Hawaii Page 21

  They had barely assembled in the austere front room when Gideon Hale, brimming with pride at having a son who was ordained, suggested, "Abner, will you lead your first prayer in this house?" And Abner took as his text Leviticus 25:10, "And ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family," and poured forth a minor sermon. The family glowed, but when services were over, shy, gangling Esther took her brother aside and whispered, "The most wonderful thing has happened, Abner."

  "Father told me, Esther. I am deeply pleased that you have entered into a state of grace."

  "It would be vain of me to speak of that," the eager girl said, in blushes. "That wasn't what I meant."

  "What then?"

  "I have received a letter!"

  It was now Abner's turn to blush, and although he did not wish to display unseemly interest he nevertheless had to ask, haltingly, "From . . ." But he could not bring himself to utter the name he had not yet spoken to anyone. It seemed to him so improbable that he should even know of Jerusha Bromley, let alone be on his way to propose to her, that he would not profane her name by mentioning it.

  Esther Hale took her brother's two hands and assured him, "It is from one of the sweetest, most considerate, gentle and Christian young women in all New England. She called me sister and asked for my prayers and guidance."

  "May I see the letter?" Abner asked.

  "Oh! No! No!” Esther protested vigorously. "It was sent to me in confidence. Jerusha said . . . Isn't that a sweet name, Abner? It was Jotham's mother's name in Kings. She said that everything was happening so rapidly that she had to confide in a trustworthy friend. You would be amazed at the things she asked me."

  "About what?" Abner asked.

  "About you."

  "What did you say?"

  "I wrote a letter of eighteen pages, and although it was a secret letter between my sister and me . . ,"

  "Your sister?"

  "Yes, Abner. I'm convinced from the manner of her letter that she intends marrying you." Esther smiled at her confused brother and added, "So although it was a secret letter, I made a copy of one of the eighteen pages."

  "Why?"

  "Because on that page I listed every single one of your faults, as a young woman would assess them, and in sisterly love, Abner, I would like to give you that important page."

  "I would like to have it," Abner said weakly, and he took the finely composed page, with its flowing penmanship, to his room and read:

  "Dearest Jerusha, whom I hope one happy day to have the right of calling sister, thus far I have told you only of my brother's virtues. They are many and I have not exaggerated them, for as you can guess, living in close harmony in the bosom of a large and closely bonded family provides even the dullest intellect with ample opportunity to penetrate even the most secret recesses of another's mind and temperament. Against the day, therefore, when we may meet as true sisters, and desirous of having you judge me as having been completely honest with you in true Christian principle as enjoined by our Lord in Ephesians 4:25, 'Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another," I must now advise you of the weaknesses of my devout and gentle brother. First, Jerusha, he is not skilled in pretty manners and will surely disappoint you if you seek them foremost in a husband. That he could learn to be more gracious I feel sure, and perhaps under your patient counsel he might one day become almost civilized, but I doubt it. He is rude and honest. He is thoughtless and forthright, and from having watched my mother deal with such a husband I know how trying it can be at times, but in all of my life I have not seen my father make much change, so I must conclude that this is something which women prize but which they rarely find. Second, he is thoughtless where women are concerned, for I have lived with him in closest intimacy for nineteen years, and I have shared his secrets and he mine, and never in that time has he thought to give me a present other than some useful object like a straight-edge or a journal. I am sure he does not know that flowers exist, even though our Lord saw to it that His temple in Jerusalem was constructed of finest materials and sweet woods. In this also he is much like his father. Third, he is not a handsome young man and his habit of stooping makes him less so. He is not careful of his clothes, nor of his person, although he does wash his mouth frequently to avoid giving offense in that quarter. On any day in Marlboro I see young men who are more handsome than my brother, and I suppose that one day I shall marry one of them, but I have not the slighest hope that this handsomer man will have the list of favorable attributes which I have just enumerated. But I know you will often wish that Abner stood a little straighter, wore linen a little whiter, and had a more commanding presence. He will never have these graces and if you seek them primarily, you will be grievously disappointed. Finally, sister Jerusha, for I make bold to call you this in the most fervent hope that you will accept my brother, for the spirit of joy I find in your letter is one that Abner sorely needs, I must warn you that he is both grave and vain, and if he were not destined for the ministry these would be insufferable traits, but his gravity and vanity spring from the same cause. He feels that God has spoken to him personally, as indeed He has, and that this separates him from all other men. This is a most unpleasant trait in my brother, and I can now say so because God has spoken to me, too, and I judge from your letter that He has come to you, and I find neither in you nor in myself the vanity that mars my brother. I have found in God's presence a sweetness that I never knew before. It makes me gentler with my sisters, more understanding of my little brothers. I take more joy in feeding the chickens and churning the butter. If only Abner could surrender his vanity in the presence of the Lord, he would be a near-perfect husband for you, Jerusha. As it is, he is a good man, and if you should elect him, I pray that you will keep this letter with you and that you will find as the years pass that your unseen sister told you the truth."

  There was another letter waiting at Marlboro. It came from Reverend Eliphalet Thorn and said simply: "While you're at your father's, work each day in the sun with your hat off. If Jerusha accepts you, I'll perform the ceremony."

  So for two weeks Abner worked in the fields as he had as a boy, and in time he grew bronzed and the sallow skin under his deep-set eyes tightened, so that when it came time for him to say farewell to his large and loving family he was as close to being handsome as he would ever be, but the relaxation from grimness that his sister Esther had sought to encourage had not taken place. This was partly because the young minister had a presentiment that this was the very last time on earth that he would see these eleven people, this barn, that meadow where he had known conversion, this warm fellowship of a Christian family. He shook hands with his mother, for he was never much of an embracer, and then with his father, who suggested cautiously, "Since you're leaving, maybe I ought to hitch up the wagon."

  He was obviously relieved when his son replied, "No, Father. It's a good day. I'll walk."

  "I'd like to give you a little money to go away with, Abner," his father began, hesitantly.

  "That's not necessary," Abner replied. "Reverend Thorn kindly sent me three dollars."

  "That's what Esther told me," Gideon Hale replied. Thrusting out a well-worn hand, he said stiffly, "May the Lord go with you, son."

  "May you continue to live in grace," Abner replied.

  He then said good-bye to Esther and for the first time realized that she was growing into quite a fine young woman. He had a pang of regret and thought: "I ought to have known Esther better." But now it was too late, and he stood in a welter of confusion when she kissed him, thus paving the way for each of his other sisters to do the same.

  "Good-bye," he said chokingly. "If we do not meet again here on earth, we shall surely reassemble at His feet in heaven. For we are heirs of God and joint heirs of Jesus Christ to an inheritance uncorrupted, undefiled and limitless and which fadeth not away." With this he sternly moved away from his bleak parents and their bleak home with its
unpainted boards and unlovely windows. For the last time he walked down the lane, out into the dusty road, and on to Marlboro, where the coach picked him up for New Hampshire and an adventure which he dreaded.

  Arrived at the Old Colony Inn at Walpole, Abner washed and took from his papers one that had been written by his sister. Numerous items were set forth, and numbered, the first thing being: "Upon arrival wash, brush yourself thoroughly, and have the messenger deliver this note to Mrs. Bromley: 'My dear Mrs. Bromley, May I have the pleasure of calling upon you this afternoon at three?' Then sign your name and the name of the inn, in case one of the family should deem fit to come to escort you in person."

  The letter had scarcely been dispatched when Abner heard a hearty male voice crying, "You got a young fellow from Massachusetts staying here?" And before Abner had time to read his sister's careful instructions for the first visit, his door was burst open and he was greeted by a generously filled-out New Hampshire gentleman who laughed, "I'm Charles Bromley. You must be nervous as a colt."

  "I am," Abner said.

  "You look a lot browner and tougher than everybody said."

  "Reverend Thorn told me to do some work in the fields."

  "Do me a lot of good to do the same. What I came for, though, was to tell you that we won't hear of you waiting around this inn till three o'clock. Walk right across the common with me, and meet the family."

  "It won't be an imposition?" Abner asked.

  "Son!" Lawyer Bromley laughed. "We're as nervous as you are!" And he started to lead young Hale home, but on the spur of the moment stopped and called to the innkeeper, "What are the charges here?"

  "Sixty cents a day."

  "Hold the bill for me. These young ministers don't earn much money." He then took Abner out into the midsummer perfection of Walpole. There was the village church, glistening white in its pre-Revolutionary splendor, the massive houses, the giant elms, the marvelous green common with a fretwork bandstand in the middle where Charles Bromley often delivered patriotic addresses, and straight ahead the lawyer's residence from which Mrs. Bromley and her two younger daughters peered like spies.

  "He's not as bad as they said!" Charity Bromley whispered to her sister.

  "He's not very tall," Mercy sniffed. "He's more your size, Charity, than Jerusha's."

  "Now be composed, girls," Mrs. Bromley commanded, and all sat primly in large chairs. The door was kicked open in Charles Bromley's familiar way, and a young man in black carrying a large stovepipe hat entered the room. He walked firmly across the carpeting, bowed to Mrs. Bromley, and said, "I am honored that you would invite me to your home." Then he looked at Charity, nineteen and pretty, with curls to her shoulders, and said with a tremendous blush and a deep bow, "I am especially pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Bromley."

  "She's not Jerusha!" young Mercy squealed, attacked by a furious set of giggles.

  Mr. Bromley joined the laughter and said, "You know how girls dawdle, Abner. You've got sisters. You'll know Jerusha when she, comes down. She's the pretty one."

  Abner felt a wave of paralyzing embarrassment sweep over him.

  Then he became aware that Mrs. Bromley had addressed a question to him: "Do you have a sister Mercy's age? She's twelve."

  "I have a brother twelve," he fumbled.

  "Well, if you have a brother twelve," Mercy said brightly, "you can't very well have a sister twelve, too.”

  "Could be twins," Charity laughed.

  "No twins," Abner explained precisely.

  "So then he doesn't have a sister twelve!” Mercy triumphed.

  "What Mrs. Bromley was going to say, Abner," explained Mr. Bromley, "was that if you did have a sister twelve, you'd understand why we sometimes would like to drown this little imp."

  The idea startled Abner. He had never heard his parents say such a thing, even in jest. In fact, he had heard more joking in these first few minutes with the Bromleys than he had heard in his entire family life of twenty-one years. "Mercy looks like too fine a child to be drowned," he mumbled in what he took to be gallantry, and then he gaped, for coming down the stairs and into the room was Jerusha Bromley, twenty-two years old, slim, dark-eyed, dark-haired, perfect in feature and with gently dancing curls which framed her race, three on each side. She was exquisite in a frail starched dress of pink and white sprigged muslin, marked by a row of large pearl buttons, not flat as one found them in cheaper stores, but beautifully rounded on top and iridescent. They dropped in an unbroken line from her cameoed throat, over her striking bosom, down to her tiny waist and all the way to the hem of her dress, where three spaced bands of white bobbin lace completed the decoration. Abner, looking at her for the first time, choked. "She cannot be the sister they thought of for me," he thought. "She is so very lovely."

  With firm step she came across the room and offered Abner her hand, saying in a low gentle voice, "The wisest thing I have done in my life was to write to Esther. I feel as if I already know you, Reverend Hale."

  "His name's Abner!" Mercy cried, but Jerusha ignored her.

  It was a long, hot, enchanting afternoon from one o'clock to six. Abner had never before encountered such wit and relaxed laughter, marred only by the fact that upon his dusty arrival at the inn he had drunk enormous quantities of water, so that from four o'clock on he needed more than anything else a chance to go to the privy, a predicament which had never before faced him and with which he was incapable of coping. Finally, Mr. Bromley said openly, "Just occurred to me, we've been keeping this young man talking for five hours. I'll bet he'd like to visit the outhouse." And he led the blushing young minister to the most enjoyable relief he had ever experienced.

  At dinner Abner was aware that the entire Bromley family was watching his manners, but nevertheless he felt that he was conducting himself fairly well, a fact which gave him some pleasure, for although he thought it was stupid to judge a man by his manners, he suddenly realized that he wanted this pleasant family to think well of him.

  "We were all watching to see if you took the cherry pits out of your mouth with your fingers," Mercy teased.

  "We learned not to do that at college," Abner explained. "At home I used to spit them out." The family laughed so merrily that Abner discovered he had made a joke, which had not been his intention.

  At eight Mr. Bromley asked if Abner would lead evening worship, and he did so, taking for his text one that Esther had selected, aftet much study, for the occasion, Genesis 23:4: "I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight." Charles Bromley found the passage excessively gloomy for a beginning preacher of twenty-one but he had to confess admiration for the adroitness with which Abner converted death into a glowing assurance of life. Abner, for his part, held that the manner in which Mrs. Bromley played the organ for hymns and the way in which her three daughters sang them were both unnecessarily ornate. But granting these differences, the service was a success.

  Then Mr. Bromley said, "To bed, family! These youngsters must have much they want to discuss." And with a wide sweep of his arms he projected his brood upstairs.

  When they were gone, Jerusha sat with her hands folded, looking at the stranger in her house, and said, "Reverend Hale, your sister told me so much about you that I feel no need for asking questions, but you must have many that perplex you."

  "I have one that surpasses all others, Miss Bromley," he replied. "Do you have unshaken confidence in the Lord?"

  "I do. More than my mother or father, more than my sisters. I don't know how this happened, but I do."

  "I am pleased to hear that you are not a stranger to our Lord and Master," Abner sighed contentedly.

  "Have you no other questions!” Jerusha asked.

  Abner looked startled, as if to say, "What other questions are there?" But he asked, "Are you willing, then, to follow blindly His grand purpose of life, even if it takes you eighteen thousand miles away from home?"

  "I am. O
f that I am quite certain. For some years now I have had a calling. Of late it has grown most powerful."

  "Do you know that Owhyhee is a pagan land, barbarous with evil?"

  "One night I heard Keoki speak at church. He told us about the dark practices of his people."

  "And you are nevertheless willing to go to Owhyhee?"

  Jerusha sat extremely primly for several moments, fighting down her natural inclinations, but she could not do so, and finally she blurted, "Reverend Hale, you're not hiring me to go to Owhyhee And you're not investigating me to see if I should be made a minister! You're supposed to be asking me if I want to marry you!"

  From his chair some few feet away, Abner swallowed very hard. He was not surprised by Jerusha's outburst, for he was aware that he knew nothing of women, and perhaps this was the way they were expected to act. So he did not panic. Instead he looked at his hands and said, "You are so beautiful, Miss Bromley. You are so much more lovely than I had ever a right to expect, that I cannot even now comprehend that you might consent to marry me. I am astonished that you would bother with me, so I have been thinking that you must have some powerful call to the Lord. It seemed safe and reasonable for us to talk about that."

  Jerusha left her chair, walked to Abner and kneeled on the floor so that she could look up into his eyes. "Are you saying that you're afraid to propose to me, Reverend Hale?"

  "Yes. You are so much more beautiful than I expected."

  "And you're thinking, 'Why isn't she already married?'"

  "Yes."

  "Reverend Hale, don't be embarrassed. All my family and friends ask the same question. The simple truth is, three years ago, before I came to know the Lord, I was in love with a New Bedford man who came here on a visit. He was everything you aren't, and immediately everyone in Walpole decided that he was a perfect husband for me. But he went away and in his absence . . ."

  "You used God as a substitute?"

  "Many think so."

  "And now you wish to use me as a substitute, too?"