The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 31, 1905, Page 8

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. ° ——— “IE 4 -~ _~ golen Avery.” 5t last wad of old Mrs. Tib- the . depressed the pessimis conte y, as fiever before occurred answered. & =D, , B It is, indeed.” The Wepression of Mr. Barbour's face 1irted slightly It is pleasant to feel that e Has spoken to effect. He shook his head to Geepen the philosophy of his last reme‘k and sald “Encci's pretty s oss, T #'pose.” “That's what they sa: plied, hurriedly. Vi goin’ into house.” He passed on and disappeared through the open door. - Mr. Barbour saw & phae- ton not far from the gate and the flutter skirts. He guessed that his had made haste to avold a much broke up over Mr. Avery re- I guess Tl be companion courtesy, and with disgust at such boor- i s, to offer his own services. The younger of the two women glanced an’’ blan- that I hiteh Dolly I'm so glad Barb: her, mother. ket shan't have to get hair ell over this navy blue ekirt Ehe’s shedding dreadfully, nd white hair does show 80.” §'h” murmured the other. Then, with of smiling relie “Why, Mr. Bar- Yes, thanks, we'll be glad to have "tend to th' horse. A horse is & bother to women. Isn't it dretful sad ebout Mrs, Weaver goin’ so sudden? I a her husband. My! what a lot s there are here. I guess it’ll real big funeral "I think a small uneral always seems forlorn—as If a dy hadn’t any friends. Simon couldn’t get eway to-day. He's behind with ' an’.everything this fall, an’ he's ed.his ankle a little, too. He was {n' this mornin’ about luck, but t half so bad off s who hasn't even a e left to him!” )t so pessimistic but t the comely and still wite. * he sald ahead, leaving Barbour to follow— of thelr voices mean- The leaves rustled under her feet, and she looked down at them ‘W the half consciousness with , she let her eyes lift to the beauty haze hills—stretching away way was thi g rebellious! funerals, how she wished have let her stay at was there sad a@bout ch an old person as Mrs. pity se: e giri lik, ‘Why—she How to live to be 8 She t life would seem houghts trailed into for great, indeed, Is the space and e had n »ch Weaver, but sh bered seeing her occasionall; rather bent little woman, with wh d kindly eyes and cheeks winter apple. red as a withered Her face had pleased the AID HED TITARKIED FEE TN THAT BUNNIZLT it = — A Concord sorrel horse drove and Angel, with ver, started for mother called to her She paused obediently, keeping her back to ‘the gate. Her mother, leaving Mr. Barbour to greet the new arrivals as if he Wwas. master of ceremonies, reached her side. ““Why, what in th’ world alls you, Ange- lina Briggs? Anybody’d think you:never'd been to a funeral before, an’ I took you three times while you was .a baby in s. 'Tain’t a party to go rushin’ in like “I didn’'t know I was rushing,” Angel said, with hushed indignation and a blush which passed as swiftly as it came. “Then you'd better know. An' I won't hev in’ so putcheky. You've ever since th' surprise party church last week. 1 .guess surprise parties .don’t agree -with you. Walt—I want to _speak to Mrs.. Wood-g mansee! How dy’e do, Mrs. Woodman- see? Nice day for a funeral, ‘ain't it? No wh 'most everybody can't I see Tom fetched ing voice. - “His father couldh’t get away, as he's ofle o’ th’' jurors on that court to town now. Tom don’t rerals. But I made him fetch How d've do, Angel?” 'Angel didn’t want to come eithe but I insisted, as Simon couldn’'t spare th' t Mrs. Briggs said, wonder- ing w! the child should blush again inder Mrs. Woodmansee's greeting. hoped Angel wasn't developing shtulness at 19. Dretful sad ‘bout Mrs. Weaver, ain't 1t?” Mrs. Woodmansee nodded solemnly that it was very sad indeed, and with an all-over glance which took in the other's dress from headgear to shoes, the two women went into the house— Angel following. The sitting-room and parlor, square front rooms opening out of the long, narrow hall, were - filled with people sitting in decorous silence; and the hall was lined with standing The undertaker, waiting upon the lowest stalr opposite the open front door, came forward with .the suave manner of his kind, and carried some extra chalrs into the dining-room be- yond—which - was = already ~ well crowded. Angel went on after her mother with a sensation of relfef, for her glance Into the parlor had shown her a coffin, beside which sat a bent old man. A fow whispered greetings met them as they took seats. * “Awtul queer 'bout her havin’ on her weddin’ bonnet, ain’t it?” whispered’a woman next to Mrs. Briggs. “What? Hadn’t you heard? Yes, Enoch’ in- sisted upon her bein’ laid,out in. her weddin' bunnit: took on 8o th’:under- taker said they'd -better' let him hev his way. -His unele was jest as odd as he could be, you know—always wors two coats, th' shortest ‘outside, ‘an’ when his. wife dled he hung’ himself in th’ smokehouse an' wasn't found for three days, an’ low. men Sairey Ann Westcott come . mourner. of ,mourners, thoughy, they hunted high » in to help here after Mrs. Weaver dled, * an’ ghe said if 't wasn't fur that bune- nit th’' poor soul would ‘a2’ made ‘a beautiful corpse. come out o’ the ark, of course.” - “Do te! Mrs. Briggs gasped back in astonishment, while Angel listened nervpusly, half fascinated, yet witha feeling of repugnance to this “gossip, which trickled on as if the tongue of the whisperer moved ' without ocon- sciousness from her brain. Thet looks like she; “Enoch he said he’d married her In. thet bunnit, an’ he'd bury her in thet bunnit. He said she was jest as much his bride now as she ever was.” “Do tell’” Mrs. Briggs gasped again. ¢s. He's teched of course—a lit- tle teched. Th’ idea of bein’ laid out in a bunnit! Who ever heard’of such a thing? An’ don't you think Enoch declares his wife ain’t dead—only sleepin’? Says if th’ minister calls her dead he won't never go inside & church again. I pity the minister!” Just then from the hall sounded the minister's voice, vibrating with feeling. He was new to the place, hawing occupled the pulpit but six months, and this was the first funeral since his pastorate began. He was a young man, with ideas which secmed hardly orthodox .to even-tenored country folk; and there were few present who did not wonder how he_ could avoid what might seem like consclousness’that the woman beside whom the old man .watched, as we watch the sleep of one we love, had been dressed for the grave in 2 way which exceeded all precedent. Necks craned, ears strained; curlosity was agog to catch the words of this stripling, fresh from divinity school: “Probably there Is not.one of you here to-day. who did not know the wife of Enoch Weaver better than it has been my privilege to know her—you knew.her quiet, unobtrusive life, hér kindness as a neighbor, her faithfulness as a help- meet; you knew how dear she was to him who,” alone "in old :age, sits, - the beside the one whom sixty years ago he brought hers & bride—and whose face, as she lies with _ her silvery white halr against the time- yellowed white of her"wedding bonnet, - is still o’ him the face of the bride so many ' yesterdays removed. ' To those of us to whom God hay given the blessing of a good woman’s love, to those of us to whom such blessing is yet to come, it brings a feeling of reverence for our own—that she who rests in-yonder room is still a bride to the bridegroom of ‘sixty years ago—will always be a bride. Shall we think of her as dead? No—for she sleeps!” The people sat stirless,” expect- ant, strangely moved—yet many of’them hardly comprehending. And as ‘they sat thus the minister's girl-wife, on the hall stairs, began to sing with rare tender- ness the words of 'Mrs. Erowning's “Sleep.” The tenor soprano left behind it & hush thrilling with sacredness; the minister's voice broke ‘as he sald: ‘Let us pray.” One. by one those assembled passed ‘In single flle through the rooms to look good-by at Enoch Weaver's bride. Angel held back until the last; not now because of her usual nervous shrinking from lobk- ing at Death, but because an- etnotion, against which she fought down a choke in the throat, made it seem lke pro- fanation that any curlous gaze should fall upon the dead this day. When she went ‘up. to the coffin, against which Enoch Weaver rested the withered, trem- ulous hand of age, as he throughout the service, she saw, ‘ eyes he had not done while the others filed by, met those of the girl—brimming « with passionate softly—and sald she slip- sympathy. then she was “Oh!” ping away in confusion at her own im- pulsiveness, for she had bent and kissed the dld The cemetery was at the foot man’s wrinkled cheek. f the hill, & quarter mile below Enoch Weav- had done -er's house, and nearly all present went framed . soberly down the grassy roadside bank among the white lllac blossoms of a to where in the small buryi lace a time-yellowed white silk bonnet, a serene “heap of fresh earth markedynn:e:ly dug old face which smiled the bride smile grave; - th, e hearse, followed by two or of sixty years ago. She looked from that three carriages, turned in throu; g gh the smile to the mourner, and he, lifting his iron gates after the people, and the bride N 1 I of sixty years ago was lowered to het last resting piace. Standing on the edge of the crowd which hemmed in the min- ister—the bearers, the few remote cousins who had joined the little procession, and the chief mourner, who leaned tremu- lously on the undertaker’s arm—Ange! heard the minister repeating: *“Dust to dust, ashes to ashes”; and then after a pause which seemed part of the autumnal hush: “We spend our years as a tale that Is told.” The chief mourner was led away, his dim eyes turning backward to the grave, and among those about him—younger, alert and strong—he looked like an au- S sap mENT 8 AND FTSSED THE QLD MANS WX, NELED CHEEXR. .:} tumn leat that, shaken from the bough, ‘Was waiting in sear uselessness the pity- ing shroudal of winter snows. The crowd away by easy degrees, for the of afternoon was already waning, and further delay meant “chores” by lantern lght. . Angel found herself beside the wfll grave with only her mother, Mrs. 'oodmanses, and the woman who had Whispered about the wedding bonnet. “T've enjoyed tb’ funeral so much! N ons of his letters to Charles Eliot Norton, John Ruskin, commenting on Charles Dickens' ldea of Christmas, writes: “Dickens’ Christmas meant mistletoe afd pudding—never resur- rection from the dead nor the rising of new stars nor the teaching of wise men nor shepherds.” Whether all lovers of Dickens willj agres with Ruskin or not, the point is certainly worth nothing that our .nodern Christmas festival is in dan- ger of becoming commercialized. We are having = glut of Christmas bargains, Christmas lissues of the magazines, Christmas_dinners and‘ matinees, to say nothing about Christmas trees and pres- ents. No one who possesses any measure of that important. article known as the milk of human kindness finds it in his heart to rail sharply at the world's ap- propriation of what used to be a dls- tinctively I‘Hzlo\'u celebration, but it would be a pity in the midst of all our Christmas paraphernalla to lose sight of the shepherds and the wise men, ' the stars and the shining cohort of angels. Fortunately the children—bless their hearts!—will not let go of the mystery side of Christmas and so long as they inhabit our modern world we shall have to tell to their eager ears over and over again the dear old tale in some one of its numerous versions, how: *“One_night .when stars were shining and’ shepherds watched their sheep, A mother lald her baby Where the oxen sleep. “Mary was that mother, Christ that baby fair; Angels sang in gladness Because the Lord was there.” “Oh, let the .children bhelleve that stuff,” you say with a toss of your head, as if a man of your mature years and scientific knowledge had long ago out- grown a belief in such notions. Ah, my friend, as the artist, Turrer, sald to the woman who told him she did not see any- thing wonderful in his pictures, “Madam, don’t you 'wish you did?" And don’t you, Mr. Wiseman, down deep in your heart, wish you could believe, as the children do, that some wonderful things actually hap- pened on the Bethlehem plains 1900 years ago? Is it not possible that you are over- wise {n your own conceit, you rule out of a universe that God has made every- thing unusual, everything supernatural, as you thick you can reduce to a basis Ain’t you, Mrs. Briggs? It pasmsed oft reel well. Mr. Bennett, the undertakes, does know how fo manage things. But { b'lleve people would 'a’ crfed more if they’d known what was comin’. We was all 8o took up with wonderin’ what th’ minister would say that there wasn't hardly & tear shed. It didn’t seem right. An’ th’ minister's wife ought to "a’ chose & more lamentin’ hymn. Why, death wasn't nothin’ at all th' way she sung.” Angel flashed a quivering face upon the Epeaker. “What th' minister's wife sung was beautiful! beautifull™ The critic stared, startled at such vele- mence. “Mebbe 't was,” ghe acquiesced hur- rledly. “But it does seem as If th’ min- {ster ought to 'a’ preached a reel sermon, telin’ about her many virtues. That's th’ way. things was dome when I was young. An’ if th' person was deservin’, like Mrs. Enoch Weaver, they was al- ways spoke of as lookin’ down on us from heaven. I sh’d think sech a dis- course would ‘a’ been more edifyin’ an’ soothin’ to poor old Enoch than all hifalutin’ talk. But th' minister was smart to get In as he did about bunnit, an’ she, poor creetur! looked a pretty corpse in spite of havin' it on. However, it's a pity nobody dared take it off before folks see her.” “It isn't either!” Angel flashed again. “Angelina!” But the maternal warning was given with an unusual degree of gen- tleness. Mrs. Woodmansee spoke in her purring voice. “§'posin’ we women go an’ see th' new monyment Deacon Babbit has put up to th’ lower end of th’ cem’try. Angel, It Tom sh'd fetch th’ around, tell him I sban’t be Tong. She moved ponderously away—her pur- ring volce wafted softly back to the g who stood, flushe@ and silent, looking after the three figures until they were lost to sight behind the white stones on the slope of the cemetery hill. The waters of the little pond beyond the cemetery slope gleamed blue; a lght wind rustled the some criso leaves at her feet; branches of a near hackmatack sighed lispingly—iike waves upon a beach. Absorbed in thought as she was, the blending of sound covered a step behind her—but @ shadow ejongating In the westering sun suddenly fell past her into the open grave. With a start she tuzned from the blue pond waters to meet the young fellow behind her. “Oh, Tom!” His frank face was working with emo- tion. “1 saw you when you—kissed him! No- body else would have thought to do T'm sorry I got mad at nothing th’ evem- ing of th' surprise party, Angel” “Oh, Tom!" Between the two utterances of his name was such a gamut of feeling as from surprise to joy. Through the dian summer mellowness a bluebird, be- lated in its winter migration, fluted once, twice, thrice from the hackmatack tree, and flew away toward the follage-denud- ed, haze-covered hills, warbling melodi- ously of spring! spring! spring!—the spring which beat in the hearts of two who kissed beside an open grave, with Autumn and Age and Death forgotten. It was Angel, who, remembering, Said with a choke in her throat “I'm glad she was buried fn her wed- ding bonnet, Tom.” Angel had learned now how one might wish to live to be 80. Yet 30 was far away! Tom did not answer, for, look- ing radiantly into her eyes, he saw mir- rored, as it were, her own face, sweet and blushing and alive—framed in a wed- ding bonnet! « Mistletoe and Pudding = | Vs. «# » Stars and Angels « = O NN N NS IS Ol b 4 of inexorable law and hard, cold facts all that mankind has for centuries hoped for, belleved in, lived by and died by? Do you think that there is nothing in the world besides what your eys can see, your hands touch, your microscope and tele- scope reveal, your dissecting knife A cover? You are wrong. Thia is a world in which mystery, ideallsm, the supra natural, If not the supernatural, play an immense part. And Christmas is the time to become like little chldren once mo: teachable, reverent, responsive to the ap- proaches from above. As Longfellow puts it in his sweet poem to a little boy: “Listen to voices In the upper air, Lose not thy simple faith in mysteries.” Yes, something happened back there n Judea nineteen centuries ago, some- thing In regard to which, perhaps, we cannot give an absolutely exact, de- tailed account such as & modern his- torian or shorthand reporter would have furnished had he been there, but something really happened out of the ordinary and the angelic chorus and the travellng magi and the wondering shepherds, and the little ecradle hewn out of the rock in a wayside resting place all figured in that event Just how, who needs to know down to the last detail of historic accuracy? The thing.that happened was some- thing blg with blessing for mankind. Nothiag had before happened in the life of the old, weary world that began to hold so much of promise for troubled, sorrowing, sini.ng humanity. pel of Christmas is the news of fous event which well have caused the heavens to b forth in song 2 have set the wisest men of the time pondering on the mystery and what It foreshadowed. God coming mnea: to mem, mot on'y coming near, but actually taking up bis dwelling in them. This is the heart of the event we celebrate. He who holls the stars in h.s hana, and guldes tn® movements of nature, or nations and individuals, he who dwells In the lo 1'1ces has focused himself, his power and his grace In one life of consummate beauty cad holiness, and that life beg: as every human life begins, in a moth er's arms. But the glory of the Lord was there in the Bethlehem stable, a Christmas lives in the hearts of mankl! and becomcs every year a sweeter, deal er fesi.val .n pr Jdon 4s we catch 2 glimpse of that divine glory, and let its benediction rest upom us. THE JARSON. y team before I g-l’