This same salvo, as to the power of regaining our former position,
contributed much, I fear, to the equanimity with which we subsequently
bore many of the hardships and humiliations of a life of toil. If ever
I have deserved (which has not often been the case, and, I think,
never), but if ever I did deserve to be soundly cuffed by a fellow
mortal, for secretly putting weight upon some imaginary social
advantage, it must have been while I was striving to prove myself
ostentatiously his equal and no more. It was while I sat beside him on
his cobbler's bench, or clinked my hoe against his own in the
cornfield, or broke the same crust of bread, my earth-grimed hand to
his, at our noontide lunch. The poor, proud man should look at both
sides of sympathy like this.
The silence which followed upon our sitting down to table grew rather
oppressive; indeed, it was hardly broken by a word, during the first
round of Zenobia's fragrant tea.
"I hope," said I, at last, "that our blazing windows will be visible a
great way off. There is nothing so pleasant and encouraging to a
solitary traveller, on a stormy night, as a flood of firelight seen
amid the gloom. These ruddy window panes cannot fail to cheer the
hearts of all that look at them. Are they not warm with the
beacon-fire which we have kindled for humanity?"
"The blaze of that brushwood will only last a minute or two longer,"
observed Silas Foster; but whether he meant to insinuate that our moral
illumination would have as brief a term, I cannot say.
"Meantime," said Zenobia, "it may serve to guide some wayfarer to a
shelter."
And, just as she said this, there came a knock at the house door.
"There is one of the world's wayfarers," said I. "Ay, ay, just so!"
quoth Silas Foster. "Our firelight will draw stragglers, just as a
candle draws dorbugs on a summer night."
Whether to enjoy a dramatic suspense, or that we were selfishly
contrasting our own comfort with the chill and dreary situation of the
unknown person at the threshold, or that some of us city folk felt a
little startled at the knock which came so unseasonably, through night
and storm, to the door of the lonely farmhouse,--so it happened that
nobody, for an instant or two, arose to answer the summons. Pretty
soon there came another knock. The first had been moderately loud; the
second was smitten so forcibly that the knuckles of the applicant must
have left their mark in the door panel.