Dr. Lavendar

“ Yet as he sat there, peering out over the top of the apron and making, heavily, those plans familiar to every clergyman, Dr. Lavendar did not really believe that the plans were for Johnny. The snow fell with noiseless steadiness; the top of the buggy was white; thimbles of down heaped themselves on the hubs, tumbling off when the horse moved restlessly a step forward or backed a little and stamped. Suddenly Goliath shook himself, for the snow was cold upon his shaggy back, and the harness clattered and the shafts rattled. Dr. Lavendar drew a long breath. ”

“ Lavendar broke out so fiercely that Danny squeaked and jumped down out of the chair. "Upon my word; upon my word, Spangler, what were you thinking of to let it go on? If I had been at home, it would never—upon my word!" This was one of the times that Dr. Lavendar felt the limitations of his office in regard to language. Mr. Spangler, his elbows on his knees, his chin on hands, was staring miserably at the floor.
"I shall, I trust, meet it in the proper spirit," he said.
Dr. Lavendar nodded. "Of course," he said. "Fortunately, she is dealing with a man who has backbone—perhaps." ”

“ It brightened so much that by the time they reached Old Chester he was as joyously excited about the party as was Miss Lydia herself, who made him a thousand confidences about her dress and her presents and the food which would be offered to her guests. His joyousness had not abated when, the next morning, Mrs. Barkley presented herself, breathless, at the Rectory.
"I think," said she, in an awful bass, sitting up very straight and glaring at Dr. Lavendar, "that this is the most terrible thing that ever happened."
"There are worse things," said Dr. Lavendar. ”

“ Lavendar? We thought it best to part. But—" She stopped and looked at the picture, and a little color came into her face. But in another moment she was chattering her birdlike questions.
"I declare," Dr. Lavendar said, at last, "you are the youngest person of my acquaintance."
Miss Lydia laughed. "I hope you don't think it's wrong to be young?" she said.
"Wrong?" said Dr. Lavendar; "it's wrong not to be young. I'd be ashamed not to be young. My body's old, but that's not my fault. I'm not to blame for an old body, but I would be to blame for an old soul. An old soul is a shameful thing. ”

“ Lavendar, "is that you make people think about their insides. It's stomachs with Willy and souls with you. Nobody ought to know that they have a stomach or a soul. I don't. A tree don't. And there isn't an oak in Old Chester that isn't pleasanter than Mrs. Drayton. Yet she's always fussing about her insides—spiritual and material."
"It's when you don't have 'em that you fuss," Dr. Lavendar said; "the trouble isn't too much soul, it's too little. And I guess it's the same with stomachs."
"Then you say Mrs. Drayton has no soul?" Miss Harriet said, pleasantly. ”

“ I'm always business-like myself; and that little matter of accommodation—"
Dr. Lavendar stared at him. "I am afraid I'm a stupid old fellow; I don't understand."
The stage-driver gathered up his reins; Miss Lydia nodded joyously on the back seat, the two other passengers frowned at the delay; so William Rives made haste to explain: "Merely, sir, the stamp I had the pleasure of lending you. But pray don't incommode yourself; I merely remind you; it's of no—"
Dr. Lavendar pulled out his shabby leather pocket-book, his hands fairly trembling with haste, and produced the stamp ”

“ Alice bent over a paper, which John Carter had read aloud to her, and signed her name. Luther and Rebecca and Dr. Lavendar witnessed the signature. Then Rebecca Gray took the girl in her arms.
"That young man has got something to him," Mr. Amos Hughes said, as they went back to the Rectory.
"If you could put some printing in his way, it would be a favor to me," said Dr. Lavendar.
"I shouldn't wonder if I could," the lawyer said.
"The girl is a fine creature, poor child," said Mr. Carter. ”

“ As for David, she paid no attention to him except to remark that she supposed time didn't count with him. But her bushy eyebrows twitched in a kindly smile when she said it. Then she began to talk about Dr. Lavendar's health. "It is a great trial to have him away," she said. "Dear me! I don't know what we will do when the Lord takes him. I wish he might live forever. Clergymen are a poor lot nowadays."
"Why, I heard," said Mrs. Smily, "that he didn't give entire satisfaction."
"What!" cried Mrs. Barkley. "Who has been talking nonsense to you? Some of the new people, I'll be bound." ”

“ Drayton," interrupted Dr. Lavendar; "and as for your question about the unpardonable sin, ma'am, why, just be ready to forgive other folks and you needn't be afraid of the unpardonable sin for yourself."
He took his hat and stick and went thumping down-stairs. In the hall he met William King going up to see the invalid, and said, with a gasp: "Willy, my boy, a good, honest murderer is easier to deal with than some milder kinds of wrong-doing."
"Dr. Lavendar," said William, "I'd rather have a patient with small-pox than treat some lighter ills that I could name." ”

“ Lavendar went plodding up the printing-office stairs the next morning. Luther, emerging from behind a press, brightened at the sight of his caller, and ushered him into a small closet which he called his private office; and when Dr. Lavendar asked him to print some more missionary-meeting notices, he said he would put them in at cost price.
"Don't you do it!" said Dr. Lavendar, thumping the floor with his umbrella. "Look here; I'll have to teach you the first principles of business: make your profit—and don't go to 'pauperizing the Church,' sir. ”

“ Lavendar said nothing.
"It is a cruel situation," said Mr. Spangler.
Dr. Lavendar looked down at his pipe.
There was a long silence. Augustus Spangler walked back and forth. Dr. Lavendar said never a word.
"A man must consider his own fitness for such a position," Mr. Spangler said, pleadingly.
"Perhaps," Dr. Lavendar observed, mildly, "Ellen's affections are not very deeply engaged? It will be better so."
"But they are!" cried Mr. Spangler. "I assure you that they are! And I—I was so happy," said the poor man; and sniffed suddenly, and tried to find the pocket in his coat-tails. ”

“ Lavendar, scenting a customer, was about to withdraw—"an advertisement in a New York paper, requesting information of a certain person—"
"What!" cried Luther. "I had forgotten all about it."
"My name is Carter. I am from the office of Mr. Amos Hughes. Messrs. Pritchett, Carver, and Pritchett, Solicitors at Law, of London, are our principals. The advertisement was in relation to a person called Alys Winton."
Luther, stumbling in his astonishment over his words, began to explain. "Mrs. Gray is dead," he ended. "And Alice is her daughter; isn't she, Dr. Lavendar? ”

“ Willy King doesn't know everything. These doctors are too confoundedly ready to send a man away from home. I should have been just as well off in Old Chester. Be sure and destroy that signature."
Dr. Lavendar read this letter joyfully, but without surprise. "I'm glad he didn't take my advice and let it go on any longer," he said to himself; "I guess I'll risk the effect on Algy now."
Then he wondered if there would be any danger of meeting Alex if he went up to the house right after dinner. "I can't manage it this morning," he said to himself. "I've got to go and see Mrs. Drayton. ”

“ William, what are you talking about? We are every one of us richer for it. I told her so yesterday."
"Well," said William King, thoughtfully, "perhaps so; in this case we are richer, I admit. But suppose it were a baby that was suffering—or a dog? Only, we wouldn't let the dog suffer. Dr. Lavendar, one of these days—you and I won't live to see it, but one of these days—"
"There is Miss Annie now," said Dr. Lavendar. "Why—look at her!" ”

“ He does it to stop my birds from singing; he can't fool me! To stop my birds!" He went over to one of the windows and pushed the shutters open with a clatter; instantly a twitter ran from cage to cage, and the fierce melancholy of his old face softened. "Hear that?" he said proudly.
"I ought to come oftener," Dr. Lavendar reproached himself; "he's lonely."
And, indeed, the room with its mammoth sideboard black with age and its solitary chair at one end of the long table, was lonely enough. ”

“ Milly looked anxiously sympathetic.
"I don't know what is going to become of him," Thomas went on. "When you come to provide for three out of the hardware business, nobody gets very much."
Mrs. Dilworth was silent.
"I was talking about him to Dr. Lavendar yesterday, and he said: 'Oh, he'll fall in love one of these days, and he'll see that fiddling won't buy his wife her shoe-strings; then he'll take to the hardware business,' Dr. Lavendar said. It's all very well to talk about his falling in love and taking to business; but if he falls in love, I'll have another mouth to fill. ”

“ Thus she stood always a little aside, watching and loving, and wondering sometimes in her simple way; but often suffering, as people with no sense of humor are apt to suffer. Dear, dull, gentle Milly! No one could remember a harsh word of hers, or mean deed, or a little judgment. No wonder Dr. Lavendar felt confident that there would be no thistles in her household.
Thomas Dilworth had the same comfortable conviction, especially in regard to his girls. ”

“ As soon as she got dead I opened the windows and let the air blow in; she likes the wind when she isn't hurt."
William King said, suddenly, "My God!" and turned and ran up the path, into the house, into the room, where, indeed, there was no more hurting.
"Annie," Dr. Lavendar said, "were you with her?"
"Yes," Miss Annie said. "Harriet was hurt very much. But when she smelled her bottle she stopped being hurt." ”

“ But for once Miss Annie would not be diverted:
"Harriet wants to go out-of-doors, and she can't. And she is hurt; and Willy King won't give her sugar in a paper to stop the hurting. He is wicked."
"By-and-by," said Dr. Lavendar, "Harriet will fall asleep and not be hurt any more."
"Not till she is dead," Miss Annie said; "Augustine told me so."
"I meant that," Dr. Lavendar said, stroking the poor, gray head grovelling against his knee.
"Then why didn't you say so? It is a story to say sleep when you mean dead." ”

“ A mortal paleness on thy cheek,
But glory in thy soul!"
William, reading it, had remarked that he thought people lived longer nowadays. "Don't you?" he added, anxiously.
"We live long enough," Miss Lydia said. "I don't want to live too long."
"You can't live too long," he told her, with his sharp smile.
Miss Lydia laughed and looked down at the crumbling stone. "I think sixty-eight was just about long enough. I'm like Dr. Lavendar; he says he 'wants to get up from the banquet of life still hungry.' That's the way I feel. ”

“ Lavendar," said William King, "some time when Goliath is doing his 2.40 on a plank road, don't you want to pull him up at that house on the Perryville pike where the Grays used to live, and make a call? An old fellow called Roberts has taken it; he is a—"
"Teach your grandmother," said Dr. Lavendar; "he is an Irvingite. He comes from Lower Ripple, down on the Ohio, and he has a daughter, Philippa."
"Oh," said Dr. King, "you know 'em, do you?"
"Know them? Of course I know them! Do you think you are the only man who tries to enlarge his business? ”

“ So much Old Chester knew the day after Mary Gordon's wedding. And it naturally sought to know a little more.
"I suppose her father feels it very much?" ventured Mrs. Barkley to Dr. Lavendar.
"Any man feels the marriage of his only girl," said Dr. Lavendar, briefly. And Mrs. Barkley held her tongue. But Mrs. Drayton, who was just then anxious about her soul and found it necessary to consult Dr. Lavendar as to the unpardonable sin—Mrs. Drayton was not so easily squelched. ”

“ Lavendar," Philippa said to her father.
"I am obliged to Mr. Fenn," her father said to Philippa. "The youth," he added, "cares for my soul. I am obliged to any one who cares for my soul."
He was, indeed, as Dr. Lavendar said, a man of humble mind; and yet with his humbleness was a serene certainty of belief as to his soul's welfare that would have been impossible to John Fenn, who measured every man's chance of salvation by his own theological yardstick, or even to Dr. Lavendar, who thought salvation unmeasurable. But then neither of these two ministers had had Henry Roberts's experience. ”

“ I shall feel," said Dr. Lavendar, with a rueful chuckle, "as if I had lost a tooth! That is about as omnipresent sense of loss as a human critter can have. But I can't see that that is any reason for not letting you take him."
"You are very kind," she murmured.
"Where are you going, and when do you go?" he asked, easily; but he glanced at those shaking hands.
"I want to go next week. I—oh, Dr. Lavendar! I want David; I am sure
nobody can do more for him than I can. Nobody can love him as I do! And
I think he would be pretty homesick for me, too, if I did not take him.
But—"
"Yes?" ”

“ Dr. Lavendar said. "They mean the old friendship for Mary. Mrs. King sent them. She's our doctor's wife in Old Chester. She always liked Mary."
"I don't see how she could help it," Algy said, his face crumpling with tears. "Well, she was a good girl. And she was a good wife, sir, too. I tell you, you never saw a better wife. I used to come home tired, and there'd be my slippers out for me. Yes, sir; she never missed it. And she was always pleasant, too; you mayn't call just being pleasant, religion, but I—"
"I do," Dr. Lavendar interposed. ”