The Old Stone House, Constance Fenimore Woolson [e book free reading txt] 📗

nine, Sibyl closed the organ and said “good-night;” Aunt Faith was left with Bessie and Hugh, who joined her on the broad-cushioned window-seat and looked out with her into the night. “I like the darkness of a summer night,” said Hugh; “how bright the stars are!”

“We do not know where heaven is,” said Aunt Faith, “but it is a natural thought that our loved and lost are ‘beyond the stars.’ We too shall go there some day. How beautiful and happy our life will be, there! How precious the certainty of our hope!”

“That is what Mr. Leslie said to-day,” said Bessie.

“I liked that sermon,” said Hugh; “what he said about the beauty of this world, and the plain duty of taking our faithful, active share in the work of this world, struck me as sensible and true. Perhaps I am uncharitable, but I cannot understand the religion that sits apart and makes life miserable with its gloomy asceticism.”

“I liked what he said about love,” said Bessie; “that if we do not love here on earth, it will be very hard to love in heaven. I wonder if people could love each other better if they tried. That is, whether one could learn love as one learns patience, by steady trying.”

“Oh, no,” said Hugh; “love is not to be learned! It comes naturally.”

“I think you are mistaken, Hugh,” said Aunt Faith. “I think love may be acquired. At least it may grow from a little seed to a great tree, with proper care. If we earnestly try to see all the good traits in a friend, we shall end by loving him at last. And if we earnestly try to care for some helpless, dependent person, we shall end by loving that person very dearly. Don’t you remember your flying-squirrel, Hugh? You did not care much for the little thing, when you found it on the ground, but, as you took care of it and held it in your warm hands, night after night, to keep it warm, you grew to love it very dearly, and when it died I remember very well how you cried, although you were quite a large boy.”

“Poor little Frisky!” said Hugh; “when I brought in a branch and put him on it, how he capered about; and then he was so cunning! Do you remember, Aunt Faith, how one day I left him in your care, shut up in his basket, while I went down town. When I came back and asked about him, you said, ‘Oh, he’s safe in his basket. I think he must be asleep he is so quiet.’ And all the while you were speaking, the little scamp was looking at me with his bright eyes out from under your arm as you sat sewing! I was very fond of Frisky; I have never had a pet since.”

“You loved him because you had tended him so carefully,” said Aunt Faith. “It is the same feeling, intensified, that influences and inspires many of the weary fathers and mothers we see around us. Mr. Leslie was right. It is better to patiently fulfil our earthly duties, no matter how dull or how hard, as long as we are on the earth, than to sit apart nourishing lofty ideas and sighing for release. That sentence which Mr. Leslie took for his text has always been a favorite of mine. Do you care to hear some verses I once made upon it?”

“Oh, yes, Aunt Faith!” said Hugh and Bessie eagerly.

Aunt Faith took a little blank-book from her desk and read as follows:—

“St. John; 17th Chapter, 15th Verse.

“I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world.”

“Not out of the world, dear Father, With duties and vows unfulfilled, With life’s earnest labors unfinished, Ambition and passion unstilled; Not out of the world, dear Father, Until we have faithfully tried To burnish the talent Thou gavest, And gain other talents beside,

Not out of the world, kind Father, But rather our lowly life spare, While those Thou hast lent us from heaven Are needing our tenderest care; Not out of the world, kind Father, While dear ones are trusting our arm To work for them hourly, and save them From poverty, terror, and harm.

Not out of the world, good Father, Until we have suffered the loss Of self-loving ease and indulgence In willingly bearing the Cross; Not out of the world, good Father, Till bowed with humility down, The weight of the Cross is forgotten In the golden light of the Crown.

Not out of the world, our Father, Until we have fought a good fight,— Until to the last we have guarded The lamp of Thy Faith burning bright; Until the long course is well finished, Until the hard race has been won, And we hear, as we rest from our labors, Well done, faithful servant, well done.”

 

CHAPTER VII.

THE PICNIC.

 

“Monday morning, bright and early, what shall we do to-day?” chanted Gem, as she entered the dining-room.

“Yes; what shall we do?” repeated Tom; “something out of the common run, of course, for it’s vacation, and besides, it will be so hot pretty soon that we can’t do anything,—and Hugh’s going to New York in the fall,—and Sibyl’s going to Saratoga before long, and when I enter college, of course I shan’t care about such things any more; so I’ve got to hurry up.”

“Bravo, Tom! you’ve made out a strong case!” said Hugh, laughing, “Aunt Faith cannot resist such a mountain of arguments!”

“I do not intend to resist anything reasonable,” said Aunt Faith, smiling; “what do you wish to do, Tom?”

“Tableaux!” said Gem, excitedly.

“No; I veto that instanter,” said Tom, decidedly. “Girls always want to dress up in old feathers and things, and call themselves kings and queens! For my part, I’m tired of being ‘Captain John Smith,’ and the ‘Sleeping Beauty in the Wood.’”

“May I ask when you took the last-named character?” said Hugh.

“He never took it at all,” said Gem, indignantly; “Annie Chase was the Princess, and she looked perfectly beautiful with her sister’s satin dress, and pearls, and—”

“There you go!” interrupted Tom; “fuss and feathers, silks and satins! I was the ‘Prince,’ wasn’t I? and that’s the very same thing! Besides, I’ve been ‘Cupid’ over and over again, because I’m the only one who can hang head downward from the clothes-line as though I was flying. You can’t deny that, Gem Morris!”

“You got up one tableau which was really astonishing,” said Hugh; “I remember it very well; an inundation, where all the company in clothes-baskets, were paddling with rulers for their very lives. The effect was thrilling!”

“I remember a charade, too, which was really unique,” said Sibyl. “The first part was simply little Carrie Fish standing in the middle of the room; the second and last was audible, but not visible, consisting merely of a volley of sneezes behind the scenes. The whole was supposed to be ‘Carry-ca-choo,’—or ‘Caricature.’”

“It may all be very funny for you people who only have to look on,” said Tom; “but I am tired of the whole thing, and I vote for a picnic.”

“Oh, Tom!” said Sibyl in dismay, “if tableaux are old, picnics are worn threadbare!”

“I have not had my share in wearing them, then!” said Tom; “I never went to but one picnic in my life, and then I fell in the river, and had to come home before dinner.”

“I have attended a great many,” said Sibyl, “and the amount of work I have done in washing dishes and drawing water, casts anything but a pleasant reflection. Last year, when we had that mammoth picnic at Long Point, the gentlemen ordered twelve dozen plates, cups, saucers, goblets, spoons, and forks, to be sent out from a crockery store, in order to save trouble; and when I reached the Point in my fresh, white dress, there they were in crates, covered with straw, just as they stood in the warehouse. The guests were expected in half an hour. I was one of the managers, and, after standing a few moments in dismay, we rolled up our sleeves and began. Two gentlemen and two ladies, in gala attire, washing seventy-two dozen dishes in a violent hurry, with a limited supply of water and towels, on an August afternoon with the thermometer at eighty-eight. That is my idea of a picnic!”

The cousins laughed merrily at Sibyl’s description, and Bessie said, “I have never been to a ‘full-grown picnic,’ as Gem calls it. My experience is confined to the days we used to spend out on the lake shore four or five years ago. We no sooner got there, than all the boys disappeared as if by magic, and we had to do all the work, make the fire, draw the water, and cook the dinner, Then the boys would appear on the scene with dripping hair, eat up everything on the table-cloth, like young bears, and off down the bank again until it was time to go home.”

“As you are all giving your ideas of a picnic,” said Hugh, “I will give you mine. Ride five miles in a jolting wagon in the hot sun, walk five more through tangled underbrush, arrive at the scene; pick up sticks one hour, try to make the fire burn and the kettle boil another hour; and finally sit down very uncomfortably on the ground, with burnt fingers and limp collar, to eat buttered pickles and vinegared bread, and drink muddy coffee; clear everything up, and ruin your clothes with grease-spots, wristbands hopelessly gone; sit down again under a tree, to hear the young lady you don’t like read poetry, while the one you do like goes off before your very eyes with your rival; devoured by mosquitoes, gnats and spiders; ice melted and water tepid; another fire to make, more bad coffee, more grease spots, and a silver spoon lost; hunt for the spoon until dark, and then find it was a mistake; walk back five miles through the underbrush, get into the wagon, perfectly exhausted with heat and fatigue; force yourself to sing until you are as hoarse as a frog, and reach home worn out, wrinkled, haggard, parched with thirst, famished for food, and utterly ruined as to common clothes. That is my idea of a picnic!”

Everybody laughed at this cynical picture, and Aunt Faith said, “I remember just after the war, when a number of our Westerton soldier-boys had returned, it was proposed to celebrate the home-coming by a grand picnic. The project, however, came to the ears of the returned volunteers, and I happened to be present when one of them, Lieutenant John Romer, expressed his opinion. ‘See here, Katie,’ said he to his sister, ‘I understand that you young ladies are getting up a picnic to welcome us back from the war. I wish you would gently extinguish the plan. We have had picnic enough for all our lives; the very sight of a camp-fire and a kettle takes away any romance we may have possessed, and as for out-door coffee, it is fairly hateful to us.’”

“I remember old Deacon Brown used to say, that when, once in ten years, he went to New York to visit his relatives, the first thing they did was to get up a ride into the country for him,” said Hugh laughing. “They did not understand that what he wanted was that very bustle and crowd that annoyed them.”

“In the mean time,” said Tom impatiently, “what has become of my picnic in all this talk?”

“Oh Tom! do you really insist upon it?” said Sibyl with a sigh.

“Of course I do! and the B. B.‘s must all be invited, too.”

“No, indeed?”