Chapter Ten

by Mrs. Elizabeth Prentiss
Edited by Amber Moeller

The year that had opened so eventfully for Horace and Maggie proved to be the final year of the war; and the first beautiful days of October were celebrated in the little Stafford parsonage by two simple weddings; both Maggie and Annie were to leave the home where they had spent their happy childhood, and sail forth upon an unknown sea. Indeed, Annie was to do this literally; for Tom was going to take her to Europe, and she was in a state of great bewilderment between him and his presents and his radiant delight over her.

Maggie, on the contrary, was going to be established in an obscure street, the wife of a poor man; she was going to meet with embarrassments and endure privations; lonely hours lay before her, and hours that would require all her courage and fortitude. But she was more than fearless; she was thoroughly happy. To live with Horace! What could she ask besides?

When his marriage was decided on, Horace had many consultations with Aunt Jane, including to the opinion, which she was always ready to fight, that with his limited and uncertain means it would be best to give up the long-talked of little home.

"If we live in that street nobody will come near us," he objected, when Aunt Jane, after endless drives, had at last found a house in which he would afford to live. "Besides, I want to put Maggie into a spot more worthy of her."

"Yes, but you can't live like a rich man and at the same time be a poor one."

"I know. But this is such a low, vulgar sort of street. And the house looks worthy of the street."

"Yes." There was a pause of some moments.

"The truth is, I want you to set an example to the hosts of young men who are living unsatisfactory, bachelor, boarding-house lives. In nine cases out of ten pride lies at the bottom of these lives. Because they can't begin where their fathers and mothers left off, they won't begin at all. They dry up and stagnate for want of an object. Look at Ned Long. He is a man of real talent; if he had a wife and children, and were forced to exert himself, he would make his mark in the world. As it is, he contents himself with just making a living. Am I not right?"

"Yes, you are. But if I had a wife and half a dozen children, I should not work harder than I do now. So your remarks do not apply to me."

"Because you are expecting a wife. Now, I know that I am urging you to a career that will require very great moral courage. And I know that it was easier for you to face the cannon's mouth on the field of battle than it is now to face what people will say. We are cowards, all of us, and sad cowards."

This roused him. "I'll take the house," he said, with decision. "After all, it is nobody's business how and where I live."

"And Maggie is so unworldly, and loves you, and is besides, so independent that she will be just as happy in an obscure as in an aristocratic street. And now, as to the furnishing of this house, what sum can you afford to spend upon that? For, of course, Maggie's father can give her very little besides his blessing."

"I have what my father left me at his death. Where he lived, and as he lived, it was quite a sum. In this city it is next to nothing at all." And ashamed to speak the words, he wrote the figures on a card and handed it to her.

"Why, this will do nicely!" cried she. "You must remember that Maggie has been used to very simple things, and that she will content herself with very few."

"I am sure the parlor at the parsonage was as pretty as a picture," said Horace.

"Yet there is not an experience article in it. Its pleasant, home-like air was given it by the girls. They have both some taste; Maggie has a good deal, and you, too, can have a parlor 'as pretty as a picture,' if you will let me send for her and let us furnish your house to suit ourselves."

"I shall be only too thankful," he said.

So Maggie came, the happiest little thing to be imagined, and showed that she had as wise a head as she had loving a heart. She would not so much as look at such upholstery as Horace had fancied indispensable to housekeeping, but cut and planned and fitted with her own hands till she had made a little bower of bliss out of the house whose outside looked so shabby and that was so homelike within. Horace was not allowed to set foot in it, but was obliged to live on what faith he had in Aunt Jane and in Maggie, till he brought the latter home as his wife, and found himself sitting with her at their own cosy breakfast-table.

"Why, what have you done to this old house?"he cried. "It looks so fresh and cheery as this bright morning! I am sure Aunt Jane has slyly used her own purse, in addition to ours."

"No, that she hasn't!" cried Maggie, in great triumph. She sat opposite him looking like a rose-a pink, not red rose-and he took her in as a part of the picture that satisfied and gladdened his eyes. He was so happy; this little home was so different from any home he had ever known that he fancied he had never been happy before. He could reach across the small table and catch her hands, and did catch them; if they had been red once they were not red now, though somewhat plump and childlike.

"And now must I leave this little paradise and go off to my office?"he said, as they at last rose from this their first meal together as husband and wife.

"Not yet," said Maggie; "we haven't had prayers yet, you know."And she brought the Bible, her father's parting gift, and placed it in his hands.

He had not thought of this; it startled him as little, as suggesting that he was now at the head of a household. Yet the thought was pleasant; he felt himself twice the man he had done, as he took the book from his wife, and the simple, almost boyish prayer he offered, as she knelt by his side, came from a very happy, thankful heart.

It is not necessary to tell how many times they took leave of each other that morning; perhaps nobody knows. But at last he got away, and Maggie watched him till he was out of sight, and would gladly have gone with him if she might.

And now, if she had been at a boarding house, she would have had a long, tedious day before her. As it was, she had dinner to order, and her trunks to unpack, and many a little touch to give the rooms they had occupied. And the dinner was a study. She wanted everything to be agreeable to Horace, yet knew she had precious little money to work with. Fortunately, she had never in her life known what it was to get along save on the strictest economy. She thought of many things she knew how to make to perfection, but was astonished to find she must not make them, because milk and eggs, the great staples at home, cost so much here. And when she went into the kitchen to consult with the angelic being there, she found her to be far more human than divine, and not at all disposed to an invasion of her domains.

"I thought," Maggie began, "that I would have a beefsteak-pudding for dinner, for one thing, and-"

"There ain't no beefsteak left," quoth Biddy.

"Where is it, then?"

"Gave it away."

"Don't do that again, Biddy. We shall have to live economically, and everything is very high."

"I don't think I shall suit," quoth Biddy. "I ain't fond of economical ladies, nor of stingy ones either. I can't live in a place where they begrudge a morsel to the poor."

"We don't begrudge it," said Maggie, unruffled; she was too happy to make herself wretched about trifles. "But we choose to give what we have to give with our own hands, not through yours."

"I don't think I shall suit," repeated Biddy, and chipped the edge off one of the new plates by banging it into the dish pan.

"Very well," said Maggie. "You need not stay unless you choose. I know how to do everything that is done in a house, and I can get my husband's dinner as well as you can; and shall enjoy doing it, too."

"She ain't easy to put down,"reflected Biddy. "I thought she was so sweet-spoken that she hadn't no spunk. But there's only two of 'em; its an easy place, and I'm agoing to stay." And then she produced the beefsteak, which she had only given away prospectively to one of her numerous "cousins," and paid some heed to Maggie's directions about dinner, though with a lowering countenance, and a further injury to plates and platters.

Here was prose with a vengeance.

"I'll get along with her, somehow," thought Maggie. "It is foolish to let such little things annoy one." But she was annoyed, and when she went upstairs and found in what a slatternly way her room had been summarily arranged, she was annoyed again, for there were the marks of two dirty hands on the new white quilt, and of the same soiled fingers on both doors.

"After this I will take care of my room myself," she said to Biddy.

"Suit yourself," was the glum reply. "I ain't fond of chamber work." But the next morning, as she was sweeping her room, after the final litter of unpacking, Biddy marched in with a white tarleton dress over her arm, and a host of pink ribbons in her hands.

"Look here, change work, will ye? I've got the dress to trim against a ball tonight, and can't make the bows to suit me." Maggie was perfectly bewildered by the audacity of this proposal.

"Oh, Biddy!" she cried, "do you spend your hard earnings for such finery as this?"

"I suppose it's nobody's business how I spend 'em," returned Biddy.

"I don't approve of young girls like you going to balls," said Maggie. "Think how much more respectable it is to stay at home and sew and read, and dress according to your station."

"I can't read, and I ain't fond of sewing."

"Let me teach you to read, then!" cried Maggie, eagerly.

"It ain't no use. And them ladies as thinks a poor girl as has worked hard all day ain't to have no fun when it comes at night ain't no ladies."

Maggie made no reply. What would Horace think, if, when he came home at night, he found her getting dinner instead of flying to meet him, nicely dressed, as he expected? She felt herself under bondage, and Biddy felt it, too.

Aunt Jane came an uninvited, but very welcome guest, to lunch, and as she had secured Biddy's services, she made all sorts of inquiries that brought the whole truth to light.

"Dear me, this won't do," said she. "Mrs. Crane gave her an excellent character. But you want a quiet, respectful servant, not one of these wild, saucy young things. Never mind; let her stay her month out, and then dismiss her. I suppose, dear, you expected to meet with trials?"

"Yes, Aunt Jane, but not just these. However, one can stand anything for a month."

"And how is my boy?"

"Horace? Oh, he's well, and as happy as possible.You ought to have seen him when he came home last night! However, I'm glad you didn't. And he's so good to me! I'm getting so conceited and silly?"

"It does me good to hear it," quoth Aunt Jane. "But don't expect too much. Horace will have his hard days and you'll have yours, it won't always be sailing on a glass sea; but you must determine to be happy whatever betides."

But they sailed on something very like it, week after week. Biddy aggravated Maggie, and a good many people aggravated Horace, but when he came home at night to the cosy little parlor and the lovely little wife, and they had their simple dinner together, and he sat on the sofa with the plump, yet elastic figure cuddled close to his side, he felt that he could defy the whole world, and she forgot that it had any Biddys in it.

There was peculiar tenderness in Maggie's love for her husband; he could not conceal from her that he suffered, and this made her demand less from him than young wives are apt to demand; made her give him far more than he ever dreamed of asking.

So evening after evening slipped by. Sometimes they lived over again those few weeks when a mysterious power was attracting them to each other, never wearying of those little details to which no third person could listen in patience, and sometimes lost in that delicious silences which is communion still. They did not want to go anywhere, nor to have anyone come to see them; yet there were two evenings of each week which broke in upon these luxurious habits; one was the prayer meeting, and on one they dined regularly at Aunt Jane's.

So the month slipped away, and Biddy was replaced by a modest-looking maiden, who moved about as if she had a cannon-ball tied to each foot, but who soon began to love her quiet home, and to serve Maggie with real devotion.

"I hope you will be contented and happy with us," said Maggie, when Mary made her appearance. "If anything goes wrong, come right away and tell me. Are you fond of reading?"

"I don't think anything will go wrong," said Mary, looking admiringly at the sweet face that smiled on her so kindly. "I'm always contented where families is kind to me. Yes, I'm very fond of reading of an evening, when my work is done up."

"I hope you won't be wanting to go to the balls and such things," said Maggie.

"Oh, no, ma'am. I'm a quiet body; too quiet folks says," she added, with a smile.

"Horace," said Maggie, lifting her head from his shoulder, that evening. "I want to say something to you, if I can only get courage."

"Well, say on, little one," he returned.

"I've been thinking that we've been living in a horribly selfish way since we were married."

"That's what we got married for," he replied, laughing.

"Oh, no; or, at least, that wasn't all of it. You know how much we used to talk about being hospitable and opening our doors to people who lived in boarding houses, or people in trouble. And you haven't been to mission school since I came here."

"I know it," he said. "But it has been so nice and cozy here at home. Oh, Maggie! you can't imagine what it is to live year after year in other people's houses, eat at their tables, go in and out with nobody caring when you do it, and where you go!"

"No, I can't imagine it," she said. "But, Horace-"

"Well, dearie?"

"We haven't been living at all as I expected to live. I had a picture of our home in my mind before I came here different from the reality."

"Go on," he said, tenderly.

"Do you mind my speaking out?" she asked. "Will you promise not to be hurt or offended?"

He satisfied her with sweet words, or something that took the place of words, and she went on, glad that the room had not be lighted, and that he could not see her face.

"I thought we both were so much in earnest, so really and truly consecrated to God that our loving each other would in no wise defraud Him. But I was mistaken. We give all the time we can snatch from other duties, to each other."

"But He gave us to each other, did He not?"

"Yes, yes! but not to decrease our love to Him."

"You are getting morbid, Maggie dear. Surely we love Him no less, after all His goodness to us, than we did before?"

"I don't like to pass judgment on you," she said; "but I know that I love him less. I have been completely absorbed in you; you have been the atmosphere I breathed, and my heart has risen to fever heat, or sunk to zero, at your pleasure."

"Well?" he said, complacently, and drew her nearer, but she gently freed herself.

"And before I loved you I could have said that of my Savior, and now I can't."

Horace was startled by her earnestness.

"You are a little darling," he said; "twice as good as I am. Don't go to accusing yourself. I do not see how such a tremendous event as marriage can take place without a convulsion. You will get back again to where you were before."

"I hope so," she said; "but it will not be by accident, nor without your help."

"The helping will all come from the other side," he said. "I shall lean on you, Maggie, my pet."

Maggie was disappointed. She had fancied that if she once broke the ice, she should get the hearty response from Horace, and that they should at once begin to walk, hand in hand, in a new life together. After a time she said:

"It says in the Bible that 'the husbands is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church;' and that 'Christ gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it.' And this is what I thought you would be to me; what you would do for me."

Horace gave a long, deep sigh.

"No wonder you are disappointed, then. Maggie, you little women who stay at home, and have nothing to do but to be as good as angels, can form no idea to what temptations we men are exposed. We are driven into the world; we see its worse side; we breathe its air, and become assimilated to it. And instead of coming home to set ourselves up as examples, we want to find our examples waiting there for us."

"We may not have your temptations," replied Maggie, "but we have our own; temptations just as peculiar to us and just as hard to resist, as yours are to you. For instance, take any warm-hearted girl who marries for love, and in nine cases out of ten, she will make an idol out of her husband. Now, this idol may have a more agreeable, plausible aspect than the ugly idol called money; but the one shuts out Christ just as effectually as the other does."

"How you are talking just like a book."

"I didn't mean to," said Maggie, humbly.

"You dear little thing!" cried Horace, "you are determined to turn me into an idolator."

And then they say quietly side by side, hand in hand; Maggie so frightened at herself, and happy in her husband's love; after all, what more did she what? So this evening slipped away as others had done, and the day ended, like all their married days, by their offering their evening prayer together, and offering none apart.

On the following Sunday the morning sermon was on family life, and the preacher laid great stress on several points on which neither Horace nor Maggie had reflected before, especially on its individuality. And he drew a beautiful picture of a home which had Christ for its central object, while all else was subordinate to Him, contrasting it with one where self reigned under a refined mask, yet reigned still.

"There is nothing individual or characteristic about our little home," said Maggie, on their way from church. "I suppose there are thousands just like it."

"I doubt if there are thousand Maggies," returned Horace, "to me the word home means Maggie."

She smiled gratefully; she always thought it condescending in people to love her, and then she said:

"Dr. Phillips must have a delightful home of his own, or he could not have drawn such a picture of one."

"That does not follow. It is said that shoemakers' children always go unshod. Indeed, I do not believe that such a home as he depicted exists anywhere on earth."

Maggie made no reply. The sermon had impressed her greatly, and she determined to act upon one part of it immediately; the hints in regard to servants. She had already invited Mary to come into prayers, and Mary had made no reply, but had not accepted the invitation. So she made one more attempt, while attending to some little point connected with dinner. Mary colored, but answered respectfully, yet very decidedly, that her religion forbade her doing so.

"But we pray to the same God, the same Savior that you do," urged Maggie.

"The priest forbids it," said Mary. "And I never go against his orders."

"Very well; then we'll try, you and I, to see which will serve God most faithfully in our different ways. And you must not be frightened if I speak of Him now and then; I shall not try to shake your faith, but to strengthen it; if you love Him, and if I love Him, it will seem natural to say so, sometimes; won't it?"

"I declare I could have stood and heard her talk all day," Mary afterwards confided to a friend. "It's a pity she is a Protestant, but there is some good ones among 'em." And while she was wiping away a few tears, Maggie was reproaching herself that she had not spoken more wisely, and eloquently, and tingling with fear and shame. This little effort to acknowledge Christ in her household reacted, however, upon her own soul; she had not felt so strong in Him since her marriage. Something she fancied lost had come back to her, and as she was running about after dinner, putting the room in which they had dined to rights, and turning it into a parlor again, she burst out into such a joyous hymn that Horace was quite surprised.

"What's come over the little woman now?" he cried, from the sofa, where he had been lying, half asleep.

"Oh, Horace, if you only knew! If I only could tell you! But I can't, only that I'm so happy!"

And then she slipped softly away to her own room, and begged the Lord Jesus never to let her get away from Him again, and He heard, and answered her. So that night when Horace said he was unusually tired, and wanted to get into his nest early, she found courage to say what she had been wanting to say all along.

"Horace dear, I'm afraid we've both forgotten, in the new delight of praying together, what the Bible says about praying in secret."

"But we are one now, dearie," said Horace.

"Yes, in a sense we are. But in another we are two, and ought to have things to say to God we can't say to each other. And I want you to le me go upstairs half an hour before you do: then you can have the parlor to yourself; Mary goes to bed at nine, and no one will interrupt you."

Horace replied by taking her in his arms, without a word. She stood leaning against him some moments, never dearer to him than now that she had owned to a higher allegiance, and he never knew what it had cost her to do it. But from this moment she was more cheerful and more loving than before and so more lovable, and he needed a part of his quiet half-hour at night in which to thank God that he was no longer homeless or wifeless.

To be continued ...

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