The Twins’ Dark Birthday.
By Ella A. Drinkwater
It was the morning of the twins’ tenth birthday, May 19, 1780, and they were sitting together on the door-stone finishing their breakfast of porridge and milk, into which a spoonful of molasses had been stirred in honor of this anniversary. “Grandsir’” was dozing in the chimney corner in the large kitchen behind them; their mother sat close to the eastern window spinning thread for Paul’s coat; Keturah, the maid, was in the pantry skimming milk; Oliver, the man, was in the field plowing; and their father was in the army, fighting bravely and hopefully. The children had blue eyes and straw-colored hair of the same shade, and when they stood up against the kitchen door to be measured, one mark always served for both of them; but here the resemblance ended, for Patience was strong and rosy, while Paul was weak and pale. “It rained a little this morning,” said Paul, tasting his porridge with his pewter spoon, “and it thundered before I was awake.” “How did you know it when you were asleep?” asked Patience, showing the dimples in both cheeks. “I felt it,” answered Paul. “What made us sleep so late this morning, do you suppose?” “It must be early,” replied Patience, glancing up at the cloudy sky. “The sun hasn’t risen yet, and the clock must be wrong,” turning to look at the tall clock in the corner of the kitchen, whose hands pointed to a quarter of nine. Suddenly there was an exclamation from the pantry and the sound of breaking earthenware. “I thought the grandsir’ had set himself afire again,” cried Keturah, running to the old man’s chair, “I smelt fire so strong; and I turned and dropped the milk-dish.” “There is a strange, smoky smell, and grandsir’ is unusually drowsy this morning. I wish we could have a good heavy shower to clear the atmosphere; for I want to finish Paul’s coat to-day, and I can scarcely see to sew now. Just run out and turn the linen on the grass, children; I want it to be nice and white, for when it is bleached I shall make it into shirts for your father, though the war may be over and he at home before that time, please God.” Leaving their wooden bowls on the door-stone, the children ran across the damp grass. “It is all smutty and dirty,” cried Patience, lifting up one end of the long piece of linen. “So it is,” replied Paul, bending over it. “It looks as if some one had brushed down the chimney back and then shaken the brush over the linen. Keturah will have to wash it.” “Keturah! Keturah! Come and look, Keturah!” they called. Keturah came and looked at the soiled linen, then she rubbed it in her fingers and smelled of it, and then she looked straight up into the clouds. “It rained down,” she declared; “there’s been woods afire, and the rain was full of burnt leaves. That must be why the sun has been so red for two or three days, and why he shows himself so little to-day.” Running to the barrel of rainwater at the end of the house, she dipped her large, red hand into the water. “Just the same,” she muttered, smelling of it. “Curious! curious!” “What makes the birds twitter so?” asked Patience. “See! they are all flying to the woods and singing just as they do at night. And hear how the roosters are crowing!” “Perhaps they think it will rain,” returned Keturah, glancing at the clouds with a startled face. “The clouds are breaking away, but it don’t get any lighter. I wonder what your marm thinks now.” “How green the grass looks!” exclaimed Paul. “Green!” repeated Patience; “why, it’s as blue as blue can be.” “As blue as indigo,” added Keturah, perplexed. “What crooked eyes you both have!” cried Paul. “O mother, how does the grass look to you?” he asked, as the mother came to the door with a grave face. “A most beautiful green,” she answered. “I never saw anything more lovely; but in the corners it has a bluish appearance; it is very strange when there is so little light. But run down the lane, children, and see what ails the sheep; they are bleating as if they were in trouble.” “Take hold of my hand if you want to,” invited Paul; and, afraid, they knew not why, they clasped hands and ran toward the meadow bars. “The hens are going to roost,” said Paul, as they passed the hen-house. “They never went to roost in the morning before.” “Hurry!” cried Patience. “The cows are lowing as if they wanted to be milked.” At the bars they found an impatient group; the cows were trying to jump over the stone wall, and the sheep were huddled together bleating piteously. “Perhaps they got frightened by bears,” suggested Patience. “Then I’ll open the bars,” said Paul, beginning to draw aside the heavy rails. “Stand back, Patty.” Patience had scarcely time to obey his caution before the cows rushed past her, closely followed by the frightened sheep. “I’ll leave the bars open,” decided Paul, “because it tires me to put them up, and Oliver is coming this way with the oxen. I wonder if he thinks it is dinner-time? Nobody blew the horn for him.” “They are going right straight into their pen,” announced Patience, looking after the hurrying sheep, “and the cows have gone into their shed. And oh how dark it grows! Let us run!”198 At the door they found their mother watching for them, and when they entered the kitchen they saw Keturah lighting a candle at the fireplace. “When I couldn’t see to read the almanac in the forenoon, in a room with two winders, I thought it was proper time to light a candle,” she observed, as she straightened herself. “And now I’ll have my supper and go to bed,” the great-grandfather said sleepily, rubbing his eyes with his trembling fingers. “But it is only the forenoon, grandsir’,” explained Patience, standing at his side and shouting into his ear, “and we are to have Indian dumplings boiled in the pot for dinner. We only light the candle because a thunder-shower is coming up, and that makes the day so dark,” she added, looking into her mother’s face for confirmation to her words. “I do not know what it is, child,” answered the mother, “but God will take care of us, whatever it is.” “A dark day?” inquired the great-grandfather, with his hand up to his ear. “I re-mem-ber all about—that—that—hap-pened in—the year—seven-teen—hundred—and—sixteen. We did not—know—what it was—dark—dark—all day. Never—knew—what it was. Never knew—what it was,” he repeated, sinking back in his chair and closing his eyes. “What’s that?” asked Paul, as several small objects were apparently thrown in at the door. “’Tis the day of judgment of ungodly men come at last,” howled Keturah, dropping down on the hearth-rug and covering her face with her apron. “Only some poor little sparrows,” said the mother, picking them up from the floor. “Poor little things,” echoed Patience, receiving them in her pinafore. “Three are dead,” she said, touching them tenderly; “but these two have their hearts beating. Oh how fast they do beat!” “It is a bad omen for birds to come in the house. They never come to do nobody no good. Oh, lawk! we shall all be swallowed up,” groaned Keturah. “Not by the birds,” smiled the mother. “Lay the dead ones in the grass, Paul, and put the others in a warm, quiet place where they can revive. They were attracted by the light.” Dropping the dead birds on the grass near the door-stone, Paul gave a hasty glance around; all out-of-doors was quiet and dark and solemn, the lights that were beginning to gleam here and there in the neighboring farm-houses appearing strangest of all. “We are all bewitched together,” declared Oliver, entering the kitchen behind Paul, and closing the door as if something frightful were following him. “I don’t know whether I’m in this world or the next, and may the Lord have mercy on my poor soul.” “Sit down and rest, Oliver,” said the mother, motioning him to the settee in the chimney corner. “The sun will shine brightly to-morrow, I trust. This darkness is only caused by a peculiar state of the atmosphere.” “A very peculiar state of the atmosphere, marm,” repeated Oliver, wiping the cold perspiration from his face. “Most days, in the mornings the shadders fall to the west, and in the afternoons they fall to the east; but to-day the shadders fell every way, and that’s what scared me first, to have natur’ turn agin me so. And then the mist riz straight up out of the springs and spread in a big red cloud, and then another lot of mist riz right up under that and made a green cloud, and then another white cloud came out of them same springs, and they all sailed off together, one on top the other, to the west, and finally got mixed up with the dark clouds.” “Very strange and beautiful,” commented the mother, unrolling the cloth of her own weaving upon the table, and proceeding to cut out Paul’s coat with her sharp shears. “Strange enough, as you may say, marm,” continued Oliver, his uneasiness lessening in the importance of the wonderful story he had to tell. “And Eben Strong he came along on horseback, and he said a mountain has grown up betwixt us and the sun, and we shall always live in the dark. And Seth Rider told him he thought the British has smashed us all up, and this is the sign of it. And some folks do say,” lowering his voice, “that General Washington is dead.” “Now you are sorry, Oliver, that you wished General Gates had General Washington’s command,” said Paul reproachfully. “Well, some folks did think so,” excused Oliver. “That Burgoyne’s surrender was a big thing for him; but I guess that General Washington will do just about right, after all.” “I should think he would,” cried Paul. “He is the greatest man and the best that ever lived.” “Excepting our father,” corrected Patience, who thought that she would have been a British subject long before this if her father had not fought so well. “Well, well, I’ll go and look after the cattle,” said Oliver, rising to light the lantern. “You’ll not expect a man to plow on such a day as this, marm.” “Certainly not,” replied the mother; “do whatever you like. I think you will feel happier to be employed, and you will not have time for evil forebodings. When the Lord comes, I wish to be doing my duty.” “So do I. So do I,” repeated Oliver, going out into the twilight. “I want the Lord to think well of me,” whimpered Keturah, drawing the apron away from her face, “but I tremble so I can’t do anything. I never heard of the like of this.” “The dark can’t hurt us,” declared Paul, “for grandsir’ is all safe, and he lived through a dark day. So be a good woman, Keturah, and make the dumplings.” “I thought you children intended to learn a couple of Bible verses for your birthday,” said their mother suggestively. “So we do,” answered Paul, taking the large Bible from the stand in the corner, feeling sure that no harm could come to him while holding this book. Seated together near the tall candle on the table, with the Bible open between them, grandsir’ in his corner, Keturah peeling vegetables, and their mother cutting and fitting the little coat, the children ceased to feel that anything unusual was occurring; only when they glanced out of the window or up at the clock did a shivering fear creep over them, and then they drew nearer together and clasped the edges of the book more firmly. “Here is just what we want,” cried Paul, “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. Now this means that it will be as light as can be, Patty,” he explained. “God knew that it would be dark to-day, and so he wrote this to tell us that the sun will shine, and we need not be afraid. Is that right, mother?” “I think he will allow you to take the comfort of it in that way,” she replied, after an instant’s hesitation. “It means something more than that to me.” So the children softly repeated the words over and over again until the coat was cut and basted, and the dinner was all ready. Oliver assisted the great-grandfather to his place at the table, and they all bowed their heads while he asked a tremulous blessing, then the mother helped them to the stew from the large blue platter, and the dinner hour passed just as usual; but just as they were rising from the table, a torch flashed past the windows and a loud rap sounded upon the outer door. “The day of doom has come!” shrieked Keturah, hiding her face in her lap. “It is one of the neighbors,” said the mother. “Open the door, Paul.” With trembling fingers Paul admitted Seth Rider. “Are you all prepared to die?” asked the young man, setting his torch in the chimney corner. “Sit down, Seth,” invited the mother, placing a chair for him. “I think we are no nearer death than we are every day.” “Other folks think different,” answered Seth in surprise. “Everybody’s crowding into the meeting-house, where they couldn’t see each other’s faces but for the candles, and Parson Smith he had prayed an hour when I left, about Pharaoh, and Judas, and Jezebel; but I thought I’d come and see how you folks was getting along, and perhaps you’d like to go to the meeting-house. The men are shaking and groaning, and the women are crying and fainting, and the young ones are bawling.” “I think I shall stay at home and do the duty of to-day,” replied the mother. “If the world does not come to an end, Paul will need his coat; and if the world does come to an end to-day, I wish the Lord to find me doing the duty he has set for me; and besides, I do not know how to faint.” “I wish I felt as you do,” said Seth, admiringly; “but just come to the door and see how things looks. This is the darkest spell of all.” Leaving grandsir’ nodding over his plate, all hastened to the door while Seth stood upon the door-stone holding his torch high above his head. The clouds were thinnest at the north; at the north-east they were very thick, and so low that the hills only half a mile away could not be seen; but the south-westerly hills near where the children’s aunt Esther lived, twenty miles away, could be plainly seen, although the spaces between were so dark that the grass could not be distinguished from the trees. All the clouds were in motion, hurrying one over the other, seeming to form three layers, the lower one being of a peculiar brassy hue. “See the rainbow!” cried Patience, pointing to a faint red light in the clouds twenty or thirty feet above their heads. “It may be the reflection of your torch, Seth,” said the mother; “just place it behind the door.” “That is just it,” acknowledged Seth, after trying the experiment several times. “Now what kind of a sign do you make of that?” “It means that the clouds are damp, and so they reflect the light of your torch just as they do the sun when there is a rainbow. How many wonderful things we shall learn to-day.” “Well, I’ll go back and tell the folks there is one woman with a clear conscience, who isn’t afraid to live or die,” said Seth, stepping into the path. “I paid folks all I owed them this morning, and I asked Eben Grey to forgive me, too; so I hope the Almighty will remember me in mercy.” For a moment they stood watching Seth as he walked down the road, stopping now and then to gaze up at the reflection that was following him. “I’ve—had—my—sup—per—and—now—I’ll—go—to bed,” the great-grandfather was saying when they entered the kitchen, and as he would not be persuaded that it was day-time, Oliver helped him to bed in one of the small rooms off the kitchen. Rather more carefully than usual Patience began to wash the dishes; Paul fed the sparrows in his father’s old hat in the corner of the settle; the mother stitched and pressed the seams of Paul’s coat; Keturah was induced to make preparation for the morrow’s baking, and Oliver brought in several rakes to mend, saying apologetically, “I can always work best when folks is around.” At three o’clock, as Oliver was going out with the mended rakes, he called them all to the door, and there they saw the outline of the sun, pale and shadowy. “Arise, shine; for thy light is come!” cried Paul, jumping up and down. “The Bible said so! The Bible said so!” “Yes, the sun is going on his appointed way,” the mother said with great relief, “and it is not as dark as it has been. As the moon is nearly full to-night, we shall probably see that as usual.” But while she spoke the ghostly sun disappeared. “Never mind,” comforted Paul, trying to swallow the queer feeling in his throat, “for we know now that the sun is going right on; and, O mother, may we sit up and see the moon?”199 “I think you may,” promised the mother; “now come in and begin the samplers that you have been talking about so long.” Delicate little Paul never thought of being ashamed of doing “girl’s work,” and they were soon delightfully busy in selecting the bright worsted and beginning to mark their names, and the date, with the Bible verses they had learned that day. At supper time it was almost as dark as it had been at noon, but as soon as their bread and milk was eaten, the children stationed themselves at the window to watch the moon. “The moon rises at nine o’clock,” announced Keturah, looking up from the almanac. “Oh!” cried both the children. “You might say your hymns to me,” proposed the mother; “that will make the time pass quickly.” Turning disappointedly from the window, the children drew their stools beside their mother on the hearth-rug; they repeated all the hymns and Bible verses they knew, ending by kneeling together at their mother’s knee to pray the little prayer that their great-grandmother had learned in the far-away English home. “It is darker than ever,” said Paul, running to the window. “And, oh, see the lights!” A number of people with torches and lanterns were passing on their way to the meeting-house. “Go with them, Keturah, if you will feel any better,” advised the mother. “I don’t want to see nobody that is more afraid than I be,” sobbed Keturah. But, in spite of their anxious, impatient watching, it grew so dark that Oliver could not see his hand before his face when he stepped out of doors at nine o’clock. Earth and sky appeared to be swallowed up in blackness of darkness. “We shall not see the moon until to-morrow night, children,” said the mother; “so go you to bed and I will call you when the sun rises.” The darkness was not frightful at night, for it was often dark at night; so the weary, excited children fell asleep peacefully, sure that God and their mother would take care of them. The next sound that Patience heard was Paul’s voice calling her, and she opened her eyes to find the room full of light. Running to the window she saw the sun rising gloriously from a bed of scarlet and crimson clouds, causing all the dew-drops in grass and shrubs to twinkle like stars. The roosters were crowing, the hens cackling; the sheep were scampering down the lane to the meadow; Oliver was whistling as he watered the oxen, and Keturah was humming a psalm-tune while she heated the oven for baking. Grandsir’ stood on the door-stone with bared head and a pleased smile on his childish face, and when she met her mother she received from her a rare kiss and the counsel, “Always trust the Lord, my child.” And now, when another little Paul and Patience coax their grandma for a story, the most wonderful one that she can tell them is about the dark birthday of herself and brother Paul.—Ella A. Drinkwater, in Christian Union.