The Diary of a Saint

I fairly laughed out at the idea of old lady Andrews' delivering this with well-bred sweetness, and I wondered how far Mrs. Weston perceived the sarcasm.

"Did she understand?" I asked.

"About half, I think, my dear. She saw she had made a mistake, but I doubt if she quite knew what it was. She was uneasy, and said she thought those who had a chance ought to make things more lively."

I asked if Mrs. Weston gave any definite idea how this liveliness was to be secured.

"Not very clearly," was the answer. "She said something about hoping soon to have a larger house so she could entertain properly. Her dress was dreadfully showy, according to my old-fashioned notions. I am afraid we are too slow for her, my dear. She will have to make a more modern society for herself."

And so the social doom of George's wife is written, as far as I can see. I can if I choose ask people to meet her, but that will do her little good when they have looked her over and given her up. They will come to my house to meet anybody I select, but they will not invite her in their turn. It is a pity social distinctions should count for so much; but in Tuskamuck they certainly do.

June 12. Mr. Saychase called again this afternoon. He is so thin and so pale that it is always my inclination to have Hannah bring him something to eat at once. To-day he had an especially nervous air, and I tried in vain to set him at his ease. I fear he may have taken it into his head to try to bring me into the church. He did not, it is true, say anything directly about religion, but he had an air of having something very important in reserve which he was not yet ready to speak of. He talked about the church work as if he expected me to be interested. He would not have come so soon again if he did not have some particular object.

It is a pity anything so noble as religion should so often have weak men to represent it. What is good in religion they do not fairly stand for, and what is undesirable they somehow make more evident. If superstition is to be a help, it must appeal to the best feelings, and a weak priest touches only the weaker side of character. One is not able to receive him on his merits as a man, but has to excuse him in the name of his devotion to religion.

Still, Mr. Saychase is a good man, and he means well with whatever strength of mind nature endowed him.

June 13. Tom came to-day to see baby, – not that he paid much attention to her when he saw her. It amuses me to find how jealous I am getting for Tomine, and anxious she shall be treated with deference. I see myself rapidly growing into a hen-with-one-chicken attitude of mind, but I do not know how it is to be helped. I exhibited baby this afternoon with as much pride and as much desire that she should be admired as if she had been my veriest own, so it was no wonder that Tom laughed at me.

He was very grave when he came, but little by little the fun-loving sparkle came into his eyes and a smile grew on his face.

"You'd make a first rate saleswoman, Ruth," he said, "if you could show off goods as well as you do babies."

I suppose I can never meet Tom again with the easy freedom we used to feel, especially with baby to remind us; but we have been good friends so long that it is a great comfort to feel something of the old comradeship to be still possible.

Tom was so awkward about baby, so unwilling to touch her, that I offered to put her into his arms. Then he suddenly grew brave.

"Don't, Ruth," he said. "It hurts you that I can't care for the baby, but I can't. Perhaps I shall sometime."

I took Thomasine away without a word, and gave her to Rosa in the nursery. When I came back to the parlor Tom was in his favorite position before the window. He wheeled round suddenly when he heard me.

"You are not angry, Ruth?" he asked.

"No, Tom," I answered; "only sorry."

I sat down and took up my sewing, while he walked about the room. He stopped in front of me after a moment.

"I wanted to tell you, Ruth," he said, "that I am not going back to New York."

I looked at him questioningly, and waited.

"I had really a good opening there," he went on; "but I thought I ought not to take it."

I asked him why.

"I'll be hanged if I quite know," he responded explosively. "I suppose it's part obstinacy that makes me too stubborn to run away from disgrace, and partly it's father. This thing has broken him terribly. I'm going to stay and help him out."

I know how Tom hates farming, and I held out my hand to him and said so.

"I hate everything," he returned desperately; "but it wouldn't be square to leave him now when he's so cut up on my account."

We were both of us, I am sure, too moved to have much talk, and Tom did not stay long. He went off rather abruptly, with hardly a good-by; but I think I understood. I am glad he has the pluck to stand by poor old Deacon Daniel; but he must learn to be fond of baby. That will be a comfort to him.

June 15. George seems to me to be almost beside himself. I cannot comprehend what his wife is doing to him. She has apparently already come to realize that she is not succeeding in Tuskamuck, and is determined to conquer by display and showy ways of living. She cannot know us very well if she supposes that such means will do here.

Her latest move I find it hard to forgive her. I do not understand how George can have done it, no matter how much she urged him; but I am of course profoundly ignorant how such a woman controls a man. I am afraid one thing which made him attractive to me was that he was so willing to be influenced, but we see a man in a light entirely different when it is another woman who shapes his life. What once seemed a fine compliance takes on a strange appearance of weakness when we are no longer the moving force; but I think I do myself no more than justice when I feel that at least I tried always to influence George for his own good.

Poor Miss Charlotte came over directly after breakfast this morning to tell me. She had been brooding over it half the night, poor soul, and her eyes looked actually withered with crying and lack of sleep.

"I know I exaggerate it," she kept saying, "and of course he didn't mean to insult me; but to think anybody dared to ask me to sell the house, the Kendall house that our family has lived in for four generations! It would have killed my father if he had known I should live to come to this!"

I tried to soothe her, and to make her believe that in offering to buy her house George had thought only of how much he admired it, and not at all of her feelings, which he could not understand.

"Of course he could not understand my feelings," Miss Charlotte said, with a bitterness which I am sure was unconscious. "He never had a family, and I ought to remember that."

She grew somewhat more calm as she unburdened her heart. She told me George had praised the place, and said how much he had always liked it. He confessed that it was his wife who first suggested the purchase: she wanted a house where she could entertain and which would be of more importance than the one in which she lived.

"He said," Miss Charlotte went on with a strange mingling of pride and sorrow, "his wife felt that the house in itself would give any family social standing. I don't know how pleased his wife would be if she knew he told me, but he said it. He told me she meant to have repairs and improvements. She must feel as if she owned it already. He said she had an iron dog stored somewhere that she meant to put on the lawn. Think of it, Ruth, an iron dog on our old lawn!"

Then suddenly all the sorrow of her lot seemed to overwhelm her at once, and she broke down completely. She sobbed so unrestrainedly and with so complete an abandonment of herself to her grief that I cried with her, even while I was trying to stop her tears.

"It isn't just George Weston's coming to ask me to sell the place," she said; "it is all of it: it's my being so poor I can't keep up the name, and the family's ending with me, and none of my kin even to bury me. It's all of the hurts I've got from life, Ruth; and it's growing so old I've no strength any longer to bear them. Oh, it's having to keep on living when I want to be dead!"

I threw my arms about her, and kissed the tears from her wrinkled cheeks, though there were about as many on my own.

"Don't," I begged her, "don't, dear Miss Charlotte. You break my heart! We are all of us your kin, and you know we love you dearly."

She returned my embrace convulsively, and tried to check her sobbing.

"I know it's cowardly," she got out brokenly. "It's cowardly and wicked. I never broke down so before. I won't, Ruth dear. Just give me a little time."

Dear Miss Charlotte! I made her stay with me all day; and indeed she was in no condition to do anything else. I got her to take a nap in the afternoon, and when she went home she was once more her own brave self. She said good-night with one of her clumsy joking speeches.

"Good-by, my dear," she said; "the next time I come I'll try not to be so much like the waterworks girl that had a creek in her back and a cataract in each eye."

She is always facetious when she does not quite trust herself to be serious. And I, who do not dare to trust myself to think about George and his wife, had better stop writing.

June 17. Deacon Richards presented himself at twilight, and found me sitting alone out on the doorsteps. I watched his tall figure coming up the driveway, bent with age a little, but still massive and vigorous; and somehow by the time he was near enough to speak, I felt that I had caught his mood. He smiled broadly as he greeted me.

"Where's the baby?" he demanded. "I supposed I should find you giving it its supper."

"There isn't any 'it' in this house," was my retort; "and as for baby's supper, you are just as ignorant as a man always is. Any woman would know that babies are put to bed long before this."

He grinned down upon me from his height.

"How should I know what time it went to bed?" he asked, with a laugh in his voice. "I never raised a baby. I've come to talk about it, though."

"Look here, Deacon Daniel," I cried out, with affected indignation, "I will not have my baby called 'it,' as if she were a stick or a stock!"

He laughed outright at this; then at my invitation sat down beside me. We were silent for a time, looking at the color fading in the west, and the single star swimming out of the purple as the sky changed into gray. The frogs were working at their music with all the persistence of a child strumming five-finger exercises, but their noise only made the evening more peaceful.

"How restful it is," I said to him at last; "it almost makes one feel there can never be any fretting again about anything."

Deacon Daniel did not answer for a moment, then he said with the solemnity of one who seldom puts sentiment into words, —

"It is like the Twenty-third Psalm."

I simply assented, and then we were silent again, until at last he moved as if he were waking himself, and sighed. I always wonder whether somewhere in the past Deacon Richards has had his romance, and if so what it may have been. If he has, a night like this might well bring it up to his memory. I am glad if it comes to him with the peace of a psalm.

"Have you thought, Miss Ruth," the Deacon asked at length in the growing dark, "what a responsibility you are taking upon yourself in having that baby?"

It was like the dear old man to have considered me and to look at the moral side of the question. He wanted to help me, I could see; and of course he cannot understand how entirely religious one may be without theology. I told him I had thought of it very seriously; and it seemed to me sometimes that it was more than I was equal to. But I added that I could not help thinking I could do better by baby than Mrs. Webbe.

"Mrs. Webbe is no sort of a woman to bring up a child," he agreed. Then he added, with a shrewdness that surprised me a little: "Babies have got to be given baby-treatment as well as baby-food."

"Of course they have," was my reply. "Babies have a right to love as well as to milk, and poor little Thomasine would get very little from her grandmother."

Deacon Daniel gave a contemptuous snort.

"That woman couldn't really love anything," he declared; "or if she did she'd show it by being hateful."

I said she certainly loved Tom.

"Yes," he retorted; "and she's nagged him to death. For my part I can't more than half blame Tom Webbe as I ought to, when I think of his having had his mother to thorn him everlastingly."

"Then you do think it's better for baby to be with me than with her grandmother?" I asked him.

"It's a hundred times better, of course; but I wondered if you'd thought of the responsibility of its – of her religious instruction."

We had come to the true kernel of the Deacon's errand. I really believe that in his mind was more concern for me than for baby. He is always unhappy that I am not in the fold of the church; and I fancy that more or less consciously he was making of Thomasine an excuse for an attempt to reach me. It is not difficult to understand his feeling. Mother used to affirm that believers are anxious to proselyte because they cannot bear to have anybody refuse to acknowledge that they are right. This is not, I am sure, the whole of it. Of course no human being likes to be thought wrong, especially on a thing which, like religion, cannot be proved; but there is a good deal of genuine love in the attempt of a man like Deacon Daniel to convert an unbeliever. He is really grieved for me, and I would do anything short of actual dishonesty to make him suppose that I believed as he would have me. I should so like him to be happy about my eternal welfare. When the future does not in the least trouble me, it seems such a pity that he should be disturbed.

I told him to-night I should not give baby what he would call religious instruction, but I should never interfere if others should teach her, if they made what is good attractive.

"But you would tell her that religion isn't true," he objected.

"Oh, no;" I answered. "I should have to be honest, and tell her if she asked that I don't believe we know anything about another life; but of course as far as living in this one goes I shouldn't disagree with religion."

He tried to argue with me, but I entirely refused to be led on.

"Deacon Daniel," I told him, "I know it is all in your kindness for me that you would talk, but I refuse to have this beautiful summer evening wasted on theology. You couldn't convince me, and I don't in the least care about convincing you. I am entirely content that you should believe your way, and I am entirely satisfied with mine. Now I want to talk with you about our having a reading-room next winter."

So I got him to another subject, and what is better I think I really interested him in my scheme of opening a free library. If we can once get that to working it will be a great help to the young men and boys. "The time seems to have come in human development," I remember Father's saying not long before he died, "when men must be controlled by the broadening instead of by the narrowing of their minds."

June 18. I have been considering why it is that I have had so much said to me this spring about religion. People have not been in the habit of talking to me about it much. They have come to let me go my own way. I suppose the fact of Mother's death has brought home to them that I do not think in their way. How a consistent and narrow man can look at the situation I have had a painful illustration in Mr. Thurston. If Kathie had not pushed him into a corner by asking him about Mother, I doubt if he could have gone to the length he did; but after all any really consistent believer must take the view that I am doomed to eternal perdition. I am convinced that few really do believe anything of the sort, but they think that they do, and so baby and I have been a centre of religious interest.

Another phase of this interest has shown itself in Mr. Saychase's desire to baptize Thomasine. I wonder if I had better put my preferences in my pocket, and let the thing be done. It offends my sense of right that a human being should have solemn vows made for her before she can have any notions of what all this means; but if one looks at the whole as simply promises on the part of adults that they will try to have the child believe certain things and follow certain good ways of living, there is no great harm in it. I suppose Deacon Webbe and his wife would be pleased. I will let Tom decide the matter.

June 21. I met Tom in the street to-day, and he absolutely refuses to have baby christened.

"I'll have no mummeries over any child of mine," he declared. "I've had enough of that humbug to last me a lifetime."

I could not help saying I wished he were not so bitter.

"I can't help it, Ruth," was his retort. "I am bitter. I've been banged over the head with religion ever since I was born, and told that I was 'a child of the covenant' till I hate the very thought of the whole business. Whatever you do, don't give anybody the right to twit Thomasine with being 'a child of the covenant.' She has enough to bear in being the child of her parents."

"Don't, Tom," I begged him. "You hurt me."

Without thinking what I did I put my hand on his arm. He brushed it lightly with his fingers, looking at it in a way that almost brought tears to my eyes. I took it off quickly, but I could not face him, and I got away at once. Poor Tom! He is so lonely and so faithful. I am so sorry that he will keep on caring for me like that. No woman is really good enough not to tremble at the thought of absorbing the devotion of a strong man; and it seems wicked that I should not love Tom.

June 25. The rose I transplanted to Mother's grave is really, I believe, going to bloom this very summer. I am glad the blossoms on Father's should have an echo on hers.

June 29. Babies and diaries do not seem to go very well together. There is no tangible reason why I should not write after the small person is asleep, for that is the time I have generally taken; but the fact is I sit working upon some of Tomine's tiny belongings, or now and then sit in the dark and think about her. My journal has been a good friend, but I am afraid its nose is out of joint. Baby has taken its place. I begin to see I made this book a sort of safety-valve for poor spirits and general restlessness. Now I have this sweet human interest in my life I do not need to resort to pen and ink for companionship. The dear little rosy image of Thomasine is with me all the time I seem to be sitting alone.

June 30. Last night I felt as if I was done with relieving my mind by writing in an unresponsive journal; to-night I feel as if I must have just this outlet to my feelings. Last night I thought of baby; to-night I am troubled about her father.

I saw Tom this afternoon at work in the hayfield, looking so brown and so handsome that it was a pleasure to see him. He had the look of a man who finds work just the remedy for heart-soreness, and I was happy in thinking he was getting into tune with wholesome life. I was so pleased that I took the footpath across the field as a mere excuse to speak to him, and I thought he would have been glad to see me. I came almost up to him before he would notice me, although I think he must have seen me long before. He took off his hat as I came close to him, and wiped his forehead.

"Tom," I said at once, "I came this way just to say how glad I am to see you look as if you were getting contented with your work. You were working with such a will."

I do not know that it was a tactful speech, but I was entirely unprepared for the shadow which came over his face.

"I was trying to get so completely tired out that I should sleep like a log to-night," he answered.

Before anything else could be said Deacon Daniel came up, and the talk for the rest was of the weather, and the hay, and nothings. I came away as sad as I had before been pleased. I can understand that Tom is sore in his heart. He is dominant, and his life is made up of things which he hates; he is ambitious, and he is fond of pleasure. He has no pleasure, and he can see nothing before him but staying on with his father. It is true enough that it is his own fault. He has never been willing to stick to work, and the keenest of his regrets must be about his own ill-doing. He is so generous, however, and so manly and kind that I cannot bear to see him grow hard and sad and bitter. Yet what can I do to help it? Certainly this is another case for asking if I am my brother's keeper. I am afraid that I was resigned not to be the keeper of Mrs. Weston, but with Tom it is different. Poor Tom!