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THE MAJOR AND THE SMALL-POX.
His lordship was scarcely gone when the major came. So closely did the
appearance of the one follow on the disappearance of the other, that
there was ground for suspecting the major had seen his lordship enter
the house, and had been waiting and watching till he was gone. But she
was not yet to be seen: she had no fear of the worst small-pox could do
to her, yet was taking what measures appeared advisable for her
protection. Her fearlessness came from no fancied absence of danger, but
from an utter disbelief in chance. The same and only faith that would
have enabled him to face the man-eating tiger, enabled her to face the
small-pox; if she did die by going into such places, it was all right.
For aught I know there may be a region whose dwellers are so little
capable of being individually cared for, that they are left to the
action of mere general laws as sufficient for what for the time can be
done for them. Such may well to themselves seem to be blown about by all
the winds of chaos and the limbo--which winds they call chance? Even
then and there it is God who has ordered all the generals of their
condition, and when they are sick of it, will help them out of it. One
thing is sure--that God is doing his best for every man.
The major sat down and waited.
"I am at my wits' end!" he said, when she entered the room. "I can't
find the fellow! That detective's a muff! He ain't got a trace of him
yet! I must put on another!--Don't you think you had better go home? I
will do what can be done, you may be sure!"
"I am sure," answered Hester. "But mamma is better; so long as I
am away papa will not leave her; and she would rather have papa than a
dozen of me."
"But it must be so dreary for you--here alone all day!" he said, with a
touch of malice.
"I go about among my people," she answered.
"Ah! ah!" he returned. "Then I hope you will be careful what houses you
go into, for I hear the small-pox is in the neighborhood."
"I have just come from a house where it is now," she answered. The major
rose in haste. "--But," she went on, "I have changed all my clothes, and
had a bath since."
The major sat down again.
"My dear young lady!" he said, the roses a little ashy on his
cheek-bones, "do you know what you are about?"
"I hope I do--I think I do" she answered.
"Hope! Think!" repeated the major indignantly.
"Well, believe," said Hester.
"Come, come!" he rejoined with rudeness, "you may hope or think or
believe what you like, but you have no business to act but on what you
know."
"I suppose you never act where you do not know!" returned Hester. "You
always know you will win the battle, kill the tiger, take the
small-pox, and be the worse for it?"
"It's all very well for you to laugh!" returned the major; "but what is
to become of us if you take the small-pox! Why, my dear cousin, you
might lose every scrap of your good looks!"
"And then who on earth would care for me any more!" said Hester, with
mock mournfulness, which brought a glimmer of the merry light back to
the major's face.
"But really, Hester," he persisted, "this is most imprudent. It is your
life, not your beauty only you are periling!"
"Perhaps," she answered.
"And the lives of us all!" added the major.
"Is the small-pox worse than a man-eating tiger?" she asked.
"Ten times worse," he answered. "You can fight the tiger, but you can't
fight the small-pox. You really ought not to run such fearful
risks."
"How are they to be avoided? Every time you send for the doctor you run
a risk! You can't order a clean doctor every time!"
"A joke's all very well! but it is our duty to take care of ourselves."
"In reason, yes," replied Hester.
"You may think," said the major, "that God takes special care of you
because you are about his business--and far be it from me to say you are
not about his business or that he does not take care of you; but what is
to become of me and the like of me if we take the small-pox from you?"
Hester had it on her lips to say that if he was meant to die of the
small-pox, he might as well take it of her as of another; but she said
instead that she was sure God took care of her, but not sure she should
not die of the small-pox.
"How can you say God takes care of you if he lets you die of the
small-pox!"
"No doubt people would die if God forgot them, but do you think people
die because God forgets them?"
"My dear cousin Hester, if there is one thing I have a penchant
for, it is common sense! A paradox I detest with my whole soul!"
"One word, dear major Marvel: Did God take care of Jesus?"
"Of course! of course! But he wasn't like other men, you know."
"I don't want to fare better, that is, I don't want to have more of
God's care than he had."
"I don't understand you. I should think if we were sure God took as good
care of us as of him--"
But there he stopped, for he began to have a glimmer of where she was
leading him.
"Did he keep him what you call safe?" said Hester. "Did he not allow the
worst man could do to overtake him? Was it not the very consequence of
his obedience?"
"Then you have made up your mind to die of the small-pox?--In that
case----"
"Only if it be God's will," interrupted Hester.
"To that, and that alone, have I made up my mind. If I die of the
small-pox, it will not be because it could not be helped, or because I
caught it by chance; it will be because God allowed it as best for me
and for us all. It will not be a punishment for breaking his laws: he
loves none better, I believe, than those who break the laws of nature to
fulfil the laws of the spirit--which is the deeper nature, 'the nature
naturing nature,' as I read the other day: of course it sounds nonsense
to anyone who does not understand it."
"That's your humble servant," said the major. "I haven't a notion what
you or the author you quote means, though I don't doubt both of you mean
well, and that you are a most courageous and indeed heroic young woman.
For all that it is time your friends interfered; and I am going to write
by the next post to let your father know how you are misbehaving
yourself."
"They will not believe me quite so bad as I fear you will represent me."
"I don't know. I must write anyhow."
"That they may order me home to give them the small-pox? Wouldn't it be
better to wait and be sure I had not taken it already? Your letter, too,
might carry the infection. I think you had better not write."
"You persist in making fun of it! I say again it is not a thing to be
joked about," remarked the major, looking red.
"I think," returned Hester, "whoever lives in terror of infection had
better take it and have done with it. I know I would rather die than
live in the fear of death. It is the meanest of slaveries. At least, to
live a slave to one's fears is next worst to living a slave to one's
likings. Do as you please, major Marvel, but I give you warning that if
you interpose--I will not say interfere--because you do it all
for kindness--but if you interpose, I will never ask you to help me
again; I will never let you know what I am doing, or come to you for
advice, lest, instead of assisting me, you should set about preventing
me from doing what I may have to do."
She held out her hand to him, adding with a smile:
"Is it for good-bye, or a compact?"
"But just look at it from my point of view," said the major, disturbed
by the appeal. "What will your father say if he finds me aiding and
abetting?"
"You did not come up at my father's request, or from the least desire on
his part to have me looked after. You were not put in charge of me, and
have no right to suppose me doing anything my parents would not like.
They never objected to my going among my friends as I thought fit.
Possibly they had more faith in my good sense, knowing me better than
major Marvel."
"But when one sees you doing the thing that is plainly wrong----"
"If it be so plainly wrong, how is it that I who am really anxious to do
right, should not see it wrong? Why should you think me less likely to
know what is right than you, major Marvel?"
"I give in," said the major, "and will abide by the consequences."
"But you shall not needlessly put yourself in danger. You must not come
to me except I send for you. If you hear anything of Corney, write,
please."
"You don't imagine," cried the major, firing up, "that I am going to
turn tail where you advance? I'm not going to run from the small-pox any
more than you. So long as he don't get on my back to hunt other people,
I don't care. By George! you women have more courage ten times than we
men!"
"What we've got to do we just go and do, without thinking about danger.
I believe it is often the best wisdom to be blind and let God be our
eyes as well as our shield. But would it be right of you, not called to
the work, to put yourself in danger because you would not be out where I
am in? I could admire of course, but never quite justify sir Philip
Sidney in putting off his cuisses because his general had not got his
on."
"You're fit for a field-marshal, my dear!" said the major
enthusiastically--adding, as he kissed her hand, "I will think over what
you have said, and at least not betray you without warning."
"That is enough for the present," returned Hester, shaking hands with
him warmly.
The major went away hardly knowing whither, so filled was he with
admiration of "cousin Helen's girl."
"By Jove!" he said to himself, "it's a confounded good thing I didn't
marry Helen; she would never have had a girl like that if I had! Things
are always best. The world needs a few such in it--even if they be
fools--though I suspect they will turn out the wise ones, and we the
fools for taking such care of our precious selves!"
But the major was by no means a selfish man. He was pretty much mixed,
like the rest of us. Only, if we do not make up our minds not to be
mixed with the one thing, we shall by and by be but little mixed with
the other.
That same evening he sent her word that one answering the description of
Cornelius had been descried in the neighborhood of Addison square.
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