Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1875 — HIS LETTER. [ARTICLE]

HIS LETTER.

One rainy night, about half-past eight o’clock, the train had dashed into McKibben’s Corners, and the mail had been delivered at the store and postoffice. John Fairjohn, the Postmaster, had opened the bag and counted the letters. There were, as he made out,just ten, and •one was larger than the others, and had a red seal; and then he had found that he had left his glasses on the newspaper in the back room, and without his glasses he could not read a line; and so, ■of course, he had gone after them, returning to find two persons in the store — Farmer Roper and ’Squire McKibben, whose ancestors had given name to the place. “ Wet, ain’t it?” said Mr.Fairjohn, nodding. “ Wet or not, our folks ain’t going to do without their groceries, you see,” said 'the ’Squire. “ Mail’s in, I see. That tram came near running into my truck, too. Wasn't noticing the flag and drove across qust in time to save myself. Any letters iorme?” “ I’ll see,” said Mr. Fairjohn. He turned to the little pile of envelopes, and told them over in his hand like a deck of cards. “ Why, there’s only nine,’V he said. "“I’m sure I counted right. I counted ten, and I thought one had a red seal. I might as well give up keeping the office as I’m going to lose my senses like that. There wasn’t anyone in here while I was gone, was there,’Squire ?” “ Only Roper and I," said the ’Squire, “ and Roper’s son. But he didn’t come in, did he?” “ No,” said old Roper. “ I don’t think that Job came in at all. He just went •off somewhere.” “Well,” said the Postmaster after another search—“well, I must be mistaken. Yes, there is a letter for you—your folks, anyway—and something for you, Mr. Roper. And you wouldn’t mind tossing that in at the Smiths’ as you pass?” “ Qh, no,” said Farmer Roper. “ Give It to me. That’s from Smith that’s •clerking it in NeSy York, I reckon. Can’t get any of ’em to stay and farm.” “Your son Job did,” said the ’Squire. “ Oh, my son Job. He’d try the patience of his namesake,” said Farmer Koper. “My son Job, bah!” Just at this moment the door of the •store opened and there entered at it a little woman dressed in a cheap calico and wrapped in a thin and faded shawl. She looked timidly about the store, still more timidly at the heap of letters, and then, in an appealing voice like that of a frightened child, said: “ Mr. Fairjohn,is there any letter for' me this time?” w The Postmaster, who was a little deaf, had turned his head away and did not know that she had entered, and she came closer to the counter and the light upon it before she spoke again. She was a faded little woman, and her face had signs of grief written upon it, but she was neither old nor ugly yet, and there was something in the damp cUrls clustering under the faded calico hood and in the little, round, dimpled chin absolutely child-like even yet. “ Is there a letter for me this time, Mr. Fairiohn?” she safd again; and this time the Postmaster looked up. “No, there ain’t; and you’re a fool for taking such a walk to ask,” said he, with rough kindness, ‘iWouldn’t I have sent it if it had a-come, Mrs. Lester?” “ Well, you see, I felt in a hurry to get it,” said she. “ You can’t blame me for being in a hurry; it’s so long." “ That’s true,” said the. Postmaster. “ Well, better luck next time. But why don’t yodwait? Mr. McKibben will take •• you over when he goes. He passes your corner.” “ Yes, wait, Mrs. Lester,” cried Mr. McKibben, “ I’ll take ye and welcome.” But she had answered,

“ Thank you. I don’t mind walking,” and was gone. “Keeps it up, don’t she?” asked the Postmaster. “ It’s a shame,” said Mr. McKibben. “ How many years is it now since- Lester went off?” “ Ten,” said the Postmaster. “ I know, for it was the day I came here. She was as pretty a woman as you’d want to see then, wasn’t she?” “Well, yes,” said Mr. McKibben. “ Sailed in the Sphynx,” said the Postmaster. “ And we all know that the Sphynx went down in that voyage, all hands along with her. The rest of the women put on. widow’s weeds, them that lost husbands—four in this town itself. They took what the Almighty sent, and didn’t rebel. She set up that her husband wasn’t dead, and would come back. She’s kept it up ever since; comes for his letter regular, and he was drowned along with all the rest, of course, ten years ago. She must be thirty. Well, she’s changed a good deal in that time.” “Yes,” said the other man; “but there’s my son Job wild over her yet lie’s offered himself twice. He stands ready to offer himself again any day—ready to be a father to her boy and a good husband to her. He’s better oil than I be. His mother’s father left him all he had. He’s crazy as Job —crazy, I call it. Plenty of pretty gals, and healthy, smart widows, and he sees no one but that pale, slim, little thing that’s just gone out into the mud; and she—why, of course, she’s lost her senses, or she’d have him. Works like a slave to keep herself and the child, lives in a rickety shanty, waiting and waiting for a drowned man to come back again. Why, everyone knows Charlie Lester was drowned in the Sphynx. There wasn’t a soul saved, not one. It was m the papers. Now, the bottle was found with a letter in it, writ by some one just before the ship sunk. And she’s waitin’ for him yet!” “ Crazy on that point,” said the Postmaster. “Well, poor soul, she’d only been married a week when the Sphynx sailed; that makes a difference.” “ Oh, yes,” said the farmer. Then, their parcels being ready, they went out to their wagons, and Mr. Fairjohn having stared out into the rainy night awhile put up his shutters and went to bed- Meanwhile the woman plodded on through the mud. “ Walking off her disappointment,” she said to herself. It was one she should have been used to, and now the absurdity of it seemed to strike her for the first time in all these years. “ They laugh at me,” she muttered to herself. “ I know they laugh at me. Perhaps I am mad; but they don’t know what love is. Charlie wouldn’t have left me like that. If he had died he would have given me some sign; and vet—yet, if he were alive it would be "stranger still. No, no; they are right—l am wrong. He must be dead.” And as though the news had just been whispered to her she clasped her hands to her forehead, gave a cry and sank down on her knees in the road. She knelt there a few moments and then arose. In this interval the wind had blown the clouds from the sky and the moonlight lay white upon the path and lit her on her way to her poor home. There at the door sat a man, a strong, determined-looking fellow, who arose as she approached and held out his hand. “ Here you come,” he said, “ tired to death, worn out, still, on that fruitless errand. Jessie Lester, can’t you give up this nonsense and think of the living a little? Think of me, Jessie, for just half an hour.”

“I do think of you,” she said. “ I am very sorry you should be so good to me when I must seem so bad to you.” Then she sat down on the porch and took her little hood off and leaned her head wearily against the wall of the house; and the man arose and crossed over and sat down beside her. “ Give it a softer resting place, Jessie,”, he said, “here on my heart.” She looked out into the night, not at him, as she spoke: “Job,” she said, “I begin to think you are right, that he went down in the Sphynx with the rest ten years ago. But what good would I do you? What do you want to marry me for?” The man drew closer still as he answered: “ Before you were married to Charles Lester I loved you. While ypu were a married woman I loved you. **All these ten years since that vessel went down I’ve loved you. A man must have the woman he loves if he gives his soul for her.” “ What a horrible thought!” said she. “ His soul.” “ I should have said his life,” said Job. “ I don’t want to shock you. But you don’t know what it would be to me to have you. And then I’d do everything for your boy.” “Yes,” she answered, “I know you would.” There was a pause. Then she gave him her hand. “ Job,” she said, very softly, “ I shall ? retend nothing I don’t feel, but I know ’ve been crazy all this time, and it you want me you may have me. It’s very good of you to love me so.” And thus it seemed to have ended, that ten years’ watching and waiting, and there was triumph in Job’s eyes as he turned away and left her with his first kiss upon her lips. But at the end of the green lane he paused and looked ** •■•• “ I told her the truth,” he said, “ when I told her that when a man loved a woman as I loved her he must have her, if the price were his soul itself.’ And then he drew from his breast a better with a great red seal upon it, lpoked at it for a moment and hid it away again. Married? Yes, they were to be.married. Everyone at McKibben’s Comers knew that now. Jessie Lester went no more to the postoffice for her long-ex-pected letter. Job was furnishing his house —had furnished it, for 5n the morrow the wedding was to take place. And it was night again. A month from that night when she had come for the last time, as everyone thought, through rain

and mud, to make her sadly-foolish query, she was sensible at last—very sensible. She had chosen the substance instead of the shadow. And now, as we said, it was night and a wetter one than that other —later, too, for Mr. Fairjohn had closed the store, and was compounding for himself what he called a “ night-cap" of some fragrant liquor, warm water, lemons and sugar, and was supping it by the stove, when there came upon his door a feeble knock, arid when, being repeated, he heard it, there staggered in out of the rain a dripping figure—that df Jessie Lester, the bride who was to be on the morrow. She was trembling with cold, and as he led her to the- fire she burst into a flood of tears. .. . “I’m frightened,” she said. “Some one followed me all the, way. I heard them.” “ You’ve no business to be out alone at night,” said old Fairjohn, bluntly. “And what’s the matter?” She looked up at him piteously. “ I thought there would be a letter,” said she. “ I dreamt there was one. I thought Charlie came to me and said, ‘Go to the office once more. I have written, I have written.’ And I thought I saw a letter with a red seal.” “So did I,” muttered old Fairjohn to himself. He went to the box where the letters were kept, and brought them to her in his hand. “Look for yourself,” he said. “And now, Mrs. Lester, I’m an old man. Take my advice. Remember what your duty will be after to-morrow. Remember not to go crazy. “ Ten years have gone since your husband left this place. If he’s alive he’s a rascal, and you are free of him by law; but we all know that every man on board the Sphynx was drowned. So be a good wife to Job Roper and forget this folly. I’ll take you home again this time. Don’t come again.” She made no answer, but only tossed the letters over in her lap, and said: “I seemed to know it had a red seal.” And as she spoke old Fairjohn, glancing at the door, saw a dark shadow there, saw it grow darker; saw it enter and, starting up on his defense, if need be, recognized Job Roper. He was very pale, and he took no notice of Fairjohn, but, crossing the store, stood beside Jessie Lester. “You love that man best, even now,” he said. “You’d rather have found a letter from him than not though to-mor-row is our wedding day.” She looked up into his face with a piteous glance. “ I never lied to you,” said she. “ You know that.” He grew whiter still. “ I told you a man would lose his soul for such love as mine,” said he. “ Did you think those were idle words?” Then he plunged his hand into his bosom, and the next instant a letter, with a red seal, lay in Jessiri’s lap. “ I’ve made you happy, and now I’ll go,” he said. “Fairjohn, I stole that letter a month ago off the counter yonder. I knew who wrote it at a glance;” and then the door closed behind him and he was gone. But J essie had torn open the letter and never looked after him. And these were the words she read, old Fairjohn reading over her shoulder: Aboard the Silver Star. —Jessie, darling: I don’t know what makes me believe that I shall find you mine still after all these years, but something does. Five of us were cast' on a desert island when the Sphynx went down. The two yet alive were taken off it-yesterday in skins, with our beards to our knees. We must go to England first—then home. Jessie, Jessie, if I do not find you as I left you I shall go mad. Your husband, Charles Lester. And so Jessie’s letter had come at last. And as John Fairjohn looked into her face he saw how angels looked in Paradise. And Job. Job was found drowned in the Kill the next morning. Jessie never knew it, perhaps, for she and her boy were on their way to New York to meet the Silver Star when it made port.