XX
A CHANGE OF HEART
"That niece of yours is the most remarkable girl I have seen in years,"said Mr. Burch when the door closed.
"She seems to be turnin' out smart enough lately, but she's consid'ableheedless," answered Miranda, "an' most too lively."
"We must remember that it is deficient, not excessive vitality, thatmakes the greatest trouble in this world," returned Mr. Burch.
"She'd make a wonderful missionary," said Mrs. Burch; "with her voice,and her magnetism, and her gift of language."
"If I was to say which of the two she was best adapted for, I'd sayshe'd make a better heathen," remarked Miranda curtly.
"My sister don't believe in flattering children," hastily interpolatedJane, glancing toward Mrs. Burch, who seemed somewhat shocked, and wasabout to open her lips to ask if Rebecca was not a "professor."
Mrs. Cobb had been looking for this question all the evening anddreading some allusion to her favorite as gifted in prayer. She hadtaken an instantaneous and illogical dislike to the Rev. Mr. Burch inthe afternoon because he called upon Rebecca to "lead." She had seenthe pallor creep into the girl's face, the hunted look in her eyes, andthe trembling of the lashes on her cheeks, and realized the ordealthrough which she was passing. Her prejudice against the minister hadrelaxed under his genial talk and presence, but feeling that Mrs. Burchwas about to tread on dangerous ground, she hastily asked her if onehad to change cars many times going from Riverboro to Syria. She feltthat it was not a particularly appropriate question, but it served herturn.
Deacon Milliken, meantime, said to Miss Sawyer, "Mirandy, do you knowwho Rebecky reminds me of?"
"I can guess pretty well," she replied.
"Then you've noticed it too! I thought at first, seein' she favored herfather so on the outside, that she was the same all through; but sheain't, she's like your father, Israel Sawyer."
"I don't see how you make that out," said Miranda, thoroughlyastonished.
"It struck me this afternoon when she got up to give your invitation inmeetin'. It was kind o' cur'ous, but she set in the same seat he usedto when he was leader o' the Sabbath-school. You know his old way ofholdin' his chin up and throwin' his head back a leetle when he got upto say anything? Well, she done the very same thing; there was more'none spoke of it."
The callers left before nine, and at that hour (an impossiblydissipated one for the brick house) the family retired for the night.As Rebecca carried Mrs. Burch's candle upstairs and found herself thusalone with her for a minute, she said shyly, "Will you please tell Mr.Burch that I'm not a member of the church? I didn't know what to dowhen he asked me to pray this afternoon. I hadn't the courage to say Ihad never done it out loud and didn't know how. I couldn't think; and Iwas so frightened I wanted to sink into the floor. It seemed bold andwicked for me to pray before all those old church members and makebelieve I was better than I really was; but then again, wouldn't Godthink I was wicked not to be willing to pray when a minister asked meto?"
The candle light fell on Rebecca's flushed, sensitive face. Mrs. Burchbent and kissed her good-night. "Don't be troubled," she said. "I'lltell Mr. Burch, and I guess God will understand."
Rebecca waked before six the next morning, so full of household caresthat sleep was impossible. She went to the window and looked out; itwas still dark, and a blustering, boisterous day.
"Aunt Jane told me she should get up at half past six and havebreakfast at half past seven," she thought; "but I daresay they areboth sick with their colds, and aunt Miranda will be fidgety with somany in the house. I believe I'll creep down and start things for asurprise."
She put on a wadded wrapper and slippers and stole quietly down thetabooed front stairs, carefully closed the kitchen door behind her sothat no noise should waken the rest of the household, busied herselffor a half hour with the early morning routine she knew so well, andthen went back to her room to dress before calling the children.
Contrary to expectation, Miss Jane, who the evening before felt betterthan Miranda, grew worse in the night, and was wholly unable to leaveher bed in the morning. Miranda grumbled without ceasing during theprogress of her hasty toilet, blaming everybody in the universe for theafflictions she had borne and was to bear during the day; she evencastigated the Missionary Board that had sent the Burches to Syria, andgave it as her unbiased opinion that those who went to foreign landsfor the purpose of saving heathen should stay there and save 'em, andnot go gallivantin' all over the earth with a passel o' children,visitin' folks that didn't want 'em and never asked 'em.
Jane lay anxiously and restlessly in bed with a feverish headache,wondering how her sister could manage without her.
Miranda walked stiffly through the dining-room, tying a shawl over herhead to keep the draughts away, intending to start the breakfast fireand then call Rebecca down, set her to work, and tell her, meanwhile, afew plain facts concerning the proper way of representing the family ata missionary meeting.
She opened the kitchen door and stared vaguely about her, wonderingwhether she had strayed into the wrong house by mistake.
The shades were up, and there was a roaring fire in the stove; theteakettle was singing and bubbling as it sent out a cloud of steam, andpushed over its capacious nose was a half sheet of note paper with"Compliments of Rebecca" scrawled on it. The coffee pot was scalding,the coffee was measured out in a bowl, and broken eggshells for thesettling process were standing near. The cold potatoes and corned beefwere in the wooden tray, and "Regards of Rebecca" stuck on the choppingknife. The brown loaf was out, the white loaf was out, the toast rackwas out, the doughnuts were out, the milk was skimmed, the butter hadbeen brought from the dairy.
Miranda removed the shawl from her head and sank into the kitchenrocker, ejaculating under her breath, "She is the beatin'est child! Ideclare she's all Sawyer!"
The day and the evening passed off with credit and honor to everybodyconcerned, even to Jane, who had the discretion to recover instead ofgrowing worse and acting as a damper to the general enjoyment. TheBurches left with lively regrets, and the little missionaries, bathedin tears, swore eternal friendship with Rebecca, who pressed into theirhands at parting a poem composed before breakfast.
TO MARY AND MARTHA BURCH
Born under Syrian skies, 'Neath hotter suns than ours; The children grew and bloomed, Like little tropic flowers.
When they first saw the light, 'T was in a heathen land. Not Greenland's icy mountains, Nor India's coral strand,
But some mysterious country Where men are nearly black And where of true religion, There is a painful lack.
Then let us haste in helping The Missionary Board, Seek dark-skinned unbelievers, And teach them of their Lord. Rebecca Rowena Randall.
It can readily be seen that this visit of the returned missionaries toRiverboro was not without somewhat far-reaching results. Mr. and Mrs.Burch themselves looked back upon it as one of the rarest pleasures oftheir half year at home. The neighborhood extracted considerable eagerconversation from it; argument, rebuttal, suspicion, certainty,retrospect, and prophecy. Deacon Milliken gave ten dollars towards theconversion of Syria to Congregationalism, and Mrs. Milliken had a spellof sickness over her husband's rash generosity.
It would be pleasant to state that Miranda Sawyer was an entirelychanged woman afterwards, but that is not the fact. The tree that hasbeen getting a twist for twenty years cannot be straightened in thetwinkling of an eye. It is certain, however, that although thedifference to the outward eye was very small, it nevertheless existed,and she was less censorious in her treatment of Rebecca, less harsh inher judgments, more hopeful of final salvation for her. This had comeabout largely from her sudden vision that Rebecca, after all, inheritedsomething from the Sawyer side of the house instead of belonging, mind,body, and soul, to the despised Randall stock. Everything that wasinteresting in Rebecca, and every evidence of power, capability, ortalent afterwards di
splayed by her, Miranda ascribed to the brick housetraining, and this gave her a feeling of honest pride, the pride of amaster workman who has built success out of the most unpromisingmaterial; but never, to the very end, even when the waning of herbodily strength relaxed her iron grip and weakened her power ofrepression, never once did she show that pride or make a singledemonstration of affection.
Poor misplaced, belittled Lorenzo de Medici Randall, thought ridiculousand good-for-naught by his associates, because he resembled them innothing! If Riverboro could have been suddenly emptied into a largercommunity, with different and more flexible opinions, he was, perhaps,the only personage in the entire population who would have attractedthe smallest attention. It was fortunate for his daughter that she hadbeen dowered with a little practical ability from her mother's family,but if Lorenzo had never done anything else in the world, he might haveglorified himself that he had prevented Rebecca from being all Sawyer.Failure as he was, complete and entire, he had generously handed downto her all that was best in himself, and prudently retained all thatwas unworthy. Few fathers are capable of such delicate discrimination.
The brick house did not speedily become a sort of wayside inn, a placeof innocent revelry and joyous welcome; but the missionary company wasan entering wedge, and Miranda allowed one spare bed to be made up "incase anything should happen," while the crystal glasses were kept onthe second from the top, instead of the top shelf, in the china closet.Rebecca had had to stand on a chair to reach them; now she could do itby stretching; and this is symbolic of the way in which sheunconsciously scaled the walls of Miss Miranda's dogmatism andprejudice.
Miranda went so far as to say that she wouldn't mind if the Burchescame every once in a while, but she was afraid he'd spread abroad thefact of his visit, and missionaries' families would be underfoot thewhole continual time. As a case in point, she gracefully cited the factthat if a tramp got a good meal at anybody's back door, 't was saidthat he'd leave some kind of a sign so that all other tramps would knowwhere they were likely to receive the same treatment.
It is to be feared that there is some truth in this homelyillustration, and Miss Miranda's dread as to her futureresponsibilities had some foundation, though not of the precise sortshe had in mind. The soul grows into lovely habits as easily as intougly ones, and the moment a life begins to blossom into beautiful wordsand deeds, that moment a new standard of conduct is established, andyour eager neighbors look to you for a continuous manifestation of thegood cheer, the sympathy, the ready wit, the comradeship, or theinspiration, you once showed yourself capable of. Bear figs for aseason or two, and the world outside the orchard is very unwilling youshould bear thistles.
The effect of the Burches' visit on Rebecca is not easily described.Nevertheless, as she looked back upon it from the vantage ground ofafter years, she felt that the moment when Mr. Burch asked her to "leadin prayer" marked an epoch in her life.
If you have ever observed how courteous and gracious and mannerly youfeel when you don a beautiful new frock; if you have ever noticed thefeeling of reverence stealing over you when you close your eyes, claspyour hands, and bow your head; if you have ever watched your sense ofrepulsion toward a fellow creature melt a little under the exercise ofdaily politeness, you may understand how the adoption of the outwardand visible sign has some strange influence in developing the inwardand spiritual state of which it is the expression.
It is only when one has grown old and dull that the soul is heavy andrefuses to rise. The young soul is ever winged; a breath stirs it to anupward flight. Rebecca was asked to bear witness to a state of mind orfeeling of whose existence she had only the vaguest consciousness. Sheobeyed, and as she uttered words they became true in the uttering; asshe voiced aspirations they settled into realities.
As "dove that to its window flies," her spirit soared towards a greatlight, dimly discovered at first, but brighter as she came closer toit. To become sensible of oneness with the Divine heart before anysense of separation has been felt, this is surely the most beautifulway for the child to find God.
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm Page 20