CHAPTER VIII.
"Well," said Maggie, as Meredith paused, "I should think somebody oughtto go to those people!"
"Hopeless work," said Flora, stitching away at her worsted.
"No, it is not hopeless work," answered her brother. "As you would soonsee, if all the Churches had the matter at heart like Pastor Harms andhis Hermannsburg."
"Everybody cannot give himself up to such business," said Flora glancingat him.
"Everybody ought."
"O Ditto!" cried Maggie, "do you think _everybody_ ought to go toAfrica?"
"Yes," said Flora; "that is just about what he thinks."
"No, Maggie," said Meredith, "neither to Africa nor to other heathenparts; not everybody. But everybody can give himself up to the work ofthe kingdom, even if he stays at home. Most people must stay at home."
"I don't understand," said Maggie with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Don't you remember--'Seek ye _first_ the kingdom of God;'--that's all Imean."
"'First!'" Flora echoed.
"_How_ 'first,' Ditto?"
"Before everything else. The words mean that, if they mean anything."
"How before everything else?"
"See, Maggie. Suppose you and I have"----
"Now, Ditto, stop!" said his sister. "I do not want to hear any of thatstuff. What is it to Maggie? And Essie and I do not care about it."
"And there comes Fenton," added Esther, springing up to go and meet him.For Fenton it was, bounding up the bank at their left.
Fenton was grown a good deal since our last sight of him; otherwise notmuch changed. A handsome boy, with a good figure and a bright eye, andalso the old, somewhat supercilious upper lip. But he was glad to gethome, and greeted the party cordially enough; then, however, began tocriticise.
"What are you all doing loafing here?" He had sat down on the bank withthe rest, and looked from one to another.
"We do not use your elegant expression," said Flora; "partly perhapsbecause we are not wont to indulge ourselves in that particularamusement."
"What _are_ you doing?"
"You do not see anything to engage our attention in what at presentoffers itself to yours," Meredith remarked.
"Nothing offers itself to my attention," replied Fenton. "I don't seeanything except our old cart. Anything to eat in it?"
"There is no pie left," said Esther, "for I gave the last of it toFairbairn; and Flora drank up all the cream. There's some sugar in thesugar-bowl."
Fenton went to get some lumps of sugar, and then stood looking down atthe party.
"Aren't you going home to dinner?" said he. "I tell you, I'm raging."
"Four o'clock," said Meredith, looking at his watch. "Just the prettytime of day coming now."
"It'll be dinner-time by the time you get the cart home and the girlsget dressed. What did you come out here so far for? I haven't had arespectable dinner for six months. I am going to have some wine to-day,if the governor _is_ away."
"Governor!" cried Esther. "What a vulgar expression for Fenton Candlishto use!"
"Wine!" exclaimed Maggie. "You can't have any wine, Fenton; we don'tdrink wine any more in _this_ house."
"What's the matter!"
"The matter is, papa has emptied his wine-cellar," said Esther in arather aggrieved tone.
"Drunk it all up?"
"No, no; sent it off and sold it."
"What was the matter with it!"
"Why, I tell you," said Esther, "it is thought improper for good peopleto drink wine."
Fenton's face was rather funny to see, there was such a blank dismay init.
"And did mamma give in to that?"
"I don't know what mamma thought," said Esther; "but papa sold the wine;and our dinner-table does not have its pretty coloured glasses anymore."
Fenton uttered a smothered exclamation which I am afraid would haveshocked his sisters.
"I don't see what _you_ want with wine, Fenton," said Maggie; "papanever let you have it."
"Mamma did though," said Fenton. "That's the good of having two parents.If one is crochety perhaps the other will be straight. Well, _I'm_ notgoing to live if I can't live like a gentleman. I shall send to Forbesto send me some wine."
His sisters burst out into horrified exclamations and expostulations.
"Papa'll see it in the bill," said Esther, "and he'll be very angry."
"Uncle Eden is coming," said Maggie, "and it will be no use. He'd throwit into the river."
"Uncle Eden coming?"
The girls nodded.
"If I had known that _I_ wouldn't have come!" said Fenton looking verydark.
"I'd think better of it if I were you," remarked Meredith quietly."There goes more to the making of a gentleman than the drinking ofwine."
"What do you mean?"
"Just that. As for instance--self-control, noble thoughts, care forothers above himself, indifference to low pleasures."
"Low pleasures!" repeated Fenton. "Do you call wine a low pleasure?"
"Well, it brings people into the gutter."
"Pshaw! not gentlemen."
"I grant you they are not gentlemen after they get there."
"What do you know about it?" said the boy not very politely. "Did youever drink it yourself?"
"I never will again. A gentleman should be a free man; and wine makesmen slaves. I don't choose to be in bondage. And if it would not enslaveme, it does other people; and I would not give it the help of myexample."
Fenton dropped the subject, but renewed his proposal that they shouldreturn home. So shawls and worsted work were stored in the cart, and thelittle book in Meredith's pocket; and the line of march was taken up. Itwas indeed coming now to the lovely time of the day. Shadows long,lights glowing in warm level reflections, all objects getting a sunnyside and a shady side, and standing forth in new beauty in consequence;the day gathering in its train, as it were, to prepare for a statelyleave-taking by and by. Meredith and Maggie, loath to go, lingered thelast of the party; indeed he had the cart to draw, which was heavy, andneeded careful guiding in places over and between the rocks; and hecould not run on with the heads of the party. And Maggie walked besidehim, and put her little hand upon the handle of the cart which she couldnot help to draw. How sweet it was! The light every moment growingsofter, not cooler; the colours more contrasted, as the shadowslengthened; the bugle notes coming over the water now and then. Meredithlooked, and drew deep breaths of the delicious air; but Maggie walkedalong pondering.
"Ditto," she began, "do you think _everybody_ ought to do mission work?"
"The dear Lord did not give the charge to _some_ of His people, did He?"
"But how can they do it? Everybody cannot go to the heathen?"
"He said, 'in all the world'--so that means at home as well as abroad,doesn't it?"
"Preach the gospel in all the world?"
"Yes."
"How can _I_, Ditto?"
"You and I, let us say. Well, Maggie, suppose we ask Mr. Murray? But onething is certain; those who stay at home must furnish the money forthose that go."
"Does it take a great deal?"
"Not to send a few. But how long would a _few_ people be about tellingthe gospel to all the world? Suppose one man had as much as the wholeState of New York for his parish?"
"He'd never get through."
"Exactly. And so it is nearly nineteen hundred years since the Lord gavethe command; and the heathen world is the heathen world still--prettymuch."
"But, then, Ditto--to send a great many people, it would want a greatdeal of money."
"It does. What then?"
"Maybe people cannot afford it."
"Let us ask Mr. Murray about that."
"But, Ditto, what do _you_ think? I know you think something."
"Maggie, I think we should seek _first_ the kingdom."
They were turning into the shrubbery grounds near the house, and Maggieleft the discussion. They were all ready for dinner, as far as appetitewe
nt, and in a little while the five young people sat down at the board.
"This is jolly," said Fenton, who took the head of the table.
"Roast-beef, to wit?" said Meredith.
"Roast-beef is a good thing if you are hungry, as I am; but I did notmean that. It is uncommonly jolly to be out of the way of thegovernors."
Maggie looked up astonished.
"'Rulers are not a terror to good works,'" said Meredith.
"They're a nuisance, though."
"Only to one portion of society. I hope you do not class yourself withthem."
"Do you mean," said Maggie, making big eyes, "do you mean, Fenton, thatyou are glad papa and mamma are in California?"
"No. Only one of 'em. Mamma never interferes with me."
"She leaves it to papa to do," said Maggie, with dignity and sageness.
"I am glad she does. Shows her wisdom. I can tell what is good for me aswell as anybody else."
"Always do it, I suppose?"
"That's just my affair," said Fenton. "There is no use in putting chainsround a fellow--all the good of it is, he must just break the chains."
"Do you call papa's commands, _chains_?" said Maggie.
"Don't stare, Maggie; nothing is so vulgar."
"I am glad Uncle Eden is coming, to make you behave yourself."
"If he tries it on, I shall bolt," said Fenton. "I am out for some fun;and if I can't get it at home I'll get it somewhere else."
Meredith succeeded in turning the conversation to a pleasanter subject;nevertheless Fenton's deliverances shocked his little sister severaltimes in the course of the dinner. Among other things, Fenton would godown to the wine-cellar, to see if a bottle or two might not by chancehave been left; and though the key was not to be had and he came backdiscomfited, Maggie could not get over the audacity of his proposition.She was further and exceedingly shocked after dinner when Fentonproposed to Meredith to have a cigar. Meredith declining, Fenton wentout to enjoy his cigar alone.
"Fenton is grown very wild," said Maggie.
"Boys can't be like girls," said Esther.
"I don't see why they can't be as respectable as girls," said Maggie.
"They never are, my dear," said Flora. "Comfort yourself. They will runinto what they don't like just to have their own way; because what theydo like is ordered or advised by some kind friend."
"Not true without exception, Maggie," said Meredith; "but there is sometruth in it. Don't worry about Fenton. I don't believe he means quite asbad as he says."
"But smoking is so disgraceful--in a boy," said Maggie.
"It is not disgraceful in a man," said Esther.
"Well, it isn't nice," returned Maggie. "I always hate to come near thatProfessor Wilkins, who always talks to me when he is here. He is kind,but his breath is dreadful."
Fenton was not so fond of the company of his cigar but that he soonforsook it. And then his company indoors was hardly an acquisition. Hetalked big of doings at the school where he was now placed, horrifiedMaggie by showing that he was quite as lawless as in old times, and putan effectual bar to any reading, or talk either, except of the sort thatsuited himself.
"What's up?" he asked at last. "What shall we do to make the time go?"
"Time does not need any whip with us," said Meredith. "He goes fastenough."
"Oh, we are going out in the woods to dinner," said Maggie.
"You were there to-day."
"Well, we are going to-morrow--and every day. We have a bonfire, and anice lunch, and the girls work, and Ditto reads to us."
"Jolly slow!" said Fenton. "I can't stand much of that. I shall goa-fishing."
"Very well," said Esther. "And come to us for lunch?"
"Same place? It's too far off."
"Then we'll go into the pine wood," said Maggie. "The pine wood isnice--and the pine needles make a beautiful carpet--and we want to go toa different place every day."
So it was arranged.