The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862

Joel felt the foundations of his soul giving way when the possibility presented itself that his wife might die. He called to mind with a shudder the scene at the village tavern in Sudbury, when, a child, he stood by his mother's bedside and heard, awe-struck, her incoherent ravings while the delirium of fever was on her. 'O my God! she will die, she will die!' he exclaimed, as he rushed out of the room, unable to control his feelings.

The country was scoured for doctors. An eminent medical man from New-Haven was sent for. He was unable to come; but the house was filled with consulting physicians. Alas I they knew little in those days how to treat this terrible malady, or rather how to skillfully let it alone. Day after day, Joel paced up and down, now in this room, now in that, all over the house. At night he watched by his wife. He insisted on doing so; no argument or entreaty could prevail on him to leave her a moment. She was delirious nearly all the time. Then her voice would be strong, her eyes glassy bright, her cheeks flushed and burning. She recognized neither husband nor child.

It was in the middle of the night. The 'watcher' who sat up in company with Joel, slumbered in his chair. He did not slumber, but sat with eyes fixed on his wife, who for some time seemed to be resting easier than before. Presently her lips moved. Her husband bent over her.

'Joel.'

'I am here, my darling.'

'Joel.'

'Yes, dearest.'

'We have not lived right'

'No, dear.'

'You do not think we have lived right, do you?'

'No, oh! no.'

'I am going to die, Joel.'

'Do not speak in that way!' and the poor fellow groaned, in spite of every effort to control himself.

'I must, Joel, I must. We have not lived right You will live right when I am gone. You will teach Sarah to live right, won't you?'

'I don't want to live at all if you do not live!' was the passionate answer.

'For our child's sake, Joel.'

No reply.

'What a kind, loving husband you have been to me—been to me always! I loved you—loved you before you knew it, Joel.' Here she opened her eyes languidly, and essayed to turn them on him. 'But we have not lived right.'

There was still no response, save by audible sobs.

'I think I have made my peace with God. Are you glad, Joel?'

'Now I don't care what happens, if you only feel happy!' he cried. 'But to have you die in distress of mind! It would drive me crazy.'

'Give God the praise, Joel. I am happy. It is so sweet to trust in Him! You won't neglect—neglect—you won't–' She fell into a stupor, from which she never fully awoke. Although she lived another day, she exhibited no signs of consciousness. Joel fancied that she was aware of his presence; but she never spoke again.

The funeral was attended by a large concourse of people—very different from that of Joel's mother, whom three selectmen followed to the grave. When it was over, Joel and his daughter went back to their desolate house, while the village set to work to speculate as to whom the widower would marry. 'Such a match! So rich, and only one child! Emily Parks would make him a good wife; only Emily was rather old—at least twenty-seven or eight—and Mr. Burns would marry a young girl, of course. Why shouldn't he, with the amount of money he had? He might take a fancy to Julia Davis—she had just left school.' 'Why shouldn't he marry Lizzie?' said Mrs. Barron to herself. And Lizzie was sent over that very day to 'see to things' for Mr. Burns.

His trials were not ended. Sarah, who was now in her twelfth year, was taken ill the following week. The fever was no doubt going through the family, said the doctors. Joel's faith in medical men was a good deal shaken, but he had to call them in, and Sarah grew worse. Three weeks she lay, submitting to the old treatment, waiting for the 'crisis.' Joel could endure it no longer. He started for New-Haven, changing horses every ten miles. He found the doctor he went in quest of at home; but he said it was impossible for him to go.

'I have lost my wife, and shall lose my child,' said Joel Burns hoarsely.

'My friend,' said the doctor in a mild tone, 'people are dying every where. I have my own patients, whom I ought not to neglect.'

'Go with me, I, implore you,' urged the despairing man; 'I have relays of horses, and I will drive ten miles an hour.' Joel's importunity prevailed. The distance was accomplished in a marvelously brief time.

It was a hot, sultry day, the second week of September, about noon, when Joel, accompanied by the doctor, entered the sick-room.

'How is Sarah?'

'No better,' whispered Miss Barron, who had remained in the house. 'The doctor left half an hour ago. He says he thinks she will go as her mother went.'

'I am awake, father!' (He had approached the bed very carefully, so as not to disturb her.) 'It seems a great while since you went away.'

'I have brought a doctor to cure you, my child,' said Joel. He knew the value of hope and confidence.

Meanwhile the physician was glancing around the room. As I have said, it was a close, sultry day; but the windows were all closed, so that not a breath of air could circulate through the apartment. The doctor quietly threw up every one of them. Perceiving a cot standing near, he ordered it made up with fresh sheets. Going to the bedside of his little patient: 'How do you feel, my child?' he asked.

'I don't know.'

'Bring me a bowl of water and a soft napkin.'

'Warm water, I suppose?' said the nurse.

'Cold.' He threw off the heavy blanket from the bed, and unbuttoning the night-dress, which came close around her, he bathed the child's face and neck with the grateful fluid.

'You feel better now?'

'Yes,' she whispered.

'Don't you want any thing, my dear?'

'I want some water.'

'Give her water, nurse,' said the doctor.

The woman stared in utter amazement. If she had been ordered to cut the child's throat, she could not have been more astounded.

'I say, bring a tumbler of water.'

This was done, and the nurse offered the patient a few drops in a tea-spoon.

'Give me the glass,' and he took it out of her hand. Tenderly he raised the sick child to a comfortable position, and placed it to her lips. 'Take as much as you like, my dear. Water was made to drink.'

He now directed a complete and speedy change of garments, and then he himself took Sarah in his arms and laid her on the other bed. In fifteen minutes, she was sleeping, while a gentle perspiration showed the crisis had passed. Joel Burns stood still, regarding the doctor as he would a being from another world. When he saw him doing just what was invariably prohibited, doing it with such an air of decision and self-confidence yet with no peculiar ostentation, he felt it would all be right. The nurse, at first, was in very bad humor; but nobody noticed her, so she concluded it was best to be good-natured and obey orders. The next day, the doctor pronounced little Sarah out of danger, provided she was properly nursed, and after leaving special directions, which he charged Joel to see to personally till he could hear from him, he returned home as rapidly as he came. When the man who accompanied him came back, he brought the doctor's favorite student, who had directions to devote himself to the 'case,' in which the doctor took so strong an interest. The good man had another motive. He believed the fever was about to attack Joel, and he determined to exert his skill to save him, if possible. To have advised him of his fears, would have been injudicious. He therefore dispatched a young man in whom he had great confidence, after giving him minute instructions. Little Sarah, watched and tended with great care, grew rapidly better. But when the excitement produced by the scenes through which Joel had passed was at an end, a great reaction took place, which left him in a very weak state. In that condition, he was seized by the terrible malady, which found a fit subject in his weakened frame and broken spirits. For weeks Joel Burns lay balancing between life and death. It seemed as if a feather's weight on either side would turn the scale. Morning after morning, the question was put by the whole village: 'Is Mr. Burns alive?' Twice, on occasions which seemed specially urgent, did our worthy doctor come from New-Haven, spend a few hours, and return. The medical student kept his post manfully. It was something to go counter to the opinions and judgments of all the physicians about, far and near. Especially when, if the patient should die, the voice of authority would proclaim that a murder had been committed. [Now, it would be considered murder to follow the old method.] But the doctor was firm, his pupil an enthusiastic believer in his master's genius, and the course was persisted in. At length, the daily reports were modified. First, Mr. Burns was 'no worse.' After that, he was 'a little more comfortable.' Then came the announcement that he was 'better.' The medical men round about were excessively chagrined; but every body else rejoiced at the good news.

All this time, what of Joel Burns? How did he do? Not what was the history of his physical malady. But what was his state morally, mentally, religiously before God! Recollect, the man had never had a check in his whole career before. The circumstances of his childhood served rather to give strength and firmness to his nature. The sudden failure and death of his benefactor only threw him the more on his own resources, with which he was amply provided. His plans had been successful. His friends were many. His hopes for the future were large, yet not unreasonable; while on all sides, as we have said, he was regarded as the man of the community in which he lived.

Joel had scarcely time for reflection, after the death of his wife, before his child was taken ill, and ere she was really out of danger, he himself was stricken down. All that long, weary time, during days and nights of fever and delirium, of exhaustion and weakness, of convalescence and recovery, the whisper of his dying wife was constantly heard:

'Joel, we have not lived right! Do you think we have lived right, Joel?'

'Lived right!' What did that mean? Was Joel Burns a dishonest man? Was he not kind-hearted, generous, loving toward his wife, affectionate to his child, charitable and public-spirited?

'Lived right.' Joel had answered his wife instantly, not daring then and there to soothe her by equivocation, but replying truthfully out of his soul: 'No, oh! no.' What did he mean by that? Of what did he stand convicted, and wherefore? These were the thoughts which occupied his mind, especially after the fever had left him, during the long weeks of his recovery. Joel was a man of extraordinary perceptive faculties. The situation in which he had been placed, the remarkable health which he had enjoyed, (for he had never been ill in his life,) and the success which had attended every plan and effort, served to still more develop all his practical talents, and were at the same time unfavorable to reflection or serious thought. Now he could do nothing else but reflect and think. He looked about him. His wife was gone, and his happiness wrecked. What was he to do? Should he make haste to push on the schemes which his sickness had brought to a stand? The idea was loathsome to him. He had seen how completely they were liable to interruption and blight. The thought of his daughter was the only comfort left, but she might be taken—then what?

Ah! Joel Burns! how long and wide you searched to answer that question when the answer was so near at hand and so easy to discover. He did discover it at last. His wife, with her latest breath, had given him the clue. He examined himself more carefully. What are the relations between me and my Maker? Do I recognize any?… When Joel Burns rose from his sick-bed and could walk abroad, all things wore to him a new and pleased aspect. The current of his hopes were changed. He no longer revolved around himself as a centre. He was conscious of his error before God, and sought and found 'peace in believing.' He now regarded all things in the light of His providence and felt submissive to His will.

Joel was no longer indifferent to his affairs. There was so much he could do to benefit every body. What a happy feeling to try to be working out good for some body all the time! When, however, he was able actively to engage in business, there was very little difference between his course of action and in what he did and his old course and what he used to do. The fact is, Joel did about what was right before. We have already related that he was kind, charitable, generous, and public-spirited. The difference, however, was, that Joel himself was changed. The springs of life and conduct were new: this is why he seemed to himself to be living so differently. And he was living differently. There was no similitude between the Joel Burns who, impelled by an active brain and an energetic purpose, was successfully prosecuting certain plans with reference solely to those plans, and the Joel Burns who had learned to feel that the chief object of existence lay above and beyond, and was centred in the Omnipotent.

Sarah recovered rapidly from the fever, and before her father was himself convalescent the bloom of health had returned to her cheeks. Joel's love for his child was increased ten-fold. She became, as she grew up, an inseparable companion. It was evident he had no thoughts of marrying. The people of the village decided that at the end of a year. The widower gave none of the ordinary tokens that he was seeking a new wife, that is, he did not 'brush up' any, and took no special pains with his personal appearance, but went about much as usual. It was a great pity, every body said, for a man as young as he—hardly three-and-thirty—to live without a wife. Sarah required a motherly care over her, her father was spoiling her. Yes, it was a great pity Mr. Burns did not marry. The fact was, strange as it will seem, Joel could not forget his wife, though she was dead. A sweet and solemn link bound him to her since the night he stood over her to catch her last words, and it would appear his affections were not to be diverted from her memory. He did not send Sarah away to school. He could not reconcile himself to her absence, but he supplied her abundantly with teachers, and personally took great pains with her education.

Two years after the death of Mrs. Burns, Joel and his daughter stood up together before the assembled church and congregation, and made a public profession of religion. It was a touching sight. And when after the services father and child took their way homeward, every eye followed them with looks of deepest interest and with feelings of almost universal kindness and regard. Joel had delayed presenting himself from a desire to test his feelings, having great fear of bringing reproach on the church by entering it unworthily. And now he had an increased joy that he could bring his darling into the fold with him.

It was very natural, as she was situated, that Sarah should acquire an accurate knowledge of her father's affairs. She enjoyed listening to the story of his early life, the rise and progress of Burnsville, with explanations of his many undertakings. As she grew older, this interest took a more practical turn. She would copy letters and arrange confidential papers, and perform various services of a like nature.

Two or three years more passed. Things went on as usual, at Burnsville. It is true that Joel Burns did not display that sharp faculty of acquisition which he formerly did, though he was never more active or energetic; but it was noticeable that those in his employ got on better than before, while the general prosperity of the village exceeded that of any former period.

Sarah was almost a young lady. She was growing up a beautiful girl. She had her father's brilliant complexion and her mother's fine form and regular features. Of course, with so much youth and beauty, and such 'brilliant prospects,' (by which, I suppose, was meant her father's death and a large fortune to the child,) Sarah already became an object of much attention. I will not say that her peculiar position did not produce something of an independent manner which some called hauteur, and others exclusiveness. Part of this was owing to her education, part to the necessity of repelling sometimes the advances of conceited coxcombs. But she was really a most interesting girl, with much of her father's spirit, resolution, and ability. Her affection for him was only exceeded by his for her. True, their lives were centred in each other too much. But it was very beautiful to behold.

Such was the condition of Burnsville, and such the situation of Joel Burns, when Hiram Meeker sought to remove to that place and enter his service.

A MERCHANT'S STORY

'All of which I saw, and part of which I was.'

CHAPTER I

It is a dingy old sign. It has hung there in sun and rain till its letters are faint and its face is furrowed. It has looked down on a generation that has passed away, and seen those who placed it there go out of that doorway never to return; still it clings to that dingy old warehouse, and still Russell, Rollins & Co. is signed in that dingy old counting-room at the head of the stairway. It is known the world over. It is heard of on the cotton-fields of Texas, in the cane-brakes of Cuba, and amid the rice-swamps of Carolina. The Chinaman speaks of it as he sips his tea and handles his chop-sticks in the streets of Canton, and the half-naked negro rattles its gold as he gathers palm-oil and the copal-gum on the western coast of Africa. Its plain initials, painted in black on a white ground, float from tall masts over many seas, and its simple 'promise to pay,' scrawled in a bad hand on a narrow strip of paper, unlocks the vaults of the best bankers in Europe. And yet, it is a dingy old sign! Men look up to it as they pass by, and wonder that a cracked, weather-beaten board that would not sell for a dollar, should be counted 'good for a million.'

It is a dingy old warehouse, with narrow, dark, cobwebbed windows, and wide, rusty iron shutters, which, as the bleak November wind sweeps up old Long Wharf, swing slowly on their hinges with a sharp, grating creak. I heard them in my boyhood. Perched on a tall stool at that old desk, I used to listen, in the long winter-nights, to those strange, wild cries, till I fancied they were voices of the uneasy dead, come back to take the vacant seats beside me, and to pace again, with ghostly tread, the floor of that dark old counting-room. They were ever a mystery and a terror to me; but they never creaked so harshly, or cried so wildly, as on a bleak November night, not many years ago, when I turned my steps, for the last time, up the trembling old stairway.

It was just after nightfall. A single gas-burner threw a dim, uncertain light over the old desk, and lit up the figure of a tall, gray-headed man, who was bending over it. He had round, stooping shoulders, and long, spindling limbs. One of his large feet, encased in a thick, square-toed shoe, rested on the round of the desk, the other, which was planted squarely on the floor, upheld his spare, gaunt frame. His face was thin and long, and two deep, black lines under his eyes contrasted strangely with the pallid whiteness of his features. His clothes were of the fashion of some years ago, and had, no doubt, served long as his 'Sunday best,' before being degraded to daily duty. They were of plain black, and though not shabby, were worn and threadbare, and of decidedly economical appearance. Every thing about him, indeed, wore an economical look. His scant coat-tails, narrow pants, and short waistcoat, showed that the cost of each inch of material had been counted, while his thin hair, brushed carefully over his bald head, had not a lock to spare; and even his large, sharp bones were covered with only just enough flesh to hold them comfortably together. He had stood there till his eye was dim and his step feeble, and though he had, for twenty years—when handing in his semi-annual trial-balances to the head of the house—declared that each one was his last, every body said he would continue to stand there till his own trial-balance was struck, and his earthly accounts were closed forever.

As I entered, he turned his mild blue eye upon me, and taking my hand warmly in his, exclaimed:

'My dear boy'—I was nearly forty—'I am glad to see you.'

'I am glad to see you, David.'

'Why, bless me, Mr. Kirke, is that you?' exclaimed a much younger man, springing from his seat near the other, and grasping me by both hands. 'What has brought you to Boston?'

'Business, Frank. I've just arrived, and go back to-morrow. Come! my wife is in the carriage at the door, and wants you to spend the evening with us.'

'I can't—I'm very sorry,' and he added, in a lower tone, 'she has just heard of her father's death, and goes home to-morrow. I have engaged to pass the evening with her.'

'Her father dead! how was it?'

'He was thrown from his horse, and died the same day. She knew nothing of it till yesterday. I can not neglect her now. I will spend to-morrow with mother.'

He always called her mother, though he was not her son. He had done it when a child, and now that he was a man, hers was the dearest name he knew. He loved her as his mother, and she loved him as her son. But any woman might have loved him. His straight, closely-knit, sinewy frame, dark, deep-set eyes, and broad, open forehead, overhung with thick, brown hair, were only the outshadowing of a beautiful mind, of an open, upright, manly nature, whose firm and steady integrity nothing could shake.

'I'm sorry to hear it,' I replied; 'but go down and see her, while I speak to Mr. Hallet.'

Rapping at the door of an inner office, separated from the outer one by a ground-glass partition, I was admitted by a tall, dark man, who, with a stiff and slightly embarrassed manner, said to me:

'I am glad to see you, Mr. Kirke. Pray, be seated.'

As he pointed to a chair, a shorter and younger gentleman, who was writing at another desk, rose, and slapping me familiarly on the back, exclaimed:

'My dear fellow, how are you?'

'Very well, Cragin, how are you?'

'Good as new—never better in my life—how goes the world with you?'

The last speaker was not more than thirty-three, but a bald spot on the top of his head, and a slight falling-in of his mouth, caused by premature decay of the teeth, made him seem several years older. He had marked but not regular features, and a restless, dark eye, which opened and shut with a peculiar wink that kept time with the motion of his lips in speaking. His clothes were cut in a loose, jaunty style, and his manner, though brusque and abrupt, betokened, like his face, a free, frank, manly character. He was ten or twelve years the junior of the other, and as unlike him as one man can be unlike another.

The older gentleman, as I have said, was tall and dark. He had a high, bold forehead, and wore heavy gray whiskers, trimmed with the utmost nicety, and meeting under a sharp, narrow chin. His face was large and full, and his nose pointed and prominent, but his mouth was small, and gathered in at the corners like a rat's; and, as if to add to the rat-resemblance, its small, white teeth seemed borrowed from the jaws of that animal. There was a stately precision in his manner, and a stealthy softness in his tread, that would have impressed a stranger unfavorably; but I knew him. We had been boys together, and he loved me as he loved his own son. How well he loved him, the reader will learn, if he follows the course of my story.

These two gentlemen—Mr. Hallet and Mr. Cragin—were the senior partners in the great house of Russell, Rollins & Co.

Replying satisfactorily to the inquiry of Mr. Cragin, I turned to the older partner, and said:

'Well, Mr. Hallet, how does Frank get on?'

'Oh! very well—knows a little too much, like most young men of his age, but he does very well.'

''Very well,' Mr. Ballet! d—d if he don't—he's the smartest boy living—made a clean forty thousand for us not two months ago—forced it on Hallet against his better judgment!' And Mr. Cragin laughed till he showed all that was left of two rows of tobacco-stained teeth.