THE MOWING MACHINE WHICH WORKED ON SUNDAYS.
Few men, women, or children, would unblushingly acknowledge that they are prone to tell lies. A lie has an ugly look; it is a disgrace; it is a cowardly and sinful thing; and this every one agrees in. But there are numerous kinds of lies; and some of these touch us all more nearly than we are ready at first sight to believe. “A lie which is wholly a lie can be met with and
fought outright;
But a lie which is partly the truth is a harder
matter to fight.” So the poet Tennyson says; and his opinion ought to be worth something. And it is of a lie which was partly the truth that I'm going to speak now. Our village is, like many other villages in the northern counties of England, out-growing its name. Much smaller places are called “towns” in the south; with sessions-houses, and country banks, and sundry other glories. But our village is a village still, although its inhabitants number many thousands. Large factories are on its streets, and long rows of “villa residences” stand on its outskirts. Our old parson died not long ago. He was a kindly man, who had long been ailing in body and failing in mind. He was unfit to do any work for years before he died; yet we missed him when he was gone, and many tears fell upon the churchyard grass the day he was buried. The new parson is a contrast to him in every way. He has thick, black hair instead of the few lines of silver which were on dear old Mr. Langdon’s head. He has a clear ringing voice, and a brisk step, and he seems as if no work could tire him. He preaches in the streets on week-days; and he is always in the cottages, or in the lanes where the work-people loiter about after work-hours, speaking to all—to hardened drinking men, to weary women, to idle, thoughtless children—and bidding all come to the dear Saviour, who can alone make the sons of men happy and restful and satisfied. Of course, many may find fault with him. Some think him meddling with the affairs of others. Some say he has “opinions.” Some dislike him, and are offended at his words. But it appears to me that if the apostles Peter and Paul themselves were with us now, they would be found fault with in just the same way. The parson has his admirers too; and they are—some of them—as ill-judged and unwise as his enemies. They talk of him in terms of extravagant praise, and this only makes the other party more bitter against him. Curiously enough, it was from one of the staunchest of his friends that this story about him took its rise, as follows. A family party were sitting round the tea-table discussing the events of a late call at the vicarage. “How fond the vicar is of his garden, to be sure!” said one. “He came in all hot and flushed from digging and working there himself. I wonder he doesn’t keep a man-servant to attend to it, and to do other odd jobs. Mr. Langdon did.” “Yes, but Mr. Langdon had private property, and this vicar has only his living,” said Mr. White, the father of the family. “And he gives so much away,” added Mrs. White, in an admiring tone. “If he does not keep a man he keeps a mowing machine. We saw it at work; didn’t we, Mary?” said the eldest of the young people, turning to her sister. “Don’t you remember it, Mary? It was at work on the little strip of lawn at the side-door. Don’t you remember?” “Ah, yes;” and Mary laughed as she replied, “of course I remember. A large mowing machine too; and would you believe it, mamma?—it works on Sundays!” “Nonsense, Mary,” said Mr. White. “Don’t say such a silly thing.” “But it is true, papa,” said Mary, laughing still; and her sister agreed with her. “That I will never believe,” declared Mrs. White. “However fond the vicar may be of his garden and his flowers, he would never break the Sabbath in such a way as that; he is far too sincere and too good a man!” How it got about the parish nobody ever could tell, but certainly a few days after this little conversation at the White’s tea-table, all the world of our village was talking of the vicar’s mowing machine that was kept going on Sundays! “I don’t blame him,” said Timothy Rye,187the leader of much of the ruffianism of the place. “I don’t blame him. If he chooses to work on Sundays, why shouldn’t he? ’Tis a free country.” “But I do blame him,” said John Bonner, Timothy’s chosen companion. “Why should he come preaching and jawing at us, making out that he is so good and we are so bad, when all the time he does exactly as we do, when the doors are locked and he thinks no one can see him? He’s a humbug, that’s about what he is!” And so the talk went on. And the “fact” of the Sunday mowing told very heavily against the parson. Little Johnnie Simms said he listened outside the vicarage gate on Sunday afternoon after service, and he could distinctly hear the whirring of the wheels of the machine; and Polly Simms, his cousin, said she could catch a glimpse of the vicar working away in his shirt-sleeves! One Sabbath evening the parson was crossing the street to the church, and he paused by a knot of idle men who were leaning against the wall. “Come in, my friends,” he said, cheerfully, pointing at the open door of the building. “Come in! It is now, in the time of our health and strength, that we should remember our good Father in Heaven.” No one answered him in words, but John Bonner burst into a scornful laugh as the parson moved away. “What makes them so rude, I wonder?” said the vicar, half to himself and half to the clerk who walked beside him. He sighed heavily as he spoke; for it was very discouraging to him to meet with such conduct from men for whose souls he toiled and prayed. He expected no answer, but the clerk said hesitatingly, “Please, sir, I think a great deal of it is owing to that mowing machine!” “That what?” said the vicar, stopping short in his astonishment. “Your mowing machine, sir,” the clerk replied, in a firmer tone; for he had heard and believed in the parson’s Sabbath-breaking, and it “riled him to hear him attempt to throw dust in his eyes,” as he said afterwards. The vicar shook his head. “I don’t understand you,” he said; “but it is service time now. Come to me this evening and explain.” But there was nothing to explain, the clerk thought. The people were surprised at the parson’s talking so much about keeping holy the Sunday while he broke it himself for the sake of his garden. That was all the clerk could tell; and it didn’t want much explanation. “But I haven’t such a thing as a mowing machine belonging to me!” said the vicar. “And as for working in my garden on Sundays, why, I have no time to pull up half a dozen weeds on that day, even if I wished to do so, and that you know yourself, Jacobs.” The clerk looked grave. It wasn’t for him to judge, he said; and then he began to put away the books, and leave the vestry in order. The vicar was perfectly perplexed. He made inquiries, but no one could or would tell him more than the clerk had done. At last somebody said, “It was certain that the parson had a mowing machine, for Johnnie Simms had heard it, and the Misses White had seen it.” A light broke over the vicar’s mind. “The Misses White!” he cried. “Oh, I remember now!” If no one could tell how the story got about the village, no one could tell either how the explanation of it all was made public. The vicar never took the trouble to contradict one word besides that first contradiction which he had given to the clerk. But somehow it soon became known to everybody that the whole thing was a joke between Miss White and her sister. They had called at the vicarage and seen a little red calf cropping the grass on the lawn; a poor little sick calf of Farmer Golding’s, which the parson had taken in to let it eat his short, sweet grass. Its small hoofs did the lawn no harm, and as it munched away the parson had smilingly said to Miss White that it was his “mowing machine.” This was the cause of the whole scandal. This was what had kept the gossips busy in every street of our village. I had helped them. I say it with shame, that I too had wondered and speculated about our vicar’s conduct. Oh, I will try not to be a “gossip” after the olden fashion! I will not be like those who “spend their time in nothing else, but either to tell or hear some new thing.” I will pray David’s prayer: “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips!” And if people repeat some unkind, ill-natured “fact” about my neighbors, I will remember the story of our new parson’s mowing machine.—Tract Magazine.