Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 July 1873 — A WOMAN’S COURAGE. [ARTICLE]

A WOMAN’S COURAGE.

Tnfi blood-red light of sunset was mirroring itself in crimson splashes in the turbid tides of the great Western river; the blackbird was sounding its sweet whistle through the old primeval forests; and Jonathan Beers, sitting by his cabin door, smoked his solitary evening pipe, and thought vaguely of the church-bells that used Jo ring at-cvening time in the far-off Eastern village where he had been born ana-brought up, with the roar of-Punobscot Bay in hia ears. “I’d like to hear them bells once again afore I die,” mused old Jonathan. “But "it amilffirajr m evergrbatnmmr"^ Even while these disjointed meditations passed through his mind there was a light step on the cabin threshold, and the rustle of stiffly starched pink calico, and liis niece Dorothy came to the door. “Tea’s ready, uncle dear,” said she. “And I’ve baked a real New England corn-bread, and some ginger-snaps, such ns grandmamma used to make. And sec, uncle, I’ve sliced up the little red peaches from the tree you planted yourself on the south side of the hill. Israel Esmayuc said it wouldn’t grow, but it lias. 1 mean to keep a saucerful and a little cream for Israel to-Tilglit, just to show him.” Old Jonathan laid down his knife and fork. “Do you mean that Israel Esmayne incoming here to-night?” “Yes, uncle,” said Dorothy, stooping to. recover a teaspoon she had dropped—a spoon with an antique silver shell carved on its handle—and coming up very rosy from the search. “Why not?” “Take care, Dotty. That’s all!” “Uncle, what do you mean?” “I mean, child, that I’d rather lay you in your grave in the new burying-ground, where there’s only one mound yet" in tho shadow of the church spire, than to see you married to a man who drinks! Thai’s what I mean, Dotty I” Dorothy’s head drooped over her plate. “Uncle, that is hardly fair. Because a man had a bad habit once—” “And has it now!" The soft eyes glittered into a defiant flash. n. “You arc mistaken, uncle. Israel Esmayne has not touched a drop of ardent spirits in a year, lie has promised me -never to touch it again!” “I hope he never will, my girl,” said Jonathan Beers, although bis tone betrayed uo very sanguine feeling. “But it ain’t a safe thing to do. It’s a madness, love of liquor is, and nothing short. It’s liable to break out at any time. Israel Esmayne’s a good fellow' enough. I hain’t anything agin him—hut it ain’t safe!" Dorothy was silent. Why was it, she asked herself, that men w r ere so severe in judging one another? Why did they always look at the blackest and least promisiug'sffTe of everything? Israel had promised her. She believed him. And that Was enough. And while she tripped lightly back and forth about her household duties, her mind was full of the undefined future. She could see herself, shadowy and undefined as in a mirror, moving about a bright little homo where flowers bloomed in the casements, and birds sang, and a clock ticked, “lie is coining! he is coming!" “One of these days!” said Dorothy to herself, ns she put away the' saucer .of peaches and a little pitcher of thick cream on a whitelv-scoured pantry-shelf—-“one of these days!” - ~ v Sbf was thinking of the futurAAnd old Jonathan, smoking his pipe, Was living }p tUo past,

“You’ve somethin’ to do with the railroad, stranger, haven’t you ?” “I reckon I have,”said Israel Esmayne, indifferently. “I’m switchman.? 1 “It don’t take yp much of your time, I guess 8” “It’s got to be looked after just the same, though,” said the tall Westerner, as he lifted the last monster log from the cart he was unloading to the thrifty pile at the north end of his house. “What time does the way train come by?” “At nine o’clock.” “Do you suppose I could go to Mellenville and see the lumber dealers there, and get back to the station again by that time ?” Israel looked reflectively at the other shore of the river. “Well, you might," said he; “but it would be a pretty tight squeeze.” “I’m a good walker,” said the stranger; and as he spoke he drew a flat pocketflask from his pocket, uncorked it with his teeth, and drank a copious draught. Israel Esmayne watched him with eager, glittering eyes, like those of some famished wild animal that scents blood. “Have a drink, friend?” said the stranger, proffering the flask. Israel Esmayne shook his head, with set teetli and lividly pale cheek. “I never drink,” said he, hoarsely. “You would, I guess, if you could get such stuff as this,” said the man; soft as oil and strong as Are. My father imported it. There’s not much like it in the country. Taste, if you don’t believe me!” Israel stood for 'a moment, hesitating. Then he cast an eager glance to the right and to the left, as if half fearful lest some one should see him, and grasping at the bottle—drank! The fevered blood mounted to his cheek; a strange sparkle came into his eyes. “Have you got more like that?” he whispered, hoarsely, approaching his burning lips so closely to the man’s ear that he involuntarily started. “More ?”, “I’ve got another flask, but—” “Will you leave it behind? I’ll pay you a good price for it.” “What for?” Israel’s eyes fell guiltily. “In—in case of sickness, you know. We can’t buy such liquor here —and it’s a lonely spot.” “You’re right enough there,” said the man, laughing, as he drew out another flask, the mate to the first. “Here, take it. Pshaw, friend, put up your purse. You’re welcome to it as a gift.” And he was gone, plunging through the high grass and bushes, all fringed with scarlet cardinal-flowers and nodding marigolds, before Israel could stay him. Israel Esmayne crept back to his house, or, rather, the rude log-cabin which was a sort of hostage that one day a real home should rise on its foundations, holding the flat bottle close to him, and glancing round with furtive, wandering eyes. “I needed it,” he said to himself; “yes, I needed it. I didn’t know how much until I tasted it. Just one more taste. It slips over one’s palate like glass, so smooth, so rich, so full of strength. One more taste, and then —” W hen the clock struck nine the whistle of the wav train sounded faint and far off, and Israel Esmayne rose uncertainly to his feet. The subtle, burning fumes of the liquid flame had entered into his brain; the walls seemed to reel about him, the stars to swim in the great blue firmanent overhead. Nothing was real—all was faint and far off and visionary. But the chains of habit are hard to shake off: and Israel had gone out at nine o’clock every night for a year. Groping his way, and walking with slow, unsteady steps, lie went, still clasping the partially emptied flask to his breast in the inner pocket of his coat. He could hear the rush of the river below; he could see the rails of the track glistening in the faint starlight; and mechanically feeling under a cluster of spicc-buslies for the switch key, he knelt down anil stupidly fumbled there an Instant. “The way train,” he muttered to himself. “It’s all right. And then the freight train—half-past nine—a quarter to ten; and—” He stooped down by the river-house and wet his burning forehead with the cool drops he could scoop up in the hollow of his hand. IJe sat down on a fallen tree, and let his head fall on his palms. “Am I—drunk?”1 —drunk?” he muttered, half aloud. “O God! have I come to this in spite of everything?” And the memory of Dorothy Beers and his sacred promise to her rose up in his mind, as one sometimes remembers promises made to the dead. In all the wild, wide, reeling, rocking world of his brain there was but one certainty. He had lost Dorothy, his soft-stepping, sweet-eyed, redeeming angel—the one in all the world who loved and trusted him most implicitly. “I don’t deserve her,” Le thought, scarce able to shape definite thought in his chaotic mind; “but —if I Had fallen down dead before—before I touched that accursed stuff! She would have believed in me then.” » . The fresh, cool night air on his brow was sobering him a little ; the touch of the cold river water cleaned the mists of his clouded brain in some degree. He rose up, steadying himself by'tlie slender stem of a young white birch tree that grew close beside him, and looked around. Hark! a clear whistle, half a mile away, cleaving the silence like the call of some sweet-throated bird. It was the express, whose plume of lurid smoke spanned half a continent—the long, serpent-like train, glittering with lights, and carrying a great eye of fire in front, which nighly thundered over the line of rails, and shot like a meteor out of sight into the hush and silence of the wooqjs, Westward bound. The way train passed at nine, making a brief stoppage at Hurstley station beyond, a mere wooden shed with a platform on either side. Half an hour afterward a slow and heavy freight train followed it, running nijf on a side track toward the river-shore until tho express should have safely passed. And it was the special business of Israel Esmayne to set the switch for the freight, and subsequently replace it for the hurrying express, Had he done this ? With an awful doubt poisoning his heart, he pressed his hands to his temples and tried to think. He had been there—he could recall just how the dewy rails looked, wet and glistening in the starlight. He had had the switch key in his hand—that he could also remember. But was that before or after the freight had switched off? not remember whether the freightliad passed Or not. He did not know whether he had locked the switch twice or once, hr, good Heavens! not at ail. The past a -swaying vacuum, the future strange and dreamlitae. He closed his eyes, he pressed his temples as if either hand had been a Vise

of iron, in the wild agonizing effort to recall the last half hour. “O God!” be groaned aloud, as lie* threw himself on his face in the wet grass, “am I going mad?” Something hard struck against his hreast-bone as he flung himself down : it was the fatal flask. He tore it out, half full of dark red poison, and dashed it passionately into the bushes. It was that —that that had done all the mischief. “O Heavenly Father!” he cried aloud, in his great anguish, “if it pleases Thee to avert from me this awful crime of murder done a thousandfold —and naught but one of Thy miracles can avert it now—l swear before Thy pavement of stars to 1 touch that devil’s broth no more! O God, hear me! O Christ, save me!”' The earth beneath his groveling breast thrilled and quivered as the express train flew over the rails, and Israel Esmayne held his breath, momentarily expecting the awful crash which should stain his soul with the eternal brand of Cain. Hush! An owl hooting afar off in the woods, the cry of some sad-voiced nightbird overhead, and then—another whistle, clear and cheery. The express had passed through Hurstley—passed through safe and sound! And Israel Esmayne, staggered to his feet, gazed around him an instant, clutching vaguely at the air, and then fell unconscious. “TJncle, he is coming to. Oh, uncle, I knew—l knew that he was not dead!” And the soft eyes of Dorothy Beers were the first thing Israel Esmayne saw as his soul came out of the world of shadows and oblivion, with old Jonathan leaning ou his cane just beyond. “Tell me, Dotty,” he gasped. “llow was it? The—the switches?” “It was my girl did it,” said the old man. “She come by, and she heard the freight a whistlin’, and she see the switches wasn’t right, nor no signal, nor nothin’. ‘Something’s happened,’ says my gijrl. ‘lsrael’s been took ill, or dead,’ says she. And there lay the key in the middle of the track, and she catches it up, and she unlocks the switches—you showed her how to do it yourself, Esmayne, one summer arternoon—and she hangs up the white lantern. And there she stands,with her heart a-beatin’ lit to choke her, till the freight gets off. And she calls to one of the brakesmen, ‘Set these ere right for the express,’says she. ‘Quick! or there may be a thousand lives lost.’ ‘Where’s the switch-tender?’ says he. ‘God only knows,’ says my Dotty. And so she comes back arter me. ‘Uncle,’"she says, all white and tremblin’ like, ‘come with me.’ ‘What for?’ says I. ‘To look for Israel,’ says she. ‘I don’t sleep this night,’ says my Dotty, ‘till we’ve found him!’ ” “God bless her!” cried out Esmayne, in a choked voice. “God be thanked for all Ilis mercies!” “Was it a fit?” said the old man, curiously. “How did it come on ?” But Israel Esmayne spoke no word on the subject, either then or ever. lie married Dorothy Beers in the spring, and he has sacredly kept his vow. If he lives to be a hundred years old, he will still keep it. And Dotty, though she never knew it, Had redeemed him.