Ole Mammy's Torment

Chapter 8

Boys do not grow into saints in a single night, in the way that Jack's beanstalk grew from earth to sky. Sainthood comes slowly, like the blossom on a century plant; there must be a hundred years of thorny stem-life first.

Mammy soon lost all her fears of John Jay's dying. Although the promise made to George on the haymow was faithfully kept, he could no more avoid getting into mischief than a weathercock can keep from turning when the wind blows.

The October frosts came, sweetening the persimmons and ripening the nuts in the hazel copse; but it nipped the children's bare feet, and made the thinly clad little shoulders shiver. John Jay gladly shuffled into the old clothes sent over from Rosehaven. They were many sizes too big, but he turned back the coat sleeves and hitched up his suspenders, regardless of appearances. Bud fared better, for the suit that fell to his lot was but slightly worn, and almost fitted him. As for Ivy, she was decked out in such finery that the boys scarcely dared to touch her. She had been given a long blue velvet cloak that the youngest Haven could no longer squeeze into. It was trimmed with shaggy fur that had once been white. Ivy admired it so much that when she was not wearing it out of doors she was carrying it around in the house in a big roll, as tenderly as if it had been a great doll.

It was an odd little procession that filed past Uncle Billy's house every day, on the way to the woods for autumn stores. John Jay came first, with a rickety wagon he had made out of a soap-box and two solid wooden wheels. He looked like a little old man, with his long coat and turned up trowsers. Bud came next in his new suit, but he had lost his hat, and was obliged to wear a handkerchief tied over his ears. Ivy brought up the rear, continually tripping on her long cloak, and jolting her white toboggan cap down over her eyes at almost every step.

Nuts and persimmons and wild fox-grapes filled the little wagon many times, and made a welcome addition to Mammy's meagre bill of fare.

Late one evening John Jay came running up the path all out of breath. The yellow candle-light streamed out through the cabin window. He stopped and looked in, sniffing the air with keen enjoyment, for Mammy was stewing the rabbit he had caught that morning in a snare.

He could see Bud sitting on the floor, with his feet harnessed up as horses. He was sawing the reins back and forth and remorselessly switching his own legs until they flew up and down in fine style. John Jay watched him with a grin on his face.

Presently Mammy, turning to season the stew, saw the black face pressed close against the window-pane. With a startled shriek she gave the pepper-pot such a shake that the lid flew off, and nearly all of the pepper went into the stew.

"Jus' see what you done!" she scolded, as John Jay walked into the house an instant later. "Next time you come gawkin' in the window at me in the dark, I'll peppah you 'stid o' the rabbit!"

John Jay hastened to change the subject. "I sole a bushel of hickory nuts to Mistah Bemis jus' now," he stammered, "an' he's goin' to take some mo' next week. I'm savin' up to get you all somethin' mighty nice for Chrismus." He jingled his pockets suggestively; but Mammy was too busy skimming the pepper out of the stew to make any reply.

One warm, mellow afternoon when the golden-rod was at its sunniest, and the iron-weed flaunted its royal purple across the fields in the trail of the Indian summer, John Jay went down to the toll-gate cottage. He found his Reverend George sitting on the porch in his overcoat, with a shawl thrown over his knees. A book lay in his lap, but his hands were folded on the open pages, and he was looking far away across the brown fields of tattered corn-stalks. He was much better than he had been for several weeks, and welcomed John Jay so gaily, that the child felt that a weight had somehow been lifted from him. Mammy and Uncle Billy had been whispering together many times of late, and the little listener shared their fears. He had made so many visits to the toll-gate since the day he was left in charge, that he felt almost as much at home there as Mars' Nat himself. Once George did all the talking while John Jay listened with his head bashfully tipped to one side; now they seemed to have changed places. It was George who listened.

John Jay had been kept at home for several days, and had much to tell. For an hour or more he entertained George with accounts of his rabbit snares, his nutting expeditions, and his persimmon hunts. He told about the dye Mammy had made from the sumach berries which he had carried home, and how Ivy had dropped her pet duck into it. He imitated Bud's antics when he upset the kettle of soft soap, and he had much to say about the young owl which they had caught, and caged under a wash-tub.

He did not notice that he was doing all the talking this afternoon, but filled the pauses that sometimes fell between them by idly playing jack-stones with a handful of acorns. George was thinking as they sat there that this might be the last time that they two would ever sit in this way together, and he was searching for some words with which to prepare the child for a sudden leave-taking in case it should be soon.

At last he cleared his throat. John Jay looked up expectantly, but just then Mars' Nat walked around the house.

"Here comes Doctor Leonard," he said, nodding towards a rapidly approaching horseman. "Howdy, Doc," he called, as the man drew rein, and felt in his pocket for some change to pay his toll. "What's your hurry?"

"I've a call over to Elk Ridge," he answered, handing him the money and quickly starting on. Then he pulled his horse up with a sudden jerk. "Here, Chadwick," he called, pitching the heavy overcoat he carried on his arm in the direction of the porch, "I wish you'd keep this for me until I get back. I'll be along this way before dark, and it's so much warmer than I thought it would be that such a heavy coat is a nuisance."

"All right," responded the toll-keeper. "Here! John Jay," he ordered, as the doctor disappeared around the bend in the road, "pick up the gentleman's coat and hang it on a chair inside the door there." Then he stuck his hands in his pockets, and whistling to his dog, walked off across the fields.

George turned to the child again. "John Jay," he said, "do you know that I'm going away soon?" Without waiting for an answer, he hurried on, lest another spell of coughing should interrupt him. "When I was a little fellow like you I heard so much about spirits and graveyards and haunted places that I had a horror of dying. I could not think of it without a shiver. But I've found out that death isn't a cold, ugly thing, my boy, and I want you to remember all your life every word I'm saying to you now. There is nothing to dread in simply going down this road and through the gate as Doctor Leonard did, and death is no more than that. We just go down the turnpike till we get to the end of this life, and then there's the toll-gate. We lay down our old worn-out bodies, just as Doctor Leonard left his coat here, because he wouldn't need it farther up the road. Then the bar flies up and lets us through. It drops so quickly that no one ever sees what lies on the other side, but we know that there is neither sorrow nor crying beyond it, nor any more pain. Listen, John Jay, this is what the Book tells us."

With fingers that trembled in his eagerness to make himself understood, he lifted the volume that had been lying in his lap. The words that he read vibrated through the child's heart in the way that the organ music used to roll. Never again in the years that followed could he hear them read without seeing all the golden glory of that radiant October day, and hearing the mournful notes of some distant dove, falling at intervals through the Sabbath-like stillness.

He had a queer conception of what lies beyond the gates of this life. It was a curious jumble of crowns and harps and long, white-feathered wings. Mammy's favorite song said, "There's milk an' honey in heaven, I know;" and Aunt Susan often lifted up her cracked voice in the refrain, "Oh, them golden slippahs I'm agwine to wear, when Gabriel blows his trum-pet!" How Uncle Billy could sigh for the time to come when he might walk the shining pavements was beyond John Jay's understanding. Personally, he preferred the freedom of the neighboring woods and the pleasure of digging in the dirt to all the white robes and crowns that might be laid up somewhere in the skies.

But when George had finished reading, John Jay was not gazing into the clouds for a glimpse of the city to which his friend was going; he was looking down the road. Crowned with all their autumn glory, the far hills stood up fair and golden in the westering sun. It was to some place just as real and beautiful as the hills he looked upon that George was going, not a crowded street with an endless procession of singing, white-robed figures. A far country, under whose waving trees health and strength would be given back to him. No, dying was not a cold, ugly thing.

"They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away!"

George closed the book, and leaning wearily back in the chair, drew his hand over his eyes. "I want you to promise me one thing, John Jay," he said. "That when I am gone you will think of what I am telling you now, and when the colored people all gather around to see this tired body of mine laid aside, you'll remember Dr. Leonard's coat, and you'll say, 'George has left his behind too. He isn't here, but he's just on the other side of the toll-gate.' Will you do that, John Jay?"

There was a frightened look in the boy's eyes. He had no words wherewith to answer him, but he nodded an assent as he went on nervously tossing the acorns from one hand to another.

There was a long silence, and when he looked up inquiringly, George had put his thin hands over his face to hide the tears that were slowly trickling down.

"What's the mattah?" he asked anxiously. "Shall I call Mars' Nat?"

"No," answered the man, steadying his voice. "I was only thinking that I had expected to go through the gate, when my turn came, with my arms piled full of sheaves,--but I've come to the end too soon. It seems so hard to come down to death empty-handed, when I have longed all these years to do so much for my people. Oh, my poor people!" he cried out desperately; "so helpless and so needy, and my life that was to have been given to them going out in vain! utterly in vain!"

It was not the first time that John Jay had heard that cry. In these weeks of constant companionship George had talked so much of his hopes and plans, that a faint spark of that same ambition had begun to smoulder slowly in the boy's ignorant little heart. Six months ago he could have had no understanding of such a grief as now made George's voice to tremble; but love had opened his eyes to many things, and made his sympathies keen. He drew nearer, saying almost in a whisper: "But Uncle Billy says you fought a good fight while you was gettin' ready to help us cul'ud folks, an' if you got so knocked up you can't do nothin' moah, maybe 'twon't be expected as you should have yo' hands full when you go through the gates. You've got yo' scars to show for what you've done."

George lifted up his head. There was an eager light in his eyes, not so much because of the comfort that had come from such an unexpected quarter, as because of a new hope that the words suggested. He lifted the boy's chin with a trembling hand, and looked wistfully into his eyes.

"You could do it, couldn't you?" he asked. "All that I must leave undone? The struggle would not be so great for you. There are schools near at hand now. You would not have the fearful odds to contend with that I had. Will you take up my battle? Shall I leave you my sword, John Jay? Oh, you do understand me, don't you?" he cried, imploringly.

"Yes, I understand," answered the boy. Then, as if George had really placed an epaulet upon his shoulder, as if he had really given him a sword, he drew a long breath and said with all the solemnity of a promise: "Some day Uncle Billy shall say that about me, 'He have fought a good fight,--he have finished his co'se.'"