The Diary of a Saint. Bates Arlo
West is very pretty. All the time I watched in church I tried to persuade myself that she was not. I meanly and contemptibly sat there finding fault with her face, saying to myself that her nose was too long, her eyes too small, her mouth too big; inventing flaws as if my invention would change the fact. It was humiliating business; and utterly and odiously idiotic. Miss West is pretty; she is more than this, she is wonderfully pretty. There is an appealing, baby look about her big blue eyes which goes straight to one's heart. She looks like a darling child one would want to kiss and shelter from all the hard things of life. I own it all; I realize all that it means; and if in my inmost soul I am afraid, I will not deny what is a fact or try to shut my eyes to the littleness of my feeling about her. Of course George found her adorable. She is. The young men in the congregation all watched her, and even grim Deacon Richards could not keep his eyes off of her.
She does not have the look of a girl of any especial mind. Her prettiness is after all that of a doll. Her large eyes are of the sort to please a man because of their appealing helplessness; not because they inspire him with new meanings. Her little rosebud lips will never speak wisdom, I am afraid; but in my jealousy I wonder whether most men do not care more for lips which invite kisses than for lips which speak wisdom. I am frankly and weakly miserable. George walked home with me, but he had not two words to say.
I must try to meet this. If George should come to care for her more than for me! If he should, – if by a pretty face he forgets all the years that we have belonged to each other, what is there to do? I cannot yet believe that it is best for him; but if it will make him happy, even if he thinks that it will, what is there for me but to make it as easy for him as I may? He certainly would not be happy to marry me and love somebody else. He cannot leave me without pain; that I am sure. I shall show my love for him more truly if I spare him the knowledge of what it must cost me.
But what mawkish nonsense all this is! A man may admire a pretty face, and yet not be ready for it to leave behind all that has been dear to him. Oh, if he had not asked me that question when he came back from Franklin! I cannot get it out of my mind that even if he was not conscious of it, it meant he still was secretly tired of his long engagement; that he was at least dreaming of what he would do if he were free. He shall not be bound by any will of mine; and if his heart has gone out to this beautiful creature, I must bear it as nobly as I can. Father used to say, – and every day I go back more and more to what he said to me, – "What you cannot at need sacrifice nobly you are not worthy to possess."
January 18. I have had a note which puzzles me completely. Tom Webbe writes to say that he is going away; that I am to forgive him for the shame of having known him, and that his address is inclosed in a sealed envelope. I am not to open it unless there is real need. Why should he give his address to me?
January 19. The disconcerting way Aunt Naomi has of coming in without knocking, stealing in on feet made noiseless by rubbers, brought her into the sitting-room last night while I was mooning in the twilight, and meditating on nothing in particular. I knew her slow fashion of opening the door, "like a burglar at a cupboard," as Hannah says, – so that I was able to compose my face into an appropriate smile of welcome before she was fairly in.
"Sitting here alone?" was her greeting.
"Mother is asleep," I answered, "and I was waiting for her to wake."
Aunt Naomi seated herself in the stiffest chair in the room, and began to swing her foot as usual.
"Deacon Daniel's at it again," she observed dispassionately.
I smiled a little. It always amuses me that the troubles of the church should be so often brought to me who am an outsider. Aunt Naomi arrives about once a month on the average, with complaints about something. They are seldom of any especial weight, but it seems to relieve her to tell her grievances.
"Which Deacon Daniel?" I asked, to tease her a little.
"Deacon Richards, of course. You know that well enough."
"What is it now?"
"He won't have any fire in the vestry," she answered.
"Why not let somebody else take care of the vestry then, if you want a fire?"
"You don't suppose," was her response, with a chuckle, "that he'd give up the key to anybody else, do you?"
"I should think he'd be glad to."
"He'll hold on to that key till he dies," retorted Aunt Naomi with a sniff; "and I shouldn't be surprised if he had it buried with him. He wouldn't lose the chance of making folks uncomfortable."
"Oh, come, Aunt Naomi, you are always so hard on Deacon Richards," I protested. "He is always good-natured with me."
"I wish you'd join the church, then, and see if you can't keep him in order. Last night it was so cold at prayer-meeting that we were all half frozen, and Mr. Saychase had to dismiss the meeting. Old lady Andrews spoke up in the coldest part of it, when we were all so chilled that we couldn't speak, and she said in that little, high voice of hers: 'The vestry is very cold to-night, but I trust that our hearts are warm with the love of Christ.'"
I laughed at the picture of the half-frozen prayer-meeting, and dear old lady Andrews coming to the rescue with a pious jest; it was so characteristic.
"But has anybody spoken to Deacon Richards?" I asked.
"You can't speak to him," she responded, wagging her foot with a violence that seemed to speak celestial anger within. "I try to after every prayer-meeting; but he has the lights out before I can say two words. I can't stay there in the dark with him; and the minute he gets me outside he locks the door, and posts off like a streak."
"Why not go down to his mill in broad daylight?" I suggested.
"Oh, he'd stick close to the grinding-thing just so he couldn't hear, and I'm afraid of being pitched into the hopper," she said, laughing. "You must speak to him. He pays some attention to what you say."
"But it's none of my business. I don't go to prayer-meeting."
"But it's your duty to go," she answered, with a shrewd smile that showed that she appreciated her response; "and if you neglect one duty it's no excuse for neglecting another. Besides, you can't be willing to have the whole congregation die of cold."
So in the end it was somehow fixed that I am to remonstrate with Deacon Daniel because the faithful are cold at their devotions. It would seem much simpler for them to stay at home and be warm. They do not, as far as I can see, enjoy going; but they are miserable if they do not go. Their consciences trouble them worse than the cold, poor things. I suppose that I can never be half thankful enough to Father for bringing me up without a theological conscience. Prayer-meetings seem to be a good deal like salt in the boy's definition of something that makes food taste bad if you don't put it on; prayer-meetings make church-goers uneasy if they do not go. If they will go, however, and if they are better for going, or believe they are better, or if they are only worse for staying away, or suppose they are worse, they should not be expected to sit in a cold vestry in January. Why Deacon Daniel will not have a fire is not at all clear. It may be economy, or it may be a lack of sensitiveness; it may be for some recondite reason too deep to be discovered. I refuse to accept Aunt Naomi's theory that it is sheer obstinacy; and I will beard the deacon in his mill, regardless of the danger of the hopper. At least he generally listens to me.
January 20. Hannah came up for me this evening while I was reading to Mother.
"Deacon Webbe's down in the parlor," she announced. "Says he wants to see you if you're not busy. 'Ll come again if you ain't able to see him."
"Go down, Ruth dear," Mother said at once. "It may be another church quarrel, and I wouldn't hinder you from settling it for worlds."
"But don't you want me to finish the chapter?" I asked. "Church quarrels will generally keep."
"No, dear. I'm tired, and we'll stop where we are. I'll try to go to sleep, if you'll turn the light down."
As I bent over to kiss her, she put up her feeble thin fingers, and touched my cheek lovingly.
"You're a dear girl," she said. "Be gentle with the deacon."
There was a twinkle in her eye, for