of solitude, stepped one evening on a freight train going West, and, careless for the future, went forward to an unknown fate. He crossed foaming Lake Erie; flat, woody Michigan and its lake; passed through Milwaukee with its forests and few inhabitants, where now rises one of the loveliest cities of the West, out into the uncivilized country. The land was rolling, with here and there a prairie shut in by a border of oak or cotton-wood trees. The lakes – long Pewaukee; graceful Pine; clear Kotchee, that makes the highway an arch and circles under it; and Neponset, with green, scalloped bank and a tree in each scallop reflected by the waters – all these were like oases to him.

He reached the Indian village, Oconomowoc, and stood at the foot of the peninsula that almost touches the island. On one side was a lake bordered with hawthorn, on whose bank a neat church now stands; on the other, five lakes, some small, one seventeen miles in length, surrounding islands covered with spruce and hemlock and oak. Hills, with their outcropping quarries of limestone, stood out against the blue sky. Back of this landscape, one of the most beautiful of the West, he found a cave worn into the mountain – a gloomy place, but free from dampness, and comfortable for one who had no care for humanity.

Occasionally he made friends with an Indian and asked him to his hut, but this was rare. They looked upon him as a pale-face who, having vexed the Great Spirit, was repenting in solitude. He spent his days in wandering and study. He learned the geological history of the place from the hieroglyphics God puts upon the rocks for man to read. He pressed hundreds of flowers, and knew what Jehovah had intended for the gardens of the growing West. He wrote some, and grew happy in his isolated existence; yet there was no flow of animal life within him, no leaping of the heart for joy. The past was a sealed book; the present written with the indifference of a stoic; and the future a blank leaf with no desire to write upon it.

Such was Giles Mortimer when a tender child was laid before him – a magnet to draw out a heart.

He called her Waify. For days and weeks he dressed her, washed her delicate clothes with his own hands, fed her, and made a wagon of rough boards and drew her to the lakes, that she might dabble her hands and feet in the clear waters. Soon the baby lips, as if taught by angels, said “Papa!” and the man’s affections swept back upon him as a flood. He kissed her again and again, and she, all unconscious of the reason, put her fingers in his hair and beard, and laughed with that merry laugh that makes most homes, even in their decay, full of the echoes of childhood. A new look was born into his face, a look of manly protection, as though a soul was given to his charge.

Six months came and went. Little feet strolled outside the walls. She seemed to look vainly for something to play with, gathered blades of grass and flowers in her creeping, and showed a longing for a fuller life. Mortimer saw it, aroused his sleeping ambition, put out the fire in the old cave, put Waify into the wagon, with a blanket about her that he might keep in memory the first night she slept under it, tossed his half dozen books and small bundle of clothes at her feet, and started for the city. Kind people gave them a shelter at night, and Waify made friends everywhere.

To the home of a lady he had known among the early settlers of Milwaukee he carried his precious charge, and started this time for business with a strength and energy that knew no failure. There were some struggles, but at length a place was found with a land-broker. The city was growing rapidly. Small pieces of land were purchased as by economy some money was saved.

After many months of labor a small house was hired, a pretty play-room arranged for the wee Waify, a good servant obtained, and Giles Mortimer was a happy man. No longer hating the world or its people, but having grown strong from obstacles overcome, he had sympathy for others and a genial look and manner that gave him the fascination of a woman.

Every night Waify came a little way to meet him. Then by the firelight he told her cheery stories, made rabbits for her on the wall, and with her on his knees thanked God for something human to love.

School life began. A tiny primer was purchased, and Mortimer, more the man than ever, taught her the alphabet. “A” she remembered from two rivers and a brook across. “B” was a river with two little crooked ones, and “C” stood for the cave. Every summer since they lived in the city he had taken her thither and showed her where she used to live.

“Here is the place where you were, Waify; here the table where I put my baby; here the old stove where I warmed your milk; here the green grass where you played.”

“Pretty! pretty!” said Waify. “Kind papa to take care of me! Papa, when Waify dies will you bury her here among the flowers, and make a big ‘C,’ for cave, on the stone?”

A hurried kiss was the answer, while a shock that seemed like a premonition struck every nerve.

“Will you, papa? Will you?” pleaded the child. “Right here where the double daisies grow?”

“The garden will be gone, Waify.”

“But won’t you keep it for me, and bring me here?”

“Yes, darling. Yes, little one!” and they went home, the one light-hearted with the prospect of school again, the other saddened with a thought that seemed a prophecy.

A few days of joyous life went by. The little school-girl seemed less fond of play, more clinging to her adopted father, more thoughtful; then a slow fever, that seemed to have been inherited rather than the result of contagion, came on, and Waify, now scarcely out of her babyhood, was going to sleep through a long night.

Giles Mortimer watched her by day and by night, speechless; brought the toys she loved, and laid them beside her; brought the blocks of letters, and she took the “C” and put it under her pillow.

“Papa, we’ve had nice times together. Who’ll be your little girl when Waify goes? Everybody has little girls. Perhaps somebody’ll bring you one.”

While he blessed God that she had been given to make him the man he was, he asked for no other in her place.

“But you must stay, Waify. I couldn’t be happy without you.”

“No, papa, I must go to ask God about my mamma, and perhaps I’ll come back and tell you.”

How little do children know of the land from whence there is no return!

The day looked for, dreaded, came.

“Where’s the ‘C,’ papa?”

Clasping this tightly with one hand and Mortimer’s with the other, looking sadly at the tears upon his cheeks, then joyfully out into the space, she said, “Kiss Waify!” and was dead.

Giles Mortimer’s heart was mangled. The only thing he loved was taken.

There was a quiet gathering, and then he, with the sexton, took the little one to the cave, dug a grave under the daisies in the very centre of the garden, put a little tablet above it, and upon it the large marble “C” that stood for cave, and went back to his duties to work faithfully because her memory was something like her presence. The house was desolate, but sacred because Waify had been there. Business was interesting because entered upon for her; life was blessed because she had lived. Prosperity came to him. He loved other children, but there was only one Waify.

She had done her work. Through her love a man had known and found his manhood – had taken his true place in the world, in genial intercourse, in business power, in Christian benevolence. He has grown in position with the growth of a large city, but he still calls it home where a heart is buried, by the cave in Oconomowoc.

Perchance God told Waify of her mother, or told the mother of her child, for, weeks after her death, Giles Mortimer found upon the grave a touching token of a mother’s love – a wreath of immortelles wrought into the word “Mother.”