The days went by one by one for Hannah and Charles. Charles was being very careful and Hannah had grown used to the thought that there was nothing more to dread now than there ever had been. Always there had been the possibility that either might be called out any moment and they had lived on happily for years knowing that fact. Why should it be any different now? That leaky heart might last for years.
“My times are in His hand!” Charles would say with a smile, and Hannah would look up bravely and smile and their eyes would cling like a close embrace.
But the looming possibility had served to take their minds somewhat off their anxiety. They were living for each other just now and all other things seemed to take second place. But they were a great comfort to Joyce. Almost every day Charles went over to see Nathan and sat by him and talked, gently, sometimes brought his Bible and read a chapter and then knelt and prayed.
One day when Joyce was sitting in the room he began to talk quite simply to Nathan, exactly as if he thought he could hear and understand.
“I’m going to leave you pretty soon, Nate,” he said. “They tell me I’ve got a bad heart and I can’t last much longer. But it’s all right. I’m ready to go whenever the call comes and Hannah understands. She’ll be brave. But I wanted to let you know, old friend. If I don’t come over some day, you’ll know I’ve got my morning glory on. ‘Joy cometh in the morning,’ you know, and His glory is going to be very wonderful. Then, too, it just might be that the Lord will come soon for Hannah and the rest of His own, and I’d be coming with Him, of course—all of us to share His morning glory! I just wanted to tell you, old friend, so you would understand if I didn’t come anymore and so you’d be ready to go Home with us all when the Lord comes. It doesn’t take long to get ready, you know; all the preparations are made by Him. All you’ve got to do is accept—you know the way. You’ve always known—”
Joyce was sitting quietly with the tears running down and a tender look on her face. He had wanted to tell her, too, she knew, and he had taken this way to do it. When they both looked they saw a slow tear trickling down old Nathan’s cheek. He had understood!
Chapter 13
At the end Charles went quite suddenly.
The winter was well on its way, Charles had been most careful, and Hannah had watched over him at every step, lovingly, not ostentatiously. Hannah was one of those rare women who never nagged with her attentions. Her tenderness was more like the overshadowing of a bride for her beloved, than the fussing of an elderly married woman over a sick husband. Charles never felt from her manner that he was a sick man and needed utmost care.
The time was almost like a second honeymoon for the two. Such tender affection, such oneness of thought, such radiance of loving harmony! It was perhaps as near as one can approach on this earth to what the heavenly love is to be.
And each of them, for the sake of the other, put aside the anxiety that would have been natural for their beloved son. They had learned to trust him utterly in the Father’s care and to feel they must not mar these last days of their life together by any care about him. Since he was in the Father’s care, all would surely be well with him, in God’s good time. They had found assurance that this experience, whatever it was being to him, was to bring him somehow into closer fellowship with his God, which was what they desired above all else for Rowan. And so they prayed, trustfully, thankfully, for the answer to their prayers, which they were sure was to come whether they were here to see it, or there! Even radiantly, not with tears. They would not grieve each other with tears now. If there were to be tears afterward for a while, so be it, but God would wipe them away.
So the days had gone by, lived like a time of waiting.
Then one bright morning Charles went out, well bundled because the air was sharp, down to the bank. Hannah said, “Do you have to go today? It’s pretty cold.”
“Yes, I’m afraid I must. Some more trouble has broken out in the books—and the cash. It’s a strange thing! There hasn’t been a sign of it since the robbery till this week. I promised Jamie I’d come down and we’d try to work it out between us. Oh, I’m all right, Hannah. I’m feeling fine!”
She watched him go down the path to where a neighbor’s car was waiting to take him to the village. He didn’t drive much now. Hannah had persuaded him not to. She said it was a nervous strain to drive. He laughed and said there was nothing the matter with his nerves, but he humored her whenever he could.
They brought him home two hours later. He had had another attack. The doctor was with him, and Jamie Goodright.
Hannah saw them getting out of the car. They had telephoned her and she was ready. Not a tear was in evidence. She had been making preparations for him. Her heart had been on its knees while she worked. Her face was calm and sweet, and he looked toward her in his pain and smiled, and she smiled back. Those who saw it said afterward that it was like two angels waving farewell while each went on a separate errand.
They had a few minutes together by themselves before the nurse arrived. The doctor was in the other room. Hannah sat by him and held his hand. She smiled when he opened his eyes.
“It’s—all—right, Hannah,” he said, and that heavenly smile went over his face again.
“Yes—it’s all right, Charles!” And there was a ring to her voice almost like triumph.
“Say good-bye to—the—children! Don’t—let them—grieve. Tell them I’ll be watching!—Tell them—to—get ready—to come Home—forever!”
“I will.”
“No more pain!” He pressed her fingers and his lips hovered in a smile. “No—more—tears!”
“No more tears, Charles!” Hannah’s voice did not falter.
He was quiet a moment and then spoke once more: “Tell—Rowan—I’m—proud of him!”
Hannah’s eyes lit and she touched her lips softly to his fingers.
“Tell him to look out for you—and Myra! Dear—little—girl! Tell Myra not—to grieve! Tell her—it—will—all—come right if—she—trusts God! And the little Olive—our girl’s little girl! God bless her—and lead—her Home!”
He closed his eyes and Hannah thought he slept, but he opened them again.
“Look out—for Joyce—our Rowan’s—Joyce! Love her—Hannah!”
“Of course!” said Hannah, with her lips against his hand again.
Then he really did sleep, so quietly Hannah wasn’t sure he was still breathing. The pain seemed to have left his face and only peace was there.
The doctor stole in and looked at him, turned to Hannah and whispered, with a misty smile in response to Hannah’s own: “He’ll probably not wake again,” he said. “He’ll just wake up in heaven.” And Hannah nodded. It was all right.
But still she sat and held his hand, and then, he did open his eyes again, and into the quiet of the room his voice came clear and tender, almost triumphant.
“The call has come! I’m going to leave you, Hannah dear! Good-bye! It won’t be long! Joy cometh in the morning, and glory! Sunrise glory in the morning.”
Then he was gone. As definitely as if a chariot had stopped at his bedside and carried him away, Hannah knew that he had left her. She stooped and kissed his lips, looked into the face that was so dear, and turned away, his last words in her heart. Sunrise glory in the morning.
Myra came at once. She looked old and worn. She seemed almost older than her mother. She sobbed continually. Hannah had a moment’s sudden anger when she looked at her child. This was not like Myra, this utter giving way to emotion. Myra had been sweet and controlled as a girl, never hysterical. It is true that Myra had always been more willful than Rowan, more insistent to have he own way. But Hannah could not help feeling that living with Mark had shattered her nerves. She did not seem in the least like herself.
And she was continually moaning about the last time she had come, the things she had said to her father in her passion about Rowan.
“It’s all right, dear,” soothed Hannah. “Father understood that you didn’t mean
half you said. Father felt sorry for you, dear. Your name was almost the last on his lips, ‘Dear little girl,’ he called you. Now sit down and let me tell you what he said.”
But Myra would go off into sobbing again and Hannah could give her no comfort. She kept berating herself for worrying her father, and then she interspersed it with berating her brother for going away in such an awful way. Sometimes she called him a thief and hashed the whole thing over again and again, with all that Mark had said about him, until Hannah was nearly at her wits’ end. Finally she said, “Myra, dear, if you have got to think those things yourself I can’t stop you, but you’re not to mention them again in this house. And I don’t’ want to hear any more about what Mark says or thinks. Your father and I knew all about Rowan and we were not troubled about his absence. Someday you will understand it yourself, when he gets back, and then you will be ashamed. But until then, please don’t mention such a thought again.”
“Well, if you and father knew about it I think you ought to tell and not let people go around saying such rotten things about my brother.”
“There, there, Myra, that will do. I don’t want to hear anything more about it.”
They were trying days, those three before the funeral. And on the second one Mark arrived. That was worse yet. He undertook to run everything.
Hannah had quietly and competently made her arrangements, the arrangements that she and Charles had calmly talked over, and everything was moving along calmly, when Mark came on the scene. The first thing he did was to ask about the undertaker and try to discover whether Hannah had gotten estimates from different ones. He said he had a list of the best and cheapest ones in the county and she had better let him take the matter over and arrange everything. But when Hannah told him that everything was arranged he went determinedly down to find out just what she had done.
When he returned, just at dinner time, he told her that he had looked everything over and told the man to make several changes. He spoke harshly about her selecting such a handsome casket, and said that in her position she had no right to go into debt for something that was to be buried underground. Charles was dead now and it couldn’t possibly mean anything to him.
Hannah looked at him wide eyed and calm, a mild surprise in her eyes.
“Just what do you mean, Mark, ‘in my position,’” she said.
“Why, I mean that you being alone in the world now and having just lost nearly everything you possess, probably through the machinations of your only son, and you having no earning power whatever, will have no money to pay for a costly funeral. We shall have to support you, of course, and we can’t afford to let you mount up bills, which will be more than we would care to help you pay.”
“Oh, I see,” said Hannah thoughtfully. “Well, Mark, you can put aside your worry about that. I still have enough to pay for the funeral as it has been planned. I shall not come to you to help in any way.”
“Yes, but don’t you see that even if you have enough in the bank at present to pay for this, that you ought to save as much of it as you can? It will help buy what clothes you have to have. We can feed you, of course, and give you a home, but we can’t afford to spend much on frills.”
Hannah smiled.
“Well,” she said soothingly, “I shan’t need many frills.”
Myra suddenly got up and went toward the kitchen. She had turned deadly white at her husband’s first words, and now she was on the verge of tears again. But Mark was angry now.
“Myra, sit down!” he ordered. “I want you to hear this, too. It is better that we all understand each other. Mother, I told the undertaker to change the order. I went over the whole thing and cut down as much as possible.”
“Yes, I know,” said Hannah steadily. “He called me up and told me what you had done. I told him I wished things to go on just as I had planned them. This is my affair, Mark, not yours, and you will have to keep out of if!”
Myra left the room then in earnest in a burst of tears and Mark stormed loudly, but Hannah presently got up herself and went upstairs.
“Now that Rowan has chosen to take himself out of the picture,” shouted Mark after her, “I am the head of this household, and you will have to learn that you can’t carry on with a high hand and spend just as you please. I can’t afford it!”
But Hannah had shut her door, and even a man of Mark’s furious temperament cannot carry on an argument when his opponent and audience have both removed themselves. So Mark went outside to look around and appraise the various farm implements and tools and calculate how much they would bring. No, those days before the funeral were not pleasant days, and Hannah was glad that they would soon be over.
Joyce came over several times, slipping away from her father when she could, but Myra seemed to resent her presence.
“I don’t think she has very fine feelings,” she said haughtily. “She must know it was her brother’s fault for getting Rowan into this mess. It was her brother who led him away to that awful Rowley place, they say. I’ve been down to Mrs. Lamb’s cottage and she’s been telling me a lot.”
“Yes, she would,” said Hannah quietly. “Myra, you’ve been away from home too long to be a good judge of whom to listen to. If I were you I wouldn’t get my facts from Widow Lamb. Now, child, forget all this for the present. Sometime I’ll tell you all about it. Rowan and Jason and everything, but not now. I’ll tell you, too, what your father thought of Joyce, and I’m sure the day will come when you will love her as much as I do. Now, just don’t say anymore at present.”
Myra wept all through the service and caught none of the comfort that Hannah found in the precious words from the Book that Charles and she had read so often together.
But after it was all over they came back to the cleared-up house and Hannah was getting supper, just as she had always gotten it, just as if she were not terribly conscious that dear Charles’s body was laid away in the cemetery, and she would not see that precious face again until she beheld it in the Morning, in glory, Morning glory!
It was while she was fixing the fried potatoes the way she knew Myra loved them, and trying not to think how Charles had loved them, too, that Myra came to her.
Myra had the look of one who was almost glad that the terrible time was over and she could get back to real living again.
“Mother,” she said, and her tone was quite practical, “Mark says he wonders if you could get packed, your personal things, you know, and ready to start by day after tomorrow. He wanted me to ask you yesterday, but I wouldn’t trouble you. He says he is awfully busy this time of year and he can’t spare much time. We have the car here, of course, so it won’t cost anything to take your baggage. You can use the trunk for your things. We only brought a suitcase, thinking there would be sheets and blankets and things that you would want to take with you. How about it, Mother, do you think you could get it all done in one day, or would it take two? I’ll help you, you know.”
Myra’s face was white and anxious. She was evidently longing for an answer that would satisfy Mark.
Hannah looked up in surprise. “Why, child, I’ve not notion of going home with you. In fact, I couldn’t think of it. There are things I must do at once that have been neglected. And besides, I don’t feel that it would be wise for me to make you a visit just now. I’d better just stay here and get used to things. That’s what Father would have wanted me to do.”
“Mother!” wailed Myra. “You can’t stay here alone! You’ll come to us now, and I shall be so glad to have you!”
“Would you, dear?” said Hannah, almost beaming on her child. She had sometimes felt that Myra was almost weaned from her. “Well, dear, that’s nice. But I don’t think it is wise, do you? Mark and I don’t seem to think alike on most things, and I think it is better for you to get along the way you are. I’m afraid my coming would only bring discussion and worry for you.”
“But, Mother, we can’t keep up two households. You know Mark can’t afford it. He’s doing well, of course,
but he thinks it’s wrong not to put away a certain amount each year. We’ve got to think of Ollie, you know.”
“Why, my dear, there’s no need to talk like that. I never expected you to keep up two households. I expect to go on living in my own home just as Father planned.”
“Well, but Mother, Father isn’t here to run the farm, and what would you live on?”
“Why, my dear child, I’m not utterly penniless as you seem to think. I’ve enough to get along on—” She smiled and added, “for the present. And Mr. Hollister will carry on the farm just as he has done for the last ten years. Of course, Rowan will take it over eventually when he gets back!”
“Mother! You’re not still expecting Rowan to come back, are you? I declare I can’t understand it.”
“Yes, I’m expecting Rowan back. He told me he was coming and I know he will.”
“Well, you’re only storing up trouble for yourself. Rowan won’t come back, not with the reputation he’s left behind him. Perhaps you don’t know all that’s said about him.”
“Yes, I know all,” said Hannah, “more than all!”
“Well, Mother, you’ve simply got to come home with us. I can’t stand it if you don’t.”
“My dear! My dear! I didn’t know you cared so much. If that’s so I’ll try to get in a visit before spring.”
“No, Mother, I must have you now. I’m worn out! I’ve been counting on your coming home with us, and I just can’t stand it any long without you.”
Myra put her face down in her mother’s neck the way she used to do when she was a child, and her mother’s heart went out to her. Poor child! Maybe she wanted her mother. Her heart was sore over the loss of her father. they used to be such comrades before Myra was married. Maybe the child needed her mother for a little while. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she ought to go.
She folded her arms around Myra’s neck and patted her head.
Dear child! Dear child! But Myra continued to weep as if this was the bitterest trouble of all, and at last Hannah said, “Well, dear, if you want it so much I guess I’ll have to go for a while. There, there! Don’t take on any more. Mother’ll go and visit you awhile. Now cheer up. We’ll have some nice times and get acquainted all over again.”