Half a Century | Page 8

on turning a fence corner,
we came in sight of a large two-story house, with a bright light
streaming out through many windows, and a wide open door. There
was a large stone barn on the other side of the road, and to this our
conductor turned, saying to us: "Go on to the house." This we did, and
were met at the open door by a middle-aged woman, shading with one
hand the candle held in the other. This threw a strong light on her face,

which instantly reminded me of an eagle. She wore a double-bordered
white cap over her black hair, and looked suspiciously at us through her
small keen, black eyes, but kindly bade us come in to a low wainscoted
hall, with broad stairway and many open doors. Through one of these
and a second door we saw a great fire of logs, and I should have liked
to sit by it, but she led us into a square wainscoted room on the
opposite side, in which blazed a coal fire almost as large as the log heap
in the kitchen.
She gave us seats, and a white-haired man who sat in the corner, spoke
to us, and made me feel comfortable. Up to this time all the
surroundings had had an air of enchanted castles, brigands, ghosts,
witches. The alert woman with the eagle face, in spite of her kindness,
made me feel myself an object of doubtful character, but this old man
set me quite at ease. We were no more than well warmed when the
wagon drove to the door, and the boy-man with the lantern appeared,
saying,
"Come on."
We followed him again, and he lifted us into the wagon, while the
mistress of the house stood on the large flag-stone door-step, shading
her candle-flame, and giving directions about our wraps.
"Coming events cast their shadows before," when they are between us
and the light; but that night the light must have been between them and
me; for I bade good-bye to our hostess without any premonition we
should ever again meet, or that I should sit alone, as I do to-night, over
half a century later, in that same old wainscoted room, listening to the
roar of those same angry waters and the rush of the wind wrestling with
the groaning trees, in the dense darkness of this low valley.
When we had been carefully bestowed in the wagon, our deliverer took
up his lantern, saying to Father Olever:
"Drive on."
He was obeyed, and led the way over a bridge across another noisy
stream, and along a road where there was the sound of a waterfall very
near, then up a steep, rocky way until he stopped, saying,
"I guess you can get along now."
To Father Olever's thanks he only replied by a low, contemptuous but
good-humored laugh, as he turned to retrace his steps. All comfort and
strength and hope seemed to go with him. We were abandoned to our

fate, babes in the woods again, with only God for our reliance. But after
a while we could see the horizon, and arrived at our destination several
minutes before midnight, to find the great mansion full of glancing
lights and busy, expectant life.
The large family had waited up for Father Olever's return, for he and
his wagon were the connecting link between that establishment and the
outside world. He appeared to great advantage surrounded by a bevy of
girls clamoring for letters and messages. To me the scene was
fairy-land. I had never before seen anything so grand as the great hall
with its polished stairway. We had supper in the housekeeper's room,
and I was taken up this stairway, and then up and up a corkscrew
cousin until we reached the attic, which stretched over the whole house,
one great dormitory called the "bee-hive." Here I was to sleep with
Helen Semple, a Pittsburg girl, of about my own age, a frail blonde,
who quite won my heart at our first meeting.
Next day was Sabbath, and I was greatly surprised to see pupils walk
on the lawn. This was such a desecration of the day, but I made no
remark. I was too solemnly impressed by the grandeur of being at
Braddock's Field to have hinted that anything could be wrong. But for
my own share in the violation I was painfully penitent.
This was not new, for there were a long series of years in which the
principal business of six days of every week, was repentance for the
very poor use made of the seventh, and from this dreary treadmill of sin
and sorrow, no faith ever could or did free me. I never could see
salvation in Christ apart from salvation from sin,