“He wasn’t borned nothin’ but jest a pore little outcast sinner, an’ as fur as the denomination goes, I guess that church is about as good as any other.”
“ ’Liphalet Hodges, air you a-backslidin’ too?”
“No: I’m like Freddie; I’m a-growin’.”
“It’s a purty time of life fur you to be a-talkin’ about growin’. You’re jest like an old tree that has fell in a damp place an’ sen’s out a few shoots on the trunk. It thinks it’s a-growin’ too, but them shoots soon wither, an’ the tree rots; that’s what it does.”
“But before it rotted, it growed all that was in it to grow, didn’t it. Well, that’s all anybody kin do, tree or human bein’.” He paused for a moment. “I ain’t got all my growth yit.”
“You kin git the rest in the garden of the Lord.”
“It ain’t good to change soil on some plants too soon. I ain’t ready to be set out.” He went on reading:
“ ‘I’m not so narrow as I was at home. I don’t think so many things are wrong as I used to. It is good to be like other people sometimes, and not to feel yoreself apart from all the rest of humanity. I am growing to act more like the people I meet, and so I am—’ ” the old man’s hand trembled, and he moved the paper nearer to his eyes—“ ’I—’ What’s this he says? ‘I am learning to dance.’ ”
“There!” his wife shot forth triumphantly. “What did I tell you? Going to a Congregational church an’ learnin’ to dance, an’ he not a year ago a preacher of the gospel.”
Eliphalet was silent for some time: his eyes looked far out into space. Then he picked up the paper that had fluttered from his hand, and a smile flitted over his face.
“Well, I don’t know,” he said. “Freddie’s young, an’ they’s worse things in the world than dancin’.”
“You ain’t a-upholdin’ him in that too, air you? Well, I never! You’d uphold that sinful boy ef he committed murder.”
“I ain’t a-upholdin’ nothin’ but what I think is right.”
“Right! ’Liphalet Hodges, what air you a-sayin’?”
“Not that I mean to say that dancin’ is right, but—”
“There ain’t no ‘buts’ in the Christian religion, ’Liphalet, an’ there ain’t no use in yore tryin’ to cover up Freddie’s faults.”
“I ain’t a-tryin’ to cover nothin’ up from God. But sometimes I git to thinkin’ that mebbe we put a good many more bonds on ourselves than the Lord ever meant us to carry.”
“Oh, some of us don’t struggle under none too heavy burdens. Some of us have a way of jest slippin’ ’em off of our shoulders like a bag of flour.”
“Meanin’ me. Well, mebbe I have tried to make things jest as easy fur myself as possible, but I ain’t never tried to make ’em no harder fur other people. I like to think of the Master as a good gentle friend, an’ mebbe I ain’t shifted so many o’ the burdens He put on me that He won’t let me in at last.”
“ ’Liphalet, I didn’t say what I said fur no slur ag’in’ you. You’re as good a Christian man as—well, as most.”
“I know you didn’t mean no slur, Hester. It was jest yore dooty to say it. I’ve come to realise how strong yore feelin’ about dooty is, in the years we’ve been together, an’ I wouldn’t want you to be any different.”
The calm of old age had come to these two. Life’s turbulent waters toss us and threaten to rend our frail bark in pieces. But the swelling of the tempest only lifts us higher, and finally we reach and rest upon the Ararat of age, with the swirling floods below us.
Eliphalet went on with the letter. “He says some more about that little girl. ‘Alice is a very nice and sensible girl. I like her very much. She helps me to get out of myself and to be happy. I have never known before what a good thing it was to be happy—perhaps because I have tried so hard to be so. I believe that I have been selfish and egotistical.’ Freddie don’t furgit his words,” the old man paused to say. “ ‘I have always thought too much of myself, and not enough of others. That was the reason that I was not strong enough to live down the opposition in Dexter. It seems that, after all your kindness to me, I might have stayed and made you and Aunt Hester happy for the rest of your days.’ Bless that boy! ‘But the air stifled me. I could not breathe in it. Now that I am away, I can look back and see it all—my mistakes and my shortcomings; for my horizon is broader and I can see clearer. I have learned to know what pleasure is, and it has been like a stimulant to me. I have been given a greater chance to love, and it has been like the breath of life to me. I have come face to face with Christianity without cant, and I respect it for what it is. Alice understands me and brings out the best that is in me. I have always thought that it was good for a young man to have a girl friend.’ ”
For an instant, Mrs. Hodges resumed her old manner. A slight wave from the old flood had reached the bark and rocked it. She pursed her lips and shook her head. “He furgot Elizabeth in a mighty short time.”
“Ef he hadn’t he’d ought to be spanked like a child. Elizabeth never was the kind of a mate fur Freddie, an’ there ain’t nobody that knows it better than you yoreself, Hester, an’ you know it.”
Mrs. Hodges did not reply. The wavelet had subsided again.
“Now jest listen how he ends up. ‘I want you and Aunt Hester to come down and see me when you can. I will send for you in a week or two, if you will promise to come. Write to
