She is too useful there, and the family is so poor."
"Tell them that both your wages, for the first year, shall go to
them. It'll be my business to rake and
scrape the money together
somehow. Say, too, that the
housekeeper's place can't be kept for
her--must be filled at once. Push matters like a man, if you mean
to be a complete one, and bring her here, if she carries no more
with her than the clothes on her back!"
During the following days Jacob had time to familiarize his mind
with this
startling proposal. He knew his father's
stubborn will
too well to suppose that it could be changed; but the inevitable
soon converted itself into the possible and
desirable. The sweet
face of Susan as she had stood before him in the wheat-field was
continually present to his eyes, and ere long, he began to place
her, in his thoughts, in the old rooms at home, in the garden,
among the thickets by the brook, and in Ann Pardon's pleasant
parlor. Enough; his father's plan became his own long before the
time was out.
On his second journey everybody seemed to be an old ac
quaintance
and an
intimate friend. It was evening as he approached the
Meadows farm, but the younger children recognized him in the dusk,
and their cry of, "Oh, here's Jacob!" brought out the farmer and
his wife and Susan, with the heartiest of welcomes. They had all
missed him, they said--even the horses and oxen had looked for him,
and they were wondering how they should get the oats harvested
without him.
Jacob looked at Susan as the farmer said this, and her eyes seemed
to answer, "I said nothing, but I knew you would come." Then,
first, he felt sufficient courage for the task before him.
He rose the next morning, before any one was
stirring, and waited
until she should come down stairs. The sun had not risen when she
appeared, with a milk-pail in each hand, walking unsuspectingly to
the cow-yard. He waylaid her, took the pails in his hand and said
in
nervous haste, "Susan, will you be my wife?"
She stopped as if she had received a sudden blow; then a shy, sweet
consent seemed to run through her heart. "O Jacob!" was all she
could say.
"But you will, Susan?" he urged; and then (neither of them exactly
knew how it happened) all at once his arms were around her, and
they had kissed each other.
"Susan," he said,
presently, "I am a poor man--only a farm hand,
and must work for my living. You could look for a better husband."
"I could never find a better than you, Jacob."
"Would you work with me, too, at the same place?"
"You know I am not afraid of work," she answered, "and I could
never want any other lot than yours."
Then he told her the story which his father had prompted. Her face
grew bright and happy as she listened, and he saw how from her very
heart she accepted the
humble fortune. Only the thought of her
parents threw a cloud over the new and
astonishingvision. Jacob,
however, grew bolder as he saw
fulfilment of his hope so near.
They took the pails and seated themselves beside neighbor cows, one
raising objections or misgivings which the other manfully
combated. Jacob's
earnestnessunconsciously ran into his hands, as
he discovered when the
impatient cow began to snort and kick.
The harvesting of the oats was not commenced that morning. The
children were sent away, and there was a council of four persons
held in the
parlor. The result of
mutual protestations and much
weeping was, that the farmer and his wife agreed to receive Jacob
as a son-in-law; the offer of the wages was four times refused by
them, and then accepted; and the chance of their being able to live
and labor together was finally
decided to be too
fortunate to let
slip. When the shock and surprise was over all gradually became
cheerful, and, as the matter was more
calmly discussed, the first
conjectured difficulties somehow
resolved themselves into trifles.
It was the simplest and quietest wedding,--at home, on an August
morning. Farmer Meadows then drove the
bridal pair
half-way on
their journey, to the old country
tavern, where a fresh conveyance
had been engaged for them. The same evening they reached the farm-
house in the
valley, and Jacob's happy mood gave place to an
anxious
uncertainty as he remembered the period of
deception upon
which Susan was entering. He
keenly watched his father's face when
they arrived, and was a little relieved when he saw that his wife
had made a good first impression.
"So, this is my new
housekeeper," said the old man. "I hope you
will suit me as well as your husband does."
"I'll do my best, sir," said she; "but you must have patience
with me for a few days, until I know your ways and wishes."
"Mr. Flint," said Sally, "shall I get supper ready?"
Susan looked up in
astonishment at
hearing the name.
"Yes," the old man remarked, "we both have the same name. The fact
is, Jacob and I are a sort of relations."
Jacob, in spite of his new happiness, continued ill at ease,
although he could not help
seeing how his father brightened under
Susan's
genial influence, how satisfied he was with her quick,
neat, exact ways and the
cheerfulness with which she fulfilled her
duties. At the end of a week, the old man counted out the wages
agreed upon for both, and his delight culminated at the frank
simplicity with which Susan took what she
supposed she had fairly
earned.
"Jacob," he whispered when she had left the room, "keep quiet one
more week, and then I'll let her know."
He had scarcely
spoken, when Susan burst into the room again,
crying, "Jacob, they are coming, they have come!"
"Who?"
"Father and mother; and we didn't expect them, you know, for a week
yet."
All three went to the door as the visitors made their appearance on
the
veranda. Two of the party stood as if
thunderstruck, and two
exclamations came together:
"Samuel Flint!"
"Lucy Wheeler!"
There was a moment's silence; then the farmer's wife, with a
visible effort to
compose herself, said, "Lucy Meadows, now."
The tears came into Samuel Flint's eyes. "Let us shake hands,
Lucy," he said: "my son has married your daughter."
All but Jacob were
freshly startled at these words. The two shook
hands, and then Samuel, turning to Susan's father, said: "And this
is your husband, Lucy. I am glad to make his ac
quaintance."
"Your father, Jacob!" Susan cried; "what does it all mean?"
Jacob's face grew red, and the old habit of
hanging his head nearly
came back upon him. He knew not what to say, and looked wistfully
at his father.
"Come into the house and sit down," said the latter. "I think we
shall all feel better when we have quietly and
comfortably talked
the matter over."
They went into the
quaint,
old-fashionedparlor, which had already
been transformed by Susan's care, so that much of its shabbiness
was
hidden. When all were seated, and Samuel Flint perceived that
none of the others knew what to say, he took a
resolution which,
for a man of his mood and habit of life, required some courage.
"Three of us here are old people," he began, "and the two young
ones love each other. It was so long ago, Lucy, that it cannot be
laid to my blame if I speak of it now. Your husband, I see, has an
honest heart, and will not
misunderstand either of us. The same
thing often turns up in life; it is one of those secrets that
everybody knows, and that everybody talks about except the persons
concerned. When I was a young man, Lucy, I loved you truly, and I
faithfully meant to make you my wife."
"I thought so too, for a while," said she, very
calmly.
Farmer Meadows looked at his wife, and no face was ever more
beautiful than his, with that expression of
generous pity shining
through it.
"You know how I acted," Samuel Flint continued, "but our children
must also know that I broke off from you without giving any reason.
A woman came between us and made all the
mischief. I was
considered rich then, and she wanted to secure my money for her
daughter. I was an
innocent and unsuspecting young man, who
believed that everybody else was as good as myself; and the woman
never rested until she had turned me from my first love, and
fastened me for life to another. Little by little I discovered the
truth; I kept the knowledge of the
injury to myself; I quickly got
rid of the money which had so cursed me, and brought my wife to
this, the loneliest and dreariest place in the
neighborhood, where
I forced upon her a life of
poverty. I thought it was a just
revenge, but I was
unjust. She really loved me: she was, if not
quite without blame in the matter,
ignorant of the worst that had
been done (I
learned all that too late), and she never complained,
though the change in me slowly wore out her life. I know now that
I was cruel; but at the same time I punished myself, and was
innocently punishing my son. But to HIM there was one way to
make
amends. `I will help him to a wife,' I said, `who will
gladly take
poverty with him and for his sake.' I forced him,
against his will, to say that he was a hired hand on this place,
and that Susan must be content to be a hired
housekeeper. Now that
I know Susan, I see that this proof might have been left out; but
I guess it has done no harm. The place is not so heavily mortgaged
as people think, and it will be Jacob's after I am gone. And now
forgive me, all of you,--Lucy first, for she has most cause; Jacob
next; and Susan,--that will be easier; and you, Friend Meadows, if
what I have said has been hard for you to hear."
The farmer stood up like a man, took Samuel's hand and his wife's,
and said, in a broken voice: "Lucy, I ask you, too, to forgive
him, and I ask you both to be good friends to each other."
Susan, dissolved in tears, kissed all of them in turn; but the
happiest heart there was Jacob's.
It was now easy for him to
confide to his wife the complete story
of his troubles, and to find his growing self-reliance strengthened
by her quick,
intelligentsympathy. The Pardons were better
friends than ever, and the fact, which at first created great
astonishment in the
neighborhood, that Jacob Flint had really gone
upon a journey and brought home a handsome wife, began to change
the attitude of the people towards him. The old place was no
longer so
lonely; the nearest neighbors began to drop in and insist
on return visits. Now that Jacob kept his head up, and they got a
fair view of his face, they discovered that he was not
lacking, after all, in sense or social qualities.
In October, the Whitney place, which had been leased for several
years, was advertised to be sold at public sale. The owner had
gone to the city and become a successful merchant, had outlived his
local attachments, and now took
advantage of a rise in real estate
to disburden himself of a property which he could not profitably
control.
Everybody from far and wide attended the sale, and, when Jacob
Flint and his father arrived, everybody said to the former: "Of
course you've come to buy, Jacob." But each man laughed at his own
smartness, and considered the remark original with himself.
Jacob was no longer annoyed. He laughed, too, and answered: "I'm
afraid I can't do that; but I've kept half my word, which is more
than most men do."
"Jake's no fool, after all," was whispered behind him.
The bidding commenced, at first very spirited, and then gradually
slacking off, as the price mounted above the means of the
neighboring farmers. The chief aspirant was a stranger, a well-
dressed man with a lawyer's air, whom nobody knew. After the usual
long pauses and
passionate exhortations, the
hammer fell, and the
auctioneer, turning to the stranger, asked, "What name?"
"Jacob Flint!"
There was a general cry of surprise. All looked at Jacob, whose
eyes and mouth showed that he was as dumbfoundered as the rest.
The stranger walked
coolly through the midst of the crowd to
Samuel Flint, and said, "When shall I have the papers drawn up?"