FullReads

“Hasn’t that old fellow gone yet?” asked Mrs. Wade. She had heard his voice as he returned from the door.

“No. And what do you suppose? He wants us to let him stay all night.”

“Indeed, and we’ll do no such thing! We can’t have the likes of him in the house, no how. Where could he sleep?”

“Not in the best room, even if Mr. N–shouldn’t come.”

“No, indeed!”

“But I really don’t see, Jane how we can turn him out of doors. He doesn’t look like a very strong man, and it’s dark and cold, and full three miles to D–.”

“It’s too much! He ought to have gone on while he had daylight, and not lingered here as he did until it got dark.”

“We can’t turn him out of doors, Jane; and it’s no use to think of it. He’ll have to stay now.”

“But what can we do with him?”

“He seems like a decent man, at least; and don’t look as if he had anything bad about him. We might make him a bed on the floor somewhere.”

“I wish he had been to Guinea before he came here,” said Mrs. Wade, fretfully. The disappointment, the conviction that Mr. N–would not arrive, and the intrusion of so unwelcome a visitor as the stranger, completely unhinged her mind.

“Oh, well, Jane,” replied her husband in a soothing voice, “never mind. We must make the best of it. Poor man! He came to us tired and hungry, and we have warmed him and fed him. He now asks shelter for the night, and we must not refuse him, nor grant his request in a complaining reluctant spirit. You know what the Bible says about entertaining angels unawares.”

“Angels! Did you ever see an angel look like him?”

“Having never seen an angel,” said the husband smiling, “I am unable to speak as to their appearance.”

This had the effect to call an answering smile to the face of Mrs. Wade, and a better feeling to her heart. And it was finally agreed between them, that the man, as he seemed like a decent kind of a person, should be permitted to occupy the minister’s room, if that individual did not arrive, an event to which they both now looked with but small expectancy. If he did come, why the man would have put up with poorer accommodations.

When Mr. Wade returned to the kitchen where the stranger had seated himself before the fire, he informed him, that they had decided to let him stay all night. The man expressed in a few words his grateful sense of their kindness, and then became silent and thoughtful. Soon after, the farmer’s wife, giving up all hopes of Mr. N–‘s arrival, had supper taken up, which consisted of coffee, warm cream short cakes, and sweet cakes, broiled ham, and broiled chicken. After all was on the table, a short conference was held, as to whether it would do not to invite the stranger to take supper. It was true, they had given him as much bread and bacon as he could eat; but then, as long as he was going to stay all night, it looked too inhospitable to sit down to the table and not ask him to join them. So, making a virtue of necessity, he was kindly asked to come in to supper, an invitation which he did not decline. Grace was said over the meal by Mr. Wade, and then the coffee was poured out, the bread helped, and the meat served.

There was a fine little boy of some five or six years old at the table, who had been brightened up, and dressed in his best, in order to grace the minister’s reception. Charley was full of talk, and the parents felt a natural pride in showing him off, even before their humble guest, who noticed him particularly, although he had not much to say.

“Come, Charley,” said Mr. Wade, after the meal was over, and he sat leaning back in his chair, “can’t you repeat the pretty hymn mamma learned you last Sunday?”