“Not me, ’Liphalet. You kin go; but I ain’t a-goin’ nowhere to be run over by the cars or wrecked or somethin’. Not that I’m so powerful afeared of anything like that, fur I do hope I’m prepared to go whenever the Master calls; but it ain’t fur me to begin a-runnin’ around at my age, after livin’ all these years at home. No, indeed. Why, I couldn’t sleep in no other bed but my own now. I don’t take to no sich new things.”
And go Mrs. Hodges would not. So Eliphalet was forced to write and refuse the offered treat. But on a day there came another letter, and he could no longer refuse to grant the wish of his beloved boy. The missive was very brief. It said only, “Alice has promised to marry me. Won’t you and Aunt Hester come and see me joined to the dearest girl in the world?” There was a postscript to it: “I did not love Elizabeth. I know it now.”
“Hester, I’m a-goin’ ” said Eliphalet.
“Go on, ’Liphalet, go on. I want you to go, but I’m set in my ways now. I do hope that girl kin do something besides work in an office. She ought to be a good housekeeper, an’ a good cook, so’s not to kill that pore child with dyspepsy. I do hope she won’t put saleratus in her biscuits.”
“I think it’s Freddie’s soul that needs feedin.’ ”
“His soul’ll go where it don’t need feedin’, ef his stomach ain’t ’tended to right. Ef I went down there, I could give the girl some points.”
“I don’t reckon you’d better go, Hester. As you say, you’re set in yore ways, an’ mebbe her ways ’ud be diff’rent; an’ then—then you’d both feel it.”
“Oh, I suppose she thinks she knows it all, like most young people do.”
“I hope she don’t; but I’m a-goin’ down to see her anyhow, an’ I’ll carry yore blessin’ along with mine.”
For the next week, great were the preparations for the old man’s departure, and when finally he left the old gate and turned his back on the little cottage it was as if he were going on a great journey rather than a trip of less than a hundred miles. It had been a long time since he had been on a train, and at first he felt a little dubious. But he was soon at home, for his kindly face drew his fellow-passengers to him, and he had no lack of pleasant companions on the way.
Like Fred, the noises of the great station would have bewildered him, but as he alighted and passed through the gate a strong hand was laid on his shoulder, and his palm was pressing the palm of his beloved son. The old carpetbag fell from his hands.
“Freddie Brent, it ain’t you?”
“It’s I, Uncle ’Liph, and no one else. And I’m so glad to see you that I don’t know what to do. Give me that bag.”
They started away, the old man chattering like a happy child. He could not keep from feasting his eyes on the young man’s face and form.
“Well, Freddie, you jest don’t look like yoreself. You’re—you’re—”
“I’m a man, Uncle ’Liph.”
“I allus knowed you’d be, my boy. I allus knowed you’d be. But yore aunt Hester told me to ask you ef—ef you’d dropped all yore religion. She’s mighty disturbed about yore dancin’.”
Brent laughed aloud in pure joy.
“I knowed you hadn’t,” the old man chuckled.
“Lost it all? Uncle ’Liph, why, I’ve just come to know what religion is. It’s to get bigger and broader and kinder, and to live and to love and be happy, so that people around you will be happy.”
“You’re still a first-rate preacher, Freddie.”
“Oh, yes, Uncle ’Liph; I’ve been to a better school than the Bible Seminary. I haven’t got many religious rules and formulas, but I’m trying to live straight and do what is right.”
The old man had paused with tears in his eyes. “I been a-prayin’ fur you,” he said.
“So has Alice,” replied the young man, “though I don’t see why she needs to pray. She’s a prayer in herself. She has made me better by letting me love her. Come up, Uncle ’Liph. I want you to see her before we go on to my little place.”
They stopped before a quiet cottage, and Fred knocked. In the little parlour a girl came to them. She was little, not quite up to Fred’s shoulder. His eyes shone as he looked down upon her brown head. There were lines about her mouth, as if she had known sorrow that had blossomed into sweetness. The young man took her hand. “Uncle ’Liph,” he said, “this is Alice.”
She came forward with winning frankness, and took the old man’s hand in hers. The tears stood in his eyes again.
“This is Alice,” he said; “this is Alice.” Then his gaze travelled to Fred’s glowing face, and, with a sob in his voice that was all for joy, he added, “Alice, I’m glad you’re a-livin’.”
Colophon
The Uncalled
was published in 1901 by
Paul Laurence Dunbar.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Hendrik Kaiber,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2008 by
S. Drawehn, Suzanne Shell, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
The North Dutch Church, Fulton and William Streets, New York,
a painting completed in 1869 by
Edward Lamson Henry.
The cover
