The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 15 June 1916, Page 3

The Storyteller

AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR Visitors to the little town of Brakely always paused to see the flowers that' clustered about MrSv Anna Dunn’s home. The sun shone no warmer there than it did into hundreds of other yards in the village; the soil there was no more fertile, yet in no other place did the crimson ramblers lift such rich profusion of color, nowhere else did dahlias grow so large or hollyhocks raise more multiflowered stalks. From the time when the first crocus opened its eye to the spring until the frosts nipped the last blossom of golden glow, Anna Dunn’s dooryard was abloom. J Seems kind of sinful to me, spending so much time over flowers,’ commented Mrs. Brownell. Mrs. Brownell was one of those tall, angular women whose clothes hang loosely on their spare shoulders. She suggested neither repose nor energy; a sort of negatively good personality, common in small towns. It would have been hard to imagine her as having been pretty or young. Near by was her daughter Ella. Youth betrayed itself with her only by a brighter color in her face; her figure was as severe as the mother’s. Ella put down a frame of embroidery she was working and looked across the way. There she saw Anna Dunn, a light shawl thrown over her stooped shoulders, watering her flowers. The waning light was kindly to the woman; smoothing out the lines in her face and leaving a soft, wistful expression. She touched her flowers lovingly, tying a rosebush into place, or clipping away a faded blossom to make room for a bud.

‘ Mrs. Dunn is failing. I notice it every time I see her,’ the daughter began, following the unspoken trend of her mother’s thoughts, as those do who live together. „ - -She was good-looking when she first came here,’ Mrs. Brownell said. ‘ The Irish are often fine appearing when they are young. I used to watch her and her husband going down the street to church with the other Catholics from up the hill and think she,was the prettiest woman in town. You wouldn’t know her for the same person.’ ‘ She doesn’t go to the Catholic church now, does she ? ’ * I guess it’s twenty years since she went last.’ For that time and longer Mrs. Brownell and her daughter had sat on their porch and watched the little world of Brakely pass their door. A rattling farm waggon lumbered by and lost itself in a cloud of dust further up the road. Mrs. Brownell’s eye followed it and rested on a church spire, crowned by a weather-cock that sprung out above the trees. Her glance drifted back to the woman among the flowers. 1 Of course we ought to be thankful that she’s left the Catholics and their superstitious ways. She did that after her husband was taken away. They said that she and the priest had trouble about a cemetery lot. I don’t think she ought to go back to the Catholics, but it is too sad for her not to have some church connection —and our meeting-house so near !’ ‘ We should make a special effort to have her join with us.’ ‘ She’s been invited often enough, goodness knows,’ said Mrs. Brownell. ‘ Mr. Thompson, our minister before Mr. Miller came, used to call on her and urge her to become a member of our Church, but she just smiled and said she guessed she was through with religion now.’ * I’ve noticed that when Catholics quit their Church' they don’t generally go to any other.’ - * But there was Mrs. Bates,’ the daughter put in, ‘ she that was Mrs. Burns. She always went down to her church, and we used to wonder how a lady with so much money could associate with the mere Irish. When Mt. Bates became acquainted with her and proposed marriage, we found out that her first husband wasn’t

really dead, and. the priest wouldn’t allow a • divorce ; so she left her Church, and our minister married them, after -the courts, gave her permission/ ~ ‘ The funny part of that was, you know,’ Mrs. Brownell put in, ‘ two months after they were married Jiis uncle died and left him plenty of money, so he to have married a rich woman at all. They say he was so. mad he wouldn’t speak to her for a month. But he brings her to church and the ladies say. she is very nice.’ ‘ Mrs, Dunn has a better education. If she had any good clothes to go out in she would look, real refined and genteel, even now.’ ‘ I guess the little that her husband left won’t much more than keep the roof over head, particularly now when she isn’t able to make anything by sewing.’ Mrs. Dunn, the subject of their discourse, went into the house and the two watching women settled back in their chairs and placidly observed the twilight settle over the village. Very little happened in Brakely. Days slipped into weeks and weeks into months and years with hardly a visible change. Time furrows the city with its rasp; buildings rise or disappear in a twelve-month; a skyline may change in a , decade. But time smooths a little town with a silken sleeve; a returning spring shows a few cracks in the ceiling of the town hall; a familiar figure or two is no longer seen in the streets; a few chairs are vacant where young men have left to go to a bigger town—nothing that an outsider would notice. In the city a man may escape his mistakes. In the village he must live up to them. Thrown in upon themselves, their world confined almost within the limit of their vision, townspeople never forget. When Anna Dunn, on that bitter morning, years before, had threatened never to ‘ darken the doors ’ of a church, the town soon knew about it. That she and the parish priest had quarrelled, and that Mrs. Dunn had told him * to his face ’ she would not go to his church again, formed the topic of interest at sewingcircle and reading-club meetings for a fortnight. For a time Mrs. Dunn filled in the void by private devotions, but little by little these shortened and finally ceased altogether. They failed to satisfy. Her religious life slipped from her like a handful of sand. More than once she was ready to start for the priest’s house; but what would the neighbors say? Hliman respect was again too strong and the visit was put off until a more convenient season. Hers was but one of the tens of thousands of human barques that float into the Sargasso Sea, to drift there becalmed and tangled in the seaweed... Nothing changed with her. - The flowers to which., she devoted all her spare time blossomed and faded, while with each winter her step was less elastic, her eye duller. ‘Mrs. Dunn, are you real well?’ Mrs. Brownell had watched for an hour next day until her neighbor should leave the house and take her morning walk to the village post office. * As well as usual, thank you.’ * I’m so glad to hear that. My daughter and I - were saying yesterday that we thought you looked tired.’ On her way down town two others stopped to inquire about her health. Mrs. Dunn looked in the glass on her return. The'mirror returned the colorless image she had grown to expect, a little paler, perhaps, more lines about the eyes, but no great difference. ■_j What if I should be sick here, alone The thought went through her mind many times during the day. Back of it was another thought, only halfformed. If I should die —what then?’ Mrs. Dunn would not entertain the suggestion. Was she not through with religion' forever ? Whether it was - a physical, reaction from Mrs: Brownell’s tireless efforts .in spreading the report that Mrs. Dunn had been ‘ looking real peaked of late,’ and the constant queries of * the : villagers that followed it, or the ’ result t of years of constant - strain, Mrs. Dunn / found herself steadily, losing /strength. Mrs. Brownell .heard the outcome one morning when word got about that Mrs. : Dunn , had collapsed in the street and had

been carried home. The village doctor’s automobile was standing in front of the door an hour later. Mrs. Brownell decided she would ask the physician himself just how his patient was. ‘ I’m afraid,her condition is very serious,’ the doctor replied in response to Mrs. Brownell’s questions. ‘Mrs. Dunn does not appear to have any recuperative power. Of course, her age has something to do with it, but she does not respond to treatment as a woman ought to in her general state of.health.’ Is it as bad as that ? Can we help in any way ?’ ‘ She will not need constant —at present, at —but one of the neighbors ought to drop in every afternoon and see that things are going right. lam sending her a nurse.’ The nurse arrived, secured from a hospital in a nearby city, but Mrs. Dunn did not improve. Neighbors who paid visits returned with sober faces, bringing the news that the patient seemed very ill indeed. She appeared to take no interest in life, to care nothing as to whether she lived or not.

‘Would you mind sitting with Mrs. Dunn for a couple of hours this afternoon?’ The nurse asked this of Mrs. Brownell a few days later. ‘ I have an errand I must attend to and she is resting quietly.’ ‘I would be glad tod - Mrs. Brownell would be delighted. Worrying the sick with well-meant but lugubrious talks on death and the uncertainty of any being saved, and harrowing the feelings .of survivors by lengthy and dismal calls of condolence, were dear to her. A. whole afternoon with a gravely sick woman ! Such an opportunity did not come often. Mrs. Brownell had no intention of being cruel.,

A big elm tree spread its branches just outside the windows of Mrs. Dunn’s bedroom and the sunshine streaming through the foliage fell in mottled splotches on the floor. Her bed was near a window, and beside it a big bunch of lilies-of-the-valley, hardly more white than the face of the patient. Mrs. Brownell was shocked at the lack of lustre in her eyes and the absence of all interest in her countenance. Had Mrs. Brownell known it, hers was the expression that physicians dread, because it means the absence of the doctor’s greatest ally, the desire to recover.

‘ No one can tell these times what a day may bring forth,’ Mrs. Brownell began, seating herself in a chair near the bed. ‘ I was saying to my daughter the other day, “There was Mrs. Dunn, who looked so well and spry out there taking care of the flowers, and now she’s so sick.” Truly, in the midst of life we are in death.’ Mrs. Dunn turned her passive gaze on her visitor. Mrs. Brownell talked on, telling the gossip and small news of the village, dwelling particularly on every unpleasant or disastrous occurrence, not from any actual intention to be depressing, but because her mind was full of the tragedy before her. If Mrs. Dunn listened or followed the line of conversation, she gave no intimation of it.

‘Can’t I read to .you-?’ Mrs. Brownell concluded. ‘Something from the Bible?’ ‘ I’d like to have you,’ Mrs. Dunn spoke for the first time during the visit. ‘My Bible is on the table. Please read where the mark is.’

Mrs. Brownell picked up the book. She held it a little gingerly. It was probably the Catholic Bible, she thought, ‘ Douay Version ’ was marked on the cover. She had always supposed that Catholics. were forbidden to read the Bible, or at least discouraged from reading it, and that when they did it was a Bible quite their owndoubtless a strange and unholy book. But one must not draw too close distinctions when it was a matter of gratifying the wish of a gravely ill woman. - She opened it at the mark and read that wonderful passage from the Apocalypse: ‘ ‘And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth" was gone, and the sea is now no more. And I, John, saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband*. V ‘ “And I heard a great voice from the throne say-

ing : Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and He will dwell with them. And they shall be His people; and God Himself with them shall be their God. ‘ “And God shall wipe away all tears from their ©yes; and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the tormer • things are passed away. v - ‘ “And He that sat on the throne, said; Behold I «ike all things new. And He said to me: Write, for ' ese words are most faithful and true. ‘ “And He said to me; It is done. lam Alpha and Omega; the beginning and the end. To him that thirsteth I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely. ‘ “He that shall overcome shall possess these things, and I will be his God; and he shall be My son." ; ‘ Mrs. Brownell, will you'tell me the truth Mrs. Dunn raised her head a little from the pillow. ‘Am I going to die?’ Wo all hope not.’ ‘But what does the doctor think?’ ‘He thinks you will not get well.’ Mrs Brownell’s sense of truth-telling would not sanction even a prevarication. ‘Now, do let me do something!’ Mrs Brownell hurried on, anxious to cover the disquieting news she had told. ‘ Let me send for Dr. Miller, our minister.’ ‘ What can he do The tone was still listless. ‘ He can pray for you and read the Bible.’ ‘ I can pray for myself and you can read the Bible to me. Is that all?’ ‘Heis a college man. He can explain so much better than I.’ - ‘ But I have been well educated, too. What authority has he to lead me heavenward?’ ‘ Ho is a good man.’ ‘ But aren’t you a good woman V v Mrs. Brownell stood near the head of the bed, still holding the partly opened Bible. From put of the pages fluttered a card, yellow with age. It bore the picture of a young man, edged with a mourning band, an ‘ln Memoriam ’ card. Mrs. Dunn’s eyes fastened on the card. There was a moment’s silence, one of those moments into which an infinity is pressed. Even Mrs. Brownell felt this was no time for comment. ‘ I’ve been a foolish old woman,’ Mrs. Dunn began. * I thought I could stand alone without the Church, without God. But I know better now. lam not afraid to die, alone. Only one cannot live or die to oneself. I realise at the eleventh hour what that means. The picture is of my only son. He died when he was nineteen. Both he and my husband died in the Church. They will be waiting- for me. What is my silly pride compared to that?’ Mrs. Dunn’s words came brokenly. * Now, now, don’t talk. It’ll be all right,’ soothed Mrs. Brownell. * I must talk. lam saying the things my heart has been saying for years, though I was too proud to admit it.’ ‘Can’t I get something for you?’ ‘ Yes, send for the priest.’ Mrs. Brownell hesitated. * Surely you can’t refuse to do that.’, * I’ll go now.’ The woman’s strange earnestness, the solemnity of a soul laid bare, the all but visible presence of death, and her own helplessness to aid, left Mrs. Brownell no alternative. She hurried from the room, /forgetful that the nurse had not returned and that she •4r>had left the patient alone. Father Gilmour lived in the modest priest’s house next to the equally modest wooden church down past the business portion of the .town, Mrs. B r rownell 1 pressed the door-bell with a sense of misgiving. She had been told that priests hated Protestants. What reception would she get at this mysterious place ? A man past middle life and dx’fessed in clerical garb answered her ring.

, ‘ls this Mr. Gilmour ?’ she asked. Yes. Has Mrs. Dunn sent for me ?’ ‘How did you know ‘ That is one of the privileges of a pastor, to anticipate such calls.’ ‘ And will you come?’ < ‘ Wait at the church steps and I will be with you at once.’ In a few minutes Father Gilmour emerged from the vestibule of the church. The walk to Mrs. Dunn’s home was strangely quiet. The priest said little and commonplaces died on Mrs. Brownell’s lips. At the door of Mrs. Dunn’s dwelling Mrs. Brownell made no effort to go in. She could , see the white-uniformed nurse through the windows and she would have liked to follow the priest inside. But his grave demeanor forbade even the thought of intrusion. Mrs. Brownell went back to her porch as Mrs. Dunn’s door closed behind the priest. Of course it was hef imagination, she said later in telling of the occurrence, but when she turned to look back at the Dunn cottage, the place seemed to stand out from the other houses of the street as though the brightest shaft of sunlight in all Brakely fell full upon it. Weeks passed. Again Mrs— Brownell and her daughter rocked on the porch and watched the village pass their doors. - The flowers in the Dunn yard were tended once more and now bloomed in double luxuriance. The door opened and Mrs. Dunn went to the gate to bid good-bye to the village priest, who had been calling there. ‘ I never knew any one to get well quicker. Mrs. Dunn looks better than I’ve seen her in years,’ observed the daughter. ‘ It’s a curious thing, as we were saying at the sewing-circle yesterday, no matter how many years Catholics have been away from their Church, they always come back when they are dV>- or in trouble,’ said Mrs. Brownell. ‘ Our pastor says he simply can’t understand the hold priests have on them. —Rosary Magazine.