The Uncalled

It was about six o’clock of a winter’s morning. In the eastern sky faint streaks of grey had come and were succeeded by flashes of red, crimson-cloaked heralds of the coming day. It had snowed the day before, but a warm wind had sprung up during the night, and the snow had partially melted, leaving the earth showing through in ugly patches of yellow clay and sooty mud. Half despoiled of their white mantle, though with enough of it left to stand out in bold contrast to the bare places, the houses loomed up, black, dripping, and hideous. Every once in a while the wind caught the water as it trickled from the eaves, and sent it flying abroad in a chill unsparkling spray. The morning came in, cold, damp, and dismal.

At the end of a short, dirty street in the meanest part of the small Ohio town of Dexter stood a house more sagging and dilapidated in appearance than its disreputable fellows. From the foundation the walls converged to the roof, which seemed to hold its place less by virtue of nails and rafters than by faith. The whole aspect of the dwelling, if dwelling it could be called, was as if, conscious of its own meanness, it was shrinking away from its neighbours and into itself. A sickly light gleamed from one of the windows. As the dawn came into the sky, a woman came to the door and looked out. She was a slim woman, and her straggling, dusty-coloured hair hung about an unpleasant sallow face.

“Oh, I should think Miss Hester could manage ’most anything,” was the sneering rejoinder.

The women were aghast at such insolence. They didn’t know what the effect might be on Miss Prime. They looked at her in alarm. Her cold grey eye impaled Mrs. Warren for an instant only, and then, paying no more attention to her, she said quietly, “I was thinkin’ this whole matter over while I was finishin’ up my work to come here, an’, says I to myself, ‘Now there’s Melissy Davis⁠—she’s the very one that ’ud be a mother to that child,’ says I, ‘an’ she’d bring him up right as a child should be brought up.’ I don’t know no more mannerly, nice-appearin’ childern in this neighbourhood, or the whole town, fur that matter, than Melissy’s⁠—’ ”

“Oh, Miss Hester!” faltered Mrs. Davis.

But Miss Prime went on, unheeding the interruption. “Thinks I, ‘Melissy’s got a houseful already, an’ she can’t take another.’ Then you comes into my mind, Mis’ Austin, an’ says I, ‘La me! she’s got three herself, an’ is young yit; she’ll have her hands full to look after her own family.’ Well, I thought of you all, an’ some of you had families, an’ some of you had to go out fur day’s work; an’ then there’s some people’s hands I wouldn’t want to see the child fall into.” (This with an annihilating glance in Mrs. Warren’s direction.)

This incident only prepared Fred Brent for a further infraction of his guardian’s rules the next day. One of Miss Prime’s strictest orders had to do with fighting. Whatever the boys did to Fred, he was never to resent it. He must come to her, he thought, “if I should laugh out while she is whipping me?” And he laughed at the very thought. He was full of pleasure at himself. He had satisfied the impulse within him for once, and it made him happy.

Miss Prime read the ominous note, and looked at her charge thoughtfully. Fred glanced expectantly in the direction of the top of the clothespress. But she only said, “Go out an’ git in yore kindlin’, Freddie; git yore chores done, an’ then come in to supper.” Her voice was menacingly quiet. The boy had learned to read the signs of her face too well to think that he was to get off so easily as this. Evidently, he would “get it” after supper, or Miss Prime had some new, refined mode of punishment in store for him. But what was it? He cudgelled his brain in vain, as he finished his chores, and at table he could hardly eat for wondering. But he might have spared himself his pains, for he learned all too soon.

Immediately after supper he was bidden to put on his cap and come along. Miss Prime took him by the hand. “I’m a-goin’ to take you,” she said, “to beg Willie Tompkins’s pardon fur the way you did him.”

“Yes,” came the boy’s answer like a flash. He was stung and irritated into revolt, and a torrent of words poured from his lips unrestrained. “I’m tired of doing right. I’m tired of being good. I’m tired of obeying God⁠—”

“Freddie!” But over the dam the water was flowing with irresistible force. The horror of his guardian’s face and the terrible reproach in her voice could not check the boy.

“Everything,” he continued, “that I have ever wanted to do since I can remember has been bad, or against my duty, or displeasing to God. Why does He frown on everything I want to do? Why do we always have to be killing our wishes on account of duty? I don’t believe it. I hate duty. I hate obedience. I hate everything, and I won’t obey⁠—”

“Freddie, be keerful: don’t say anything that’ll hurt after yore mad spell’s over. Don’t blaspheme the Lord A’mighty.”

’Liphalet Hodges’ voice was cool and tender and persuasive. He laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder, while his wife sat there motionless, white and rigid with horror.

The old man’s words and his gentle touch had a wonderful effect on the boy; they checked his impassioned outburst; but his pent-up heart was too full. He burst into tears and rushed headlong from the house.