A wee lassie; or, A unique republic

Front matter

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Preface

Veky many of the incidents in this book are real facts; and many of the characters are drawn from real life.

Nancy Weldon depicts a woman whom the author has known a number of years, whose original and unique mode of expressing herself has been a delight to many others besides the writer.

Agnes Hudson and her parents, as well as Mabel Hildegarde, have their counterparts in lives also well known, while the debased character and wonderful conversion of “Old Blue” are living facts. The picture of the convict camp is true to life, although inadequately painted, as the author has toned down some of the facts as being too harrowing to place before the readers of this volume.

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It is true that few among us realize how “the other half live,” and fewer still who seem to care. If this simple book can be used of God to deepen the interest of some of his children in the neglected boys in our midst, as well as to paint the need of more efficient Christian work among the convicts, those moral lepers banished outside the social camp, the writer will feel amply repaid for her labor.

A Parting Glance, 268

CHAPTER I. At Linwood

LEHH IIILDEGARDE smiled into his Vj sister’s face as he said: “Your heart is truer than your head. The mist of skepticism which dims your mental vision does not reach below the intellect. Your heart accepts the truth as spontaneously as does mine.”

Glenn was twenty-nine and Mabel nineteen. They were orphans, and the sister, who had resided as a student in a northern college for the past four years, had been at Linwood only a few days.

Glenn was a bachelor, and Linwood was a magnificent estate lying among the hills of northern Alabama.

He had but recently become possessed of this property through the death of an uncle, who, being a widower and childless, had bequeathed all his wealth to this favorite nephew.

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Tlie brother and sister were alone in the world, and Glenn’s present thought was how best to help this fair sister, whose home was now beneath his roof, out of the mists of skepticism which had gathered about her during her college life. i

“If I could see one single death, such as we read about, where the soul recognizes the holy presence of spiritual beings, as it passes from our ken, the faith of my childhood might be restored,” Mabel said, in response to her brother’s words.

“Like Thomas, your faith must rest on sight before you will believe ; and this is not faith at all.” i

As he spoke Glenn looked earnestly into his sister’s troubled eyes, and a half sigh escaped him.

“Mamma was a Christian, yet she died without giving us any token whatever to assure us that her faith was not in vain.”

“But she was in a stupor, dear, for hours before she passed away. Her last conscious words were an exhortation for us to meet her in heaven. This did not look as though her faith grew dim as she neared the parting of the ways.”

Mabel made no response, and Glenn continued : “The Word of God alone should be

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sufficient for your faith to rest upon. How did you ever drift from the simple belief of your girlhood ? How well I remember your joy when you first met the Crucified One. His love was real to you then ; why cannot you trust him now ?”

“Oh ! I would give everything I possess if I could believe now as I did then,” the girl answered. Then she added: “I think it was seeing the hollowness of those about me who professed to be Christians, after mamma died and I left home, that first unsettled me ; and the churches where I attended seemed so like the world; no one was ever saved there, as they used to he at home, so that I began, after awhile, to think the whole thing was a big sham ; and now — well — now — I do not know where I stand. Spiritual things have grown unreal to me, and when I try to read my Bible something in my heart seems to whisper, ‘It’s all a lie ; have a good time while you can. Eat and drink, dress and dance, for to-morrow you die.’ ”

“Poor little girlie ! The old serpent is making a huge bid for your soul, and no mistake; but the Captain of our salvation is too strong for him. Trusting in him, I can shout the victory, even now, while you are still in the woods,” and

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as he spoke Glenn waved liis hand above his head and cried, in a jubilant voice, “Victory ! victory ! victory ! in the name of Christ our King.”

A relieved laugh broke from his sister’s lips.

“I feel lots better,” she said, and then turned to look about her. Woman-like, she wondered if any one had heard Glenn’s words. They were standing in a rustic pavillion on the Linwood grounds, and the open highway was not far distant. A solitary horseman was just passing. “Suppose,” she murmured, “yonder rider heard your shout. How strange he would think it !”

“Would he ? Well, he is welcome to think what he chooses. Let me tell you one thing, Mabel, that may help you in the days to come. 1 don’t believe in covering up my religion. It’s the biggest thing I have got, and I can’t smother it, or smooth it down. When the Holy Ghost got hold of me, he didn’t mince matters one bit. He just went to the bottom of my heart ; turned it inside out, and showed exactly how black and filthy it was, until I felt in my deepest soul that hell was too good for me. And then, when I was ready to despair, our holy Christ came. He blotted out my black sin; breathed his love through my polluted soul until I thought heaven had opened for me. I have been praising him ever since.”

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It was good to look into Glenn Hildegarde’s eyes as he thus spoke.

Mabel looked, listened, opened her lips twice to speak before she said: “I just begin, I think, to understand you. I felt you were changed, but I did not know why. I thought our four years’ separation had wrought it. Now I see the truth.”

Glenn laughed. “Yes, I’m a different fellow from the one you kissed good-bye when you entered college. I was a rebel then ; now I am a loyal soldier under the banner of our glorious King, and all I seem to care for is to know and execute his orders. I’m but a slow, stupid fellow in learning his will ; but he is so patient that I never grow discouraged. Do you know,” and he ran his eyes over the beautiful grounds, handsome buildings and broad acres of his estate, and slowly repeated : “Do you know, I am wondering and asking him every day why he gave me this magnificent property, and what he expects me to do with it.”

His sister looked the surprise she felt.

“Why, he expects you to enjoy it, of course.”

“Of course. But I want to enjoy it in the way that will best please him.”

“And that will be — ?” Mabel paused, doubtfully.

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“In brightening as many sad lives as possible, and introducing as many poor fellows to my Captain as will meet him. I used to think, when I was abroad, that I would come home and settle down to literature, and make myself a name. How I seem only to care about extending the knowledge of his name, wherever I go, for it is about the only one in the universe that is worth knowing. Dante, Goethe, Plato, Homer, Shakespeare, and all the others that I used to rave over, seem to me, now, as nothing.”

“And yet a knowledge of them, and of their works, is certainly essential to a polite education,” Mabel objected, as she turned impatiently toward the house. Then she added, with a backward glance: “I am half afraid, from your words, that you have ‘gone cranky, 5 as the girls say in college, on religion. I hope not, for I have counted on having a cheery comrade at Linwood, and not a moping, sky-gazing religieux ”

Such a ringing laugh greeted these words that she smiled in spite of her momentary vexation. Glenn came up beside her, and his happy eyes scanned her face indulgently, as he said: “Forgive me for talking to you so freely before we have had time to get acquainted. Your presence here is such a delight to me that I have allowed

‘‘ Jf only she could have been spared to us . ”

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my heart to run away with my head. Do not feel nervous over my religion. It is exactly the kind our mother had, and you know what a wise, cheery, sympathetic comrade she always was to us. It was her religion, as I now see it, that made of her the woman she was, sound, sweet, and wholesome to the core.”

“If only she could have been spared to us,” Mabel responded with misty eyes, “what a different girl I might have been.”

“Our Father knew best, dear; and do not forget that it is the sapling that stands apart from its fellows, in the middle of the open meadow, that grows into the strong, widespreading tree. Look,” and Glenn pointed to a thrifty hickory that stood in a sunny, unsheltered space to the right of them ; “there is an illustration of mv thought. See how that tree is branching out and spreading itself, and giving promise of becoming a splended specimen of its kind. Compare it with this one, here in the grove, surrounded by other trees, and note the difference.”

Mabel examined the two hickories with lively interest, and after a moment said: “I see. One is slim, and tall, and fragile-looking, and I can readily believe that a heavy wind might blow it

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over or snap it off, unless the other trees should break the force of the tempest.”

She paused, and Glenn smiled as he said: “Exactly; and the other looks as if the same wind would only retire, baffled, from an attack made with the intention of overthrowing it. Its roots reach out in all directions, and it is so perfectly formed, has developed so symmetrically, that it offers the best possible resistance to the storm. This is because all of its fellows were removed when it was but a sapling, and it has gradually become innured to the storms, nature throwing her safeguards around it, as needed, in the form of wide-reaching roots, a sturdy trunk, and evenly apportioned branches.”

It was with thoughtful eyes, but smiling lips, that Mabel turned and remarked, after a brief interval of silence : “Thank you for your lesson. It has helped me.”

She slipped her slender fingers into his strong clasp, and hand in hand, like two children, they strolled toward the house.

CHAPTER II. An Old Friend

rp HE days and weeks flitted by until ten -L months had passed since Mabel Hildegarde became a resident of Linwood.

These had proven the happiest hours she had known since childhood. The fond affection she had always borne her brother had now ripened into an intense devotion, mingled with admiration, which left Glenn little to desire in the way of human love and companionship.

Friends came and went at will, and while the brother and sister enjoyed their visits, their deepest happiness was found when alone together. Each was an interesting study to the other, for they were very unlike in person as well as character, Mabel being like her mother, while Glenn was a typical Hildegarde.

One morning at the early breakfast — for Glenn never wasted the precious morning hours in bed — he laid an open letter beside his sister’s plate.

“Read it,” he said, “and then tell me if you are pleased.”

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She at once began its perusal, and as she ended the last of the closely written pages, she lifted a face on which a smile and a frown fought for possession.

“The letter is charming. Mr. Keith must be all that you have described him. But two whole weeks is a long time to give to his entertainment.”

Glenn laughed. “When once you know Keith you will think differently. He and I were together for three years, day and night, and his presence was never once an interruption, not even to my thoughts. He is a rare combination.”

“I dislike paragons,” Mabel responded, a quick throb of jealousy stabbing her heart. “But, of course,” she added, hastily, “I am very glad, for your sake, he is coming.”

Two evenings later the expected guest arrived. As Mabel scanned his rather tall, slender figure, and marked the deep thoughtfulness of his eyes, she was guilty of a grimace behind her fan. Glenn was of magnificent proportions, 'like his estate, and his happy eyes, beaming face, and buoyant manner had become his sister’s ideal of manly perfection.

Before dinner ended, however, she found their guest possessed a quiet power of engaging and holding her attention that quite surprised her.

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So marked was this that, when the meal was over and the three were alone in the drawing-room, a feeling that she had long known and liked Kelso Keith began to steal over her.

This strange and unwelcome thought irritated her, and she was contemplating an early escape to the piazza, when her brother laid his hand on their guest’s shoulder, saying : “How is it I see you wearing such a striking pin ? I thought you cast all such vain adornments aside that winter we were in Rome ?”

His friend smiled into Glenn’s face, and Mabel noted a joyousness in his eyes which had not before been visible.

“This pin has a story connected with it. It has only adorned my person for the past several hours. A young man on the train, just as I reached your station, placed it where you now, see it. Had it not attracted your attention to-night, you might have missed the story, as I shall never again wear it. Hotice the design.”

Glenn studied it for a moment before he spoke.

“A unique one, truly. What is the thought ?”

“The pin is made from the fangs of a rattlesnake. The design is intended to convey the thought that the wearer has chosen the arch-

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fiend, under the guise of a serpent, as his boon companion; and that no more evil or danger will result from such association than is found in these empty and harmless fangs.”

Mabel gave a slight shiver, noticing which their guest remarked: “A gruesome thought, indeed, and a fatal one, if acted upon. I am sure the young man now understands this.”

“Sit down, Keith, and tell us the whole story,” and Glenn wheeled an easy chair in front of his sister’s, for his friend, and himself took a seat by her side.

“There is not much to tell. The coach from Nashville was crowded, so I shared my seat with a young fellow whose manly face and bearing at once engaged my interest. I found, on entering into conversation with him, that he was leading a reckless, dare-devil sort of life, summed up, as he was pleased to tell me, in the idea he had taken pains to have crystallized in this pin.

“I found he had drifted into his reckless belief and life more because of his surroundings than from any especially evil bias in his nature. F atherless from infancy, and with a mother who is a leader in fashionable society in one of our Northern cities, the young fellow has never known a real home. He told me one of his

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earliest remembrances was his mother having taught him to drink toasts with becoming grace at private banquets, and then recite witty epigrams to please her guests.”

“Poor little chap. ISTot much hope for his future with such a mother as that,” Glenn remarked, as his friend paused. “But go on; I am deeply interested, and am wondering how the young fellow came to give you his pin.”

“There is little more to tell. Our Father filled me with such a burning desire to help the youth that, before I knew it, he was quite melted under the 'story of divine love. I doubt if he ever before had had a real heart-to-heart talk with any one who had really met Jesus Christ as a personal Saviour and Friend. Before I left him lie solemnly promised to change his course of life. He also engaged to read a chapter daily from a Hew Testament I gave him. I offered him a package of seven very precious and spiritual letters, which I always carry with me, in printed form, written by a personal friend of mine. He accepted them with seeming gladness, and promised to read them carefully, and then, if he felt he could keep the promise that goes with it, he would send for one of these pins.”

As he spoke Keith drew a tiny box from his

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vest pocket, and opening it, disclosed several dainty pins made from polished silver, lying in its depths.

“And what are these ?” Glenn inquired, curiously examining the one his friend reached him. Before he could reply Mabel exclaimed: “I know. Several of the girls in college wore them. It’s the pin the Christian Endeavorers wear. Nettie Kingston, who was my room-mate, was very enthusiastic over hers. Said it and the pledge she had taken when she joined the society helped her lead a Christian life as nothing else ever before had done. She tried to get me to subscribe to the pledge and send for one of the pins. I declined, but she induced many of the other girls to do so.”

Keith smiled into the earnest eyes upraised to his, and gently inquired : “And why did you not ?”

Mabel’s brow clouded as she answered : “I was sure it would not help me ; I needed something more practical and farther-reaching than pins or an empty pledge could be.”

“Yet, that these are often used of God to reach the deepest depths of hungry human nature, there can be no doubt,” was the quiet response. “My friend on the train, Wallace Dupont by name, is, I doubt not, reading one of

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those Christian Endeavor letters to-night. And I have faith to believe that this fact, and the desire the reading of it will arouse in his breast to have the loving Christ it tells about as his personal Eriend and Saviour, will, under the jx>wer of God’s Spirit, be the means of his salvation. He has already solemnly renounced his former carefully marked out belief, and as evidence of this fact he fastened this pin on my coat just as I left the cars.”

“And do you carry these pins and packages of letters about with you wherever you go?” Glenn inquired, with an earnest glance into his friend’s eyes.

“I do,” was the answer. “The Bible says we are to sow beside all waters, not knowing which will prosper, this or that.”

“I see. A pocket Testament, a package of letters, a Christian Endeavor pin and a pledge are your equipments for the King’s service. Hot a half-bad idea,” was Glenn’s rejoinder.

“It takes more than you have mentioned to make the equipment complete and effective,” Mabel remarked, thoughtfully. “I might have all these, yet I am sure I should accomplish nothing.”

“Yes, I see your thought. A heart full of love and burning zeal for souls is an indispensa-

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ble qualification/ 5 her brother rejoined, with a quick glance into her clouded face.

“And how is one who is tempted to doubt the reality of all spiritual things, of all religious experience, ever to obtain this qualification ?” Mabel spoke passionately, and hastily withdrew from the room before an answer could be given.

Keith looked questioningly into his friend’s eyes as the door closed behind her straight, lithe figure.

“Only a little mist of skepticism which clouded her mind while in college, because of the hollowness of the life of those about her who professed to be the followers of the meek and lowly Jesus. Her heart is truer than her head, and her deliverance is certain,” Glenn remarked, with a smile.

“Aye, no doubt, with your faith to hold on for deliverance. But what of those who are being turned out of the way, all about us, because of the worldly lives and empty profession of those who pose as disciples of the lowly Kazarine ? Many of them have no believing friend to take hold of God for them, and their downward drift is rapid. An awful responsibility rests at the door of the worldly church of to-day. Sometimes my soul grows sick as I watch its

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trend/’ was Keith’s response, as he arose and walked to the open window.

An earnest conversation between the two friends followed, which was continued until the midnight hour warned them it was time to seek needed repose.

In the privacy of his own room Keith seated himself close to the window, and after a thoughtful survey of the beautiful grounds surrounding the mansion, which were brought into distinct view by the moonlight that flooded hill and dale with its silvery sheen, he drew a small Bible from his pocket and carefully turned to a certain chapter. After selecting a special verse he arose, placed his right hand on the open page, and, with his eyes closed, said aloud, in the tone one would use if addressing a personal friend close to one’s side: “Father, I claim the fulfilment of this promise. Glenn has joined me, and together we have asked for the soul of Wallace Dupont. In these verses our Lord Jesus says: ‘Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. And if two of you shall agree on earth touching anything they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.’

“Father, we will never turn this young man

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loose. We, to-night, have bound him to thy throne by our prayers and our faith, and I do now more than ask, I claim the speedy fulfilment of this promise, which is sprinkled with the blood of Jesus, thine only begotten and wellbeloved Son, and our Lord, in his behalf.

“I thank thee for the promise, and I thank thee for the faith thou dost give me to hold fast to it and to thee for this young man’s deliverance from the powers of darkness which now surround him.

“Send thy Holy Spirit to him this very night, Father, and never let him rest until he is a saved soul. I ask this in the precious name of Jesus. Amen !”

A few moments later Kelso Keith was soundly sleeping. A peaceful smile hovered around his lips, and in his sleep he murmured the name of the One he loved so deeply — “Jesus !”

CHAPTER III. A Close Call

W HAT a superb view. I did not fancy any such were to be found in this vicinity. This is equal to some of the gems among the Catskills / 5 Keith remarked, as he and Glenn paused, with guns at rest, on the crest of a rocky ledge overlooking a picturesque ravine, and further on, a peaceful valley dotted with farm houses.

They were out on a hunting trip, but had as yet found nothing “worth bagging / 5 as Glenn expressed it. He met his friend 5 s words of pleased surprise with the rejoinder: “Which shows how much you yet have to learn about northern Alabama. This outlook — and there are others around Linwood — is equal to any found among the mountains of Tennessee . 55

There was a moment’s silence in which each drank in the beauty of the scene before them. Then Glenn, with a low “hist ! 55 brought his gun into position to fire. His alert eye had spied a large bird, which he supposed was an eagle,

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on the topmost bough of an immense tree below them.

“No doubt that is the very fellow that has been making such heavy raids among our Plymouth Rocks,” was the thought that caused him to take steady aim. “There’s a nest in the top of that old oak, and if I have luck I may bring down a pair of the marauders, and afterwards capture their young.”

Just as he tired, the bird arose in the air, and as the echoes reverberated among the rocky ledges and boulders of the “mountains,” as the highlands of northern Alabama are called, his startled mate joined him. With an exclamation of impatience Glenn fired again, and then sprang hastily to a rock several feet below the one on which he had been standing, hoping thus to get a better aim.

Unfortunately this boulder was insecurely imbedded in the mountain side, and as the young man’s heavy weight pressed it, it was torn from its position and went crashing down to the gorge below. Glenn went with it, and for a moment it seemed that his span of life was run. The rocks beneath were some two hundred feet from the point to which he had sprung, and the fall was almost a perpendicular one.

But Glenn, who had the nerve and training of

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an athlete, kept his presence of mind, and swiftly caught the low-hanging boughs of a hardy tree that leaned far over the ravine, the roots of which were firmly fastened among the boulders of a narrow ledge just above the point whence the young man fell.

For two breathless seconds, as Keith watched, it seemed that the bough might not sustain Glenn’s weight. The suspense, however, was only momentary, and in less time than it has taken .to narrate the incident, he was safely ensconced among the thick boughs of the tree, close to the sturdy trunk, cheerily saying to his friend : “A close call, that. But I am all right, now, except the loss of my gun. Ko doubt I can get that by climbing down into the ravine.”

“And also the eagle, for I believe your last shot brought him down,” was Keith’s relieved rejoinder.

It did not take Glenn many moments to reach the rock on which his friend stood. He was unharmed, with the exception of a scratch across one wrist.

“I thought, for a moment, you were booked for eternity,” Keith remarked, as they turned to the path — with which Glenn was familiar — which led to the gorge below.

“I had the same idea, and I confess it startled

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me. I thought I was ready to go whenever the ckll came, but that moment undeceived me.”

He stopped, as he spoke, and faced his friend, adding: “I am shocked to know that I was actually afraid to die. Like Paul, I had fancied, until that moment, that death would be gain, for would I not be forever with my Captain ? I know I love him ; that I would be willing to be burned at the stake for his sake, if he should ask this. Then why did that awful shrinking come over me as I seemed to face eternity ?”

“I think, possibly, I can answer you,” w T as Tveith’s reply, given in a lower tone than usual ; “for I had much the same experience some two years ago; and I found later on that, while I loved my Lord passionately, I was not just where he wanted me to be, nor was I where I could stand, unabashed, in his white presence.”

Glenn’s eyes asked the question his lips did not frame, and his friend continued : “I had not been where Paul went when God fully revealed to him his mission to the Gentiles. He went ‘into Arabia, not conferring with flesh and blood,’ and there Christ was revealed to him— as I have learned to read the Word — in a fulness he had not before known.”

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“Well?” Glenn’s note of interrogation was almost impatient as Keith paused.

“Well, I Vent into Arabia’ — my own private room — and for two days I fasted and prayed. At the end of that time something happened. I scarcely know how to tell you. I gave myself to God as never before, and he showed me he accepted the sacrifice. And he filled me with a peace and joy unspeakable. Since that hour I have been a changed man. I have been at death’s door within the past four months, and instead of shrinking away, something within me began to praise God, and I found I was ready to stand in his unveiled presence, if his hour for this had really come.”

Without a word, Glenn turned and resumed his way down the mountain side. Kor did he break the silence until he neared the point where he supposed the gun would be found. Then his remark bore no hint of the conversation that had preceded it.