Chapter Thirteen

by Mrs. Elizabeth Prentiss
Edited by Amber Moeller

Though Maggie had once said there was nothing characteristic and individual about her new home, that could not be said now. For the sun shone on very few that were so poor, yet so rich; so strictly, often painfully, economical, yet so hospitable; so full of care, yet so free from care. Both Horace and Maggie had to trim their sails very closely; and those who know what it is the count the cost of every little item, know there is no poetry in the mere counting. Yet those who know nothing about these wearisome details, are ignorant, too, of many a little innocent joy born thereof, or rather born in spite of them. When Mr. Raynor, the great millionaire, carried home to his wife one day a set of diamonds fit for a princess, she was proud and pleased, and on great occasions decked herself in them with no little state. But when Horace brought to Maggie a bunch of fragrant violets, with one of two words that sparkled with the love he offered with them, it is no exaggeration, none whatever, to say that this gift awakened more joy in her heart than her apparently more favored sister woman could be made to feel at any price. How often she had passed the poor girls and poor old women who sold these bouquets by the wayside, and refused herself the luxury of buying one; and now it had come to her fragrant with the love of the heart she loved best! And then, when after close consultation they went out together and bought some household treasure, long needed and at last attainable, how content they were and how astonished that five dollars could go so far!

Their identity with the Mission school had given them good, and estimable friends; there had been several simple entertainments given to the teachers which they had heartily enjoyed. And now spring had come, bringing among many other pleasant things a basket of eggs from Maggie's own hens at home, and her father and mother had come, too, for a little visit.

"We'll have all the mission and all of the Sunday school teachers some evening this week," said Maggie. "I want my father and mother to see how nice they are. Besides, we've visited ever so many of them."

"Yes," said Horace, a little dubiously. "Only our rooms are so small. When I took this house, I thought we should never undertake to entertain visitors in it."

"You didn't know what sort of Maggie you were going to marry," she said, laughing at his doubtful face. "I know what you are thinking of. Oysters and ice cream. But I am not. I am going to have cake and coffee; no more and no less. The boys have sent eggs, and mother has brought butter; I shall make the cake, and it will be sure to be good."

"But nothing but cake and coffee?" said Horace.

"Yes, dear, what we can afford, not what we can't. I am not ashamed that I can't get up splendid suppers; and I should be ashamed to ape the style of those who do."

"What an independent little piece it is!" cried Horace, going off to his office conquered, if not convinced. Maggie wrote off some of her invitations, and promised a pie to the boy who was kicking up his heels in idleness across the street if he would deliver them; and ran round to see other friends who lived near. Almost everybody came; everybody had a good time; everybody enjoyed the cake and coffee and the agreeable host and sweet little wife. But when there came signs of departure, Maggie went to Horace and whispered:

"We'll have prayers before they go, sha'n't we?"

"Oh, would you?"

"Yes, indeed, why not?"

"It will look so odd."

"Will it? But we don't care how it looks. It is the right way, I'm sure it is."

"Well."

And his momentary doubt and embarrassment gave way when a few minutes later he heard the voice of his Maggie's father in such a prayer as befitted a Christian home, where the Master of the feast was acknowledged as a welcome Guest. He was glad that he had this fearless wife, who was never ashamed of her flag, yet never paraded it; glad that he was under her gentle, loving guidance.

And Maggie, unconscious of this guidance was glad she had such a good man of her husband, who always took such a decided stand on the right side! She enjoyed the visit of her father and mother with all her heart, and they enjoyed it with all theirs, as well they might.

"I want you to know, darling," her mother said, at parting, "that if anything should happen to us, your father and I should leave you without one anxious thought. We love Horace almost as well as we do you; he is a noble, true-hearted man."

These words fell sweetly on Maggie's ear.

"You can't think how kind he is to me," she said. "But it worries him that we have to pinch so. It comes harder on him than on me, because I've always been used to it."

"It will not hurt either of you as long as you have health. And if that fails, God will provide for you in some way," said her father. "He is rich, and could give you more now if He saw that it would be good for you. Never forget that."

"I never do," said Maggie. "I would not have you think we are either of us discontented. But sometimes when we dine out, and I see the beautiful table linen and the delicate cut-glass and all the luxuries of that sort, it does shoot through me,–just shoots, you know,–‘Well, Maggie, wouldn't you like to indulge in such treasures?'"

"But such shots will not kill my little Maggie," said her mother, "nor even wound her very sorely."

"No, but I ought to tell you that I am not an angel," said Maggie, laughing, yet with some feeling, "though I do want to be one."

"It would not take long nor be very hard to work to turn her into one," her mother said, afterwards, refering to this remark made in sweet, shamefaced way.

"She is a chip off the old block!" was the reply, made in a tone that did the heart of the minister's wife good.

Maggie went home to spend the month of August–Horace spending his Sundays with her. She went to please her parents and the boys, rather than herself, for it grieved her to leave her husband hard at work and alone. And she did not like to leave her scholars either; they loved her so dearly, and she was getting such influence over them. Still she had a happy month at the dear old parsonage, saw all her old friends, said and did a great many kind things, and wrote letters to Horace that filled him with pride and joy.

So the first year of their married life was drawing to an end in a sunshiny way; Annie and her Tom were expected home, and Aunt Jane had put some business into the hands of Horace that promised to be very lucrative. They breathed more freely, and Maggie promised herself the great joy of doing more through the approaching winter, for a set of poor folks she had in hand, than she had done before.

As has been already observed, the house in which they lived was in an obscure street, not far from the number of tenement houses, wherein dwelt swarms of ill-conditioned men, women, and children. Whether owing to this fact or to some other, about the middle of September Horace began to suffer with pains in his head, of which he did not at first speak to Maggie. But she soon perceived his flagging appetite and loss of strength and expressed her uneasiness.

"It is nothing but the heat," Horace declared. "I always find this early September weather trying; I shall be all right in a day or two."

But he grew worse rather than better, and the doctor, whom Maggie at last called in, uttered two words that completely disheartened her, for she had seen not a little typhus fever in her own village-home and dreaded it as those who dwell in cities dread the small-pox. And Horace so soon became unconscious of all about him that the floods of tears she shed did him no harm. She had never been a coward before; she had been a courageous, cheerful nurse, repeatedly, when there had been serious illness in her father's house. But now she cried day and night. The thought of having to live without Horace was so fearful that she found no spot on which to rest. She fancied his death, his funeral, her going back to live at home, and could have shrieked at the bare image. What sort of a home would it be? Why, the mountains that stood around it would lie before her like a dead plain; the fields and groves would be covered with a black pall for evermore! And then she hung over Horace and begged him to speak to her once more, only once, and tell her he forgave the little faults which now loomed up before her imagination as so many crimes.

In this state Aunt Jane found her, when on her return to town on the 1 st of October, she drove leisurely down to see them, ignorant, of what was going on.

"My poor child, I don't know you!" she said, taking the drooping figure in her arms. "Is this my courageous, is this my Christian Maggie?"

"Oh, I don't know who it is!" answered Maggie, and she went on crying in such a sorrowful, heart-breaking way that, notwithstanding Aunt Jane's tacit reproof, she began to cry too, till neither of them had a tear left.

"Now, we shall feel better, and be able to talk," she said, smiling, and drawing Maggie closer. "Tell me all about it; tell me what makes you so hopeless."

Maggie told the whole story quietly, but pitifully.

"The hard part of it is that I can't pray," she added. "If I kneel down I just go to crying, and can't say a word; I know it is all right, and that I ought to be willing to let him go if God says so; but the bare thought of having to live without him makes me shiver."

"I do not want to try to make you fancy that it would not be a very grievous thing to give him up," said Aunt Jane, "but I want you to listen to what I am now about to say, because I mean a great deal by it. Do you remember the story of the sickness of David's child; how during those seven days he fasted and wept and prayed, and when he heard that it was dead, he arose from the earth, and washed and anointed himself and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Lord, and worshipped?"

"Yes, and it has puzzled me."

"But I understand it, and so do all who have had a similar experience, or have observed it in others. God does not give beforehand the grace with which to bear His blows; He does not heal before he smites. In your terror at the thought of parting with Horace, you left entirely out of account the sustaining power that would hold you up and bear you through those awful moments; you suffered in advance, and wholly in your own strength but how many, how many persons I have heard say, ‘I am a marvel to myself! This blow, so long dreaded, has not slain me, as I ever believed it would; I stagger under it, but I live to wonder at the strength God gives me, and in which I bear it.' Just as the mass of people dreaded death and declare that they shall shrink from it at last; yet, for all that, the dying grace comes in the dying hour."

Maggie made no reply, but received those words thoughtfully into her heart.

"Shall I go in now and see Horace?" asked Aunt Jane.

"If you are not afraid of taking the fever," said Maggie, and then wondered how she could use the word "afraid" to one who, she well knew, understood not its meaning.

"What doctor have you?" was the next question as they stood together by the unconscious sufferer.

"Oh, I did not know whom to send for; you were away, and so was everybody I knew; I got the one who resides nearest, Dr. Page."

"I never heard of him. The next time he comes ask him if he is willing I should send for my doctor also."

They sat down together in silence, but it was silence before God. Then Aunt Jane said, "There is just one thing I want to say, if you can bear it, darling. Could you believe, if you did not know it, that out of a repulsive caterpillar there could emerge a bright-winged butterfly? But I want you to believe, because I know it is true, that joy emerges from sorrow, and soars on wings far more beautiful than any earthly analogy can paint. If God takes away your husband, He will give you something better in his place."

Maggie listened as we listen to a distant strain of music, not quite catching its refrain, not sure whether it comes from heaven above or from the earth beneath, yet soothed and quieted by it. And then they talked no more, but sat watching the day slowly depart, and if Maggie could not pray, Aunt Jane could.

Yet though she loved Horace like a son, and realized now how very dear he was, and knew–no human soul knew before–all Maggie would have to pass through, if he were taken away, she did not ask for his life.

"Thy will be done, Thy will be done!" was all she said, or would have said, if every life that beautified this earth to her lay trembling in the balance.

But as night drew on she found her strength failing; she was courageous and full of faith, but all that does not turn a living, quivering human soul into a stone. All her own past sorrows were recalled by the scene before her, and the warm sympathies that made her a comforter reacted sharply upon both heart and brain.

"I shall have to go home," she said, "but I will send some one to spend the night with you, and tomorrow I will get a nurse. Don't open your mouth on that point," she added, as she caught Maggie's look of dismay. "This is one of those emergencies when friends must stand by each other: you must let me have the gratification of doing for you and Horace what little extras his illness will require. You have been alone with him and your cares too much as it is."

Maggie tried to smile her thanks, and did smile, but it was with a look that made Aunt Jane hasten downstairs into her carriage, and out of the way.

Meanwhile all was peace in the Stafford parsonage; Maggie had written once since Horace's illness, but not in a way to alarm her parents, for she knew they could not come to her. Could not, because it costs money to make journeys, and, except, in a case of life or death, she might not send for them, they might not come, twice in one year. She had never felt the bitterness of poverty as she did now; yet she was too well acquainted with its trials to writhe under this new form of privation.

But three days later she found herself in the motherly arms she had yearned for, and that Aunt Jane felt she ought to have about her now that Horace lay just trembling between two worlds. For those three days had made his case look almost hopeless, and a few more such would bring the whole sad story to end.

Maggie had ceased to hope; she had given him up, and wept no more. But none of the strength, non of the joy of which Aunt Jane had spoken had come to her, nor did she feel that she wanted either.

"Just to take the fever, and die too!" she said to her mother. "That's all I want."

"Are your father and mother, your sisters and your brothers, really so little to you, my darling?" Mrs. Wyman asked, with such a pang as only a maternal heart could feel.

"Everything is changed; everything is spoiled," was the mournful reply.

"Is God changed?"

"Oh, I don't know. I thought I loved Him, but now I can't love anybody. I feel like a hard stone."

You are worn out, dear child," said Aunt Jane. "I wish I could see you cry as you did at first. Don't be bitter against yourself. If dear Horace goes, you will be the first to yield to God's will. But now you are physically exhausted, and even He is unreal. Believe me, believe me," she said earnestly, "you will get back to Him; He will not leave you to suffer alone."

"She ought to go to bed and to sleep," said her mother tearfully. "I never expected to live to see the time when this child, always so obedient and docile, would resist my will as she is doing now."

Something in these words went to Maggie's heart.

She said, in her sweetest way, "I didn't know I was resisting your will, mother. Have you asked me to go to bed?"

"Yes, dear, over and over and over again."

"I did not hear it. Nothing gets into my head now; all people say flies over it. I will do whatever you like."

Then they led her away thankfully; this night was to decide Horace's case, and they dreaded it for her. She fell asleep the moment her head touched the cool pillow, and slept on, and on. And, as if he had only been waiting for this, Horace slept too. The nurse gave him stimulants from hour to hour, rousing him for them with difficulty, and then they sat and watched again in silence.

Aunt Jane's physician came in the morning before he had had his breakfast. Maggie had won his heart by her tireless devotion to her husband. After examining his patient he turned to the anxious faces studying his, and said, quietly, "He is saved."

There were a few moments of joyful tears, and he then added, "When he wakes let him see no one but his wife, and let her be perfectly quiet and natural, as if nothing had happened."

"It is easy to prescribe," said Aunt Jane, through her tears, and then she stole softly to tell Maggie. After her long night's rest, Maggie was calm, even peaceful.

"Do not be afraid to tell me the worst," she said, "I am ready for it now."

"I have come to tell you the best," was the reply. And then she added the doctor's directions. Maggie rose, and dressed in silence.

"He is going to get well," she said to herself, "but this world is changed to me forever and forever. If there is such a thing as entire, absolute, uncompromising consecration to God, I will know what it means."

She went to her husband's side, and all the rest withdrew. What passed in her soul as she knelt there with his hand in hers, no human language can describe. Some would call it by one name and some by another; to all it would be, even if experienced, a great mystery.

At last he opened his eyes, and saw her.

"I have overslept, haven't I?" he said, trying to rise.

"No, darling; it is still early, go to sleep again," she said, steadily.

He kissed her, his feeble fingers closed a little over hers, just as they had done many a time when she had answered just so; she had got him back again; he was hers.

But was she his? Was everything going to fall back again into the old groove? We shall see.

To be continued ...

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