The Diary of a Saint. Bates Arlo

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СКАЧАТЬ to forgive him for the shame of having known him, and that his address is inclosed in a sealed envelope. I am not to open it unless there is real need. Why should he give his address to me?

      January 19. The disconcerting way Aunt Naomi has of coming in without knocking, stealing in on feet made noiseless by rubbers, brought her into the sitting-room last night while I was mooning in the twilight, and meditating on nothing in particular. I knew her slow fashion of opening the door, "like a burglar at a cupboard," as Hannah says,—so that I was able to compose my face into an appropriate smile of welcome before she was fairly in.

      "Sitting here alone?" was her greeting.

      "Mother is asleep," I answered, "and I was waiting for her to wake."

      Aunt Naomi seated herself in the stiffest chair in the room, and began to swing her foot as usual.

      "Deacon Daniel's at it again," she observed dispassionately.

      I smiled a little. It always amuses me that the troubles of the church should be so often brought to me who am an outsider. Aunt Naomi arrives about once a month on the average, with complaints about something. They are seldom of any especial weight, but it seems to relieve her to tell her grievances.

      "Which Deacon Daniel?" I asked, to tease her a little.

      "Deacon Richards, of course. You know that well enough."

      "What is it now?"

      "He won't have any fire in the vestry," she answered.

      "Why not let somebody else take care of the vestry then, if you want a fire?"

      "You don't suppose," was her response, with a chuckle, "that he'd give up the key to anybody else, do you?"

      "I should think he'd be glad to."

      "He'll hold on to that key till he dies," retorted Aunt Naomi with a sniff; "and I shouldn't be surprised if he had it buried with him. He wouldn't lose the chance of making folks uncomfortable."

      "Oh, come, Aunt Naomi, you are always so hard on Deacon Richards," I protested. "He is always good-natured with me."

      "I wish you'd join the church, then, and see if you can't keep him in order. Last night it was so cold at prayer-meeting that we were all half frozen, and Mr. Saychase had to dismiss the meeting. Old lady Andrews spoke up in the coldest part of it, when we were all so chilled that we couldn't speak, and she said in that little, high voice of hers: 'The vestry is very cold to-night, but I trust that our hearts are warm with the love of Christ.'"

      I laughed at the picture of the half-frozen prayer-meeting, and dear old lady Andrews coming to the rescue with a pious jest; it was so characteristic.

      "But has anybody spoken to Deacon Richards?" I asked.

      "You can't speak to him," she responded, wagging her foot with a violence that seemed to speak celestial anger within. "I try to after every prayer-meeting; but he has the lights out before I can say two words. I can't stay there in the dark with him; and the minute he gets me outside he locks the door, and posts off like a streak."

      "Why not go down to his mill in broad daylight?" I suggested.

      "Oh, he'd stick close to the grinding-thing just so he couldn't hear, and I'm afraid of being pitched into the hopper," she said, laughing. "You must speak to him. He pays some attention to what you say."

      "But it's none of my business. I don't go to prayer-meeting."

      "But it's your duty to go," she answered, with a shrewd smile that showed that she appreciated her response; "and if you neglect one duty it's no excuse for neglecting another. Besides, you can't be willing to have the whole congregation die of cold."

      So in the end it was somehow fixed that I am to remonstrate with Deacon Daniel because the faithful are cold at their devotions. It would seem much simpler for them to stay at home and be warm. They do not, as far as I can see, enjoy going; but they are miserable if they do not go. Their consciences trouble them worse than the cold, poor things. I suppose that I can never be half thankful enough to Father for bringing me up without a theological conscience. Prayer-meetings seem to be a good deal like salt in the boy's definition of something that makes food taste bad if you don't put it on; prayer-meetings make church-goers uneasy if they do not go. If they will go, however, and if they are better for going, or believe they are better, or if they are only worse for staying away, or suppose they are worse, they should not be expected to sit in a cold vestry in January. Why Deacon Daniel will not have a fire is not at all clear. It may be economy, or it may be a lack of sensitiveness; it may be for some recondite reason too deep to be discovered. I refuse to accept Aunt Naomi's theory that it is sheer obstinacy; and I will beard the deacon in his mill, regardless of the danger of the hopper. At least he generally listens to me.

      January 20. Hannah came up for me this evening while I was reading to Mother.

      "Deacon Webbe's down in the parlor," she announced. "Says he wants to see you if you're not busy. 'Ll come again if you ain't able to see him."

      "Go down, Ruth dear," Mother said at once. "It may be another church quarrel, and I wouldn't hinder you from settling it for worlds."

      "But don't you want me to finish the chapter?" I asked. "Church quarrels will generally keep."

      "No, dear. I'm tired, and we'll stop where we are. I'll try to go to sleep, if you'll turn the light down."

      As I bent over to kiss her, she put up her feeble thin fingers, and touched my cheek lovingly.

      "You're a dear girl," she said. "Be gentle with the deacon."

      There was a twinkle in her eye, for the idea of anybody's being anything but gentle with Deacon Daniel Webbe is certainly droll enough. Miss Charlotte said the other night that a baby could twist him round its finger and never even know there was anything there; and certainly he must call out the gentle feelings of anybody. Only Tom seemed always somehow to get exasperated with his father's meekness. Poor Tom, I do wonder why he went away!

      The deacon dries up by way of growing old. I have not seen him this winter except the other day at church, and then I did not look at him. To-night he seemed worn and sad, and somehow his face was like ashes, it was so lifeless. The flesh has dried to the bones of his face till he looks like a pathetic skull. His voice is not changed, though. It has the same strange note in it that used to affect me as a child; a weird, reedy quality which suggests some vague melancholy flavor not in the least fretful or whining,—a quality that I have never been able to define. I never hear him speak without a sense of mysterious suggestiveness; and I remember confiding to Father once, when I was about a dozen years old, that Deacon Webbe had the right voice to read fairy stories with. Father, I remember, laughed, and said he doubted much if Deacon Daniel knew what a fairy story was, unless he thought it was something wickedly false. Tom's voice has something of the same quality, but only enough to give a little thrill to his tone when he is really in earnest. There is an amusing incongruity between that odd wind-harp strain in Deacon Webbe's voice and his gaunt New England figure.

      "Ruth," the deacon asked, almost before we had shaken hands, "did you know Tom had gone away?"

      I was impressed and rather startled by the intensity of his manner, and surprised by the question.

      "Yes," I said. "He sent me word he was going."

      "Do you know where he СКАЧАТЬ