Winter Evening Tales

I think it is very likely that many New Yorkers were familiar with the face of David Morrison.  It was a peculiarly guileless, kind face for a man of sixty years of age; a face that looked into the world’s face with something of the confidence of a child.  It had round it a little fringe of soft, light hair, and above that a big blue Scotch bonnet of the Rob Roryson fashion.

The bonnet had come with him from the little Highland clachan, where he and his brother Sandy had scrambled through a hard, happy boyhood together.  It had sometimes been laid aside for a more pretentious headgear, but it had never been lost; and in his old age and poverty had been cheerfully—­almost affectionately—­resumed.

“Sandy had one just like it,” he would say.  “We bought them thegither in Aberdeen.  Twa braw lads were we then.  I’m wonderin’ where poor Sandy is the day!”

So, if anybody remembers the little spare man, with the child-like, candid face and the big blue bonnet, let them recall him kindly.  It is his true history I am telling to-day.

Davie had, as I said before, a hard boyhood.  He knew what cold, hunger and long hours meant as soon as he knew anything; but it was glorified in his memory by the two central figures in it—­a good mother, for whom he toiled and suffered cheerfully, and a big brother who helped him bravely over all the bits of life that were too hard for his young feet.

When the mother died, the lads sailed together for America.  They had a “far-awa’” cousin in New York, who, report said, had done well in the plastering business, and Sandy never doubted but that one Morrison would help another Morrison the wide world over.  With this faith in their hearts and a few shillings in their pockets, the two lads landed.  The American Morrison had not degenerated.  He took kindly to his kith and kin, and offered to teach them his own craft.

For some time the brothers were well content; but Sandy was of an ambitious, adventurous temper, and was really only waiting until he felt sure that wee Davie could take care of himself.  Nothing but the Great West could satisfy Sandy’s hopes; but he never dreamt of exposing his brother to its dangers and privations.

“You’re nothing stronger than a bit lassie, Davie,” he said, “and you’re no to fret if I don’t take you wi’ me.  I’m going to make a big fortune, and when I have gotten the gold safe, I’se come back to you, and we’ll spend it thegither dollar for dollar, my wee lad.”

“Sure as death!  You’ll come back to me?”

“Sure as death, I’ll come back to you, Davie!” and Sandy thought it no shame to cry on his little brother’s neck, and to look back, with a loving, hopeful smile at Davie’s sad, wistful face, just as long as he could see it.

It was Davie’s nature to believe and to trust.  With a pitiful confidence and constancy he looked for the redemption of his brother’s promise.  After twenty years of absolute silence, he used to sit in the evenings after his work was over, and wonder “how Sandy and he had lost each other.”  For the possibility of Sandy forgetting him never once entered his loyal heart.

He could find plenty of excuses for Sandy’s silence.  In the long years of their separation many changes had occurred even in a life so humble as Davie’s.  First, his cousin Morrison died, and the old business was scattered and forgotten.  Then Davie had to move his residence very frequently; had even to follow lengthy jobs into various country places, so that his old address soon became a very blind clew to him.

Then seven years after Sandy’s departure the very house in which they had dwelt was pulled down; an iron factory was built on its site, and probably a few months afterward no one in the neighborhood could have told anything at all about Davie Morrison.  Thus, unless Sandy should come himself to find his brother, every year made the probability of a letter reaching him less and less likely.

Perhaps, as the years went by, the prospect of a reunion became more of a dream than an expectation.  Davie had married very happily, a simple little body, not unlike himself, both in person and disposition.  They had one son, who, of course, had been called Alexander, and in whom Davie fondly insisted, the lost Sandy’s beauty and merits were faithfully reproduced.

It is needless to say the boy was extravagantly loved and spoiled.  Whatever Davie’s youth had missed, he strove to procure for “Little Sandy.”  Many an extra hour he worked for this unselfish end.  Life itself became to him only an implement with which to toil for his boy’s pleasure and advantage.  It was a common-place existence enough, and yet through it ran one golden thread of romance.

In the summer evenings, when they walked together on the Battery, and in winter nights, when they sat together by the stove, Davie talked to his wife and child of that wonderful brother, who had gone to look for fortune in the great West.  The simplicity of the elder two and the enthusiasm of the youth equally accepted the tale.

Somehow, through many a year, a belief in his return invested life with a glorious possibility.  Any night they might come home and find Uncle Sandy sitting by the fire, with his pockets full of gold eagles, and no end of them in some safe bank, besides.

But when the youth had finished his schooldays, had learned a trade and began to go sweethearting, more tangible hopes and dreams agitated all their hearts; for young Sandy Morrison opened a carpenter’s shop in his own name, and began to talk of taking a wife and furnishing a home.

He did not take just the wife that pleased his father and mother.  There was nothing, indeed, about Sallie Barker of which they could complain.  She was bright and capable, but they felt a want they were not able to analyze; the want was that pure unselfishness which was the ruling spirit of their own lives.

This want never could be supplied in Sallie’s nature.  She did right because it was her duty to do right, not because it gave her pleasure to do it.  When they had been married three years the war broke out, and soon afterward Alexander Morrison was drafted for the army.  Sallie, who was daily expecting her second child, refused all consolation; and, indeed, their case looked hard enough.

At first the possibility of a substitute had suggested itself; but a family consultation soon showed that this was impossible without hopelessly straitening both houses.  Everyone knows that dreary silence which follows a long discussion, that has only confirmed the fear of an irremediable misfortune.  Davie broke it in this case in a very unexpected manner.

“Let me go in your place, Sandy.  I’d like to do it, my lad.  Maybe I’d find your uncle.  Who knows?  What do you say, old wife?  We’ve had more than twenty years together.  It is pretty hard for Sandy and Sallie, now, isn’t it?”

He spoke with a bright face and in a cheerful voice, as if he really was asking a favor for himself; and, though he did not try to put his offer into fine, heroic words, nothing could have been finer or more heroic than the perfect self-abnegation of his manner.

The poor old wife shed a few bitter tears; but she also had been practicing self-denial for a lifetime, and the end of it was that Davie went to weary marches and lonely watches, and Sandy staid at home.

This was the break-up of Davie’s life.  His wife went to live with Sandy and Sallie, and the furniture was mostly sold.

Few people could have taken these events as Davie did.  He even affected to be rather smitten with the military fever, and, when the parting came, left wife and son and home with a cheerful bravery that was sad enough to the one old heart who had counted its cost.

In Davie’s loving, simple nature there was doubtless a strong vein of romance.  He was really in hopes that he might come across his long-lost brother.  He had no very clear idea as to localities and distances, and he had read so many marvelous war stories that all things seemed possible in its atmosphere.  But reality and romance are wide enough apart.

Davie’s military experience was a very dull and weary one.  He grew poorer and poorer, lost heart and hope, and could only find comfort for all his sacrifices in the thought that “at least he had spared poor Sandy.”

Neither was his home-coming what he had pictured it in many a reverie.  There was no wife to meet him—­she had been three months in the grave when he got back to New York—­and going to his daughter-in-law’s home was not—­well, it was not like going to his own house.

Sallie was not cross or cruel, and she was grateful to Davie, but she did not love the old man.

He soon found that the attempt to take up again his trade was hopeless.  He had grown very old with three years’ exposure and hard duty.  Other men could do twice the work he could, and do it better.  He must step out from the ranks of skilled mechanics and take such humble positions as his failing strength permitted him to fill.

Sandy objected strongly to this at first.  “He could work for both,” he said, “and he thought father had deserved his rest.”

But Davie shook his head—­“he must earn his own loaf, and he must earn it now, just as he could.  Any honest way was honorable enough.”  He was still cheerful and hopeful, but it was noticeable that he never spoke of his brother Sandy now; he had buried that golden expectation with many others.  Then began for Davie Morrison the darkest period of his life.  I am not going to write its history.

It is not pleasant to tell of a family sinking lower and lower in spite of its brave and almost desperate efforts to keep its place—­not pleasant to tell of the steps that gradually brought it to that pass, when the struggle was despairingly abandoned, and the conflict narrowed down to a fight with actual cold and hunger.

It is not pleasant, mainly, because in such a struggle many a lonely claim is pitilessly set aside.  In the daily shifts of bare life, the tender words that bring tender acts are forgotten.  Gaunt looks, threadbare clothes, hard day-labor, sharp endurance of their children’s wants, made Sandy and Sallie Morrison often very hard to those to whom they once were very tender.

David had noticed it for many months.  He could see that Sallie counted grudgingly the few pennies he occasionally required.  His little newspaper business had been declining for some years; people took fewer papers, and some did not pay for those they did take.  He made little losses that were great ones to him, and Sallie had long been saying it would “be far better for father to give up the business to Jamie; he is now sixteen and bright enough to look after his own.”

This alternative David could not bear to think of; and yet all through the summer the fear had constantly been before him.  He knew how Sallie’s plans always ended; Sandy was sure to give into them sooner or later, and he wondered if into their minds had ever come the terrible thought which haunted his own—­would they commit him, then, to the care of public charities?

“We have no time to love each other,” he muttered, sadly, “and my bite and sup is hard to spare when there is not enough to go round.  I’ll speak to Sandy myself about it—­poor lad!  It will come hard on him to say the first word.”

The thought once realized began to take shape in his mind, and that night, contrary to his usual custom, he could not go to sleep.  Sandy came in early, and the children went wearily off to bed.  Then Sallie began to talk on the very subject which lay so heavy on his own heart, and he could tell from the tone of the conversation that it was one that had been discussed many times before.

“He only made bare expenses last week and there’s a loss of seventy cents this week already.  Oh, Sandy, Sandy! there is no use putting off what is sure to come.  Little Davie had to do without a drink of coffee to-night, and his bread, you know, comes off theirs at every meal.  It is very hard on us all!”

“I don’t think the children mind it, Sallie.  Every one of them loves the old man—­God bless him!  He was a good father to me.”

“I would love him, too, Sandy, if I did not see him eating my children’s bread.  And neither he nor they get enough.  Sandy, do take him down to-morrow, and tell him as you go the strait we are in.  He will be better off; he will get better food and every other comfort.  You must do it, Sandy; I can bear this no longer.”

“It’s getting near Christmas, Sallie.  Maybe he’ll get New Year’s presents enough to put things straight.  Last year they were nearly eighteen dollars, you know.”

“Don’t you see that Jamie could get that just as well?  Jamie can take the business and make something of it.  Father is letting it get worse and worse every week.  We should have one less to feed, and Jamie’s earnings besides.  Sandy, it has got to be!  Do it while we can make something by the step.”

“It is a mean, dastardly step, Sallie.  God will never forgive me if I take it,” and David could hear that his son’s voice trembled.

In fact, great tears were silently dropping from Sandy’s eyes, and his father knew it, and pitied him, and thanked God that the lad’s heart was yet so tender.  And after this he felt strangely calm, and dropped into a happy sleep.

In the morning he remembered all.  He had not heard the end of the argument, but he knew that Sallie would succeed; and he was neither astonished nor dismayed when Sandy came home in the middle of the day and asked him to “go down the avenue a bit.”

He had determined to speak first and spare Sandy the shame and the sorrow of it; but something would not let him do it.  In the first place, a singular lightness of heart came over him; he noticed all the gay preparations for Christmas, and the cries and bustle of the streets gave him a new sense of exhilaration.  Sandy fell almost unconsciously into his humor.  He had a few cents in his pocket, and he suddenly determined to go into a cheap restaurant and have a good warm meal with his father.

Davie was delighted at the proposal and gay as a child; old memories of days long past crowded into both men’s minds, and they ate and drank, and then wandered on almost happily.  Davie knew very well where they were going, but he determined now to put off saying a word until the last moment.  He had Sandy all to himself for this hour; they might never have such another; Davie was determined to take all the sweetness of it.

As they got lower down the avenue, Sandy became more and more silent; his eyes looked straight before him, but they were brimful of tears, and the smile with which he answered Davie’s pleasant prattle was almost more pitiful than tears.

At length they came in sight of a certain building, and Sandy gave a start and shook himself like a man waking out of a sleep.  His words were sharp, his voice almost like that of a man in mortal danger, as he turned Davie quickly round, and said: 

“We must go back now, father.  I will not go another step this road—­no, by heaven! though I die for it!”

“Just a little further, Sandy.”

And Davie’s thin, childlike face had an inquiry in it that Sandy very well understood.

“No, no, father, no further on this road, please God!”

Then he hailed a passing car, and put the old man tenderly in it, and resolutely turned his back upon the hated point to which he had been going.

Of course he thought of Sallie as they rode home, and the children and the trouble there was likely to be.  But somehow it seemed a light thing to him.  He could not helping nodding cheerfully now and then to the father whom he had so nearly lost; and, perhaps, never in all their lives had they been so precious to each other as when, hand-in-hand, they climbed the dark tenement stair together.

Before thy reached the door they heard Sallie push a chair aside hastily, and come to meet them.  She had been crying, too, and her very first words were, “Oh, father!’ I am so glad!—­so glad!”

She did not say what for, but Davie took her words very gratefully, and he made no remark, though he knew she went into debt at the grocery for the little extras with which she celebrated his return at supper.  He understood, however, that the danger was passed, and he went to sleep that night thanking God for the love that had stood so hard a trial and come out conqueror.

The next day life took up its dreary tasks again, but in Davie’s heart there was a strange presentiment of change, and it almost angered the poor, troubled, taxed wife to see him so thoughtlessly playing with the children.  But the memory of the wrong she had nursed against him still softened and humbled her, and when he came home after carrying round his papers, she made room for him at the stove, and brought him a cup of coffee and a bit of bread and bacon.

Davie’s eyes filled, and Sallie went away to avoid seeing them.  So then he took out a paper that he had left and began to read it as he ate and drank.

In a few minutes a sudden sharp cry escaped him.  He put the paper in his pocket, and, hastily resuming his old army cloak and Scotch bonnet, went out without a word to anyone.

The truth was that he had read a personal notice which greatly disturbed him.  It was to the effect that, “If David Morrison, who left Aberdeen in 18—­, was still alive, and would apply to Messrs. Morgan & Black, Wall street, he would hear of something to his advantage.”

His long-lost brother was the one thought in his heart.  He was going now to hear something about Sandy.

“He said ‘sure as death,’ and he would mind that promise at the last hour, if he forgot it before; so, if he could not come, he’d doubtless send, and this will be his message.  Poor Sandy! there was never a lad like him!”

When he reached Messrs. Morgan & Black’s, he was allowed to stand unnoticed by the stove a few minutes, and during them his spirits sank to their usual placid level.  At length some one said: 

“Well, old man, what do you want?”

“I am David Morrison, and I just came to see what you wanted.”

“Oh, you are David Morrison!  Good!  Go forward—­I think you will find out, then, what we want.”

He was not frightened, but the man’s manner displeased him, and, without answering, he walked toward the door indicated, and quietly opened it.

An old gentleman was standing with his back to the door, looking into the fire, and one rather younger, was writing steadily away at a desk.  The former never moved; the latter simply raised his head with an annoyed look, and motioned to Davie to close the door.

“I am David Morrison, sir.”

“Oh, Davie!  Davie!  And the old blue bonnet, too!  Oh, Davie!  Davie, lad!”

As for Davie, he was quite overcome.  With a cry of joy so keen that it was like a sob of pain, he fell fainting to the floor.  When he became conscious again he knew that he had been very ill, for there were two physicians by his side, and Sandy’s face was full of anguish and anxiety.

“He will do now, sir.  It was only the effect of a severe shock on a system too impoverished to bear it.  Give him a good meal and a glass of wine.”

Sandy was not long in following out this prescription, and during it what a confiding session these two hearts held!  Davie told his sad history in his own unselfish way, making little of all his sacrifices, and saying a great deal about his son Sandy, and Sandy’s girls and boys.

But the light in his brother’s eyes, and the tender glow of admiration with which he regarded the unconscious hero, showed that he understood pretty clearly the part that Davie had always taken.

“However, I am o’erpaid for every grief I ever had, Sandy,” said Davie, in conclusion, “since I have seen your face again, and you’re just handsomer than ever, and you eight years older than me, too.”

Yes, it was undeniable that Alexander Morrison was still a very handsome, hale old gentleman; but yet there was many a trace of labor and sorrow on his face; and he had known both.

For many years after he had left Davie, life had been a very hard battle to him.  During the first twenty years of their separation, indeed, Davie had perhaps been the better off, and the happier of the two.

When the war broke out, Sandy had enlisted early, and, like Davie, carried through all its chances and changes the hope of finding his brother.  Both of them had returned to their homes after the struggle equally hopeless and poor.

But during the last eleven years fortune had smiled on Sandy.  Some call of friendship for a dead comrade led him to a little Pennsylvania village, and while there he made a small speculation in oil, which was successful.  He resolved to stay there, rented his little Western farm, and went into the oil business.

“And I have saved thirty thousand dollars, hard cash, Davie.  Half of it is yours, and half mine.  See!  Fifteen thousand has been entered from time to time in your name.  I told you, Davie, that when I came back we would share dollar for dollar, and I would not touch a cent of your share no more than I would rob the United States Treasury.”

It was a part of Davie’s simple nature that he accepted it without any further protestation.  Instinctively he felt that it was the highest compliment he could pay his brother.  It was as if he said:  “I firmly believed the promise you made me more than forty years ago, and I firmly believe in the love and sincerity which this day redeems it.”  So Davie looked with a curious joyfulness at the vouchers which testified to fifteen thousand dollars lying in the Chemical Bank, New York, to the credit of David Morrison; and then he said, with almost the delight of a schoolboy: 

“And what will you do wi’ yours, Sandy?”

“I am going to buy a farm in New Jersey, Davie.  I was talking with Mr. Black about it this morning.  It will cost twelve thousand dollars, but the gentleman says it will be worth double that in a very few years.  I think that myself, Davie, for I went yesterday to take a good look at it.  It is never well to trust to other folks’ eyes, you know.”

“Then, Sandy, I’ll go shares wi’ you.  We’ll buy the farm together and we’ll live together—­that is, if you would like it.”

“What would I like better?”

“Maybe you have a wife, and then—­”

“No, I have no wife, Davie.  She died nearly thirty years ago.  I have no one but you.”

“And we will grow small fruits, and raise chickens and have the finest dairy in the State, Sandy.”

“That is just my idea, Davie.”

Thus they talked until the winter evening began to close in upon them, and then Davie recollected that his boy, Sandy, would be more than uneasy about him.

“I’ll not ask you there to-night, brother; I want them all to myself to-night.  ’Deed, I’ve been selfish enough to keep this good news from them so long.”

So, with a hand-shake that said what no words could say, the brothers parted, and Davie made haste to catch the next up-town car.  He thought they never had traveled so slowly; he was half inclined several times to get out and run home.

When he arrived there the little kitchen was dark, but there was a fire in the stove and wee Davie—­his namesake—­was sitting, half crying, before it.

The child lifted his little sorrowful face to his grandfather’s, and tried to smile as he made room for him in the warmest place.

“What’s the matter, Davie?”

“I have had a bad day, grandfather.  I did not sell my papers, and Jack Dacey gave me a beating besides; and—­and I really do think my toes are frozen off.”

Then Davie pulled the lad on to his knee, and whispered

“Oh, my wee man, you shall sell no more papers.  You shall have braw new clothes, and go to school every day of your life.  Whist! yonder comes mammy.”

Sallie came in with a worried look, which changed to one of reproach when she saw Davie.

“Oh, father, how could you stay abroad this way?  Sandy is fair daft about you, and is gone to the police stations, and I don’t know where—­”

Then she stopped, for Davie had come toward her, and there was such a new, strange look on his face that it terrified her, and she could only say:  “Father! father! what is it?”

“It is good news, Sallie.  My brother Sandy is come, and he has just given me fifteen thousand dollars; and there is a ten-dollar bill, dear lass, for we’ll have a grand supper to-night, please God.”

By and by they heard poor Sandy’s weary footsteps on the stair, and Sallie said: 

“Not a word, children.  Let grandfather tell your father.”

Davie went to meet him, and, before he spoke, Sandy saw, as Sallie had seen, that his father’s countenance was changed, and that something wonderful had happened.

“What is the matter, father?”

“Fifteen thousand dollars is the matter, my boy; and peace and comfort and plenty, and decent clothes and school for the children, and a happy home for us all in some nice country place.”

When Sandy heard this he kissed his father, and then covering his face with his hands, sobbed out: 

“Thank God! thank God!”

It was late that night before either the children or the elders could go to sleep.  Davie told them first of the farm that Sandy and he were going to buy together, and then he said to his son: 

“Now, my dear lad, what think you is best for Sallie and the children?”

“You say, father, that the village where you are going is likely to grow fast.”

“It is sure to grow.  Two lines of railroad will pass through it in a month.”

“Then I would like to open a carpenter’s shop there.  There will soon be work enough; and we will rent some nice little cottage, and the children can go to school, and it will be a new life for us all.  I have often dreamed of such a chance, but I never believed it would come true.”

But the dream came more than true.  In a few weeks Davie and his brother were settled in their new home, and in the adjoining village Alexander Morrison, junior, had opened a good carpenter and builder’s shop, and had begun to do very well.

Not far from it was the coziest of old stone houses, and over it Sallie presided.  It stood among great trees, and was surrounded by a fine fruit garden, and was prettily furnished throughout; besides which, and best of all, it was their own—­a New Year’s gift from the kindest of grandfathers and uncles.  People now have got well used to seeing the Brothers Morrison.

They are rarely met apart.  They go to market and to the city together.  What they buy they buy in unison, and every bill of sale they give bears both their names.  Sandy is the ruling spirit, but Davie never suspects, for Sandy invariably says to all propositions, “If my brother David agrees, I do,” or, “If brother David is satisfied, I have no more to say,” etc.

Some of the villagers have tried to persuade them that they must be lonely, but they know better than that.  Old men love a great deal of quiet and of gentle meandering retrospection; and David and Sandy have each of them forty years’ history to tell the other.  Then they are both very fond of young Sandy and the children.

Sandy’s projects and plans and building contracts are always well talked over at the farm before they are signed, and the children’s lessons and holidays, and even their new clothes, interest the two old men almost as much as they do Sallie.

As for Sallie, you would scarcely know her.  She is no longer cross with care and quarrelsome with hunger.  I always did believe that prosperity was good for the human soul, and Sallie Morrison proves the theory.  She has grown sweet tempered in its sunshine, is gentle and forbearing to her children, loving and grateful to her father-in-law, and her husband’s heart trusts in her.

Therefore let all those fortunate ones who are in prosperity give cheerfully to those who ask of them.  It will bring a ten-fold blessing on what remains, and the piece of silver sent out on its pleasant errand may happily touch the hand that shall bring the giver good fortune through all the years of life.