JACOB FLINT'S JOURNEY

If there ever was a man crushed out of all courage, all self-
reliance, all comfort in life, it was Jacob Flint. Why this should
have been, neither he nor any one else could have explained; but so
it was. On the day that he first went to school, his shy,
frightened face marked him as fair game for the rougher and
stronger boys, and they subjected him to all those exquisite
refinements of torture which boys seem to get by the direct
inspiration of the Devil. There was no form of their bullying
meanness or the cowardice of their brutal strength which he did not
experience. He was born under a fading or falling star,--the
inheritor of some anxious or unhappy mood of his parents, which
gave its fast color to the threads out of which his innocent being
was woven.

Even the good people of the neighborhood, never accustomed to look
below the externals of appearance and manner, saw in his shrinking
face and awkward motions only the signs of a cringing, abject soul.

"You'll be no more of a man than Jake Flint!" was the reproach
which many a farmer addressed to his dilatory boy; and thus the
parents, one and all, came to repeat the sins of the children.

If, therefore, at school and "before folks," Jacob's position was
always uncomfortable and depressing, it was little more cheering at
home. His parents, as all the neighbors believed, had been
unhappily married, and, though the mother died in his early
childhood, his father remained a moody, unsocial man, who rarely
left his farm except on the 1st of April every year, when he went
to the county town for the purpose of paying the interest upon a
mortgage. The farm lay in a hollow between two hills, separated
from the road by a thick wood, and the chimneys of the lonely old
house looked in vain for a neighbor-smoke when they began to grow
warm of a morning.

Beyond the barn and under the northern hill there was a log tenant-
house, in which dwelt a negro couple, who, in the course of years
had become fixtures on the place and almost partners in it. Harry,
the man, was the medium by which Samuel Flint kept up his necessary
intercourse with the world beyond the valley; he took the horses to
the blacksmith, the grain to the mill, the turkeys to market, and
through his hands passed all the incomings and outgoings of the
farm, except the annual interest on the mortgage. Sally, his wife,
took care of the household, which, indeed, was a light and
comfortable task, since the table was well supplied for her own
sake, and there was no sharp eye to criticise her sweeping,
dusting, and bed-making. The place had a forlorn, tumble-down
aspect, quite in keeping with its lonely situation; but perhaps
this very circumstance flattered the mood of its silent, melancholy
owner and his unhappy son.

In all the neighborhood there was but one person with whom Jacob
felt completely at ease--but one who never joined in the general
habit of making his name the butt of ridicule or contempt. This
was Mrs. Ann Pardon, the hearty, active wife of Farmer Robert
Pardon, who lived nearly a mile farther down the brook. Jacob had
won her good-will by some neighborly services, something so
trifling, indeed, that the thought of a favor conferred never
entered his mind. Ann Pardon saw that it did not; she detected a
streak of most unconscious goodness under his uncouth, embarrassed
ways, and she determined to cultivate it. No little tact was
required, however, to coax the wild, forlorn creature into so much
confidence as she desired to establish; but tact is a native
quality of the heart no less than a social acquirement, and so she
did the very thing necessary without thinking much about it.

Robert Pardon discovered by and by that Jacob was a steady,
faithful hand in the harvest-field at husking-time, or whenever any
extra labor was required, and Jacob's father made no objection to
his earning a penny in this way; and so he fell into the habit of
spending his Saturday evenings at the Pardon farm-house, at first
to talk over matters of work, and finally because it had become a
welcome relief from his dreary life at home.

Now it happened that on a Saturday in the beginning of haying-time,
the village tailor sent home by Harry a new suit of light summer
clothes, for which Jacob had been measured a month before. After
supper he tried them on, the day's work being over, and Sally's
admiration was so loud and emphatic that he felt himself growing
red even to the small of his back.

"Now, don't go for to take 'em off, Mr. Jake," said she. "I spec'
you're gwine down to Pardon's, and so you jist keep 'em on to show
'em all how nice you KIN look."

The same thought had already entered Jacob's mind. Poor fellow!
It was the highest form of pleasure of which he had ever allowed
himself to conceive. If he had been called upon to pass through
the village on first assuming the new clothes, every stitch would
have pricked him as if the needle remained in it; but a quiet walk
down the brookside, by the pleasant path through the thickets and
over the fragrant meadows, with a consciousness of his own neatness
and freshness at every step, and with kind Ann Pardon's
commendation at the close, and the flattering curiosity of the
children,--the only ones who never made fun of him,--all that was
a delightful prospect. He could never, NEVER forget himself, as
he had seen other young fellows do; but to remember himself
agreeably was certainly the next best thing.

Jacob was already a well-grown man of twenty-three, and would have
made a good enough appearance but for the stoop in his shoulders,
and the drooping, uneasy way in which he carried his head. Many a
time when he was alone in the fields or woods he had
straightened himself, and looked courageously at the buts of the
oak-trees or in the very eyes of the indifferent oxen; but, when a
human face drew near, some spring in his neck seemed to snap, some
buckle around his shoulders to be drawn three holes tighter, and he
found himself in the old posture. The ever-present thought of this
weakness was the only drop of bitterness in his cup, as he followed
the lonely path through the thickets.

Some spirit in the sweet, delicious freshness of the air, some
voice in the mellow babble of the stream, leaping in and out of
sight between the alders, some smile of light, lingering on the
rising corn-fields beyond the meadow and the melting purple of a
distant hill, reached to the seclusion of his heart. He was
soothed and cheered; his head lifted itself in the presentiment of
a future less lonely than the past, and the everlasting trouble
vanished from his eyes.

Suddenly, at a turn of the path, two mowers from the meadow, with
their scythes upon their shoulders, came upon him. He had not
heard their feet on the deep turf. His chest relaxed, and his head
began to sink; then, with the most desperate effort in his life, he
lifted it again, and, darting a rapid side glance at the men,
hastened by. They could not understand the mixed defiance and
supplication of his face; to them he only looked "queer."

"Been committin' a murder, have you?" asked one of them, grinning.

"Startin' off on his journey, I guess," said the other.


The next instant they were gone, and Jacob, with set teeth and
clinched hands, smothered something that would have been a howl if
he had given it voice. Sharp lines of pain were marked on his
face, and, for the first time, the idea of resistance took fierce
and bitter possession of his heart. But the mood was too unusual
to last; presently he shook his head, and walked on towards
Pardon's farm-house.

Ann wore a smart gingham dress, and her first exclamation was:
"Why, Jake! how nice you look. And so you know all about it, too?"

"About what?"

"I see you don't," said she. "I was too fast; but it makes no
difference. I know you are willing to lend me a helping hand."

"Oh, to be sure," Jacob answered.

"And not mind a little company?"

Jacob's face suddenly clouded; but he said, though with an effort:
"No--not much--if I can be of any help."

"It's rather a joke, after all," Ann Pardon continued, speaking
rapidly; "they meant a surprise, a few of the young people; but
sister Becky found a way to send me word, or I might have been
caught like Meribah Johnson last week, in the middle of my work;
eight or ten, she said, but more may drop in: and it's moonlight
and warm, so they'll be mostly under the trees; and Robert won't be
home till late, and I DO want help in carrying chairs, and
getting up some ice, and handing around; and, though I know
you don't care for merry makings, you CAN help me out, you see--
"

Here she paused. Jacob looked perplexed, but said nothing.

"Becky will help what she can, and while I'm in the kitchen she'll
have an eye to things outside," she said.

Jacob's head was down again, and, moreover, turned on one side, but
his ear betrayed the mounting blood. Finally he answered, in a
quick, husky voice: "Well, I'll do what I can. What's first?"

Thereupon he began to carry some benches from the veranda to a
grassy bank beside the sycamore-tree. Ann Pardon wisely said no
more of the coming surprise-party, but kept him so employed that,
as the visitors arrived by twos and threes, the merriment was in
full play almost before he was aware of it. Moreover, the night
was a protecting presence: the moonlight poured splendidly upon the
open turf beyond the sycamore, but every lilac-bush or trellis of
woodbine made a nook of shade, wherein he could pause a moment and
take courage for his duties. Becky Morton, Ann Pardon's youngest
sister, frightened him a little every time she came to consult
about the arrangement of seats or the distribution of refreshments;
but it was a delightful, fascinating fear, such as he had never
felt before in his life. He knew Becky, but he had never seen her
in white and pink, with floating tresses, until now. In fact, he
had hardly looked at her fairly, but now, as she glided into the
moonlight and he paused in the shadow, his eyes took note of her
exceeding beauty. Some sweet, confusing influence, he knew
not what, passed into his blood.

The young men had brought a fiddler from the village, and it was
not long before most of the company were treading the measures of
reels or cotillons on the grass. How merry and happy they all
were! How freely and unembarrassedly they moved and talked! By
and by all became involved in the dance, and Jacob, left alone and
unnoticed, drew nearer and nearer to the gay and beautiful life
from which he was expelled.

With a long-drawn scream of the fiddle the dance came to an end,
and the dancers, laughing, chattering, panting, and fanning
themselves, broke into groups and scattered over the enclosure
before the house. Jacob was surrounded before he could escape.
Becky, with two lively girls in her wake, came up to him and said:
"Oh Mr. Flint, why don't you dance?"

If he had stopped to consider, he would no doubt have replied very
differently. But a hundred questions, stirred by what he had seen,
were clamoring for light, and they threw the desperate impulse to
his lips.

"If I COULD dance, would you dance with me?"

The two lively girls heard the words, and looked at Becky with
roguish faces.

"Oh yes, take him for your next partner!" cried one.

"I will," said Becky, "after he comes back from his journey."

Then all three laughed. Jacob leaned against the tree, his eyes
fixed on the ground.

"Is it a bargain?" asked one of the girls.

"No," said he, and walked rapidly away.

He went to the house, and, finding that Robert had arrived, took
his hat, and left by the rear door. There was a grassy alley
between the orchard and garden, from which it was divided by a high
hawthorn hedge. He had scarcely taken three paces on his way to
the meadow, when the sound of the voice he had last heard, on the
other side of the hedge, arrested his feet.

"Becky, I think you rather hurt Jake Flint," said the girl.

"Hardly," answered Becky; "he's used to that."

"Not if he likes you; and you might go further and fare worse."

"Well, I MUST say!" Becky exclaimed, with a laugh; "you'd like
to see me stuck in that hollow, out of your way!"

"It's a good farm, I've heard," said the other.

"Yes, and covered with as much as it'll bear!"

Here the girls were called away to the dance. Jacob slowly walked
up the dewy meadow, the sounds of fiddling, singing, and laughter
growing fainter behind him.

"My journey!" he repeated to himself,--" my journey! why shouldn't
I start on it now? Start off, and never come back?"

It was a very little thing, after all, which annoyed him, but the
mention of it always touched a sore nerve of his nature. A dozen
years before, when a boy at school, he had made a temporary
friendship with another boy of his age, and had one day said
to the latter, in the warmth of his first generous confidence:
"When I am a little older, I shall make a great journey, and come
back rich, and buy Whitney's place!"

Now, Whitney's place, with its stately old brick mansion, its
avenue of silver firs, and its two hundred acres of clean, warm-
lying land, was the finest, the most aristocratic property in all
the neighborhood, and the boy-friend could not resist the
temptation of repeating Jacob's grand design, for the endless
amusement of the school. The betrayal hurt Jacob more keenly than
the ridicule. It left a wound that never ceased to rankle; yet,
with the inconceivable perversity of unthinking natures, precisely
this joke (as the people supposed it to be) had been perpetuated,
until "Jake Flint's Journey" was a synonyme for any absurd or
extravagant expectation. Perhaps no one imagined how much pain he
was keeping alive; for almost any other man than Jacob would have
joined in the laugh against himself and thus good-naturedly buried
the joke in time. "He's used to that," the people said, like Becky
Morton, and they really supposed there was nothing unkind in the
remark!

After Jacob had passed the thickets and entered the lonely hollow
in which his father's house lay, his pace became slower and slower.

He looked at the shabby old building, just touched by the moonlight
behind the swaying shadows of the weeping-willow, stopped, looked
again, and finally seated himself on a stump beside the path.

"If I knew what to do!" he said to himself, rocking backwards
and forwards, with his hands clasped over his knees,--"if I knew
what to do!"

The spiritual tension of the evening reached its climax: he could
bear no more. With a strong bodily shudder his tears burst forth,
and the passion of his weeping filled him from head to foot. How
long he wept he knew not; it seemed as if the hot fountains would
never run dry. Suddenly and startlingly a hand fell upon his
shoulder.

"Boy, what does this mean?"

It was his father who stood before him.

Jacob looked up like some shy animal brought to bay, his eyes full
of a feeling mixed of fierceness and terror; but he said nothing.

His father seated himself on one of the roots of the old stump,
laid one hand upon Jacob's knee, and said with an unusual
gentleness of manner, "I'd like to know what it is that troubles
you so much."

After a pause, Jacob suddenly burst forth with: "Is there any
reason why I should tell you? Do you care any more for me than the
rest of 'em?"

"I didn't know as you wanted me to care for you particularly," said
the father, almost deprecatingly. "I always thought you had
friends of your own age."

"Friends? Devils!" exclaimed Jacob. "Oh, what have I done--what
is there so dreadful about me that I should always be laughed at,
and despised, and trampled upon? You are a great deal older than
I am, father: what do you see in me? Tell me what it is, and how
to get over it!"

The eyes of the two men met. Jacob saw his father's face grow pale
in the moonlight, while he pressed his hand involuntarily upon his
heart, as if struggling with some physical pain. At last he spoke,
but his words were strange and incoherent.

"I couldn't sleep," he said; "I got up again and came out o' doors.

The white ox had broken down the fence at the corner, and would
soon have been in the cornfield. I thought it was that, maybe, but
still your--your mother would come into my head. I was coming down
the edge of the wood when I saw you, and I don't know why it was
that you seemed so different, all at once--"

Here he paused, and was silent for a minute. Then he said, in a
grave, commanding tone: "Just let me know the whole story. I have
that much right yet."

Jacob related the history of the evening, somewhat awkwardly and
confusedly, it is true; but his father's brief, pointed questions
kept him to the narrative, and forced him to explain the full
significance of the expressions he repeated. At the mention of
"Whitney's place," a singular expression of malice touched the old
man's face.

"Do you love Becky Morton?" he asked bluntly, when all had been
told.

"I don't know," Jacob stammered; "I think not; because when I seem
to like her most, I feel afraid of her."

"It's lucky that you're not sure of it!" exclaimed the old man with
energy; "because you should never have her."

"No," said Jacob, with a mournful acquiescence, "I can never have
her, or any other one."

"But you shall--and will I when I help you. It's true I've not
seemed to care much about you, and I suppose you're free to think
as you like; but this I say: I'll not stand by and see you spit
upon! `Covered with as much as it'll bear!' THAT'S a piece o'
luck anyhow. If we're poor, your wife must take your poverty with
you, or she don't come into MY doors. But first of all you must
make your journey!"

"My journey!" repeated Jacob.

"Weren't you thinking of it this night, before you took your seat
on that stump? A little more, and you'd have gone clean off, I
reckon."

Jacob was silent, and hung his head.

"Never mind! I've no right to think hard of it. In a week we'll
have finished our haying, and then it's a fortnight to wheat; but,
for that matter, Harry and I can manage the wheat by ourselves.
You may take a month, two months, if any thing comes of it. Under
a month I don't mean that you shall come back. I'll give you
twenty dollars for a start; if you want more you must earn it on
the road, any way you please. And, mark you, Jacob! since you
ARE poor, don't let anybody suppose you are rich. For my part,
I shall not expect you to buy Whitney's place; all I ask is that
you'll tell me, fair and square, just what things and what people
you've got acquainted with. Get to bed now--the matter's settled;
I will have it so."

They rose and walked across the meadow to the house. Jacob had
quite forgotten the events of the evening in the new prospect
suddenly opened to him, which filled him with a wonderful confusion
of fear and desire. His father said nothing more. They entered
the lonely house together at midnight, and went to their beds; but
Jacob slept very little.

Six days afterwards he left home, on a sparkling June morning, with
a small bundle tied in a yellow silk handkerchief under his arm.
His father had furnished him with the promised money, but had
positively refused to tell him what road he should take, or what
plan of action he should adopt. The only stipulation was that his
absence from home should not be less than a month.

After he had passed the wood and reached the highway which followed
the course of the brook, he paused to consider which course to
take. Southward the road led past Pardon's, and he longed to see
his only friends once more before encountering untried hazards; but
the village was beyond, and he had no courage to walk through its
one long street with a bundle, denoting a journey, under his arm.
Northward he would have to pass the mill and blacksmith's shop at
the cross-roads. Then he remembered that he might easily wade the
stream at a point where it was shallow, and keep in the shelter of
the woods on the opposite hill until he struck the road farther on,
and in that direction two or three miles would take him into a
neighborhood where he was not known.

Once in the woods, an exquisite sense of freedom came upon him.
There was nothing mocking in the soft, graceful stir of the
expanded foliage, in the twittering of the unfrightened birds,
or the scampering of the squirrels, over the rustling carpet of
dead leaves. He lay down upon the moss under a spreading beech-
tree and tried to think; but the thoughts would not come. He could
not even clearly recall the keen troubles and mortifications he had
endured: all things were so peaceful and beautiful that a portion
of their peace and beauty fell upon men and invested them with a
more kindly character.

Towards noon Jacob found himself beyond the limited geography of
his life. The first man he encountered was a stranger, who greeted
him with a hearty and respectful "How do you do, sir?"

"Perhaps," thought Jacob, "I am not so very different from other
people, if I only thought so myself."

At noon, he stopped at a farm-house by the roadside to get a drink
of water. A pleasant woman, who came from the door at that moment
with a pitcher, allowed him to lower the bucket and haul it up
dripping with precious coolness. She looked upon him with good-
will, for he had allowed her to see his eyes, and something in
their honest, appealing expression went to her heart.

"We're going to have dinner in five minutes," said she; "won't you
stay and have something?"

Jacob stayed and brake bread with the plain, hospitable family.
Their kindly attention to him during the meal gave him the lacking
nerve; for a moment he resolved to offer his services to the
farmer, but he presently saw that they were not really needed, and,
besides, the place was still too near home.

Towards night he reached an old country tavern, lording it over an
incipient village of six houses. The landlord and hostler were
inspecting a drooping-looking horse in front of the stables. Now,
if there was any thing which Jacob understood, to the extent of his
limited experience, it was horse nature. He drew near, listened to
the views of the two men, examined the animal with his eyes, and
was ready to answer, "Yes, I guess so," when the landlord said,
"Perhaps, sir, you can tell what is the matter with him."

His prompt detection of the ailment, and prescription of a remedy
which in an hour showed its good effects, installed him in the
landlord's best graces. The latter said, "Well, it shall cost you
nothing to-night," as he led the way to the supper-room. When
Jacob went to bed he was surprised on reflecting that he had not
only been talking for a full hour in the bar-room, but had been
looking people in the face.

Resisting an offer of good wages if he would stay and help look
after the stables, he set forward the next morning with a new and
most delightful confidence in himself. The knowledge that now
nobody knew him as "Jake Flint" quite removed his tortured self-
consciousness. When he met a person who was glum and ungracious of
speech, he saw, nevertheless, that he was not its special object.
He was sometimes asked questions, to be sure, which a little
embarrassed him, but he soon hit upon answers which were
sufficiently true without betraying his purpose.

Wandering sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left, he
slowly made his way into the land, until, on the afternoon of the
fourth day after leaving home, he found himself in a rougher
region--a rocky, hilly tract, with small and not very flourishing
farms in the valleys. Here the season appeared to be more backward
than in the open country; the hay harvest was not yet over.

Jacob's taste for scenery was not particularly cultivated, but
something in the loneliness and quiet of the farms reminded him of
his own home; and he looked at one house after another,
deliberating with himself whether it would not be a good place to
spend the remainder of his month of probation. He seemed to be
very far from home--about forty miles, in fact,--and was beginning
to feel a little tired of wandering.

Finally the road climbed a low pass of the hills, and dropped into
a valley on the opposite side. There was but one house in view--a
two-story building of logs and plaster, with a garden and orchard
on the hillside in the rear. A large meadow stretched in front,
and when the whole of it lay clear before him, as the road issued
from a wood, his eye was caught by an unusual harvest picture.

Directly before him, a woman, whose face was concealed by a huge,
flapping sun-bonnet, was seated upon a mowing machine, guiding a
span of horses around the great tract of thick grass which was
still uncut. A little distance off, a boy and girl were raking the
drier swaths together, and a hay-cart, drawn by oxen and driven by
a man, was just entering the meadow from the side next the barn.

Jacob hung his bundle upon a stake, threw his coat and waistcoat
over the rail, and, resting his chin on his shirted arms, leaned on
the fence, and watched the hay-makers. As the woman came down the
nearer side she appeared to notice him, for her head was turned
from time to time in his direction. When she had made the round,
she stopped the horses at the corner, sprang lightly from her seat
and called to the man, who, leaving his team, met her half-way.
They were nearly a furlong distant, but Jacob was quite sure that
she pointed to him, and that the man looked in the same direction.
Presently she set off across the meadow, directly towards him.

When within a few paces of the fence, she stopped, threw back the
flaps of her sun-bonnet, and said, "Good day to you!" Jacob was
so amazed to see a bright, fresh, girlish face, that he stared at
her with all his eyes, forgetting to drop his head. Indeed, he
could not have done so, for his chin was propped upon the top rail
of the fence.

"You are a stranger, I see," she added.

"Yes, in these parts," he replied.

"Looking for work?"

He hardly knew what answer to make, so he said, at a venture,
"That's as it happens." Then he colored a little, for the words
seemed foolish to his ears.

"Time's precious," said the girl, "so I'll tell you at once we want
help. Our hay MUST be got in while the fine weather lasts."

"I'll help you!" Jacob exclaimed, taking his arms from the rail,
and looking as willing as he felt.

"I'm so glad! But I must tell you, at first, that we're not rich,
and the hands are asking a great deal now. How much do you
expect?"

"Whatever you please?" said he, climbing the fence.

"No, that's not our way of doing business. What do you say to a
dollar a day, and found?"

"All right!" and with the words he was already at her side, taking
long strides over the elastic turf.

"I will go on with my mowing," said she, when they reached the
horses, "and you can rake and load with my father. What name shall
I call you by?"

"Everybody calls me Jake."

"`Jake!' Jacob is better. Well, Jacob, I hope you'll give us all
the help you can."

With a nod and a light laugh she sprang upon the machine. There
was a sweet throb in Jacob's heart, which, if he could have
expressed it, would have been a triumphant shout of "I'm not afraid
of her! I'm not afraid of her!"

The farmer was a kindly, depressed man, with whose quiet ways Jacob
instantly felt himself at home. They worked steadily until sunset,
when the girl, detaching her horses from the machine, mounted one
of them and led the other to the barn. At the supper-table, the
farmer's wife said: "Susan, you must be very tired."

"Not now, mother!" she cheerily answered. "I was, I think, but
after I picked up Jacob I felt sure we should get our hay in."

"It was a good thing," said the farmer; "Jacob don't need to be
told how to work."

Poor Jacob! He was so happy he could have cried. He sat and
listened, and blushed a little, with a smile on his face which it
was a pleasure to see. The honest people did not seem to regard
him in the least as a stranger; they discussed their family
interests and troubles and hopes before him, and in a little while
it seemed as if he had known them always.

How faithfully he worked! How glad and tired he felt when night
came, and the hay-mow was filled, and the great stacks grew beside
the barn! But ah! the haying came to an end, and on the last
evening, at supper, everybody was constrained and silent. Even
Susan looked grave and thoughtful.

"Jacob," said the farmer, finally, "I wish we could keep you until
wheat harvest; but you know we are poor, and can't afford it.
Perhaps you could--"

He hesitated; but Jacob, catching at the chance and obeying his own
unselfish impulse, cried: "Oh, yes, I can; I'll be satisfied with
my board, till the wheat's ripe."

Susan looked at him quickly, with a bright, speaking face.
"It's hardly fair to you," said the farmer.

"But I like to be here so much!" Jacob cried. "I like--all of
you!"

"We DO seem to suit," said the farmer, "like as one family. And
that reminds me, we've not heard your family name yet."

"Flint."

"Jacob FLINT!" exclaimed the farmer's wife, with sudden
agitation.

Jacob was scared and troubled. They had heard of him, he thought,
and who knew what ridiculous stories? Susan noticed an anxiety on
his face which she could not understand, but she unknowingly came
to his relief.

"Why, mother," she asked, "do you know Jacob's family?"

"No, I think not," said her mother, "only somebody of the name,
long ago."

His offer, however, was gratefully accepted. The bright, hot
summer days came and went, but no flower of July ever opened as
rapidly and richly and warmly as his chilled, retarded nature. New
thoughts and instincts came with every morning's sun, and new
conclusions were reached with every evening's twilight. Yet as the
wheat harvest drew towards the end, he felt that he must leave the
place. The month of absence had gone by, he scarce knew how. He
was free to return home, and, though he might offer to bridge over
the gap between wheat and oats, as he had already done between hay
and wheat, he imagined the family might hesitate to accept such an
offer. Moreover, this life at Susan's side was fast growing to be
a pain, unless he could assure himself that it would be so forever.

They were in the wheat-field, busy with the last sheaves; she
raking and he binding. The farmer and younger children had gone to
the barn with a load. Jacob was working silently and steadily, but
when they had reached the end of a row, he stopped, wiped his
wet brow, and suddenly said, "Susan, I suppose to-day finishes my
work here."

"Yes," she answered very slowly.

"And yet I'm very sorry to go."

"I--WE don't want you to go, if we could help it."

Jacob appeared to struggle with himself. He attempted to speak.
"If I could--" he brought out, and then paused. "Susan, would you
be glad if I came back?"

His eyes implored her to read his meaning. No doubt she read it
correctly, for her face flushed, her eyelids fell, and she barely
murmured, "Yes, Jacob."

"Then I'll come!" he cried; "I'll come and help you with the oats.
Don't talk of pay! Only tell me I'll be welcome! Susan, don't you
believe I'll keep my word?"

"I do indeed," said she, looking him firmly in the face.

That was all that was said at the time; but the two understood each
other tolerably well.

On the afternoon of the second day, Jacob saw again the lonely
house of his father. His journey was made, yet, if any of the
neighbors had seen him, they would never have believed that he had
come back rich.

Samuel Flint turned away to hide a peculiar smile when he saw his
son; but little was said until late that evening, after Harry and
Sally had left. Then he required and received an exact account of
Jacob's experience during his absence. After hearing the
story to the end, he said, "And so you love this Susan Meadows?"

"I'd--I'd do any thing to be with her."

"Are you afraid of her?"

"No!" Jacob uttered the word so emphatically that it rang through
the house.

"Ah, well!" said the old man, lifting his eyes, and speaking in the
air, "all the harm may be mended yet. But there must be another
test." Then he was silent for some time.

"I have it!" he finally exclaimed. "Jacob, you must go back for
the oats harvest. You must ask Susan to be your wife, and ask her
parents to let you have her. But,--pay attention to my words!--you
must tell her that you are a poor, hired man on this place, and
that she can be engaged as housekeeper. Don't speak of me as your
father, but as the owner of the farm. Bring her here in that
belief, and let me see how honest and willing she is. I can easily
arrange matters with Harry and Sally while you are away; and I'll
only ask you to keep up the appearance of the thing for a month or
so."

"But, father,"--Jacob began.

"Not a word! Are you not willing to do that much for the sake of
having her all your life, and this farm after me? Suppose it is
covered with a mortgage, if she is all you say, you two can work it
off. Not a word more! It is no lie, after all, that you will tell
her."

"I am afraid," said Jacob, "that she could not leave her home now.
She is too useful there, and the family is so poor."

"Tell them that both your wages, for the first year, shall go to
them. It'll be my business to rake and scrape the money together
somehow. Say, too, that the housekeeper's place can't be kept for
her--must be filled at once. Push matters like a man, if you mean
to be a complete one, and bring her here, if she carries no more
with her than the clothes on her back!"

During the following days Jacob had time to familiarize his mind
with this startling proposal. He knew his father's stubborn will
too well to suppose that it could be changed; but the inevitable
soon converted itself into the possible and desirable. The sweet
face of Susan as she had stood before him in the wheat-field was
continually present to his eyes, and ere long, he began to place
her, in his thoughts, in the old rooms at home, in the garden,
among the thickets by the brook, and in Ann Pardon's pleasant
parlor. Enough; his father's plan became his own long before the
time was out.

On his second journey everybody seemed to be an old acquaintance
and an intimate friend. It was evening as he approached the
Meadows farm, but the younger children recognized him in the dusk,
and their cry of, "Oh, here's Jacob!" brought out the farmer and
his wife and Susan, with the heartiest of welcomes. They had all
missed him, they said--even the horses and oxen had looked for him,
and they were wondering how they should get the oats harvested
without him.

Jacob looked at Susan as the farmer said this, and her eyes seemed
to answer, "I said nothing, but I knew you would come." Then,
first, he felt sufficient courage for the task before him.

He rose the next morning, before any one was stirring, and waited
until she should come down stairs. The sun had not risen when she
appeared, with a milk-pail in each hand, walking unsuspectingly to
the cow-yard. He waylaid her, took the pails in his hand and said
in nervous haste, "Susan, will you be my wife?"

She stopped as if she had received a sudden blow; then a shy, sweet
consent seemed to run through her heart. "O Jacob!" was all she
could say.

"But you will, Susan?" he urged; and then (neither of them exactly
knew how it happened) all at once his arms were around her, and
they had kissed each other.

"Susan," he said, presently, "I am a poor man--only a farm hand,
and must work for my living. You could look for a better husband."

"I could never find a better than you, Jacob."

"Would you work with me, too, at the same place?"

"You know I am not afraid of work," she answered, "and I could
never want any other lot than yours."

Then he told her the story which his father had prompted. Her face
grew bright and happy as she listened, and he saw how from her very
heart she accepted the humble fortune. Only the thought of her
parents threw a cloud over the new and astonishing vision. Jacob,
however, grew bolder as he saw fulfilment of his hope so near.
They took the pails and seated themselves beside neighbor cows, one
raising objections or misgivings which the other manfully
combated. Jacob's earnestness unconsciously ran into his hands, as
he discovered when the impatient cow began to snort and kick.

The harvesting of the oats was not commenced that morning. The
children were sent away, and there was a council of four persons
held in the parlor. The result of mutual protestations and much
weeping was, that the farmer and his wife agreed to receive Jacob
as a son-in-law; the offer of the wages was four times refused by
them, and then accepted; and the chance of their being able to live
and labor together was finally decided to be too fortunate to let
slip. When the shock and surprise was over all gradually became
cheerful, and, as the matter was more calmly discussed, the first
conjectured difficulties somehow resolved themselves into trifles.

It was the simplest and quietest wedding,--at home, on an August
morning. Farmer Meadows then drove the bridal pair half-way on
their journey, to the old country tavern, where a fresh conveyance
had been engaged for them. The same evening they reached the farm-
house in the valley, and Jacob's happy mood gave place to an
anxious uncertainty as he remembered the period of deception upon
which Susan was entering. He keenly watched his father's face when
they arrived, and was a little relieved when he saw that his wife
had made a good first impression.

"So, this is my new housekeeper," said the old man. "I hope you
will suit me as well as your husband does."

"I'll do my best, sir," said she; "but you must have patience
with me for a few days, until I know your ways and wishes."

"Mr. Flint," said Sally, "shall I get supper ready?"
Susan looked up in astonishment at hearing the name.

"Yes," the old man remarked, "we both have the same name. The fact
is, Jacob and I are a sort of relations."

Jacob, in spite of his new happiness, continued ill at ease,
although he could not help seeing how his father brightened under
Susan's genial influence, how satisfied he was with her quick,
neat, exact ways and the cheerfulness with which she fulfilled her
duties. At the end of a week, the old man counted out the wages
agreed upon for both, and his delight culminated at the frank
simplicity with which Susan took what she supposed she had fairly
earned.

"Jacob," he whispered when she had left the room, "keep quiet one
more week, and then I'll let her know."

He had scarcely spoken, when Susan burst into the room again,
crying, "Jacob, they are coming, they have come!"

"Who?"

"Father and mother; and we didn't expect them, you know, for a week
yet."

All three went to the door as the visitors made their appearance on
the veranda. Two of the party stood as if thunderstruck, and two
exclamations came together:

"Samuel Flint!"

"Lucy Wheeler!"

There was a moment's silence; then the farmer's wife, with a
visible effort to compose herself, said, "Lucy Meadows, now."

The tears came into Samuel Flint's eyes. "Let us shake hands,
Lucy," he said: "my son has married your daughter."

All but Jacob were freshly startled at these words. The two shook
hands, and then Samuel, turning to Susan's father, said: "And this
is your husband, Lucy. I am glad to make his acquaintance."

"Your father, Jacob!" Susan cried; "what does it all mean?"

Jacob's face grew red, and the old habit of hanging his head nearly
came back upon him. He knew not what to say, and looked wistfully
at his father.

"Come into the house and sit down," said the latter. "I think we
shall all feel better when we have quietly and comfortably talked
the matter over."

They went into the quaint, old-fashioned parlor, which had already
been transformed by Susan's care, so that much of its shabbiness
was hidden. When all were seated, and Samuel Flint perceived that
none of the others knew what to say, he took a resolution which,
for a man of his mood and habit of life, required some courage.

"Three of us here are old people," he began, "and the two young
ones love each other. It was so long ago, Lucy, that it cannot be
laid to my blame if I speak of it now. Your husband, I see, has an
honest heart, and will not misunderstand either of us. The same
thing often turns up in life; it is one of those secrets that
everybody knows, and that everybody talks about except the persons
concerned. When I was a young man, Lucy, I loved you truly, and I
faithfully meant to make you my wife."

"I thought so too, for a while," said she, very calmly.

Farmer Meadows looked at his wife, and no face was ever more
beautiful than his, with that expression of generous pity shining
through it.

"You know how I acted," Samuel Flint continued, "but our children
must also know that I broke off from you without giving any reason.

A woman came between us and made all the mischief. I was
considered rich then, and she wanted to secure my money for her
daughter. I was an innocent and unsuspecting young man, who
believed that everybody else was as good as myself; and the woman
never rested until she had turned me from my first love, and
fastened me for life to another. Little by little I discovered the
truth; I kept the knowledge of the injury to myself; I quickly got
rid of the money which had so cursed me, and brought my wife to
this, the loneliest and dreariest place in the neighborhood, where
I forced upon her a life of poverty. I thought it was a just
revenge, but I was unjust. She really loved me: she was, if not
quite without blame in the matter, ignorant of the worst that had
been done (I learned all that too late), and she never complained,
though the change in me slowly wore out her life. I know now that
I was cruel; but at the same time I punished myself, and was
innocently punishing my son. But to HIM there was one way to
make amends. `I will help him to a wife,' I said, `who will
gladly take poverty with him and for his sake.' I forced him,
against his will, to say that he was a hired hand on this place,
and that Susan must be content to be a hired housekeeper. Now that
I know Susan, I see that this proof might have been left out; but
I guess it has done no harm. The place is not so heavily mortgaged
as people think, and it will be Jacob's after I am gone. And now
forgive me, all of you,--Lucy first, for she has most cause; Jacob
next; and Susan,--that will be easier; and you, Friend Meadows, if
what I have said has been hard for you to hear."

The farmer stood up like a man, took Samuel's hand and his wife's,
and said, in a broken voice: "Lucy, I ask you, too, to forgive
him, and I ask you both to be good friends to each other."

Susan, dissolved in tears, kissed all of them in turn; but the
happiest heart there was Jacob's.

It was now easy for him to confide to his wife the complete story
of his troubles, and to find his growing self-reliance strengthened
by her quick, intelligent sympathy. The Pardons were better
friends than ever, and the fact, which at first created great
astonishment in the neighborhood, that Jacob Flint had really gone
upon a journey and brought home a handsome wife, began to change
the attitude of the people towards him. The old place was no
longer so lonely; the nearest neighbors began to drop in and insist
on return visits. Now that Jacob kept his head up, and they got a
fair view of his face, they discovered that he was not
lacking, after all, in sense or social qualities.

In October, the Whitney place, which had been leased for several
years, was advertised to be sold at public sale. The owner had
gone to the city and become a successful merchant, had outlived his
local attachments, and now took advantage of a rise in real estate
to disburden himself of a property which he could not profitably
control.

Everybody from far and wide attended the sale, and, when Jacob
Flint and his father arrived, everybody said to the former: "Of
course you've come to buy, Jacob." But each man laughed at his own
smartness, and considered the remark original with himself.

Jacob was no longer annoyed. He laughed, too, and answered: "I'm
afraid I can't do that; but I've kept half my word, which is more
than most men do."

"Jake's no fool, after all," was whispered behind him.

The bidding commenced, at first very spirited, and then gradually
slacking off, as the price mounted above the means of the
neighboring farmers. The chief aspirant was a stranger, a well-
dressed man with a lawyer's air, whom nobody knew. After the usual
long pauses and passionate exhortations, the hammer fell, and the
auctioneer, turning to the stranger, asked, "What name?"

"Jacob Flint!"

There was a general cry of surprise. All looked at Jacob, whose
eyes and mouth showed that he was as dumbfoundered as the rest.

The stranger walked coolly through the midst of the crowd to
Samuel Flint, and said, "When shall I have the papers drawn up?"

"As soon as you can," the old man replied; then seizing Jacob by
the arm, with the words, "Let's go home now!" he hurried him on.

The explanation soon leaked out. Samuel Flint had not thrown away
his wealth, but had put it out of his own hands. It was given
privately to trustees, to be held for his son, and returned when
the latter should have married with his father's consent. There
was more than enough to buy the Whitney place.

Jacob and Susan are happy in their stately home, and good as they
are happy. If any person in the neighborhood ever makes use of the
phrase "Jacob Flint's Journey," he intends thereby to symbolize the
good fortune which sometimes follows honesty, reticence, and
shrewdness.

****

Top of Page

< BACK    NEXT >

| Home | Reading Room | Beauty and The Beast