Looked out here a couple years ago, almost two years ago, thinking, you know, living out in the country, clean air, and nobody ever told us when we purchased the home in Tumlin Creek that they were having a biomass power plant, I never even heard anything about it. I was just astounded whenever I learned of the practices of this plant specifically since it's just a mile away, not to mention the noise. There's nothing like Christmas Eve with the sound of a jet engine in your backyard. I am between two of these plants. There's one in Franklin County and there's one in Madison County, and just because I don't live here doesn't mean the air doesn't travel, and that's what I think people shouldn't realize is pollution coming out here, pollution coming out in Franklin County, it's going to Athens, it's coming into Jackson County, it's going to go everywhere. Protecting the ground where I grow a garden, the water that we drink. I do believe that the smoke from the creosote railroad ties is affecting my breathing. I have asthma, I live with my elderly parents and they're not breathing good. This thing uses a million gallons of water a day, a day. I was diagnosed with a rare and incurable pulmonary disease towards the latter part of 2019 after a long biopsy, and so I now have an even further vested interest to make sure that I'm not being repeatedly exposed to harmful particulate matter in the air from a plant that's burning creosote railroad ties them out from my house.  The creosote's step one, right, and protecting the water, the ground water, and protecting the dust particulate, and then from the burning, the fine air particulate that gets everywhere. I mean that's just step one, you know, ultimate goal would be get them out of here.


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They were living to themselves, self with its hopes and promises and dreams, still had hold of them, but the Lord began to fulfill their prayers. They had asked for contrition and He sent them sorrow. They had asked for purity and He sent them thrilling anguish. They had asked to be meek and He had broken their hearts. They had asked to be dead to the world and He slew all their living hopes. They had asked to be made like unto Him and He placed them in the furnace, sitting by as a refiner of silver, till they should reflect His image. They had asked to lay hold of His cross, and when He had reached it to them it lacerated their hands. They had asked they knew not what nor how, but He had taken them at their word and granted them all their petitions. They were hardly willing to follow on so far or to draw so nigh to Him. They had upon them in awe and fear as Jacob at Bethel or Eliphaz in the night visions, or as the apostles when they thought they had seen the Spirit and knew not that it was Jesus. They could almost pray Him to depart from them or to hide His awfulness. They found it easier to obey than to suffer, to do than to give up, to bear the cross than to hang upon it. But they cannot go back, for they have come too near the unseen cross, and as virtues have pierced too deeply within them. He is fulfilling to them His promise, and I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me. But now at last their turn has come. Before they had only heard of the mystery, but now they feel it. He has fastened on them His look of love as He did on Mary and Peter, and they cannot but choose to follow. Little by little, from time to time, by flitting gleams the mystery of His cross shines upon them. They behold Him lifted up. They gaze on the glory which rays forth from the wounds of His holy passion, and as they gaze they advance, and are changed into His likeness, and His name shines out through them, for He dwells in them. They live alone with Him above, in unspeakable fellowship, willing to lack what others own, and to be unlike all, so that they are only like Him. Such are they in all ages who follow the Lamb with or so ever He goeth. Had they chosen for themselves or their friends chosen for them, they would have chosen otherwise. They would have been brighter here but less glorious in His kingdom. They would have had lots portion, not Abraham's. If they had halted anywhere, if He had taken off His hand, and let them stray back, what would they not have lost? What forfeits in the morning of the resurrection? But He stayed them up, even against themselves. Many a time their foot had well nice slipped, but He in mercy held them up. Now even in this life they know all He did was done well. It was good for them to suffer here, for they shall reign hereafter. To bear the cross below, for they shall wear the crown above, and that not I thought you were dead and buried, and I hoped you were. On the whole I am glad you are alive and well, for I am finishing off a piece of work in the greatest haste possible, and want somebody to thread my needles. I shan't thread a single one. I want you to talk, and you can't talk while you are at work. Besides, I came to get rested, and it tires me to see you sewing. Why will women always persist in going about armed with work baskets? Why will men persist in wearing out their clothes? Come take the seat, and give an account of yourself. The speakers were a little old lady, with bright eyes, and a tall young man with a pair of good-humored blue ones. She was not really his aunt, but only an intimate friend who chose to be called Aunt Jane, and so Aunt Jane she was. Horace seated himself, and neither spoke for several minutes. At last he said, Upon my word you are treating me very shabbily, Aunt Jane. I have come all the way up here, in this terrible storm to hear you talk, and there you sit, as silent as the grave. I really think that among all the people I know you are the greatest hypocrite, was the reply. You came because you knew that you should probably find me at home this stormy night, and should get a good chance to talk yourself. Horace laughed. Very well.  What did I come to say? Something ridiculous, no doubt, or you would have unburdened yourself sooner.  If I had not given my solemn promise to tell you all about it, I would not utter another word. However, to be out with it once for all, I am in love. Shaw, you know better. Indeed I did not do it on purpose, pursued the young man, but I met with such a glorious creature.  But I admire them. Just let me tell you. First of all, tell me one thing. Is this glorious creature in love with you? Why, no, not exactly. That is to say, I've never asked her. But she treats me with great consideration. I should hope so.  I thought glorious creatures were your ideal, and I am not glorious by any means. My dear boy, if I supposed you were really earnest in this thing, that your heart was really touched by it, I could become tender and motherly in an instant. You know that. Yes I do, he said, catching warmly in both his the hand she held out to him. Well, I am an earnest. I am fairly caught at last. I am very sorry to hear it, she said seriously. For, of course, you cannot afford to marry this young lady. No, nor any young lady, he returned, gloomily. Don't be vexed with me if I deny that. It is true that you cannot afford to take a glorious creature to wife. But why not content yourself with one that isn't glorious? A dear little bit of flesh and blood who would not be above keeping your accounts, mending your stockings and the like.  I am not shaking it. But you seem to have forgotten that our last quarrel was on this very point.  Our last quarrel, she said musingly, we've had so many that I really don't remember where it ranks. But I should have said that our last little tiff was on the subject of cigars. When he came in for their share of abuse, as they always do, he returned, well, to go back to your new flame. My first flame, you mean. I mean just what I say. Who talked of me of Anna Parrot by the hour together? Who? That was the most fancy. Of course, I don't deny my fancies. All young men have them. And who carried a photograph of Grace Harrod in his pocket for six months, a stolen one at that? It was a mean thing to rob your album, Aunt Jane, but she was such a pretty creature, and—and such a flirt. Yes, I remember. And then there was that affair with Juliet Moore. Really, Aunt Jane, you have the most inconvenient memory, cried Horace, moving uncomfortably in his chair. To hear you talk, one would fancy me a most fickle as well as a most susceptible youth. What is a man to do? Is he to associate with old ladies only? I don't know a fellow who gallants girls about as little as I do. But if you had no home but a boarding house, and were welcomed by half a dozen pleasant families, I have no doubt you would spend some of your evenings in a little harmless chat with the young ladies there. If you had once come out fair and square and owned that you are a regular flirt, quite as accomplished in that line as any girl of our acquaintance, I could get on with you. But you beat around the bush and sulked behind trees, so that one never gets a fair shot at you. I don't know about the fair shots, but I do know I've received a good many unfair ones. As to yourself, you never lose a chance. I am sorry that I have owned up about Miss. Well, Miss Who? I can't tell her name. Then you'll break your solemn promise. But that won't surprise me.  Do you know Mr. Fitzsimmons of the Fifth Avenue? Now, Horace Wheeler, you don't pretend to say that you are carried away with that hollow, heartless creature? With Mr. Fitzsimmons? No, not exactly. Don't joke about so serious a matter. So it is Miss. Shoddy, after all, to whom you have given your heart. I wish I hated you, Aunt Jane. I came to get a motherly word of counsel, or of sympathy at least, and you do nothing but mock me. Good night. I'm off.  You haven't in all the world a better friend than I am. I love you as if you were my own, my very own son. Sit down and let us talk this over. Yes, she did love him, and he knew it. She had befriended him when he came to this great city years before, had opened her home and heart to him, had scolded, petted, laughed at, born with him, as no one else had done since his mother, her dearest friend, had left him alone in the world, and though, in some moods, she provoked him and hunted all his little bad habits unto death, he loved her with almost filial affection. You women are all alike, he said, subsiding into his seat again.  I don't know how you do it. I wish I did. I can tell you how we do it, she said earnestly. It is by being genuine. There is no art or trickery in a true woman. She will not flatter. She will not stoop to humor pet vices. But fighting and conquering them, she will give her whole loving heart to him she has thus blessed.  If you always looked and talked as you do now, he said, you would spoil me for the ordinary run of girls. I should form a new ideal and marry not till I found her. You would get tired of me if I were always on stilts, she said smilingly. Why should not a woman be like nature? Sometimes spring, sometimes autumn, now summer, now winter. But Horace, I must once more repeat, at the risk of offending and repelling you, that you are on the wrong track. You are trying to live in the world, mingling in all its gayities and follies, and expecting a great deal from it, but doing nothing to make it wiser or better. You have worked your way into what you call good society, but that has made a great gulf between yourself and Christian society. Now, just answer this one question. How many really warm friends have you in this city? Why, as to that, I do not know that I have any. But the people with whom I associate are well-bred, agreeable, and refined. And really, Aunt Jane, you can't expect a young man, situated as I am, to be as strict as you are. I think one can be good without turning one's back upon the world. May I ask you one more question, Horace? Are you living a life of prayer amid all the distractions of the times? That is a question you have no right to ask, he said, coloring. Perhaps it is, she said gently. There was a time in my history when I should have resented such a question. Yet it was a time when it would have been well for my soul had some loving voice asked it. The thought of you throwing yourself away on a mere worldly fashionable young lady, you who are so formed for a sweet Christian home, makes me shudder. I can't imagine how you keep up your interest in me. Will we differ so on what you consider vital points? I will tell you, she said, had my boy lived, he would be just your age. And I have associated you with his memory. And just as my prayers would have pulled him out of a dangerous path, so I believe they will pull you. It must be comfortable to have such faith in one's own prayers, he said thoughtlessly.  It is not faith in my prayers, but faith in him who dictates them, she said. Dear Horace, don't stay away so long again. Bear with my little sermons for the sake of my love to you. I will, he said, but you will never make me feel as you do. End of chapter one. Chapter two of Aunt Jane's Hero. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Aunt Jane's Hero by Elizabeth Prentice, chapter two. Horace Wheeler was a young man of fair abilities and some culture. He was handsome and quick-witted and wide awake, a favorite everywhere because of his unfailing good humor and the comfortable sense of his own powers of pleasing, which made him self-possessed and easy under all circumstances. He was not more susceptible than the ordinary run of men his age, but still contrived to have always on hand something bordering on a love affair. In fact, the girls did all they could to spoil him and he would have been spoiled, but for Aunt Jane, who kept a sharp eye upon him and often painted his portrait for him in anything but flattering colors.  He admired her royal beauty, her style, her faultless mode of dress, and it was a luxury to spend an evening with her in the richly furnished parlors, which offered such a contrast to his own quarters. She played and sang well and was never at a loss for something to say. It did not occur to him that this endless flow of small talk was very small indeed, nor did it once strike him that her papa and mama, whose house this was, did not dare to show their plebeian faces in their own parlors. Miss Georgiana's idea of a father was of a man who spent his life in making money for her to spend, of a mother, as a woman who looked after the servants, ordered good dinners, and kept out of her way on all desirable occasions. To be sure, Papa Fitzsimmons sometimes grumbled at the way in which money went and declared that he was a poor man, and Mama Fitzsimmons often wept, maintaining that nobody had such ungrateful children as hers. But these little speeches rippled lightly over their gay daughter's heart, allowing that she had one, and never, for one moment, disturbed her peace of mind. She found it quite agreeable to have lovers. It was out of the question to go into society with such a figure of a man as Papa, who, as she often assured him, only knew enough to sell calico. And it was convenient to have fine-looking young men like Horace Wheeler attend her when she went out. And it is amazing how, under a guise of sweet simplicity and unconsciousness, some girls can conceal an artifice that would do credit to a veteran. Each of the young men in her train fancied himself the favored one. If one of these poor wretches gave signs of escaping her clutches, as they sometimes did, for she took a cat-like pleasure in letting her mice run for the fun of catching them again, she had a sweet word, a captivating smile equal to the emergency. She meant to get married to somebody, but not now. She wanted to have what she called a good time with a dozen or two young men first, meaning, by a good time, though she never quite owned that to herself, the being in love with each and all in turn, and having them each and all in love with her. And when they severally reached that point, they ceased to interest her, and she turned to new ones. And this was the glorious creature who had caught Horace. She had let him run three or four times, overtaken and patted and bewildered, and made him her captive again, and was finding this a pastime of peculiar pleasure. How long it is since you were here with a reproachful, charming look. I began to think you were getting tired of me, or I saw you at the last rehearsal and you never gave me so much as a glance. Ah, you saw me then, with a gratified throb of the real heart he kept under his waistcoat. How very strange, for I kept behind a pillar all the evening. I had the blues and did not want to be seen. Really? But you should always come to me when you are low spirited. I feel so much for my friends and you are such an old friend. And this old friend of six months would have liked to prove to her on the spot what a friend he was. But there was Joe Fisher watching them both, trying to carry on an animated conversation with the lady on his arm, yet to hear every word spoken by these twain. He must bide his time, but he was making up his mind that, in spite of Aunt Jane, he must at least become engaged to his heroine. They were both young and need not think of marriage yet. Will Jones had confidentially revealed to him that the three years of his own engagement had been delightful ones, and that Adela, his wife, was not half so nice now that they had settled down together. She used to say, moaned Will, that she adored the smell of a cigar, and now she says it makes her sick. And she often spoke of my auburn hair as so much to her taste, but now she calls it red. And no wonder, thought Horace, and hugged himself for joy that his Georgiana was one of the sort to wear well, as unlike as Mrs. Jones as possible. He neglected all his friends now. Some wondered what had become of him. Some secretly smiled at his infatuation, one almost rejoiced in it. Aunt Jane knew just how the whole thing would end, and felt that it would not hurt him to have a little of the wind taken out of his sails. He had assumed the attitude of a man who had only to choose what flower to pick, and this not merely because he was so steeped in natural self-conceit, but from the fact that he had been flattered and caressed into it.  Horace had never laid anything but flowers on the shrine of his beloved, but now he thought at time to offer her some gift that should at once prove his admiration and his refined, cultivated taste. What should it be? He tried to lie awake at nights to think about it, but unfortunately his perfect health forbade that, and he never knew what happened after he laid his head on the pillow until he awoke next morning. At last he bethought him of a ring of some value that had been his mother's. He could put this ring upon her finger, and at the same time whisper some words that would reveal that to one human being only could he entrust the sacred relic. Georgiana would shed tears, half accept and half refuse it. He should then in this tender moment speak of his hopeless love, hopeless because of his poverty and her position, and she would throw herself into his arms, declaring that a cottage with him, et cetera, et cetera. He went over this little program a good many times before there was the least chance of carrying it out. Georgiana was so sweetly unconscious that he was dying for a chance to see her alone. She knew so little what she was in herself and what she was to him, and let such very inferior young men hang around her. This unconscious creature was really communing with herself after this wise. I may as well let him propose, he comes so often now that people are beginning to talk, and all the rest are hanging back, thinking I like him. And of course I do like him. He's so handsome and doots on me so, but then I've always let him see that I did not care particularly for him. At least he might see it if he would, but men are so conceited. And so it happened one evening that on being ushered into the parlor where he had spent so many agreeable hours, Horace found Miss Georgiana quite alone and began to put his little plan into execution. He had a sufficiently good opinion of himself to be in general quite self-possessed, but now that the long coveted hour had arrived, he felt sheepish and wished the thing well over. She sat before him, provokingly pretty and provokingly cool. Her hands folded lightly together in her lap, and somehow he got possession of one of them and slipped his dead mother's ring upon a finger.  Dear me, I never saw anything so very peculiar. Indeed, you must not ask me to wear it. It would set people talking, you know. It was my mother's wedding ring, he stammered, and I hoped that for her sake, for my sake. She laughed merrily and musically and knew that she did. But you know, Mr. Wheeler, I never saw your mother and couldn't be expected. Really, as the poor fellow blundered on, you surprised me greatly. You must see that I am fancy-free, that I have no preference for any gentleman. But you have looked, you have acted, you have said. I hope you do not intend to insinuate that I have given you any encouragement, Mr. Wheeler. No, he said a little angrily. For her self-possession and suavity unnerved him. I never deal in insinuations. What I have to say, I say plainly, and in so many words, and I say you have led me into this ridiculous, mortifying position by a long series of deliberate and heartless acts. I could not have believed you were so uncharitable, she returned, smiling. It is very disagreeable, but I forgive you, and we will be as good friends as ever. Shall we not? She held out her hand as she spoke, but he did not take it. Heaven have mercy on the man that wins it, he said, and bowed himself majestically out. For once in her life she felt uncomfortable, and she had a whole evening in which to face herself. For, expecting a long interview with Horace, she had given orders that no one else should be admitted. I never gave him the least encouragement, not the very least, she said to herself. And how could he suppose that I should look at him? A poor lawyer, whose wife would have to sweep her own parlors, provided she had any, which I do not suppose she would. However, I can't help it if men will make fools of themselves. I must tell Harriet Fudd about it. How she will laugh! She sent a servant to summon Harriet, who lived next door, and gave her a magnified picture of the whole scene, and the twain made themselves merry over the rejected lover, eating chocolate caramels the while in an insatiable way, quite after the manner of girls in general. Now, we do not intend to insinuate all young ladies in what is called good society, are thoughtless and heartless, but that this is a hotbed in which they are likely to thrive. Who goes home from a ball to kneel down and pray to God? Who leaves the theater with new longings after eternal life? Who pretends that going to the opera prepares one for hard, self-denying Christian work? Would that some eloquent hand could paint the contrast between misfit Simmons and what she had refused to give to Horace and what one earnest Christian heart, unseen by all the world, was at that moment giving him? For while the one laughed, the other prayed, and those prayers were so many guardian angels that prevented, encompassed, saved him. End of chapter 2 Chapter 3 of Aunt Jane's Hero This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Aunt Jane's Hero by Elizabeth Prentice. Chapter 3 Horace Wheeler had stood up years before in the little village church and confessed Christ before men. He was then not much more than a boy and had very indefinite notions as to what this step implied and involved. Indeed, he had been urged into it by his mother, whose delicate health made it probable that she would not live to see him safely through the perils of early youth and who felt that she could die in peace if she could leave him in the sheltering bosom of the church she loved. She died soon after he entered college and so he lost the letters that would have counseled and stimulated and blessed him. Shall we say he lost her prayers also? God only knows. His father, a grave hard good man, prayed for but rarely wrote to him. He had never had either sister or brother. Perhaps all this made old Mrs. Faulkner peculiarly dear to him. When on his establishing himself in this great city, she became to him almost a mother. But all he knew of religion was what his own meager experience had taught him and all he knew of young women he had learned in society. And he had, so far, got very little comfort out of either. So now when he marched smarting and stinging out of Ms. Fitzsimmons' sealed house, he never once thought of such a thing as making the pain she had cost him a religious discipline. Nor did he fly to the genial presence of other ladies in the hope of finding solace in their society. On the contrary, he felt a generalizing in this style. They're all alike and I knew it and yet have been and made a fool of myself. All they care for or think of is dress and show and fashion. There isn't enough heart in the whole concern to make one warm manly heart. If you can put diamond rings on their fingers and give them palaces to live in and let them drive about in carriages, they may condescend to let you sit at the same table and escort them with or so ever they would go.  To think how they'll get their heads together and disgust me and giggle and cackle as only girls and geese can. I can see that simpering Harriet Foot, Georgiana's crony and toady, swallowing the whole story and then running to tell her crony. He went back to his room, lighted it, pulled off his boots and tossed them spitefully against the wall, jerked on his slippers and flung himself into a chair.  He could have knocked the coals out of the grate and picked them up with the tongs and fancied each of them to be Georgiana Fitzsimmons as he did so. But the room was warmed by hot pipes and offered him no employment, no relief to his troubled thoughts. He believed himself to be a very wretched, much abused man, mistaking the storm of passion that swept across his soul and the bitter mortification under which he suffered for the pangs of a broken, disappointed heart. Much abused he certainly was, but not so very wretched, for a cigar quite soothed and comforted him and he went to bed in due time and slept better than Georgiana did after all the sweet things she had been eating. And while he was dressing, he began to congratulate himself that he had got off so well, though he still twinge at the remembrance of the way in which a girl five years younger than himself had shown her superiority in worldly wisdom. When he reached his office, he found a note from Aunt Jane awaiting him in which she asked him to drop in accidentally that evening. He thought he might as well go and get laughed at and have it over with and sent an amusing reply in which he promised to do all sorts of accidental things, adding that Ms. Fitzsimmons had given him the mitten and that it was a very warm mitten indeed and that now he should never marry unless Aunt Jane herself would take pity on him. At eight o'clock he was ushered into her home-like domains and found himself to his great disgust at a sewing circle. He had got himself up quite nicely, considering how wretched he was and looked very handsome and attractive as he made his way through a little crowd of girls busy and dressing dolls. They had already dressed 32 who stood in rows on the piano, leaning against each other for support and looking like 16 pair of twins and were engaged on as many more. Several young men lounged about the room pretending to help and making all sorts of absurd remarks which the maidens deemed very witty. After speaking to Aunt Jane, Horace took a seat among the rest and fell into a bantering talk with those near him. While he cynically looked at this array of pretty, fresh girls whom, in his heart, he regarded as so many embryo flirts. A little creature sat apart from the rest, who, he was sure, had not yet left school. She was at work upon a crying baby which she was getting into long clothes. He would not have given her a look or a thought for she sat with her back to him and was quite absorbed in her task but that she faced a mirror which faithfully reflected her.  At last she had given it a final touch and secure from observation as she fancied herself went into rapture over this pretty mockery of a human child kissing, fondling, and playing with it just as a young mother caresses in sports with her baby of flesh and blood, her baby with a soul. The little thing has got a heart of her own, amused Horace looking curiously on but she won't have one long. It will be cooled out of her as soon as she goes into that charming sphere called society. His lip curled at the thought and at that moment she looked up and saw that he had been observing and was despising her. He saw her face crimson painfully, knew that she had misunderstood the contempt of his glance and was shocked at himself for his carelessness. But he did a right-minded manly thing which was just like him when he rose and made his way to her and said, frankly and warmly, I played the spy, it is true, but I did not dream that I sat in such a position that there was the least chance of detection. If people will do silly childish things they must expect to be laughed at, she said. But I was not laughing at you, said Horace. I was admiring you with all my might. That is a very likely story, she said, a little comforted and a good deal reassured by his manner. But she went off with her baby leaving him ready to burst with repressed amusement. For all the time they had stood talking together she had been pressing his little round unconscious cheek against her own, hardly less round. His instinct told him not to follow her and he said to himself, besides, that she was not much more than a child and so he tried to make himself agreeable to those who were older. This was a different set of girls from that in which he had been idling for two or three years. Each of them lived for a purpose, perhaps not quite consciously, certainly not very grandly, but their Sunday work in a mission school had given them a degree of elevation above mere triflers. They were in great glee this evening for they were getting ready for a Christmas festival and the doll dressing being now over, Aunt Jane ushered them into the dining room where, seated at a long table, they were to fill cornucopias with sugar plums and the broken-hearted Horace caught the spirit of the little company and enjoyed the innocent mirth of these unspoiled girls. A man who could afford to get married might be happy with almost any of them, he said to himself, but, of course, he was not that man. Though he had tucked a cottage into the program in which Georgiana was to figure, he had never thought of such a thing as living in one. It wasn't the style nowadays and a brown stone house was more to his taste. When the company broke up and while the girls were getting into their sacks and hats, he had a few moments with Aunt Jane, who, to his great relief, made no allusion to his discomforted condition, but thanked him for coming and asked him to see one or more of her young friends safely home. Observing his little heroine of the baby scene standing near, he offered her his services as an escort. No, I am not going anywhere, she said. I am making Aunt Jane a visit. Aunt Jane, he repeated, then you and I are cousins. Indeed we are not, for she is not really my aunt. I only call her so because I love her so and because she lets me. That makes our relationship doubling near, he said, laughingly, for she is not my aunt either. I call her so because I love her so and because she lets me. He repeated her words in her manner of speaking them so perfectly that she thought, as before, that he was secretly laughing at her, but she looked up and said gently, we country girls come to the city expecting to say and do foolish things and get laughed at for our pains.  He cried and he was going to add, patronizingly, on the contrary, I really like you, when as I wandered from her sweet upturned face to her two plump hands and he saw that they were as red as they were plump.  So then he took himself off and thought of her no more. But she thought of him a good many times, wondered who he was, hoped he would come again, knew three minutes after she got to church or into any public place, whether he was there and was always expecting to meet him in the street when she walked out. In spite of all which, she had a charming visit at Aunt Jane's and went home at the end of three weeks, where she was nearly eaten up by those who were glad to get her and her useful hands back again, even though they were red. Well, Horace Wheeler, you made a great mistake when you let her slip out of your hands. This sweet, loving Christian girl would have aroused the feeble Christian life now almost dead in your soul and made a home for you of which any man might be proud. And so Aunt Jane would have said if she had had a chance, but he did not give her one. He kept away from her week after week. Her little sermons, as he called them, were of all things most repugnant to him. He had been drinking at broken fountains, but felt sure that the world had some full ones which sooner or later would quench his thirst. End of chapter three. Chapter four of Aunt Jane's Hero. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Rose A. Aunt Jane's Hero by Elizabeth Prentice. Chapter four. The season this year was unusually gay and Horace plunged into it headlong. Everybody wanted him at their dancing parties, their private theatricals, their musical festivals. His tall, graceful figure was an ornament and his gay sally's passed for keenest wit. He had to meet Georgiana repeatedly, but his air of lofty indifference kept her at a distance, while it secretly vexed her, for she had thus far found no one to take his place. But he went home from these gay scenes out of spirits, and in spite of himself had his hours of reflection when there came to him uncomfortable intimations that he was not living the true life for which he was born. Well, he would reply, if a man lives in the world, he must be of it. Some may spend their time in driving mission schools and Sunday schools and all that sort of thing, but we can't all be doing it any more than we can all be ministers and fall to preaching. I am as strict as most young fellows. Father doesn't think so, it is true, but the world has got ahead of him and has none of his old fashioned ways. It does not hurt me to go to the theater or to dance or to play a harmless game of cards. In fact, I feel that I ought to take my own independent course in such matters. I am as regular at church as any of them. If I do not go to prayer meetings, it is because there are so few evenings in the week and because I do not enjoy them. And as to taking a class in a mission school, as Aunt Jane is always saying I ought, why I should have to get up an hour earlier than I do usually, and it is bad enough as it is. And at any rate I can't do it just now, for it would set everybody to talking and saying how my trials had been blessed to me and that I couldn't stand. Now there was a man of a sorrowful countenance and of a sorrowful spirit, away off in a little country town, praying for his only son at these very moments and his prayers were going to prevail. The knowledge that his boy, his dead wife's boy, was living a worldly useless life in defiance of the training he had had and the vows he had taken upon himself, had crushed out what little gladness he ever had in him and that was not much. He believed that Horace was really regenerate and that his soul would be saved at last, but that did not give him much if it did any relief. When he set it off against the awful fact that he was not, in any sense, living for the glory of God, but simply to and for himself and ever and on when he was pleading for his son with strong crying and tears, there would surge up in the soul of that son unwelcome painful thoughts, recollections of his mother and his mother's teachings, faint yearnings for a faith and a practice like hers. He whisked not once they came nor what a fearful risky ran when he resisted and stifled them. It was Sunday and, as usual, when he went to church regularly anywhere, he sat with Aunt Jane in her pew. He had a bad habit of wandering about from church to church with no special preference for any one and she had not seen him at hers for some weeks. He behaved himself now with great outward devotion, took off his glove reverently as his mother had taught him to do as he sat at the sacramental table and received the sacred bread and wine and joined in the hymns with apparent fervor. Aunt Jane's heart yearned for him. How much this festival meant to her? How little to him? And as she silently prayed for him, he felt the old discomfort creeping over him, the sense of unrest experienced at times at least by every human soul that tries to satisfy its infinite longings and yearnings with finite things. Will you come home with me to tea? She whispered after a little struggle with herself for in her present mood, his soul and hers would not be likely to come into very close contact. Anything but a boarding house on a Sunday evening, he said, rather ungraciously, she thought. How many there were in that church who would have felt it a privilege to spend this quiet evening with her whose cheerful piety and wise words made her such a delightful companion to those who loved her and he was only going to do it to get rid of the time. Well, she meant to keep her hold on Emily Wheeler's boy. One of these days he would thank her for it. So they walked away together, he a little silent and preoccupied, she bright and happy and talkative and ready to fill his empty cup from her full one, if he would only let her. And after tea, when they were alone together, she won from him the whole story about Georgiana and listened to all his tiresome expressions of disgust and vexation, a good deal as an angel would have done. You see, Aunt Jane, she has made me lose all faith in women. That's the hard part of it. For she certainly lured me on with such pretty little ways, such adoring little glances.  Her manner is indescribable, but it was such as no high-minded girl could possibly fall into with a man she meant to reject. I do not doubt it, was the reply. And I can perhaps explain to you why you were so deluded by it. For a time, and in a certain way, she really liked you. And instead of concealing that liking, as under the circumstances she was bound to do, she made the very most of it. But can girls conceal such liking? He asked. Can they, repeated Aunt Jane, why give them motive strong enough and they can hide and stifle their souls forever? And the most sacred instincts called them to do so. For it is not an unheard of thing for girls to give their hearts unasked and yet in impenetrable secrecy. Do tell me something more about the deer-creatures, cried Horace. It is delightful to think there may be a lovely maiden dying for me somewhere. I'm sure, he added, suddenly changing his careless tone for a serious one, I wish there was. I do not see what good that would do you, said Aunt Jane. But I sincerely wish and pray that you may find a true-hearted, loving Christian woman to wife, Horace. You need it, sadly. You are frittering away your life now and need to have a new element infused into it, or rather, two elements. And what are they?  Not the standing, say on, he returned. You need first, then, love to God. Don't interrupt me. I know you profess to love him now, but you cannot pretend that this is the inspiration of your life. No, he said, laughing, to hide his embarrassment. I certainly cannot and do not. And in the second place, you want love to a pure, true woman who will make a home for you with her love. That is true enough at all events, he said, relieved that the dreaded sermon had been so brief, but allowing that such a being as you describe exists on earth, where am I to find her? And if I find, what am I to do with her? Take her to my boarding house? By no means, get a house and live in it with her. He might just as well say, get a fortune and share it with her. You know that I cannot afford it. I know that you have often said so, and to be sure, you cannot take a house in a fashionable neighborhood, furnish it richly, and establish a fashionable young lady in it. But if you would once make up your mind that these mere outside advantages do not touch the inner life in a single point, that you want wife and children and not upholstery and style, I believe you could settle down in a happy home forthwith. The heart hidden away under the waistcoat gave a great throb at the words wife and children. Horace was not spoiled by the life he had been leading, though tainted by it. All you say about my needing a home is true, Aunt Jane, he replied, and you might say the same of every young man in the city, but every year makes our case more hopeless. Getting married is as formidable as getting to heaven. For my part, I have about given up all hope of attaining either. Why the ring a man offers his betrothed when she promises to be his must not be valuable as the pledge of his affection or as a sacred relic of his past life, but intrinsically costly so that his Amanda can say to all her bosom friends, behold how many hundred dollars worth of Arthur's love I wear upon my finger. He spoke bitterly and turned his mother's ring about as it hung on his watch chain. And then he pursued as Aunt Jane was silent, comes the wedding and then involves another visit to the jewelers and so on and so on. Amanda must have her rich dresses and give her elegant entertainments and Arthur chooses she should, but if he happens to be poor, what then? What then, cried Aunt Jane? Why let him adapt himself to his poverty? Did Eve ask Adam to give her a palace to live in when he had nothing but a garden? And are there to be no weddings, save diamond weddings, no homes, save and sealed houses? It is all very well to talk, he said, glancing around the tastefully adorned room in which they sat, but you who have always been used to refinement and luxury do not know how essential they are. I know that I, a poor girl, married a poor man, returned Aunt Jane, and he took me to a home in which his love was my sole luxury and mine my only refining influence and how gladly I would go back with him this day, leaving behind me all that his long years of labor have won for me into that homely home.  Oh, men make such mistakes, such fearful, remedy-less mistakes. They sacrifice the lives on which other lives hang. Under the delusion that when they are gone, money can satisfy the aching, empty hearts they leave behind them. This was the first time she had ever made the slightest delusion to a sorrow that had cast first a great shadow and then a great illumination upon her life. An illumination for a shadow implies a sun. You must go now, she said after a moment, for I have got a little off the track and don't know just when it was.  She gave him her hand with her usual bright smile and he went away without a word. End of chapter four. Chapter five of Aunt Jane's hero. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Rose A. Aunt Jane's hero by Elizabeth Prentice. Chapter five. Aunt Jane was not surprised to see Horace march in the very next evening. She knew that she had touched though she had not changed his heart. He began abruptly with, suppose a man could bring his mind to get married on his poverty? Where is he to find a girl willing to share it with him? A good wife is from the Lord, she returned. But do you know where mine is, he persisted? If I am ever to marry, of course there is somebody in the world waiting for me. Now where is she? Who is she?  You might as well ask me, where are my clients? Who are they? And I should reply, wait till they come to you and you will see and know. All I have to do then is to be ready for her when she comes. Really, I begin to feel quite curious. Yes, to be ready, said Aunt Jane emphatically. For if you are not, an angel might come to you and go away unrecognized. But ready, how? In moral worth and purity, Horace. And after a pause, she added, if I were talking to some men, I should say, ask God to make you fit for her when she comes and then to send her. But why not to me, he asked with a comical look? Because I know you wouldn't do it. You feel perfectly capable of choosing for yourself and besides, you are not in the habit of taking counsel of him in worldly matters. That's true, though how you found it out I can't venture to guess. You have the oddest faculty of seeing through a man. I shouldn't wonder if you knew just what I am thinking of at this moment. Very well, she said quietly, you are thinking, how you can get away gracefully from what you fear is an impending sermon. The blood flew into his face. He started up quickly and cried, I beg to go before you read any more of my thoughts. You are next door to a witch. I wish I could stay away, he thought, as he ran down the steps.  And then I shall have to black my own boots and go to market and buy cheap pieces of meat which will be cooked horribly by a slip-shod maid. And I shall lead about as prosaic a life as it is possible to conceive of. But when he reached his room he could not help confessing that looked prosaic too. It had once been handsomely furnished but everything had now a shabby, genteel aspect. And worst of all, there was nobody there to run to meet and welcome him. He felt unusually out of sorts and wondered what ailed him but on the whole laid the blame on Aunt Jane whom he determined not to go to see again since she had such a knack at unsettling him. This turned out to be an easily kept resolution. For the next he heard of her was that she was very ill. He did not see her again that winter and early in the spring she went away to her country seat and spent a long summer there. Meanwhile, everybody, young and old, had been aroused and shaken by the civil war that sprang up as in a night but would not cease till it had devoured in its cruel jaws thousands of youthful lives and left behind it thousands of broken hearts. Horace Wheeler was one of the first to volunteer to go to the defense of his country. The true man in him, hitherto buried under much rubbish, now came bravely forth in the light. Few could go as well as I, he said to Aunt Jane when he went to take leave of her. I have no mother or sister to weep for me if I fall and I have my father's full consent and blessing. It is true I am his only son but then I haven't been of much comfort to him and we have lived the part so long that it could not make much difference to him either way. However, I expect to come back strong in life and limb and suppose you do not, what then, she asked tearfully. Why then I make you my heir, he returned gaily, and you will come into possession of all my law books. Let us be serious in these last moments, she said. I take a mother's place to you in a certain sense and if you never come back, if we never meet again in this world, where shall I look for you in the next, dear Horace? In such a remote corner of heaven that you never will take the trouble to search me out, he replied, dear Aunt Jane, if I ever get there at all, it will be through your own and my father's prayers and not from any goodness of mine.  It happens to be your very peculiar way of showing your love but you pray for me far more than I deserve and I'm not going away quite as thoughtless as you fancy. This is the very most she could get out of him and he rushed off as if ashamed and frightened that he had said so much. So the great tide swept him away and with many and many a young husband, an idolized son and only brother and there were no wounds on the battlefield so ghastly as those that hewed down the hearts which bade them Godspeed and to this day there are no scars like those that many a woman is now patiently concealing. The havoc of life and limb caused by war is indeed fearful but what of the havoc of human affections? What of the suspense, the sleeplessness, the unwritten anguish that turned many a sweet peaceful home into a battlefield whose conquests and whose defeats were witnessed by no mortal eye? The few friends Horace left at home watched anxiously for news from him and he wrote occasional letters, brief, sharp and unsatisfactory but he was distinguishing himself and winning laurels and when he came forth from battle after battle unharmed he began to think that he bore a charmed life. He had entered intelligently upon this sphere of action. He was not fighting for his country and enduring the pervations of camp life under a mere impulse but from a high and sacred purpose such as inspired many another soul and armed many another right hand. Newsboys were crying papers all about the streets and Aunt Jane sitting alone and lost in thought at last heard the sounds. She rang for a servant. What are they crying tonight? She asked as he entered. There has been an awful battle he answered. I've got the paper and Jim's one of them mowed right down and killed in the twinkling of an eye. See here it is in the paper. There's no mistake about it and I hope you won't take it unkindly ma'am but I'm going to fill his place. I am shocked and grieved at this news she said and Robert you are not as strong as Jim was. Is it wise in you to go? I don't know whether it is or not but I promised him that if he was killed I'd just go and fill his place. That was his last words before he went. Fill up the places as fast as they're empty. And besides I couldn't settle down quiet. Now Jim's gone. He was all I had and the poor fellow broke down and retreated leaving the paper behind him.  Captain Wheeler of the New York 82nd missing. She had not heard of Horace's promotion and at first hoped that this might not be he but a little reflection showed her that it was.  No other word can do justice to the strength with which this woman laid hold on the divine promises. She asked that if he lay wounded and overlooked upon the battlefield aid might be speedily sent him. If taken captive that he might be rescued and spared the wasting terrors of imprisonment and then she waited patiently to see what God would do. And this is what she afterwards heard he did. The battle had been a terrible one and Horace at the head of his company had been in the heart of it all day. One of the most fearful and one of the most decisive days of the whole war. And while Aunt Jane was kneeling before God pleading for his safety as if he had been her own son he lay wounded upon the field where he had fallen nearly 24 hours before. Who can tell the horrors of those hours or how many lives he lived how many deaths he died in them. At first his bodily sufferings benumbed his faculties. Then they became absorbed in the eager hope of rescue. And when that hope gradually died out and he knew that he must die there in all the flesh of his strength and manhood and die alone a horror of great darkness fell upon him. He almost lost the sense of pain as the questions forced themselves upon him. Am I ready to die? How do I know that I ever made my peace with God? What has there been in my life to prove it? And a dismal answer came back to him declaring that it was now too late to decide such momentous questions. Too late, too late. And then he gave himself up to the fever and the pain and the exhaustion that claimed him as their own and resigned himself to his fate. Come this way doctor. Here are half a dozen still living said a voice near him. Oh doctor save me, save me cried a boyish voice close at Horace's ear. The doctor stooped over the youthful figure and let the light of his lantern fall upon the face already becoming rigid in death.  I can only take away those for whom there is yet hope. God bless and stand by you to the last, he added. As he turned from him to Horace and examined his wound. I think this poor fellow may pull through, he said. Take hold gently Barnes, gently now. Once safely in the ambulance we will do something for his immediate relief. Horace felt himself lifted and it caused him such an agony of pain that he wished they had passed him by. Leave me to die, he said, faintly. I have no mother, no wife to lament me and hundreds of these poor fellows have. We will save you if we can to gain in the future what you have not had in the past was a cheerful answer. And then amid untold anguish Horace was jolted in a crowded ambulance over a rough road to the hospital. That is to say to a church improvised for the time for that purpose. When his turn came he was stretched upon the sacramental table, he remembered it afterwards with a sort of pleasure and a surgeon clad in an apron hastily torn from the pulpit curtain, amputated the limb that had been mangled and crushed and neglected till it was past cure. He cared little what they did with him. As far as he had any thoughts about it at all he fancied that the loss of a limb was a small affair and wondered at himself that he was so indifferent about it. But as the days of convalescence approached indifference gave place to insupportable anguish. He said to himself that death would have been a thousand times better. And then he yearned for his mother as he had never done since the first weeks after her death. He wanted to weep away his despair on a woman's breast instead of hiding it in the pew where he lay alone. Have you no friends, Captain Wheeler? asked the chaplain one day.  Yes, I have too, he answered bitterly. My father ought to hear, I suppose. And there is a friend of my mother's who would like a line perhaps.  I had the impression that he had no mother, replied the chaplain musingly. But it seems I was mistaken. Oh, Aunt Jane, said Horace, what made you come? I came because I came, she said, smiling through her tears. And now you must forget that I am not your very mother. I might have had my boy lying here wounded in your place if God had not wanted him for some other purpose and taken him from me long years ago. And then his father came and for the first time within his remembrance Horace felt that here was a heart that loved him. Those were wonderful days in the hospital. He did not now repel the wise Christian words spoken to him by the two who watched beside him. This world was forever changed for him and he was thankful to have his thoughts turned from it. A great deal of the time, he was as docile as a little child, drinking in the teachings his soul craved as if he sat really at his mother's knee. At other times, the sense of what had befallen him would come in upon him in such great waves of distress that his two watchers could only weep with him. Death would have been so much better, so much better. He would cry at such times and then the tide, which can't be always coming in thanks be to God would flow back, leaving a shore behind it on which the form of his son might be almost visibly seen walking. As soon as it was possible to move him, they took him home. That is, they took him to Aunt Jane's home and the sorrowful-looking father returned to his more distant one. As he took leave, he uttered these parting words with a tenderness that was the offspring of a remarkable union to him who spake them. It is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, my son. Yes, it is better, said Horace. And so he had his baptism of fire and had come out of it another man. They had many pleasant talks together after this. He and Aunt Jane, and she reminded him of the sympathy Jesus showed when on earth for the maimed, how often he healed them, what comforting words he spake to them and how he charged his disciples to remember them especially when they made their feasts. Yes, I had thought of it, he said, and it has been a source of unspeakable consolation. The time has been when I should have scorned to go to a feast as an object of pity, but now I long for human sympathy. But with all the sympathy he received, and it was not a little, he had to have his dark and sorrowful days. Yes, there were times when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no man came unto him, for he would let no one come. But at last he emerged from this great tribulation into the light. I am at peace now, Aunt Jane, he said. I have done fighting with the Lord and have put myself just as I am, maimed and halt into his hands. I could not have believed they were such tender hands. There was one source of pain connected with his loss, of which he never spoke, but he had assumed almost at the outset that he could never marry. He fancied he should never have the face to ask a woman to limp through life with him, and yet there never was a time when he so longed for the home and the wife Aunt Jane had often pictured to him.  In due time, he was established once more in a boarding house and artificial limb partially supplied the loss of his own and he reopened his office under favorable circumstances. The Young Men's Christian Association opened its arms to him. He became interested in the once-despised mission school and once or twice his voice was heard at the weekly prayer meeting, which he never used to attend. He felt at times that he had gained through loss, that he was a happier, better man, and yet a voice often whispered in his ear that next to the love of God he needed the love of a Christian woman. End of chapter five. Chapter six of Aunt Jane's Hero. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Rose A. Aunt Jane's Hero by Elizabeth Prentice. Chapter six. Horace had nearly recovered his youthful vigor and was in the midst of unusual activity when the illness of his father called him home. This illness proved to be sharp and brief and ended in a peaceful death. Thus he was left without a single near relative on earth and he took his seat in the train to return to the city with a sense of isolation that saddened and depressed him. Life looked hard. It wasn't paying its way, he thought. His lame leg was giving him a good deal of discomfort or rather his artificial leg was. It seemed a dismal prospect to be always suffering thus. He was in this mood when at a wayside station four young girls escorted by a very assiduous young man entered the train and seated themselves right behind him or rather the girls did so. The assiduous young man arranged them to their liking and then withdrew. He had placed them face to face with each other and as soon as the train moved off they began to talk and to chatter and to laugh as only American girls do talk and laugh in public vehicles and he could not help hearing all they said as if everybody around them. Can you ride backwards mad, cried one? And you, Lou, how fortunate for neither of us can endure it, can we, Nan? To which Nan assented vehemently and then there was a little whispering till Nan, warming with her subject, began to talk quite loudly again. I'll tell you the whole story. You see, when he first proposed to enlist she made a time about it and said and did all she could to alter his resolution but go he would and go he did. And she gave him fair warning that if he were maimed or disfigured or anything she should break off with him.  Well, it wasn't as if she didn't give him fair warning. Do you think it was, Joe? Joe inclined not to commit herself but on the whole she should prefer herself to marry a man with two legs. Of course, Mag here put in in a low voice which Horace heard, however, for she sat just behind his head. But you see, they were engaged. That alters the case. She had no right to break off a solemn engagement. As to that, there was not much salamnity about it till our Mag must needs put her finger into the pie. Well, to go on. By and by he comes home with one empty coat sleeve and a frightful great red scar on one cheek. She fainted dead away when she saw him and it made her so nervous to look at him that he only went to see her occasionally. And then it got rumored about the village that the engagement was broken off. Now comes in the ridiculous part. Our Mag. Don't any don't pleaded Mag. People will hear you. I'll speak lower then. What does our Mag do but march to see her and first coax and then upbraid and then? Oh Annie, it isn't fair to tell that, said Mag's suppressed voice once more.  Our Mag got down on her knees and prayed about it. Well, well, cried Joe and Lou in a breath. Well, Horace felt like shaking them for he was sure that the unseen Mag was crying. I couldn't help it, she said. I pitied him so and he seemed so heartbroken to think what sacrifices he had made for his country and how thankful a girl with a heart as big as, a peppermint, suggested Nan. Yes, as big as a peppermint, said Mag, waxing Roth. How thankful a girl with a very least speck of heart would have been to spend her whole life in making him forget what he had lost. What sort of a man is he? asked Lou. Perhaps Maggy may console him herself. All three laughed at this very witty suggestion and Nan replied, oh no, he wouldn't do for Mag. He is a very common sort of fellow. We wouldn't let him look at her. But he'll find somebody, no doubt, before long. That's the way with men. Meanwhile, we are going to carry Maggy off out of his reach, lest what with her patriotism and what with her pity, she should throw herself into his arms. She couldn't do that, for, according to you, he has but one arm, said Joe, laughing. I don't see how you can joke about such things, said Mag. They seem to me almost too sacred to speak of. Think of losing so much as one of your own fingers. For my part, I never see a wounded soldier without wishing I might say a kind word to him if I could do nothing more. Oh, your fate is sealed, said Nan. You'll marry the first one-legged animal that comes along just out of pity. But if I were a man, I should want to be loved for myself, not from compassion. Miss Maggy vouchsafing no answer, the conversation thenceforth flagged a little, and at last the four girls relapsed into entire silence and Horace was left to not a few mingled emotions. Warm-hearted and patriotic and gentle, he said to himself, and a girl who can get down on her knees. All this I know of our Mag, and yet have not so much as seen her. She would marry even me out of pity. But at that thought he shrugged his shoulders. Passengers for Beverly will change cars, shouted the conductor a few hours later. We're upon great confusion arose among Horace's fair neighbors. Mercy on us! I had no idea we were to change cars, cried Lou. Where's my traveling bag? Has anyone seen my waterproof? Make haste, Joe. We shall be carried off as sure as fate.  I daresay she's red-haired and coarse and freckled, he said to himself, but I must and will see her. And he started up with one of his most graceful bows, and with an, allow me to assist you, young ladies, was right in the midst of them in a moment. Thank you, and if you could reach down my traveling bag, and if you would see if my parasol has fallen under the seat, and oh, thank you, that's it. They were all mixed up together, so that he did not know which was which. But he was conscious of a sense of relief when he found that he was to part company with only two. The lively Nan and our Mag remained behind. The whole scene occupied not more than three minutes, and then the train moved on, and he gave a curious look at the two sisters who were absorbed in getting to rights after the flight of their companions. At another time he would have been struck with the brightness of the one face and the sweet earnestness of the other, but Maggy's surprised, glad smile of evident recognition quite startled him. Who is she? Where can I have met her? He vainly asked himself, but he had presence of mind enough not to ask her, and he did not pretend to conceal that he was glad to see her, trusting soon to learn in conversation who she really was. I hope you have been well since I last had the pleasure of seeing you. He began, hypocritically, and seating himself before her. Oh yes, I am always well. This is my sister, Annie. She has never seen you, but has often heard me speak of you. Haven't you, Annie? Very likely returned Annie Cooley, but I should know better if you would be kind enough to mention the name of your friend. Mr. Wheeler, Horace hastily put in. Then I can say positively that I never in my life heard you speak of him, cried Annie. Why yes, Annie, don't you remember? However, as I was never introduced to him until this moment never heard his name, except, she added, smiling, his Christian name. Horace suggested our hero. Yes, Horace said, Maggy. Oh, quoth Annie, looking very closely and curiously at him. And so you are Horace? He felt not a little flattered that the sweet-looking Maggy had spoken of him to her sister. But how happened it that she remembered him when he had so completely forgotten her? But as he did not expect to see her again, but to lose her as soon as the train reached the city, he determined to make the most of the time remaining. It was far pleasanter to chat with those pretty girls and such girls than to sit staring out the window, getting his eyes full of cinders. And so he went on exactly as if they had been friends for years. And from a light skirmish, they had last got into open warfare. Maggy had read everything there was to read about the state of the country and had some very positive opinions of her own, which did not agree with his. And though she was so gentle and ladylike in every look and tone, she would not yield to him an inch. But I ought to know because I was in the army several years, he said at last. In the army, then why are you not in it now? I was honorably discharged, he replied, and tried to change the subject, but she would not let him. I am so disappointed in you, she said. I did not think you were one of the sort to get discharged while your country was still in such peril. Horace was embarrassed. After what he had overheard, he could not allude to the occasion of his discharge, so he muttered something about being ill. Oh, but you are quite well now, are you not? And you will enter the army again, won't you? That's the way she talks to everybody, said Annie, naturally misunderstanding his increased embarrassment. Mother often says she goes too far. One can hardly go too far in a good cause, he said. And there the conversation became less animated. He had evidently lost ground with Maggie, and she had less to say. And now the train went thundering into the depot, and he had not learned who they were and where they lived. It would have been better, he thought, if he had at the outset frankly owned his ignorance, but that wouldn't do now. We shall see you before long, I suppose, said Annie, as they parted. Certainly, that is, I should be happy. Oh, Annie did not mean that you should call on purpose to see us. She only thought you would be in and out more or less, while we are in town, and that will be several weeks, said Maggie. So their home was not in the city, as he had taken it for granted it was, and his chance of stumbling upon them by accident was limited to a few weeks. In his eagerness he ran after the carriage, which was driving off with them, saying, but you have not told me where you are to be found.  They would think it very strange if he should not call, and besides they were nice, pleasant girls, and it was a shame to let the acquaintance end here. End of chapter six. Chapter seven of Aunt Jane's Hero. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Rose A. Aunt Jane's Hero by Elizabeth Prentice, chapter seven. Why didn't I take a carriage and drive after them? He wondered, and then he went home and pondered the events of the day, and the strange conversation he had overheard, and asked himself what our mag would say and do if she only knew on whose ears it had fallen. It would nearly kill the sensitive little thing, he said to himself, and I'll not repeat a word of it, lest in some roundabout way it should get back to her. These were among his last thoughts before he went to sleep that night, and this accounted, he fancied, for the fact that her image, sweet and fresh, came to him with his first waking ones next day. But why she should go wherever he went, why she should flip in and out of his office was not so obvious. He laughed at himself, said it would pass in a day or two, and entered into his usual pursuits with unusual ardor. I have got off the business track, he thought, by absence from it, and my brain is confused by the journey yesterday. But when he was riding uptown after his day's work was over, she came into the stage too, and when he sat down to dinner, she sat down by his side. Oh, Maggie, how could you? He tried to shake her off in vain, and as he knew Aunt Jane would be expecting him in the evening, he set forth for her house, and our Maggie went with him. Or rather, there she was at Aunt Jane's side in a pretty blue dress, she and her sister Annie in living form. Conscious as he was of the way in which she had filled his thoughts all day, and quite taken by surprise by finding her here, he was thrown entirely off his guard and stood before the two quite speechless. But he soon recovered himself, and when he heard both girls address Mrs. Faulkner as Aunt Jane, it flashed upon him where and when he had seen Maggie before. I hope, my dear cousins, he began, recovering his usual ease of manner, that I find you quite well after yesterday's journey. We are quite well, dear cousin, said Annie, laughing. Only Maggie is troubled with a few anxious fears lest you may have overheard some of our careless talk, but you didn't, I am sure. Never was mortal man more tempted to tell a downright lie, but he got off, for the time at least, by declaring, of course I heard every word and wrote it down in my journal before I slept. Ah, I knew you couldn't have heard, said Annie, though to be sure, if you had, no harm would have been done. And they passed a pleasant evening. Horace spoke of his father and finding both girls interested, read a little record he had made of his pleasant sayings during his last days on earth. And you were just returning from this beautiful death bed yesterday, asks Maggie. Then how are laughing and talking so near you must have jarred upon you? On the contrary, it quite diverted my mind from some sober thoughts, he returned. Then you did hear, after all, she cried, crimsoning to her very finger's end. Oh Annie, what did we say? You spoke of me for one thing, said Horace, quietly. Now I know you did not hear, said Maggie, for we never once mentioned you. But she did not add, as she might have done, I thought of you too much to speak of you. And after a delightful evening he went away in such an enraptured state of mind that he left his cane behind him, which made it necessary that he should go for it the next evening. Meanwhile, he was becoming a marvel to himself. He caught himself 20 times while sitting in his office alone, or when passing through the streets, mentally conversing with Maggie, telling her his whole story, even confiding to her, to a new and blessed heights of Christian faith and love he had climbed of late. And how he felt that he had her full sympathy, though he heard only one little sentence about her that said she prayed when she was greatly moved, whatever she might do at other times. I never knew anything like it, he said to himself at last and to stare. It must be that my father's death makes me tender towards everybody. Yet it was not to commune with everybody that he presented himself at Aunt Jane's again so soon. It was only to get his cane. Aunt Jane could hardly repress a smile when she saw Horace enter, for she had happened to see the cane in the hall and knew it to be his, because it was her own gift to him, and she knew that, dependent as he was upon it, he had not left it by accident. I hope the young ladies are well, he said, after waiting some time in the vain hope of seeing them make their appearance. They are quite well, she said, but was so cruel as not to explain the occasion of their absence. What a precious fool I have made of myself by coming this evening, he thought. For of course I can't come tomorrow, it would look too marked. I was going to invite you to dine with us tomorrow, sitting on Jane, and take the girls to church. Horace started. Don't look so amazed, she said. I only put two and two together. You left your cane last night as an excuse for coming again, and you have sat two minutes in perfect silence, meditating, instead of making yourself agreeable. One of my girls, or both of them, has caught you at last. Oh no, he cried, not that they are pleasant girls enough, but Aunt Jane smiled. Don't talk to me about pleasant girls, said she, but tell me what it is you want. Why hitherto you have been in such a hurry to come and boast of having fallen in love that now I hardly know you. Then, thinking she had gone too far, she added, they've gone to dine with Mrs. White. She has known them this long time and is fond of them both. Horace feigned indifference and asked some trifling questions about a blue stocking that peeps from a dainty little basket upon the table. That's Maggie's work, said Aunt Jane.  We wanted to send off a barrel tomorrow.  In short, everything conceivable and inconceivable that a soldier could want. So I told the girls when I saw the trunk they brought with them. They must have worked like two beavers. With all they have to do, I can't imagine how they accomplished so much. Aunt Jane cried Horace abruptly. Do they know about my leg? I suppose so. But let me think. No, on the whole, I doubt if they do. They must have observed my lameness. Perhaps so. Unless they ask a direct question about it, will you be silent as to the cause? Aunt Jane looked at him with great surprise. Was he going to try to gain the affections of one of them under false colors? But his honest face rebuked this unjust suspicion. It will be quite easy to be silent, she replied. Both girls have too much delicacy to ask questions on such a subject. I should think one of them might have, he returned. Do you know, Aunt Jane, that I have never been introduced to either of them and do not know whether they are the Mrs. Snodgrass or the Mrs. Snooks? Upon my word, then, you made yourself quite familiar last evening, calling them your cousins and all that. But you know I had met them on the train and overheard any quantity of lively talk on the way.  Do you call it listing when a parcel of girls talk loud enough to edify the whole train? Now I know Maggie Wyman never did that. Perhaps Maggie in particular did not, but I know the young ladies in general did. How should I distinguish who said this or who said that when I sat the whole time with my back to them? And as to any little secrets I was so lucky to hear, I should score and to repeat them. Secrets indeed, Maggie Wyman shouting her secrets into the ears of the whole train. Indeed, Aunt Jane, I never insinuated that she did. So I am to come to dinner tomorrow night? I wonder if I can. I have promised to dine with Ben Lowell. Very well, dine with him then, and welcome, she said demurely. Oh, I dare say he'll let me off. Yes, I'll come. Anything to please you. Where did you pick up these fair maidens? Oh, it's a long story and I can't go into details. I have known them ever since they were little girls. After the death of my husband and my son, my health was all broken up and I wanted to get out of the city into some quiet place where I could brood over my grief. This, you know, was before I purchased my present country seat. I advertised and friends made inquiries for me. And at last I somehow wandered off to a little mountain village whose chief attraction lay in the fact of its obscurity and isolation. The father of these girls was the minister of the single church there, and he began to come and see me. I had never met such a single-hearted, unworldly man. At the very first interview he did me good, though somewhat younger than I. Then he brought his wife and by degrees they roused me from the despair into which I had fallen and gave me my first conception of a heart at leisure from itself. I was boarding at a common country tavern amid many discomforts and really suffered for want of many things that my ill health made necessary. Almost every day, therefore, one or both these girls, then six and eight years old, came to bring me something prepared for me by their mother's own hands. She did it from the purest kindness and sympathy, inferring that poverty only could induce me to take up my abode in such poor quarters. I naturally wanted to make some return, and as my health began to improve, proposed that the little girls should come to me for daily lessons. This proved to be as great a benediction to me as to them. I learned to love them dearly, and they filled up and kept warm some of the empty places in my heart. The whole thing ended in my going to the parsonage to spend summer after summer and gaining in the beautiful Christian home there a new conception of this life and of the life to come. Mrs. Wyman was not one of the sort who could say much on religious subjects with her lips, but she said many things in her life. And Mr. Wyman preached Christ to me as truly out of the pulpit as in it. I can never repay the debt of gratitude I owe them both. We feel a very peculiar gratitude toward those who are a spiritual help to us. Don't you think so? Indeed we do, he said warmly, think what you were to me down there in the hospital. The girls she went on proved to be charming little scholars. I never tried to do anything with the boys. They were younger, and besides I couldn't manage them. They were always startling me with their noise and I really had no health with which to bear what their mother only laughed at. As Maggie and Annie grew older, I sent them away to school for several winters, one at a time, for their mother could not spare both at once. This winter Mrs. Wyman has a sister with her and so she could let them come down together and I want them to have a right good time. They deserve it for they have a hard life of it at home. Horace hoped she would go on all night, but at this point in her discourse it became necessary for her to set the heel of a great blue stocking she was knitting and she warned him that he was not to speak while she counted her stitches and performed that mysterious act. Why, how is this? She said suddenly. My yarn is giving out. I thought I wound enough to last a week. I shall have to steal some from the girls. Hand me that large ball and I will wind or rather, you shall wind off a part of it for me. Have you a bit of paper about you or stay? Here is an envelope in the work basket. You can wind upon that. Meanwhile, excuse me a moment. I must look for the mate of this stocking. Horace took the envelope and was proceeding to fold it in such a form as would make it available for his purpose. When his eye caught the word Horace written upon it in pencil, he colored and looked about him with a guilty air. It had come from Maggie's basket. Would she miss it? Must he return it? Another glance revealed the address in a free manly hand. Miss Annie Wyman. It wasn't Maggie's after all then? At any rate, there could be no harm in keeping it that one word Horace told no secret and yet it somehow seemed to entitle him to keep possession of the mutilated paper on which it had been hastily scribbled. He lost no time therefore in thrusting it into his pocket, substituting another for it. And when Aunt Jane returned, she found him so clumsily at work in winding her ball that she snatched it from him. He was now quite eager to get home to study his prize at his leisure and set his face in that direction with a light heart. Yes, there it was in a graceful, very original hand, his own name, over and over and over again. But whose hand had traced the word? Annie's no doubt, he said with this eye. But then didn't the paper come from Maggie's basket? And hadn't Maggie meant to take that basket with her? The envelope had evidently had yarn wound upon it for it folded almost of itself into a compact square form. It did not follow that she who had written his name upon it cared for him a fig, but yet this looked like it. Perhaps it was Maggie after all. Perhaps she had begun to forgive him for leaving the army and was beginning to, well, to what? He dared not ask. And then the image of a poor disappointed fellow with the empty coat sleeve and the red scar came and whispered, why shouldn't my name be Horace as well as yours? It is amazing what mountains we make out of molehills when we are in love. Into what cohenors we can transfer grains of sand. End of chapter seven. Chapter eight of Aunt Jane's Hero. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Rose A. Aunt Jane's Hero by Elizabeth Prentice. Chapter eight. When Horace presented himself at Aunt Jane's the next evening at five o'clock, he was told that the dinner hour had been deferred till six as the barrels destined for the army were not yet packed and the dining room was in confusion. Aunt Jane says you may come and help us if you like, said Annie, after delivering this message. He followed her, therefore, to the dining room. And though it hurt him not a little, made himself very useful. The girls were in high spirits and made themselves merry over their work. Still Horace felt that Annie treated him with evident friendliness while Maggie kept out of his way as much as possible. Indeed, he did not know what to make of Maggie. Every now and then, in the midst of her gaiety, there would come over her a fit of gravity and silence that suggested some secret source of unrest. At last, when the barrels were full and some articles still remained on their hands, Annie said, now, Mr. Wheeler, jump into the barrels and crowd the things down. We must have room for these magazines and papers. Some of the poor fellows in the hospital will be so glad of them. Horace cast a look of despair at Aunt Jane. His jumping days were over, but must he tell these girls so and get them to liking him out of mere pity? Aunt Jane understood the look and came to his rescue. He is not half heavy enough, she said. I will call John. John will answer the purpose far better. Meanwhile, Horace, suppose you write the address of these barrels on cards. Maggie, dear, can you find some cards? Yes, here are some, she said, and here is the address, just as I took it down when General Walton gave it to us. Horace almost snatched the paper from her and his eagerness to see the specimen of her handwriting. His spirit sank when he found it quite unlike that in which his own name had been written so profusely. He had been, up to this moment, so full of life and joy that everyone observed the change in him. The truth is that this trifling incident suddenly revealed to him how enchanted he had been in the bare hope that Maggie thought of him long enough at a time to write his name even once and if she had done it from mere idleness. As to Annie, of course it was she. Why, all she had done it for was to show what wonderfully graceful ages she could make. Mr. Wheeler is very moody. Is he not, Maggie? Annie asked the next morning at breakfast. Is he, said Maggie? Yes, and did you notice how he limped last night? I have no doubt he wears tight boots. Very likely, said Maggie, she seemed a little preoccupied and unlike herself. The sudden change of manner that had come over Horace when she gave him the address at Aunt Jane's request had been too striking not to make an impression upon her. What had she done to annoy him? She asked herself and then reproached herself for caring and then said she did not and could not care for a man who, in this hour of his country's peril, could keep out of the army if he tried. Yet she watched for him evening after evening. Whenever the bell rang, she fancied he had come but he came not. Then she grew gentler and sweeter than ever. And Aunt Jane wondered that a man who had seen her as Horace had could help loving her and said to herself that she had cast this pearl before swine. She had proclaimed herself as hating matchmakers and she was trying to be one as hard as she could. To think of his not so much as calling after the dinner I got up for him, she thought with secret indignation, does he really imagine that such girls as these grow on every bush and can be had for the asking? And so she let Mrs. White's great darling, good-natured Tom, come where Horace should have come and tried to fancy that he would do for Annie at least. And Annie laughed at and bewildered and captivated him and Maggie listened to his prosy talk with as much deference as if it had been all alive with gems. Thus when Horace at last made his appearance, he found them. Annie, who made no secret of her liking for her cousin, as she usually called him, immediately left Maggie to entertain the wearysome Tom and began to call him to account for his neglect. Only to think, said she, you are our own cousin and have not been here for 10 days. What have you got to say for yourself? A great deal he returned if I choose to say it, but I don't intend to do so. Now let me ask, why you haven't been to see me? Annie laughed and said she had thought of it but didn't know where he lived. Whereupon, with mock gravity, he gave her his card. I do believe, thought Maggie, that he is giving her his photograph. It would be just like Annie to ask him for it. And she looked at her sister reprovingly, making signs that she must behave herself. Annie subsided a little, but as soon as Tom White regained Maggie's attention, she began again, talking as if she had known him all her life and with a friendliness and evident liking for him that might well have turned his head. Aunt Jane was greatly scandalized. She had never seen Annie in such gay spirits nor looking so attractive. It would be just like Horace to be caught by this bright girl and just like Maggie to know so little of her own worth as to put up with Tom White.  That is to say, he acknowledged that Annie was easier to get acquainted with than Maggie and very amusing and entertaining. Meanwhile, Tom White sat on pins and needles. He hardly heard a word of what Maggie was saying but was trying to hear what was going on on the other side of the room. He did so envy Horace the animation with which she was able to respond to Annie's. Did so wish he were as handsome, as easy and graceful. When the young men took leave, Aunt Jane told them they might come the next evening if they chose as she was going to have what she called a busy bee. This proved to be a host of young girls equipped with needles and thread who were to make up material provided by her for the soldiers. Horace hardly spoke to Maggie. He did not know what he expected her to say and do but at any rate he was dissatisfied with her. She on her part scarcely looked at him but while busy with her work, but Tom White, who could not get near Annie sit by her side and weary her with his dullness. At last it so happened that the scene changed. Tom and Horace were called upon to scrape lint and Annie and Maggie were sent for old linen for the purpose. When they returned with it, Horace had an opportunity to vent his growing discontent on Maggie. If he had known in what an unreasonable mood he was, he would not have spoken at all. As it was he said with a smile intended to cover the irritation with which he made the remark, you have acquired such a sentency over Mr. White that I wonder you have not sent him into the army. Maggie made no reply. Saved by a quick glance of surprise and pain which he misinterpreted. She likes him, he thought. I have seen it all the evening. I thought she had more sense. Excuse me, I entreat, he added aloud.  What matters and how far? Asked Maggie with some spirit and yet not unkindly. I really haven't a word to say, cried Horace, but I hope you will not let such an unintentional piece of carelessness give you pain. It was not unintentional, she replied, looking up to him. You know it was not, yet I am ashamed of myself for caring. But sometimes in some moods we are oversensitive and a grain of sand will then tear and rend as a mass of jagged rock could not do it another time or in a different mood. And then she disappeared, whether through the floor or through a door, Horace and his confusion at what he had done did not know. He was ashamed and angry with himself. The whole thing had sprung up in a moment and now he stood perfectly bewildered where she had left him. He felt that he had settled it forever, that she would dislike him. Yet never had he realized as now how much she had become to him. Indeed she had raised herself in his eyes by showing that her extreme gentleness was not a mere negative charm, that she could be roused and inspirited and made to resent her wrong without any un-Christian anger. When Maggie disappeared from his view she meant to speed to her room as fast as her feet could carry her and have a good cry. But a horror of being cross-questioned about it by Annie who would be sure to find it out and just as likely as not to tell everybody that our mag had been crying. This made her control herself and go steadily to work as far off from Horace as she could get. She seated herself near a group of girls who were making themselves merry over a gray shirt which somebody had apparently cut for Goliath of Gath. We might all get into it, said one. It will do for a shirt and blanket in one, said another. Captain Wheeler says that the great fault of the garment sent to the army is their enormous size, said a third. Poor fellow, they say his artificial leg hurts at times dreadfully and I have no doubt it does tonight for I just saw him leaning against the wall looking pale and haggard. He has never been as strong since he lost his limb as he was before, was the reply. Maggie's heart stopped beating. How many times she had told him that she was ashamed of every young man in good health who was not in the army and all the time he knew that he had given his country all he could. She was not usually impulsive. She was in the habit of taking counsel with herself before she took a decisive step but now she rose with a quick energetic movement that said she must not lose a moment, crossed the room and stood before Horace with a kindling face. I have misjudged you cruelly, she said, with difficulty keeping back the tears that filled her eyes. I never knew you had been wounded. If I had, I should have honored and loved you for it, she came near to adding in her excitement. Don't speak to me, don't look at me, he said. I thought I was ashamed enough before but you have annihilated me now. She could not trust herself to say anymore and returned to her seat where she found Annie had joined the group and was listening to a detailed account of the battle in which Horace had lost his limb and all about his heroism at the time. It made another man of him, said Clara Reed, biting off a thread. He used to be so worldly and so fond of fashionable society and now he is as good as he can be. I mean to go and ask him to tell me all about it, said Annie. Don't Annie, cried Maggie, holding her back. You'll say something to annoy him.  I'll promise not to breathe your name. So she pumped him well and he told his story in a manly way that would have been brief had she allowed it. Well, she said gaily at last. I suppose you don't mind it much. You've got the glory and the honor and it's so nice that you don't have to go on crutches. Why, I never dreamed that anything ailed you except that you wore tight boots. And Maggie said, oh, but I promised Maggie that I wouldn't list her name. So I can't tell you what she said, but it was something nice.  Don't you like our Maggie? But I forget, you do not know her and considering how intimate you and I are, it is a little clear that you don't know her as well. So he and Annie were intimate, were they? Putting this statement by the side of the scribbled envelope, Horace felt his blood run cold. Next news he should hear was that he was engaged to her and he had never liked her so little as at this moment when she could rattle on about the tragedy of his life as she would talk to a wooden doll that had lost the tip of its nose. Yet Annie was by no means the heartless girl he was at the moment disposed to believe her to be. She was inexperienced and thoughtless and impulsive and had seen very little of the world. That was all. Aunt Jane aspired Horace standing alone and apart from everybody not long after and saw that something was amiss. She went up to him kindly and asked him if the evening had wearied him. No, he said, the evening has not. She saw that he did not want to be questioned so she left him and very soon the young ladies began to prepare to take leave and there was a deal of laughing and talking as they at last went off in twos and threes. Horace knew he had to go too, yet lingered. If he could only get one more look from Maggie and could only force her to forget how rude he had been but he got neither word nor look.  She had forgotten all about the loss of his limb and only thought how handsome he was and how nice it was to have him like her so. Horace went home in the comfortless state of mind familiar to those who have been left to do in one or two little sentences what they feel they cannot undo in a lifetime. There are few warm hearted people who do not sometimes say in their haste what nothing would tempt them to say at their leisure and then how they chafe under the sense of their own folly. How could I rally her about Tom White? said Horace to his forlorn self. She must have seen how horribly jealous I was. It's all up with me. She says I did it on purpose. So, of course, she thinks I deliberately went to work to annoy her. I'll keep out of her way henceforth. As for Annie, why couldn't she have taken to Tom? I'm sure she could make something of him. If she'd only take him in hand. He held good to his resolution to keep out of Maggie's way till the following Sunday when he went to church with his heart all in a flutter at the idea of sitting in the same pew with her. But he found only Aunt Jane and Annie there and pretended he was glad of it and pretended he was glad of that since his mind would not be withdrawn by her presence from the real object that had brought him to the house of God. And then that gladness was dispelled by Maggie's coming in a little late and with a lovely color suffusing her cheeks as he rose to let her enter the pew. She had some books in her hand that showed she had been to some mission school with Tom White, no doubt, but he enjoyed having her sit next to him for all that. Indeed, he was so conscious of that enjoyment that when the service was over, he dared not look at her. He felt that everybody would know how he loved her if he gave her even so much as a glance and so he walked away. Yes, how he loved her, for he could no longer conceal from himself that she had been hardly out of his thoughts since the day he had heard her sweet and earnest words in the train four weeks ago. End of chapter eight.