"joseph, you must not think of your brother derrick's life as spoiled; it was far from that. no outward trouble could spoil the life of such a man as he became. the work he accomplished out there among the miners is building a monument for him that will never crumble. he was a christian who in a remarkable manner lived up to his beliefs.
"sometime, when you feel like hearing them, i should like to read you extracts from some of his letters; they will tell you about his work better than i can. and then i have letters from a few of the men whom he helped, that i know you will like to read. they will bring the tears, but they will be tears of joy. doesn't it comfort you, joseph, to find that, after all, it was of god? i mean that he overruled everything and made the dear boy's short life a success in the truest sense?"
she knew that her brother was listening, although he said no word in response; something about him gave her the feeling that every nerve was strained to hear; she talked on.
"he wrote a great deal about your boy derrick; the name pleased him very much; i don't know how many times he referred to it. he said that, of course, the name was chosen for father's sake, but he was in it, too; and he said he had decided to have that other derrick live his life for him, the life that he had meant to live; and he believed he would manage it a great deal better than derrick the second could have done it."
a groan from the listener made her hasten to add:
"he didn't say such things in a gloomy way at all; in fact, he didn't seem ever to be gloomy. he was very happy over his daydreams. once he asked me if i knew that derrick third was going to be a grand, everyday christian; he said the commander had told him so. he had a way of speaking about the lord jesus that was different from any that i had ever heard. one of his choice names for him was 'the commander,' and he always spoke exactly as though he were there beside him; in person, i mean. he used to begin in the middle of things. one sunday evening he wrote like this: 'we were out on the hills together all the morning, my commander and i, and the visit we had refreshed my soul.' you see he was, a great deal of the time, far away from church services of any kind except such as he conducted himself, and this particular sabbath he afterward called his 'ordination day.' he said he was set apart that day by his commander for a special work. it was on that sabbath afternoon that he held his first service. this is the way he began telling about it: '"let's go back," said the commander, "and gather the boys and talk with them and sing with them and pray with them; of course they will let you; i'll take care of that part; don't you be afraid." so we went back, and sure enough the boys were more than willing to listen. i told them about the commander, and how i followed his lead, every time, and i read some words that he said to them out of "the book."' he always spoke of the bible as 'the book,' beginning both words with capitals. then he told about singing for them. do you remember what a singer he was, joseph, even when he was a little boy? he said the air out there among the mountains was grand to sing in. after a while they sang with him, and the joy that it gave him when they began to sing from the heart was wonderful to hear about. oh, you must read some of his letters! i never had anything come into my life that i enjoyed so much; and it was more than enjoyment; they helped me to live; seems as though i could hardly have got through with some of the things i had to, without them."
her voice broke a little, and it was several minutes before she spoke again, this time in a changed tone:
"i believe i will tell you about the book he wrote; a whole volume in manuscript; nicely bound it is, too, and inscribed:"
"'for derrick douglass forman, with his uncle derrick's love.'"
"written on purpose for him; a kind of diary i think, from what he told me; he said he wrote a little or a good deal, every day according as the mood seized him. of course, i have never read a line of it; you see, it was meant for no eye but the boy's."
"do you mean that my boy has such a book in his possession?"
it was the first word mr. forman had spoken since the story began, and the restrained eagerness in his question was almost pitiful to hear. his sister made haste to answer:
"oh, no; not yet; he knows nothing about it. you see, it was sent to me after derrick went to heaven, with the direction that i was to keep it for his name-boy until he was seventeen, or somewhere about that age; then, if i had come to know him well and judged that he would care to have a book written for him alone, by his uncle derrick, i was to give it to him; or if, at that time, or later, it should seem to me that his uncle derrick would better not be mentioned to him, i was just to burn the book and say no word. it puts a great responsibility on me, doesn't it? i was a good deal worried about it for a while. that was the chief reason why i persisted in wanting to come here this winter, instead of spending the winter at some old ladies' retreat, as evarts thought might be best. i felt that i would have to get well acquainted with the boy, in order to fulfill my trust; but i hadn't been here a week before i began to feel satisfied that he would get the book and prize it, too. i did not mean to tell anybody about it, and i don't hardly know why i have done so now, only i felt moved to; but you will keep my secret, of course."
"i will, elsie, god bless you."
it was every word that the poor man felt able to utter. it seemed to him that he could not make her understand, even if he had been willing to try, what it would be to him to have one line of his very own from the brother whom he had missed and mourned all his life. yet she understood better than he thought. when she spoke again her voice was tremulous.
"joseph, i think it must be hard for you to forgive me for not telling you some of these things before. you can see how i misjudged you when i confess that i did not think you would care to hear them, and i shrank from the thought of trying to talk everything over with you. i know now that i was a coward. i have a package of letters that you will be sure to want. every other line is about you, and you will see how true and steady and strong was his love for you. one of the letters was written but a few days before his death. it was sent to me by one of his dear boys, a miner who was with him during all that last night and who added a few misspelled lines straight from his own sad heart. 'the commander was right there beside him, ma'am, all night long'; that was the way he told it. 'we boys couldn't see him, but he did; he told me so; and i knew it was so; and after a spell he took him away; and we boys know he has got him safe, and we'll see him again.'"
she stopped abruptly; there were other portions of that letter which she knew heart; but she was crying softly, and could not have added another word.
"how much of all this does evarts know?" mr. forman asked, at last. "why he did he die? evarts said they called it an accident, but he had no doubt that it was a drunken spree of some sort."
aunt elsie's tears were suddenly dried; indignation came to help steady her voice.
"evarts had no right to say a thing like that. he knows nothing but the bare facts, and even those it seems he has distorted. there was an accident; a mine caved in; several of the men were injured, but derrick gave his life to save a boy, the young son one of the mine owners, who had gone down with one of the workmen. derrick went down, after the accident, and brought the twelve-year-old boy up in his arms. but another portion of the mine caved in just as they reached the entrance. the boy was safe, but derrick's head was struck. i suppose i am partly to blame for evarts' ignorance; i could not seem to bring myself to talk over details with him, though i thought he understood. he has been strangely prejudiced all through the years; he could not seem to get his own consent to believe anything but the worst of derrick. don't you remember that as children they never could agree about anything?"
but mr. forman could not discuss her brother with her, could not, it seemed to him, say another word. perhaps it was well for both of them that they were interrupted.
aunt elsie, as she stooped for her crutch, said low to him one word more that gave the final touch to the interview:
"the boy that derrick sacrificed his life to save was named joseph."
had she done good, or harm? this was the question that the poor lady lay awake to consider. she had spoken more plainly of her brother evarts than she had meant to; but, after all, was it any plainer than honesty demanded? joseph would be very angry with evarts. could she blame him for that? he would be sure to inquire why he had been kept in ignorance of facts so vital, having to do with his own brother. he would be sure to ask pertinent questions about those letters which had never reached him, and evarts would be angry, and blame her for having "raked up the old disgrace." perhaps there would be an open rupture in a family that had never been really united. ought she to have kept silence? but that would leave a good man to go on thinking that his brother, whom he loved, was a disgrace and a failure, instead of being a brother of whom he had a right to be proud. she could never have done that. she assured herself that people were not called upon to sacrifice the good name of one member of the family merely for the sake of keeping peace. joseph ought to know the truth; if it made trouble, they had nothing to do with that. then she went all over the ground again, and yet again, as people will, sometimes, even after they had resolutely settled troubling questions. those two letters haunted her. one she knew was written in the very beginning of the troubles, just before the boy derrick had followed his guest as far as new york, and after waiting there in feverish anxiety for word from horace that would set everything straight, had received the letter which overwhelmed him; all the horror of despair which it awakened had been poured out to this young brother whose help had never yet failed him. she had seen a copy of the letter; derrick had sent it to her once to prove how earnestly he had tried, and failed. the other letter was written years later, after the boy had given up all hope of reconciliation with his family, and yet had yearned after this one brother.
just what he said in that letter his sister did not know, save that he wrote her, long afterwards, that the appeal he made, not for material help of any kind, but for brotherliness and fellowship, was such that "joe wouldn't have been able to get away from it save for something like a vow that he must have made to cast him off entirely." there had been years during which this same patient, longsuffering sister had been too angry with her brother joseph to have anything to do with him or his family, all on account of his treatment of that letter, which now it appeared had been lost. but in that phrase lay hidden the haunting question. had it? was it reasonable to suppose that two letters written to the same person several years apart had both been lost in the mails, while to that same person other mail had come and gone through the years without disturbance? it was possible, of course; for the honor of another she could hope with all her heart that it was; but she could not make herself believe it. she knew the exact date at which that second letter was sent, and she knew that she was ill at the time, and evarts had made one of his flying visits to look after the property, and had himself driven to town for the mail on the two days in which it might have come; and joseph at the time was at his grandfather stuart's, sixty miles away. why had she always kept diaries of the years to make her hopelessly certain of dates, and why must she creep softly out of her bed at midnight to make sure that she was right in her calculations? the watchful ray in the little "closet" heard the thump of the crutch and was on the alert.
"what is it, aunt elsie? can i do something for you?"
"no, dear. i'm just an old fusser, and i had to know about a date that was bothering me; i've found it, and i was right, all the time; it is too bad to have waked you up. i just couldn't get it out of my mind."
there was another thing that the poor lady could not get out of her mind that night, and that was: how was she going to forgive evarts forman for having helped to weave family tragedy that need never have been?
sometimes during the course of that restless night her thoughts came back to the boy, derrick. she wanted to have a little further talk with him; she believed that the time had come when she might at least tell him about the book, his book; and if he did not care to possess it just yet she would offer to take care of it for him until he did. would he give her another opportunity to talk about his uncle? or had she said that to him which would make him more shy of her in the future?
she need not have worried about that. derrick forman, third, who never did anything moderately, knew when he went to his room that evening after their long talk that he had adopted his aunt elsie. he assured himself that she was no more like aunt caroline than a diamond was like a lump of mud, and he was going to make up to her in every way that he possibly could for the loss of uncle derrick.
it was only two days afterward, while aunt elsie in the little family room was trying to decide whether or not to retire to her room, ostensibly to write a letter, but in reality to give her brother and sister a chance to talk over their daily problems without the embarrassment of having a listener, that derrick appeared, book in hand.
"hello!" he said, "i'm in luck; you are here and you're not doing a thing! do you suppose you could give a fellow a lift out of another hole?"
both the father and mother began a protest: aunt elsie ought not to be troubled with his problems; he should wait until ray was at liberty. but his aunt interrupted them eagerly. she would like nothing better than to try.
"if it should happen to be one of the holes into which i tumbled myself," she said, gayly, "there is no telling what i might do. but you young people of to-day have so many new-fangled ones that i'm not sure—"
by this time she was glancing down at the page of the book he carried, and broke off to exclaim:
"why, dear me! here is one of our old moral science questions. we argued about it all one recitation hour."
"moral what!" from the astonished student.
"science. somebody's moral science, i forget his name; but that was the name of our text book."
"great caesar! did they have an 'immoral science' that they studied?"
"not so many as they have in these days," she flashed back at him. "but this book of yours is just the old questions in new dress."
then they bent to their work.
