Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  “Uncle Lot, there are four or five sheep in your garden!” Uncle Lot dropped his whetstone and scythe.

  “I’ll drive them out,” said our hero; and with that, he ran down the garden alley, and made a furious descent on the enemy; bestirring himself, as Bunyan says, “lustily and with good courage,” till every sheep had skipped out much quicker than it skipped in; and then, springing over the fence, he seized a great stone, and nailed on the picket so effectually that no sheep could possibly encourage the hope of getting in again. This was all the work of a minute, and he was back again; but so exceedingly out of breath that it was necessary for him to stop a moment and rest himself. Uncle Lot looked ungraciously satisfied.

  “What under the canopy set you to scampering so?” said he; “I could a’ driv out them critturs myself.”

  “If you are at all particular about driving them out yourself, I can let them in again,” said James.

  Uncle Lot looked at him with an odd sort of twinkle in the corner of his eye.

  “‘Spose I must ask you to walk in,” said he.

  “Much obliged,” said James; “but I am in a great hurry.” So saying, he started in very business-like fashion towards the gate.

  “You’d better jest stop a minute.”

  “Can’t stay a minute.”

  “I don’t see what possesses you to be all the while in sich a hurry; a body would think you had all creation on your shoulders.”

  “Just my situation, Uncle Lot,” said James, swinging open the gate.

  “Well, at any rate, have a drink of cider, can’t ye?” said Uncle Lot, who was now quite engaged to have his own way in the case.

  James found it convenient to accept this invitation, and Uncle Lot was twice as good-natured as if he had staid in the first of the matter.

  Once fairly forced into the premises, James thought fit to forget his long walk and excess of business, especially as about that moment Aunt Sally and Miss Grace returned from an afternoon call. You may be sure that the last thing these respectable ladies looked for was to find Uncle Lot and Master James tête-à-tête, over a pitcher of cider; and when, as they entered, our hero looked up with something of a mischievous air, Miss Grace, in particular, was so puzzled that it took her at least a quarter of an hour to untie her bonnet strings. But James staid, and acted the agreeable to perfection. First, he must needs go down into the garden to look at Uncle Lot’s wonderful cabbages, and then he promenaded all around the corn patch, stopping every few moments and looking up with an appearance of great gratification, as if he had never seen such corn in his life; and then he examined Uncle Lot’s favorite apple tree with an expression of wonderful interest.

  “I never!” he broke forth, having stationed himself against the fence opposite to it; “what kind of an apple tree is that?”

  “It’s a bellflower, or somethin’ another,” said Uncle Lot.

  “Why, where did you get it? I never saw such apples!” said our hero, with his eyes still fixed on the tree.

  Uncle Lot pulled up a stalk or two of weeds, and threw them over the fence, just to show that he did not care any thing about the matter; and then he came up and stood by James.

  “Nothin’ so remarkable, as I know on,” said he.

  Just then, Grace came to say that supper was ready. Once seated at table, it was astonishing to see the perfect and smiling assurance with which our hero continued his addresses to Uncle Lot. It sometimes goes a great way towards making people like us to take it for granted that they do already; and upon this principle James proceeded. He talked, laughed, told stories, and joked with the most fearless assurance, occasionally seconding his words by looking Uncle Lot in the face, with a countenance so full of good will as would have melted any snowdrift of prejudices in the world.

  James also had one natural accomplishment, more courtier-like than all the diplomacy in Europe, and that was the gift of feeling a real interest for any body in five minutes; so that, if he began to please in jest, he generally ended in earnest. With great simplicity of mind, he had a natural tact for seeing into others, and watched their motions with the same delight with which a child gazes at the wheels and springs of a watch, to “see what it will do.”

  The rough exterior and latent kindness of Uncle Lot were quite a spirit-stirring study; and when tea was over, as he and Grace happened to be standing together in the front door, he broke forth, —

  “I do really like your father, Grace!”

  “Do you?” said Grace.

  “Yes, I do. He has something in him, and I like him all the better for having to fish it out.”

  “Well, I hope you will make him like you,” said Grace, unconsciously; and then she stopped, and looked a little ashamed.

  James was too well bred to see this, or look as if Grace meant any more than she said — a kind of breeding not always attendant on more fashionable polish — so he only answered, —

  “I think I shall, Grace, though I doubt whether I can get him to own it.”

  “He is the kindest man that ever was,” said Grace; “and he always acts as if he was ashamed of it.”

  James turned a little away, and looked at the bright evening sky, which was glowing like a calm, golden sea; and over it was the silver new moon, with one little star to hold the candle for her. He shook some bright drops off from a rosebush near by, and watched to see them shine as they fell, while Grace stood very quietly waiting for him to speak again.

  “Grace,” said he, at last, “I am going to college this fall.”

  “So you told me yesterday,” said Grace.

  James stooped down over Grace’s geranium, and began to busy himself with pulling off all the dead leaves, remarking in the mean while, —

  “And if I do get him to like me, Grace, will you like me too?”

  “I like you now very well,” said Grace.

  “Come, Grace, you know what I mean,” said James, looking steadfastly at the top of the apple tree.

  “Well, I wish, then, you would understand what I mean, without my saying any more about it,” said Grace.

  “O, to be sure I will!” said our hero, looking up with a very intelligent air; and so, as Aunt Sally would say, the matter was settled, with “no words about it.”

  Now shall we narrate how our hero, as he saw Uncle Lot approaching the door, had the impudence to take out his flute, and put the parts together, arranging and adjusting the stops with great composure?

  “Uncle Lot,” said he, looking up, “this is the best flute that ever I saw.”

  “I hate them tooting critturs,” said Uncle Lot, snappishly.

  “I declare! I wonder how you can,” said James, “for I do think they exceed — —”

  So saying, he put the flute to his mouth, and ran up and down a long flourish.

  “There! what do you think of that?” said he, looking in Uncle Lot’s face with much delight.

  Uncle Lot turned and marched into the house, but soon faced to the right-about, and came out again, for James was fingering “Yankee Doodle” — that appropriate national air for the descendants of the Puritans.

  Uncle Lot’s patriotism began to bestir itself; and now, if it had been any thing, as he said, but “that ‘are flute” — as it was, he looked more than once at James’s fingers.

  “How under the sun could you learn to do that?” said he.

  “O, it’s easy enough,” said James, proceeding with another tune; and, having played it through, he stopped a moment to examine the joints of his flute, and in the mean time addressed Uncle Lot: “You can’t think how grand this is for pitching tunes — I always pitch the tunes on Sunday with it.”

  “Yes; but I don’t think it’s a right and fit instrument for the Lord’s house,” said Uncle Lot.

  “Why not? It is only a kind of a long pitchpipe, you see,” said James; “and, seeing the old one is broken, and this will answer, I don’t see why it is not better than nothing.”

  “Why, yes, it may be better than n
othing,” said Uncle Lot; “but, as I always tell Grace and my wife, it ain’t the right kind of instrument, after all; it ain’t solemn.”

  “Solemn!” said James; “that is according as you work it: see here, now.”

  So saying, he struck up Old Hundred, and proceeded through it with great perseverance.

  “There, now!” said he.

  “Well, well, I don’t know but it is,” said Uncle Lot; “but, as I said at first, I don’t like the look of it in meetin’.”

  “But yet you really think it is better than nothing,” said James, “for you see I couldn’t pitch my tunes without it.”

  “Maybe ’tis,” said Uncle Lot; “but that isn’t sayin’ much.”

  This, however, was enough for Master James, who soon after departed, with his flute in his pocket, and Grace’s last words in his heart; soliloquizing as he shut the gate, “There, now, I hope Aunt Sally won’t go to praising me; for, just so sure as she does, I shall have it all to do over again.”

  James was right in his apprehension. Uncle Lot could be privately converted, but not brought to open confession; and when, the next morning, Aunt Sally remarked, in the kindness of her heart, —

  “Well, I always knew you would come to like James,” Uncle Lot only responded, “Who said I did like him?”

  “But I’m sure you seemed to like him last night.”

  “Why, I couldn’t turn him out o’ doors, could I? I don’t think nothin’ of him but what I always did.”

  But it was to be remarked that Uncle Lot contented himself at this time with the mere general avowal, without running it into particulars, as was formerly his wont. It was evident that the ice had begun to melt, but it might have been a long time in dissolving, had not collateral incidents assisted.

  It so happened that, about this time, George Griswold, the only son before referred to, returned to his native village, after having completed his theological studies at a neighboring institution. It is interesting to mark the gradual development of mind and heart, from the time that the white-headed, bashful boy quits the country village for college, to the period when he returns, a formed and matured man, to notice how gradually the rust of early prejudices begins to cleave from him — how his opinions, like his handwriting, pass from the cramped and limited forms of a country school into that confirmed and characteristic style which is to mark the man for life. In George this change was remarkably striking. He was endowed by nature with uncommon acuteness of feeling and fondness for reflection — qualities as likely as any to render a child backward and uninteresting in early life.

  When he left Newbury for college, he was a taciturn and apparently phlegmatic boy, only evincing sensibility by blushing and looking particularly stupefied whenever any body spoke to him. Vacation after vacation passed, and he returned more and more an altered being; and he who once shrunk from the eye of the deacon, and was ready to sink if he met the minister, now moved about among the dignitaries of the place with all the composure of a superior being.

  It was only to be regretted that, while the mind improved, the physical energies declined, and that every visit to his home found him paler, thinner, and less prepared in body for the sacred profession to which he had devoted himself. But now he was returned, a minister — a real minister, with a right to stand in the pulpit and preach; and what a joy and glory to Aunt Sally — and to Uncle Lot, if he were not ashamed to own it!

  The first Sunday after he came, it was known far and near that George Griswold was to preach; and never was a more ready and expectant audience.

  As the time for reading the first psalm approached, you might see the white-headed men turning their faces attentively towards the pulpit; the anxious and expectant old women, with their little black bonnets, bent forward to see him rise. There were the children looking, because every body else looked; there was Uncle Lot in the front pew, his face considerately adjusted; there was Aunt Sally, seeming as pleased as a mother could seem; and Miss Grace, lifting her sweet face to her brother, like a flower to the sun; there was our friend James in the front gallery, his joyous countenance a little touched with sobriety and expectation; in short, a more embarrassingly attentive audience never greeted the first effort of a young minister. Under these circumstances there was something touching in the fervent self-forgetfulness which characterized the first exercises of the morning — something which moved every one in the house.

  The devout poetry of his prayer, rich with the Orientalism of Scripture, and eloquent with the expression of strong yet chastened emotion, breathed over his audience like music, hushing every one to silence, and beguiling every one to feeling. In the sermon, there was the strong intellectual nerve, the constant occurrence of argument and statement, which distinguishes a New England discourse; but it was touched with life by the intense, yet half-subdued, feeling with which he seemed to utter it. Like the rays of the sun, it enlightened and melted at the same moment.

  The strong peculiarities of New England doctrine, involving, as they do, all the hidden machinery of mind, all the mystery of its divine relations and future progression, and all the tremendous uncertainties of its eternal good or ill, seemed to have dwelt in his mind, to have burned in his thoughts, to have wrestled with his powers, and they gave to his manner the fervency almost of another world; while the exceeding paleness of his countenance, and a tremulousness of voice that seemed to spring from bodily weakness, touched the strong workings of his mind with a pathetic interest, as if the being so early absorbed in another world could not be long for this.

  When the services were over, the congregation dispersed with the air of people who had felt rather than heard; and all the criticism that followed was similar to that of old Deacon Hart — an upright, shrewd man — who, as he lingered a moment at the church door, turned and gazed with unwonted feeling at the young preacher.

  “He’s a blessed cre’tur!” said he, the tears actually making their way to his eyes; “I hain’t been so near heaven this many a day. He’s a blessed cre’tur of the Lord; that’s my mind about him!”

  As for our friend James, he was at first sobered, then deeply moved, and at last wholly absorbed by the discourse; and it was only when meeting was over that he began to think where he really was.

  With all his versatile activity, James had a greater depth of mental capacity than he was himself aware of, and he began to feel a sort of electric affinity for the mind that had touched him in a way so new; and when he saw the mild minister standing at the foot of the pulpit stairs, he made directly towards him.

  “I do want to hear more from you,” said he, with a face full of earnestness; “may I walk home with you?”

  “It is a long and warm walk,” said George, smiling.

  “O, I don’t care for that, if it does not trouble you,” said James; and leave being gained, you might have seen them slowly passing along under the trees, James pouring forth all the floods of inquiry which the sudden impulse of his mind had brought out, and supplying his guide with more questions and problems for solution than he could have gone through with in a month.

  “I cannot answer all your questions now,” said he, as they stopped at Uncle Lot’s gate.

  “Well, then, when will you?” said James, eagerly. “Let me come home with you to-night?”

  The minister smiled assent, and James departed so full of new thoughts, that he passed Grace without even seeing her. From that time a friendship commenced between the two, which was a beautiful illustration of the affinities of opposites. It was like a friendship between morning and evening — all freshness and sunshine on one side, and all gentleness and peace on the other.

  The young minister, worn by long-continued ill health, by the fervency of his own feelings, and the gravity of his own reasonings, found pleasure in the healthful buoyancy of a youthful, unexhausted mind, while James felt himself sobered and made better by the moonlight tranquillity of his friend. It is one mark of a superior mind to understand and be influenced by the sup
eriority of others; and this was the case with James. The ascendency which his new friend acquired over him was unlimited, and did more in a month towards consolidating and developing his character than all the four years’ course of a college. Our religious habits are likely always to retain the impression of the first seal which stamped them, and in this case it was a peculiarly happy one. The calmness, the settled purpose, the mild devotion of his friend, formed a just alloy to the energetic and reckless buoyancy of James’s character, and awakened in him a set of feelings without which the most vigorous mind must be incomplete.

  The effect of the ministrations of the young pastor, in awakening attention to the subjects of his calling in the village, was marked, and of a kind which brought pleasure to his own heart. But, like all other excitement, it tends to exhaustion, and it was not long before he sensibly felt the decline of the powers of life. To the best regulated mind there is something bitter in the relinquishment of projects for which we have been long and laboriously preparing, and there is something far more bitter in crossing the long-cherished expectations of friends. All this George felt. He could not bear to look on his mother, hanging on his words and following his steps with eyes of almost childish delight — on his singular father, whose whole earthly ambition was bound up in his success, and think how soon the “candle of their old age” must be put out. When he returned from a successful effort, it was painful to see the old man, so evidently delighted, and so anxious to conceal his triumph, as he would seat himself in his chair, and begin with, “George, that ‘are doctrine is rather of a puzzler; but you seem to think you’ve got the run on’t. I should re’ly like to know what business you have to think you know better than other folks about it;” and, though he would cavil most courageously at all George’s explanations, yet you might perceive, through all, that he was inly uplifted to hear how his boy could talk.