章节正文
``No, don't read to me,'' she decided. ``There
are enough ready to do that. Talk to me. Tell
me about our life and our people here, as they
strike you.'' And she added, slowly: ``You are a
queer minister. You have not offered to pray with
me!''
``I feel,'' I told her, ``more like asking you to pray
for me.''
Relief continued her analysis. ``You have not
told me that my affliction was a visitation from God,''
she added; ``that it was discipline and well for me
I had it.''
``I don't believe it was from God,'' I said. ``I
don't believe God had anything to do with it. And
I rejoice that you have not let it wreck your life.''
She pressed my hand. ``Thank you for saying
that,'' she murmured. ``If I thought God did it
I could not love Him, and if I did not love Him I
could not live. Please come and see me VERY often--
and tell me stories!''
After that I collected stories for Relief. One of
those which most amused her, I remember, was about
my horse, and this encourages me to repeat it here.
In my life in East Dennis I did not occupy the lonely
little parsonage connected with my church, but in-
stead boarded with a friend--a widow named Cro-
well. (There seemed only two names in Cape Cod:
Sears and Crowell.) To keep in touch with my two
churches, which were almost three miles apart, it
became necessary to have a horse. As Mrs. Crowell
needed one, too, we decided to buy the animal in
partnership, and Miss Crowell, the daughter of the
widow, who knew no more about horses than I did,
undertook to lend me the support of her presence
and advice during the purchase. We did not care
to have the entire community take a passionate in-
terest in the matter, as it would certainly have done
if it had heard of our intention; so my friend and I
departed somewhat stealthily for a neighboring
town, where, we had heard, a very good horse was
offered for sale. We saw the animal and liked it;
but before closing the bargain we cannily asked the
owner if the horse was perfectly sound, and if it
was gentle with women. He assured us that it was
both sound and gentle with women, and to prove the
latter point he had his wife harness it to the buggy
and drive it around the stable-yard. The animal
behaved beautifully. After it had gone through
its paces, Miss Crowell and I leaned confidingly
against its side, patting it and praising its beauty,
and the horse seemed to enjoy our attentions.
We bought it then and there, drove it home, and
put it in our barn; and the next morning we hired
a man in the neighborhood to come over and take
care of it.
He arrived. Five minutes later a frightful racket
broke out in the barn--sounds of stamping, kicking,
and plunging, mingled with loud shouts. We ran
to the scene of the trouble, and found our ``hired
man'' rushing breathlessly toward the house. When
he was able to speak he informed us that we had ``a
devil in there,'' pointing back to the barn, and that
the new horse's legs were in the air, all four of them
at once, the minute he went near her. We insisted
that he must have frightened or hurt her, but, sol-
emnly and with anxious looks behind, he protested
that he had not. Finally Miss Crowell and I went
into the barn, and received a dignifiedwelcome from
the new horse, which seemed pleased by our visit.
Together we harnessed her and, without the least
difficulty, drove her out into the yard. As soon as
our man took the reins, however, she reared, kicked,
and smashed our brand-new buggy. We changed
the man and had the buggy repaired, but by the
end of the week the animal had smashed the buggy
again. Then, with some natural resentment, we
made a second visit to the man from whom we
had bought her, and asked him why he had sold
us such a horse.
He said he had told us the exact truth. The horse
WAS sound and she WAS extremely gentle with women,
but--and this point he had seen no reason to men-
tion, as we had not asked about it--she would not
let a man come near her. He firmly refused to take
her back, and we had to make the best of the bar-
gain. As it was impossible to take care of her our-
selves, I gave some thought to the problem she pre-
sented, and finally devised a plan which worked very
well. I hired a neighbor who was a small, slight
man to take care of her, and made him wear his wife's
sunbonnet and waterproof cloak whenever he ap-
proached the horse. The picture he presented in
these garments still stands out pleasantly against the
background of my Cape Cod memories. The horse,
however, did not share our appreciation of it. She
was suspicious, and for a time she shied whenever
the man and his sunbonnet and cloak appeared;
but we stood by until she grew accustomed to them
and him; and as he was both patient and gentle,
she finally allowed him to harness and unharness
her. But no man could drive her, and when I
drove to church I was forced to hitch and un-
hitch her myself. No one else could do it, though
many a gallant and subsequently resentful man at-
tempted the feat.
On one occasion a man I greatly disliked, and who I
had reason to know disliked me, insisted that he could
unhitch her, and started to do so, notwithstanding
my protests and explanations. At his approach she
rose on her hind-legs, and when he grasped her bridle
she lifted him off his feet. His expression as he
hung in mid-air was an extraordinarymixture of
surprise and regret. The moment I touched her,
however, she quieted down, and when I got into the
buggy and gathered up the reins she walked off like
a lamb, leaving the man staring after her with his
eyes starting from his head.
The previous owner had called the horse Daisy,
and we never changed the name, though it always
seemed sadly inappropriate. Time proved, however,
that there were advantages in the ownership of
Daisy. No man would allow his wife or daughter
to drive behind her, and no one wanted to borrow
her. If she had been a different kind of animal she
would have been used by the whole community,
We kept Daisy for seven years, and our acquaintance
ripened into a pleasant friendship.
Another Cape Cod resident to whose memory I
must offer tribute in these pages was Polly Ann
Sears--one of the dearest and best of my parish-
ioners. She had six sons, and when five had gone
to sea she insisted that the sixth must remain at
home. In vain the boy begged her to let him follow
his brothers. She stood firm. The sea, she said,
should not swallow all her boys; she had given it
five--she must keep one.
As it happened, the son she kept at home was the
only one who was drowned. He was caught in a
fish-net and dragged under the waters of the bay
near his home; and when I went to see his mother
to offer such comfort as I could, she showed that
she had learned the big lesson of the experience.
``I tried to be a special Providence,'' she moaned,
``and the one boy I kept home was the only boy
I lost. I ain't a-goin' to be a Providence no
more.''
The number of funerals on Cape Cod was tragi-
cally large. I was in great demand on these occa-
sions, and went all over the Cape, conducting fune-
ral services--which seemed to be the one thing people
thought I could do--and preachingfuneralsermons.
Besides the victims of the sea, many of the resi-
dents who had drifted away were brought back to
sleep their last sleep within sound of the waves.
Once I asked an old sea-captain why so many Cape
Cod men and women who had been gone for years
asked to be buried near their old homes, and his reply
still lingers in my memory. He poked his toe in
the sand for a moment and then said, slowly:
``Wal, I reckon it's because the Cape has such
warm, comfortable sand to lie down in.''
My friend Mrs. Addy lay in the Crowell family
lot, and during my pastorate at East Dennis I
preached the funeralsermon of her father, and later
of her mother. Long after I had left Cape Cod I
was frequently called back to say the last words
over the coffins of my old friends, and the saddest
of those journeys was the one I made in response to
a telegram from the mother of Relief Paine. When
I had arrived and we stood together beside the ex-
quisite figure that seemed hardly more quiet in
death than in life, Mrs. Paine voiced in her few
words the feeling of the whole community--``Where
shall we get our comfort and our inspiration, now
that Relief is gone?''
The funeral which took all my courage from me,
however, was that of my sister Mary. In its sudden-
ness, Mary's death, in 1883, was as a thunderbolt
from the blue; for she had been in perfect health
three days before she passed away. I was still in
charge of my two parishes in Cape Cod, but, as it
mercifully happened, before she was stricken I had
started West to visit Mary in her home at Big
Rapids. When I arrived on the second day of her
illness, knowing nothing of it until I reached her,
I found her already past hope. Her disease was
pneumonia, but she was conscious to the end, and
her greatest desire seemed to be to see me christen
her little daughter and her husband before she left
them. This could not be realized, for my brother-
in-law was absent on business, and with all his
haste in returning did not reach his wife's side until
after her death. As his one thought then was to
carry out her last wishes, I christened him and his
little girl just before the funeral; and during the
ceremony we all experienced a deep conviction
that Mary knew and was content.
She had become a power in her community, and
was so dearly loved that on the day her body was
borne to its last resting-place all the business houses
in Big Rapids were closed, and the streets were filled
are enough ready to do that. Talk to me. Tell
me about our life and our people here, as they
strike you.'' And she added, slowly: ``You are a
queer minister. You have not offered to pray with
me!''
``I feel,'' I told her, ``more like asking you to pray
for me.''
Relief continued her analysis. ``You have not
told me that my affliction was a visitation from God,''
she added; ``that it was discipline and well for me
I had it.''
``I don't believe it was from God,'' I said. ``I
don't believe God had anything to do with it. And
I rejoice that you have not let it wreck your life.''
She pressed my hand. ``Thank you for saying
that,'' she murmured. ``If I thought God did it
I could not love Him, and if I did not love Him I
could not live. Please come and see me VERY often--
and tell me stories!''
After that I collected stories for Relief. One of
those which most amused her, I remember, was about
my horse, and this encourages me to repeat it here.
In my life in East Dennis I did not occupy the lonely
little parsonage connected with my church, but in-
stead boarded with a friend--a widow named Cro-
well. (There seemed only two names in Cape Cod:
Sears and Crowell.) To keep in touch with my two
churches, which were almost three miles apart, it
became necessary to have a horse. As Mrs. Crowell
needed one, too, we decided to buy the animal in
partnership, and Miss Crowell, the daughter of the
widow, who knew no more about horses than I did,
undertook to lend me the support of her presence
and advice during the purchase. We did not care
to have the entire community take a passionate in-
terest in the matter, as it would certainly have done
if it had heard of our intention; so my friend and I
departed somewhat stealthily for a neighboring
town, where, we had heard, a very good horse was
offered for sale. We saw the animal and liked it;
but before closing the bargain we cannily asked the
owner if the horse was perfectly sound, and if it
was gentle with women. He assured us that it was
both sound and gentle with women, and to prove the
latter point he had his wife harness it to the buggy
and drive it around the stable-yard. The animal
behaved beautifully. After it had gone through
its paces, Miss Crowell and I leaned confidingly
against its side, patting it and praising its beauty,
and the horse seemed to enjoy our attentions.
We bought it then and there, drove it home, and
put it in our barn; and the next morning we hired
a man in the neighborhood to come over and take
care of it.
He arrived. Five minutes later a frightful racket
broke out in the barn--sounds of stamping, kicking,
and plunging, mingled with loud shouts. We ran
to the scene of the trouble, and found our ``hired
man'' rushing breathlessly toward the house. When
he was able to speak he informed us that we had ``a
devil in there,'' pointing back to the barn, and that
the new horse's legs were in the air, all four of them
at once, the minute he went near her. We insisted
that he must have frightened or hurt her, but, sol-
emnly and with anxious looks behind, he protested
that he had not. Finally Miss Crowell and I went
into the barn, and received a dignifiedwelcome from
the new horse, which seemed pleased by our visit.
Together we harnessed her and, without the least
difficulty, drove her out into the yard. As soon as
our man took the reins, however, she reared, kicked,
and smashed our brand-new buggy. We changed
the man and had the buggy repaired, but by the
end of the week the animal had smashed the buggy
again. Then, with some natural resentment, we
made a second visit to the man from whom we
had bought her, and asked him why he had sold
us such a horse.
He said he had told us the exact truth. The horse
WAS sound and she WAS extremely gentle with women,
but--and this point he had seen no reason to men-
tion, as we had not asked about it--she would not
let a man come near her. He firmly refused to take
her back, and we had to make the best of the bar-
gain. As it was impossible to take care of her our-
selves, I gave some thought to the problem she pre-
sented, and finally devised a plan which worked very
well. I hired a neighbor who was a small, slight
man to take care of her, and made him wear his wife's
sunbonnet and waterproof cloak whenever he ap-
proached the horse. The picture he presented in
these garments still stands out pleasantly against the
background of my Cape Cod memories. The horse,
however, did not share our appreciation of it. She
was suspicious, and for a time she shied whenever
the man and his sunbonnet and cloak appeared;
but we stood by until she grew accustomed to them
and him; and as he was both patient and gentle,
she finally allowed him to harness and unharness
her. But no man could drive her, and when I
drove to church I was forced to hitch and un-
hitch her myself. No one else could do it, though
many a gallant and subsequently resentful man at-
tempted the feat.
On one occasion a man I greatly disliked, and who I
had reason to know disliked me, insisted that he could
unhitch her, and started to do so, notwithstanding
my protests and explanations. At his approach she
rose on her hind-legs, and when he grasped her bridle
she lifted him off his feet. His expression as he
hung in mid-air was an extraordinarymixture of
surprise and regret. The moment I touched her,
however, she quieted down, and when I got into the
buggy and gathered up the reins she walked off like
a lamb, leaving the man staring after her with his
eyes starting from his head.
The previous owner had called the horse Daisy,
and we never changed the name, though it always
seemed sadly inappropriate. Time proved, however,
that there were advantages in the ownership of
Daisy. No man would allow his wife or daughter
to drive behind her, and no one wanted to borrow
her. If she had been a different kind of animal she
would have been used by the whole community,
We kept Daisy for seven years, and our acquaintance
ripened into a pleasant friendship.
Another Cape Cod resident to whose memory I
must offer tribute in these pages was Polly Ann
Sears--one of the dearest and best of my parish-
ioners. She had six sons, and when five had gone
to sea she insisted that the sixth must remain at
home. In vain the boy begged her to let him follow
his brothers. She stood firm. The sea, she said,
should not swallow all her boys; she had given it
five--she must keep one.
As it happened, the son she kept at home was the
only one who was drowned. He was caught in a
fish-net and dragged under the waters of the bay
near his home; and when I went to see his mother
to offer such comfort as I could, she showed that
she had learned the big lesson of the experience.
``I tried to be a special Providence,'' she moaned,
``and the one boy I kept home was the only boy
I lost. I ain't a-goin' to be a Providence no
more.''
The number of funerals on Cape Cod was tragi-
cally large. I was in great demand on these occa-
sions, and went all over the Cape, conducting fune-
ral services--which seemed to be the one thing people
thought I could do--and preachingfuneralsermons.
Besides the victims of the sea, many of the resi-
dents who had drifted away were brought back to
sleep their last sleep within sound of the waves.
Once I asked an old sea-captain why so many Cape
Cod men and women who had been gone for years
asked to be buried near their old homes, and his reply
still lingers in my memory. He poked his toe in
the sand for a moment and then said, slowly:
``Wal, I reckon it's because the Cape has such
warm, comfortable sand to lie down in.''
My friend Mrs. Addy lay in the Crowell family
lot, and during my pastorate at East Dennis I
preached the funeralsermon of her father, and later
of her mother. Long after I had left Cape Cod I
was frequently called back to say the last words
over the coffins of my old friends, and the saddest
of those journeys was the one I made in response to
a telegram from the mother of Relief Paine. When
I had arrived and we stood together beside the ex-
quisite figure that seemed hardly more quiet in
death than in life, Mrs. Paine voiced in her few
words the feeling of the whole community--``Where
shall we get our comfort and our inspiration, now
that Relief is gone?''
The funeral which took all my courage from me,
however, was that of my sister Mary. In its sudden-
ness, Mary's death, in 1883, was as a thunderbolt
from the blue; for she had been in perfect health
three days before she passed away. I was still in
charge of my two parishes in Cape Cod, but, as it
mercifully happened, before she was stricken I had
started West to visit Mary in her home at Big
Rapids. When I arrived on the second day of her
illness, knowing nothing of it until I reached her,
I found her already past hope. Her disease was
pneumonia, but she was conscious to the end, and
her greatest desire seemed to be to see me christen
her little daughter and her husband before she left
them. This could not be realized, for my brother-
in-law was absent on business, and with all his
haste in returning did not reach his wife's side until
after her death. As his one thought then was to
carry out her last wishes, I christened him and his
little girl just before the funeral; and during the
ceremony we all experienced a deep conviction
that Mary knew and was content.
She had become a power in her community, and
was so dearly loved that on the day her body was
borne to its last resting-place all the business houses
in Big Rapids were closed, and the streets were filled
- minister [´ministə]
n.部长；大臣 v.伺候 (初中英语单词) - analysis [ə´næləsis] n.分解；分析(结果) (初中英语单词)
- discipline [´disiplin] n.纪律；训练 (初中英语单词)
- rejoice [ri´dʒɔis] v.(使)高兴；欢庆 (初中英语单词)
- relief [ri´li:f] n.救济；援救；减轻 (初中英语单词)
- intention [in´tenʃən] n.意图；打算；意义 (初中英语单词)
- bargain [´bɑ:gin] n.买卖合同 v.议(价) (初中英语单词)
- harness [´hɑ:nis] vt.上马具 n.马具 (初中英语单词)
- neighborhood [´neibəhud] n.邻居；邻近；附近 (初中英语单词)
- anxious [´æŋkʃəs] a.担忧的；渴望的 (初中英语单词)
- welcome [´welkəm] a.受欢迎的；可喜的 (初中英语单词)
- extremely [ik´stri:mli] ad.极端地；非常地 (初中英语单词)
- firmly [´fə:mli] ad.坚固地，稳定地 (初中英语单词)
- whenever [wen´evə] conj.&ad.无论何时 (初中英语单词)
- gallant [´gælənt, gə´lænt] a.英勇的；华丽的 (初中英语单词)
- extraordinary [ik´strɔ:dinəri] a.非常的；额外的 (初中英语单词)
- mixture [´mikstʃə] n.混合；混合比；混合物 (初中英语单词)
- previous [´pri:viəs] a.先，前，以前的 (初中英语单词)
- tribute [´tribju:t] n.贡物；献礼；颂词 (初中英语单词)
- swallow [swɔləu] n.燕子 v.吞，咽；淹没 (初中英语单词)
- funeral [´fju:nərəl] n.葬礼，丧葬；困难 (初中英语单词)
- reckon [´rekən] v.计算；认为；估计 (初中英语单词)
- telegram [´teligræm] n.电报 (初中英语单词)
- knowing [´nəuiŋ] a.会意的，心照不宣的 (初中英语单词)
- conscious [´kɔnʃəs] a.意识的；自觉的 (初中英语单词)
- absent [´æbsənt, əb´sent] a.不在的 vt.使缺席 (初中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- community [kə´mju:niti] n.团体；社区；公众 (高中英语单词)
- passionate [´pæʃənit] a.易动情的；易怒的 (高中英语单词)
- perfectly [´pə:fiktli] ad.理想地；完美地 (高中英语单词)
- frightful [´fraitfəl] a.可怕的；不愉快的 (高中英语单词)
- dignified [´dignifaid] a.尊贵的 (高中英语单词)
- resentment [ri´zentmənt] n.不满；怨恨；忿恨 (高中英语单词)
- pleasantly [´plezntli] ad.令人愉快地；舒适地 (高中英语单词)
- appreciation [ə,pri:ʃi´eiʃən] n.评价；感激 (高中英语单词)
- suspicious [sə´spiʃəs] a.可疑的，多疑的 (高中英语单词)
- subsequently [´sʌbsikwəntli] a.其次，接着 (高中英语单词)
- resident [´rezidənt] a.居住的 n.居民 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- sermon [´sə:mən] n.说教；训诫；讲道 (高中英语单词)
- response [ri´spɔns] n.回答；响应 (高中英语单词)
- inspiration [,inspi´reiʃən] n.鼓舞；灵感；启发 (高中英语单词)
- stricken [´strikən] strike的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
- beautifully [´bju:tifəli] ad.美丽地；优美地 (英语四级单词)
- breathlessly [´breθlisli] ad.气喘吁吁地 (英语四级单词)
- ownership [´əunəʃip] n.所有权；所有制 (英语四级单词)
- providence [´prɔvidəns] n.天意，天命，上帝 (英语四级单词)
- experienced [ik´spiəriənst] a.有经验的；熟练的 (英语四级单词)
- dearly [´diəli] ad.深深地(爱等)；昂贵 (英语四级单词)
- affliction [ə´flikʃən] n.痛苦，苦恼；折磨 (英语六级单词)
- visitation [,vizi´teiʃən] n.访问；视察；检查 (英语六级单词)
- stealthily [´stelθili] ad.偷偷地，隐秘地 (英语六级单词)
- assured [ə´ʃuəd] a.确实的 n.被保险人 (英语六级单词)
- waterproof [´wɔ:təpru:f] a.防水的 n.防水物 (英语六级单词)
- preaching [´pri:tʃiŋ] n.说教 a.说教的 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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