Read Ebook: The Unseen Hand; or James Renfew and His Boy Helpers by Kellogg Elijah Snyder W P Illustrator

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Ebook has 1925 lines and 84058 words, and 39 pages

PREFACE.

A vast majority of the noblest intellects of the race have ever held to the idea that,--

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them how we will."

He comes to us as an orphan and the inmate of a workhouse, flung upon the world, like a dry leaf on the crest of a breaker; his mind a blank devoid of knowledge, save the idea of the Almighty and the commands of the Decalogue, whose force, in virtue of prior possession, held the ground and kept at bay the evil influences by which he was surrounded. And in consequence of thus holding aloof from all partnership in vice, he was brow-beaten, trampled upon, and made a butt of by his companions in misfortune.

His only inheritance was the kiss of a dying mother, the dim recollection of her death, and a Bible which he could not read,--her sole bequest.

The buoyancy, the frolic of the blood, the premonition of growing power, which render childhood and youth so pregnant of happiness, and so pleasant in the retrospect, were to him unrevealed. At nineteen the life seemed crushed out of him by the pressure, or, rather puncture, of a miserable present and a hopeless future. In the judgment of the most charitable, he was but one remove from fatuity.

From such material to develop the varied qualities of a pioneer, a man of firm purpose, quick resolve, and resolute to meet exigencies, might well seem to require supernatural power; and yet, by no other alchemy than sympathy, encouragement wisely timed, and knowledge seasonably imparted, was this seeming miracle accomplished.

The pity of Alice Whitman, the broad benevolence of her husband, the warm sympathy of Bertie and his young associates, the ripe counsels of the glorious old grandfather,--sage Christian hero,--and the efforts of Mr. Holmes, who honored his calling, while sowing good seed in the virgin soil of a young heart, were but visible instruments in the grasp of the Hand Unseen.

THE UNSEEN HAND;

OR,

JAMES RENFEW AND HIS BOY-HELPERS.

It was the autumn of 1792. The beams of the declining sun were resting peacefully upon the time-worn walls of a log house of large dimensions, evidently built to serve the purposes both of a dwelling and a fortress, and situated upon the banks of the Swatara Creek, in the State of Pennsylvania.

A magnificent chestnut-tree, whose trunk and lower branches were all aglow with the long level rays of the retiring light, shadowed a large portion of the spacious door-yard.

This was the homestead of Bradford Whitman, a well-to-do farmer, and whose family consisted of himself and wife, his aged father, and three children, Peter, Albert and Maria, aged respectively sixteen, fourteen and eleven.

Upon one of the highest branches of this great tree was seated Bertie Whitman. The eyes of the lad were eagerly fastened upon the road that, skirting the rising ground upon which the dwelling stood, led to a distant village.

At once his features lighted up with a jubilant expression; he rapidly descended from his perch, and ran to the door of the house, shouting, "Mother! Maria! Grandfather! They've got him; they are coming down Liscomb's hill this minute, and there's three in the wagon. Oh!"

He would have run to meet the approaching team, and had taken a few steps when he was met by his elder brother.

This conversation was interrupted by the rumbling of wheels as their father drove up, where his whole family were grouped around the door. Mrs. Whitman stood on the door-stone, the old grandfather beside her, leaning on his staff, the children in front, while Fowler, the house-dog, with his fore-legs on the shoulders of old Frank, the near horse, his particular friend, was trying to lick his nose and Frank was arching his neck to accommodate him.

Mr. Whitman helped James to get down from the wagon. The boy made no return to the salutations of the family save by a stony stare, not even taking the hand extended to him by Mrs. Whitman. He, however, manifested some token of sensibility by offering to help in unharnessing, and would have limped after the horses to the barn, but his master told him to go into the house and keep still till his leg was better; nevertheless there he stood staring after the horses, and evidently would much rather have followed them to the barn.

The dog then came and smelt of him. Mrs. Whitman told Peter to take him by the hand and lead him into the house. She placed an arm-chair for him, and a smaller one to put his lame leg on, and in a few minutes he was fast asleep.

Judging by appearances Bradford Whitman had drawn a blank at this his first venture in the redemptioner lottery. The children got together under the great chestnut-tree to free their minds and compare notes.

"Isn't he queer?" said Bertie.

"Did ever anybody see such funny clothes? I guess they were made for him when he was small and so he's grown out of them, but he'd be real handsome if he had good clothes and his hair combed, and didn't have such a pitiful look out of his eyes," said Maria.

"I tell you what he puts me in mind of," said Bertie, "Mr. William Anderson's oxen that are so poor, their necks so long and thin; and they look so discouraged, and as though they wanted to fall down and die."

Peter now related all he had heard Wilson tell their father, and dwelt with great emphasis upon Mr. Wilson's statement that the lad had not a friend in the world and no home.

"He's got one friend," said Bertie, "Fowler likes him, 'cause he smelt of him and wagged his tail; if he hadn't liked him he would have growled. Mother's a friend to him, and father and grandpa and all of us."

"We will be good to him because he never had any chestnut-tree to play under and swing on, nor any garden of his own," said Maria.

"How can we be good to him if he won't say anything, Maria!" said Bertie.

"Can't we be good to the cattle, and I'm sure they don't talk?"

"If they don't they say something; the cat she purrs, the hens prate, Fowler wags his tail and barks and whines; and the horses neigh, and snort, and put down their heads for me to pat them; but how could you be good to a stone? and he's just like a stone, when mother put out her hand to shake hands he did not take it, nor look pleased nor anything."

"Perhaps 'twas 'cause he was afraid. When we first got our kitten she hid away up garret, and we didn't see her for three days, but she got tame, and so perhaps he will."

They finally made up their minds that James was entitled to all the sympathy and kindness they could manifest towards him, when they were called to supper.

It now became a question between Mr. Whitman and his wife, where to stow James that night.

"Put him in the barn and give him some blankets to-night, and to-morrow we will clean him up."

"I can't bear to put him in the barn, husband, I'll make him a bed of some old 'duds' on the floor in the porch. Send him right off to bed; I'll wash his clothes and dry 'em before morning. I can fix up some old clothes of yours for him to work in, for I don't want any of the neighbors to see him in those he has on."

Mr. Whitman now ushered James to bed, waited till he undressed, and brought in his clothes that were soon in scalding suds. Had Mr. Whitman gone back he would have seen this poor ignorant lad rise from his bed, kneel down and repeat the Lord's prayer, and though repeated with a very feeble sense of its import may we not believe it was accepted by Him who "requireth according to that a man hath and not according to that he hath not," and whose hand that through the ocean storm guides the sea-bird to its nest amid the breakers, has directed this wayfarer to the spot where there are hearts to pity and hands to aid him.

A blazing fire in the great kitchen fireplace so nearly accomplished the drying of the clothes, that in the morning they were perfectly dry, the hot bricks and mouldering log giving out heat all night long. In the morning Mr. Whitman carried to the porch water in a tub, soap and his clean clothes, and told James to wash himself, put them on and then come out to his breakfast.

When James had eaten his breakfast , the good wife cut his hair which was of great length, gave his head a thorough scrubbing with warm soapsuds, and completed the process with a fine-toothed comb. Removing carefully the bandages she next examined his leg.

"It was a deep cut, but it's doing nicely," she said, "there's not a bit of proud flesh in it; you must sit in the house till it heals up." When having bound up the wound she was about to leave him, he murmured,--

"You're good to me."

This was not a very fervent manifestation of gratitude, but it betokened that the spirit within was not wholly petrified; as Alice Whitman looked into that vacant face she perceived by the moisture of the eyes, that there was a lack not so much of feeling as of the power to express it.

"God bless you, I'll act a mother's part towards you; it shall be your own fault if you are not happy now. I know God sent you here, for I cannot believe that anything short of Divine Power would have ever brought my husband to take a redemptioner."

Bertie and Maria, who had been looking on in silence, now ran into the field to tell their father and Peter all their mother had said and done, and that the redemptioner had spoken to her.

"Father," said Maria, "if mother is his mother, will he be our brother?"

"Not exactly; your mother meant that she would treat him just as she does you, and so you must treat him as you do each other, because your mother has said so, and that's sufficient."

"Then we mustn't call him a redemptioner?"

"No; forget all about that and call him James."

"When we have anything good, and when we find a bumblebee's nest, shall we give him part, just like we do each other?"

"Yes."

Mrs. Whitman sent for Sally Wood, one of her neighbor's daughters, to take care of the milk and do the housework; and then set herself to altering over a suit of her husband's clothes to fit James, who, clean from head to foot, sat with his leg in a chair watching Mrs. Whitman at her work, but the greater portion of the time asleep.

"Let him sleep," she said; "'twill do him good to sleep a week; he'll come to his feeling after that and be another boy. It's the full meals and the finding out what disposition is to be made of him, and that he's not to be hurt, makes him sleep. I doubt if he had any too much to eat on the passage over."

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