The Diary of a Saint. Bates Arlo
in another form, the petty jealousy of a small soul and a morbid fancy,—he seemed somehow more remote than I have ever known him, and I could not have told him if I would. We did not seem to be entirely frank with each other, but as if each were trying to make the other feel at ease when it was not really possible. Of course I was only attributing my own feelings to him, for he was dearly good.
He told me more about his visit to Franklin, and he seems to have seen Miss West a good deal. She is a sort of cousin of the Watsons, he says, and so they had a common ground. When she found that he lived so near to the Watsons she asked him all kinds of questions. She has never seen them, having lived in the West most of her life, and was naturally much interested in hearing about her relatives. I found myself leading him on to talk of her. I cannot see why I should care about this stranger. Generally I deal very little in gossip. Father trained me to be interested in real things, and meaningless details about people never attracted me. Yet this girl sticks in my mind, and I am tormented to know all about her. It cannot be anything he said; though he did say that she is very pretty. Perhaps it was the way in which he said it. He seemed to my sick fancy to like to talk of her. She must be a charming creature.
January 9. Why should he not like to talk of a pretty girl? I hope I am not of the women who cannot bear to have a man use his eyes except to see their graces. It is pitiful to be so small and mean. I certainly want George to admire goodness and beauty, and to be by his very affection for me the more sensitive to whatever is admirable in others. If I am to be worthy of being his wife, I must be noble enough to be glad at whatever there is for him to rejoice in because of its loveliness: and yet as I write down all these fine sentiments I feel my heart like lead! Oh, I am so ashamed of myself!
January 10. Miss Charlotte came in this afternoon, looking so thin, and cold, and tall, that I have been rather sober ever since.
"I wish I had on shoes with higher heels," I said to her as we shook hands; "then perhaps I shouldn't feel so insignificant down here."
She looked down at me, laughing that rich, throaty laugh of hers.
"Mother always used to say she knew the Kendalls couldn't have been drowned in the Flood," she answered, "for they must all have been tall enough to wade to Mt. Ararat."
"You know the genealogy so far back that you must be able to tell whether she was right."
"I don't go quite so far as that," she said, sitting down by the fire, "but I know that my great-great-grandfather married a Privet, so that I always considered Judge Privet a cousin."
"If Father was a cousin, I must be one too," said I.
"You are the same relation to me on one side," Miss Charlotte went on, "that Deacon Webbe is on the other. It's about fortieth cousin, you see, so that I can count it or not, as I please."
"I am flattered that you choose to count us in," I told her, smiling; "and I am sure also you must be willing to count in anybody so good as Deacon Webbe."
"Yes, Deacon Webbe is worth holding on to, though he's so weak that he'd let the shadow of a mosquito bully him. The answer to the question in the New England Primer, 'Who is the meekest man?' ought to be 'Deacon Webbe.' He used up all the meekness there was in the whole family, though."
"I confess that I never heard Mrs. Webbe called meek," I assented.
"Meek!" sniffed Miss Charlotte; "I should think not. A wasp is a Sunday-school picnic beside her. While as for Tom"—
She pursed up her lips with an expression of disapproval so very marked I was afraid at once that Tom Webbe must have been doing something dreadful again, and my heart sank for his father.
"But Tom has been doing better," I said. "This winter he"—
"This winter!" she exclaimed. "Why, just now he is worse than ever."
"Oh, dear," I asked, "what is it now? His father has been so unhappy about him."
"If he'd made Tom unhappy it would have been more to the purpose. Tom's making himself the town talk with that Brownrig girl."
"What Brownrig girl?"
"Don't you know about the Brownrigs that live in that little red house on the Rim Road?"
"I know the red house, and now that you say the name, I remember I have heard that such a family have moved in there. Where did they come from?"
"Oh, where do such trash come from ever?" demanded Miss Charlotte. "I'm afraid nobody but the Old Nick could tell you. They're a set of drunken, disreputable vagabonds, that turned up here last year. They were probably driven out of some town or other. Tom's been"—
But I did not wish to hear of Tom's misdeeds, and I said so. Miss Charlotte laughed, as usual.
"You never take any interest in wickedness, Ruth," she said good-naturedly. "That's about the only fault I have to find with you."
Poor Deacon Webbe! Tom has made him miserable indeed in these years since he came from college. The bitterness of seeing one we love go wrong must be unbearable, and when we believe that the consequences of wrong are to be eternal—I should go mad if I believed in such a creed. I would try to train myself to hate instead of to love; or, if I could not do this—But I could not believe anything so horrible, so that I need not speculate. Deacon Daniel is a saint, though of course he does not dream of such a thing. A saint would not be a saint, I suppose, who was aware of his beatitude, and the deacon's meekness is one of his most marked attributes of sanctity. I wonder whether, in the development of the race, saintliness will ever come to be compatible with a sense of humor. A saint with that persuasively human quality would be a wonderfully compelling power for good. Deacon Daniel is a fine influence by his goodness, but he somehow enhances the desirability of virtue in the abstract rather than brings home personally the idea that his example is to be followed; and all because he is so hopelessly without a perception of the humorous side of existence. But why do I go on writing this, when the thought uppermost in my mind is the grief he will have if Tom has started again on one of his wild times. I do hope that Miss Charlotte is mistaken! So small a thing will sometimes set folk to talking, especially about Tom, who is at heart so good, though he has been wild enough to get a bad name.
January 11. Things work out strangely in this world; so that it is no wonder all sorts of fanciful beliefs are made out of them. There could hardly be a web more closely woven than human life. To-day, when I had not seen Tom for months, and when the gossip of last night made me want to talk with him, chance brought us face to face.
Mother was so comfortable that I went out for an hour. The day was delightful, cold enough so that the walking was dry and the snow firm, but the air not sharp to the cheek. The sun was warm and cheery, and the shadows on the white fields had a lovely softness. I went on in a sort of dream, it was so good to be alive and out of doors in such wonderful weather. I turned to go down the Rim Road, and it was not until I came in sight of the red house that I remembered what Miss Charlotte said last night. Then I began to think about Tom. Tom and I have always been such good friends. I used to understand Tom better in the old school-days than the others did, and he was always ready to tell me what he thought and felt. Nowadays I hardly ever see him. Since I became engaged he has almost never come to the house, though he used to be here so much. I meet him only once or twice a year, and then I think he tries to avoid me. I am so sorry to have an old friendship broken off like that. The red house made me think of Tom with a sore heart, of all the talk his wild ways have caused, the sorrow of his father, and the good that is being lost when a fellow with a heart so big as Tom's goes wrong.
Suddenly Tom himself appeared before my very eyes, as if my thought had conjured him up. He came so unexpectedly that at first I could hardly realize how he came. Then it flashed across me that he must have walked round the red house. I suppose he must have come out of a back door somewhere, like one of the family; such folk never use their front doors. He walked along the road toward me, at first so preoccupied that he did not recognize me. When he saw my face, he half hesitated, as if he had almost a mind to turn back, and his whole face turned red. He came on, however, and was going past me with a scant salutation, when I stopped him. I stood still and put out my hand, so that