59. The Prodigal
One can never have done admiring the beauties of a late afternoon on the Ohio. In a village like Luzerne, where every house was bowered in apple-trees, and rosebushes, and grape-vines, and honeysuckles, it was always a delight. That is a lazy climate, and a town like Luzerne is a place, in which halt the people seem, to a stranger, to have nothing much to do. At some seasons of the year, when onion buying and hay shipping were active, the town had some appearance of life ; but it was never so peaceful and sleepy-looking as about the first of August. In rnidafternoon, the clerks in the stores sprinkled the floors to keep them cool, and then sat themselves down on shoeboxes or counters to loaf away the hot and idle time, rising with reluctance to sell a half pound of eightpenny nails to some unlucky villager, into whose garden an industrious hog had forced his way, and who was obliged to exert himself enough to nail on a few palings. The roses have long since ceased blooming. The red seed-vessels look bright anionir the Green leaves of the rose-trees. One can hear everywhere, on such a day, the voices of the red-bird and the twittering of the martins and the chatter of chimneyswifts. The grapes are hardly reddening yet, but you can hear at this season the thud of the ripe summer apples, as they fall from time to time upon the ground. Nobody does anything. The boys find it too warm to play. They are up in the apple-trees, tilling their hats and shirt-bosoms with the too abundant fruit, or they are prowling about some garden-patch, waiting their opportunity to "hook" a great ripe water-melon. They know a good place in some retired orchard, or under a drift-pile of the river-side, where they can carry their booty, and find out how sweet are stolen melons. A little later, when the rays of the sun are less fiery, the whole village full of boys will be swimming in the tepid river, shouting, diving, splashing one another, for hours at a stretch.
It is a beautiful climate on this beautiful river, where the winters are never stern, and where, in the hot summer, one is absolved from responsibility and care. Nowhere is the " sweet doing nothing " sweeter than here. Lie down under a cherry-tree and sleep, stretch yourself near an open doorway and read, with the sound of cow-bells, and the far away cawing of crows, and the cackling of hens, and the scarcely heard and lazy hammering of the village smith floating to you out of an air full of stillness and peace. Put away your book at last. The world is too comfortable for exertion. The repose in the sky and in the faint breeze is too exquisite. It is happiness enough to be.
It does not matter that you come of an energetic race cradled in the rocky hill-sides of New England. This air is too much for you. Why be ambitious? The poorest man is rich enough here. Sit down, sad soul, or lie down and slumber.
Even a conscientious, energetic, studious Tale man such as Whittaker, cannot quite resist this enervating air of Southern Indiana. The river is so beautiful, reflecting the blue sky and the banks of white clouds, and the air ia so refreshing that Whittaker does not study much. His dictionaries are all unopened. He needs lest, he says, and he rests. All the hot afternoon he sits on the upper back porch and talks with Twonnet. There is something bo stimulant in her droll speeches, that he has forgotten to study. He is trying to prepare her to be a minister's wife. Sometimes a suspicion crosses his mind that after all she has more tact and practical wisdom than he has. But for the most part he flatters himself that he is teaching her and she amuses herself as she always has done by making sport of her teacher.
" I think it would be a good plan for us to correct each other's speech, my dear, don't you ? " he said to Twonnet one afternoon.
" I think it would be right good to be corrected by you, " answered Twonnet.
" You oughtn't to use the word right instead of very or quite" Whittaker began. ''All Western people do. They say, ' It's a right cold day,' 'He's a right good man.' This is improper."
" It's in the Bible," answered Twonnet, roguishly. " I think I remember the expression, ' and that right early.' "
It had never occurred to Whittaker that these provincialisms were archaic forms no one had given attention to the fact then. But Twonnet's reply confused him. He assured her, however, that it was hardly proper English nowadays, if it was in the Bible.
" It's right strange it should be there I mean it's mighty strange it should be there," she said.
" Yes, it is. Another thing that is bad in Western speech is that you will say mighty for very. ' It's mighty good,' and ' I'm mighty cold ' sound very rough."
* This is not true of the northern belt of the West, in which New England usage predominates.
" I suppose they wouldn't be rough if you were used to them," rejoined Twonnefc, with mischief in her eyes "I'm mighty sure they wouldn't."
" Why, yes, they are rough in themselves."
"Yes, but you don't think the same expression iough in French. We often say fort for very in French."
" That is so," said Whittaker, thrown into confusion by this analogy. He had to fall back on good usage in the English language as the only authority. Then he begged Twonnet to point out any mistakes of his own.
" W'y," said she, " all of you people from the East will pronounce 'wholly' as though it were not sounded just like ' holy.' "
Whittaker could not admit that the two words were the same. All the Yale professors softened the " o " in wholly. It was only when he conquered his indolence enough to get the dictionary and when the dictionary had shown him that this " o " was not the French "couo-h sound," that he began to suspect that he himself had a local dialect. For no man measures his own distance from the standard. But he did not care to what result these debates came. They made talk between him and Twonnet. And if she could not learn much from books the paradoxical young woman was a very keen observer of life.
When at last supper is over, Whittaker remembers how much Roxy is in trouble, and as it is a call that is better made in company he gets Twonnet's sun-bonnet and puts it on her head, as they walk together along the river bank. Whittaker is like a man in a trance. Life has become genial and joyous to him.
The slender Bobo, who lives with Roxy all the time, now, is at the gate, and he is always glad to see them. He goes down to the gate every evening. For Roxy has taught him to say in his prayers every night and morning: "O God, send Mark home to Roxy again." She believes superstitiously that the prayers of children and innocents have a peculiar efficacy. And Bobo, in his unquestioning faith, is quite disappointed when evening after evening he waits at the gate and finds no answer to his request.
Just now he skips along in front of Whittaker and Twonnet, for he knows that their coming will bring some cheer to the anxious face of his madonna.
And, indeed, the assurance with which Whittaker spoke of Mark's return did cheer Roxy a little that evening. The air was too balmy for anybody to believe in catastrophe. The happiness of Whittaker and Twonnet, too, was somehow infectious.
"When the darkness deepened, and the mail-boat, with its two tall chimneys flying banners of fiery sparks, came in sight, Roxy got up and strained her eyes at the boat as it passed. The whizzing plash of its paddlewheels in the water, and the glare of its furnace fires on the smooth river, set her heart beating wildly. Not a boat had passed in a month that she had not gazed at it, in this eager fashion. For, though doing was easy to her, waiting was hard. The boat rounded to the wharf, and she sat down again, hoping against hope that this would be the night on which Mark should come back.
And indeed Mark Bonamy was standing just forward of the wheel-house on the lower deck of the boat, straining his eyes at the brick house, and wondering and wondering. Some weeks before, in New Orleans, as he was helping to carry a grindstone aboard on a hand-barrow, he was thinking of home and debating whether he should not return. His severe physical fatigue had brought health to his brain, and the old lingering impression that he was to serve out a given time, had grown faint.
" Ees it ycu, Mr. Bonamy ? " spoke up Chauvier, a French merchant, who had passed one or two summers in Luzerne. " Ze lettares I haf had from Madame Bonamy about you ! "
"From what?"
" From Madame, your wife."
" My wife is dead."
" I do not like to tell you dat you do not speak de trute, but pardi, Madame has recovered herself, and she wants very much to zee you."
" Get to work, there ! None of your foolin' ! " called out the mate to Mark.
" I guess I wont work any more," said Mark, putting down his end of the barrow.
" You wont, eh ? " And the mate bristled up to him. The only means of discipline among the deck crew of that day, was the brutal blow with the mate's fist armed with metal knuckles. But when Mark, irritated by all he had borne, and all the oppressions he had seen put on weaker men, squared himself off, the mate, noting his size, and remembering that he might get in the first blow, contented himself with saying :
" You wont get any pay for the time you've worked over your month."
To this Bonamy made no reply, but pursued his wondering inquiries. Guided by Chauvier's information, he found Luzerne people about the levee, who confirmed the Frenchman's intelligence.
That night he started home, taking deck passage to avoid observation. With every mile that the slow-paced boat traveled, he became more and more impatient. At Louisville he changed to the mail-boat. Hardly had the " Ben Franklin No. 2 " touched the wharf, when he leaped upon the lower end of the wharf -boat, where there were no people, and ran across, jumping ashore. He met Pete Raymond on the bank, and then took the near and lonesome cut across the grassy common of the lower terrace.
When he arrived at his own gate, in his tatterdemalion costume of deck-hand, he was kept back by hearing voices on the porch. He could not go in while strangers were there.
So it happened that, when time enough had elapsed for Mark to have reached home and he came not, Roxy gave up, saying :
" Well, Bobo, Mark didn't come this time, did he?"
And it seemed to her that he would never come.
When Whittaker and Twonnet passed out of the gate, Mark recognized them, but he concealed himself until they had gone. Then he approached the gate where Bobo had stopped when he had accompanied Whittaker and Twonnet thus far. The lad was gazing through the palings and wondering why God did not tell Mark to come home.
" Is that you, Bobo ? " said Mark, gently.
Recognizing the voice, Bobo gave a great cry of delight and ran wildly into the house.
" Mark's come back to Roxy ! " he cried.
Mark had walked up under the old poplars, trembling with he knew not what emotion, until he was half-way ro the house, when he saw Roxy coming toward him.
He stopped there, ashamed, for the first time, of his appearance, and in some strange trepidation about the reception he would have.
Roxy could not recognize him in the darkness. She paused, and then said, interrogatively :
Mark ? "
" Yes, Roxy "
Mark had not long to doubt of his welcome then. What were soiled and ragged clothes or bitter and guilty memories ? He was at home, forgiven, kissed, embraced, wept over, loved as of old. When Roxy had embraced him over and over, and wept upon his neck, she led him into the house in triumph. She had conquered at last.
The next Sunday, she took her old place in the Methodist meeting-house. Mark stayed at home, because Roxy did not like to have him subjected to any humiliation from the looks or words of those about him. But she sat again in the amen corner, among the sisters who were active in the church. There was the old look of gladness in her face. There was more than the old gladness, now, in her heart there was blessedness. It was the quarterly meeting, and when the venerable elder read with emotion, " Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness : for they shall be filled," tears of joy were in her eyes, and a fullness as of God, in her heart. And when he read, " Blessed are the merciful : for thev shall obtain mercv," many in the congregation turned their eyes toward her. But when the white-haired old man read, " Blessed are the peacemakers," his voice quivered, and he involuntarily looked at Roxy ; then he slowly finished: "for they shall be called the children of God." Every word dropped like a benediction into her heart. She bowed her head upon the back of the seat in front of her and wept, while sighs and sobs were heard from the demonstrative people all over the house. And of all who knelt by the rude benches in that old church that day to eat and drink the blessed bread and wine, there were none who took the secret sacrament as did the woman who had dared to give her heart to suffer for others, after the pattern of the Master of self-sacrifice.
The people said that Roxy was her old self again. But she was not. A great experience transforms. We must ever be more or less than our old selves. Roxy was not now the zealous and restless young woman seeking a mission, and longing for hard tasks. Her work was in her hands, and she was easily master of it. The victory of paradise was already in her heart, for she had overcome the world's tribulation.
THE END