Chapter XXXVI Getting the Answer
When Patty went down to strain the milk on the morning after her return, the hope of some deliverance through Lewis Goodwin had well-nigh died out. If he had had anything to communicate, Morton would not have delayed so long to come to see her. But, standing there as of old, in the moss-covered spring-house, she was, in spite of herself, dreaming dreams of Morton, and wondering whether she could have misunderstood the hint that Lewis Goodwin, while he was yet Pinkey, had dropped. By the time the first crock was filled with milk and adjusted to its place in the cold current, she had recalled that morning of nearly three years before, when she had resolved to forsake father and mother and cleave to Morton; by the time the second crock had been neatly covered with its clean block she thought she could almost hear him, as she had heard him singing on that morning:
“Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear,
Thou’rt to love and heaven sae dear,
Nocht of ill may come thee near,
My bonnie dearie.”
Both she and Morton had long since, in accordance with the Book of Discipline, given up “singing those songs that do not tend to the glory of God,” but she felt a longing to hear Morton’s voice again, assuring her of his strong protection, as it had on that morning three years ago. Meanwhile, she had filled all the crocks, and now turned to pass out of the low door when she saw, standing there as he had stood on that other morning, Morton Goodwin. He was more manly, more self-contained, than then. Years of discipline had ripened them both. He stepped back and let her emerge into the light; he handed her that note which Pinkey had dictated to Ann Eliza, and which Patty read:
“REV. MORTON GOODWIN:
“Dear Sir—The engagement between us is broken off. It is my fault and not yours.
“ANN E. MEACHAM.”
“It must have cost her a great deal,” said Patty, in pity. Morton loved her better for her first unselfish thought.
He told her frankly the history of the engagement; and then he and Patty sat and talked in a happiness so great that it made them quiet, until some one came to call her, when Morton walked up to the house to renew his acquaintance with the invalid and mollified Captain Lumsden.
“Faix, Moirton,” said Brady, afterward, when he came to understand how matters stood, “you’ve got the answer in the book. It’s quare enough. Now, ‘one and one is two’ is aisy enough, but ’one and one is one’ makes the hardest sum iver given to anybody. You’ve got it, and I’m glad of it. May ye niver conjugate the varb ’to love’ anyways excipt prisent tinse, indicative mood, first parson, plural number, ’we love.’ I don’t keer ef ye add the futur’ tinse, and say, ‘we will love,’ nor ef ye put in the parfect and say, ‘we have loved,’ but may ye always stick fast to first parson, plural number, prisint tinse, indicative mood, active v’ice!”
Morton returned to Jenkinsville circuit in some trepidation. He feared that the old brethren would blame him more than ever. But this time he found himself the object of much sympathy. Ann Eliza had forestalled all gossip by renewing her engagement with the very willing Bob Holston, who chuckled a great deal to think how he had “cut out” the preacher, after all. And when Brother Magruder came to understand that he had not understood Morton’s case at all, and to understand that he never should be able to understand it, he thought to atone for any mistake he might have made by advising the bishop to send Brother Goodwin to the circuit that included Hissawachee. And Morton liked the appointment better than Magruder had expected. Instead of living with his mother, as became a dutiful son, he soon installed himself for the year at the house of Captain Lumsden, in the double capacity of general supervisor of the moribund man’s affairs and son-in-law.
There rise before me, as I write these last lines, visions of circuits and stations of which Morton was afterward the preacher-in-charge, and of districts of which he came to be presiding elder. Are not all of these written in the Book of the Minutes of the Conferences? But the silent and unobtrusive heroism of Patty and her brave and life-long sacrifices are recorded nowhere but in the Book of God’s Remembrance.
The End