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BEQUEST OF
CORNELIA GRAY LUNT
THE HERESY OP
MEHETABEL CLARK
AMIE S LOS SON
NFi/7 YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS
THE HERESY OF MEHETABEL
CLARK
J had come to the mountains
very early that year. It was
only the first of June now,
and we had been nearly three
weeks among the northern
hills. When we came old Lafayette wore
a huge cap of dazzling white, and there
was some snow upon the other mountains,
and in hollows and shaded spots in the
forests. But even then, in the earliest
days of May, there were many signs of
the coming spring—that spring of north-
ern New England, whose slow, lingering,
shy advance is so very beautiful.
a
The trees—except the evergreens —
were leafless; but the hill-side forests
wore that tender haze, or misty bloom,
too faint and delicate to call color, but
suggesting palest mauves and olives and
grays, and here and there among them
the swamp-maple showed its red buds.
Already the straw-yellow flowers of the
adder's-tongue drooped above their odd,
spotted leaves, and the wood anemone
showed its frail white blossoms. The vi-
olets were out, too, the tiny, sweet white
ones along the brook-sides, the round-
leaved yellow ones in rocky places along
the road, and selkirks with blue, long-
spurred flowers peeping out where some
little cold rill trickled slowly down from
the mountain—a promise of the real
spring; a mere whisper of a promise, but
one sure to be fulfilled.
And now it was June, the very first of
that lovely month, a warm, soft, sunny
day, and we were spending it out-doors.
i
We were boarding in tne village that sea-
son (in Franconia, I mean) at Deacon
Whipple's—Deacon Seth, as he was al-
ways called, to distinguish him from Dea-
con Ephraim Whipple of the same town.
He was not a native of Franconia, but
was born in Sugar Hill, some three miles
away, in the town of Lisbon, and to-day
he was taking us out in his roomy, com-
fortable wagon to show us his native
place.
Down the village street we went, past
post-office and store and across the bridge
over Gale River. Then we wound slowly
uphill. The apple-trees were just com-
ing into full bloom, the bird-cherries were
losing their flowers, but the choke-cher-
ries were white with spikes of feathery
blossoms filling the air with their bitter-
sweet scent. On we went, past meadows
where the golden dandelions lay thick
among the fresh young grass, pastures
where the eyebrights clustered so closely
4
that they looked at a distance like drifted
snow; past brooks where the clear white
water shone in the sunlight, and the blue
and white violets peeped out along the
banks. Maple, willow, elm, birch, beech
and alder were all in full leaf now, and
we drove along in a golden-green light,
as the sunshine came down through the
leaves. We were in no haste that day,
and again and again we stopped to gath-
er wild-flowers, ferns, or mosses, to chase
a curious insect, or again to drop a line
into a tempting hole under the shadow
of a rock in Oakes's Brook. With tiarella,
straw-lilies, gold-thread, trillium, cassan-
dra, labrador tea, our hands and laps
were soon full; and at our feet lay a big
bunch of the rhodora, its leafless branch-
es covered with lovely flowers of purple-
pink.
Deacon Seth was a pleasant compan-
ion, and had a story for every spot on the
way. He told us of the queer city-folks
s
who sometimes came to the hotels which
we were passing, and of the old days be-
fore those hotels existed. He pointed
out the Salmon-hole Road, turning off at
our right beyond Goodnow's, and related
a thrilling incident of a drive down there
on a night of storm and darkness. Then,
as we came to the little school-house, he
told a pathetic tale of a little daughter,
Marietty, dead long years ago, but whose
memory was as fresh and green in the old
man's heart as the springing grass and
budding leaves on this fair June day. Off
there was the old gold-mine, which once
raised such hopes and sunk so many dol-
lars, and farther away, lying part in Lis-
bon and part in East Landaff, Ore Mount-
ain, with its treasures of iron still hidden
underground.
And so, through light and perfume and
color and sound, sunshine and flower-
scent, the green of leaf and bright tint of
blossom, the song of birds and murmur
6
of brooks, we came in sight of Sugar Hill
Street. Such a tiny side-hill village it
was, with its little church, post-office,
store, and the few dwellings all on one
road-like, downhill street. It was so quiet
on that June day. As we drove along we
saw no one, heard no sound of human
life, except the laugh of one little rosy
child, playing on the grass among the
dandelions. A peaceful, restful little
hamlet, it looked as if no sin or shame
or strife could ever enter it, and one of
us said so, as we looked from the green
knoll on which the church stands, over
the little village. Deacon Seth sighed
heavily, was silent a moment, then turned
and said, " Yes, it does look that way.
I've often heard folks say that—boarders
that I've fetched up here. I don't often
say anything back, for I can't bear gen'r-
ally to talk about it. But I don't seem
to mind tellin' you, you're so much like
our own folks, bein' here every year, and
7
so on." He waited a minute or two, and
we asked no question. Then he said,
abruptly but solemnly, " For all it looks
so peaceable and pious and soothin', yet
right here, in this Christian community,
under the shadow of this sanctuary, 's
you might say, somethin' happened that
went to show how Satan can find his way
even into the godliest spot."
He lowered his voice, and, speaking
almost in an awe-struck whisper, he said,
" We had once, and for a long spell too,
in our very midst and 'mongst, a here-
tic!" Pointing with his whip down the
road, he added, " 'Twas in that old red
house. You see, it's a shop now—Ed
Wilbur's joiner's shop; but it's standin'
there still, a pillar and moniment, re-
mindin' us allers, allers of that dreadful
disgrace and sorrow."
And then he told us the story, told it
as we drove slowly along, hour after hour
of that summer day, over into the Landaff
8
valley, on and on towards Bungay, and
homeward to Franconia in the early even-
ing. I shall try to tell it to you in his
own words, with no comments of my
own.
Deacon Seth had been brought up in
that old New England school which so
many of us remember, and which we re-
call with a certain tenderness after all,
whatever now may be our varying creeds.
It was a school of rigid, iron-bound for-
mulas, which set forth what they who
used them thought they ought to believe,
rather than what they, in their good old
hearts, really did believe. To them re-
ligion was not only dogmatic, but con-
sisted wholly of dogmas; and belief in
those dogmas was what they understood
as saving faith. And he remained true
to that ancient faith, which he was proud
to call orthodoxy. Nor would he tone
down or soften any of its asperities, make
more gentle one of its stern expressions.
9
This was the deacon as a theologian. In
daily life Deacon Seth Whipple was a
genial, kindly, mellow soul, loving Nature
in all her varied forms, and with a warm,
soft heart for little children, and all weak,
helpless things.
That he did not seem, while telling his
story, to grasp the deeper meaning we
found therein, and which I hope you, too,
will see, was not owing to any lack of
intellectual power. But he had been
trained from his birth to see and walk in
one narrow, strictly-bounded path, and he
shut his eyes to any other as dangerous.
I think, and you may also think, that he
saw many of the truths that the story told
us, otherwise his words could not have
made us see them so plainly. But train-
ing, tradition, heredity, all forbade his
acknowledging, even to himself, how
much he saw.
"Her name— There, I knew you'd
jump at that. Yes, 'twas a woman! I
lO
don't know why it seems so much worse
for one of them to be an unbeliever, but
it does, don't it, now? Both was made
alike in the image of God, the Bible says;
but somehow it's so everlastin' unnat'ral
and queer for women folks not to believe
things. Her name — as I begun to say
afore—was Mehetabel Clark. She was
daughter to Jephunneh Clark, one of the
godliest men I ever see. Her mother,
she come, too, of good, pious stock ; she
was a Quimby from Bethl'hem; and Me-
hetabel was raised in the most orthodox,
straight up and down way. And she took
to it from her birth, 'most. You couldn't
hardly tell when savin' grace entered into
her heart, for she was allers a pious, God-
fearin' child, though she didn't become a
perfessor till near twelve. When she was
scurse thirteen I've heard her lead in
prayer, and she knew her Bible by heart.
And hymns!—why, she'd reel 'em off by
the yard. She liked the best ones, too.
IX
the sound, good old-fashioned sort, that
told what would happen to the unrepent-
in' sinner, and dwelt in poetry on the
doctrines and decrees and judgments.
They didn't have the wishy-washy stuff
young folks sing to-day, and if they had
had it, Mehetabel wouldn't have took to
it, I know.
" She was well versed in the catechism,
too—the Westminster Shorter. She knew
all about foreordination and election and
covenanted mercies before she could talk
plain, and justification, adoption, and sane-
tification was as easy as A, B, C to Mehet-
abel allers. And she growed up into a
girl, the same kind of solemn, sober-mind-
ed, religious young woman. Some folks
thought she was too solemn for a young
thing. She never went to parties or pic-
nics or sleigh-rides, or any of them frolics
among the young folks. She scursely ever
laughed; for you see she realized what a
solemn thing life is, and that time is dread-
12
ful short at the best, and even three-score
and ten comesmighty quick,after all. And
as for me, I think it's a nice thing to see
youth feelin' that way. They don't much
nowadays; they're careless and light-
minded mostly, partic'lar the summer
boarders. She wa'n't a very happy person,
to be sure; but then we ain't meant to be
happy in this world; that wasn't what we
was made for. And it's a bad sign, I allers
say, to see any one feelin' too comforta-
ble and satisfied. And though she seem-
ed so religious and pious-minded to other
folks, she was forever mournin' over her
sins and fearin' she wasn't goin' to be
saved at the last. Sometimes she'd have
it that she'd committed the unpardona-
ble sin, and again, for a spell, that she
wasn't elected, and there wasn't any use
keepin' on tryin'. And then come up that
kind of nat'ral fear that she couldn't be
perfectly resigned and comfortable if she
knew she was condemned to eternal pun-
'3
ishment, and she worried and fretted over
that for a spell. That was foolish, of
course, for I don't doubt she'd have took
it all right and been as patient's you
please. I've seen a good many Christians
in my time, young and old, but I've said
time and again, and say it now, that I
never see one that seemed to know bet-
ter just exactly what a Christian had and
hadn't ought to be than Mehetabel Clark
in them days. She had such a realizin'
sense of God's justice and power and ven-
geance, why,'twas a lesson to see and
hear her. 'Twas beautiful, I tell you, such
understandin' of His natur' and attributes
in one so young. Of course she had her
enemies, and things was said agin her;
that was nat'ral. ' Blessed are them that
are persecuted,' you know. In fact, I
don't think she was a gen'ral fav'rite in
Sugar Hill. The nat'ral heart, you see,
and original sin accounted for that. She
was a standin' reproof to all sinners, and
14
there was a good many there, like there
is in most places, and folks don't set much
by standin' reproofs. And the children
didn't like her, neither, and that was nat'-
ral, too. Children, unregen'rate ones, nev-
er do like the things they'd ought to like.
And to hear her talk to 'em of their prob-
'ble futur', and the dreadful outcome of
their doin's and not doin's, why, it kind
of made 'em uncomfortable. And I don't
think she liked 'em much, neither. It
pestered and worried her to see 'em goin'
on in their sinful ways, and her not able to
convince or convert. But if sinners didn't
think much of her. Christians did. All
the best and piousest of the church mem-
bers set store by her, and admired to see
her grace and goodness. Elder Welcome
was settled here then, and he was a holy,
blessed man, if there ever was one. Dear,
dear, dear! when I see the ministers now-
adays, and then think of him! Talk of
the Pope o' Rome, and how he has it all
»5
his own way in his d'nomination, why, I
don't believe he's one-half so set as Elder
Welcome was, and I'm certain sure folks
don't give in to him so much. He ruled
Sugar Hill with a high hand, and a good
thing 'twas for us. And oh, such preach-
in'! None of the frivolous sort of dis-
courses they call sermons in these days,
with stories and describin's and conver-
sations and all that throwed in to make
'em what they call interestin'. Interest-
in' 1 We don't go to meetin' to be inter-
ested; that's what I hold. If we want to
be interested, we can go to town meetin'
or vendues or closin' exercises at the
school. He give us every week, at least,
two good long discourses on the doc-
trines and beliefs of our d'nomination,
and he had 'em all himself at his tongue's
end, 's they say. Free-will and foreordi-
nation and effectual call in', perseverance
of the saints, the futur' state of unbap-
tized infants, and, above all, the natur'
i6
and duration of eternal punishment, he'd
give 'em to us week after week, often an
hour and forty minutes at a talk, and
they'd run off his tongue like ile. I nev-
er knew a man so grounded in all them
things as he was. 'Twas the thing that
allers struck folks most, after settin' un-
der his preachin' a spell, how grounded
he was in all the doctrines. When he
died—a good many years ago 'tis now—
if I'd a had my way, that's what they'd a
put on his moniment, just that one word,
' Grounded.'
" Well, the elder he thought a heap of
Mehetabel, and held her up as an exam-
pie and model to the youth of the village,
and he'd call on her frequent at evenin'
meetin' to relate her experience and say
a word in season to the light-minded and
unconverted. I can see her now, standin'
up in her pew, so straight and unbendin',
with her white, mournful kind of face,
and her black, scary lookin' eyes full of
17
wholesome fear of the Lord, talkin' of
her unworthiness, her vileness, the awful
things she deserved, and the willin'ness
she hoped she felt to bear 'em for endless
ages. And she talked in such a wailin,'
doleful sort of voice, it made you feel
good an' creepy, like hearin' 'em sing
Windham or Chiny. And speakin' of
singin' makes me think that Mehetabel
used to sing sometimes when she was all
by herself. She had a good ear, and could
catch a tune quick; and if she hadn't
known 'twas a sinful waste of time, she
could a gone ahead of most of the young
folks in music and all that. But she
didn't see any harm in hymn-singin' when
she was by herself; and I've heard her,
time and time again, singin' low and soft
to herself those good and solemn psalms
and hymns they don't use enough nowa-
days. She knew all the different parts—
the treble and counter and all of what
they called, them days, fugein' tunes. But
2
i8
she wouldn't sing 'em with other folks,
for fear, as she used to say, 'twould be
turned into a pleasure. So she took all
the parts herself. One of her fav'rites
was,' Thy wrath lies heavy on my soul;'
and when she'd come to the third line—
you remember it, o' course—' While dust
and silence spread the gloom,' she'd sing
the tenor part first,' While dust and si-
lence,' way up high; then the treble,
' dust and silence;' then the counter lower
down,' dust and silence;' and then all to-
gether's well's she could do it,' sprea-ea-
ea-ed the glo-o-o-m.' And when she end-
ed up on the last line,' Descend around
me to the tomb,' her voice would kind o'
die out like the wind in the chimney
stormy nights. Another one was, ' Lord,
what a thoughtless wretch was I!' to old
Greenwich, you know. 'Twas powerful
wakenin' to hear her sing that about
"'On slipp'ry rocks I see them stand,
And fiery billows roll below.'
19
" And another was,
'''As on some lonely buildin's top
The sparrer tells her moan,'
to the air of' Mournin swain'—^you rec'-
lect.
"I've stood outside her window just
after dark—that was the time she gen'-
rally sung—and listened by the hour to
hear her sing the Judgment Anthem.
She'd go right through the whole thing
—it's a dreadful fugein' one, you know—
takin' one part after another, even the
bass, and goin' up and down and over and
'cross and back and for'ard till it most
took your breath away. You rec'lect that
part about
"' Lively bright horror and amazin' anguish
Stare through their eyelids while the livin' worm lies
Gnawin' within them.'
" It's a splendid piece, and she'd do it
so's you could most see the whole thing.
And then often—it's kind of mean in me
20
to tell of it now, as 'twas to listen to it
then; 'twan't meant for me to see and
hear—she'd stop, and I could see her by
her candle cover her face up with her
hands, and groan out in a sort of solemn
fear; and I'd sneak off through the wet
grass with a kind of scary, pricky, goose-
fleshy feelin' all over me, partic'lar under
my hair.
" Well, here I am takin' up all this time
about the Mehetabel Clark of those days,
and 'most forgettin' the awful change that
come afterwards. But this I've been tell-
in' you helps to make the rest more strik-
in' and solemn; that is, if I've been able
to make you see her's she was then, a pi-
ous, serious-minded young woman, with
every sign and showin' of bein' truly con-
verted, and of havin' cast away the works
o' darkness and put off the old man and
his deeds; one that was weighed down,
as I never see any one else weighed down,
with a proper and realizin' sense of her
2X
own unworthiness, her guilty natur', and
the justice and jealousy and vengeance of
the great and awful God. I say it again,
's I said it afore, 'twas beautiful, beautiful.
There was them — mostly rather luke-
minded sort o' Christians—that said there
wasn't love and charity enough in her for
the best kind of perfessor, and that she'd
a been more comfortable and not suffered
so much if she'd a had more. That's all
foolishness, for the Bible says, you know,
that even charity itself 'suffereth long,'
and if she'd been chock-full of love and
charity she'd a suffered just as much from
knowing her own sin and wickedness.
Old Mis' Wells—she was one of your soft-
ly, pleasant, at-ease-in-Zion kind of folks
that never worried about her own soul
nor anybody's else's—she says to Mehet-
abel one time, says she, 'Couldn't you
jest try and love Him a little more, 's
well as fear him?' And Mehetabel she
looked at her with her big black eyes.
22
and she says in her mournful voice, 'I
ain't worthy yet to lift up my eyes to
Him, much more to darest to love Him,
me, the vilest thing He's made. I have
give myself to Him body and soul, and
he has accepted the worthless sacrifice.
He has taken me out o' the horrible pit
and out o' the miry clay, and there is
none,' she says, loud and sharp, 'that
can pluck me out of His hand. But He
himself,' says she, ' can cast me into out-
er darkness. He can break me to pieces
like a potter's vessel.'
"And so 'twas about the Scripters.
She read them from mornin' till night,
but 'twas most allers the Old Testament:
the prophets, and so on. And when some
carpin' and fault-findin' church member
dealt with her about that, and argued
that there was another part of the Bible
that was pretty important and val'able
to Christians o' the real sort, Mehetabel
says, • 'Tain't that I -don't want to dwell
23
on that part, nor that I ain't a longin' for
the time when I can begin to look at
that side o' the subjeck. But now, now,
'tain't for me. 'Twould make me too
comfortable, and I'd forget my own sin-
ful, wretched state. I'm glad there's
them,' she says,' that can read it and feel
free to rejoice in its good tidin's, but 'tain't
for me yet, 'tain't for me.'
"There, I guess you understand that
part now, and you won't wonder at our
all thinkin' that Mehetabel Clark was one
o' them — as the catechism says —' from
all eternity elected to everlastin' life;' and
believin' as we, most of us, did in the per-
serverance o' saints you'll see how unpre-
pared we was for what come after.
" Well, Mehetabel was took sick, dread-
ful sick. That was after her father 'n
mother'd been dead some time, and she
was livin' with Nathan, her married broth-
er. I don't know what the matter was
with her exactly—a fever, I guess, at the
24
start; but she got worse and worse till
every one see she was dangerous. They
had old Dr. Thayer attendin' her reg'lar,
but after a spell they called in Dr. Morse
from Littleton, and then they had in some
one from Haverhill, but none of 'em did
a mite of good. She had her mind all
through, and she was in the most proper
and Christian state, prayin' out loud for
mercy, bemournin' and bewailin' her sins,
and tellin' all around her what a fearful
thing 'twas to fall into the hands of the
livin' God.
" But one night when I stopped, as I was
drivin' home the cows, to ask about Me-
hetabel, they told me she'd sank into a
kind of stupid, and the doctors thought
she wouldn't ever come out of it. They
scursely thought she'd hold out till morn-
in', but she did, and when I come home
from the field, next afternoon, my folks
told me she was still livin'. And she laid
there day after day for nigh on a week.
n
just that way as if she was dead, only she
breathed. Nobody thought she'd ever
rouse up, and it most seemed a pity she
should. For while she laid there, so ter-
rible still and dead-lookin', somehow she
had a peacefuller, more comfortable look
on her face than she'd ever had afore since
she was a baby. I see her myself two or
three times. Nothin' never disturbed
her, so they let folks in 's much as they
pleased, and everybody wanted to see her
once more.
" She didn't look like Mehetabel some
ways. That scary, solemn, anxious face
went away, and, after a spell, she had a
sort o' restin', satisfied, peaceable look on
her featur's that we wasn't used to. And
one after 'nother of us would turn away,
our eyes pretty wet and our throats choky,
and whisper's we tiptoed out of the bed-
room, 'Well, she's most there, and she
looks it, every bit.' Dear me, dear me!
If she'd only died then we'd a been's cer-
26
tain sure of her destination's of Paul's
himself. But she didn't die. The doc-
tors was wrong that time, and when her
shroud was bein' made, and all the prepa-
rations for her funeral goin' on, one day,
just about sunset, somebody happened to
look at her, and they see her eyes was
open, and there was sense in 'em.
" They sent in a jiffy for Dr. Thayer,
and he come and looked her over, felt her
pulse, and all that, and said she seemed
to be stronger, she hadn't any fever, and
he guessed there was some chance for
her. They begun to feed her up and
nourish her, and she gained and gained
till there wa'n't any doubt of it—she was
goin' to be spared to us. Well, we couldn't
help bein' dreadful glad, even though 'twas
keepin' her out of heaven a spell longer,
as it seemed to us then. And you see we
didn't at first, nor for quite a spell, find
out about the awful thing that had hap-
pened to her, and the dreadful change
27
that had come over her soul; for at first
she didn't talk any. She seemed sensi-
ble and appeared to know folks, took her
victuals and her physic when they brought
'em to her, but she never said a word;
and all the time she kep' on wearin' that
peaceable, satisfied, restin' look in her
featur's that she'd had when she laid
there so long—the look that was so dif-
ferent somehow from the Mehetabel Clark
o' the old times. Now I can see, know-
in' what come after, that that very thing
ought to made us suspect something was
wrong, but—well, it didn't, anyway. We'd
ought to have knowed 'twas a bad sign
for one that had allers had the fear of the
Lord before 'em, and a realizin' sense of
the awful value of life, to lose it all to
once, and put on that comfortable, easy
sort o' look; it seemed like false s'curity,
like Mr. Vain Confidence in Pilgrim's
Progress, you know. But we didn't
any of us think o' that at first, we was
28
so glad to see her out of pain and suf-
ferin'.
" I disremember now just how long
'twas afore we found out. When she be-
gun to talk a little 'twas only about her
victuals or drinks or openin' the window
or shuttin' the door or something, and
we all see her head was straight and her
senses all there. They kept her's quiet
's they could for a long spell. But one
day—I wasn't there myself, but I've heard
tell of it so many times seems's if I was
—one day her sister-in-law, thinkin' 'twas
time she was roused up to her Christian
duties again, says to her, 'Mehetabel,
have you offered thanks to God for your
wonderful raisin' up's from the grave ?'
" Mehetabel looked up at her, just as
calm as ever, only a little mite puzzled
like, and she says,' How, Jane }'
" Mis' Clark said it over, plain and loud-
er, thinkin' the sickness might a made her
a little hard of hearin'. And Mehetabel
29
she looked her right in the face, calm and
sensible 's ever, and she says, ' I don't
seem to know what you mean, Jane;
who'd you say ?'
"Well,well,Mis' Clark often said after
that you could have knocked her down
with a feather, she was so took aback and
upset. But still she sort of hoped 'twas
just because Mehetabel's mind wasn't
quite clear yet, and that she'd come out
all straight after a spell. But she didn't!
That's what I've been comin' at with all
this long story, and I suppose you see
'twas comin'. But it's just as hard for
me to tell you, now I've reached the
p'int, as if I hadn't led up to it. But
'twas so, and we all had to face it: her
own folks, the minister, the church and
society and her neighbors. She'd lost
her religion, put her hand to the plough
and turned back, become a backslider, a
castaway; and, what's more, the dreadful
and mysterious part of it was, she'd act'-
30
ally lost her belief in there bein' any God
at all. She wouldn't hear of Him. She
throwed away His holy word, she gave
up prayer, abandoned the sanctuary, she
—yes, there's no denyin' the terrible fact
—she'd become what I begun by callin'
her to you at the start, a heretic!
" She growed stronger, and at last got
all well in body and mind, but her soul
had got some dreadful hurt and it never
healed over. Somehow in that sickness
of hers she'd fell into the tempter's pow-
er, and yielded to him; she'd forbore to
resist the devil and he hadn't fleed from
her. Of course everything was done that
could be. Elder Welcome labored with
her for days and weeks and months; her
own folks, the neighbors and friends
and the church, all prayed and argufied,
threatened and coaxed. They held spe-
cial meetin's, had a day of prayer for her
conversion; they sent for Mr. Martin, the
great revivalist from Vermont, but it was
3*
labor throwed away. After all their talk-
in', and preachin', and prayin', she was
still the same unbelievin' sinner, without
hope, and without God in the world.
" No, mebbe it wa'n't that just exactly
—that is, the first part of it. She was
without God, poor, deluded creatur'; but
as for hope, why, she'd got a queer, crazy
kind of one that nobody understood or
wanted to. There's no good in tryin'
to tell about that; you couldn't make
anything out of it, any more than we
could, and it's neither here nor there.
It's nothin' to do with the main p'int of
the story; that is, the fact that she that
had been a pillar of the church, a bright
and shinin' light, a city that was set on a
hill that couldn't be hid, she had become
like the beast that perisheth, the fool that
said in his heart there is no God. 'Twant
anything but a kind of an idee, or a made-
up story, I never could exac'ly make up
my mind which. Sometimes I'd think
32
'twas the first, and that she really believed
it, but then I see that couldn't be. She
wasn't crazy; we all knew that. She was
every bit as sensible, industrious a mem-
ber of the c'mmunity as anybody there;
did her house-work, her gard'nin', her
knittin' and sewin' and mendin' as well
's she'd ever done 'em, and mebbe a mite
better. She was as clear-headed and
stiddy-goin' as she'd ever been, and ev-
ery one of us see and knew it. So when
she'd start off on this queer, ramblin'
story of hers, without a fact in it as far
as we could see, why, how could we help
thinkin' that she'd made it all up delib'-
rate, to sort of smooth over her awful
unbelief, or divert folks's minds from it ?
" This is all 'twas. She declared she'd
been off somewheres—^just where or when
she never'd exactly tell; but it seemed to
be quite a ways. From her talk it seemed
to be out o' the United States, 'cross the
water somewheres. But, dear me, how'd
33
she expect us to credit a thing like that ?
She never in all her born days had been
farther away than Concord, and that was
when she was only six year old, so 't
didn't make a lastin' impression. But
nothin' she talked about in speakin' of
that deestrict was anything like what
went on in this country of ours. But
'twas a free country; we gathered that
from what she let fall; for she didn't
ever talk right out about it. I don't
know's she ever really said in so many
words she'd been away to a foreign land,
and seen this or that. But she talked
about a strange, outlandish country, what
she'd seen and what folks done there, and
how she lotted on goin' back before long;
and, above all—and that's how we come
to think 'twas a free country—about the
President and his son. My, my! how it
does bring back Mehetabel just to say
that! Why, I'm most ashamed to tell
you that when I hear the President talked
3
34
of I never think first of him that's our
lawful ruler at Washington, or even of
them that used to be there — Andrew
Jackson or General Taylor and them.
But I think o' Mehetabel Clark's Presi-
dent, one she made up out of her own
head, and that didn't or couldn't, in the
natur' of things, ever live anywhere in
this mortal world. How she ever made
up such a person, what she ever found
anywheres to make him out of, beats me.
It might have come out of some book o'
travels or adventur's, shipwrecks and d's-
asters, or castin' away on desert islands,
or somethin'. But, then, she'd never read
any books, nothin' much, but her Bible.
" But she had him complete, all out in
her head, so that she knew just what he'd
do or say or command or advise in any
kind o' circumstances. And I must say
'twas a takin' sort of character, and made
even us, that disapproved the whole
thing, and never wanted to encourage
35
her talkin' about it when she'd ought to
have been thinkin' of her immortal soul
and what 'twas comin' to—why, 's I said,
it would make even us wish sometimes
that it was true, and that there was some-
wheres such a President and such a coun-
try. But, mercy me! to think of livin' on
a fairy-story like that, and givin' up your
religion for it and the fear of God. 'Twas
dreadful! But I haven't told you the very
worst part of it; that is, if it's right to say
worst when 'twas all bad and there wasn't
any best. But someways what appeared
to make it worse in one way, at least most
dangerous to other folks, was that in a
good many ways she was better than she
used to be; at any rate, more of a fav'rite.
And she was a heap happier, that's the
melancholy truth. O' course some of us
church members see how that could be—
that 'twas the false peace o' the wicked,
and she was self-deceived and sportin' on
the brink, as often happens. But to the
36
outsiders, seein' her allers calm and peace-
ful lookin' now, without that worried look
she used to have, and seein' her, too, so
good and pityin' to folks in trouble, and
so takin' with the children and youth, and
her a heretic, 'twas terrible dangerous.
" Why, in all her talks with the young
folks in them days I don't believe she
ever used the name of the God she used
to fear and worship, nor quoted the pas-
sages of Scriptur' she used to have at her
tongue's end. But it's only fair to say
that her conversation, puttin' aside that
awful leave-out, was good and improvin',
and the advice and suggestions and teach-
in's she give 'em, took,' s she said, from
the President or his son, couldn't be bet-
tered. ' The President says'— I can hear
her sayin' that now, in a kind of softly
way she had whenever she referred to
him, for she appeared to have the great-
est respect for him and what he said; and,
wherever she got it, 'twas allers the wisest.
37
sensiblest, kindest talk she put into his
mouth, I must say. And so folks got to
goin' to her with their worries and trou-
bles and sorrers and puzzlin's, and she al-
lers had somethin' for 'em all that the
President said, and that seemed to be
just the thing for each partic'lar case.
" Where in the universe did she get
some of those sayin's ? She never'd been
so dreadful smart, or took to eddication
anyway, and as for books, as I've said be-
fore, she'd never read any but the Script-
ur's, and mebbe, for a change, once in a
good while, the Pilgrims Progress. So
her makin' up of all these things, which
come in so pat and appropri'te every
time, did seem mortal sing'lar, and some
folks held that she couldn't a done it
alone, and must have had somebody to
help her. But brother Wilcox—he was
the elder's great stand-by — said if she
needed help, and he didn't think s|je did,
for, says he, it's man's heart, and wom-
38
an's too, for that matter, that Scriptur'
says deviseth mischief continually, seeks
out many inventions and devises wicked
imaginations; but if she did need a help-
er she'd have found one, ready and willin'
enough; that old serpent which is thedev-
il and Satan ; Scriptur' again. And as for
it's all bein' good and moral what she
made up, he went on, why, that difficulty's
got over by knowin' that the tempter can
take on the featur's of an angel, and that
he sometimes, as we've warrant for sayin',
will even quote Scriptur' itself. Brother
Wilcox was allers hard on Mehetabel.
" I ain't givin' you yet much notion of
what her idees was, am I ? But you see
it's so hard to tell just what she meant
I only know that she somehow or other
give us the idee that this President was
perfectly just every way; that he had strict
laws, but never made any that couldn't
be kep' somehow; that he had onlimited
pardonin' power, and, bein' very forgivin'
39
in his natur', he was allers exercisin' it.
But though she owned up that there was
ha'sh laws there, and folks had got to keep
'em or take the consequences, she never
seemed to like to dwell on that part.
She'd talk and talk by the hour about the
President bein' so good to the people, set-
tin' by 'em and helpin' 'em and forgivin'
'em. Why, from her talk you'd think there
was more forgivin' and overlookin' and
passin' over things than anything else;
and while she was goin' over and over
that part you'd forget the laws and the
punishin's and the strictness and all that,
and just look at her fav'rite side of the
President—an awful lax one. But she
made it out all right, and you couldn't
help thinkin' while she talked that you
understood it all and that it could be
somehow. I said she didn't talk out the
whole thing in plain words, but let you
know it somehow from kind of hints and
allusions and so on. That was with grown
40
folks, and they never liked to ask her
questions right out. But 'twas different
with children. I forgot to tell you how
'twas that people let their children be
with such a dangerous character at all.
Well, at first they didn't, or they tried
not to. But the young ones was crazy to
be with her, and they'd slip off and go,
and bimeby their mas found that instead
o' doin' 'em any harm, she seemed to
make 'em better, as fur as this world was
concerned: more obedient and biddable,
and peaceable among themselves. And
the boys and gals did like so to go with
her, and they'd be took care of and out
o' mischief a whole afternoon if they was
with her; so folks give in and let 'em
go.
" And they'd ask questions — children
will, you know. My Marietty, she was
there a good deal, and she used to tell me
and ma about it, and for the life of us we
couldn't help likin' to hear; 'twas just a
4*
most interestin' fairy story. ' Did you
ever see the President yourself ?' they'd
say, after she'd been a talkin' about him
a spell; and she'd answer, sort o' hesitatin'
and slow, but in that same softly way she
always spoke about him,' I think I did,
once,' she says;' but whether I was in my
body or out o' my body 1 ain't certain
sure, but — the President knows.' She
says,' I 'peared to be ketched up and took
way up, up high to the very top floor. I
think his son let me in, and then—I—
well, seems 's if I see him. But 'twas
more'n fourteen year ago,' she says, 's if
she was thinkin' and tryin' to rec'lect,' and
I disremember just how it was. Mebbe
I was in my own body, mebbe I was out
o' my own body, I ain't certain sure, but—
the President knows.'
"' The top floor o' what ?' some little
fellar'd say, wantin' to know the whole
thing, as children will.
"' Why, the White House,' says she.
42
"' Do they have a White House there,
too ?' the children says.
"'Course they do,' says Mehetabel;
'and, oh, it's so white—whiter than the
shiniest snow,' she says.
"' And what did the President look
like ?' one of 'em inquires again, and she
answers,' Seems's if I didn't see his face
plain. If I rec'lect right, 'twas again' the
law; but't any rate nobody could look
him straight in the face and stand it,
made 'em so ashamed. But he passed by
in all his .strength and greatness and
goodness and pleasantness, and I just hid
away behind somethin', and didn't peek
out till he'd got way by. But I see him
in the distance, goin' from me,' she says,
solemn and yet smily,' and I sha'n't nev-
er, never forget it. And when I come
away after that visit, why, they said my
featur's was all shiny, and they was 'most
afraid of me; but I never mistrusted that
myself, till they told me a spell arterwards.'
43
"' And didn't the President say noth-
in' to you ?' they says.
"' Oh yes,' she answers, 'most in a whis-
per, 'but I couldn't put that into talk,
and if I could you wouldn't understand.
But, oh yes, he spoke to me that time,
and lots of times arterwards, and his voice
sounded like the noise the wild Amonoo-
sue and Gale River and Salmon Hole
Brook and Swift Water makes, all goin'
at once; loud, you know, and rushin' and
ringin' and clear. And again 'twas like a
big wind in the pine-trees over there in
the grove, and sometimes it sounded like
a trumpet blowin'. Another time when
he was speakin' folks would think it
thundered, the voice would sound so
strong and powerful, and shake 'em so.
But, then, more times, as it seems to me
when I think it over, 'twas just a low,
small, little voice that even the children
could listen to and like to hear.'
'"Wasn't the children afraid of him,
44
Aunt T'niel ?' they'd say. There! that
makes me think that I've left out some-
thin'. Why, she was that unwillin' to re-
member the days when she was a trem-
blin', fearful believer that she'd even gone
and changed her name. Her story was
that the President done it; said 'twas the
custom there to give 'em new names, and
hers, for all the world, was Peniel. Cu-
r'us name that was; it's in the Bible.
But she allers called herself that, and
some folks humored her by usin' it. I
never did, and Elder Welcome didn't.
No more did the best church members.
But the children took it up, as young
ones will take up anything new, and so
she was ' Aunt P'niel' to them forever
after. And so, 'Wasn't the children
afraid of him. Aunt P'niel ?' says they.
" • Afraid o' the President!' says she,
'most laughin',' the idee! Is Joey Barnes
afraid of his pa, or Mary Jane Frink scaret
of her mother.''' They was both only
45
children, you see, and their folks set
dreadful store by 'em. ' Why,' she says,
' it growed to be a sayin' all through that
country, in speakin' o' the President, that
he felt for his people just as a father
would feel to pity his boys and gals. And
there was another proverb, somethin'
about his comfortin' folks as your moth-
ers does you young ones when you're out
o' sorts and fretty. And they had all
sorts o' names for him, his people had,
that showed pretty plain how they felt
about him. I know one told about his
bein' like a man that kep' sheep and
lambs, that pastur'd 'em in the grassiest
medders, and took 'em out along the
brook to drink, and if the littlest lambs got
tired he'd jest carry 'em and cosset 'em.
And somebody else said he allers made
him think of a great big bowlder that
'twas so nice to see on a hot, burnin' day,
for it throwed such a big shadder, and
cooled off and rested ye, when ye set
46
down under it. Says another, "Yes, he
is like a shadder, as far as coolin' and
shadin' and restin' ye goes, but he allers
strikes me," he says, "as bein', on the
whole, more like the sun, so cheerin' and
bright and shinin', and keepin' away the
dark and scariness and worry from his
people." And some held he was like a
river, refreshin' the land, ye know; and
some that he made 'em think of a spring
o' nice, cold, clear water when ye was
thirsty, and — oh, there ain't any name
too good for them folks to call the Pres-
ident by, they was that fond of him, and
set by him so.'
"'And what did you think he was like.
Aunt P'niel ?' they'd ask her.
"'Well, deary,' she'd say, 'he 'peared
to me like all of them things at one time
or 'nother, 'cordin' as you felt to want
this or that in him. But somehow I most
gen'rally held to the the'ry o' his fav'rin'
the sun. For ye see we'd had a drefHe
47
dark spell o' weather here afore I went
there, and there wa'n't much difference
'twixt day and night for the longest time,
and I'd got so sick and tired of it all,
never seein' anything plain, and gettin'
scaret at things I thought I see and
heerd, that when I come there to the
President's country—it's a terrible open,
light, sightly place—why, I thought more
of its bein' so sunshiny and clear, and
having plenty o' light to see by, than I
done o' anything else. So I liked to
think of him as bein' like the sun, settin'
the most store's I done by that.'
" And so she'd go on and on by the
hour, and the children drinkin' it all in
like law and gospel. And 'twas, as I said
afore, mortal takin'. I didn't know I
could rec'lect so much of it, but it all
comes back, as I tell it, like a real thing
I seen somewhere myself, instead of just
a made-up yarn told by a unbeliever.
"Now I know what you're thinkin'.
48
Several people have said it, and I ain't
such a fool as not to see it myself, that
there's some kind of a likeness 'twixt
things she said and parts o' Scriptur'.
That about the keepin' sheep, and so on,
is something like the Psalms, you see.
Well, of course it was nat'ral for one
brought up as she was, from her youth,
like Timothy was by his grandmother
Lois and his mother Eunice, to search the
Scriptur's; of course, I say, she couldn't
help fallin' by spells into Bible language.
But 'twas a mixed kind of Scriptur', and
she twisted and turned it out of all like-
ness to the real thing to fit into her story.
She knew what Scriptur' was as well as I
do. And as for callin' a thing Scriptur'
religion that hadn't a speck of anything
doctrinal such as she was raised on, and
that Elder Welcome had preached to her
from her birth 'most, why, you see your-
selves, it ain't likely. No, she was like
them Paul speaks of, that havin' swerved.
49
turned aside into vain janglin'; and vain
janglin' 'twas, sure enough.
" I've left one thing out; I don't exac'-
ly know how to tell that part. But in one
way 'twas the most partic'lar part of her
story; everything seemed to hang on it,
and yet she never explained it right out.
'Twas only this, as she put it: the Presi-
dent had a son. There, that shows what
example and habit can do! You see how
I dropped my voice and spoke solemn
when I said that. Well, Mehetabel allers
used to do so. She never said a word
about that part that her voice didn't get
low and whisp'ry, as if some one was
asleep or—had died. I never did under-
stand how, someways, without sayin' any-
thing really def'nite and plain, she could
make everybody, me and all, feel that
there was somethin' so dreadful solemn,
drawin', and takin', and above and over
all terrible important in that fact about
the President's bavin' a son. 'Twas the
4
so
only thing she ever seemed to cry about
—she took life so easy after her sickness
—that part about the President's son.
Her eyes would water and her mouth get
trembly, and it seemed's if she couldn't
hardly speak about it. Sometimes, when
she'd say something comfortin' or helpin'
to somebody that come to her, as folks
got in the way of doin'when things went
wrong, they'd ask her, 'Are them the
President's words. Aunt P'niel.?' And
she'd say,' Yes, they be—or leastways his
son's. And you know,'she allers put on,
'that's just the same. What the Presi-
dent's son says, why, that's what the Pres-
ident means. He allers told us, the Pres-
ident did, to take anything his son said's
if he said it himself; he was responsible
for it, every word, don't ye see ?' Folks
said it allers seemed to them as if she got
the two mixed up somehow, and didn't
scursely know 'em apart herself.
" Yes, I heard what you said just now.
5t
You quoted that verse about seein'
through a glass darkly, and I know what
you mean. You think she'd got the right
idee, after all, only a little mite skewed
and out o' shape by the twist-up in her
head after her sickness. Folks has said
it afore. But don't you see that's a dan-
g'rous thing to hold } Accordin' to that,
anybody might make up a story o' their
own, if 'twas only founded on fact and
with a sort o' Scriptur' flav'rin' to it; and
though every single savin' doctrine was
left out, you'd say 'twas religion, only
looked at through dingy, dull kind o'
glass. Elder Welcome talked about that
a good deal to such folks, and made 'em
see what things might come to if they
was too tol'rent and easy-goin' with
schism and wrong views and all. So they
put the thing down with a high hand,
called it infidelity right out in so many
words, just for the good o' the church
and community.
5»
" But God makes use of sing'lar tools
sometimes, and turns the weakest, mis-
takenest things into means o' grace and
glory. And so He done in this case. I
can't begin to tell you how many times
He brought good out o' evil, and made
the words and doin's o' this poor be-
nighted woman bring forth fruit for His
own vineyard. As the Bible rightly says,
' The wrath o' man shall praise Him.'
" 'Twas dreadful queer; nobody seem-
ed to take in her story as real true, or
subst'ute it, as she appeared to do, for
orthodox religion and a belief in the Al-
mighty. Not a soul of 'em—except, per-
haps, some of the children, such as is al-
lers ready to swallow fairies and giants
and ghosts—not a single soul really be-
lieved in her President and his son, and
all she told of them and their country.
But someways, after hearing her talk, I
don't know how it was, folks used to find
somethin' different and somehow more
S3
fillin' and satisfyin' in their own religion,
as if they'd learnt somethin' new out of
this crazy story. I suppose God done it,
and made 'em see and hear somethin' dif-
ferent from what she really said, just as
in the Scriptur's somewhere He made
folks think they heard an army comin'
when there wasn't any sign o' one. And
so they really sometimes got good out of
it. And there was one thing: she never
said one word against anybody else's re-
ligious beliefs, whatever they was, only
she never appeared to take much notice
of 'em, or even rec'lect she'd ever held
any of 'em herself.
" My Marietty—the little gal I lost, ye
know—she got into a very low-spirited
state once. There was a revival here,
and she was impressed and under pow-
erful conviction o' sin for a long spell.
She was about twelve year old and wasn't
very rugged, and she took everything
pretty hard, and she went about for days.
54
lookin' so white and scaret and sorrer-
ful; she couldn't get peace anyhow. And
it seemed to make Mehetabel feel dread-
ful. I don't know why she should a took
it to heart so, but she told Marietty it
made her think of a gal she knew once
that looked just that way and felt just as
bad.
"' And did she ever get any peace ?'
says my poor little gal.
"' Oh yes,' said Mehetabel.
"' Oh, please, how was it ?' asks Mari-
etty.
" ' Why, 'twas just comin' to know the
President and his son,' says Mehetabel,
'and gettin' fond of them.'
"' Oh dear!' the child cries out,' I wish
there was really a President! But there
ain't, there ain't. Aunt P'niel, there's only
just the great and awful God, and I can't
get fond of Him; I'm only scaret of Him.'
"Mehetabel looked so dreadful sorry
and pitiful, and she put her hand on Ma-
55
rietty's arm and stroked it, and she says,
her voice all shaky, • You poor, dear little
creatur', I can't show you how to get fond
of any one you're so scaret of, but I could
if he only had—a son !'
"Wa'n't that a sing'lar coincidence?
It reminded that child o' somethin' she'd
forgot, and God turned it to His own
glory. And when me and ma was in our
room that evenin', about sundown, pray-
in' God to show the child His awful pow-
er and break her heart o' stone, she come
in, her face all smiles and peace, and we
see He'd done it.
" She died less than two year after that,
Marietty did, and we buried her in the
little graveyard back there. I meant to
show you the very spot, with the cinna-
mon roses all 'round it. And we was so
glad, me and ma, when that time come,
thinkin' that anyway she was all right, let
alone what we down here was feelin', that
we allers felt someways obligated to the
56
one that seemed to have a hand in bring-
in' her into the blessed light. Though of
course we held Mehetabel Clark was only
the unknowin' tool God used to show His
own power.
" It was a good thing for the poor creat-
ur' that the young ones, and weak, easy-
goin' growed folks did take so to her;
elseways she'd a been dreadful lonesome.
For she was given up, after a spell, by all
the orthodox people, even her own rela-
tions. Of course, as she didn't go to
meetin', Sundays, or assisted at any o' the
stated means o' grace, it couldn't be ex-
pected that the church and society could
let things go on as if nothin' had hap-
pened. Elder Welcome and all of us had
set so high by Jephunneh and Mis' Clark
that there wasn't any public trial and put-
in' out. But they just dropped her name
off the roll. A committee waited on her
and broke it to her as mild as they could
consistent. But they needn't have wor-
57
ried about hurtin' her feelin's overmuch,
for she didn't appear to take any interest
in the subjeck. Just think of that now!
What an awful change from the days
when, as the good old hymn says,' How
pleased and blest was she to hear the
people cry!' and so on; the time when
she could say she 'had been there and
still would go; 'twas like a little heaven
below!'
" There was one thing, however, that
showed the power of habit and the good
of trainin' up a child the way he should
go. She did make a kind of difference
still between the Sabbath and week-days.
But dear me! 'twas a heathen sort of dif-
ference, and nothin' to do with keepin'
the day holy. She didn't do any house-
work much that day; she used to put on
her best, or anyways her cleanest clothes,
and—well, we never knew just what she
did do. She was up in her room a good
deal, and when the children asked her
58
what she was doin' there, she only said
she had a great deal to think about, things
the President and his son had mentioned
to her, and she was afraid she might for-
get 'em, and unmeanin' talk like that.
And when the young ones asked her why
she couldn't think just's well down in
the settin'-room, if they wouldn't make a
noise or talk to her, she said no, she'd
gathered from things the President said
that 'twas safer to latch herself in. But
'twasn't for much good, I'm afraid, those
times up there, not a bit like the old
seasons of self-examination, penitential
mournin', and solemn fear she used to
spend. For whereas in those past times
she'd come out with her featur's all
drawed, showin' what terrible dealin's
she'd had with the tempter, she'd come
down-stairs now, lookin' so cheerful and
pleased and comfortable-like, you never'd
dream 'twas the Sabbath day from her
face and general appearance. And she'd
59
get the children together then, and tell
'em stories, not Bible ones, but made-up
stories, and not even a moral lesson at the
end to count'ract the pleasure the story-
part give 'em. We never let Marietty
go on the Sabbath day, though she want-
ed to, even after she become a perfessor;
and the best brought-up children wa'n't
any of 'em allowed. But the lax folks
settled things somehow with their con-
sciences, and shut their eyes to their
young ones' runnin' off there. So of
course it come about soon that those
children lost their wholesome fear and
dread of the Lord's solemn day, and
looked for'ard to it as they might a done
to singin'-school or goin' out to take tea,
which was terrible demoralizin', you see.
As far's I know she didn't let 'em play
games or things like that. The boys and
gals would tell my Marietty about their
times there, and when she was teasin' to
go she'd repeat 'em to me and ma. She
6o
said Marthy Welles was talkin' about it
one day, at recess, and she said 'twas
dreadful interestin' the stories Aunt
P'niel told 'em about the President and
his son and the White House and all.
"' Why, them ain't Sunday stories,'
says Ansel Peabody, Deacon Veranus
Peabody's little boy,' and it's wicked to
have any but Bible stories that day; pa
says so/
" * I know 'bout that,' says Marthy,
lookin' a little mite ashamed, * but if you
won't tell—we don't want Aunt P'niel to
know—but we thought we'd make it so's
it wouldn't be wicked by just makin' be-
lieve she was tellin' us about Heaven;
and so we play she is, and it 'most seems
sometimes's if that was the way 'twould
be up there, and I wish 'twas — there!'
She was a spunky little piece, and didn't
really mean it, of course. Moses Wei-
come took that up in a jiffy. He was
the minister's son, and the only child in
6x
Sugar Hill that hadn't ever been let go
to Mehetabel's since her fall. And Mo-
ses says, when he heard Marthy Welles
say that about Heaven, 'Oh, Marthy,
Marthy!' pointiii' his poor spindlin' finger
at her, his peaked little white face all
ha'sh-lookin' from godly wrath, 'how
could you play about such a solemn lo-
cal'ty as Heaven! Anyways, you must
see how diff'ent't is from the place that
unbelievin' woman tells about, where the
children play in the streets and sing and
ask the President and his son for every-
thin' they want, not the leastest speck
scared of 'em. What you been a-listenin'
to Sabbath days when my pa described
that solemn place, not to know no better
than that? There ain't no playin' or
talkin' and askin' for things up there,' he
says. ' Folks jest set still in rows forev-
ernevernever, 'cause it's a never-endin'
Sabbath, you know. And as for that she
said about puttin' his arms round 'em
62
and them a-smilin' up to him, why, Mar-
thy Welles, you'd oughter know they
never smile in Heaven!'
" I tell you, 'twas as good as a whole
sermon on the occ'pations and solemn
employments of that glorious abode to
hear that youthful Christian. ' Out o' the
mouths o' babes,' you know.
*' I told you that she was given up by
her relations as well as by the Church.
Course I don't mean that her brother
and his wife turned her out-doors. But
I guess they couldn't help lettin' her see
what a trouble 'twas to have an unbe-
liever and scoffer in their own Christian
household. So it come about before long
that Mehetabel took that little house I
showed you in the village that's a shop
now, and there she lived, all by herself at
first. But she never appeared to be lone-
some much. The children were in and
out all the livin' day, and folks in afflic-
tion or ailin', that wa'n't up to doin' their
63
every-day work, would drop in and talk
for want of anythin' better to do. Then
she said, in her crazy way, that she heard
frequent from the President and his son,
though we never knew of her receivin' a
letter from year's end to year's end.
" She went around a good deal. That
was so queer, for before her sickness she
used to be such a stay-in, except for goin'
to the sanctuary. She didn't go there
now, as I said, nor to sewin' society, or
female prayer-meetin', or anything stated
like that. But she got to be a real gad-
der's fur as pryin' into queer places. If
there was an accident, folks hurt or crip-
pled, or even a horse or cow or dog or
cat with anything the matter, Mehetabel
was sure to be there. And as she seemed,
after all, to be handy now in sickness and
such, why, folks would let her stay round
and help.
" The oddest places she'd go to. Why,
when that man I was tellin' you about—
64
Dexter, you know, that robbed the store
—was took up and lodged over night in
the lock-up, or lobby, as we call it round
here, what did Mehetabel Clark do but
go and see him. And when somebody
asked her about it, she made up some
story or other about bavin' been to see
the President's son. And when some
one taxed her right out with havin' been
to peek in on and pester that poor thief
Lot Dexter, she owned up, but got round
it by sayin' that 'twas the same thing af-
ter all as if she'd been visitin' the Presi-
dent's son himself. And she'd make
that same excuse about goin' to see sick
folks, even perfect strangers, or talkin' to
tramps, and takin' them into her house.
No matter how barefaced it was, every-
body seein' and knowin' it, she'd allers
say, as calm and quiet's could be, that
she'd been doin' this or that, whatever it
might be, to the President's son. Some
folks that wasn't perfessors talked a good
6s
deal about the good she done this way,
but Deacon Priest used to shake his head
and say,' Works, works.' He was a mas-
ter-hand for poetry, and he'd put on
'The best o' deeds
Is nothin' but weeds
Alongside o' doctrines, confessions, and creeds.'
"Then she changed so about wastin'
her precious time, and takin' to friv'Ious
pursuits. She begun to take such notice
of what folks call scenery, the mountains
and the streams and woodsy places, and
even the clouds, sun-risin's, and so on.
Why, of course God made all those things,
and they'd ought to fill us with a real-
izin' sense of His power. What is man ?
and all that, as the Bible says. But as
for settin' for hours lookin' at the mount-
ains, when you've seen 'em every day of
your livin' life—and if there's a mortal
thing that's just the same allers and nev-
er alters any with age or anythin', it's
5
66
mountains—why, it's well enough for sum-
mer boarders off on a vacation with noth-
in' else to do, but it's dreadful foolish and
time-wastin' for workin' folks. But Me-
hetabel, she'd go off to some sightly spot,
like that place where you stopped me,
back there, before we got up to Sugar
Hill Street, and there she'd stand or set,
and look and look off at the mountains.
She went alone a good deal, but some-
times she'd take the children.
"' What makes you like to look at the
mountains so much. Aunt P'niel ?' they
says sometimes, and she'd smile and say,
'They make me think o' the President's
land somehow.'
" • Was there mountains there ?" they
says.
"' Oh yes,' .she answers; ' they was all
round the city—outside, you know ; and
the White House itself was on real risin'
ground, such a viewly place. Why,' she
says, smilin',' it does seem so dreadful
67
queer for you to ask if there was mount-
ains there, when the first thing you'd take
notice of, 'most, was its bein' such a hilly,
high-ground deestrict. Why, even here
in Sugar Hill it 'pears flat and low when
I rec'lect the President's 'land, and I
come out here and look at Lafayette and
Kinsman, and all these Francony hills,
and think and think of the President's
mountains and the land that seems some-
times so dreadful fur off.'
"'I don't like to look at the mount-
ains,' says Ansel Peabody;' they make me
think o' how we'll be callin' on 'em some
day to fall on us an' cover us, when
the judgment comes, you know; and
how they thundered and lightened and
smoked up and earthquaked in com-
mandment times, and—oh, I tell ye they
scare me, and I try not to think of 'em
after dark!'
"' Why, you poor young one!' says Me-
hetabel;' they make me think o' such dif-
68
f'rent things: how they don't change no
more'n the President does; how kind o'
quiet and restin' and peaceful they be.
And I rec'lect some o' the sayin's they
had there, about how the President was
all 'round hi# folks, takin' care on 'em al-
lers, just as the hills was round the town ;
and another about how they fetched peace
to all the people that lived among 'em.
And I remember — oh, such pleasant,
beautiful things that happened on hills
and risin' ground! The President set lots
o' store by 'em himself, and deary me!
there wasn't never any one who was more
fond o' mountains than the President's
son. When I come up here all by my-
self, times, you know, when I tell you I
don't want you for a spell, why them times
I am rec'lectin' things about him.
"' And when I feel lonesome or tired or
worry a mite about things, I jest raise my
eyes up to them hills, and it helps me
lots. And if I'm real comfortable and
69
happy—as I allers most gen'rally be,some-
how—why, I look at 'em till it seems as if
they'd most bust right out into singin'
tunes, or's if they'd jump for joy like,
and the leastest ones, like Bald Mountain
and such, would dance abouf like cossets.'
"You see, every once in a while she'd
kind of slip into Scriptur' from force of
habit, I suppose. But as she didn't re-
member 'twas Bible language, and as she
put it into plain Sugar Hill talk in the
most sacrilegious way, why 'twas worse
than not usin' it at all. But the only
time I ever heard her quote a verse lit'-
ral, was about the mountains, too. But
that wasn't exactly appropri'te, and didn't
mean much.
"You see them two banks of snow up
there on Lafayette ? Yes, the White Cross,
as you call it; I don't. It's nothin' in the
world but a long, deep holler up there,
where the water runs down in a wet spell
and makes a watercourse, and that holler
70
cuts right through a stony ledge up
there, and runs slantin' down. The whole
place is in the shade, and don't ever get
the sunshine. So it stands to natur' that
the snow lays in the holler and at the
foot of that ledge pretty late in the spring,
and don't melt till after it's gone from all
round it. And so that holler and the
bottom of the ledge looks white again'
the mountain, and as they run acrost each
other, so—like the sticks of a kite or a
cross, if you want to say so—why, folks call
it the White Cross, as you did just now.
I never call it that myself, for I believe in
givin' things their right names, and not
coverin' them all over with imaginin's
and make-believes; but if there's any
class of folks that always imagine a vain
thing, as the Bible says, it's boarders. To
me that thing up there is just snow in a
holler and under a ledge of rock. I've
been up there myself and know what it is
really; and I don't want to play it's any-
7'
thing dlflferent. If I did, why I'd be
more likely to feel like little Ansel Pea-
body, and think of the rocks rendin', and
the wrath of the Lord breakin' the hills
asunder. The first time Mehetabel saw
it—that is, after she was sick and lost her
religion—it seemed to make a great im-
pression on her. Some of the children
was with her that day. 'Twas the last of
May, and there'd been a fortnight of rainy,
foggy weather, so that the tops of the
mountains had been covered with clouds
for days and days.
" It cleared off that mornin' while Me-
hetabel was standin' out there on the hill
with the children, and the fog and mist
went off the top of Lafayette, and the sun
shone on that holler and the ledge of
rock where the snow was layin'. And as
she saw it it seemed to remind her of
somethin' in that crazy dream of hers.
And she called out, with the tears runnin'
down her cheeks,' He lifteth up an en-
sign on the mountains.' That's in Isaiah,
and she'd read it in old times. And when
the young ones asked her what she meant,
and what she was cryin' for,she kep'sayin',
over and over,' It's their flag! It's the
flag o' the President and his son!'
" She seemed more excited and stirred
up than they'd ever seen her, Marietty
said, for she was most gen'rally quiet and
even-like since her sickness. She drawed
the boys and gals close up to her, and
pointed to that holler and ledge with the
snow shiny-white, and told 'em how some-
thin' like that was the sign or mark—col-
ors, I suppose she meant—of the land
where she'd been; how it was on every-
thin' there, on the banner over the White
House that they set up in the name of
the President and his son, and how the
soldiers carried it, and all the people wore
it. And Marietty said that while she was
talkin' about it her hands shook and her
eyes was wet, and yet her face looked all
73
lit up in the sunshine, as she went on
about how all the folks loved that sign,
and wore it and fought for it and, so she
said, died for it sometimes.
" • Do you wear it. Aunt P'niel ?' says
one of 'em.
" Her face looked a mite troubled for
a minute. ' I want to,' she says. " It's
my sign; I b'longunder it, and I'd die for
it in a minute, if it come to that. But,'
she says, hesitatin' a little bit, ' I've al-
lers heerd that 'twas kind o' heavy, and
it hurt to wear it, even if the President
and his son fitted it on to you theirselves.
And nothin' hurts me nowadays, and I
hain't got anything hefty to carry, I'm
sure. So mebbe I ain't got the right kind
yet. You ain't never,' she says, lookin'
kind o' sharp and close into their faces—
'you ain't seen me, dearies, look's if I was
carryin' somethin' sharp and hefty, have
you.''
" ' Why no,' says they, and Almy Smith,
74
who was allers speakin' before she stop-
ped to think, puts in,' No, tna says you
look a terrible sight comfortabler and
pleasanter than you did before you back-
slid, and she thinks it's queer, too, when
your folks has give you up and turned
you out, and the meetin' folks won't have
you belong to 'em, and all that.'
"' Oh, that ain't anythin',' says Mehet-
abel,'jest givin' up your folks. I'd do
more'n that for the President and his
son, jest to give up my folks. But I hope
I'll get the real sort o' sign to carry about
some day! One that's hefty, you know,
and hurts.'
" When Moses Welcome heard all about
that—the snow on Lafayette and what
Mehetabel said about it—he went to his
pa with it. And the elder told him not
to be repeatin' things like that, for 'twas
popish talk and very dang'rous.
" Well, after that she set everything by
that white mark on the mountain. It
75
only lasted a few days that year, before
the thaw took it away, but she was out
lookin' at it every minute she could get.
" She had to work pretty hard after
she left her brother's. She had a little
garden and raised her own roots: potaters
and turnips and such; and she took the
whole care of that. Then she pulled rugs
and sewed rag carpets, and did little things
like them, so as to keep along somehow,
and it didn't take much to keep her. But
'twas dreadful queer how she could give
away so much out of her livin' to the poor
and the children and so on. And bimeby,
of all things in the world, she took in a
poor creatur' to do for and keep. There
was some Injuns from Canada come down
here one summer with baskets to sell to
the boarders, and one of 'em, an old wom-
an they called Tury, she was took terrible
sick. And the other Injuns, in their hard-
hearted kind of way, they just went off,
and left her without a cent or any one to
76
take care of her. Mehetabel, she heard
about it, and she went right down to the
place where she was; they'd had a camp
and a tent, and they'd left old Tury right
there on some straw or something; and
while the men folks was discussin' what
town she belonged to, and what to do
with her, she fetched her home. She
nursed her up and took care of her as if
she'd been her mother or something or
other to her, and when Tury got well,
why they just stayed on together the rest
of their days.
"You see Mehetabel really was good
natur'd and never wanted to see any one
sufferin', if she could help it. But that
was natur', not grace, and didn't count for
much.
" Then Tury didn't cost her a great
deal, for she was a handy old creatur' and
did all she could to help, and she knew
how to make baskets and learnt Meheta-
bel how, and that helped along some.
77
But the real reason that Mehetabel kep'
her, as I always held, was, after all, to pros-
elyte's you might say. You see she hadn't
ever had one follerer in that silly idee of
hers, and every livin' soul that has an idee
of his own, or a set of idees, call 'em art'-
cles of faith, or creeds, or the'ries, or any-
thing you please, he don't find much ex-
citin' or rousin' in it unless he has some
kind of follerin', some one he can learn
his beliefs to, and have for a disciple.
Now Mehetabel hadn't ever had a single
one really before. The children listened
to her and liked to, but they were all from
orthodox families, even the laxest of 'em,
and didn't really believe the yarns she
told.
" But Tury was a heathen, I suppose, if
she was anything. She was a poor, fool-
ish, ignorant old thing. Whether she was
really what you might call 'lackin" or
not, I can't exactly say, for she was the
only Injun I ever knew much, and mebbe
78
they're all that way. She talked a kind
of outlandish lingo, but after a spell she
picked up some talk you could under-
stand, such as it was. So here was a ter-
rible good chance for Mehetabel to get a
follerer, for Tury hadn't any set beliefs,
never'd been connected with any church
or been grounded in any of the doctrines,
and'd just as lief take up with a false re-
ligion and antichrist ast he real thing.
And she did take up with it dreadful
easy. You see she got sort of fond of
Mehetabel when she was takin' her in
and doin' for her, time she was sick and
deserted, and she was ready to believe
anything she told her to believe. So by
the time Elder Welcome was ready to be-
gin a systematical course, as he called it,
of religious teachin', why he found she'd
swallered all that story about the Pres-
ident and the White House and the
President's son, and he couldn't make
any impression on her poor, hardened, de-
79
luded natur'. I heard him tell about his
first past'ral visit, and the talk he had.
Of course he begun with the law, her sin-
ful state and just deserts, for conviction
comes before conversion you know, and
if ever there was a class of folks who are
steeped in original sin and nat'ral deprav-
ity it's Injuns, I suppose.
"But Tury didn't appear to be weighed
down any with a realizin' sense of what
he said about her sins. She was a polite
old creatur', and she listened and nodded
her head and kep' still till he stopped to
take breath. Then she says, in her odd
Injun lingo, 'Yes, Tury bad, much bad,
but Tury not know. Tury know now;
sorry, much sorry. Misser Pres'dent un-
d'stan': son tell him 'bout Tury. He
say all right, all right; poor Tury; Tury
like me now. Tury like him lot. Tury
be good now;' and on and on that foolish
way, till the elder see 'twa'nt any use no
more'n castin' pearls before swine; she
8o
was as set in her way of stickin' to that
story of the President as Mehetabel
Clark herself.
" I said that Mehetabel never had but
one out-and-out follerer; no more she
hadn't, in one sense. But there was one
other person that took her story for true,
or't any rate acted's if he did, or's if he
understood it all and didn't object to it.
That was a summer boarder. He was a
kind of minister that come every year to
Sugar Hill for his vacation, not bein' very
rugged in his throat, I believe. I never
knew just what specie of minister he was,
for I never see one exactly like him. He
wasn't a Congo, as we call 'em round
here, nor a Methodist, nor a Baptist, nor
a Advent. He was more, in some ways,
like a Cath'lic priest, but he wasn't that
neither. Some said at first that he was a
'Piscopal, but he wasn't any more like
old Mr. Miller, the 'Piscopal minister of
Hold'ness, in clothes, or looks, or actin'.
8i
than he was like Elder Welcome. Come
to find out he had been a 'Piscopal, but
he'd been promoted, and he'd gone up so
high that they'd most lost sight of him.
He'd had his schoolin', folks said, acrost
the water, and that helped to make him
queer. He dressed kind of uncommon,
very stiff and straight and narrer and up
and down, some of his clothes fast'nin'
behind 'stead of front; he was pretty
pale and real poor lookin' in flesh, and he
had a good many odd ways and manners.
But I will say he was a nice, pleasant-
spoken, kind sort, and did a good deal for
Sugar Hill folks of all d'nominations.
Well, whatever his own religion and be-
lief was, 'twas something that didn't pre-
vent his takin' in Mehetabel Clark's story,
or, any way, humorin' her and makin' her
think he believed it.
" He boarded at Mis' Deacon Peabody's
—she was one of the female pillars of the
church—and so it come about that she
6
82
told him about the disgrace on the c'm-
munity, and the unbeliever in our very
midst, thinkin' mebbe Mr. Latham—that
was his name—might know how to deal
with her. He was real interested, and he
went to see her. Of course, nat'rally, I
don't know just what took place between
'em at that time; but Mis'Deacon Pea-
body—she happened to be in Mehetabel's
yard when he come out, though she hadn't
heard any of the conversation—she said
Mr. Latham's eyes looked wat'ry, as if he'd
had rather a painful season. And when
she asked him if he'd succeeded in openin'
Mis' Clark's sin-blinded eyes any, he only
said in a low voice somethin' she didn't
quite catch, about some one else havin'
done that for her a'ready, and hurried
away.
" After that he was always goin' to see
Mehetabel, or P'niel as he took to callin'
her, seein' that pleased her. And folks
said 'twas the craziest thing out of a
83
'sylum to see them two settin' there to-
gether by the hour, talkin' talk that no-
body but themselves could understand,
with old Tury puttin' in a outlandish
word now and again, as if she follered it
all. I really do think Mehetabel made him
a little out of his head like. His brains
wasn't over strong anyway; he'd used 'em
a good deal—a thing brains wasn't meant
for, seems to me; and all this talk and
story and so on of this lost sheep went to
his head. Mis' Peabody says so to him
once in a kind of warnin' way, and he only
laughed in a sort of'sterical way like a
nervy woman, and says, 'Went to my head!
To my heart, you mean, my good woman.'
" In spite of all this tamperin' with sin,
and humorin' a backslider just out of
what's called kindness and good-natur',
I don't doubt that Mr. Latham was a real
Christian. He seemed, 's far as we could
tell,to be orthodox and sound on the great
p'ints of doctrine, and he was a god-fearin'.
84
serious-minded man. He didn't have a
good mem'ry, nor much invention, any
more 'n most 'Piscopals does, and had to
read his prayers out of a book, instead of
makin' 'em up once for all and then rec'-
lectin' 'em word for word, as most people
do. But he did pray, even if 'twas only
book prayin', and he was always ready to
go to the sick or troubled, and by his
doctrines and his fruits we knew him to
be a good man.
"And there's different kinds of Chris-
tians, after all. I didn't use to think so,
and I know Elder Welcome never come to
it. He thought there wasn't only one sort,
and that was his. But I've seen things to
make me think otherways. There's Jim-
my Whitcher, of Francony—Fishin' Jim-
my, 's they call him. I don't have a doubt
he's been adopted, justified and sanctified
in the most orthodox way. Nobody that
knows him suspicions he hasn't. But I
could wish, and so could a good many of
85
US, that he was better grounded in the
doctrines, and had set when young for a
few years under Elder Welcome's solemn
preachin'.
" Well, well, how I am spinnin' out this
storyBut you seem so interested, and
everything comes back to me so, as we
jog along through this section, that I can't
stop talkin'. There ain't so very much
more to tell, anyway. If you're lookin'
for a sudden judgment on her, an awful
vis'tation, like Lot's wife or Korah's proud
troop, why you'll be disapp'inted. No,
there wasn't anything like that, not even
a death-bed repentance.
" Mehetabel wasn't ever very rugged in
her health after that sickness of hers, and
she had a good deal to try her afterwards.
She worked pretty hard, and I suppose,
after all, she missed her own home and
folks some, and mebbe took to heart bein'
so cut off and blamed by the church and
c'mmunity. Anyway she begun to fail
86
and run down, and didn't seem to have
no great of strength. The children said
she was homesick, that she kep' sayin' so.
"' Homesick for where }' asks they.
"' For the President's land,' she says,
' and the White House.'
'"I don't see,'says one,'why you call
it home, and what you want to go there
so much for, an3rway. You ain't got any
folks there, have ye
" Oh yes,' she answers,' lots and lots of
folks.'
"' But not relations,' says another,' not
blood relations.'
"' Yes,' she says, smilin' to herself as if
she knew more'n she could tell,' that is
just what they be, blood relations.'
" The boys and gals all felt sorry for her
in those days, she looked so white and
poor, and talked so much about wantin'
to go home. ' Why don't you send word
to the President about it?'says one of 'em,
wantin' to humor her.
87
"' I do, time and time again,' she says.
' Oh, he knows!'
"' How does folks send word to him,
anyway ?' up and asks Ansel Peabody,
seein' the weak p'ints of her story as well
as a grown-up.
" • Oh, through his son allers, deary,'
says Mehetabel. 'That's the only way
there is, I guess."
'"S'pose folks don't know how to
write,' says a little feller that hadn't
learnt yet.
"' Why, they make their mark,' she says,
• and it does just as well.'
" One time she got the queerest idee in
her head. Mis' Amos Bowles took her
Sabbath-school class over to The Notch
one day, and they come back full of the
sights: Echo Lake and Bald Mountain
and Profile Lake, and partic'lar The
Profile itself. Now of course Mehetabel
had seen that years before, but I don't be-
lieve she'd been there since her sickness.
88
or she'd forgot or something. And when
the boys and gals begun to tell about it
and talked away of the Old Man o' the
Mountain, and how he looked up there
again' the sky and all that, why she seemed
terrible int'rested. And after she'd heerd
them tell how big and high and grand-
like it was—most like a king, as some of
'em said—she took it into her head that
'twas a likeness, a sort of statue, I sup-
pose, of her President. She asked 'em so
many questions about it, and partic'lar
about the kind of look the face wore, and
they all agreed; and it's a fact, you know,
that 'twas a hard featur'd, ha'sh-lookin',
stony face.
"'But mebbe,'she says,'you didn't
look at it right; that makes such a dif-
fence. I rec'lect,' she says, slow and hes-
itatin', 's if she was tryin' to remember—' I
rec'lect there was somethin', a long spell
back, I used to look at the wrong way,
and it scaret me, and—but I found out,'
89
she says, brightenin' up, * I'd jest been
lookin' at it wrong side afore. Did you
try every way?" she asks the children,
•and didn't the featur's sort o' change and
get soft and forgivin' and lovin' any way
you looked at 'em?' But they all said
'twasn't so, 'twas just a most hard feat-
ur'd, ha'sh-lookin' face from any p'int of
view. She wouldn't take their word for
it even then, but she kep' askin' other
folks for days and days. She'd run out
with her ap'on on her head and stop a
team comin' back from The Notch, and
she'd say,' Did you see The Profile to-day ?
It's a real nice day,' she'd say,' and the
sun's out. Didn't the featur's kind o'
lighten up 'fore you come away, and look
softer and forgivin' and lovin' ? But they
never give her any satisfaction. So bime-
by she made up her mind it couldn't be
her President anyway, and it seemed to
go out of her head.
" All that was in the summer. 'Twas a
90
hot, dry, drouthy season, and it seemed to
pull her down a good deal. She was
pleasant-spoken and comfortable-lookin'
still—too much so for one that had ought
to been weighed down with thoughts of
her sinful state. But she often owned
up to the children that she was dreadful
lonesome and homesick, and pretty tired
of the heat and the drouth. She talked
to 'em about the President's country a
good deal. From her account it must
have been a real well-watered deestrict,
for she told of springs and wells and
fountains and brooks and rivers; one in
partic'lar that run right down through
the town, timbered all along the banks.
" Deary me! everything was just right
in that place, accordin' to her. I'd like
to find a section of country like it my-
self, and I'd settle there quick enough.
Climate just temp'rate I should judge,
for she said the sun wasn't ever too hot,
the streams never dried up, 'twas allers
9'
good growin' weather, nobody felt the
cold too much; and as for sickness, 'twan't
known there.
" As I said, that fever of hers had took
away all power of feelin' anything very
strong, so she didn't exactly fret nor find
fault, but she owned she couldn't hardly
wait sometimes. I don't wonder, if she
really believed in that place, that she did
want to get off there. For she wasn't
over-comfortable in Sugar Hill, sick and
lonesome and poor and, more'n all, con-
demned by God and man.
" The boys and gals tried to cheer her
up and divert her mind. 'Ma says you
use to sing real nice. Aunt P'niel,' says
Joey Barnes one day. ' She's heerd you
in old times up to your pa's.'
"' I disremember,' says she. ' I didn't
think I ever sung any here in Sugar
Hill. I sung a good deal at the Presi-
dent's.'
"' Oh, sing us something. Aunt P'niel,'
9»
they says, 'something you used to sing
off there.'
" But she allers shook her head and
says,' No,' says she,' you couldn't hardly
expect me to sing the President's pieces
here in Sugar Hill, where it's all so terri-
ble different.'
" Old Tury was some comfort and com-
pany to her, I suppose; though she was a
good deal of care, too, for she was get-
tin' old, and needed to be took charge of
and watched. But she believed every-
thing Mehetabel told her, and she'd heard
it so frequent that she knew it by heart,
and got to believin' she'd seen and heard
it all herself, and knew the President and
his son. And as Mehetabel grew weak
and Tury grew old they'd sort of chirk
one another up by goin' over this queer
story. 'Much hot now,' Tury 'd say,
' much hot, Nyel'—that's what she called
her—"sun burn Tury. Sun no hot Mis-
ser President's place ?'
9J
'"Oh no!' says Mehetabel, 'the sun
never strikes folks there, not to hurt 'em
any, though it's real light and shinin'.'
"'Water dry up now;' Tury 'd say;
' stream low, ground hard, grass all dry.
Plenty stream there, Nyel ?'
"'Yes, plenty, plenty, plenty,' Meheta-
bel'd answer,' and allers full, allers run-
nin' and cool and nice, and, oh, Tury,
when I think of 'em I feel as thirsty as
that deer we see tother day runnin' for
Salmon Hole Brook I'
"'Injun there?' Tury asks one time.
'Misser Pres'dent let Injun come?'
"'Oh yes, yes, Tury,' Mehetabel says,
'all kinds o' folks that was ever made; he
lets 'em all come, and glad to have 'em,
too, and they all set up to one table to-
gether.'
"And Tury'd grunt in that outlandish
Injun way they do when they're pleased.
'Tury want flag, Nyel,' she says some-
times^ 'Tury want wear Misser Pres'-
94
dent's mark, son's mark, so they know
Tury, let Tury in.'
" • Yes, I want that, too, dreadful bad,
Mehetabel 'd put in. 'We must get it
somehow or 'nother, Tury. Mebbe we'll
have it put on after we get there.'
"' Sign all white,' the old woman says.
'Tury see it on hill, shiny-white. Tury
get 'em put it on face, brown face; then
white mark show plain.'
"' Yes, it does look white up there on
Lafayette, don't it.? But, Tury, seems to
me, as I rec'lect it, 'twas red there, in the
President's land; but mebbe I disremem-
ber.'
"'Flag white, Nyel; Tury never see
flag red,' she'd say. And so they'd go
on by the hour.
" We're drawin' nigh home now, and
there's the meetin'-house, off there; you
just see the steeple. But I'll drive slow,
for I guess we're goin' to have a nice
sunset to-night, and you seem int'rested
95
in such things. I don't notice 'em my-
self much.
"Mehetabel failed pretty rapid that
summer, and by September she took to
her bed, and folks see she couldn't hold
out much longer. Mr. Latham hadn't
been up that year. He wanted to see
the leaves turn, he wrote Mis' Peabody,
and so he'd wait till fall. About the
last of September he come, and he felt
dreadful bad when he found out how low
Mehetabel Clark was. He spent most of
his time there those days. He was alone
with her and Tury a good deal, and no-
body knows all the things that went on
there among themselves. But I can't but
hope, as a Christian minister, he tried to
do his duty by that poor backslider, dyin'
in her sins, and that deluded heathen in
her blindness, as the hymn says.
" There was times, however, when other
folks was there, too, and so I know a little
about things. And they told me that
96
there wasn't any change for the better in
that poor soul, even at the very last. Elder
Welcome acted like a Christian should,
and let by-gones be by-gones, when he
saw she was so nigh her end. He went to
see her, and dealt with her faithful, for,
he said, 'twasn't any time to shrink from
a painful duty when she might be sum-
moned any minute. So he held up the
comin' judgment plain and strong, with-
out slurrin' or smoothin' over. But he
told me afterwards it done no good; she
wouldn't pay any attention to what he
said, nor ever lose her quiet, peaceable,
smilin' look. That had all come back to
her now, since she was so weak and low,
and she didn't complain about bein'
homesick or tired of things any more.
" The doctor thought she'd better be
told that she couldn't live a great while
longer; so she was. But her mind was
wand'rin' a mite by that time, and she
wouldn't believe what was told her. She
97
used to smile in that old way of hers, as if
she knew-more'n anybody else about some
things, and she'd say that she'd allers been
told she shouldn't never die, and that she
was goin' back to the President's land.
She talked with the children when she was
able, and they got the idee she thought
she was goin' by water. And when they
said they should think she'd be afraid, all
alone, and her so unaccustomed to sailin',
and it bein' cold weather now, she only
whispered, for she hadn't much voice by
that time, that she wa'n't a mite scaret,
and she wasn't goin' alone.'
" There was a queer coincidence, as
they say, about that time. She hadn't
seen the White Cross, as you call it—^that
ledge and holler, as I say—since May or
June, of course, and she'd set her mind
on lookin' at it again. She'd keep askin'
every day if the flag was up, and seemed
to think she must hold on here till 'twas.
Old Tury kep' tellin' her in her lingo that
7
98
it couldn't be hung out till next spring,
and Mr. Latham and the children and all
tried to get her off the subject. It was a
warm, soft fall, but about the first of Oc-
tober there come one of those sudden
cold snaps we're liable to 'round here,
and the thermometer fell fast.
" 'Twas a bitter cold night, but in the
iHornin' the sun came out bright and
warm again. Old Tury went up the road
that afternoon, to Mis' Wells's, to get
some milk they'd promised her, and when
she come back she was in the craziest, ex-
citedest state. She run into Mehetabel's
room, and 'fore they could hush her or
stop her she cries out, ' Flag out, Nyel,
Misser Pres'dent's flag, son's flag, up on
mountain!'
"And sure enough, it had snowed up
there enough to pack that holler and lay
again'the ledge, and the sun havin' thawed
what was elsewhere 'round, there was the
White Cross, as folks call it, pretty plain.
99
" Mehetabel took it very quiet. ' I
knowed he'd put it up,' she whispered.
Old Tury kep' goin' to the nearest p'int
where she could catch a sight of Lafay-
ette, so as to come back and tell Meheta-
bel. ' Flag there, Nyel,' she'd say, hobblin'
in,' no gone, flag there, shiny-white.'
"The last time she went 'twas nigh
sundown, and Mr. Latham and some jof
the children went, and I was along, too;
and there come just after the sun went
down a kind of light we get here some-
times—I never see it anywhere else—a
red, purply sort of color over everything;
you know what I mean; I think we'll
have it to-night, from the looks of things.
And while we stood on the hill lookin' at
Lafayette we see that purply color come
creepin' over things. It touched the trees
there on the Butter Hill road, and turned
'em yellerish-like first, and then pinky,
and it went along there above the Profile
Farm, and the side of Bald Mountain,
too
and up and up Lafayette, makin' it all
purply-red, and then on a sudden we see
it had reached that ledge and holler.
" 'Twas queer, wasn't it, that it should
have happened so, when Mehetabel had
allers said she'd rec'lected the President's
flag red instead of white ? It seemed to
fit into her story. And when old Tury
run into her room and dropped down by
the bed, and says, ' Flag red now, Nyel,
flag red; Nyel say right, Misser Pres'-
dent's flag red, son's flag red,' Meheta-
bel's featur's took on a peaceabler look
yet.
" I wasn't there at the very last. Mr.
Latham was, and Tury, of course, but I
never heard the partic'lars. A day or two
beforehand one of the children told me
he was there, and Aunt P'niel was most
past speakin'. But he said Mr. Latham
would read her little things sometimes,
and again he'd say a word or two, and
she'd rouse up and smile's if she under-
XOI
stood. And she'd got past hearin", too,
I guess, for the boy said Mr. Latham
made a kind of sign to her, and she
smiled all over her face, and moved
her lips, and old Tury she says, 'Flag,
Nyel, Misser Pres'dent's flag, son's flag!'
And so she was deluded to the very
last."
The deacon's voice ceased; his story
seemed ended. We were all very still,
though thinking of many things. The
wonderful purple light, which comes
sometimes to those Franconia hills, was
touching them now; and as we drove
slowly along, facing old Lafayette, we
saw the cross upon the mountain-side
stained with crimson. The deacon saw it,
too. He did not speak for some minutes.
Then, suddenly, almost as if the words
were forced from him in spite of himself,
he said: " I've told you this about Me-
hetabel Clark as we here in the church
and community have told it and looked
I02
at it—most of us—for all these years. It
seemed the best, or, 't any rate, the least
dang'rous way of puttin' it, and I've put
it so to you to-day. But, mebbe, it ain't
quite fair for me not to say, before I leave
off, that sometimes, partic'lar since I'm
growin' old, I find myself lookin' at things
a mite different. There's times, and
pretty frequent, too, when I get to think-
in' that mebbe, after all, there's another
way than that old one of Elder Wei-
come's and ours, and that, somehow, she
found it.
" I don't know how many times I've
thought that, when I've been out in that
little Sugar Hill buryin'-ground and seen
Mehetabel's grave, just a little ways off
from my Marietty's. It's so sort of still
and hushed-up like there, as if 'twas
waitin' for somethin', and—it makes me
think of things. Mr. Latham took charge
of buryin' her, you see, and he put up a
stone. Some folks didn't think he done
I03
just right to put Scriptur' words over her,
and I used to agree with 'em. But—I
don't know. You must go and see it
some day. There it is, cut on the marble
cross as plain as day:
*' * Stifne eses sliall see t!ie lEttns In
beauts; tbes sball bebolb tjie lanb tbat fs
bets tat otf.'"
SEVEN DREAMERS.
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