p. 44 | Shall We Hire Hands Who Smoke?

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 15, 1885

Shall We Hire Hands Who Smoke?

By Mrs. M. Stratton Beers

JAMES ELLISON looked sullen and glum; it was evident to all who knew him that something had gone contrary to his liking. His wife, good, patient, cheery soul, sat darning the week's stockings one by one, humming snatches of hymns at first, as was always her wont of an evening, while her husband dozed, and the children read or conned their lessons; but tonight she soon grew silent, and cast ever and anon an uneasy glance over at the "gude mon," who sat, moody and silent, gazing at the fire, never venturing a single word.

The children, finishing their lessons for the next school day, went silently out of the room without the usual good-nights being said; decidedly the state of the domestic atmosphere that evening was as unpleasant as it was unusual. Something was wrong between "father and mother;" this was evident, but what it could be not one of them knew or could guess.

At the head of the stairs the three elder children discussed the matter, but could arrive at no decision whatever; never in all their recollection had anything come up between their parents; between them there had ever appeared to be a perfect understanding, and Dora, the eldest born—the sister-mother to all those who had come trooping after—leaned her head on the stair-railing and cried.

"Pshaw!" Norman said, with all the wisdom and emphasis which usually attaches to the boy of fifteen, "Dora, you are a perfect goose to cry about it; I tell you pa's and ma's heads are tolerably level, and whatever has gone wrong they will very soon make all right between themselves. My! but wasn't I thankful I listened to you and didn't go with the Ward and Finell boys stealing Deacon Phillip's water-melons? If I'd gone, it would have taken me just one-half minute to determine, to my perfect satisfaction, what particular thing it was that clouded father's brow, and silenced mother's singing, and wouldn't I have trembled in my boots? If you did but know it, that father of ours can just raise a fellow's hair when his dander is up."

Dora, finding no great consolation in all this, sobbed on, so Norman rattled on: "Sis, you ought to be brave; surely your conscience is clear; tell you what, when I am all right in that direction, it takes a good deal to worry me. Come now, don't never cry [Norman hated grammar] unless your conscience nips you. Can't be, sis, you are at the bottom of all this? haven't been clandestinely walking or talking or riding with the new school-master or anybody, and ma sides in with you, and pa's down on you both—?"

"Hush, Norman Ellison! How can you run on so? Do hush nonsense to-night; I can't bear it."

"Well, then, I won't, but do stop crying and go to bed. I'll wager everything will be joyful in the morning;" and lifting her head with his two hands, he kissed her good-night after the fashion his mother had taught him when he first began to walk, and which he still followed when in good humor.

Down stairs, after the children went away, the mother rolled up her yarn, stuck the long slim needle into the ball, and laid socks, yarn, and needles carefully away in her stocking basket; then she moved her chair over close to the side of her husband's, and seated herself in it, laying her hand softly upon the great brown patch she had so carefully and patiently stitched into the knee of her husband's pants, only the night before, after he had gone to bed and to sleep.

Mr. Ellison let his eyes roam from the fire to the hand on his knee; it was a pretty, shapely hand still, even though the veins did stand up well, as they will do when our years begin to be numbered by the scores, and James Ellison felt a thrill of pleasure in his heart, notwithstanding he had steeled it all the evening against any and every pleasant emotion; gently now the fingers took up a little bit of the brown patch, dropped it, and picked it up again, then let it drop and rubbed it down smooth, and then they lay still. Looking at the quiet hand, Mr. Ellison conceived a desire to touch it with one of his own, and, forgetting his pettishness, he softly took it up, bent his head, and held it against his cheek a moment, then drew it to his lips and kissed it.

"Martha, Martha, old wife, I am a perfect bear or I never could have felt cross at what you said to-day. Can you forget it do you think? We have lived peaceably together too many years to quarrel now, and especially about the matter of hiring a man—but—" the good spirit withdrew at the sound of the word "but"—oh, why did he say it?

"But what, James?"

"Don't you think you were a little unreasonable in regard to Seth Sliter? There isn't a more hard-working fellow in the county than Seth—"

"Perhaps not, when he works," with a noticeable accent on the word "when."

Mr. Ellison went on as though his wife had not spoken.

"Job Downs said just this morning that he never had such an amount of work turned off in the same length of time as Seth did for him last harvest. I need somebody right away as can earn their wages. Looks now like the wheat crop will be all we can get this year, it's so dry, and the sun comes down so hot that the corn has burned already in the high places; supposing I hire Seth, mother, one month, and then if you say so, I'll let him off."

"Well, James, of course I shall not say you shall not hire Seth, but I dislike to take into our home, with our boys, even for one month a young man with so many bad habits as Seth has; he chews, he smokes, and he swears. I do wish if you can find some one without these habits you would not take Seth."

"Well, I've no time to spend running round the country after a hand; as to swearing, that no man can do on my farm; neither can he drink. I've heard he drinks, too, but Job Downs said, 'Only have it in the bargain that he must not do it, and Seth will live right up to it;' so if I hire him I'll make it in the agreement that he shall neither swear nor drink. How is that, mother?"

"Only put in the chewing and the smoking too, James; they are all filthy, sinful habits."

"I can't see the sin in these, Martha; you are too straight-laced, and smoking isn't so very filthy as I can see."

"It is dangerous anywhere, and especially so on a farm."

"Sh-h-h!" contemptuously, from James, but no more words, and his wife had no heart to say more. Into the ear of God, before she went to sleep, she whispered this petition, "Teach, oh, teach my husband how to 'cleanse himself from all filthiness of both flesh and spirit,' that he may know how to teach our boys. And give me patience and wisdom and acquiescence to thy will."

To the children, in the morning, all things seemed to have been made right; the father was cheerful, and the mother went about humming softly, "Nearer, my God, to thee, even though it be a cross." Seth Sliter was there to dinner, with his teeth all stained with tobacco, and a pipe sticking out of his vest pocket; but the weeks proved that he was, as Job Downs had said, "a staver to work," and he did his very best for Mr. Ellison, having an eye to the dull times, which, on account of the drought, threatened the country, and to the winter's job he hoped to get at such a good, easy place as was the Ellison's.

The wheat was cut, bound, stacked, and threshed, and Seth's month was almost up; he had just poured the last sack of wheat in the granary, and Mr. Ellison smiled complacently as he said, "There are one thousand seven hundred bushels of fine white winter wheat, Seth; the drought can't starve us out this year, can it, even if the corn don't amount to anything, which I guess it won't much? Hitch onto the hay rack, and you and Norman haul in that prairie hay I mowed yesterday; I've raked it up into windrows, and I will take the mower out and cut some more; at the rate the sun pours, it won't be good for anything after this week; it burns so fast, and I want to make sure of just as much as I can."

"All right, sir; and I want to ask you before I forget it—the boys want me to go with them a fishing to-night; they never fished by torchlight, and it will be fun for them, and a rest to me, if you are willing."

Now James Ellison had been very careful all the time Seth had been there, and had never allowed Norman to go anywhere of an evening with him, and had arranged so that they seldom even were left to work together alone; but to-day his mind was full of his well-stored crop of wheat, and his project of getting his hay in before any of his neighbors, and without waiting for second thought he gave his consent.

The boys were delighted; Norman, William, Joseph, and even Paul, the seven-year-old boy, were all going. Mrs. Ellison was very much worried at first, but Seth had been so steady, and the boys were all-absorbed with the idea of going a fishing by torchlight, that she had not the heart to say anything beyond numerous cautious, and to make Seth promise not to remain out later than eleven. They drove away without leaving any forebodings of evil, even in her heart. Contrary to her usual custom when any of the boys were out in the evening, she went early to bed and to sleep, a deep sleep, from which she was awakened at last by her husband, whom she found to be sitting up in bed.

"Martha, for mercy's sake, what was that?"

"I heard nothing."

"Listen, then; I think some one screamed; are the boys home?"

By this time the wife had become conscious that it was light enough to distinctly see every object in the room. Just then Mr. Ellison's olfactories took in some odor that he knew was smoke; he sprang out of bed like one wild.

"Martha, the house is on fire—wake the children."

Up the stairs flew the feet of Martha, borne by the fleetness of a mother's great love; but a glance from the window at the head of the stairs showed her it was the barn instead of the house.

Shouting to the girls that "the barn was on fire," she ran across the passage into the boy's room and found the beds empty. Like a flash it all came to the woman that, coming home later than they had promised, and disliking to disturb the family, they had all gone to sleep in the new hay in the barn.

Rushing down the stairs again, she found her husband half paralyzed with the fright and sense of his utter inability to stay the fiery fiend, which already shot out tiny forked tongues from the roof of the barn, and cracked, and hissed, and roared like the fell destroyer it was.

She shot past him, screaming, "The boys are in the barn! Run, James; our boys!" Her words fell like a death-knell to all his earthly hopes, but they gave speed to his bare feet, and he reached the barn door just as his wife pushed it aside. Both were obliged to draw back to avoid the stream of hot air and dense smoke that came pouring out; but only for an instant did they wait. One glittering gleam of light from above had pierced the darkness beneath, and shown them at one glance four prostrate forms lying on the barn floor.

How they dragged them out of the smoke and heat, away onto the cool grass, neither of them could tell, for neither knew; but there were only four.

"Paul! my little Paul! where is Paul? James, where is he?" screamed the poor mother above the roar of the flames, which had gathered strength by the draught of air caused by the opening of the door.

But, alas! poor mother; the only answer that came to her was a great crash; the roof and the upper beams had fallen in; a moment of blackness, and then the flames burst forth anew, making the air and ground so hot where they stood that for a few moments they were obliged to give their attention to drawing farther away the still inanimate forms of Seth, Norman, William, and Joe. The latter opened his eyes as his father laid him down on the porch, and said just above his breath, "Seth, is brother Paul down, too?"

Meanwhile the flames had spread to the granary and enveloped the stack of hay. The neighbors began to gather, having been awakened by the unusual light or by sounds, none knew just what, any more than they knew how to render assistance to the man who sat, helpless and speechless, while the flames sucked up his rich harvest, thinking only of the boy, Paul, whose body was burning somewhere in that great mountain of flame.

Some kind neighbors brought the doctor, and removed the almost suffocated ones to beds within. When Seth Sliter came to consciousness and was made to understand it all, he took the blame entirely upon himself. They were not late home at all, but had taken a notion to sleep in the barn; he had not been sleepy, and so concluded to take his usual smoke; had stretched himself at full length, resting upon his elbows, with his wool hat under his pipe to catch any spark that might fall, and commenced smoking. That was all he could remember; when he next knew anything, he was aroused by Norman, and asked to help get Paul down. Farther than this none of them could tell anything, not even how they came on the barn floor.

James Ellison never knew, neither did his wife guess till long after, that in all this God was answering the whispered petition of almost a month before; he was being taught to "cleanse himself of filthiness of both flesh and spirit," and she received "patience, and wisdom, and acquiescence in God's will." And yet more than this, Seth Sliter was from that time a changed man. He realized the terrible price that James Ellison had paid for the service he had rendered him for one month; and since that dread night he has used tobacco in no form; and even the bereaved mother no longer fears to have with her sons the man who meekly vows to devote the remainder of his life to serving those whom he caused to suffer so much, and who warns every one never to hire a hand who smokes.