“She had you there, Sam,” said Uncle Fly, with great content. “You won’t catch Polly tripping on the catechism.”
“Well, for my part,” said Major Broad, “I don’t like these doctrinal subtilties, Deacon Badger. Now I ‘ve got a volume of Mr. Addison’s religious writings that seem to me about the right thing. They ‘re very pleasing reading. Mr. Addison is my favorite author of a Sunday.”
“I ‘m afraid Mr. Addison had nothing but just mere morality and natural religion,” said my grandmother, who could not be withheld from bearing her testimony. “You don’t find any of the discriminating doctrines in Mr. Addison. Major Broad, did you ever read Mr. Bellamy’s ‘True Religion Delineated and Distinguished from all Counterfeits ‘?”
“No, madam, I never did,” said Major Broad.
“Well, I earnestly hope you will read that book,” said my grandmother.
“My wife is always at me about one good book or another,” said my grandfather; “but I manage to do with my old Bible, I have n’t used that up yet.”
“I should know about Dr. Bellamy’s book by this time,” said Miss Mehitable, “for Polly intrenches herself in that, and preaches out of it daily. Polly certainly missed her vocation when she was trained for a servant. She is a born professor of theology. She is so circumstantial about all that took place at the time the angels fell, and when the covenant was made with Adam in the Garden of Eden, that I sometimes question whether she really might not have been there personally. Polly is particularly strong on Divine sovereignty. She thinks it applies to everything under the sun except my affairs. Those she chooses to look after herself.”
“Well,” said Major Broad, “I am not much of a theologian. I want to be taught my duty. Parson Lothrop’s discourses are generally very clear and practical, and they suite me.”
“They are good as far as they go,” said my grandmother; “but I like good, strong, old-fashioned doctrine. I like such writers as Mr. Edwards and Dr. Bellamy and Dr. Hopkins. It ‘s all very well, your essays on cheerfulness and resignation and all that; but I want something that takes strong hold of you, so that you feel something has got you that can hold.”
“The Cambridge Platform, for instance,” said Uncle Bill.
“Yes, my son, the Cambridge platform. I ain’t ashamed of it. It was made by men whose shoe-latchet we are n’t worthy to unloose. I believe it, – every word on ‘t. I believe it, and I ‘m going to believe it.”
“And would if there was twice as much of it,” said Uncle Bill. “That ‘s right, mother, stand up for your colors. I admire your spirit. But, Sam, what does Hepsy think of all this? I suppose you enlighten her when you return from your investigations.”
“Wal, I try to. But lordy massy, Mr. Badger, Hepsy don’t take no kind o’ interest in the doctrines, no more ‘n nothin’ at all. She ‘s so kind o’ worldly, Hepsy is. It ‘s allers meat and drink, meat and drink, with her. That ‘s all she ‘s thinkin’ of.”
“And if you would think more of such things, she would n’t have to think so much,” said Aunt Lois, sharply. “Don’t you know the Bible says, that the man that provideth not for his own household hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel?”
“I don’t see,” said Sam, slowly flopping his great hands up and down over the blaze, – “I railly don’t see why folks are allers a throwin’ up that ‘ere text at me. I ‘m sure I work as hard as a man ken. Why, I was a workin’ last night till nigh twelve o’clock, doin’ up odd jobs o’ blacksmithin’. They kin o’ cumulate, ye know.”
“Mr. Lawson,” said my grandmother, with a look of long-suffering patience, “how often and often must I tell you, that if you ‘d be steadier round your home, and work in regular hours, Hepsy would be more comfortable, and things would go on better?”
“Lordy massy, Mis’ Badger, bless your soul and body, ye don’t know nothin’ about it – ye don’t know nothin’ what I undergo. Hepsy, she is at me from morning till night. First it ‘s one thing, and then another. One day it rains, and her clothes-line breaks. She ‘s at me ‘bout that. Now I tell her, ‘Hepsy, I ain’t to blame, – I don’t make the rain.’ And then another day she ‘s at me agin ‘cause the wind ‘s east, and fetches the smoke down chimbley I tell her, ‘Hepsy, now look here, – do I make the wind blow?’ but it ‘s no use talkin’ to Hepsy.”
“Well, Sam, I take your part,” said Bill. “I always knew you was a regular martyr. Come, boys, go down cellar and draw a pitcher of cider. We ‘ll stay him with flagons, and comfort him with apples. Won’t we, Sam?”
As Sam was prime favorite with all boys, my brother Bill and I started willingly enough on this errand, one carrying the candle and the other a great stone pitcher of bountiful proportions, which always did hospitable duty on similar occasions.
Just as we returned, bearing our pitcher, there came another rap at the outside door of the kitchen, and Old Betty Poganut and Sally Wonsamug stood at the door.
“Well, now, Mis’ Badger,” said Betty, “Sally and me, we thought we must jest run in, we got so scar’t. We was coming through that Bill Morse’s woods, and there come such a flash o’ lightin’ it most blinded us, and the wind blew enough to blow a body over; and we thought there was a storm right down on us, and we run jest as fast as we could. We did n’t know what to do, we was so scar’t. I ‘m mortal ‘fraid of lightning,”
“Why, Betty, you forgot the sermon to-day. You should have said your prayers, as Parson Lothrop tells you,” said my grandfather.
“Well, I did kind o’ put up a sort o’ silent ‘jaculation, as a body may say. That is, I jest said, ‘O Lord,’ and kind o’ gin him a wink, you know.”
“O, you did?” said my grandfather.
“Yes, I kind o’ thought He ‘d know what I meant.”
My grandfather turned with a smile to Miss Mehitable. “These Indians have their own wild ways of looking at things after all.”
“Well, now, I s’pose you have n’t had a bit of supper, either of you,” said my grandmother, getting up. “It ‘s commonly the way of it.”
“Well, to tell the truth, I was sayin’ to Sarah that if we come down to Mis’ Deacon Badger’s I should n’t wonder if we got something good,” said Betty, her broad, coarse face and baggy cheeks beginning to be illuminated with a smile.
“Here, Horace, you come and hold the candle while I go into the buttery and get ’em some cold pork and beans,” said my grandmother, cheerily. “The poor creturs don’t get a good meal of victuals very often; and I baked a good lot on purpose.”
If John Bunyan had known my grandmother, he certainly would have introduced her in some of his histories as “the house-keeper whose name was Bountiful”, and under her care an ample meal of brown bread and pork and beans was soon set forth on the table in the corner of the kitchen, to which the two hungry Indian women sat down with the appetite of wolves. A large mug was placed between them, which Uncle Bill filled to the brim with cider.
“I s’pose you ‘d like twice a mug better than once a mug, Sally,” he said, punning on her name.
“O, if the mug ‘s only big enough,” said Sally, her snaky eyes gleaming with appetite; “and it ‘s always a good big mug one gets here.”
Sam Lawson’s great white eyes began irresistibly to wander in the direction of the plentiful cheer which was being so liberally dispensed at the other side of the room.
“Want some, Sam, my boy?” said Uncle Bill, with a patronizing freedom.
“Why, bless your soul, Master Bill, I would n’t care a bit if I took a plate o’ them beans and some o’ that ‘ere pork. Hepsy did n’t save no beans for me; and, walkin’ all the way from North Parish, I felt kind o’ empty and windy, as a body may say. You know Scriptur’ tells about bein’ filled with the east wind; but I never found it noways satisfyin’, – it sets sort o’ cold on the stomach.”
“Draw up, Sam, and help yourself,” said Uncle Bill, putting plate and knife and fork before him; and Sam soon showed that he had
a vast internal capacity for the stowing away of beans and brown bread.
Meanwhile Major Broad and my grandfather drew their chairs together, and began a warm discussion of the Constitution of the United States, which had been recently presented for acceptance in a Convention of the State of Massachusetts.
“I have n’t seen you, Major Broad,” said my grandfather, “since you came back from the Convention. I ‘m very anxious to have our State of Massachusetts accept that Constitution. We ‘re in an unsettled condition now; we don’t know fairly where we are. If we accept this Constitution, we shall be a nation, – we shall have something to go to work on.”
“Well, Deacon Badger, to say the truth, I could not vote for this Constitution in Convention. They have adopted it by a small majority; but I shall be bound to record my dissent from it.”
“Pray, Major, what are your objections?” said Miss Mehitable.
“I have two. One is, it gives too much power to the President. There ‘s an appointing power and a power of patronage that will play the mischief some day in the hands of an ambitious man. That ‘s one objection. The other is the recognizing and encouraging of slavery in the Constitution. That is such a dreadful wrong, – such a shameful inconsistency, – when we have just come through a battle for the doctrine that all men are free and equal, to turn round and found our national government on a recognition of African slavery. It cannot and will not come to good.”
“O, well,” said my grandfather, “slavery will gradually die out. You see how it is going in the New England States.”
“I cannot think so,” said the Major. “I have a sort of feeling about this that I cannot resist. If we join those States that still mean to import and use slaves, our nation will meet some dreadful punishment. I am certain of it.” *
“Well, really,” said my grandfather, “I ‘m concerned to hear you speak so. I have felt such anxiety to have something settled. You see, without a union we are all afloat, – we are separate logs, but no raft.”
“Yes,” said Miss Mehitable, “but nothing can be settled that is n’t founded on right. We ought to dig deep, and lay our foundations on a rock, when we build for posterity.”
“Were there many of your way of thinking in the Convention, Major?” said my grandfather.
“Well, we had a pretty warm discussion, and we came very near to carrying it. Now, in Middlesex County, for instance where we are, there were only seventeen in favor of the Constitution, and twenty-five against; and in Worcester County there were only seven in favor and forty-three against. Well, they carried it at last by a majority of nineteen; but the minority recorded their protest. Judge Widgery of Portland, General Thomson of Topsham, and Dr. Taylor of Worcester, rather headed the opposition. Then the town of Andover instructed its representative, Mr. Symmes, to vote against it, but he did n’t, he voted on the other side, and I understand they are dreadfully indignant about it. I saw a man from Andover last week who said that he actually thought Symmes would be obliged to leave the town, he was so dreadfully unpopular.”
“Well, Major Broad, I agree with you,” said my grandmother, heartily, “and I honor you for the stand you took. Slavery is a sin and a shame; and I say, with Jacob, ‘O my soul, come not thou into their secret, – unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united.’ I wish we may keep clear on ‘t. I don’t want anything that we can’t ask God’s blessing on heartily, and we certainly can’t on this. Why, anybody that sees that great scar on Cæsar’s forehead sees what slavery comes to.”
My grandmother always pointed her anti-slavery arguments with an appeal to this mark of ill-usage which old Cæsar had received at the hands of a brutal master years before, and the appeal never failed to convince the domestic circle.
“Well,” said my grandfather, after some moments of silence, in which he sat gazing fixedly at the great red coals of a hickory log, “you see, Major, it ‘s done, and can’t be helped.”
“It ‘s done,” said the Major, “but in my opinion mischief will come of it as sure as there is a god ‘n heaven.”
“Let ‘s hope not,” said my grandfather, placidly.
Outside the weather was windy and foul, the wind rattling doors, shaking and rumbling down the chimney, and causing the great glowing circle lighted by the fire to seem warmer and brighter. The Indian woman and Sam Lawson, having finished their meal and thoroughly cleaned out the dishes, grouped themselves about the end of the ingle already occupied by black Cæsar, and began a little private gossip among themselves.
“I say,” says Sam, raising his voice to call my grandfather’s attention, “do you know, Deacon Badger, whether anybody is living in the Dench house now?”
“There was n’t, the last I knew about it,” said my grandfather.
“Wal, you won’t make some folks believe but what that ‘ere house is haunted.”
“Haunted!” said Miss Mehitable; “nothing more likely. What old house is n’t? – if one only knew it; and that certainly ought to be if ever a house was.”
“But this ‘ere ‘s a regular haunt,” said San. “I was a talkin’ the other night with Bill Payne and Jake Marshall, and they both on ’em said that they ‘d seen strange things in them grounds, – they ‘d seen a figger of a man –”
“With his head under his arm,” suggested Uncle Bill.
“No, a man in a long red cloak,” said Sam Lawson, “such as Sir Harry Frankland used to wear.”
“Poor Sir Harry!” said Miss Mehitable, “has he come to that?”
“Did you know Sir Harry?” said Aunt Lois.
“I have met him once or twice a the Governor’s house,” said Miss Mehitable. “Lady Lothrop knew Lady Frankland very well.”
“Well, Sam,” said Uncle Bill, “do let ‘s hear the end of this haunting.”
“Nothin’, only the other night I was a goin’ over to watch with Lem Moss, and I passed pretty nigh the Dench place, and I thought I ‘d jest look round it a spell. And as sure as you ‘re alive I see smoke a comin’ out of the chimbley.”
“I did n’t know as ghosts ever used the fireplaces,” said Uncle Bill. “Well, Sam, did you go in?”
“No, I was pretty much in a hurry; but I telled Jake and Bill, and then they each on ’em had something to match that they ‘d seen. As nigh as I can make it out, there ‘s that ‘ere boy that they say was murdered and thrown down that ‘ere old well walks sometimes. And then there ‘s a woman appears to some, and this ‘ere man in a red cloak; and they think it ‘s Sir Harry in his red cloak.”
“For my part,” said Aunt Lois, “I never had much opinion of Sir Harry Frankland, or Lady Frankland either. I don’t think such goings on ever ought to be countenanced in society.”
“They both repented bitterly, – repented in sackcloth and ashes,” said Miss Mehitable. “And if God forgives such sins, why should n’t we?”
“What was the story?” said Major Broad.
“Why,” said Aunt Lois, “have n’t you heard of Agnes Surridge, of Marblehead? She was housemaid in a tavern there, and Sir Harry fell in love with her, and took her and educated her. That was well enough; but when she ‘d done going to school he took her home to his house in Boston, and called her his daughter; although people became pretty sure that the connection was not what it should be, and they refused to have anything to do with her. So he bought this splendid place out in the woods, and built a great palace of a house, and took Miss Agnes out there. People that wanted to be splendidly entertained, and that were not particular as to morals, used to go out to visit them.”
“I used to hear great stories of their wealth and pomp and luxury,” said my grandmother, “but I mourned over it, that it should come to this in New England, that people could openly set such an example and be tolerated. It would n’t have been borne a generation before, I can tell you. No, indeed, – the magistrates would have put a stop to it. But these noblemen, when they came over to America, seemed to think themselves lords of God’s heritage, and free to do just as
they pleased.”
“But,” said Miss Mehitable, “they repented, as I said. He took her to England, and there his friends refused to receive her; and then he was appointed Ambassador to Lisbon, and he took her there. On the day of the great earthquake Sir Harry was riding with a lady of the court when the shock came, and in a moment, without warning, they found themselves buried under the ruins of a building they were passing. He wore a scarlet cloak, as was the fashion; and they say that in her dying agonies the poor creature bit through this cloak and sleeve into the flesh of his arm, and made a mark that he carried to his dying day. Sir Harry was saved by Agnes Surridge. She came over the ruins, calling and looking for him, and he heard her voice and answered, and she got men to come and dig him out. When he was in that dreadful situation, he made a vow to God, if he would save his life, that he would be a different man. And he was a changed man from that day. He was married to Agnes Surridge as soon as they could get a priest to perform the ceremony; and when he took her back to England all his relations received her, and she was presented in court and moved in society with perfect acceptance.”
“I don’t think it ever ought to have been,” said Aunt Lois. “Such women never ought to be received.”
“What! is there no place for repentance for a woman?” said Miss Mehitable. “Christ said, ‘Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more.’”
I noticed again that sort of shiver of feeling in Miss Mehitable; and there was a peculiar thrill in her voice, as she said these words, that made me sensible that she was speaking from some inward depth of feeling.
“Don’t you be so hard and sharp Lois,” said my grandmother; “sinners must have patience with sinners.”
“Especially with sinners of quality, Lois,” said Uncle Bill. “By all accounts Sir Harry and Lady Frankland swept all before them when they came back to Boston.”
“Of course,” said Miss Mehitable; “what was done in court would be done in Boston, and whom Queen Charlotte received would be received in our upper circles. Lady Lothrop never called on her till she was Lady Frankland, but after that I believe she has visited out at their place.”
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 245