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Title: The Light in the Clearing: A Tale of the North Country in the Time of Silas Wright

Author: Irving Bacheller

Illustrator: Arthur Ignatius Keller

Release date: November 25, 2004 [eBook #14150]
                Most recently updated: December 18, 2020

Language: English

Credits: E-text prepared by Rick Niles, Charlie Kirschner,and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team


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THE LIGHT IN THE CLEARING

A Tale of the North Country in the Time of Silas Wright

by

IRVING BACHELLER

Author of _Eben Holden_, _Keeping Up with Lizzie_, etc.

Illustrated by Arthur I. Keller.

1917







[Illustration: The Silent Woman stood, pointing at him with her finger]



_The Spirit of Man is the Candle of the Lord_
                         --PROVERBS XX, 27


TO MY FRIEND

THOMAS R. PROCTOR, OF UTICA

LOVER OF THE TRUE IDEALS OF DEMOCRACY

WHOSE LIFE HAS BEEN A SHINING EXAMPLE TO ALL MEN OF WEALTH

HONORED GENTLEMAN AND PHILANTHROPIST

AT THE GATE OF THE LAND OF

WHICH I HAVE WRITTEN

DEDICATE THESE CHRONICLES OF THAT LAND

AND OF ITS GREAT HERO




FOREWORD


From the memoirs of one who knew Governor Wright and lived through many
of the adventures herein described and whose life ended full of honors
early in the present century. It is understood that he chose the name
Barton to signalize his affection for a friend well known in the land of
which he was writing.

THE AUTHOR.




PREFACE


The Light in the Clearing shone upon many things and mostly upon those
which, above all others, have impassioned and perpetuated the Spirit of
America and which, just now, seem to me to be worthy of attention. I
believe that spirit to be the very candle of the Lord which, in this
dark and windy night of time, has flickered so that the souls of the
faithful have been afraid. But let us be of good cheer. It is shining
brighter as I write and, under God, I believe it shall, by and by, be
seen and loved of all men.

One self-contained, Homeric figure, of the remote countryside in which I
was born, had the true Spirit of Democracy and shed its light abroad in
the Senate of the United States and the Capitol at Albany. He carried
the candle of the Lord. It led him to a height of self-forgetfulness
achieved by only two others--Washington and Lincoln. Yet I have been
surprised by the profound and general ignorance of this generation
regarding the career of Silas Wright, of whom Whittier wrote these
lines:

     "Man of the millions thou art lost too soon!
     Portents at which the bravest stand aghast
     The birth throes of a future strange and vast
     Alarm the land. Yet thou so wise and strong
     Suddenly summoned to the burial bed,
     Lapped in its slumbers deep and ever long,
     Hear'st not the tumult surging over head.
     Who now shall rally Freedom's scattering host?
     Who wear the mantle of the leader lost?"

The distinguished Senator who served at his side for many years, Thomas
H. Benton of Missouri, has this to say of Silas Wright in his _Thirty
Years' View_:

"He refused cabinet appointments under his fast friend Van Buren and
under Polk, whom he may be said to have elected. He refused a seat on
the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States; he rejected
instantly the nomination of 1844 for Vice-President; he refused to be
put in nomination for the Presidency. He spent that time in declining
office which others did in winning it. The offices he did accept, it
might well be said, were thrust upon him. He was born great and above
office and unwillingly descended to it."

So much by way of preparing the reader to meet the great commoner in
these pages. One thing more is necessary to a proper understanding of
the final scenes in the book--a part of his letter written to Judge Fine
just before the Baltimore convention of 1844, to wit:

"I do not feel at liberty to omit any act which may protect me from
being made the instrument, however honestly and innocently, of further
distractions.

"Within a few days several too partial friends have suggested to me the
idea that by possibility, in case the opposition to the nomination of
Mr. Van Buren should be found irreconcilable, a compromise might be made
by dropping him and using my name. I need not say to you that a consent
on my part to any such proceeding would justly forfeit my standing with
the democracy of our state and cause my faith and fidelity to my party
to be suspected everywhere.... To consent to the use of my name as a
candidate under any circumstances, would be in my view to invite you to
compromise the expressed wishes and instructions of your constituents
for my personal advancement. I can never consent to place myself in a
position where the suspicion of acting from such a motive can justly
attach to me....

"If it were proper I could tell you with the most perfect truth that I
have never been vain enough to dream of the office of President in
connection with my own name, and were not Mr. Van Buren the candidate of
our State, I should find just as little difficulty as I now do, in
telling you that I am not and can not under any circumstances be a
candidate before your convention for that office."

According to his best biographer, Jabez Hammond, Mr. Wright still
adhered to this high ground in spite of the fact that Mr. Van Buren
withdrew and requested his faithful hand to vote for the Senator.

There were those who accused Mr. Wright of being a spoilsman, the only
warrant for which claim would seem to be his remark in a letter: "When
our enemies accuse us of feeding our friends instead of them never let
them lie in telling the story."

He was, in fact, a human being, through and through, but so upright that
they used to say of him that he was "as honest as any man under heaven
or in it"

For my knowledge of the color and spirit of the time I am indebted to a
long course of reading in its books, newspapers and periodicals, notably
_The North American Review, The United States Magazine and Democratic
Review, The New York Mirror, The Knickerbocker, The St. Lawrence
Republican_, Benton's _Thirty Years' View_, Bancroft's _Life of Martin
Van Buren_, histories of Wright and his time by Hammond and Jenkins, and
to many manuscript letters of the distinguished commoner in the New York
Public Library and in the possession of Mr. Samuel Wright of Weybridge,
Vermont.

To any who may think that they discover portraits in these pages I
desire to say that all the characters--save only Silas Wright and
President Van Buren and Barton Baynes--are purely imaginary. However,
there were Grimshaws and Purvises and Binkses and Aunt Deels and Uncle
Peabodys in almost every rustic neighborhood those days, and I regret to
add that Roving Kate was on many roads. The case of Amos Grimshaw bears
a striking resemblance to that of young Bickford, executed long ago in
Malone, for the particulars of which case I am indebted to my friend,
Mr. H.L. Ives of Potsdam.

THE AUTHOR.




CONTENTS


BOOK ONE

WHICH IS THE STORY OF THE CANDLE AND COMPASS

CHAPTER
    I The Melon Harvest
   II I Meet the Silent Woman and Silas Wright, Jr.
  III We Go to Meeting and See Mr. Wright Again
   IV Our Little Strange Companion
    V In the Light of the Candles
   VI The Great Stranger
  VII My Second Peril
 VIII My Third Peril


BOOK TWO

WHICH IS THE STORY OF THE PRINCIPAL WITNESS

   IX In Which I Meet Other Great Men
    X I Meet President Van Buren and Am Cross-Examined by Mr. Grimshaw
   XI A Party and--My Fourth Peril?
  XII The Spirit of Michael Henry and Others
 XIII The Thing and Other Things
  XIV The Bolt Falls


BOOK THREE

WHICH IS THE STORY OF THE CHOSEN WAYS

   XV Uncle Peabody's Way and Mine
  XVI I Use My Own Compass at a Fork in the Road
 XVII The Man with the Scythe
XVIII I Start in a Long Way
  XIX On the Summit
      Epilogue




BOOK ONE

Which is the Story of the Candle and the Compass



CHAPTER I

THE MELON HARVEST


Once upon a time I owned a watermelon. I say once because I never did it
again. When I got through owning that melon I never wanted another. The
time was 1831; I was a boy of seven and the melon was the first of all
my harvests. Every night and morning I watered and felt and surveyed my
watermelon. My pride grew with the melon and, by and by, my uncle tried
to express the extent and nature of my riches by calling me a
mellionaire.

I didn't know much about myself those days except the fact that my name
was Bart Baynes and, further, that I was an orphan who owned a
watermelon and a little spotted hen and lived on Rattle road in a
neighborhood called Lickitysplit. I lived with my Aunt Deel and my
Uncle Peabody Baynes on a farm. They were brother and sister--he about
thirty-eight and she a little beyond the far-distant goal of forty.

My father and mother died in a scourge of diphtheria that swept the
neighborhood when I was a boy of five. For a time my Aunt Deel seemed to
blame me for my loss.

"No wonder they're dead," she used to say, when out of patience with me
and--well I suppose that I must have had an unusual talent for all the
noisy arts of childhood when I broke the silence of that little home.

The word "dead" set the first mile-stone in the long stretch of my
memory. That was because I tried so hard to comprehend it and further
because it kept repeating its challenge to my imagination. I often
wondered just what had become of my father and mother and I remember
that the day after I went to my aunt's home a great idea came to me. It
came out of the old dinner-horn hanging in the shed. I knew the power of
its summons and I slyly captured the horn and marched around the house
blowing it and hoping that it would bring my father up from the fields.
I blew and blew and listened for that familiar halloo of his. When I
paused for a drink of water at the well my aunt came and seized the horn
and said it was no wonder they were dead. She knew nothing of the
sublime bit of necromancy she had interrupted--poor soul!

I knew that she had spoken of my parents for I supposed that they were
the only people in the world who were dead, but I did not know what it
meant to be dead. I often called to them, as I had been wont to do,
especially in the night, and shed many tears because they came no more
to answer me. Aunt Deel did not often refer directly to my talents, but
I saw, many times, that no-wonder-they-died look in her face.

Children are great rememberers. They are the recording angels--the
keepers of the book of life. Man forgets--how easily!--and easiest of
all, the solemn truth that children do _not_ forget.

A few days after I arrived in the home of my aunt and uncle I slyly
entered the parlor and climbed the what-not to examine some white
flowers on its top shelf and tipped the whole thing over, scattering its
burden of albums, wax flowers and sea shells on the floor. My aunt came
running on her tiptoes and exclaimed: "Mercy! Come right out o' here
this minute--you pest!"

I took some rather long steps going out which were due to the fact that
Aunt Deel had hold of my hand. While I sat weeping she went back into
the parlor and began to pick up things.

"My wreath! my wreath!" I heard her moaning.

How well I remember that little assemblage of flower ghosts in wax! They
had no more right to associate with human beings than the ghosts of
fable. Uncle Peabody used to call them the "Minervy flowers" because
they were a present from his Aunt Minerva. When Aunt Deel returned to
the kitchen where I sat--a sorrowing little refugee hunched up in a
corner--she said: "I'll have to tell your Uncle Peabody--ayes!"

"Oh please don't tell my Uncle Peabody," I wailed.

"Ayes! I'll have to tell him," she answered firmly.

For the first time I looked for him with dread at the window and when he
came I hid in a closet and heard that solemn and penetrating note in her
voice as she said:

"I guess you'll have to take that boy away--ayes!"

"What now?" he asked.

"My stars! he sneaked into the parlor and tipped over the what-not and
smashed that beautiful wax wreath!"

Her voice trembled.

"Not them Minervy flowers?" he asked in a tone of doleful incredulity.

"Ayes he did!"

"And tipped over the hull what-not?"

"Ayes!"

"Jerusalem four-corners!" he exclaimed. "I'll have to--"

He stopped as he was wont to do on the threshold of strong opinions and
momentous resolutions.

The rest of the conversation was drowned in my own cries and Uncle
Peabody came and lifted me tenderly and carried me up-stairs.

He sat down with me on his lap and hushed my cries. Then he said very
gently:

"Now, Bub, you and me have got to be careful. What-nots and albums and
wax flowers and hair-cloth sofys are the most dang'rous critters in St.
Lawrence County. They're purty savage. Keep your eye peeled. You can't
tell what minute they'll jump on ye. More boys have been dragged away
and tore to pieces by `em than by all the bears and panthers in the
woods. When I was a boy I got a cut acrost my legs that made a scar ye
can see now, and it was a hair-cloth sofy that done it. Keep out o' that
old parlor. Ye might as well go into a cage o' wolves. How be I goin' to
make ye remember it?"

"I don't know," I whimpered and began to cry out in fearful
anticipation.

He set me in a chair, picked up one of his old carpet-slippers and began
to thump the bed with it. He belabored the bed with tremendous vigor.
Meanwhile he looked at me and exclaimed: "You dreadful child!"

I knew that my sins were responsible for this violence. It frightened me
and my cries increased.

The door at the bottom of the stairs opened suddenly.

Aunt Deel called:

"Don't lose your temper, Peabody. I think you've gone fur 'nough--ayes!"

Uncle Peabody stopped and blew as if he were very tired and then I
caught a look in his face that reassured me.

He called back to her: "I wouldn't 'a' cared so much if it hadn't 'a'
been the what-not and them Minervy flowers. When a boy tips over a
what-not he's goin' it purty strong."

"Well don't be too severe. You'd better come now and git me a pail o'
water--ayes, I think ye had."

Uncle Peabody did a lot of sneezing and coughing with his big, red
handkerchief over his face and I was not old enough then to understand
it. He kissed me and took my little hand in his big hard one and led me
down the stairs.

After that in private talks uncle and I always referred to our parlor as
the wolf den and that night, after I had gone to bed, he lay down beside
me and told the story of a boy who, having been left alone in his
father's house one day, was suddenly set upon and roughly handled by a
what-not, a shaggy old hair-cloth sofy and an album. The sofy had begun
it by scratchin' his face and he had scratched back with a shingle nail.
The album had watched its chance and, when he stood beneath it, had
jumped off a shelf on to his head. Suddenly he heard a voice calling
him:

"Little boy, come here," it said, and it was the voice of the what-not.

"Just step up on this lower shelf," says the old what-not. "I want to
show ye somethin'."

The what-not was all covered with shiny things and looked as innocent as
a lamb.

He went over and stepped on the lower shelf and then the savage thing
jumped right on top of him, very supple, and threw him on to the floor
and held him there until his mother came.

I dreamed that night that a long-legged what-not, with a wax wreath in
its hands, chased me around the house and caught and bit me on the neck.
I called for help and uncle came and found me on the floor and put me
back in bed again.

For a long time I thought that the way a man punished a boy was by
thumping his bed. I knew that women had a different and less
satisfactory method, for I remembered that my mother had spanked me and
Aunt Deel had a way of giving my hands and head a kind of watermelon
thump with the middle finger of her right hand and with a curious look
in her eyes. Uncle Peabody used to call it a "snaptious look." Almost
always he whacked the bed with his slipper. There were exceptions,
however, and, by and by, I came to know in each case the destination of
the slipper for if I had done anything which really afflicted my
conscience that strip of leather seemed to know the truth, and found its
way to my person.

My Uncle Peabody was a man of a thousand. I often saw him laughing and
talking to himself and strange fancies came into my head about it.

"Who be you talkin' to?" I asked.

"Who be I talkin' to, Bub? Why I'm talkin' to my friends."

"Friends?" I said.

"The friends I orto have had but ain't got. When I git lonesome I just
make up a lot o' folks and some of 'em is good comp'ny."

He loved to have me with him, as he worked, and told me odd tales and
seemed to enjoy my prattle. I often saw him stand with rough fingers
stirring his beard, just beginning to show a sprinkle of white, while he
looked down at me as if struck with wonder at something I had said.

"Come and give me a kiss, Bub," he would say. As he knelt down, I would
run to his arms and I wondered why he always blinked his gray eyes after
he had kissed me.

He was a bachelor and for a singular reason. I have always laid it to
the butternut trousers--the most sacred bit of apparel of which I have
any knowledge.

"What have you got on them butternut trousers for?" I used to hear Aunt
Deel say when he came down-stairs in his first best clothes to go to
meeting or "attend" a sociable--those days people just went to meeting
but they always "attended" sociables--"You're a wearin' `em threadbare,
ayes! I suppose you've sot yer eyes on some one o' the girls. I can
always tell--ayes I can! When you git your long legs in them butternut
trousers I know you're warmin' up--ayes!"

I had begun to regard those light brown trousers with a feeling of awe,
and used to put my hand upon them very softly when uncle had them on.
They seemed to rank with "sofys," albums and what-nots in their capacity
for making trouble.

Uncle Peabody rarely made any answer, and for a time thereafter Aunt
Deel acted as if she were about done with him. She would go around with
a stern face as if unaware of his presence, and I had to keep out of her
way. In fact I dreaded the butternut trousers almost as much as she
did.

Once Uncle Peabody had put on the butternut trousers, against the usual
protest, to go to meeting.

"Ayes! you've got 'em on ag'in," said Aunt Deel. "I suppose your black
trousers ain't good 'nough. That's 'cause you know Edna Perry is goin'
to be there--ayes!"

Edna Perry was a widow of about his age who was visiting her sister in
the neighborhood.

Aunt Deel wouldn't go to church with us, so we went off together and
walked home with Mrs. Perry. As we passed our house I saw Aunt Deel
looking out of the window and waved my hand to her.

When we got home at last we found my aunt sitting in her armchair by the
stove.

"You did it--didn't ye?--ayes," she demanded rather angrily as we came
in.

"Done what?" asked Uncle Peabody.

"Shinin' up to that Perry woman--ain't ye?--ayes! I see you're bound to
git married--ayes!"

I had no idea what it meant to get married but I made up my mind that it
was something pretty low and bad. For the moment I blamed Uncle Peabody.

Aunt Deel's voice and manner seemed to indicate that she had borne with
him to the limit of her patience.

"Delia," said my uncle, "I wouldn't be so--"

Again he checked himself for fear of going too far, I suppose.

"My heart! my heart!" Aunt Deel exclaimed and struggled to her feet
sobbing, and Uncle Peabody helped her to the lounge. She was so ill the
rest of the day that my uncle had to go for the doctor while I bathed
her forehead with cold water.

Poor Uncle Peabody! Every step toward matrimony required such an outlay
of emotion and such a sacrifice of comfort that I presume it seemed to
be hardly worth while.

Yet I must be careful not to give the reader a false impression of my
Aunt Deel. She was a thin, pale woman, rather tall, with brown hair and
blue eyes and a tongue--well, her tongue has spoken for itself. I
suppose that she will seem inhumanly selfish with this jealousy of her
brother.

"I promised ma that I would look after you and I'm a-goin' to do
it--ayes!" I used to hear her say to my uncle.

There were not many married men who were so thoroughly looked after.
This was due in part to her high opinion of the Baynes family, and to a
general distrust of women. In her view they were a designing lot. It was
probably true that Mrs. Perry was fond of show and would have been glad
to join the Baynes family, but those items should not have been set down
against her. There was Aunt Deel's mistake. She couldn't allow any
humanity in other women.

She toiled incessantly. She washed and scrubbed and polished and dusted
and sewed and knit from morning until night. She lived in mortal fear
that company would come and find her unprepared--Alma Jones or Jabez
Lincoln and his wife, or Ben and Mary Humphries, or "Mr. and Mrs. Horace
Dunkelberg." These were the people of whom she talked when the neighbors
came in and when she was not talking of the Bayneses. I observed that
she always said "Mr. and Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg." They were the
conversational ornaments of our home. "As Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg says,"
or, "as I said to Mr. Horace Dunkelberg," were phrases calculated to
establish our social standing. I supposed that the world was peopled by
Joneses, Lincolns, Humphries and Dunkelbergs, but mostly by Dunkelbergs.
These latter were very rich people who lived in Canton village.

I know, now, how dearly Aunt Deel loved her brother and me. I must have
been a great trial to that woman of forty unused to the pranks of
children and the tender offices of a mother. Naturally I turned from her
to my Uncle Peabody as a refuge and a help in time of trouble with
increasing fondness. He had no knitting or sewing to do and when Uncle
Peabody sat in the house he gave all his time to me and we weathered
many a storm together as we sat silently in his favorite corner, of an
evening, where I always went to sleep in his arms.

He and I slept in the little room up-stairs, "under the shingles"--as
uncle used to say. I in a small bed, and he in the big one which had
been the receiver of so much violence. So I gave her only a qualified
affection until I could see beneath the words and the face and the
correcting hand of my Aunt Deel.

Uncle made up the beds in our room. Often his own bed would go unmade.
My aunt would upbraid him for laziness, whereupon he would say that when
he got up he liked the feel of that bed so much that he wanted to begin
next night right where he had left off.

I was seven years old when Uncle Peabody gave me the watermelon seeds. I
put one of them in my mouth and bit it.

"It appears to me there's an awful draft blowin' down your throat," said
Uncle Peabody. "You ain't no business eatin' a melon seed."

"Why?" was my query.

"'Cause it was made to put in the ground. Didn't you know it was alive?"

"Alive!" I exclaimed.

"Alive," said he, "I'll show ye."

He put a number of the seeds in the ground and covered them, and said
that that part of the garden should be mine. I watched it every day and
by and by two vines came up. One sickened and died in dry weather. Uncle
Peabody said that I must water the other every day. I did it faithfully
and the vine throve.

"What makes it grow?" I asked.

"The same thing that makes you grow," said Uncle Peabody. "You can do
lots of things but there's only one thing that a watermelon can do. It
can just grow. See how it reaches out toward the sunlight! If we was to
pull them vines around and try to make 'em grow toward the north they
wouldn't mind us. They'd creep back and go reachin' toward the sunlight
ag'in just as if they had a compass to show 'em the way."

It was hard work, I thought, to go down into the garden, night and
morning, with my little pail full of water, but uncle said that I should
get my pay when the melon was ripe. I had also to keep the wood-box full
and feed the chickens. They were odious tasks. When I asked Aunt Deel
what I should get for doing them she answered quickly:

"Nospanks and bread and butter--ayes!"

When I asked what were "nospanks" she told me that they were part of the
wages of a good child. I was better paid for my care of the watermelon
vine, for its growth was measured with a string every day and kept me
interested. One morning I found five blossoms on it. I picked one and
carried it to Aunt Deel. Another I destroyed in the tragedy of catching
a bumblebee which had crawled into its cup. In due time three small
melons appeared. When they were as big as a baseball I picked two of
them. One I tasted and threw away as I ran to the pump for relief. The
other I hurled at a dog on my way to school.

So that last melon on the vine had my undivided affection. It grew in
size and reputation, and soon I learned that a reputation is about the
worst thing that a watermelon can acquire while it is on the vine. I
invited everybody that came to the house to go and see my watermelon.
They looked it over and said pleasant things about it. When I was a boy
people used to treat children and watermelons with a like solicitude.
Both were a subject for jests and both produced similar reactions in the
human countenance.

Aunt Deel often applied the watermelon test to my forehead and
discovered in me a capacity for noise which no melon could rival. That
act became very familiar to me, for when my melon was nearing the summit
of its fame and influence, all beholders thumped its rounded side with
the middle finger of the right hand, and said that they guessed they'd
steal it. I knew that this was some kind of a joke and a very idle one
for they had also threatened to steal me and nothing had come of it.

At last Uncle Peabody agreed with me that it was about time to pick the
melon. I decided to pick it immediately after meeting on Sunday, so that
I could give it to my aunt and uncle at dinner-time. When we got home I
ran for the garden. My feet and those of our friends and neighbors had
literally worn a path to the melon. In eager haste I got my little
wheelbarrow and ran with it to the end of that path. There I found
nothing but broken vines! The melon had vanished. I ran back to the
house almost overcome by a feeling of alarm, for I had thought long of
that hour of pride when I should bring the melon and present it to my
aunt and uncle.

"Uncle Peabody," I shouted, "my melon is gone."

"Well I van!" said he, "somebody must 'a' stole it."

"Stole it?" I repeated the words without fully comprehending what they
meant.

"But it was my melon," I said with a trembling voice.

"Yes and I vum it's too bad! But, Bart, you ain't learned yit that there
are wicked people in the world who come and take what don't belong to
'em."

There were tears in my eyes when I asked:

"They'll bring it back, won't they?"

"Never!" said Uncle Peabody, "I'm afraid they've et it up."

He had no sooner said it than a cry broke from my lips, and I sank down
upon the grass moaning and sobbing. I lay amidst the ruins of the simple
faith of childhood. It was as if the world and all its joys had come to
an end.

"You can't blame the boy," I heard Uncle Peabody saying. "He's fussed
with that melon all summer. He wanted to give it to you for a present."

"Ayes so he did! Well I declare! I never thought o' that--ayes!"

Aunt Deel spoke in a low, kindly tone and came and lifted me to my feet
very tenderly.

"Come, Bart, don't feel so about that old melon," said she, "it ain't
worth it. Come with me. I'm goin' to give you a present--ayes I be!"

I was still crying when she took me to her trunk, and offered the
grateful assuagement of candy and a belt, all embroidered with blue and
white beads.

"Now you see, Bart, how low and mean anybody is that takes what don't
belong to 'em--ayes! They're snakes! Everybody hates 'em an' stamps on
'em when they come in sight--ayes!"

The abomination of the Lord was in her look and manner. How it shook my
soul! He who had taken the watermelon had also taken from me something I
was never to have again, and a very wonderful thing it was--faith in
the goodness of men. My eyes had seen evil. The world had committed its
first offense against me and my spirit was no longer the white and
beautiful thing it had been. Still, therein is the beginning of wisdom
and, looking down the long vista of the years, I thank God for the great
harvest of the lost watermelon. Better things had come in its
place--understanding and what more, often I have vainly tried to
estimate. For one thing that sudden revelation of the heart of childhood
had lifted my aunt's out of the cold storage of a puritanic spirit, and
warmed it into new life and opened its door for me.

In the afternoon she sent me over to Wills' to borrow a little tea. I
stopped for a few minutes to play with Henry Wills--a boy not quite a
year older than I. While playing there I discovered a piece of the rind
of my melon in the dooryard. On that piece of rind I saw the cross which
I had made one day with my thumb-nail. It was intended to indicate that
the melon was solely and wholly mine. I felt a flush of anger.

"I hate you," I said as I approached him.

"I hate you," he answered.

"You're a snake!" I said.

We now stood, face to face and breast to breast, like a pair of young
roosters. He gave me a shove and told me to go home. I gave him a shove
and told him I wouldn't. I pushed up close to him again and we glared
into each other's eyes.

Suddenly he spat in my face. I gave him a scratch on the forehead with
my finger-nails. Then we fell upon each other and rolled on the ground
and hit and scratched with feline ferocity.

Mrs. Wills ran out of the house and parted us. Our blood was hot, and
leaking through the skin of our faces a little.

"He pitched on me," Henry explained.

I couldn't speak.

"Go right home--this minute--you brat!" said Mrs. Wills in anger.
"Here's your tea. Don't you ever come here again."

I took the tea and started down the road weeping. What a bitter day that
was for me! I dreaded to face my aunt and uncle. Coming through the
grove down by our gate I met Uncle Peabody. With the keen eyesight of
the father of the prodigal son he had seen me coming "a long way off"
and shouted:

"Well here ye be--I was kind o' worried, Bub."

Then his eye caught the look of dejection in my gait and figure. He
hurried toward me. He stopped as I came sobbing to his feet.

"Why, what's the matter?" he asked gently, as he took the tea cup from
my hand, and sat down upon his heels.

I could only fall into his arms and express myself in the grief of
childhood. He hugged me close and begged me to tell him what was the
matter.

"That Wills boy stole my melon," I said, and the words came slow with
sobs.

"Oh, no he didn't," said Uncle Peabody.

"Yes he did. I saw a piece o' the rin'."

"Well by--" said Uncle Peabody, stopping, as usual, at the edge of the
precipice.

"He's a snake," I added.

"And you fit and he scratched you up that way?"

"I scratched him, too."

"Don't you say a word about it to Aunt Deel. Don't ever speak o' that
miserable melon ag'in to anybody. You scoot around to the barn, an' I'll
be there in a minute and fix ye up."

He went by the road with the tea and I ran around to the lane and up to
the stable. Uncle Peabody met me there in a moment and brought a pail of
water and washed my face so that I felt and looked more respectable.

"If Aunt Deel asks ye about them scratches you just tell her that you
and Hen had a little disagreement," said my uncle.

She didn't ask me, probably because Uncle Peabody had explained in his
own way, and requested her to say nothing.

The worst was over for that day but the Baynes-Wills feud had begun. It
led to many a fight in the school yard and on the way home. We were so
evenly matched that our quarrel went on for a long time and gathered
intensity as it continued.

One day Uncle Peabody had given me an egg and, said that there was a
chicken in it.

"All ye have to do is to keep it warm an' the chicken will come to life,
and when the hen is off the nest some day it will see light through the
shell and peck its way out," he explained.

He marked my initials on the egg and put it under a hen and by and by a
little chicken came out of the shell. I held it in my palm--a quivering,
warm handful of yellow down. Its helplessness appealed to me and I fed
and watched it every day. Later my uncle told me that it was a hen chick
and would be laying eggs in four months. He added:

"It's the only thing it can do, an' if it's let alone it'll be sure to
do it. Follows a kind of a compass that leads to the nest every time."

This chicken grew into a little spotted hen. She became my sole
companion in many a lonely hour when Uncle Peabody had gone to the
village, or was working in wet ground, or on the hay rack, or the mowing
machine where I couldn't be with him. She was an amiable, confiding
little hen who put her trust in me and kept it unto the day of her
death, which came not until she had reached the full dignity of mature
henhood.

She was like many things on the farm--of great but unconsidered beauty.
No far-fetched pheasant was half so beautiful as she. I had always
treated her with respect, and she would let me come and sit beside her
while she rolled in the dust and permit me to stroke her head and
examine her wonderful dress of glossy mottled satin. She would spread
her glowing sleeves in the sunlight, and let me feel their downy lining
with my fingers and see how their taut snug-fitting plumes were set.

I remember a day when she was sitting on her nest with that curious
expression in her eyes which seemed to say, "Please don't bother me now
for this is my busy time," I brought three little kittens from their
basket in the wood-shed and put them under her. The kittens felt the
warmth of her body and began to mew and stir about. I shall never forget
the look of astonishment in the little hen as she slowly rose in her
nest and peered beneath her body at the kittens. She looked at me as if
to say that she really couldn't be bothered with those furry things any
longer--they made her so nervous. She calmly took hold of one of them
with her bill and lifted it out of the nest. She continued this process
of eviction until they were all removed, when she quietly sat down
again.

[Illustration: Slowly her right hand rose above her]

I mention this only to show that the hen and I had come to terms of
intimacy and mutual understanding. So when I saw Wills' dog catch and
kill her in the field one day, where she was hunting for grasshoppers, I
naturally entertained a feeling of resentment. I heard the cries of the
hen and ran through the orchard and witnessed the end of the tragedy and
more. Away down in the meadow I saw the dog and farther away "the Wills
boy," as we then called him, running toward his home. The dog had run
away as I approached and when I picked up the lifeless body of my little
friend the hills seemed to lift up their heads and fall upon me. Of
course that Wills boy had set the dog on her. I shall write no more of
that hour of trial. Such little things make history, and it is necessary
that the reader should understand me.

One June day of the next summer Uncle Peabody and I, from down in the
fields, saw a fine carriage drive in at our gate. He stopped and looked
intently.

"Jerusalem four-corners!" he exclaimed. "It's Mr. and Mrs. Horace
Dunkelberg."

My heart beat fast at thought of the legendary Dunkelbergs. Uncle looked
me over from top to toe. "Heavens!" he exclaimed. "Go down to the brook
and wash the mud off yer feet an' legs."

I ran for the brook and before I had returned to my uncle I heard the
horn blow.

"The Dunkelbergs!--the Dunkelbergs! Come quick!" it seemed to say.

Uncle had tied a red handkerchief around his neck and was readjusting
his galluses when I returned. In silence we hurried to the house. As we
drew near I heard the voice of Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg and that of
another woman quite as strange to my ear--a high-pitched voice of
melting amiability. It was the company voice of my Aunt Deel. I had
observed just a faint suggestion of it when the neighbors came, or when
meeting was over, but I had never before heard the full-fledged
angelicity of her company voice. It astonished me and I began to regard
her as a very promising old lady. Uncle Peabody, himself, had undergone
a change in the presence of the Dunkelbergs. He held his neck straighter
and smiled more and spoke with greater deliberation.

Mr. Dunkelberg was a big, broad-shouldered, solemn-looking man. Somehow
his face reminded me of a lion's which I had seen in one of my
picture-books. He had a thick, long, outstanding mustache and side
whiskers, and deep-set eyes and heavy eyebrows. He stood for half a
moment looking down at me from a great height with his right hand in his
pocket. I heard a little jingle of coins down where his hand was. It
excited my curiosity. He took a step toward me and I retreated. I
feared, a little, this big, lion-like man. My fears left me suddenly
when he spoke in a small squeaky voice that reminded me of the chirping
of a bird.

"Little boy, come here and I will make you a present," said he.

It reminded me of my disappointment when uncle tried to shoot his gun at
a squirrel and only the cap cracked.

I went to him and he laid a silver piece in the palm of my hand. Aunt
Deel began to hurry about getting dinner ready while Uncle Peabody and I
sat down on the porch with our guests, among whom was a pretty blue-eyed
girl of about my own age, with long, golden-brown hair that hung in
curls.

"Sally, this is Barton Baynes--can't you shake hands with him?" said
Mrs. Dunkelberg.

With a smile the girl came and offered me her hand and made a funny bow
and said that she was glad to see me. I took her hand awkwardly and made
no reply. I had never seen many girls and had no very high opinion of
them.

My attentive ears and eyes began to gather facts in the history of the
Dunkelbergs. Mr. Dunkelberg had throat trouble, and bought butter and
cheese and sent it to Boston, and had busted his voice singing tenor,
and was very rich. I knew that he was rich because he had a gold watch
and chain, and clothes as soft and clean as the butternut trousers, and
a silver ring on his finger, and such a big round stomach. That stomach
was the most convincing feature of all and, indeed, I have since learned
that the rounded type of human architecture is apt to be more expensive
than the angular.

As we sat there I heard the men talking about the great Silas Wright,
who had just returned to his home in Canton. He had not entered my
consciousness until then.

While I sat listening I felt a tweak of my hair, and looking around I
saw the Dunkelberg girl standing behind me with a saucy smile on her
face.

"Won't you come and play with me?" she asked.

I took her out in the garden to show her where my watermelon had lain.
At the moment I couldn't think of anything else to show her. As we
walked along I observed that her feet were in dainty shiny button-shoes.
Suddenly I began to be ashamed of my feet that were browned by the
sunlight and scratched by the briers. The absent watermelon didn't seem
to interest her.

"Let's play house in the grove," said she, and showed me how to build a
house by laying rows of stones with an opening for a door.

"Now you be my husband," said she.

Oddly enough I had heard of husbands but had only a shadowy notion of
what they were. I knew that there was none in our house.

"What's that?" I asked.

She laughed and answered: "Somebody that a girl is married to."

"You mean a father?"

"Yes."

"Once I had a father," I boasted.

"Well, we'll play we're married and that you have just got home from a
journey. You go out in the woods and then you come home and I'll meet
you at the door."

I did as she bade me but I was not glad enough to see her.

"You must kiss me," she prompted in a whisper.

I kissed her very swiftly and gingerly--like one picking up a hot
coal--and she caught me in her arms and kissed me three times while her
soft hair threw its golden veil over our faces.

"Oh I'm so glad to see you," she said as she drew away from me and shook
back her hair.

"Golly! this is fun!" I said.

"Ask: 'How are the babies?'" she whispered.

"How are the babies?" I asked, feeling rather silly.

"They're fine. I'm just putting them to bed."

We sat on the grass and she had a stick which she pretended to be
dressing and often, after she had spanked the stick a little, she made a
noise through closed lips like that of a child crying.

"Now go to sleep and I'll tell you a story," said she.

Then she told pretty tales of fairies and of grand ladies and noble
gentlemen who wore gold coats and swords and diamonds and silks, and
said wonderful words in such a wonderful way. I dare say it prospered
all the better in my ears because of the mystery by which its meanings
were partly hidden. I had many questions to ask and she told me what
were fairies and silks and diamonds and grand ladies and noble
gentlemen.

We sat down to one of our familiar dinners of salt pork and milk gravy
and apple pie now enriched by sweet pickles and preserves and frosted
cake.

A query had entered my mind and soon after we began eating I asked:

"Aunt Deel, what is the difference between a boy and a girl?"

There was a little silence in which my aunt drew in her breath and
exclaimed, "W'y!" and turned very red and covered her face with her
napkin. Uncle Peabody laughed so loudly that the chickens began to
cackle. Mr. and Mrs. Dunkelberg also covered their faces. Aunt Deel rose
and went to the stove and shoved the teapot along, exclaiming:

"Goodness, gracious sakes alive!"

The tea slopped over on the stove. Uncle Peabody laughed louder and Mr.
Dunkelberg's face was purple. Shep came running into the house just as
I ran out of it. I had made up my mind that I had done something worse
than tipping over a what-not. Thoroughly frightened I fled and took
refuge behind the ash-house, where Sally found me. I knew of one thing I
would never do again. She coaxed me into the grove where we had another
play spell.

I needed just that kind of thing, and what a time it was for me! A
pleasant sadness comes when I think of that day--it was so long ago. As
the Dunkelbergs left us I stood looking down the road on which they were
disappearing and saw in the sky and the distant, purple hills and
sloping meadows the beauty of the world. The roaring aeroplane of a
humming bird whirled about me and sped through the hollyhock towers. I
followed and watched the tiny air-ship sticking its prow in their tops,
as if it would have me see how wonderful they were, before it sped away.
Breast deep in the flowers I forgot my loneliness for a few minutes. But
that evening my ears caught a note of sadness in the voice of the
katydids, and memory began to play its part with me. Best of all I
remembered the kisses and the bright blue eyes and the soft curly hair
with the smell of roses in it.




CHAPTER II

I MEET THE SILENT WOMAN AND SILAS WRIGHT, JR.


Amos Grimshaw was there in our dooryard the day that the old ragged
woman came along and told our fortunes--she that was called Rovin' Kate,
and was said to have the gift of "second sight," whatever that may be.
It was a bright autumn day and the leaves lay deep in the edge of the
woodlands. She spoke never a word but stood pointing at her palm and
then at Amos and at me.

I was afraid of the old woman--she looked so wild and ragged. I have
never seen a human being whose look and manner suggested a greater
capacity for doing harm. Yet there was a kindly smile on her tanned face
when she looked at me. Young as I was, the truth came home to me,
somehow, that she was a dead but undeparted spirit and belonged to
another world. I remember the tufts of gray hair above her blue eyes;
the mole on the side of her aquiline nose; her pointed chin and small
mouth. She carried a cane in her bony right hand and the notion came to
me that she was looking for bad boys who deserved a cudgeling.

Aunt Deel nodded and said:

"Ayes, Kate--tell their fortunes if ye've anything to say--ayes!"

She brought two sheets of paper and the old woman sat down upon the
grass and began to write with a little stub of a pencil. I have now
those fateful sheets of paper covered by the scrawls of old Kate. I
remember how she shook her head and sighed and sat beating her forehead
with the knuckles of her bony hands after she had looked at the palm of
Amos. Swiftly the point of her pencil ran over and up and down the sheet
like the movements of a frightened serpent. In the silence how loudly
the pencil seemed to hiss in its swift lines and loops.

My aunt exclaimed "Mercy!" as she looked at the sheet; for while I knew
not, then, the strange device upon the paper, I knew, by and by, that it
was a gibbet. Beneath it were the words: "Money thirst shall burn like a
fire in him."

She rose and smiled as she looked into my face. I saw a kind, gentle
glow in her eyes that reassured me. She clapped her hands with joy. She
examined my palm and grew serious and stood looking thoughtfully at the
setting sun.

I see, now, her dark figure standing against the sunlight as it stood
that day with Amos in its shadow. What a singular eloquence in her pose
and gestures and in her silence! I remember how it bound our
tongues--that silence of hers! She covered her eyes with her left hand
as she turned away from us. Slowly her right hand rose above her head
with its index finger extended and slowly came down to her side. It rose
again with two fingers showing and descended as before. She repeated
this gesture until her four bony fingers had been spread in the air
above her. How it thrilled me! Something jumped to life in my soul at
the call of her moving hand. I passed a new gate of my imagination, I
fancy, and if I have a way of my own in telling things it began that
moment.

The woman turned with a kindly smile and sat down in the grass again and
took the sheet of paper and resting it on a yellow-covered book began to
write these words:

     "I see the longing of the helper. One, two, three, four great
     perils shall strike at him. He shall not be afraid. God shall fill
     his heart with laughter. I hear guns, I hear many voices. His name
     is in them. He shall be strong. The powers of darkness shall fear
     him, he shall be a lawmaker and the friend of God and of many
     people, and great men shall bow to his judgment and he shall--"

She began shaking her head thoughtfully and did not finish the sentence,
and by and by the notion came to me that some unpleasant vision must
have halted her pencil.

Aunt Deel brought some luncheon wrapped in paper and the old woman took
it and went away. My aunt folded the sheets and put them in her trunk
and we thought no more of them until--but we shall know soon what
reminded us of the prophet woman.

The autumn passed swiftly. I went to the village one Saturday with Uncle
Peabody in high hope of seeing the Dunkelbergs, but at their door we
learned that they had gone up the river on a picnic. What a blow it was
to me! Tears flowed down my cheeks as I clung to my uncle's hand and
walked back to the main street of the village. A squad of small boys
jeered and stuck out their tongues at me. It was pity for my sorrows, no
doubt, that led Uncle Peabody to take me to the tavern for dinner, where
they were assuaged by cakes and jellies and chicken pie.

When we came out of the tavern we saw Benjamin Grimshaw and his son Amos
sitting on the well curb. Each had a half-eaten doughnut in one hand and
an apple in the other. I remember that Mr. Grimshaw said in a scolding
manner which made me dislike him:

"Baynes, I'm glad to see you're so prosperous. Only the rich can afford
to eat in taverns. Our dinner has cost us just three cents, an' I
wouldn't wonder if I was worth about as much as you are."

My uncle made no reply and we passed on to a store nearly opposite the
well, where I became deeply interested in a man who had tapped me in the
stomach with his forefinger while he made a sound like the squealing of
a rat. Then he said to Uncle Peabody:

"Look at that man out there by the well! He's the richest man in this
section o' country. He owns half o' this village. I wouldn't wonder if
he was worth fifty thousand dollars at least. What do ye suppose he
spent for his dinner?"

"Three cents," said my uncle.

"Guess again--it was a cent and a half. He came in here and asked how
much were the doughnuts. I told him they were a cent a piece. He offered
me three cents for four of them--said it was all the change he had. He
and his boy are eating them with some apples that they had in their
pockets."

I remember how my uncle and the man laughed as the latter said: "His
wealth costs too much altogether. 'Tain't worth it"--a saying which my
uncle often quoted.

Thus early I got a notion of the curious extravagance of the money
worshiper. How different was my uncle, who cared too little for money!

At Christmas I got a picture-book and forty raisins and three sticks of
candy with red stripes on them and a jew's-harp. That was the Christmas
we went down to Aunt Liza's to spend the day and I helped myself to two
pieces of cake when the plate was passed and cried because they all
laughed at my greediness. It was the day when Aunt Liza's boy, Truman,
got a silver watch and chain and her daughter Mary a gold ring, and when
all the relatives were invited to come and be convinced, once and for
all, of Uncle Roswell's prosperity and be filled with envy and
reconciled with jelly and preserves and roast turkey with sage dressing
and mince and chicken pie. What an amount of preparation we had made for
the journey, and how long we had talked about it! When we had shut the
door and were ready to get into the sleigh our dog Shep came whining
around us. I shall never forget how Uncle Peabody talked to him.

"Go back, Shep--go back to the house an' stay on the piaz," he began.
"Go back I tell ye. It's Christmas day an' we're goin' down to ol' Aunt
Liza's. Ye can't go way down there. No, sir, ye can't. Go back an' lay
down on the piaz."

Shep was fawning at my uncle's foot and rubbing his neck on his boot and
looking up at him.

"What's that ye say?" Uncle Peabody went on, looking down and turning
his ear as if he had heard the dog speak and were in some doubt of his
meaning. "Eh? What's that? An empty house makes ye terrible sad on a
Chris'mas day? What's that? Ye love us an' ye'd like to go along down to
Aunt Liza's an' play with the children?"

It was a clever ruse of Uncle Peabody, for Aunt Deel was softened by his
interpretation of the dog's heart and she proposed:

"Le's take him along with us--poor dog! ayes!"

Then Uncle Peabody shouted:

"Jump right into the sleigh--you ol' skeezucks!--an' I'll cover ye up
with a hoss blanket. Git in here. We ain't goin' to leave nobody alone
on Chris'mas day that loves us--not by a jug full--no, sir! I wouldn't
wonder if Jesus died for dogs an' hosses as well as for men."

Shep had jumped in the back of the sleigh at the first invitation and
lay quietly under his blanket as we hurried along in the well-trod snow
and the bells jingled. It was a joyful day and old Shep was as merry and
well fed as the rest of us.

How cold and sad and still the house seemed when we got back to it in
the evening! We had to drive to a neighbor's and borrow fire and bring
it home with us in a pail of ashes as we were out of tinder. I held the
lantern for my uncle while he did the chores and when we had gone to bed
I fell asleep hearing him tell of Joseph and Mary going to pay their
taxes.

In the spring my uncle hired a man to work for us--a noisy, brawny,
sharp-featured fellow with keen gray eyes, of the name of Dug Draper.
Aunt Deel hated him. I feared him but regarded him with great hope
because he had a funny way of winking at me with one eye across the
table and, further, because he could sing and did sing while he
worked--songs that rattled from his lips in a way that amused me
greatly. Then, too, he could rip out words that had a new and wonderful
sound in them. I made up my mind that he was likely to become a valuable
asset when I heard Aunt Deel say to my Uncle Peabody:

"You'll have to send that loafer away, right now, ayes I guess you
will."

"Why?"

"Because this boy has learnt to swear like a pirate--ayes--he has!"

Uncle Peabody didn't know it but I myself had begun to suspect it, and
that hour the man was sent away, and I remember that he left in anger
with a number of those new words flying from his lips. A forced march to
the upper room followed that event. Uncle Peabody explained that it was
wicked to swear--that boys who did it had very bad luck, and mine came
in a moment. I never had more of it come along in the same length of
time.

One day in the spring when the frogs were chanting in the swamp land,
they seemed to be saying, "Dunkelberg, Dunkelberg, Dunkelberg,
Dunkelberg," from morning to bedtime. I was helping Uncle Peabody to fix
the fence when he said:

"Hand me that stake, Bub. Don't be so much of a gentleman."

I handed the stake to him and then I said:

"Uncle Peabody, I want to be a gentleman."

"A gentleman!" he exclaimed as he looked down at me thoughtfully.

"A grand, noble gentleman with a sword and a gold watch and chain and
diamonds on," I exclaimed.

He leaned against the top rail of the fence and looked down at me and
laughed.

"Whatever put that in yer head?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't know--how do ye be it?" I demanded.

"They's two ways," said he. "One is to begin 'fore you're born and pick
out the right father. T'other is to begin after you're born and pick out
the right son. You can make yerself whatever you want to be. It's all
inside of a boy and it comes out by and by--swords and gold and
diamonds, or rags an' dirt an' shovels an' crowbars."

I wondered what I had inside of me.

"I guess I ain't got any sword in me," I said.

"When you've been eating green apples and I wouldn't wonder," he
answered as he went on with his work.

"Once I thought I heard a watch tickin' in my throat," I said hopefully.

"I don't mean them things is really in ye, but the power to git 'em is
in ye," said Uncle Peabody. "That's what I mean--power. Be a good boy
and study yer lessons and never lie, and the power'll come into ye jest
as sure as you're alive."

I began to watch myself for symptoms of power.

After I ceased to play with the Wills boy Uncle Peabody used to say,
often, it was a pity that I hadn't somebody of my own age for company.
Every day I felt sorry that the Wills boy had turned out so badly, and I
doubt not the cat and the shepherd dog and the chickens and Uncle
Peabody also regretted his failures, especially the dog and Uncle
Peabody, who bore all sorts of indignities for my sake.

In the circumstances I had to give a good deal of time to the proper
education of my uncle. Naturally he preferred to waste his time with
shovels and rakes. But he soon learned how to roll a hoop and play tag
and ball and yard off and how to run like a horse when I sat on his
shoulders. It was rather hard on him, after his work in the fields, but
he felt his responsibility and applied himself with due diligence and
became a very promising child. I also gave strict attention to his
talent for story-telling. It improved rapidly. Being frank in my
criticism he was able to profit by all his failures in taste and method,
so that each story had a fierce bear in it and a fair amount of growling
by and by. But I could not teach him to sing, and it was a great sorrow
to me. I often tried and he tried, but I saw that it wasn't going to
pay. He couldn't make the right kind of a noise. Through all this I did
not neglect his morals. If he said an improper word--and I regret to say
that he did now and then--I promptly corrected him and reported his
conduct to Aunt Deel, and if she was inclined to be too severe I took
his part and, now and then, got snapped on the forehead for the vigor of
my defense. On the whole it is no wonder that Uncle Peabody wearied of
his schooling.

One day when Uncle Peabody went for the mail he brought Amos Grimshaw to
visit me. I had not seen him since the day he was eating doughnuts in
the village with his father. He was four years older than I--a freckled,
red-haired boy with a large mouth and thin lips. He wore a silver watch
and chain, which strongly recommended him in my view and enabled me to
endure his air of condescension.

He let me feel it and look it all over and I slyly touched the chain
with my tongue just to see if it had any taste to it, and Amos told me
that his grandfather had given it to him and that it always kept him
"kind o' scairt."

"Why?"

"For fear I'll break er lose it an' git licked," he answered.

We went and sat down on the hay together, and I showed him the pennies I
had saved and he showed me where his father had cut his leg that morning
with a blue beech rod.

"Don't you ever git licked?" he asked.

"No," I answered.

"I guess that's because you ain't got any father," he answered. "I wish
I hadn't. There's nobody so mean as a father. Mine makes me work every
day an' never gives me a penny an' licks me whenever I do anything that
I want to. I've made up my mind to run away from home."

After a moment of silence he exclaimed:

"Gosh! It's awful lonesome here! Gee whittaker! this is the worst place
I ever saw!"

I tried to think of something that I could say for it.

"We have got a new corn sheller," I said, rather timidly.

"I don't care about your corn shellers," he answered with a look of
scorn.

He took a little yellow paper-covered book from his pocket and began to
read to himself.

I felt thoroughly ashamed of the place and sat near him and, for a time,
said nothing as he read.

"What's that?" I ventured to ask by and by.

"A story," he answered. "I met that ragged ol' woman in the road t'other
day an' she give me a lot of 'em an' showed me the pictures an' I got to
readin' 'em. Don't you tell anybody 'cause my ol' dad hates stories an'
he'd lick me 'til I couldn't stan' if he knew I was readin' 'em."

I begged him to read out loud and he read from a tale of two robbers
named Thunderbolt and Lightfoot who lived in a cave in the mountains.
They were bold, free, swearing men who rode beautiful horses at a wild
gallop and carried guns and used them freely and with unerring skill,
and helped themselves to what they wanted.

He stopped, by and by, and confided to me the fact that he thought he
would run away and join a band of robbers.

"How do you run away?" I asked.

"Just take the turnpike and keep goin' toward the mountains. When ye
meet a band o' robbers give 'em the sign an' tell 'em you want to join."

He went on with the book and read how the robbers had hung a captive who
had persecuted them and interfered with their sport. The story explained
how they put the rope around the neck of the captive and threw the
other end of it over the limb of a tree and pulled the man into the air.

He stopped suddenly and demanded: "Is there a long rope here?"

I pointed to Uncle Peabody's hay rope hanging on a peg.

"Le's hang a captive," he proposed.

At first I did not comprehend his meaning. He got the rope and threw its
end over the big beam. Our old shepherd dog had been nosing the mow near
us for rats. Amos caught the dog who, suspecting no harm, came passively
to the rope's end. He tied the rope around the dog's neck.

"We'll draw him up once--it won't hurt him any," he proposed.

I looked at him in silence. My heart smote me, but I hadn't the courage
to take issue with the owner of a silver watch. When the dog began to
struggle I threw my arms about him and cried. Aunt Deel happened to be
near. She came and saw Amos pulling at the rope and me trying to save
the dog.

"Come right down off'm that mow--this minute," said she.

When we had come down and the dog had followed pulling the rope after
him, Aunt Deel was pale with anger.

"Go right home--right home," said she to Amos.

"Mr. Baynes said that he would take me up with the horses," said Amos.

"Ye can use shank's horses--ayes!--they're good enough for you," Aunt
Deel insisted, and so the boy went away in disgrace.

I blushed to think of the poor opinion he would have of the place now.
It seemed to me a pity that it should be made any worse, but I couldn't
help it.

"Where are your pennies?" Aunt Deel said to me.

I felt in my pockets but couldn't find them.

"Where did ye have `em last?" my aunt demanded.

"On the haymow."

"Come an' show me."

We went to the mow and search for the pennies, but not one of them could
we find.

I remembered that when I saw them last Amos had them in his hand.

"I'm awful 'fraid for him--ayes I be!" said Aunt Deel. "I'm 'fraid
Rovin' Kate was right about him--ayes!"

"What did she say?" I asked.

"That he was goin' to be hung--ayes! You can't play with him no more.
Boys that take what don't belong to `em--which I hope he didn't--ayes I
hope it awful--are apt to be hung by their necks until they are
dead--jest as he was goin' to hang ol' Shep--ayes!--they are!"

Again I saw the dark figure of old Kate standing in the sunlight and
her ragged garments and bony hands and heard the hiss of her flying
pencil point. I clung to my aunt's dress for a moment and then I found
old Shep and sat down beside him with my arm around his neck. I did not
speak of the story because I had promised not to and felt sure that Amos
would do something to me if I did.

Uncle Peabody seemed to feel very badly when he learned how Amos had
turned out.

"Don't say a word about it," said he. "Mebbe you lost the pennies. Don't
mind 'em."

Soon after that, one afternoon, Aunt Deel came down in the field where
we were dragging. While she was talking with Uncle Peabody an idea
occurred to me and the dog and I ran for the house. There was a pan of
honey on the top shelf of the pantry and ever since I had seen it put
there I had cherished secret designs.

I ran into the deserted house, and with the aid of a chair climbed to
the first shelf and then to the next, and reached into the pan and drew
out a comb of honey, and with no delay whatever it went to my mouth.
Suddenly it seemed to me that I had been hit by lightning. It was the
sting of a bee. I felt myself going and made a wild grab and caught the
edge of the pan and down we came to the floor--the pan and I--with a
great crash.

I discovered that I was in desperate pain and trouble and I got to my
feet and ran. I didn't know where I was going. It seemed to me that any
other place would be better than that. My feet took me toward the barn
and I crawled under it and hid there. My lip began to feel better, by
and by, but big and queer. It stuck out so that I could see it. I heard
my uncle coming with the horses. I concluded that I would stay where I
was, but the dog came and sniffed and barked at the hole through which I
had crawled as if saying, "Here he is!" My position was untenable. I
came out. Shep began trying to clean my clothes with his tongue. Uncle
Peabody stood near with the horses. He looked at me. He stuck his finger
into the honey on my coat and smelt it.

"Well, by--" he stopped and came closer and asked.

"What's happened?"

"Bee stung me," I answered.

"Where did ye find so much honey that ye could go swimmin' in it?" he
asked.

I heard the door of the house open suddenly and the voice of Aunt Deel.

"Peabody! Peabody! come here quick," she called.

Uncle Peabody ran to the house, but I stayed out with the dog.

Through the open door I heard Aunt Deel saying: "I can't stan' it any
longer and I won't--not another day--ayes, I can't stan' it. That boy is
a reg'lar pest."

They came out on the veranda. Uncle Peabody said nothing, but I could
see that he couldn't stand it either. My brain was working fast.

"Come here, sir," Uncle Peabody called.

I knew it was serious, for he had never called me "sir" before. I went
slowly to the steps.

"My lord!" Aunt Deel exclaimed. "Look at that lip and the honey all over
him--ayes! I tell ye--I can't stan' it."

"Say, boy, is there anything on this place that you ain't tipped over?"
Uncle Peabody asked in a sorrowful tone. "Wouldn't ye like to tip the
house over?"

I was near breaking down in this answer:

"I went into the but'ry and that pan jumped on to me."

"Didn't you taste the honey?"

"No," I drew in my breath and shook my head.

"Liar, too!" said Aunt Deel. "I can't stan' it an' I won't."

Uncle Peabody was sorely tried, but he was keeping down his anger. His
voice trembled as he said:

"Boy, I guess you'll have to--"

Uncle Peabody stopped. He had been driven to the last ditch, but he had
not stepped over it. However, I knew what he had started to say and sat
down on the steps in great dejection. Shep followed, working at my coat
with his tongue.

I think that the sight of me must have touched the heart of Aunt Deel.

"Peabody Baynes, we mustn't be cruel," said she in a softer tone, and
then she brought a rag and began to assist Shep in the process of
cleaning my coat. "Good land! He's got to stay here--ayes!--he ain't got
no other place to go to."

"But if you can't stan' it," said Uncle Peabody.

"I've got to stan' it--ayes!--I can't stan' it, but I've got to--ayes!
So have you."

Aunt Deel put me to bed although it was only five o'clock. As I lay
looking up at the shingles a singular resolution came to me. It was born
of my longing for the companionship of my kind and of my resentment. I
would go and live with the Dunkelbergs. I would go the way they had gone
and find them. I knew it was ten miles away, but of course everybody
knew where the Dunkelbergs lived and any one would show me. I would run
and get there before dark and tell them that I wanted to live with them,
and every day I would play with Sally Dunkelberg. Uncle Peabody was not
half as nice to play with as she was.

I heard Uncle Peabody drive away. I watched him through the open
window. I could hear Aunt Deel washing the dishes in the kitchen. I got
out of bed very slyly and put on my Sunday clothes. I went to the open
window. The sun had just gone over the top of the woods. I would have to
hurry to get to the Dunkelbergs' before dark. I crept out on the top of
the shed and descended the ladder that leaned against it. I stood a
moment listening. The dooryard was covered with shadows and very still.
The dog must have gone with Uncle Peabody. I ran through the garden to
the road and down it as fast as my bare feet could carry me. In that
direction the nearest house was almost a mile away. I remember I was out
of breath, and the light growing dim before I got to it. I went on. It
seemed to me that I had gone nearly far enough to reach my destination
when I heard a buggy coming behind me.

"Hello!" a voice called.

I turned and looked up at Dug Draper, in a single buggy, dressed in his
Sunday suit.

"Is it much further to where the Dunkelbergs live?" I asked.

"The Dunkelbergs? Who be they?"

It seemed to me very strange that he didn't know the Dunkelbergs.

"Where Sally Dunkelberg lives."

That was a clincher. He laughed and swore and said:

"Git in here, boy. I'll take ye there."

I got into the buggy, and he struck his horse with the whip and went
galloping away in the dusk.

"I reckon you're tryin' to git away from that old pup of an aunt," said
he. "I don't wonder. I rather live with a she bear."

I have omitted and shall omit the oaths and curses with which his talk
was flavored.

"I'm gittin' out o' this country myself," said he. "It's too pious for
me."

By and by we passed Rovin' Kate. I could just discern her ragged form by
the roadside and called to her. He struck his horse and gave me a rude
shake and bade me shut up.

It was dark and I felt very cold and began to wish myself home in bed.

"Ain't we most to the Dunkelbergs'?" I asked.

"No--not yet," he answered.

I burst into tears and he hit me a sounding whack in the face with his
hand.

"No more whimperin'," he shouted. "Do ye hear me?"

He hurt me cruelly and I was terribly frightened and covered my face and
smothered my cries and was just a little quaking lump of misery.

He shook me roughly and shoved me down on the buggy floor and said:

"You lay there and keep still; do you hear?"

"Yes," I sobbed.

I lay shaking with fear and fighting my sorrow and keeping as still as I
could with it, until, wearied by the strain, I fell asleep.

What an angel of mercy is sleep! Down falls her curtain and away she
leads us--delivered! free!--into some magic country where are the things
we have lost--perhaps even joy and youth and strength and old
friendships.

What befell me that night while I dreamed of playing with the
sweet-faced girl I have wondered often. Some time in the night Dug
Draper had reached the village of Canton, and got rid of me. He had
probably put me out at the water trough. Kind hands had picked me up and
carried me to a little veranda that fronted the door of a law office.
There I slept peacefully until daylight, when I felt a hand on my face
and awoke suddenly. I remember that I felt cold. A kindly faced man
stood leaning over me.

"Hello, boy!" said he. "Where did you come from?"

I was frightened and confused, but his gentle voice reassured me.

"Uncle Peabody!" I called, as I arose and looked about me and began to
cry.

The man lifted me in his arms and held me close to his breast and tried
to comfort me. I remember seeing the Silent Woman pass while I was in
his arms.

"Tell me what's your name," he urged.

"Barton Baynes," I said as soon as I could speak.

"Where is your father?"

"In Heaven," I answered, that being the place to which he had moved, as
I understood it.

"Where do you live?"

"In Lickitysplit."

"How did you get here?"

"Dug Draper brought me. Do you know where Sally Dunkelberg lives?"

"Is she the daughter of Horace Dunkelberg?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg," I amended.

"Oh, yes, I know her. Sally is a friend of mine. We'll get some
breakfast and then we'll go and find her."

He carried me through the open door of his office and set me down at his
desk. The cold air of the night had chilled me and I was shivering.

"You sit there and I'll have a fire going in a minute and get you warmed
up."

He wrapped me in his coat and went into the back room and built a fire
in a small stove and brought me in and set me down beside it. He made
some porridge in a kettle while I sat holding my little hands over the
stove to warm them, and a sense of comfort grew in me. Soon a boy came
bringing a small pail of fresh milk and a loaf of bread. I remember how
curiously the boy eyed me as he said to my new friend:

"Captain Moody wants to know if you'll come up to dinner?"

There was a note of dignity in the reply which was new to me, and for
that reason probably I have always remembered it.

"Please present my thanks to the Captain and tell him that I expect to
go up to Lickitysplit in the town of Ballybeen."

He dipped some porridge into bowls and put them on a small table. My
eyes had watched him with growing interest and I got to the table about
as soon as the porridge and mounted a chair and seized a spoon.

"One moment, Bart," said my host. "By jingo! We've forgotten to wash,
and your face looks like the dry bed of a river. Come here a minute."

He led me out of the back door, where there were a wash-stand and a pail
and a tin basin and a dish of soft soap. He dipped the pail in a rain
barrel and filled the basin, and I washed myself and waited not upon my
host, but made for the table and began to eat, being very hungry, after
hastily drying my face on a towel. In a minute he came and sat down to
his own porridge and bread and butter.

"Bart, don't dig so fast," said he. "You're down to hard pan now. Never
be in a hurry to see the bottom of the bowl."

I have never forgotten the look of amusement in his big, smiling, gray
eyes as they looked down upon me out of his full, ruddy, smooth-shaven
face. It inspired confidence and I whispered timidly:

"Could I have some more?"

"All you want," he answered, as he put another ladle full in my bowl.

When we had finished eating he set aside the dishes and I asked:

"Now could I go and see Sally Dunkelberg?"

"What in the world do you want of Sally Dunkelberg?" he asked.

"Oh, just to play with her," I said as I showed him how I could sit on
my hands and raise myself from the chair bottom.

"Haven't you any one to play with at home?"

"Only my Uncle Peabody."

"Don't you like to play with him?"

"Oh, some, but he can't stand me any longer. He's all tired out, and my
Aunt Deel, too. I've tipped over every single thing on that place. I
tipped over the honey yesterday--spillt it all over everything and
rooend my clothes. I'm a reg'lar pest. So I want to play with Sally
Dunkelberg. She knows all kinds o' riddles and games and all about
grand ladies and gentlemen and she wears shiny shoes and her hair smells
just like roses, and I want to play with her a little while--just a wee
little while."

I had unburdened my soul. The above words are quoted not from my memory,
but from his, which has always been most reliable. I remember well my
thoughts and feelings but not many of my words on a day so distant.

"Forward, march!" said he and away we started for the home of the
Dunkelbergs. The village interested me immensely. I had seen it only
twice before. People were moving about in the streets. One thing I did
not fail to notice. Every man we met touched his hat as he greeted my
friend.

"Good morning, Sile," some said, as we passed them, or, "How are you,
Comptroller?"

It was a square, frame house--that of the Dunkelbergs--large for that
village, and had a big dooryard with trees in it. As we came near the
gate I saw Sally Dunkelberg playing with other children among the trees.
Suddenly I was afraid and began to hang back. I looked down at my bare
feet and my clothes, both of which were dirty. Sally and her friends had
stopped their play and were standing in a group looking at us. I heard
Sally whisper:

"It's that Baynes boy. Don't he look dirty?"

I stopped and withdrew my hand from that of my guide.

"Come on, Bart," he said.

I shook my head and stood looking over at that little, hostile tribe
near me.

"Go and play with them while I step into the house," he urged.

Again I shook my head.

"Well, then, you wait here a moment," said my new-found friend.

He left me and I sat down upon the ground, thoughtful and silent.

He went to the children and kissed Sally and whispered in her ear and
passed on into the house. The children walked over to me.

"Hello, Bart!" said Sally.

"Hello!" I answered.

"Wouldn't you like to play with us?"

I shook my head.

Some of them began to whisper and laugh. I remember how beautiful the
girls looked with their flowing hair and ribbons and pretty dresses.
What happy faces they had! I wonder why it all frightened and distressed
me so.

In a moment my friend came out with Mrs. Dunkelberg, who kissed me, and
asked me to tell how I happened to be there.

"I just thought I would come," I said as I twisted a button on my coat,
and would say no more to her.

"Mr. Wright, you're going to take him home, are you?" Mrs. Dunkelberg
asked.

"Yes. I'll start off with him in an hour or so," said my friend. "I am
interested in this boy and I want to see his aunt and uncle."

"Let him stay here with us until you're ready to go."

"I don't want to stay here," I said, seizing my friend's hand.

"Well, Sally, you go down to the office and stay with Bart until they
go."

"You'd like that wouldn't you?" the man asked of me.

"I don't know," I said.

"That means yes," said the man.

Sally and another little girl came with us and passing a store I held
back to look at many beautiful things in a big window.

"Is there anything you'd like there, Bart?" the man asked.

"I wisht I had a pair o' them shiny shoes with buttons on," I answered
in a low, confidential tone, afraid to express, openly, a wish so
extravagant.

"Come right in," he said, and I remember that when we entered the store
I could hear my heart beating.

He bought a pair of shoes for me and I would have them on at once, and
that made it necessary for him to buy a pair of socks also. After the
shoes were buttoned on my feet I saw little of Sally Dunkelberg or the
other people of the village, my eyes being on my feet most of the time.

The man took us into his office and told us to sit down until he could
write a letter.

I remember how, as he wrote, I stood by his chair and examined the
glazed brown buttons on his coat and bit one of them to see how hard it
was, while Sally was feeling his gray hair and necktie. He scratched
along with his quill pen as if wholly unaware of our presence.

Soon a horse and buggy came for us and I briefly answered Sally's
good-by before the man drove away with me. I remember telling him as we
went on over the rough road, between fields of ripened grain, of my
watermelon and my dog and my little pet hen.

I shall not try to describe that home coming. We found Aunt Deel in the
road five miles from home. She had been calling and traveling from house
to house most of the night, and I have never forgotten her joy at seeing
me and her tender greeting. She got into the buggy and rode home with
us, holding me in her lap. Uncle Peabody and one of our neighbors had
been out in the woods all night with pine torches. I recall how,
although excited by my return, he took off his hat at the sight of my
new friend and said:

"Mr. Wright, I never wished that I lived in a palace until now."

He didn't notice me until I held up both feet and called: "Look a'
there, Uncle Peabody."

Then he came and took me out of the buggy and I saw the tears in his
eyes when he kissed me.

The man told of finding me on his little veranda, and I told of my ride
with Dug Draper, after which Uncle Peabody said:

"I'm goin' to put in your hoss and feed him, Comptroller."

"And I'm goin' to cook the best dinner I ever cooked in my life," said
Aunt Deel.

I knew that my new friend must be even greater than the Dunkelbergs, for
there was a special extravagance in their tone and manner toward him
which I did not fail to note. His courtesy and the distinction of his
address, as he sat at our table, were not lost upon me, either. During
the meal I heard that Dug Draper had run off with a neighbor's horse and
buggy and had not yet returned. Aunt Deel said that he had taken me with
him out of spite, and that he would probably never come back--a
suspicion justified by the facts of history.

When the great man had gone Uncle Peabody took me in his lap and said
very gently and with a serious look:

"You didn't think I meant it, did ye?--that you would have to go 'way
from here?"

"I don't know," was my answer.

"Course I didn't mean that. I just wanted ye to see that it wa'n't goin'
to do for you to keep on tippin' things over so."

I sat telling them of my adventures and answering questions, flattered
by their tender interest, until milking time. I thoroughly enjoyed all
that. When I rose to go out with Uncle Peabody, Aunt Deel demanded my
shoes.

"Take 'em right off," said she. "It ain't a goin' to do to wear 'em
common--no, sir-ee! They're for meetin' or when company comes--ayes!"

I regretfully took off the shoes and gave them to her, and thereafter
the shoes were guarded as carefully as the butternut trousers.

That evening as I was about to go up-stairs to bed, Aunt Deel said to my
uncle:

"Do you remember what ol' Kate wrote down about him? This is his first
peril an' he has met his first great man an' I can see that Sile Wright
is kind o' fond o' him."

I went to sleep that night thinking of the strange, old, ragged, silent
woman.




CHAPTER III

WE GO TO MEETING AND SEE MR. WRIGHT AGAIN


I had a chill that night and in the weeks that followed I was nearly
burned up with lung fever. Doctor Clark came from Canton to see me every
other day for a time, and one evening Mr. Wright came with him and
watched all night near my bedside. He gave me medicine every hour, and I
remember how gently he would speak and raise my head when he came with
the spoon and the draft. It grieved me to hear him say, as he raised me
in his arms, that I wasn't bigger than "a cock mosquito."

I would lie and watch him as he put a stick on the fire and tiptoed to
his armchair by the table, on which three lighted candles were burning.
Then he would adjust his spectacles, pick up his book, and begin to
read, and I would see him smile or frown or laugh until I wondered what
was between the black covers of the book to move him so. In the morning
he said that he could come the next Tuesday night, if we needed him, and
set out right after breakfast, in the dim dawn light, to walk to Canton.

"Peabody Baynes," said my Aunt Deel as she stood looking out of the
window at Mr. Wright, "that is one of the grandest, splendidest men that
I ever see or heard of. He's an awful smart man, an' a day o' his time
is worth more'n a month of our'n, but he comes away off here to set up
with a sick young one and walks back. Does beat all--don't it?--ayes!"

"If any one needs help Sile Wright is always on hand," said Uncle
Peabody.

I was soon out of bed and he came no more to sit up with me.

When I was well again Aunt Deel said one day "Peabody Baynes, I ain't
heard no preachin' since Mr Pangborn died. I guess we better go down to
Canton to meetin' some Sunday. If there ain't no minister Sile Wright
always reads a sermon, if he's home, and the paper says he don't go 'way
for a month yit. I kind o' feel the need of a good sermon--ayes!"

"All right. I'll hitch up the hosses and we'll go. We can start at eight
o'clock and take a bite with us an' git back here by three."

"Could I wear my new shoes and trousers?" I asked joyfully.

"Ayes I guess ye can if you're a good boy--ayes!" said Aunt Deel.

I had told Aunt Deel what Sally had said of my personal appearance.

"Your coat is good enough for anybody--ayes!" said she. "I'll make you
a pair o' breeches an' then I guess you won't have to be 'shamed no
more."

She had spent several evenings making them out of an old gray flannel
petticoat of hers and had put two pockets in them of which I was very
proud. They came just to the tops of my shoes, which pleased me, for
thereby the glory of my new shoes suffered no encroachment.

The next Sunday after they were finished we had preaching in the
schoolhouse and I was eager to go and wear my wonderful trousers. Uncle
Peabody said that he didn't know whether his leg would hold out or not
"through a whole meetin'." His left leg was lame from a wrench and
pained him if he sat long in one position. I greatly enjoyed this first
public exhibition of my new trousers. I remember praying in silence, as
we sat down, that Uncle Peabody's leg would hold out. Later, when the
long sermon had begun to weary me, I prayed that it would not.

I decided that meetin's were not a successful form of entertainment.
Indeed, Sunday was for me a lost day. It was filled with shaving and
washing and reading and an overwhelming silence. Uncle Peabody always
shaved after breakfast and then he would sit down to read the _St.
Lawrence Republican_. Both occupations deprived him utterly of his
usefulness as an uncle. I remember that I regarded the razor and the
_Republican_ as my worst enemies. The _Republican_ earned my keenest
dislike, for it always put my uncle to sleep and presently he would
stretch out on the lounge and begin to puff and snore and then Aunt Deel
always went around on her tiptoes and said sh-h-h! She spent the greater
part of the forenoon in her room washing and changing her clothes and
reading the Bible. How loudly the clock ticked that day! How defiantly
the cock crew! It seemed as if he were making special efforts to start
up the life of the farm. How shrill were the tree crickets! Often Shep
and I would steal off into the back lot trying to scare up a squirrel
and I would look longingly down the valley, and could dimly see the
roofs of houses where there were other children. I would gladly have
made friends with the Wills boy, but he would have nothing to do with
me, and soon his people moved away. My uncle said that Mr. Grimshaw had
foreclosed their mortgage.

The fields were so still that I wondered if the grass grew on Sunday.
The laws of God and nature seemed to be in conflict, for our livers got
out of order and some one of us always had a headache in the afternoon.
It was apt to be Uncle Peabody, as I had reason to know, for I always
begged him to go in swimmin' with me in the afternoon.

It was a beautiful summer morning as we drove down the hills and from
the summit of the last high ridge we could see the smoke of a steamer
looming over the St. Lawrence and the big buildings of Canton on the
distant flats below us. My heart beat fast when I reflected that I
should soon see Mr. Wright and the Dunkelbergs. I had lost a little of
my interest in Sally. Still I felt sure that when she saw my new
breeches she would conclude that I was a person not to be trifled with.

When we got to Canton people were flocking to the big stone Presbyterian
Church. We drove our horses under the shed of the tavern and Uncle
Peabody brought them water from the pump and fed them, out of our own
bag under the buggy seat, before we went to the church.

It was what they called a "deacon meeting." I remember that Mr. Wright
read from the Scriptures, and having explained that there was no
minister in the village, read one of Mr. Edwards' sermons, in the course
of which I went to sleep on the arm of my aunt. She awoke me when the
service had ended, and whispered:

"Come, we're goin' down to speak to Mr. Wright."

We saw Mr. and Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg in the aisle, who said that they
would wait for us outside the church.

I remember that Mr. Wright kissed me and said:

"Hello! Here's my boy in a new pair o' trousers!"

"Put yer hand in there," I said proudly, as I took my own out of one of
my pockets, and pointed the way.

He did not accept the invitation, but laughed heartily and gave me a
little hug.

When we went out of the church there stood Mr. and Mrs. Horace
Dunkelberg, and Sally and some other children. It was a tragic moment
for me when Sally laughed and ran behind her mother. Still worse was it
when a couple of boys ran away crying, "Look at the breeches!"

I looked down at my breeches and wondered what was wrong with them. They
seemed very splendid to me and yet I saw at once that they were not
popular. I went close to my Aunt Deel and partly hid myself in her
cloak. I heard Mrs. Dunkelberg say:

"Of course you'll come to dinner with us?"

For a second my hopes leaped high. I was hungry and visions of jelly
cake and preserves rose before me. Of course there were the trousers,
but perhaps Sally would get used to the trousers and ask me to play with
her.

"Thank ye, but we've got a good ways to go and we fetched a bite with
us--ayes!" said Aunt Deel.

Eagerly I awaited an invitation from the great Mrs. Dunkelberg that
should be decisively urgent, but she only said:

"I'm very sorry you can't stay."

My hopes fell like bricks and vanished like bubbles.

The Dunkelbergs left us with pleasant words. They had asked me to shake
hands with Sally, but I had clung to my aunt's cloak and firmly refused
to make any advances. Slowly and without a word we walked across the
park toward the tavern sheds. Hot tears were flowing down my
cheeks--silent tears! for I did not wish to explain them. Furtively I
brushed them away with my hand. The odor of frying beef steak came out
of the open doors of the tavern. It was more than I could stand. I
hadn't tasted fresh meat since Uncle Peabody had killed a deer in
midsummer. He gave me a look of understanding, but said nothing for a
minute. Then he proposed:

"Mebbe we better git dinner here?"

Aunt Deel hesitated at the edge of the stable yard, surrounded as she
was by the aroma of the fleshpots, then:

"I guess we better go right home and save our money, Peabody--ayes!"
said she. "We told Mr. and Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg that we was goin' home
and they'd think we was liars."

"We orto have gone with `em," said Uncle Peabody as he unhitched the
horses.

"Well, Peabody Baynes, they didn't appear to be very anxious to have
us," Aunt Deel answered with a sigh.

We had started away up the South road when, to my surprise, Aunt Deel
mildly attacked the Dunkelbergs.

"These here village folks like to be waited on--ayes!--an' they're awful
anxious you should come to see 'em when ye can't--ayes!--but when ye git
to the village they ain't nigh so anxious--no they ain't!"

Uncle Peabody made no answer, but sat looking forward thoughtfully and
tapping the dashboard with his whipstock, and we rode on in a silence
broken only by the creak of the evener and the sound of the horses'
hoofs in the sand.

In the middle of the great cedar swamp near Little River Aunt Deel got
out the lunch basket and I sat down on the buggy bottom between their
legs and leaning against the dash. So disposed we ate our luncheon of
fried cakes and bread and butter and maple sugar and cheese. The road
was a straight alley through the evergreen forest, and its grateful
shadow covered us. When we had come out into the hot sunlight by the
Hale farm both my aunt and uncle complained of headache. What an
efficient cure for good health were the doughnuts and cheese and sugar,
especially if they were mixed with the idleness of a Sunday. I had a
headache also and soon fell asleep.

The sun was low when they awoke me in our dooryard.

"Hope it'll be some time 'fore ye feel the need of another sermon," said
Uncle Peabody as Aunt Deel got out of the buggy. "I ain't felt so wicked
in years."

I was so sick that Aunt Deel put me to bed and said that she would feed
the pigs and the chickens. Sick as he was, Uncle Peabody had to milk the
cows. How relentless were the cows!

I soon discovered that the Dunkelbergs had fallen from their high estate
in our home and that Silas Wright, Jr., had taken their place in the
conversation of Aunt Deel.




CHAPTER IV

OUR LITTLE STRANGE COMPANION


In the pathless forest we had a little companion that always knew its
way. No matter how strange and remote the place might be or how black
the night its tiny finger always pointed in the same direction. By the
light of the torch at midnight, in blinding darkness, I have seen it
sway and settle toward its beloved goal. It seemed to be thinking of
some far country which it desired to recommend to us.

It seemed to say: "Look! I know not which way is yours, but this--this
is my way and all the little cross roads lead off it."

What a wonderful wisdom it had! I remember it excited a feeling of awe
in me as if it were a spirit and not a tool.

The reader will have observed that my uncle spoke of the compass as if
it directed plant and animal in achieving their purposes. From the
beginning in the land of my birth it had been a thing as familiar as the
dial and as necessary. The farms along our road were only stumpy
recesses in the wilderness, with irregular curving outlines of thick
timber--beech and birch and maple and balsam and spruce and pine and
tamarack--forever whispering of the unconquered lands that rolled in
great billowy ridges to the far horizon.

We were surrounded by the gloom and mystery of the forest. If one left
the road or trail for even a short walk he needed a compass to guide
him. That little brass box with its needle, swaying and seeming to
quiver with excitement as it felt its way to the north side of the
circle and pointed unerringly at last toward its favorite star, filled
me with wonder.

"Why does it point toward the north star?" I used to ask.

"That's a secret," said Uncle Peabody. "I wouldn't wonder if the gate o'
heaven was up there. Maybe it's a light in God's winder. Who knows? I
kind o' mistrust it's the direction we're all goin' in."

"You talk like one o' them Universalists," said Aunt Deel. "They're
gettin' thick as flies around here."

"Wal, I kind o' believe--" he paused at the edge of what may have been a
dangerous opinion.

I shook the box and the needle swung and quivered back and forth and
settled with its point in the north again. Oh, what a mystery! My eyes
grew big at the thought of it.

"Do folks take compasses with 'em when they die?" I asked.

"No, they don't need 'em then," said Uncle Peabody. "Everybody has a
kind of a compass in his own heart--same as watermelons and chickens
have. It shows us the way to be useful, and I guess the way o'
usefulness is the way to heaven every time."

"An' the way o' uselessness is the way to hell," Aunt Deel added.

One evening in the early summer the great Silas Wright had come to our
house from the village of Russell, where he had been training a company
of militia.

I remember that as he entered our door he spoke in this fashion:
"Baynes, le's go fishing. All the way down the road I've heard the call
o' the brooks. I stopped on the Dingley Bridge and looked down at the
water. The trout were jumping so I guess they must 'a' got sunburnt and
freckled and sore. I can't stand too much o' that kind o' thing. It
riles me. I heard, long ago, that you were a first-class fisherman, so I
cut across lots and here I am."

His vivid words touched my imagination and I have often recalled them.

"Well, now by mighty! I--" Uncle Peabody drew the rein upon his
imagination at the very brink of some great extravagance and after a
moment's pause added: "We'll start out bright an' early in the mornin'
an' go up an' git Bill Seaver. He's got a camp on the Middle Branch, an'
he can cook almost as good as my sister."

"Is your spring's work done?"

"All done, an' I was kind o' thinkin'," said Uncle Peabody with a little
shake of his head. He didn't say of what he had been thinking, that
being unnecessary.

"Bart, are you with us?" said Mr. Wright as he gave me a playful poke
with his hand.

"May I go?" I asked my uncle.

"I wouldn't wonder--go an' ask yer aunt," said Uncle Peabody.

My soul was afire with eagerness. My feet shook the floor and I tipped
over a chair in my hurry to get to the kitchen, whither my aunt had gone
soon after the appearance of our guest. She was getting supper for Mr.
Wright.

"Aunt Deel, I'm goin' fishin'," I said.

"Fishin'! I guess not--ayes I do," she answered.

It was more than I could stand. A roar of distress and disappointment
came from my lips.

Uncle Peabody hurried into the kitchen.

"The Comptroller wants him to go," said he.

"He does?" she repeated as she stood with her hands on her hips looking
up at her brother.

"He likes Bart and wants to take him along."

"Wal, then, you'll have to be awful careful of him," said Aunt Deel.
"I'm 'fraid he'll plague ye--ayes!"

"No, he won't--we'll love to have him."

"Wal, I guess you could git Mary Billings to come over and stay with me
an' help with the chores--ayes, I wouldn't wonder!"

I could contain my joy no longer, but ran into the other room on tiptoe
and announced excitedly that I was going. Then I rushed out of the open
door and rolled and tumbled in the growing grass, with the dog barking
at my side. In such times of joyful excitement I always rolled and
tumbled in the grass. It was my way of expressing inexpressible delight.

I felt sorry for the dog. Poor fellow! He couldn't go fishing. He had to
stay home always. I felt sorry for the house and the dooryard and the
cows and the grindstone and Aunt Deel. The glow of the candles and the
odor of ham and eggs drew me into the house. Wistfully I watched the
great man as he ate his supper. I was always hungry those days. Mr.
Wright asked me to have an egg, but I shook my head and said "No, thank
you" with sublime self-denial. At the first hint from Aunt Deel I took
my candle and went up to bed.

"I ain't afraid o' bears," I heard myself whispering as I undressed. I
whispered a good deal as my imagination ran away into the near future.

Soon I blew out my candle and got into bed. The door was open at the
foot of the stairs. I could see the light and hear them talking. It had
been more than a year since Uncle Peabody had promised to take me into
the woods fishing, but most of our joys were enriched by long
anticipation filled with talk and fancy.

I lay planning my behavior in the woods. It was to be helpful and polite
and generally designed to show that I could be a man among men. I lay a
long time whispering over details. There was to be no crying, even if I
did get hurt a little once in a while. Men never cried. Only babies
cried. I could hear Mr. Wright talking about Bucktails and Hunkers below
stairs and I could hear the peepers down in the marsh.

Peepers and men who talked politics were alike to me those days. They
were beyond my understanding and generally put me to sleep--especially
the peepers. In my childhood the peepers were the bells of dream-land
calling me to rest. The sweet sound no sooner caught my ear than my
thoughts began to steal away on tiptoe and in a moment the house of my
brain was silent and deserted, and thereafter, for a time, only fairy
feet came into it. So even those happy thoughts of a joyous holiday soon
left me and I slept.

I was awakened by a cool, gentle hand on my brow. I opened my eyes and
saw the homely and beloved face of Uncle Peabody smiling down at me.
What a face it was! It welcomed me, always, at the gates of the morning
and I saw it in the glow of the candle at night as I set out on my
lonely, dreaded voyage into dream-land. Do you wonder that I stop a
moment and wipe my glasses when I think of it?

"Hello, Bart!" said he. "It's to-morrer."

I sat up. The delicious odor of frying ham was in the air. The glow of
the morning sunlight was on the meadows.

"Come on, ol' friend! By mighty! We're goin' to--" said Uncle Peabody.

Happy thoughts came rushing into my brain again. What a tumult! I leaped
out of bed.

"I'll be ready in a minute, Uncle Peabody," I said as, yawning, I drew
on my trousers.

"Don't tear yer socks," he cautioned as I lost patience with their
unsympathetic behavior.

He helped me with my boots, which were rather tight, and I flew
down-stairs with my coat half on and ran for the wash-basin just outside
the kitchen door.

"Hello, Bart! If the fish don't bite to-day they ought to be ashamed o'
themselves," said Mr. Wright, who stood in the dooryard in an old suit
of clothes which belonged to Uncle Peabody.

The sun had just risen over the distant tree-tops and the dew in the
meadow grass glowed like a net of silver and the air was chilly. The
chores were done. Aunt Deel appeared in the open door as I was wiping my
face and hands and said in her genial, company voice:

"Breakfast is ready."

Aunt Deel never shortened her words when company was there. Her respect
was always properly divided between her guest and the English language.

How delicious were the ham, smoked in our own barrels, and the eggs
fried in its fat and the baked potatoes and milk gravy and the buckwheat
cakes and maple syrup, and how we ate of them! Two big pack baskets
stood by the window filled with provisions and blankets, and the black
bottom of Uncle Peabody's spider was on the top of one of them, with its
handle reaching down into the depths of the basket. The musket and the
powder horn had been taken down from the wall and the former leaned on
the window-sill.

"If we see a deer we ain't goin' to let him bite us," said Uncle
Peabody.

Aunt Deel kept nudging me under the table and giving me sharp looks to
remind me of my manners, for now it seemed as if a time had come when
eating was a necessary evil to be got through with as soon as possible.
Even Uncle Peabody tapped his cup lightly with his teaspoon, a familiar
signal of his by which he indicated that I was to put on the brakes.

To Aunt Deel men-folks were a careless, irresponsible and mischievous
lot who had to be looked after all the time or there was no telling what
would happen to them. She slipped some extra pairs of socks and a bottle
of turpentine into the pack basket and told us what we were to do if we
got wet feet or sore throats or stomach ache.

Aunt Deel kissed me lightly on the cheek with a look that seemed to say,
"There, I've done it at last," and gave me a little poke with her hand
(I remember thinking what an extravagant display of affection it was)
and many cautions before I got into the wagon with Mr. Wright, and my
uncle. We drove up the hills and I heard little that the men said for my
thoughts were busy. We arrived at the cabin of Bill Seaver that stood on
the river bank just above Rainbow Falls. Bill stood in his dooryard and
greeted us with a loud "Hello, there!"

"Want to go fishin'?" Uncle Peabody called.

"You bet I do. Gosh! I ain't had no fun since I went to Joe Brown's
funeral an' that day I enjoyed myself--damned if I didn't! Want to go up
the river?"

"We thought we'd go up to your camp and fish a day or two."

"All right! We'll hitch in the hosses. My wife'll take care of 'em 'til
we git back. Say it looks as fishy as hell, don't it?"

"This is Mr. Silas Wright--the Comptroller," said Uncle Peabody.

"It is! Gosh almighty! I ought to have knowed it," said Bill Seaver, his
tone and manner having changed like magic to those of awed respect. "I
see ye in court one day years ago. If I'd knowed 'twas you I wouldn't
'a' swore as I did." The men began laughing and then he added: "Damned
if I would!"

"It won't hurt me any--the boy is the one," said Mr. Wright as he took
my hand and strolled up the river bank with me. I rather feared and
dreaded those big roaring men like Bill Seaver.

The horses were hitched in and the canoes washed out. Then we all turned
to and dug some angle-worms. The poles were brought--lines, hooks and
sinkers were made ready and in an hour or so we were on our way up the
river, Mr. Wright and I and Uncle Peabody being in one of the canoes,
the latter working the paddle.

I remember how, as we went along, Mr. Wright explained the fundamental
theory of his politics. I gave strict attention because of my pride in
the fact that he included me in the illustration of his point. This in
substance is what he said, for I can not pretend to quote his words
with precision although I think they vary little from his own, for here
before me is the composition entitled "The Comptroller," which I wrote
two years later and read at a lyceum in the district schoolhouse.

"We are a fishing party. There are four of us who have come together
with one purpose--that of catching fish and having a good time. We have
elected Bill guide because he knows the river and the woods and the fish
better than we do. It's Bill's duty to give us the benefit of his
knowledge, and to take us to and from camp and out of the woods at our
pleasure and contribute in all reasonable ways to our comfort. He is the
servant of his party. Now if Bill, having approved our aim and accepted
the job from us, were to try to force a new aim upon the party and
insist that we should all join him in the sport of catching butterflies,
we would soon break up. If we could agree on the butterfly program that
would be one thing, but if we held to our plan and Bill stood out, he
would be a traitor to his party and a fellow of very bad manners. As
long as the aims of my party are, in the main, right, I believe its
commands are sacred. Always in our country the will of the greatest
number ought to prevail--right or wrong. It has a right even to make
mistakes, for through them it should learn wisdom and gradually adjust
itself to the will of its greatest leaders."

It is remarkable that the great commoner should have made himself
understood by a boy of eight, but in so doing he exemplified the gift
that raised him above all the men I have met--that of throwing light
into dark places so that all could see the truth that was hidden there.

Now and then we came to noisy water hills slanting far back through
rocky timbered gorges, or little foamy stairways in the river leading up
to higher levels. The men carried the canoes around these places while I
followed gathering wild flowers and watching the red-winged black birds
that flew above us calling hoarsely across the open spaces. Now and
then, a roaring veering cloud of pigeons passed in the upper air. The
breath of the river was sweet with the fragrance of pine and balsam.

We were going around a bend when we heard the voice of Bill shouting
just above us. He had run the bow of his canoe on a gravel beach just
below a little waterfall and a great trout was flopping and tumbling
about in the grass beside him.

"Yip!" he shouted as he held up the radiant, struggling fish that
reached from his chin to his belt. "I tell ye boys they're goin' to be
sassy as the devil. Jump out an' go to work here."

With what emotions I leaped out upon the gravel and watched the
fishing! A new expression came into the faces of the men. Their mouths
opened. There was a curious squint in their eyes. Their hands trembled
as they baited their hooks. The song of the river, tumbling down a rocky
slant, filled the air. I saw the first bite. How the pole bent! How the
line hissed as it went rushing through the water out among the spinning
bubbles! What a splash as the big fish in his coat of many colors broke
through the ripples and rose aloft and fell at my feet throwing a spray
all over me as he came down! That was the way they fished in those days.
They angled with a stout pole of seasoned tamarack and no reel, and
catching a fish was like breaking a colt to halter.

While he was fishing Mr. Wright slipped off the rock he stood on and
sank shoulder deep in the water. I ran and held out my hand crying
loudly. Uncle Peabody helped him ashore with his pole. Tears were
flowing down my cheeks while I stood sobbing in a kind of juvenile
hysterics.

"What's the matter?" Uncle Peabody demanded.

"I was 'fraid--Mr. Wright--was goin' to be drownded," I managed to say.

The Comptroller shook his arms and came and knelt by my side and kissed
me.

"God bless the dear boy!" he exclaimed. "It's a long time since any one
cried for me. I love you, Bart."

When Bill swore after that the Comptroller raised his hand and shook his
head and uttered a protesting hiss.

We got a dozen trout before we resumed our journey and reached camp soon
after one o'clock very hungry. It was a rude bark lean-to, and we soon
made a roaring fire in front of it. What a dinner we had! the bacon and
the fish fried in its fat and the boiled potatoes and the flapjacks and
maple sugar! All through my long life I have sought in vain for a dinner
like it. I helped with the washing of the dishes and, that done, Bill
made a back for his fire of green beech logs, placed one upon the other
and held in place by stakes driven in the ground. By and by Mr. Wright
asked me if I would like to walk over to Alder Brook with him.

"The fish are smaller there and I guess you could catch 'em," said he.

The invitation filled me with joy and we set out together through the
thick woods. The leaves were just come and their vivid, glossy green
sprinkled out in the foliage of the little beeches and the woods smelt
of new things. The trail was overgrown and great trees had fallen into
it and we had to pick our way around them. The Comptroller carried me on
his back over the wet places and we found the brook at last and he
baited my hook while I caught our basket nearly full of little trout.
Coming back we lost the trail and presently the Comptroller stopped and
said:

"Bart, I'm 'fraid we're going wrong. Let's sit down here and take a look
at the compass."

He took out his compass and I stood by his knee and watched the
quivering needle.

"Yes, sir," he went on. "We just turned around up there on the hill and
started for Alder Brook again."

As we went on he added: "When you're in doubt look at the compass. It
always knows its way."

"How does it know?" I asked.

"It couldn't tell ye how and I couldn't. There are lots o' things in the
world that nobody can understand."

The needle now pointed toward its favorite star.

"My uncle says that everything and everybody has compasses in 'em to
show 'em the way to go," I remarked thoughtfully.

"He's right," said the Comptroller. "I'm glad you told me for I'd never
thought of it. Every man has a compass in his heart to tell which way is
right. I shall always remember that, partner."

He gave me a little hug as we sat together and I wondered what a partner
might be, for the word was new to me.

"What's partner?" I asked.

"Somebody you like to have with you."

Always when we were together after that hour the great man called me
"partner."

We neared camp in the last light of the day. Mr. Wright stopped to clean
our fish at a little murmuring brook and I ran on ahead for I could hear
the crackling of the camp-fire and the voice of Bill Seaver. I thought
in whispers what I should say to my Uncle Peabody and they were brave
words. I was close upon the rear of the camp when I checked my eager
pace and approached on tiptoe. I was going to surprise and frighten my
uncle and then embrace him. Suddenly my heart stood still, for I heard
him saying words fit only for the tongue of a Dug Draper or a Charley
Boyce--the meanest boy in school--low, wicked words which Uncle Peabody
himself had taught me to fear and despise. My Uncle Peabody! Once I
heard a man telling of a doomful hour in which his fortune won by years
of hard work, broke and vanished like a bubble. The dismay he spoke of
reminded me of my own that day. My Aunt Deel had told me that the devil
used bad words to tempt his victims into a lake of fire where they
sizzled and smoked and yelled forever and felt worse, every minute, than
one sitting on a hot griddle. To save me from such a fate my uncle had
nearly blistered me with his slipper. How was I to save him? I stood
still for a moment of confusion and anxiety, with my hand over my mouth,
while a strange sickness came upon me. A great cold wave had swept in
off the uncharted seas and flooded my little beach, and covered it with
wreckage. What was I to do? I knew that I couldn't punish him. I
couldn't bear to speak to him even, so I turned and walked slowly away.

My dear, careless old uncle was in great danger. As I think of it now,
what a whited sepulchre he had become in a moment! Had I better consult
Mr. Wright? No. My pride in my uncle and my love for him would not
permit it. I must bear my burden alone until I could tell Aunt Deel. She
would know what to do. Mr. Wright came along and found me sitting in
deep dejection on a bed of vivid, green moss by an old stump at the
trail-side.

"What ye doing here?" he asked in surprise.

"Nothing," I answered gravely.

The Comptroller must have observed the sorrow in my face, for he asked:

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," I lied, and then my conscience caught up with my tongue and I
added: "It's a secret."

Fearing that my uncle would disgrace himself in the hearing of Mr.
Wright, I said something--I do not remember what, save that it related
to the weather--in a loud voice by way of warning.

They noticed the downcast look of me when we entered camp.

"Why, Bub, you look tired," said Uncle Peabody as he gave me that
familiar hug of his.

I did not greet him with the cheerful warmth which had characterized our
meetings, and seeing the disappointment in his look I kissed him rather
flippantly.

"Lay down on this old sheep skin and take a nap," said he. "It's warm in
here."

He spread the sheep skin on the balsam boughs back under the lean-to and
I lay down upon it and felt the glow of the fire and heard the talk of
the men but gave no heed to it. I turned my face away from them and lay
as if asleep, but with a mind suddenly estranged and very busy.

Now I know what I knew not then, that my soul was breaking camp on the
edge of the world and getting ready to move over the line. Still no
suspicion of the truth reached me that since I came to live with him my
uncle had been bitting and breaking his tongue. It occurred to me that
Bill Seaver, whom I secretly despised, had spoilt him and that I had
done wrong in leaving him all the afternoon defenseless in bad company.

I wondered if he were beyond hope or if he would have to fry and smoke
and yell forever. But I had hope. My faith in Aunt Deel as a corrector
and punisher was very great. She would know what to do. I heard the men
talking in low voices as they cooked the supper and the frying of the
fish and bacon. It had grown dark. Uncle Peabody came and leaned over me
with a lighted candle and touched my face with his hand. I lay still
with closed eyes. He left me and I heard him say to the others:

"He's asleep and his cheeks are wet. Looks as if he'd been cryin' all to
himself there. I guess he got too tired."

Then Mr. Wright said: "Something happened to the boy this afternoon. I
don't know what. I stopped at the brook to clean the fish and he ran on
toward the camp to surprise you. I came along soon and found him sitting
alone by the trail out there. He looked as if he hadn't a friend in the
world. I asked him what was the matter and he said it was a secret."

"Say, by--" Uncle Peabody paused. "He must a stole up here and heard me
tellin' that--" he paused again and went on: "Say, I wouldn't 'a' had
him hear that for a thousan' dollars. I don't know how to behave myself
when I get in the woods. If you're goin' to travel with a boy like that
you've got to be good all the time--ye can't take no rest or vacation at
all whatever."

"You've got to be sound through and through or they'll find it out,"
said the Comptroller. "You can't fool 'em long."

"He's got a purty keen edge on him," said Bill Seaver.

"On the whole I think he's the most interesting child I ever saw," said
Mr. Wright.

I knew that these words were compliments but their meaning was not quite
clear to me. The words, however, impressed and pleased me deeply and I
recalled them often after that night. I immediately regretted them, for
I was hungry and wanted to get up and eat some supper but had to lie a
while longer now so they would not know that my ears had been open.
Nothing more was said and I lay and listened to the wind in the
tree-tops and the crackling of the fire, and suddenly the day ended.

I felt the gentle hand of Uncle Peabody on my face and I heard him speak
my name very tenderly. I opened my eyes. The sun was shining. It was a
new day. Bill Seaver had begun to cook the breakfast. I felt better and
ran down to the landing and washed. My uncle's face had a serious look
in it. So had Mr. Wright's. I was happy but dimly conscious of a change.

I remember how Bill beat the venison steak, which he had brought in his
pack basket, with the head of his ax, adding a strip of bacon and a
pinch of salt, now and then, until the whole was a thick mass of pulp
which he broiled over the hot coals. I remember, too, how delicious it
was.

We ate and packed and got into the boats and fished along down the
river. At Seaver's we hitched up our team and headed homeward. When we
drove into the dooryard Aunt Deel came and helped me out of the buggy
and kissed my cheek and said she had been "terrible lonesome." Mr.
Wright changed his clothes and hurried away across country with his
share of the fish on his way to Canton.

"Well, I want to know!--ayes! ain't they beautiful! ayes!" Aunt Deel
exclaimed as Uncle Peabody spread the trout in rows on the wash-stand by
the back door.

"I've got to tell you something," I said.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I heard him say naughty words."

"What words?"

"I--I can't say `em. They're wicked. I'm--I'm 'fraid he's goin' to be
burnt up," I stammered.

"It's so. I said 'em," my uncle confessed.

Aunt Deel turned to me and said: "Bart, you go right down to the barn
and bring me a strap--ayes!--you bring me a strap--right away."

I walked slowly toward the barn. For the moment, I was sorry that I had
told on my uncle. Scalding tears began to flow down my cheeks. I sat on
the steps to the hay loft for a moment to collect my thoughts.

Then I heard Aunt Deel call to me: "Hurry up, Bart."

I rose and picked out the smallest strap I could find and walked slowly
back to the house. I said, in a trembling voice, as I approached them,
"I--I don't think he meant it."

"He'll have to be punished--just the same--ayes--he will."

We went into the house together, I sniffling, but curious to see what
was going to happen. Uncle Peabody, by prearrangement, as I know now,
lay face downward on the sofa, and Aunt Deel began to apply the strap.
It was more than I could bear, and I threw myself between my beloved
friend and the strap and pleaded with loud cries for his forgiveness.

Uncle Peabody rose and walked out of the house without a word and with a
sterner look in his face than I had ever seen there. I searched for him
as soon as my excitement had passed, but in vain. I went out back of the
cow barn and looked away down across the stumpy flats. Neither he nor
Shep were in sight. All that lonely afternoon I watched for him. The sun
fell warm but my day was dark. Aunt Deel found me in tears sitting on
the steps of the cheese house and got her Indian book out of her trunk
and, after she had cautioned me to be very careful of it, let me sit
down with it by myself alone, and look at the pictures.

I had looked forward to the time when I could be trusted to sit alone
with the Indian book. In my excitement over the picture of a red man
tomahawking a child I turned a page so swiftly that I put a long tear in
it. My pleasure was gone. I carefully joined the torn edges and closed
the book and put it on the table and ran and hid behind the barn.

By and by I saw Uncle Peabody coming down the lane with the cows, an ax
on his shoulder. I ran to meet him with a joy in my heart as great as
any I have ever known. He greeted me with a cheerful word and leaned
over me and held me close against his legs and looked into my eyes and
asked:

"Are you willin' to kiss me?"

I kissed him and then he said:

"If ye ever hear me talk like that ag'in, I'll let the stoutest man in
Ballybeen hit me with his ax."

I was not feeling well and went to bed right after supper. As I was
undressing I heard Aunt Deel exclaim: "My heavens! See what that boy has
done to my Indian book--ayes! Ain't that awful!--ayes!"

"Pretend ye ain't noticed it," said Uncle Peabody. "He's had trouble
enough for one day."

A deep silence followed in which I knew that Aunt Deel was probably
wiping tears from her eyes. I went to bed feeling better.

Next day the stage, on its way to Ballybeen, came to our house and left
a box and a letter from Mr. Wright, addressed to my uncle, which read:

     "DEAR SIR--I send herewith a box of books and magazines in the hope
     that you or Miss Baynes will read them aloud to my little partner
     and in doing so get some enjoyment and profit for yourselves.

     "Yours respectfully,
          S. WRIGHT, JR.

     "P.S.--When the contents of the box has duly risen into your minds,
     will you kindly see that it does a like service to your neighbors
     in School District No. 7? S.W., JR."

"I guess Bart has made a friend o' this great man--sartin ayes!" said
Aunt Deel. "I wonder who'll be the next one."




CHAPTER V

IN THE LIGHT OF THE CANDLES


I remember that I tried to walk and talk like Silas Wright after that
day. He had a way of twisting little locks of his hair between his thumb
and finger when he sat thinking. I practised that trick of his when I
was alone and unobserved.

One day I was walking up and down, as I had seen Mr. Wright do, and
talking to my friend "Baynes," when Aunt Deel called to me that I should
bring the candle molds from the shed. I was keeper of the molds and
greatly enjoyed the candle-making. First we strung the wicks on slender
wooden rods--split and whittled by Uncle Peabody and me as we sat down
by the stove in the evening. Then the wicks were let down into tin
molds, each of which ended in a little inverted cone with a hole through
its point. We carefully worked the wick ends through these perforations
and drew them tight. When the mold was ready we poured in the melted
tallow, which hardened in a few minutes. Later, by pulling the wooden
rods, we loosened the candles and drew them out of the molds. They were
as smooth and white as polished alabaster. With shears we trimmed the
wick ends. The iron candlesticks were filled and cleaned of drippings
and set on the little corner shelf above the sink.

When night fell again and the slender white shaft, rising above its base
of iron, was crowned with yellow flame, I can think of nothing more
beautiful in color, shape and symbolism. It was the torch of liberty and
learning in the new world--a light-house on the shore of the great deep.

The work of the day ended, the candles were grouped near the edge of the
table and my aunt's armchair was placed beside them. Then I sat on Uncle
Peabody's lap by the fire or, as time went on, in my small chair beside
him, while Aunt Deel adjusted her spectacles and began to read.

At last those of wearied bones and muscles had sat down to look abroad
with the mind's eye. Their reason began to concern itself with problems
beyond the narrow limits of the house and farm; their imaginations took
the wings of the poet and rose above all their humble tasks.

I recall how, when the candles were lighted, storyteller, statesman,
explorer, poet and preacher came from the far ends of the earth and
poured their souls into ours. It was a dim light--that of the
candles--but even to-day it shines through the long alley of these many
years upon my pathway. I see now what I saw not then in the
candle-light, a race marching out of darkness, ignorance and poverty
with our little party in the caravan. Crowding on, they widened the
narrow way of their stern religion.

At first we had only _The Horse Farrier, The Cattle Book, The Story of
the Indian Wars_--a book which had been presented to Aunt Deel by her
grandmother, and which in its shroud of white linen lay buried in her
trunk most of the time for fear harm would come to it, as it did,
indeed, when in a moment of generosity she had loaned it to me. The
Bible and the _St. Lawrence Republican_ were always with us.

Many a night, when a speech of Daniel Webster or Henry Clay or Dewitt
Clinton had pushed me to the edge of unconsciousness, while I resisted
by counting the steel links in the watch chain of Uncle Peabody--my
rosary in every time of trouble--I had been bowled over the brink by
some account of horse colic and its remedy, or of the proper treatment
of hoof disease in sheep. I suffered keenly from the horse colic and
like troubles and from the many hopes and perils of democracy in my
childhood. I found the Bible, however, the most joyless book of all,
Samson being, as I thought, the only man in it who amounted to much. A
shadow lay across its pages which came, I think, from the awful
solemnity of my aunt when she opened them. It reminded me of a dark
rainy day made fearful by thunder and lightning. It was not the cheerful
thing, illumined by the immortal faith of man which, since then, I have
found it to be. The box of books changed the whole current of our lives.

I remember vividly that evening when we took out the books and tenderly
felt their covers and read their titles. There were _Cruikshanks' Comic
Almanac_ and _Hood's Comic Annual_; tales by Washington Irving and James
K. Paulding and Nathaniel Hawthorne and Miss Mitford and Miss Austin;
the poems of John Milton and Felicia Hemans. Of the treasures in the box
I have now; in my possession: A life of Washington, _The Life and
Writings of Doctor Duckworth_, _The Stolen Child_, by "John Galt, Esq.";
_Rosine Laval_, by "Mr. Smith"; _Sermons and Essays_, by William Ellery
Channing. We found in the box, also, thirty numbers of the _United
States Magazine and Democratic Review_ and sundry copies of the _New
York Mirror_.

"Ayes! I declare! What do you think o' this, Peabody Baynes!" Aunt Deel
exclaimed as she sat turning the pages of a novel. "Ye know Aunt Minervy
used to say that a novel was a fast horse on the road to
perdition--ayes!"

"Well she wasn't--" Uncle Peabody began and stopped suddenly. What he
meant to say about her will never be definitely known. In half a moment
he added:

"I guess if Sue Wright recommends 'em they won't hurt us any."

"Ayes! I ain't afraid--we'll wade into 'em," she answered recklessly.
"Ayes! we'll see what they're about."

Aunt Deel began with _The Stolen Child_. She read slowly and often
paused for comment or explanation or laughter or to touch the corner of
an eye with a corner of her handkerchief in moments when we were all
deeply moved by the misfortunes of our favorite characters, which were
acute and numerous. Often she stopped to spell out phrases of French or
Latin, whereupon Uncle Peabody would exclaim:

"Call it 'snags' and go on."

The "snags" were numerous in certain of the books we read, in which case
Uncle Peabody would exclaim:

"Say, that's purty rough plowin'. Mebbe you better move into another
field."

How often I have heard Aunt Deel reading when the effect was like this:

"The Duchess exclaimed with an accent which betrayed the fact that she
had been reared in the French Capital: 'Snags!' Whereupon Sir Roger
rejoined in French equally patrician: 'Snags!"

Those days certain authors felt it necessary to prove that their
education had not been neglected or forgotten. Their way was strewn with
fragments of classic lore intended to awe and mystify the reader, while
evidences of correct religious sentiment were dropped, here and there,
to reassure him. The newspapers and magazines of the time, like certain
of its books, were salted with little advertisements of religion, and
virtue and honesty and thrift.

In those magazines we read of the great West--"the poor man's
paradise"--"the stoneless land of plenty"; of its delightful climate, of
the ease with which the farmer prospered on its rich soil. Uncle Peabody
spoke playfully of going West, after that, but Aunt Deel made no answer
and concealed her opinion on that subject for a long time. As for
myself, the reading had deepened my interest in east and west and north
and south and in the skies above them. How mysterious and inviting they
had become!

One evening a neighbor had brought the _Republican_ from the
post-office. I opened it and read aloud these words, in large type at
the top of the page:

     Silas Wright Elected to the U.S. Senate.

"Well I want to know!" Uncle Peabody exclaimed. "That would make me
forgit it if I was goin' to be hung. Go on and read what it says."

I read of the choosing of our friend for the seat made vacant by the
resignation of William L. Marcy, who had been elected governor, and the
part which most impressed us were these words from a letter of Mr.
Wright to Azariah Flagg of Albany, written when the former was asked to
accept the place:

     "I am too young and too poor for such an elevation. I have not had
     the experience in that great theater of politics to qualify me for
     a place so exalted and responsible. I prefer therefore the humbler
     position which I now occupy."

"That's his way," said Uncle Peabody. "They had hard work to convince
him that he knew enough to be Surrogate."

"Big men have little conceit--ayes!" said Aunt Deel with a significant
glance at me.

The candles had burned low and I was watching the shroud of one of them
when there came a rap at the door. It was unusual for any one to come to
our door in the evening and we were a bit startled. Uncle Peabody opened
it and old Kate entered without speaking and nodded to my aunt and uncle
and sat down by the fire. Vividly I remembered the day of the
fortune-telling. The same gentle smile lighted her face as she looked at
me. She held up her hand with four fingers spread above it.

"Ayes," said Aunt Deel, "there are four perils."

My aunt rose and went into the but'ry while I sat staring at the ragged
old woman. Her hair was white now and partly covered by a worn and faded
bonnet. Forbidding as she was I did not miss the sweetness in her smile
and her blue eyes when she looked at me. Aunt Deel came with a plate of
doughnuts and bread and butter and head cheese and said in a voice full
of pity:

"Poor ol' Kate--ayes! Here's somethin' for ye--ayes!"

She turned to, my uncle and said:

"Peabody Baynes, what'll we do--I'd like to know--ayes! She can't rove
all night."

"I'll git some blankets an' make a bed for her, good 'nough for anybody,
out in the hired man's room over the shed," said my uncle.

He brought the lantern--a little tower of perforated tin--and put a
lighted candle inside of it. Then he beckoned to the stranger, who
followed him out of the front door with the plate of food in her hands.

"Well I declare! It's a long time since she went up this road--ayes!"
said Aunt Deel, yawning as she resumed her chair.

"Who is ol' Kate?" I asked.

"Oh, just a poor ol' crazy woman--wanders all 'round--ayes!"

"What made her crazy?"

"Oh, I guess somebody misused and deceived her when she was young--ayes!
It's an awful wicked thing to do. Come, Bart--go right up to bed now.
It's high time--ayes!"

"I want to wait 'til Uncle Peabody comes back," said I.

"Why?"

"I--I'm afraid she'll do somethin' to him."

"Nonsense! Ol' Kate is just as harmless as a kitten. You take your
candle and go right up to bed--this minute--ayes!"

I went up-stairs with the candle and undressed very slowly and
thoughtfully while I listened for the footsteps of my uncle. I did not
get into bed until I heard him come in and blow out his lantern and
start up the stairway. As he undressed he told me how for many years the
strange woman had been roving in the roads "up hill and down dale,
thousands an' thousands o' miles," and never reaching the end of her
journey.

In a moment we heard a low wail above the sound of the breeze that shook
the leaves of the old "popple" tree above our roof.

"What's that?" I whispered.

"I guess it's ol' Kate ravin'," said Uncle Peabody.

It touched my heart and I lay listening for a time but heard only the
loud whisper of the popple leaves.




CHAPTER VI

THE GREAT STRANGER


Some strangers came along the road those days--hunters, peddlers and the
like--and their coming filled me with a joy which mostly went away with
them, I regret to say. None of these, however, appealed to my
imagination as did old Kate. But there was one stranger greater than
she--greater, indeed, than any other who came into Rattleroad. He came
rarely and would not be long detained. How curiously we looked at him,
knowing his fame and power! This great stranger was Money.

I shall never forget the day that my uncle showed me a dollar bill and a
little shiny, gold coin and three pieces of silver, nor can I forget how
carefully he watched them while they lay in my hands and presently put
them back into his wallet. That was long before the time of which I am
writing. I remember hearing him say, one day of that year, when I asked
him to take us to the Caravan of Wild Beasts which was coming to the
village:

"I'm sorry, but it's been a hundred Sundays since I had a dollar in my
wallet for more than ten minutes."

I have his old account book for the years of 1837 and 1838. Here are
some of the entries:

     "Balanced accounts with J. Dorothy and gave him my note for $2.15,
     to be paid in salts January 1, 1838. Sold ten bushels of wheat to
     E. Miner at 90 cents, to be paid in goods.

     "Sold two sheep to Flavius Curtis and took his note for $6, payable
     in boots on or before March the first."

Only one entry in more than a hundred mentions money, and this was the
sum of eleven cents received in balance from a neighbor.

So it will be seen that a spirit of mutual accommodation served to help
us over the rough going. Mr. Grimshaw, however, demanded his pay in cash
and that I find was, mainly, the habit of the money-lenders.

We were poor but our poverty was not like that of these days in which I
am writing. It was proud and cleanly and well-fed. We had in us the best
blood of the Puritans. Our fathers had seen heroic service in the wars
and we knew it.

There were no farmer-folk who thought more of the virtue of cleanliness.
On this subject my aunt was a deep and tireless thinker. She kept a
watchful eye upon us. In her view men-folks were like floors, furniture
and dishes. They were in the nature of a responsibility--a tax upon
women as it were. Every day she reminded me of the duty of keeping my
body clean. Its members had often suffered the tyranny of the soaped
hand at the side of the rain barrel. I suppose that all the waters of
this world have gone up in the sky and come down again since those far
days, but even now the thought of my aunt brings back the odor of soft
soap and rain barrels.

She did her best, also, to keep our minds in a cleanly state of
preservation--a work in which the teacher rendered important service. He
was a young man from Canton.

One day when I had been kept after hours for swearing in a fight and
then denying it, he told me that there was no reason why I shouldn't be
a great man if I stuck to my books and kept my heart clean. I heard with
alarm that there was another part of me to be kept clean. How was it to
be done?

"Well, just make up your mind that you'll never lie, whatever else you
do," he said. "You can't do anything bad or mean unless you intend to
cover it up with lies."

What a simple rule was this of the teacher!--and yet--well the very next
thing he said was:

"Where did you hear all that swearing?"

How could I answer his question truthfully? I was old enough to know
that the truth would disgrace my Uncle Peabody. I could not tell the
truth, therefore, and I didn't. I put it all on Dug Draper, although his
swearing had long been a dim, indefinite and useless memory.

As a penalty I had to copy two maxims of Washington five times in my
writing-book. In doing so I put them on the wall of my memory where I
have seen them every day of my life and from which I read as I write.

     "Speak no evil of the absent for it is unjust."

     "Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial
     fire called conscience."

The boys in the school were a sturdy big-boned lot with arms and legs
like the springing bow. Full-lunged, great-throated fellows, they grew
to be, calling the sheep and cattle in the land of far-reaching
pastures. There was an undersized boy three years older who often picked
on me and with whom I would have no peaceful commerce.

I copy from an old memorandum book a statement of my daily routine just
as I put it down one of those days:

     "My hardest choar is to get up after uncle calls me. I scramble
     down stairs and pick up my boots and socks and put them on. Then I
     go into the setting room and put on my jacket. I get some brand
     for the sheep. Then I put on my cap and mittens and go out and feed
     the sheep. Then I get my breakfast. Then I put on my frock, cap,
     mittens and fetch in my wood. Then I feed the horses their oats.
     Then I lay away my old clothes until night. I put on my best coat
     and mittens and tippet and start for school. By the time I get to
     Joe's my toes are cold and I stop and warm them. When I get to
     school I warm me at the stove. Then I go to my seat and study my
     reader, then I take out my arithmetic, then my spelling book, then
     comes the hardest study that ever landed on Plymouth Rock. It is
     called geography. After the spelling lesson comes noon. The teacher
     plays with me cos the other boys are so big. I am glad when I go
     home. Then I do my choars again, and hear my aunt read until
     bedtime."

There were girls in the school, but none like Sally. They whispered
together with shy glances in our direction, as if they knew funny
secrets about us, and would then break into noisy jeers. They did not
interest me, and probably because I had seen the lightness and grace and
beauty of Sally Dunkelberg and tasted the sweetness of her fancies.

There were the singing and spelling schools and the lyceums, but those
nights were few and far between. Not more than four or five in the whole
winter were we out of the joyful candle-light of our own home. Even then
our hands were busy making lighters or splint brooms, or paring and
quartering and stringing the apples or cracking butternuts while Aunt
Deel read.

After the sheep came we kept only two cows. The absence of cattle was a
help to the general problem of cleanliness. The sheep were out in the
fields and I kept away from them for fear the rams would butt me. I
remember little of the sheep save the washing and shearing and the lambs
which Uncle Peabody brought to our fireside to be warmed on cold
mornings of the early spring. I remember asking where the lambs came
from when I was a small boy, and that Uncle Peabody said they came from
"over the river"--a place regarding which his merry ignorance provoked
me. In the spring they were driven to the deep hole and dragged, one by
one, into the cold water to have their fleeces washed. When the weather
had warmed men came to shear them and their oily white fleeces were
clipped close to the skin and each taken off in one piece like a coat
and rolled up and put on the wool pile.

I was twelve years old when I began to be the reader for our little
family. Aunt Deel had long complained that she couldn't keep up with her
knitting and read so much. We had not seen Mr. Wright for nearly two
years, but he had sent us the novels of Sir Walter Scott and I had led
them heart deep into the creed battles of Old Mortality.

Then came the evil days of 1837, when the story of our lives began to
quicken its pace and excite our interest in its coming chapters. It gave
us enough to think of, God knows.

Wild speculations in land and the American paper-money system had
brought us into rough going. The banks of the city of New York had
suspended payment of their notes. They could no longer meet their
engagements. As usual, the burden fell heaviest on the poor. It was hard
to get money even for black salts.

Uncle Peabody had been silent and depressed for a month or more. He had
signed a note for Rodney Barnes, a cousin, long before and was afraid
that he would have to pay it. I didn't know what a note was and I
remember that one night, when I lay thinking about it, I decided that it
must be something in the nature of horse colic. My uncle told me that a
note was a trouble which attacked the brain instead of the stomach. I
was with Uncle Peabody so much that I shared his feeling but never
ventured to speak of it or its cause. He didn't like to be talked to
when he felt badly. At such times he used to say that he had the brain
colic. He told me that notes had an effect on the brain like that of
green apples on the stomach.

One autumn day in Canton Uncle Peabody traded three sheep and twenty
bushels of wheat for a cook stove and brought it home in the big wagon.
Rodney Barnes came with him to help set up the stove. He was a big giant
of a man with the longest nose in the township. I had often wondered how
any one would solve the problem of kissing Mr. Barnes in the immediate
region of his nose, the same being in the nature of a defense.

I remember that I regarded it with a kind of awe because I had been
forbidden to speak of it. The command invested Mr. Barnes' nose with a
kind of sanctity. Indeed it became one of the treasures of my
imagination.

That evening I was chiefly interested in the stove. What a joy it was to
me with its damper and griddles and high oven and the shiny edge on its
hearth! It rivaled, in its novelty and charm, any tin peddler's cart
that ever came to our door. John Axtell and his wife, who had seen it
pass their house, hurried over for a look at it. Every hand was on the
stove as we tenderly carried it into the house, piece by piece, and set
it up. Then they cut a hole in the upper floor and the stone chimney and
fitted the pipe. How keenly we watched the building of the fire! How
quickly it roared and began to heat the room!

When the Axtells had gone away Aunt Deel said:

"It's grand! It is sartin--but I'm 'fraid we can't afford it--ayes I
be!"

"We can't afford to freeze any longer. I made up my mind that we
couldn't go through another winter as we have," was my uncle's answer.

"How much did it cost?" she asked.

"Not much differ'nt from thirty-four dollars in sheep and grain," he
answered.

Rodney Barnes stayed to supper and spent a part of the evening with us.

Like other settlers there, Mr. Barnes was a cheerful optimist.
Everything looked good to him until it turned out badly. He stood over
the stove with a stick of wood and made gestures with it as he told how
he had come from Vermont with a team and a pair of oxen and some bedding
and furniture and seven hundred dollars in money. He flung the stick of
wood into the box with a loud thump as he told how he had bought his
farm of Benjamin Grimshaw at a price which doubled its value. True it
was the price which other men had paid in the neighborhood, but they had
all paid too much. Grimshaw had established the price and called it
fair. He had taken Mr. Barnes to two or three of the settlers on the
hills above Lickitysplit.

"Tell this man what you think about the kind o' land we got here,"
Grimshaw had demanded.

The tenant recommended it. He had to. They were all afraid of Grimshaw.
Mr. Barnes picked up a flat iron and felt its bottom and waved it in the
air as he alleged that it was a rocky, stumpy, rooty, God-forsaken
region far from church or market or school on a rough road almost
impassable for a third of the year. Desperate economy and hard work had
kept his nose to the grindstone but, thank God, he had nose enough left.

Now and then Grimshaw (and others like him) loaned money to people, but
he always had some worthless hay or a broken-down horse which you had to
buy before you could get the money.

Mr. Barnes put down the flat iron and picked up the poker and tried its
strength on his knee as he told how he had heard that it was a growing
country near the great water highway of the St. Lawrence. Prosperous
towns were building up in it. There were going to be great cities in
Northern New York. What they called a railroad was coming. There were
rich stores of lead and iron in the rocks. Mr. Barnes had bought two
hundred acres at ten dollars an acre. He had to pay a fee of five per
cent. to Grimshaw's lawyer for the survey and the papers. This left him
owing fourteen hundred dollars on his farm--much more than it was worth.
One hundred acres of the land had been roughly cleared by Grimshaw and a
former tenant. The latter had toiled and struggled and paid tribute and
given up.

Our cousin twisted the poker in his great hands until it squeaked as he
stood before my uncle and said:

"My wife and I have chopped and burnt and pried and hauled rocks an'
shoveled dung an' milked an' churned until we are worn out. For almost
twenty years we've been workin' days an' nights an' Sundays. My mortgage
was over-due, I owed six hundred dollars on it. I thought it all over
one day an' went up to Grimshaw's an' took him by the back of the neck
and shook him. He said he would drive me out o' the country. He gave me
six months to pay up. I had to pay or lose the land. I got the money on
the note that you signed over in Potsdam. Nobody in Canton would 'a'
dared to lend it to me."

The poker broke and he threw the pieces under the stove.

"Why?" my uncle asked.

Mr. Barnes got hold of another stick of wood and went on.

"'Fraid o' Grimshaw. He didn't want me to be able to pay it. The place
is worth more than six hundred dollars now--that's the reason. I
intended to cut some timber an' haul it to the village this winter so I
could pay a part o' the note an' git more time as I told ye, but the
roads have been so bad I couldn't do any haulin'."

My uncle went and took a drink at the water pail. I saw by his face that
he was unusually wrought up.

"My heavens an' earth!" he exclaimed as he sat down again.

"It's the brain colic," I said to myself as I looked at him.

Mr. Barnes seemed to have it also.

"Too much note," I whispered.

"I'm awful sorry, but I've done everything I could," said Mr. Barnes.

"Ain't there somebody that'll take another mortgage?--it ought to be
safe now," my uncle suggested.

"Money is so tight it can't be done. The bank has got all the money an'
Grimshaw owns the bank. I've tried and tried, but I'll make you safe.
I'll give you a mortgage until I can turn 'round."

So I saw how Rodney Barnes, like other settlers in Lickitysplit, had
gone into bondage to the landlord.

"How much do you owe on this place?" Barnes asked.

"Seven hundred an' fifty dollars," said my uncle.

"Is it due?"

"It's been due a year an' if I have to pay that note I'll be short my
interest."

"God o' Israel! I'm scairt," said Barnes.

Down crashed the stick of wood into the box.

"What about?"

Mr. Barnes tackled a nail that stuck out of the woodwork and tried to
pull it between his thumb and finger while I watched the process with
growing interest.

"It would be like him to put the screws on you now," he grunted, pulling
at the nail. "You've got between him an' his prey. You've taken the
mouse away from the cat."

I remember the little panic that fell on us then. I could see tears in
the eyes of Aunt Deel as she sat with her head leaning wearily on her
hand.

"If he does I'll do all I can," said Barnes, "whatever I've got will be
yours."

The nail came out of the wall.

"I had enough saved to pay off the mortgage," my uncle answered. "I
suppose it'll have to go for the note."

Mr. Barnes' head was up among the dried apples on the ceiling. A
movement of his hand broke a string of them. Then he dropped his huge
bulk into a chair which crashed to the floor beneath him. He rose
blushing and said:

"I guess I better go or I'll break everything you've got here. I kind o'
feel that way."

Rodney Barnes left us.

I remember how Uncle Peabody stood in the middle of the floor and
whistled the merriest tune he knew.

"Stand right up here," he called in his most cheerful tone. "Stand
right up here before me, both o' ye."

I got Aunt Deel by the hand and led her toward my uncle. We stood facing
him. "Stand straighter," he demanded. "Now, altogether. One, two, three,
ready, sing."

He beat time with his hand in imitation of the singing master at the
schoolhouse and we joined him in singing an old tune which began: "O
keep my heart from sadness, God."

This irresistible spirit of the man bridged a bad hour and got us off to
bed in fairly good condition.

A few days later the note came due and its owner insisted upon full
payment. There was such a clamor for money those days! I remember that
my aunt had sixty dollars which she had saved, little by little, by
selling eggs and chickens. She had planned to use it to buy a tombstone
for her mother and father--a long-cherished ambition. My uncle needed
the most of it to help pay the note. We drove to Potsdam on that sad
errand and what a time we had getting there and back in deep mud and
sand and jolting over corduroys!

"Bart," my uncle said the next evening, as I took down the book to read.
"I guess we'd better talk things over a little to-night. These are hard
times. If we can find anybody with money enough to buy 'em I dunno but
we better sell the sheep."

"If you hadn't been a fool," my aunt exclaimed with a look of great
distress--"ayes! if you hadn't been a fool."

"I'm just what I be an' I ain't so big a fool that I need to be reminded
of it," said my uncle.

"I'll stay at home an' work," I proposed bravely.

"You ain't old enough for that," sighed Aunt Deel.

"I want to keep you in school," said Uncle Peabody, who sat making a
splint broom.

While we were talking in walked Benjamin Grimshaw--the rich man of the
hills. He didn't stop to knock but walked right in as if the house were
his own. It was common gossip that he held a mortgage on every acre of
the countryside. I had never liked him, for he was a stern-eyed man who
was always scolding somebody, and I had not forgotten what his son had
said of him.

"Good night!" he exclaimed curtly, as he sat down and set his cane
between his feet and rested his hands upon it. He spoke hoarsely and I
remember the curious notion came to me that he looked like our old ram.
The stern and rugged face of Mr. Grimshaw and the rusty gray of his
homespun and the hoarseness of his tone had suggested this thought to
me. The long silvered tufts above his keen, gray eyes moved a little as
he looked at my uncle. There were deep lines upon his cheeks and chin
and forehead. He wore a thin, gray beard under his chin. His mouth was
shut tight in a long line curving downward a little at the ends. My
uncle used to say that his mouth was made to keep his thoughts from
leaking and going to waste. He had a big body, a big chin, a big mouth,
a big nose and big ears and hands. His eyes lay small in this setting of
bigness.

"Why, Mr. Grimshaw, it's years since you've been in our house--ayes!"
said Aunt Deel.

"I suppose it is," he answered rather sharply. "I don't have much time
to get around. I have to work. There's some people seem to be able to
git along without it."

He drew in his breath quickly and with a hissing sound after every
sentence.

"How are your folks?" my aunt asked.

"So's to eat their allowance--there's never any trouble about that,"
said Mr. Grimshaw. "I see you've got one o' these newfangled stoves," he
added as he looked it over. "Huh! Rich folks can have anything they
want."

Uncle Peabody had sat splintering the long stick of yellow birch. I
observed that the jackknife trembled in his hand. His tone had a touch
of unnaturalness, proceeding no doubt from his fear of the man before
him, as he said:

"When I bought that stove I felt richer than I do now. I had almost
enough to settle with you up to date, but I signed a note for a friend
and had to pay it."

"Ayuh! I suppose so," Grimshaw answered in a tone of bitter irony which
cut me like a knife-blade, young as I was. "What business have you
signin' notes an' givin' away money which ain't yours to give--I'd like
to know? What business have you actin' like a rich man when you can't
pay yer honest debts? I'd like to know that, too?"

"If I've ever acted like a rich man it's been when I wa'n't lookin',"
said Uncle Peabody.

"What business have you got enlargin' yer family--takin' another mouth
to feed and another body to spin for? That costs money. I ain't no
objection if a man can afford it, but the money it costs ain't yours to
give. It looks as if it belonged to me. You spend yer nights readin'
books when ye ought to be to work an' you've scattered that kind o'
foolishness all over the neighborhood. I want to tell you one thing,
Baynes, you've got to pay up or git out o' here."

He raised his cane and shook it in the air as he spoke.

"Oh, I ain't no doubt o' that," said Uncle Peabody. "You'll have to have
yer money--that's sure; an' you will have it if I live, every cent of
it. This boy is goin' to be a great help to me--you don't know what a
good boy he is and what a comfort he's been to us!"

I had understood that reference to me in Mr. Grimshaw's complaint and
these words of my beloved uncle uncovered my emotions so that I put my
elbow on the wood-box and leaned my head upon it and sobbed.

"I tell ye I'd rather have that boy than all the money you've got, Mr.
Grimshaw," Uncle Peabody added.

My aunt came and patted my shoulder and said: "Sh--sh--sh! Don't you
care, Bart! You're just the same as if you was our own boy--ayes!--you
be."

"I ain't goin' to be hard on ye, Baynes," said Mr. Grimshaw as he rose
from his chair; "I'll give ye three months to see what you can do. I
wouldn't wonder if the boy would turn out all right. He's big an' cordy
of his age an' a purty likely boy they tell me. He'd 'a' been all right
at the county house until he was old enough to earn his livin', but you
was too proud for that--wasn't ye? I don't mind pride unless it keeps a
man from payin' his honest debts. You ought to have better sense."

"An' you ought to keep yer breath to cool yer porridge," said Uncle
Peabody.

Mr. Grimshaw opened the door and stood for a moment looking at us and
added in a milder tone: "You've got one o' the best farms in this town
an' if ye work hard an' use common sense ye ought to be out o' debt in
five years--mebbe less."

He closed the door and went away.

Neither of us moved or spoke as we listened to his footsteps on the
gravel path that went down to the road and to the sound of his buggy as
he drove away. Then Uncle Peabody broke the silence by saying:

"He's the dam'dest--"

He stopped, set the half-splintered stick aside, closed his jackknife
and went to the water-pail to cool his emotions with a drink.

Aunt Deel took up the subject where he had dropped it, as if no
half-expressed sentiment would satisfy her, saying:

"--old skinflint that ever lived in this world, ayes! I ain't goin' to
hold down my opinion o' that man no longer, ayes! I can't. It's too
powerful--ayes!"

Having recovered my composure I repeated that I should like to give up
school and stay at home and work.

Aunt Deel interrupted me by saying:

"I have an idee that Sile Wright will help us--ayes! He's comin' home
an' you better go down an' see him--ayes! Hadn't ye?"

"Bart an' I'll go down to-morrer," said Uncle Peabody.

I remember well our silent going to bed that night and how I lay
thinking and praying that I might grow fast and soon be able to take the
test of manhood--that of standing in a half-bushel measure and
shouldering two bushels of corn. By and by a wind began to shake the
popple leaves above us and the sound soothed me like the whispered
"hush-sh" of a gentle mother.

We dressed with unusual care in the morning. After the chores were done
and we had had our breakfast we went up-stairs to get ready.

Aunt Deel called at the bottom of the stairs in a generous tone:

"Peabody, if I was you I'd put on them butternut trousers--ayes! an' yer
new shirt an' hat an' necktie, but you must be awful careful of
'em--ayes."

The hat and shirt and necktie had been stored in the clothes press for
more than a year but they were nevertheless "new" to Aunt Deel. Poor
soul! She felt the importance of the day and its duties. It was that
ancient, Yankee dread of the poorhouse that filled her heart I suppose.
Yet I wonder, often, why she wished us to be so proudly adorned for such
a crisis.

Some fourteen months before that day my uncle had taken me to Potsdam
and traded grain and salts for what he called a "rip roarin' fine suit
o' clothes" with boots and cap and shirt and collar and necktie to
match, I having earned them by sawing and cording wood at three
shillings a cord. How often we looked back to those better days! The
clothes had been too big for me and I had had to wait until my growth
had taken up the "slack" in my coat and trousers before I could venture
out of the neighborhood. I had tried them on every week or so for a long
time. Now my stature filled them handsomely and they filled me with a
pride and satisfaction which I had never known before. The collar was
too tight, so that Aunt Deel had to sew one end of it to the neckband,
but my tie covered the sewing.

Since that dreadful day of the petticoat trousers my wonder had been
regarding all integuments, what Sally Dunkelberg would say to them. At
last I could start for Canton with a strong and capable feeling. If I
chanced to meet Sally Dunkelberg I need not hide my head for shame as I
had done that memorable Sunday.

"Now may the Lord help ye to be careful--awful, terrible careful o' them
clothes every minute o' this day," Aunt Deel cautioned as she looked at
me. "Don't git no horse sweat nor wagon grease on 'em."

To Aunt Deel wagon grease was the worst enemy of a happy and respectable
home.

We hitched our team to the grasshopper spring wagon and set out on our
journey. It was a warm, hazy Indian-summer day in November. My uncle
looked very stiff and sober in his "new" clothes. Such breathless
excitement as that I felt when we were riding down the hills and could
see the distant spires of Canton, I have never known since that day. As
we passed "the mill" we saw the Silent Woman looking out of the little
window of her room above the blacksmith shop--a low, weather-stained,
frame building, hard by the main road, with a narrow hanging stair on
the side of it.

"She keeps watch by the winder when she ain't travelin'," said Uncle
Peabody. "Knows all that's goin' on--that woman--knows who goes to the
village an' how long they stay. When Grimshaw goes by they say she
hustles off down the road in her rags. She looks like a sick dog
herself, but I've heard that she keeps that room o' hers just as neat as
a pin."

Near the village we passed a smart-looking buggy drawn by a spry-footed
horse in shiny harness. Then I noticed with a pang that our wagon was
covered with dry mud and that our horses were rather bony and our
harnesses a kind of lead color. So I was in an humble state of mind when
we entered the village. Uncle Peabody had had little to say and I had
kept still knowing that he sat in the shadow of a great problem.

There was a crowd of men and women in front of Mr. Wright's office and
through its open door I saw many of his fellow townsmen. We waited at
the door for a few minutes. I crowded in while Uncle Peabody stood
talking with a villager. The Senator caught sight of me and came to my
side and put his hand on my head and said:

"Hello, Bart! How you've grown! and how handsome you look! Where's your
uncle?"

"He's there by the door," I answered.

"Well, le's go and see him."

Then I followed him out of the office.

Mr. Wright was stouter and grayer and grander than when I had seen him
last. He was dressed in black broadcloth and wore a big beaver hat and
high collar and his hair was almost white. I remember vividly his clear,
kindly, gray eyes and ruddy cheeks.

"Baynes, I'm glad to see you," he said heartily. "Did ye bring me any
jerked meat?"

"Didn't think of it," said Uncle Peabody. "But I've got a nice young doe
all jerked an' if you're fond o' jerk I'll bring ye down some
to-morrer."

"I'd like to take some to Washington but I wouldn't have you bring it so
far."

"I'd like to bring it--I want a chance to talk with ye for half an hour
or such a matter," said my uncle. "I've got a little trouble on my
hands."

"There's a lot of trouble here," said the Senator. "I've got to settle a
quarrel between two neighbors and visit a sick friend and make a short
address to the Northern New York Conference at the Methodist Church and
look over a piece of land that I'm intending to buy, and discuss the
plans for my new house with the carpenter. I expect to get through about
six o'clock and right after supper I could ride up to your place with
you and walk back early in the morning. We could talk things over on the
way up."

"That's first rate," said my uncle. "The chores ain't much these days
an' I guess my sister can git along with 'em."

The Senator took us into his office and introduced us to the leading men
of the county. There were: Minot Jenison, Gurdon Smith, Ephraim
Butterfield, Lemuel Buck, Baron S. Doty, Richard N. Harrison, John L.
Russell, Silas Baldwin, Calvin Hurlbut, Doctor Olin, Thomas H. Conkey
and Preston King. These were names with which, the _Republican_ had
already made us familiar.

"Here," said the Senator as he put his hand on my head, "is a coming man
in the Democratic party."

The great men laughed at my blushes and we came away with a deep sense
of pride in us. At last I felt equal to the ordeal of meeting the
Dunkelbergs. My uncle must have shared my feeling for, to my delight, he
went straight to the basement store above which was the modest sign: "H.
Dunkelberg, Produce." I trembled as we walked down the steps and opened
the door. I saw the big gold watch chain, the handsome clothes, the
mustache and side whiskers and the large silver ring approaching us,
but I was not as scared as I expected to be. My eyes were more
accustomed to splendor.

"Well I swan!" said the merchant in the treble voice which I remembered
so well. "This is Bart and Peabody! How are you?"

"Pretty well," I answered, my uncle being too slow of speech to suit my
sense of propriety. "How is Sally?"

The two men laughed heartily much to my embarrassment.

"He's getting right down to business," said my uncle.

"That's right," said Mr. Dunkelberg. "Why, Bart, she's spry as a cricket
and pretty as a picture. Come up to dinner with me and see for
yourself."

Uncle Peabody hesitated, whereupon I gave him a furtive nod and he said
"All right," and then I had a delicious feeling of excitement. I had
hard work to control my impatience while they talked. I walked on some
butter tubs in the back room and spun around on a whirling stool that
stood in front of a high desk and succeeded in the difficult feat of
tipping over a bottle of ink without getting any on myself. I covered
the multitude of my sins on the desk with a newspaper and sat down
quietly in a chair.

By and by I asked, "Are you 'most ready to go?"

"Yes--come on--it's after twelve o'clock," said Mr. Dunkelberg. "Sally
will be back from school now."

My conscience got the better of me and I confessed about the ink bottle
and was forgiven.

So we walked to the big house of the Dunkelbergs and I could hear my
heart beating when we turned in at the gate--the golden gate of my youth
it must have been, for after I had passed it I thought no more as a
child. That rude push which Mr. Grimshaw gave me had hurried the
passing.

I was a little surprised at my own dignity when Sally opened the door to
welcome us. My uncle told Aunt Deel that I acted and spoke like Silas
Wright, "so nice and proper." Sally was different, too--less playful and
more beautiful with long yellow curls covering her shoulders.

"How nice you look!" she said as she took my arm and led me into her
playroom.

"These are my new clothes," I boasted. "They are very expensive and I
have to be careful of them."

I remember not much that we said or did but I could never forget how she
played for me on a great shiny piano--I had never seen one before--and
made me feel very humble with music more to my liking than any I have
heard since--crude and simple as it was--while her pretty fingers ran up
and down the keyboard.

O magic ear of youth! I wonder how it would sound to me now--the
rollicking lilt of _Barney Leave the Girls Alone_--even if a sweet maid
flung its banter at me with flashing fingers and well-fashioned lips.

I behaved myself with great care at the table--I remember that--and,
after dinner, we played in the dooryard and the stable, I with a great
fear of tearing my new clothes. I stopped and cautioned her more than
once: "Be careful! For gracious sake! be careful o' my new suit!"

As we were leaving late in the afternoon she said:

"I wish you would come here to school."

"I suppose he will sometime," said Uncle Peabody.

A new hope entered my breast, that moment, and began to grow there.

"Aren't you going to kiss her?" said Mr. Dunkelberg with a smile.

I saw the color in her cheeks deepen as she turned with a smile and
walked away two or three steps while the grown people laughed, and stood
with her back turned looking in at the window.

"You're looking the wrong way for the scenery," said Mr. Dunkelberg.

She turned and walked toward me with a look Of resolution in her pretty
face and said:

"I'm not afraid of him."

We kissed each other and, again, that well-remembered touch of her hair
upon my face! But the feel of her warm lips upon my own--that was so
different and so sweet to remember in the lonely days that followed!
Fast flows the river to the sea when youth is sailing on it. They had
shoved me out of the quiet cove into the swift current--those dear,
kindly, thoughtless people! Sally ran away into the house as their
laughter continued and my uncle and I walked down the street. How happy
I was!

We went to the Methodist Church where Mr. Wright was speaking but we
couldn't get in. There were many standing at the door who had come too
late. We could hear his voice and I remember that he seemed to be
talking to the people just as I had heard him talk to my aunt and uncle,
sitting by our fireside, only louder. We were tired and went down to the
tavern and waited for him on its great porch. We passed a number of boys
playing three-old-cat in the school yard. How I longed to be among them!

I observed with satisfaction that the village boys did not make fun of
me when I passed them as they did when I wore the petticoat trousers.
Mr. and Mrs. Wright came along with the crowd, by and by, and Colonel
Medad Moody. We had supper with them at the tavern and started away in
the dark with the Senator on the seat with us. He and my uncle began to
talk about the tightness of money and the banking laws and I remember a
remark of my uncle, for there was that in his tone which I could never
forget:

"We poor people are trusting you to look out for us--we poor people are
trusting you to see that we get treated fair. We're havin' a hard time."

This touched me a little and I was keen to hear the Senator's answer. I
remember so well the sacred spirit of democracy in his words. Long
afterward I asked him to refresh my memory of them and so I am able to
quote him as he would wish.

"I know it," he answered. "I lie awake nights thinking about it. I am
poor myself, almost as poor as my father before me. I have found it
difficult to keep my poverty these late years but I have not failed. I'm
about as poor as you are, I guess. I could enjoy riches, but I want to
be poor so I may not forget what is due to the people among whom I was
born--you who live in small houses and rack your bones with toil. I am
one of you, although I am racking my brain instead of my bones in our
common interest. There are so many who would crowd us down we must stand
together and be watchful or we shall be reduced to an overburdened,
slavish peasantry, pitied and despised. Our danger will increase as
wealth accumulates and the cities grow. I am for the average man--like
myself. They've lifted me out of the crowd to an elevation which I do
not deserve. I have more reputation than I dare promise to keep. It
frightens me. I am like a child clinging to its father's hand in a place
of peril. So I cling to the crowd. It is my father. I know its needs and
wrongs and troubles. I had other things to do to-night. There were
people who wished to discuss their political plans and ambitions with
me. But I thought I would rather go with you and learn about your
troubles. What are they?"

My uncle told him about the note and the visit of Mr. Grimshaw and of
his threats and upbraidings.

"Did he say that in Bart's hearing?" asked the Senator.

"Ayes!--right out plain."

"Too bad! I'm going to tell you frankly, Baynes, that the best thing I
know about you is your conduct toward this boy. I like it. The next best
thing is the fact that you signed the note. It was bad business but it
was good Christian conduct to help your friend. Don't regret it. You
were poor and of an age when the boy's pranks were troublesome to both
of you, but you took him in. I'll lend you the interest and try to get
another holder for the mortgage on one condition. You must let me attend
to Bart's schooling. I want to be the boss about that. We have a great
schoolmaster in Canton and when Bart is a little older I want him to go
there to school. I'll try to find him a place where he can work for his
board."

"We'll miss Bart but we'll be tickled to death--there's no two ways
about that," said Uncle Peabody.

I had been getting sleepy, but this woke me up. I no longer heard the
monotonous creak of harness and whiffletrees and the rumble of wheels; I
saw no longer the stars and the darkness of the night. My mind had
scampered off into the future. I was playing with Sally or with the boys
in the school yard.

The Senator tested my arithmetic and grammar and geography as we rode
along in the darkness and said by and by:

"You'll have to work hard, Bart. You'll have to take your book into the
field as I did. After every row of corn I learned a rule of syntax or
arithmetic or a fact in geography while I rested, and my thought and
memory took hold of it as I plied the hoe. I don't want you to stop the
reading, but from now on you must spend half of every evening on your
lessons."

We got home at half past eight and found my aunt greatly worried. She
had done the chores and been standing in her hood and shawl on the porch
listening for the sound of the wagon. She had kept our suppers warm but
I was the only hungry one.

As I was going to bed the Senator called me to him and said:

"I shall be gone when you are up in the morning. It may be a long time
before I see you; I shall leave something for you in a sealed envelope
with your name on it. You are not to open the envelope until you go away
to school. I know how you will feel that first day. When night falls you
will think of your aunt and uncle and be very lonely. When you go to
your room for the night I want you to sit down all by yourself and open
the envelope and read what I shall write. They will be, I think, the
most impressive words ever written. You will think them over but you
will not understand them for a long time. Ask every wise man you meet to
explain them to you, for all your happiness will depend upon your
understanding of these few words in the envelope."

In the morning Aunt Deel put it in my hands.

"I wonder what in the world he wrote there--ayes!" said she. "We must
keep it careful--ayes!--I'll put it in my trunk an' give it to ye when
ye go to Canton to school."

"Has Mr. Wright gone?" I asked rather sadly.

"Ayes! Land o' mercy! He went away long before daylight with a lot o'
jerked meat in a pack basket--ayes! Yer uncle is goin' down to the
village to see 'bout the mortgage this afternoon, ayes!"

It was a Saturday and I spent its hours cording wood in the shed,
pausing now and then for a look into my grammar. It was a happy day, for
the growing cords expressed in a satisfactory manner my new sense of
obligation to those I loved. Imaginary conversations came into my brain
as I worked and were rehearsed in whispers.

"Why, Bart, you're a grand worker," my uncle would say in my fancy.
"You're as good as a hired man."

"Oh, that's nothing," I would answer modestly. "I want to be useful so
you won't be sorry you took me and I'm going to study just as Mr. Wright
did and be a great man if I can and help the poor people. I'm going to
be a better scholar than Sally Dunkelberg, too."

What a day it was!--the first of many like it. I never think of those
days without saying to myself: "What a God's blessing a man like Silas
Wright can be in the community in which his heart and soul are as an
open book!"

As the evening came on I took a long look at my cords. The shed was
nearly half full of them. Four rules of syntax, also, had been carefully
stored away in my brain. I said them over as I hurried down into the
pasture with old Shep and brought in the cows. I got through milking
just as Uncle Peabody came. I saw with joy that his face was cheerful.

"Yip!" he shouted as he stopped his team at the barn door where Aunt
Deel and I were standing. "We ain't got much to worry about now. I've
got the interest money right here in my pocket."

We unhitched and went in to supper. I was hoping that Aunt Deel would
speak of my work but she seemed not to think of it.

"Had a grand day!" said Uncle Peabody, as he sat down at the table and
began to tell what Mr. Wright and Mr. Dunkelberg had said to him.

I, too, had had a grand day and probably my elation was greater than
his. I tarried at the looking-glass hoping that Aunt Deel would give me
a chance modestly to show my uncle what I had done. But the talk about
interest and mortgages continued. I went to my uncle and tried to
whisper in his ear a hint that he had better go and look into the
wood-shed. He stopped me before I had begun by saying:

"Don't bother me now, Bub. I'll git that candy for ye the next time I go
to the village."

Candy! I was thinking of no such trivial matter as candy. He couldn't
know how the idea shocked me in the exalted state of mind into which I
had risen. He didn't know then of the spiritual change in me and how
generous and great I was feeling and how sublime and beautiful was the
new way in which I had set my feet.

I went out on the porch and stood looking down with a sad countenance.
Aunt Deel followed me.

"W'y, Bart!" she exclaimed, "you're too tired to eat--ayes! Be ye sick?"

I shook my head.

"Peabody," she called, "this boy has worked like a beaver every minute
since you left--ayes he has! I never see anything to beat it--never! I
want you to come right out into the wood-shed an' see what he's
done--this minute--ayes!"

I followed them into the shed.

"W'y of all things!" my uncle exclaimed. "He's worked like a nailer,
ain't he?"

There were tears in his eyes when he took my hand in his rough palm and
squeezed it and said:

"Sometimes I wish ye was little ag'in so I could take ye up in my arms
an' kiss ye just as I used to. Horace Dunkelberg says that you're the
best-lookin' boy he ever see."

"Stop!" Aunt Deel exclaimed with a playful tap on his shoulder. "W'y! ye
mustn't go on like that."

"I'm tellin' just what he said," my uncle answered.

"I guess he only meant that Bart looked clean an' decent--that's
all--ayes! He didn't mean that Bart was purty. Land sakes!--no."

I observed the note of warning in the look she gave my uncle.

"No, I suppose not," he answered, as he turned away with a smile and
brushed one of his eyes with a rough finger.

I repeated the rules I had learned as we went to the table.

"I'm goin' to be like Silas Wright if I can," I added.

"That's the idee!" said Uncle Peabody. "You keep on as you've started
an' everybody'll milk into your pail."

I kept on--not with the vigor of that first day with its new
inspiration--but with growing strength and effectiveness. Nights and
mornings and Saturdays I worked with a will and my book in my pocket or
at the side of the field and was, I know, a help of some value on the
farm. My scholarship improved rapidly and that year I went about as far
as I could hope to go in the little school at Leonard's Corners.

"I wouldn't wonder if ol' Kate was right about our boy," said Aunt Deel
one day when she saw me with my book in the field.

I began to know then that ol' Kate had somehow been at work in my
soul--subconsciously as I would now put it. I was trying to put truth
into the prophecy. As I look at the whole matter these days I can see
that Mr. Grimshaw himself was a help no less important to me, for it was
a sharp spur with which he continued to prod us.




CHAPTER VII

MY SECOND PERIL


We always thank God for men like Purvis: we never thank them. They are
without honor in their own time, but how they brighten the pages of
memory! How they stimulated the cheerfulness of the old countryside and
broke up its natural reticence!

Mr. Franklin Purvis was our hired man--an undersized bachelor. He had a
Roman nose, a face so slim that it would command interest and attention
in any company, and a serious look enhanced by a bristling mustache and
a retreating chin. At first and on account of his size I had no very
high opinion of Mr. Purvis. That first evening after his arrival I sat
with him on the porch surveying him inside and out.

"You don't look very stout," I said.

"I ain't as big as some, but I'm all gristle from my head to my heels,
inside an' out," he answered.

I surveyed him again as he sat looking at the ledges. He was not more
than a head taller than I, but if he were "all gristle" he might be
entitled to respect and I was glad to learn of his hidden
resources--glad and a bit apprehensive as they began to develop.

"I'm as full o' gristle as a goose's leg," he went on. "God never made a
man who could do more damage when he lets go of himself an' do it
faster. There ain't no use o' talkin'."

There being no use of talking, our new hired man continued to talk while
I listened with breathless interest and growing respect. He took a chew
of tobacco and squinted his eyes and seemed to be studying the wooded
rock ledges across the road as he went on:

"You'll find me wide awake, I _guess_. I ain't afraid o' anythin' but
lightnin'--no, sir!--an' I can hurt hard an' do it rapid when I begin,
but I can be jest as harmless as a kitten. There ain't no man that can
be more harmlesser when he wants to be an' there's any decent chance for
it--none whatsomever! No, sir! I'd rather be harmless than not--a good
deal."

This relieved, and was no doubt calculated to relieve, a feeling of
insecurity which his talk had inspired. He blew out his breath and
shifted his quid as he sat with his elbows resting on his knees and took
another look at the ledges as if considering how much of his strength
would be required to move them.

"Have you ever hurt anybody?" I asked.

"Several," he answered.

"Did you kill 'em?"

"No, I never let myself go too fur. Bein' so stout, I have to be kind o'
careful."

After a moment's pause he went on:

"A man threatened to lick me up to Seaver's t'other day. You couldn't
blame him. He didn't know me from a side o' sole leather. He just
thought I was one o' them common, every-day cusses that folks use to
limber up on. But he see his mistake in time. I tell ye God was good to
him when he kept him away from me."

Aunt Deel called us to supper.

"Le's go in an' squench our hunger," Mr. Purvis proposed as he rose and
shut his jackknife.

I was very much impressed and called him "Mr. Purvis" after that. I
enjoyed and believed many tales of adventure in which he had been the
hero as we worked together in the field or stable. I told them to my
aunt and uncle one evening, whereupon the latter said:

"He's a good man to work, but Jerusalem--!"

He stopped. He always stopped at the brink of every such precipice. I
had never heard him finish an uncomplimentary sentence.

I began to have doubts regarding the greatness of our hired man. I still
called him "Mr. Purvis," but all my fear of him had vanished.

One day Mr. Grimshaw came out in the field to see my uncle. They walked
away to the shade of a tree while "Mr. Purvis" and I went on with the
hoeing. I could hear the harsh voice of the money-lender speaking in
loud and angry tones and presently he went away.

"What's the rip?" I asked as my uncle returned looking very sober.

"We won't talk about it now," he answered.

That look and the fears it inspired ruined my day which had begun with
eager plans for doing and learning. In the candle-light of the evening
Uncle Peabody said:

"Grimshaw has demanded his mortgage money an' he wants it in gold coin.
We'll have to git it some way, I dunno how."

"W'y of all things!" my aunt exclaimed. "How are we goin' to git all
that money--these hard times?--ayes! I'd like to know?"

"Well, I can't tell ye," said Uncle Peabody. "I guess he can't forgive
us for savin' Rodney Barnes."

"What did he say?" I asked.

"Why, he says we hadn't no business to hire a man to help us. He says
you an' me ought to do all the work here. He thinks I ought to took you
out o' school long ago."

"I can stay out o' school and keep on with my lessons," I said.

"Not an' please him. He was mad when he see ye with a book in yer hand
out there in the corn-field."

What were we to do now? I spent the first sad night of my life undoing
the plans which had been so dear to me but not so dear as my aunt and
uncle. I decided to give all my life and strength to the saving of the
farm. I would still try to be great, but not as great as the Senator.
Purvis stayed with us through the summer and fall.

After the crops were in we cut and burned great heaps of timber and made
black salts of the ashes by leaching water through them and boiling down
the lye. We could sell the salts at three dollars and a half a hundred
pounds. The three of us working with a team could produce from one
hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty pounds a week. Yet we
thought it paid--there in Lickitysplit. All over the hills men and women
were turning their efforts and strength into these slender streams of
money forever flowing toward the mortgagee.

Mr. Dunkelberg had seen Benjamin Grimshaw and got him to give us a brief
extension. They had let me stay out of school to work. I was nearly
thirteen years old and rather strong and capable. I think that I got
along in my books about as well as I could have done in our little
school.

One day in December of that year, I had my first trial in the full
responsibility of man's work. I was allowed to load and harness and
hitch up and go to mill without assistance. My uncle and Purvis were
busy with the chopping and we were out of flour and meal. It took a lot
of them to keep the axes going. So I filled two sacks with corn and two
with wheat and put them into the box wagon, for the ground was bare, and
hitched up my horses and set out. Aunt Deel took a careful look at the
main hitches and gave me many a caution before I drove away. She said it
was a shame that I had to be "Grimshawed" into a man's work at my age.
But I was elated by my feeling of responsibility. I knew how to handle
horses and had driven at the drag and plow and once, alone, to the
post-office, but this was my first long trip without company. I had
taken my ax and a chain, for one found a tree in the road now and then
those days, and had to trim and cut and haul it aside. It was a drive of
six miles to the nearest mill, over a bad road. I sat on two cleated
boards placed across the box, with a blanket over me and my new overcoat
and mittens on, and was very comfortable and happy.

I had taken a little of my uncle's chewing tobacco out of its paper that
lay on a shelf in the cellarway, for I had observed that my uncle
generally chewed when he was riding. I tried a little of it and was very
sick for a few minutes.

Having recovered, I sang all the songs I knew, which were not many, and
repeated the names of the presidents and divided the world into its
parts and recited the principal rivers with all the sources and
emptyings of the latter and the boundaries of the states and the names
and locations of their capitals. It amused me in the midst of my
loneliness to keep my tongue busy and I exhausted all my knowledge,
which included a number of declamations from the speeches of Otis, Henry
and Webster, in the effort. Before the journey was half over I had taken
a complete inventory of my mental effects. I repeat that it was
amusement--of the only kind available--and not work to me.

I reached the mill safely and before the grain was ground the earth and
the sky above it were white with snow driving down in a cold, stiff wind
out of the northwest. I loaded my grists and covered them with a blanket
and hurried away. The snow came so fast that it almost blinded me. There
were times when I could scarcely see the road or the horses. The wind
came colder and soon it was hard work to hold the reins and keep my
hands from freezing.

Suddenly the wheels began jumping over rocks. The horses were in the
ditch. I knew what was the matter, for my eyes had been filling with
snow and I had had to brush them often. Of course the team had suffered
in a like manner. Before I could stop I heard the crack of a felly and a
front wheel dropped to its hub. I checked the horses and jumped out and
went to their heads and cleared their eyes. The snow was up to my knees
then.

It seemed as if all the clouds in the sky were falling to the ground and
stacking into a great, fleecy cover as dry as chaff.

We were there where the road drops into a rocky hollow near the edge of
Butterfield's woods. They used to call it Moosewood Hill because of the
abundance of moosewood around the foot of it. How the thought of that
broken wheel smote me! It was our only heavy wagon, and we having to pay
the mortgage. What would my uncle say? The query brought tears to my
eyes.

I unhitched and led my horses up into the cover of the pines. How
grateful it seemed, for the wind was slack below but howling in the
tree-tops! I knew that I was four miles from home and knew, not how I
was to get there. Chilled to the bone, I gathered some pitch pine and
soon had a fire going with my flint and tinder. I knew that I could
mount one of the horses and lead the other and reach home probably. But
there was the grist. We needed that; I knew that we should have to go
hungry without the grist. It would get wet from above and below if I
tried to carry it on the back of a horse. I warmed myself by the fire
and hitched my team near it so as to thaw the frost out of their
forelocks and eyebrows. I felt in my coat pockets and found a handful
of nails--everybody carried nails in one pocket those days--and I
remember that my uncle's pockets were a museum of bolts and nuts and
screws and washers.

The idea occurred to me that I would make a kind of sled which was
called a jumper.

So I got my ax out of the wagon and soon found a couple of small trees
with the right crook for the forward end of a runner and cut them and
hewed their bottoms as smoothly as I could. Then I made notches in them
near the top of their crooks and fitted a stout stick into the notches
and secured it with nails driven by the ax-head. Thus I got a hold for
my evener. That done, I chopped and hewed an arch to cross the middle of
the runners and hold them apart and used all my nails to secure and
brace it. I got the two boards which were fastened together and
constituted my wagon seat and laid them over the arch and front brace.
How to make them fast was my worst problem. I succeeded in splitting a
green stick to hold the bolt of the evener just under its head while I
heated its lower end in the fire and kept its head cool with snow. With
this I burnt a hole in the end of each board and fastened them to the
front brace with withes of moosewood.

It was late in the day and there was no time for the slow process of
burning more holes, so I notched the other ends of the boards and
lashed them to the rear brace with a length of my reins. Then I
retempered my bolt and brought up the grist and chain and fastened the
latter between the boards in the middle of the front brace, hitched my
team to the chain and set out again, sitting on the bags.

It was, of course, a difficult journey, for my jumper was narrow. The
snow heaped up beneath me and now and then I and my load were rolled off
the jumper. When the drifts were more than leg deep I let down the fence
and got around them by going into the fields. Often I stopped to clear
the eyes of the horses--a slow task to be done with the bare hand--or to
fling my palms against my shoulders and thus warm myself a little.

It was pitch dark and the horses wading to their bellies and the snow
coming faster when we turned into Rattleroad. I should not have known
the turn when we came to it, but a horse knows more than a man in the
dark. Soon I heard a loud halloo and knew that it was the voice of Uncle
Peabody. He had started out to meet me in the storm and Shep was with
him.

"Thank God I've found ye!" he shouted. "I'm blind and tired out and I
couldn't keep a lantern goin' to save me. Are ye froze?"

"I'm all right, but these horses are awful tired. Had to let 'em rest
every few minutes."

I told him about the wagon--and how it relieved me to hear him say:

"As long as you're all right, boy, I ain't goin' to worry 'bout the ol'
wagon--not a bit. Where'd ye git yer jumper?"

"Made it with the ax and some nails," I answered.

I didn't hear what he said about it for the horses were wallowing and we
had to stop and paw and kick the snow from beneath them as best we could
before it was possible to back out of our trouble. Soon we found an
entrance to the fields--our own fields not far from the house--where
Uncle Peabody walked ahead and picked out the best wading. After we got
to the barn door at last he went to the house and lighted his lantern
and came back with it wrapped in a blanket and Aunt Deel came with him.

How proud it made me to hear him say:

"Deel, our boy is a man now--made this jumper all 'lone by himself an'
has got through all right."

She came and held the lantern up to my face and looked at my hands.

"Well, my stars, Bart!" she exclaimed in a moment. "I thought ye would
freeze up solid--ayes--poor boy!"

The point of my chin and the lobes of my ears and one finger were
touched and my aunt rubbed them with snow until the frost was out.

We carried the grist in and Aunt Deel made some pudding. How good it was
to feel the warmth of the fire and of the hearts of those who loved me!
How I enjoyed the pudding and milk and bread and butter!

"I guess you've gone through the second peril that ol' Kate spoke of,"
said Aunt Deel as I went up-stairs.

Uncle Peabody went out to look at the horses.

When I awoke in the morning I observed that Uncle Peabody's bed had not
been slept in. I hurried down and heard that our off-horse had died in
the night of colic. Aunt Deel was crying. As he saw me Uncle Peabody
began to dance a jig in the middle of the floor.

"Balance yer partners!" he shouted. "You an' I ain't goin' to be
discouraged if all the hosses die--be we, Bart?"

"Never," I answered.

"That's the talk! If nec'sary we'll hitch Purvis up with t'other hoss
an' git our haulin' done."

He and Purvis roared with laughter and the strength of the current swept
me along with them.

"We're the luckiest folks in the world, anyway," Uncle Peabody went on.
"Bart's alive an' there's three feet o' snow on the level an' more
comin' an' it's colder'n Greenland."

It was such a bitter day that we worked only three hours and came back
to the house and played Old Sledge by the fireside.

Rodney Barnes came over that afternoon and said that he would lend us a
horse for the hauling.

When we went to bed that night Uncle Peabody whispered:

"Say, ol' feller, we was in purty bad shape this mornin'. If we hadn't
'a' backed up sudden an' took a new holt I guess Aunt Deel would 'a'
caved in complete an' we'd all been a-bellerin' like a lot o' lost
cattle."

We had good sleighing after that and got our bark and salts to market
and earned ninety-eight dollars. But while we got our pay in paper "bank
money," we had to pay our debts in wheat, salts or corn, so that our
earnings really amounted to only sixty-two and a half dollars, my uncle
said. This more than paid our interest. We gave the balance and ten
bushels of wheat to Mr. Grimshaw for a spavined horse, after which he
agreed to give us at least a year's extension on the principal.

We felt easy then.




CHAPTER VIII

MY THIRD PERIL


"Mr. Purvis" took his pay in salts and stayed with us until my first
great adventure cut him off. It came one July day when I was in my
sixteenth year. He behaved badly, and I as any normal boy would have
done who had had my schooling in the candle-light. We had kept Grimshaw
from our door by paying interest and the sum of eighty dollars on the
principal. It had been hard work to live comfortably and carry the
burden of debt. Again Grimshaw had begun to press us. My uncle wanted to
get his paper and learn, if possible, when the Senator was expected in
Canton.

So he gave me permission to ride with Purvis to the post-office--a
distance of three miles--to get the mail. Purvis rode in our only saddle
and I bareback, on a handsome white filly which my uncle had given me
soon after she was foaled. I had fed and petted and broken and groomed
her and she had grown so fond of me that my whistled call would bring
her galloping to my side from the remotest reaches of the pasture. A
chunk of sugar or an ear of corn or a pleasant grooming always rewarded
her fidelity. She loved to have me wash her legs and braid her mane and
rub her coat until it glowed, and she carried herself proudly when I was
on her back. I had named her Sally because that was the only name which
seemed to express my fondness.

"Mr. Purvis" was not an experienced rider. My filly led him at a swift
gallop over the hills and I heard many a muttered complaint behind me,
but she liked a free head when we took the road together and I let her
have her way.

Coming back we fell in with another rider who had been resting at
Seaver's little tavern through the heat of the day. He was a traveler on
his way to Canton and had missed the right trail and wandered far
afield. He had a big military saddle with bags and shiny brass trimmings
and a pistol in a holster, all of which appealed to my eye and interest.
The filly was a little tired and the stranger and I were riding abreast
at a walk while Purvis trailed behind us. The sun had set and as we
turned the top of a long hill the dusk was lighted with a rich, golden
glow on the horizon far below us.

We heard a quick stir in the bushes by the roadside.

"What's that?" Purvis demanded in a half-whisper of excitement. We
stopped.

Then promptly a voice--a voice which I did not recognize--broke the
silence with these menacing words sharply spoken:

"Your money or your life!"

"Mr. Purvis" whirled his horse and lashed him up the hill. Things
happened quickly in the next second or two. Glancing backward I saw him
lose a stirrup and fall and pick himself up and run as if his life
depended on it. I saw the stranger draw his pistol. A gun went off in
the edge of the bushes close by. The flash of fire from its muzzle
leaped at the stranger. The horses reared and plunged and mine threw me
in a clump of small poppies by the roadside and dashed down the hill.
All this had broken into the peace of a summer evening on a lonely road
and the time in which it had happened could be measured, probably, by
ten ticks of the watch.

My fall on the stony siding had stunned me and I lay for three or four
seconds, as nearly as I can estimate it, in a strange and peaceful
dream. Why did I dream of Amos Grimshaw coming to visit me, again, and
why, above all, should it have seemed to me that enough things were said
and done in that little flash of a dream to fill a whole day--enough of
talk and play and going and coming, the whole ending with a talk on the
haymow. Again and again I have wondered about that dream. I came to and
lifted my head and my consciousness swung back upon the track of memory
and took up the thread of the day, the briefest remove from where it had
broken.

I peered through the bushes. The light was unchanged. I could see quite
clearly. The horses were gone. It was very still. The stranger lay
helpless in the road and a figure was bending over him. It was a man
with a handkerchief hanging over his face with holes cut opposite his
eyes. He had not seen my fall and thought, as I learned later, that I
had ridden away.

His gun lay beside him, its stock toward me. I observed that a piece of
wood had been split off the lower side of the stock. I jumped to my feet
and seized a stone to hurl at him. As I did so the robber fled with gun
in hand. If the gun had been loaded I suppose that this little history
would never have been written. Quickly I hurled the stone at the robber.
I remember it was a smallish stone about the size of a hen's egg. I saw
it graze the side of his head. I saw his hand touch the place which the
stone had grazed. He reeled and nearly fell and recovered himself and
ran on, but the little stone had put the mark of Cain upon him.

The stranger lay still in the road. I lifted his head and dropped it
quickly with a strange sickness. The feel of it and the way it fell back
upon the ground when I let go scared me, for I knew that he was dead.
The dust around him was wet. I ran down the hill a few steps and stopped
and whistled to my filly. I could hear her answering whinny far down the
dusty road and then her hoofs as she galloped toward me. She came within
a few feet of me and stood snorting. I caught and mounted her and rode
to the nearest house for help. On the way I saw why she had stopped. A
number of horses were feeding on the roadside near the log house where
Andrew Crampton lived. Andrew had just unloaded some hay and was backing
out of his barn. I hitched my filly and jumped on the rack saying:

"Drive up the road as quick as you can. A man has been murdered."

What a fearful word it was that I had spoken! What a panic it made in
the little dooryard! The man gasped and jerked the reins and shouted to
his horses and began swearing. The woman uttered a little scream and the
children ran crying to her side. Now for the first time I felt the dread
significance of word and deed. I had had no time to think of it before.
I thought of the robber fleeing, terror-stricken, in the growing
darkness.

The physical facts which are further related to this tragedy are of
little moment to me now. The stranger was dead and we took his body to
our home and my uncle set out for the constable. Over and over again
that night I told the story of the shooting. We went to the scene of the
tragedy with lanterns and fenced it off and put some men on guard there.

How the event itself and all that hurrying about in the dark had shocked
and excited me! The whole theater of life had changed. Its audience had
suddenly enlarged and was rushing over the stage and a kind of terror
was in every face and voice. There was a red-handed villain behind the
scenes, now, and how many others, I wondered. Men were no longer as they
had been. Even the God to whom I prayed was different. As I write the
sounds and shadows of that night are in my soul again. I see its
gathering gloom. I hear its rifle shot which started all the galloping
hoofs and swinging lanterns and flitting shadows and hysterical
profanity. In the morning they found the robber's footprints in the damp
dirt of the road and measured them. The whole countryside was afire with
excitement and searching the woods and fields for the highwayman.

"Mr. Purvis," who had lost confidence suddenly in the whole world, had
been found, soon after daylight next morning, under a haycock in the
field of a farmer who was getting in his hay. Our hired man rose up and
reported in fearful tones. A band of robbers--not one, or two, even, but
a band of them--had chased him up the road and one of their bullets had
torn the side of his trousers, in support of which assertion he showed
the tear. With his able assistance we see at a glance both the quality
and the state of mind prevailing among the humbler citizens of the
countryside. They were, in a way, children whose cows had never
recovered from the habit of jumping over the moon and who still
worshiped at the secret shrine of Jack the Giant Killer.

The stranger was buried. There was nothing upon him to indicate his name
or residence. Weeks passed with no news of the man who had slain him. I
had told of the gun with a piece of wood broken out of its stock, but no
one knew of any such weapon in or near Lickitysplit.

One day Uncle Peabody and I drove up to Grimshaw's to make a payment of
money. I remember it was gold and silver which we carried in a little
sack. I asked where Amos was and Mrs. Grimshaw--a timid, tired-looking,
bony little woman who was never seen outside of her own house--said that
he was working out on the farm of a Mr. Beekman near Plattsburg. He had
gone over on the stage late in June to hire out for the haying. I
observed that my uncle looked very thoughtful as we rode back home and
had little to say.

"You never had any idee who that robber was, did ye?" he asked by and
by.

"No--I could not see plain--it was so dusk," I said.

"I think Purvis lied about the gang that chased him," he said. "Mebbe he
thought they was after him. In my opinion he was so scairt he couldn't
'a' told a hennock from a handsaw anyway. I think it was just one man
that did that job."

How well I remember the long silence that followed and the distant
voices that flashed across it now and then--the call of the mire drum in
the marshes and the songs of the winter wren and the swamp robin. It was
a solemn silence.

The swift words, "Your money or your life," came out of my memory and
rang in it. I felt its likeness to the scolding demands of Mr. Grimshaw,
who was forever saying in effect:

"Your money or your home!"

That was like demanding our lives because we couldn't live without our
home. Our all was in it. Mr. Grimshaw's gun was the power he had over
us, and what a terrible weapon it was! I credit him with never realizing
how terrible.

We came to the sand-hills and then Uncle Peabody broke the silence by
saying:

"I wouldn't give fifty cents for as much o' this land as a bird could
fly around in a day."

Then for a long time I heard only the sound of feet and wheels muffled
in the sand, while my uncle sat looking thoughtfully at the siding.
When I spoke to him he seemed not to hear me.

Before we reached home I knew what was in his mind, but neither dared to
speak of it.

People came from Canton and all the neighboring villages to see and talk
with me and among them were the Dunkelbergs. Unfounded tales of my
bravery had gone abroad.

Sally seemed to be very glad to see me. We walked down to the brook and
up into the maple grove and back through the meadows.

The beauty of that perfect day was upon her. I remember that her dress
was like the color of its fire-weed blossoms and that the blue of its
sky was in her eyes and the yellow of its sunlight in her hair and the
red of its clover in her cheeks. I remember how the August breezes
played with her hair, flinging its golden curving strands about her neck
and shoulders so that it touched my face, now and then, as we walked!
Somehow the rustle of her dress started a strange vibration in my
spirit. I put my arm around her waist and she put her arm around mine as
we ran along. A curious feeling came over me. I stopped and loosed my
arm.

"It's very warm!" I said as I picked a stalk of fire-weed.

What was there about the girl which so thrilled me with happiness?

She turned away and felt the ribbon by which her hair was gathered at
the back of her head.

I wanted to kiss her as I had done years before, but I was afraid.

She turned suddenly and said to me:

"A penny for your thoughts."

"You won't laugh at me?"

"No."

"I was thinking how beautiful you are and how homely I am."

"You are not homely. I like your eyes and your teeth are as white and
even as they can be and you are a big, brave boy, too."

Oh, the vanity of youth! I had never been so happy as then.

"I don't believe I'm brave," I said, blushing as we walked along beside
the wheat-fields that were just turning yellow. "I was terribly scared
that night--honest I was!"

"But you didn't run away."

"I didn't think of it or I guess I would have."

After a moment of silence I ventured:

"I guess you've never fallen in love."

"Yes, I have."

"Who with?"

"I don't think I dare tell you," she answered, slowly, looking down as
she walked.

"I'll tell you who I love if you wish," I said.

"Who?"

"You." I whispered the word and was afraid she would laugh at me, but
she didn't. She stopped and looked very serious and asked:

"What makes you think you love me?"

"Well, when you go away I shall think an' think about you an' feel as I
do when the leaves an' the flowers are all gone an' I know it's going to
be winter, an' I guess next Sunday Shep an' I will go down to the brook
an' come back through the meadow, an' I'll kind o' think it all
over--what you said an' what I said an' how warm the sun shone an' how
purty the wheat looked, an' I guess I'll hear that little bird singing."

We stopped and listened to the song of a bird--I do not remember what
bird it was--and then she whispered:

"Will you love me always and forever?"

"Yes," I answered in the careless way of youth.

She stopped and looked into my eyes and I looked into hers.

"May I kiss you?" I asked, and afraid, with cheeks burning.

She turned away and answered: "I guess you can if you want to."

Now I seem to be in Aladdin's tower and to see her standing so red and
graceful and innocent in the sunlight, and that strange fire kindled by
our kisses warms my blood again.

It was still play, although not like that of the grand ladies and the
noble gentlemen in which we had once indulged, but still it was
play--the sweetest and dearest kind of play which the young may enjoy,
and possibly, also, the most dangerous.

She held my hand very tightly as we went on and I told her of my purpose
to be a great man.

My mind was in a singular condition of simplicity those days. It was due
to the fact that I had had no confidant in school and had been brought
up in a home where there was neither father nor mother nor brother.

That night I heard a whispered conference below after I had gone
up-stairs. I knew that something was coming and wondered what it might
be. Soon Uncle Peabody came up to our little room looking highly
serious. He sat down on the side of his bed with his hands clasped
firmly under one knee, raising his foot below it well above the floor.
He reminded me of one carefully holding taut reins on a horse of a bad
reputation. I sat, half undressed and rather fearful, looking into his
face. As I think of the immaculate soul of the boy, I feel a touch of
pathos in that scene. I think that he felt it, for I remember that his
whisper trembled a little as he began to tell me why men are strong and
women are beautiful and given to men in marriage.

"You'll be falling in love one o' these days," he said. "It's natural ye
should. You remember Rovin' Kate?" he asked by and by.

"Yes," I answered.

"Some day when you're a little older I'll tell ye her story an' you'll
see what happens when men an' women break the law o' God. Here's Mr.
Wright's letter. Aunt Deel asked me to give it to you to keep. You're
old enough now an' you'll be goin' away to school before long, I guess."

I took the letter and read again the superscription on its envelope:

     To Master Barton Baynes--
          (To be opened when he leaves home to
           go to school.)

I put it away in the pine box with leather hinges on its cover which
Uncle Peabody had made for me and wondered again what it was all about,
and again that night I broke camp and moved further into the world over
the silent trails of knowledge.

Uncle Peabody went away for a few days after the harvesting. He had gone
afoot, I knew not where. He returned one afternoon in a buggy with the
great Michael Hacket of the Canton Academy. Hacket was a big, brawny,
red-haired, kindly Irishman with a merry heart and tongue, the latter
having a touch of the brogue of the green isle which he had never seen,
for he had been born in Massachusetts and had got his education in
Harvard. He was then a man of forty.

"You're coming to me this fall," he said as he put his hand on my arm
and gave me a little shake. "Lad! you've got a big pair of shoulders! Ye
shall live in my house an' help with the chores if ye wish to."

"That'll be grand," said Uncle Peabody, but, as to myself, just then, I
knew not what to think of it.

We were picking up potatoes in the field.

"Without 'taters an' imitators this world would be a poor place to live
in," said Mr. Hacket. "Some imitate the wise--thank God!--some the
foolish--bad 'cess to the devil!"

As he spoke we heard a wonderful bird song in a tall spruce down by the
brook.

"Do ye hear the little silver bells in yon tower?" he asked.

As we listened a moment he whispered: "It's the song o' the Hermit
Thrush. I wonder, now, whom he imitates. I think the first one o' them
must 'a' come on Christmas night an' heard the angels sing an'
remembered a little o' it so he could give it to his children an' keep
it in the world."

I looked up into the man's face and liked him, and after that I looked
forward to the time when I should know him and his home.

Shep was rubbing his neck fondly on the schoolmaster's boot.

"That dog couldn't think more o' me if I were a bone," he said as he
went away.



END OF BOOK ONE




BOOK TWO

Which is the Story of the Principal Witness




CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH I MEET OTHER GREAT MEN


It was a sunny day in late September on which Aunt Deel and Uncle
Peabody took me and my little pine chest with all my treasures in it to
the village where I was to go to school and live with the family of Mr.
Michael Hacket, the schoolmaster. I was proud of the chest, now equipped
with iron hinges and a hasp and staple. Aunt Deel had worked hard to get
me ready, sitting late at her loom to weave cloth for my new suit, which
a traveling tailor had fitted and made for me. I remember that the
breeches were of tow and that they scratched my legs and made me very
uncomfortable, but I did not complain. My uncle used to say that nobody
with tow breeches on him could ride a horse without being thrown--they
pricked so.

The suit which I had grown into--"the Potsdam clothes," we called them
often, but more often "the boughten clothes"--had been grown out of and
left behind in a way of speaking. I had an extra good-looking pair of
cowhide boots, as we all agreed, which John Wells, the cobbler, had made
for me. True, I had my doubts about them, but we could afford no
better.

When the chest was about full, I remember that my aunt brought something
wrapped in a sheet of the _St. Lawrence Republican_ and put it into my
hands.

"There are two dozen cookies an' some dried meat," said she. "Ayes, I
thought mebbe you'd like 'em--if you was hungry some time between meals.
Wait a minute."

She went to her room and Uncle Peabody and I waited before we shut the
hasp with a wooden peg driven into its staple.

Aunt Deel returned promptly with the Indian Book in her hands.

"There," said she, "you might as well have it--ayes!--you're old enough
now. You'll enjoy readin' it sometimes in the evenin', mebbe--ayes!
Please be awful careful of it, Bart, for it was a present from my mother
to me--ayes it was!"

How tenderly she held and looked at the sacred heirloom so carefully
stitched into its cover of faded linen. It was her sole legacy. Tears
came to my eyes as I thought of her generosity--greater, far greater
than that which has brought me gifts of silver and gold--although my
curiosity regarding the Indian Book had abated, largely, for I had taken
many a sly peek at it. Therein I had read how Captain Baynes--my great
grandfather--had been killed by the Indians.

I remember the sad excitement of that ride to the village and all the
words of advice and counsel spoken by my aunt.

"Don't go out after dark," said she. "I'm 'fraid some o' them rowdies'll
pitch on ye."

"If they do I guess they'll be kind o' surprised," said Uncle Peabody.

"I don't want him to fight."

"If it's nec'sary, I believe in fightin' tooth an' nail," my uncle
maintained.

I remember looking in vain for Sally as we passed the Dunkelbergs'. I
remember my growing loneliness as the day wore on and how Aunt Deel
stood silently buttoning my coat with tears rolling down her cheeks
while I leaned back upon the gate in front of the Hacket house, on
Ashery Lane, trying to act like a man and rather ashamed of my poor
success. It reminded me of standing in the half-bushel measure and
trying in vain, as I had more than once, to shoulder the big bag of
corn. Uncle Peabody stood surveying the sky in silence with his back
toward us. He turned and nervously blew out his breath. His lips
trembled a little as he said.

"I dunno but what it's goin' to rain."

I watched them as they walked to the tavern sheds, both looking down at
the ground and going rather unsteadily. Oh, the look of that beloved
pair as they walked away from me!--the look of their leaning heads!
Their silence and the sound of their footsteps are, somehow, a part of
the picture which has hung all these years in my memory.

Suddenly I saw a man go reeling by in the middle of the road. His feet
swung. They did not rise and reach forward and touch the ground
according to the ancient habit of the human foot. They swung sideways
and rose high and each crossed the line of his flight a little, as one
might say, when it came to the ground, for the man's movements reminded
me of the aimless flight of a sporting swallow. He zig-zagged from one
side of the street to the other. He caught my eye just in time and saved
me from breaking down. I watched him until he swung around a corner.
Only once before had I seen a man drunk and walking, although I had seen
certain of our neighbors riding home drunk--so drunk that I thought
their horses were ashamed of them, being always steaming hot and in a
great hurry.

Sally Dunkelberg and her mother came along and said that they were glad
I had come to school. I could not talk to them and seeing my trouble,
they went on, Sally waving her hand to me as they turned the corner
below. I felt ashamed of myself. Suddenly I heard the door open behind
me and the voice of Mr. Hacket:

"Bart," he called, "I've a friend here who has something to say to you.
Come in."

I turned and went into the house.

"Away with sadness--laddie buck!" he exclaimed as he took his violin
from its case while I sat wiping my eyes. "Away with sadness! She often
raps at my door, and while I try not to be rude, I always pretend to be
very busy. Just a light word o' recognition by way o' common politeness!
Then laugh, if ye can an' do it quickly, lad, an' she will pass on."

The last words were spoken in a whisper, with one hand on my breast.

He tuned the strings and played the _Fisher's Hornpipe_. What a romp of
merry music filled the house! I had never heard the like and was soon
smiling at him as he played. His bow and fingers flew in the wild frolic
of the Devil's Dream. It led me out of my sadness into a world all new
to me.

"Now, God bless your soul, boy!" he exclaimed, by and by, as he put down
his instrument. "We shall have a good time together--that we will. Not a
stroke o' work this day! Come, I have a guide here that will take us
down to the land o' the fairies."

Then with his microscope he showed me into the wonder world of
littleness of which I had had no knowledge.

"The microscope is like the art o' the teacher," he said. "I've known a
good teacher to take a brain no bigger than a fly's foot an' make it
visible to the naked eye."

One of the children, of which there were four in the Hacket home, called
us to supper. Mrs. Hacket, a stout woman with a red and kindly face, sat
at one end of the table, and between them were the children--Mary, a
pretty daughter of seventeen years; Maggie, a six-year-old; Ruth, a
delicate girl of seven, and John, a noisy, red-faced boy of five. The
chairs were of plain wood--like the kitchen chairs of to-day. In the
middle of the table was an empty one--painted green. Before he sat down
Mr. Hacket put his hand on the back of this chair and said:

"A merry heart to you, Michael Henry."

I wondered at the meaning of this, but dared not to ask. The oldest
daughter acted as a kind of moderator with the others.

"Mary is the constable of this house, with power to arrest and hale into
court for undue haste or rebellion or impoliteness," Mr. Hacket
explained.

"I believe that Sally Dunkelberg is your friend," he said to me
presently.

"Yes, sir," I answered.

"A fine slip of a girl that and a born scholar. I saw you look at her as
the Persian looks at the rising sun."

I blushed and Mary and her mother and the boy John looked at me and
laughed.

"_Puer pulcherrime!_" Mr. Hacket exclaimed with a kindly smile.

Uncle Peabody would have called it a "stout snag." The schoolmaster had
hauled it out of his brain very deftly and chucked it down before me in
a kind of challenge.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"You shall know in a week, my son," he answered. "I shall put you into
the Latin class Wednesday morning, and God help you to like it as well
as you like Sally."

Again they laughed and again I blushed.

"Hold up yer head, my brave lad," he went on. "Ye've a perfect right to
like Sally if ye've a heart to."

He sang a rollicking ballad of which I remember only the refrain:

     _A lad in his teens will never know beans if he hasn't an eye for
     the girls_.

It was a merry supper, and when it ended Mr. Hacket rose and took the
green chair from the table, exclaiming:

"Michael Henry, God bless you!"

Then he kissed his wife and said:

"Maggie, you wild rose of Erin! I've been all day in the study. I must
take a walk or I shall get an exalted abdomen. One is badly beaten in
the race o' life when his abdomen gets ahead of his toes. Children, keep
our young friend happy here until I come back, and mind you, don't
forget the good fellow in the green chair."

Mary helped her mother with the dishes, while I sat with a book by the
fireside. Soon Mrs. Hacket and the children came and sat down with me.

"Let's play backgammon," Mary proposed.

"I don't want to," said John.

"Don't forget Michael Henry," she reminded.

"Who is Michael Henry?" I asked.

"Sure, he's the boy that has never been born," said Mrs. Hacket. "He was
to be the biggest and noblest one o' them--kind an' helpful an' cheery
hearted an' beloved o' God above all the others. We try to live up to
him."

He seemed to me a very strange and wonderful creature--this invisible
occupant of the green chair.

I know now what I knew not then that Michael Henry was the spirit of
their home--an ideal of which the empty green chair was a constant
reminder.

We played backgammon and Old Maid and Everlasting until Mr. Hacket
returned.

He sat down and read aloud from the _Letters of an Englishwoman in
America_.

"Do you want to know what sleighing is?" she wrote. "Set your chair out
on the porch on a Christmas day. Put your feet in a pail-full of
powdered ice. Have somebody jingle a bell in one ear and blow into the
other with a bellows and you will have an exact idea of it."

When she told of a lady who had been horned by a large insect known as a
snapdragon, he laughed loudly and closed the book and said:

"They have found a new peril of American life. It is the gory horn of
the snapdragon. Added to our genius for boastfulness and impiety, it is
a crowning defect. Ye would think that our chief aim was the cuspidor.
Showers of expectoration and thunder claps o' profanity and braggart
gales o' Yankee dialect!--that's the moral weather report that she sends
back to England. We have faults enough, God knows, but we have something
else away beneath them an' none o' these writers has discovered it."

The sealed envelope which Mr. Wright had left at our home, a long time
before that day, was in my pocket. At last the hour had come when. I
could open it and read the message of which I had thought much and with
a growing interest.

I rose and said that I should like to go to my room. Mr. Hacket lighted
a candle and took me up-stairs to a little room where my chest had been
deposited. There were, in the room, a bed, a chair, a portrait of
Napoleon Bonaparte and a small table on which were a dictionary, a Bible
and a number of school books.

"These were Mary's books," said Mr. Hacket. "I told yer uncle that ye
could use them an' welcome. There's another book here which ye may study
if ye think it worth the bother. It's a worn an' tiresome book, my lad,
but I pray God ye may find no harm in it. Use it as often as ye will. It
is the book o' my heart. Ye will find in it some kind o' answer to every
query in the endless flight o' them that's coming on, an' may the good
God help us to the truth."

He turned and bade me good night and went away and closed the door.

I sat down and opened the sealed envelope with trembling hands, and
found in it this brief note:

     "DEAR PARTNER: I want you to ask the wisest man you know to explain
     these words to you. I suggest that you commit them to memory and
     think often of their meaning. They are from Job:

     "'His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down
     with him in the dust.'

     "I believe that they are the most impressive in all the literature I
     have read.

     "Yours truly,
          SILAS WRIGHT, JR."

I read the words over and over again, but knew not their meaning. Sadly
and slowly I got ready for bed. I missed the shingles and the familiar
rustle of the popple leaves above my head and the brooding silence of
the hills. The noises of the village challenged my ear after I had put
out my candle. There were many barking dogs. Some horsemen passed, with
a creaking of saddle leather, followed by a wagon. Soon I heard running
feet and eager voices. I rose and looked out of the open window. Men
were hurrying down the street with lanterns.

"He's the son o' Ben Grimshaw," I heard one of them saying. "They caught
him back in the south woods yesterday. The sheriff said that he tried to
run away when he saw 'em coming."

What was the meaning of this? What had Amos Grimshaw been doing? I
trembled as I got back into bed--I can not even now explain why, but
long ago I gave up trying to fathom the depths of the human spirit with
an infinite sea beneath it crossed by subtle tides and currents. We see
only the straws on the surface.

I was up at daylight and Mr. Hacket came to my door while I was
dressing.

"A merry day to you!" he exclaimed. "I'll await you below and introduce
you to the humble herds and flocks of a schoolmaster."

I went with him while he fed his chickens and two small shoats. I milked
the cow for him, and together we drove her back to the pasture. Then we
split some wood and filled the boxes by the fireplace and the kitchen
stove and raked up the leaves in the dooryard and wheeled them away.

"Now you know the duties o' your office," said the schoolmaster as we
went in to breakfast.

We sat down at the table with the family and I drew out my letter from
the Senator and gave it to Mr. Hacket to read.

"The Senator! God prosper him! I hear that he came on the Plattsburg
stage last night," he said as he began the reading--an announcement
which caused me and the children to clap our hands with joy.

Mr. Hacket thoughtfully repeated the words from Job with a most
impressive intonation.

He passed the letter back to me and said:

"All true! I have seen it sinking into the bones o' the young and I have
seen it lying down with the aged in the dust o' their graves. It is a
big book--the one we are now opening. God help us! It has more pages
than all the days o' your life. Just think o' your body, O brave and
tender youth! It is like a sponge. How it takes things in an' holds 'em
an' feeds upon 'em! A part o' every apple ye eat sinks down into yer
blood an' bones. Ye can't get it out. It's the same way with the books
ye read an' the thoughts ye enjoy. They go down into yer bones an' ye
can't get 'em out. That's why I like to think o' Michael Henry. His food
is good thoughts and his wine is laughter. I had a long visit with M.H.
last night when ye were all abed. His face was a chunk o' laughter. Oh,
what a limb he is! I wish I could tell ye all the good things he said."

"There comes Colonel Hand," said Mrs. Hacket as she looked out of the
window. "The poor lonely Whig! He has nothing to do these days but sit
around the tavern."

"Ye might as well pity a goose for going bare-footed," the schoolmaster
remarked.

In the midst of our laughter Colonel Hand rapped at the door and Mr.
Hacket admitted him.

"I tell you the country is going to the dogs," I heard the Colonel
saying as he came into the house.

"You inhuman Hand!" said the schoolmaster. "I should think you would be
tired of trying to crush that old indestructible worm."

Colonel Hand was a surly looking man beyond middle age with large eyes
that showed signs of dissipation. He had a small dark tuft beneath his
lower lip and thin, black, untidy hair.

"What do ye think has happened?" he asked as he looked down upon us with
a majestic movement of his hand.

He stood with a stern face, like an orator, and seemed to enjoy our
suspense.

"What do you think has happened?" he repeated.

"God knows! It may be that Bill Harriman has swapped horses again or
that somebody has been talked to death by old Granny Barnes--which is
it?" asked the schoolmaster.

"It is neither, sir," Colonel Hand answered sternly. "The son o' that
old Buck-tail, Ben Grimshaw, has been arrested and brought to jail for
murder."

"For murder?" asked Mr. and Mrs. Hacket in one breath.

"For bloody murder, sir," the Colonel went on. "It was the shooting of
that man in the town o' Ballybeen a few weeks ago. Things have come to a
pretty pass in this country, I should say. Talk about law and order, we
don't know what it means here and why should we? The party in power is
avowedly opposed to it--yes, sir. It has fattened upon bribery and
corruption. Do you think that the son o' Ben Grimshaw will receive his
punishment even if he is proved guilty? Not at all. He will be
protected--you mark my words."

He bowed and left us. When the door had closed behind him Mr. Hacket
said:

"Another victim horned by the Snapdragon! If a man were to be slain by a
bear back in the woods Colonel Hand would look for guilt in the
Democratic party. He will have a busy day and people will receive him as
the ghost of Creusa received the embraces of Æneas--unheeding. Michael
Henry, whatever the truth may be regarding the poor boy in jail, we are
in no way responsible. Away with sadness! What is that?"

Mr. Hacket inclined his ear and then added: "Michael Henry says that he
may be innocent and that we had better go and see if we can help him.
Now I hadn't thought o' that. Had you, Mary?"

"No," the girl answered.

"We mustn't be letting Mike get ahead of us always," said her father.

The news brought by the Colonel had shocked me and my thoughts had been
very busy since his announcement. I had thought of the book which I had
seen Amos reading in the haymow. Had its contents sunk into his
bones?--for I couldn't help thinking of all that Mr. Hacket had just
said about books and thoughts. My brain had gone back over the events of
that tragic moment--the fall, the swift dream, the look of the robber in
the dim light, the hurling of the stone. The man who fled was about the
size of Amos, but I had never thought of the latter as the guilty man.

"You saw the crime, I believe," said Mr. Hacket as he turned to me.

I told them all that I knew of it.

"Upon my word, I like you, my brave lad," said the schoolmaster. "I
heard of all this and decided that you would be a help to Michael Henry
and a creditable student. Come, let us go and pay our compliments to the
Senator. He rises betimes. If he stayed at the tavern he will be out and
up at his house by now."

The schoolmaster and I went over to Mr. Wright's house--a white, frame
building which had often been pointed out to me.

Mrs. Wright, a fine-looking lady who met us at the door, said that the
Senator had gone over to the mill with his wheelbarrow.

Mr. Hacket asked for the time and she answered:

"It wants one minute of seven."

I quote her words to show how early the day began with us back in those
times.

"We've plenty of time and we'll wait for him," said the schoolmaster.

"I see him!" said little John as he and Ruth ran to the gate and down
the rough plank walk to meet him.

We saw him coming a little way down the street in his shirt-sleeves with
his barrow in front of him. He stopped and lifted little John in his
arms, and after a moment put him down and embraced Ruth.

"Well, I see ye still love the tender embrace o' the wheelbarrow," said
Mr. Hacket as we approached the Senator.

"My embrace is the tenderer of the two," the latter laughed with a look
at his hands.

He recognized me and seized my two hands and shook them as he said:

"Upon my word, here is my friend Bart. I was not looking for you here."

He put his hand on my head, now higher than his shoulder, and said: "I
was not looking for you _here_."

He moved his hand down some inches and added: "I was looking for you
down there. You can't tell where you'll find these youngsters if you
leave them a while."

"We are all forever moving," said the schoolmaster. "No man is ever two
days in the same altitude unless he's a Whig."

"Or a _born_ fool," the Senator laughed with a subtlety which I did not
then appreciate.

He asked about my aunt and uncle and expressed joy at learning that I
was now under Mr. Hacket.

"I shall be here for a number of weeks," he said, "and I shall want to
see you often. Maybe we'll go hunting some Saturday."

We bade him good morning and he went on with his wheelbarrow, which was
loaded, I remember, with stout sacks of meal and flour.

We went to the school at half past eight. What a thrilling place it was
with its seventy-eight children and its three rooms. How noisy they were
as they waited in the school yard for the bell to ring! I stood by the
door-side looking very foolish, I dare say, for I knew not what to do
with myself. My legs encased in the tow breeches felt as if they were on
fire. My timidity was increased by the fact that many were observing me
and that my appearance seemed to inspire sundry, sly remarks. I saw that
most of the village boys wore boughten clothes and fine boots. I looked
down at my own leather and was a tower of shame on a foundation of
greased cowhide. Sally Dunkelberg came in with some other girls and
pretended not to see me. That was the hardest blow I suffered.

Among the handsome, well-dressed boys of the village was Henry
Wills--the boy who had stolen my watermelon. I had never forgiven him
for that or for the killing of my little hen. The bell rang and we
marched into the big room, while a fat girl with crinkly hair played on
a melodeon. Henry and another boy tried to shove me out of line and a
big paper wad struck the side of my head as we were marching in and
after we were seated a cross-eyed, freckled girl in a red dress made a
face at me.

It was, on the whole, the unhappiest day of my life. It reminded me of
Captain Cook's account of his first day with a barbaric tribe on one of
the South Sea islands. During recess I slapped a boy's face for calling
me a rabbit and the two others who came to help him went away full of
fear and astonishment, for I had the strength of a young moose in me
those days. After that they began to make friends with me.

In the noon hour a man came to me in the school yard with a subpoena for
the examination of Amos Grimshaw and explained its meaning. He also said
that Bishop Perkins, the district attorney, would call to see me that
evening.

While I was talking with this man Sally passed me walking with another
girl and said:

"Hello, Bart!"

I observed that Henry Wills joined them and walked down the street at
the side of Sally. I got my first pang of jealousy then.

When school was out that afternoon Mr. Hacket said I could have an hour
to see the sights of the village, so I set out, feeling much depressed.
My self-confidence had vanished. I was homesick and felt terribly alone.
I passed the jail and stopped and looked at its grated windows and
thought of Amos and wondered if he were really a murderer.

I walked toward the house of Mr. Wright and saw him digging potatoes in
the garden and went in. I knew that he was my friend.

"Well, Bart, how do you like school?" he asked.

"Not very well," I answered.

"Of course not! It's new to you now, and you miss your aunt and uncle.
Stick to it. You'll make friends and get interested before long."

"I want to go home," I declared.

"Now let's look at the compass," he suggested. "You're lost for a minute
and, like all lost people, you're heading the wrong way. Don't be misled
by selfishness. Forget what you want to do and think of what we want you
to do. We want you to make a man of yourself. You must do it for the
sake of those dear people who have done so much for you. The needle
points toward the schoolhouse yonder."

He went on with his work, and, as I walked away, I understood that the
needle he referred to was my conscience.

As I neared the schoolmaster's the same drunken man that I had seen
before went zigzagging up the road.

Mr. Hacket stood in his dooryard.

"Who is that?" I asked.

"Nick Tubbs--the village drunkard and sign o' the times," he answered.
"Does chores at the tavern all day and goes home at night filled with
his earnings an' a great sense o' proprietorship. He is the top flower
on the bush."

I went about my chores. There was to be no more wavering in my conduct.
At the supper table Mr. Hacket kept us laughing with songs and jests and
stories. The boy John, having been reproved for rapid eating, hurled his
spoon upon the floor.

"Those in favor of his punishment will please say aye?" said the
schoolmaster.

I remember that we had a divided house on that important question.

The schoolmaster said: "Michael Henry wishes him to be forgiven on
promise of better conduct, but for the next offense he shall ride the
badger."

This meant lying for a painful moment across his father's knee.

The promise was given and our merry-making resumed. The district
attorney, whom I had met before, came to see me after supper and asked
more questions and advised me to talk with no one about the shooting
without his consent. Soon he went away, and after I had learned my
lessons Mr. Hacket said:

"Let us walk up to the jail and spend a few minutes with Amos."

We hurried to the jail. The sheriff, a stout-built, stern-faced man,
admitted us.

"Can we see the Grimshaw boy?" Mr. Hacket inquired.

"I guess so," he answered as he lazily rose from his chair and took
down a bunch of large keys which had been hanging on the wall. "His
father has just left."

He spoke in a low, solemn tone which impressed me deeply as he put a
lighted candle in the hand of the schoolmaster. He led us through a door
into a narrow corridor. He thrust a big key into the lock of a heavy
iron grating and threw it open and bade us step in. We entered an
ill-smelling, stone-floored room with a number of cells against its rear
wall. He locked the door behind us. I saw a face and figure in the dim
candle-light, behind the grated door of one of these cells. How lonely
and dejected and helpless was the expression of that figure! The sheriff
went to the door and unlocked it.

"Hello, Grimshaw," he said sternly. "Step out here."

It all went to my heart--the manners of the sheriff so like the cold
iron of his keys and doors--the dim candle-light, the pale, frightened
youth who walked toward us. We shook his hand and he said that he was
glad to see us. I saw the scar under his left ear and reaching out upon
his cheek which my stone had made and knew that he bore the mark of
Cain.

He asked if he could see me alone and the sheriff shook his head and
said sternly:

"Against the rules."

"Amos, I've a boy o' my own an' I feel for ye," said the schoolmaster.
"I'm going to come here, now and then, to cheer ye up and bring ye some
books to read. If there's any word of advice I can give ye--let me know.
Have ye a lawyer?"

"There's one coming to-morrow."

"Don't say a word about the case, boy, to any one but your lawyer--mind
that."

We left him and went to our home and beds. I to spend half the night
thinking of my discovery, since which, for some reason, I had no doubt
of the guilt of Amos, but I spoke not of it to any one and the secret
worried me.

Next morning on my way to school I passed a scene more strange and
memorable than any in my long experience. I saw the shabby figure of old
Benjamin Grimshaw walking in the side path. His hands were in his
pockets, his eyes bent upon the ground, his lips moving as if he were in
deep thought. Roving Kate, the ragged, silent woman who, for the fortune
of Amos, had drawn a gibbet, the shadow of which was now upon him,
walked slowly behind the money-lender pointing at him with her bony
forefinger. Her stern eyes watched him as the cat watches when its prey
is near it. She did not notice me. Silently, her feet wrapped in rags,
she walked behind the man, always pointing at him. When he stopped she
stopped. When he resumed his slow progress she followed. It thrilled
me, partly because I had begun to believe in the weird, mysterious power
of the Silent Woman. I had twenty minutes to spare and so I turned into
the main street, behind and close by them. I saw him stop and buy some
crackers and an apple and a piece of cheese. Meanwhile she stood
pointing at him. He saw, but gave no heed to her. He walked along the
street in front of the stores, she following as before. How patiently
she followed!

"Why does she follow him that way?" I asked the storekeeper when they
were gone.

"Oh, I dunno, boy!" he answered. "She's crazy an' I guess she dunno what
she's doin'."

The explanation did not satisfy me. I knew, or thought I knew, better
than he the meaning of that look in her eyes. I had seen it before.

I started for the big schoolhouse and a number of boys joined me with
pleasant words.

"I saw you lookin' at ol' Kate," one of them said to me. "Don't ye ever
make fun o' her. She's got the evil eye an' if she puts it on ye, why
ye'll git drownded er fall off a high place er somethin'."

The boys were of one accord about that.

Sally ran past us with that low-lived Wills boy, who carried her books
for her. His father had gone into the grocery business and Henry wore
boughten clothes. I couldn't tell Sally how mean he was. I was angry
and decided not to speak to her until she spoke to me. I got along
better in school, although there was some tittering when I recited,
probably because I had a broader dialect and bigger boots than the boys
of the village.




CHAPTER X

I MEET PRESIDENT VAN BUREN AND AM CROSS-EXAMINED BY MR. GRIMSHAW


The days went easier after that. The boys took me into their play and
some of them were most friendly. I had a swift foot and a good eye as
well as a strong arm, and could hold my own at three-old-cat--a kind of
baseball which we played in the school yard. Saturday came. As we were
sitting down at the table that morning the younger children clung to the
knees of Mr. Hacket and begged him to take them up the river in a boat.

"Good Lord! What wilt thou give me when I grow childless?" he exclaimed
with his arms around them. "That was the question of Abraham, and it
often comes to me. Of course we shall go. But hark! Let us hear what the
green chair has to say."

There was a moment of silence and then he went on with a merry laugh.
"Right ye are, Michael Henry! You are always right, my boy--God bless
your soul! We shall take Bart with us an' doughnuts an' cheese an'
cookies an' dried meat for all."

From that moment I date the beginning of my love for the occupant of the
green chair in the home of Michael Hacket. Those good people were
Catholics and I a Protestant and yet this Michael Henry always insisted
upon the most delicate consideration for my faith and feelings.

"I promised to spend the morning in the field with Mr. Wright, if I may
have your consent, sir," I said.

"Then we shall console ourselves, knowing that you are in better
company," said Mr. Hacket.

Mr. Dunkelberg called at the house in Ashery Lane to see me after
breakfast.

"Bart, if you will come with me I should like to order some store
clothes and boots for you," he said in his squeaky voice.

For a moment I knew not how to answer him. Nettled as I had been by
Sally's treatment of me, the offer was like rubbing ashes on the
soreness of my spirit.

I blushed and surveyed my garments and said:

"I guess I look pretty badly, don't I?"

"You look all right, but I thought, maybe, you would feel better in
softer raiment, especially if you care to go around much with the young
people. I am an old friend of the family and I guess it would be proper
for me to buy the clothes for you. When you are older you can buy a suit
for me, sometime, if you care to."

It should be understood that well-to-do people in the towns were more
particular about their dress those days than now.

"I'll ask my aunt and uncle about it," I proposed.

"That's all right," he answered. "I'm going to drive up to your house
this afternoon and your uncle wishes you to go with me. We are all to
have a talk with Mr. Grimshaw."

He left me and I went over to Mr. Wright's.

They told me that he was cutting corn in the back lot, where I found
him.

"How do I look in these clothes?" I bravely asked.

"Like the son of a farmer up in the hills and that's just as you ought
to look," he answered.

In a moment he added as he reaped a hill of corn with his sickle.

"I suppose they are making fun of you, partner."

"Some," I answered, blushing.

"Don't mind that," he advised, and then quoted the stanza:

     "Were I as tall to reach the pole
       Or grasp the ocean in a span,
     I'd still me measured by my soul;
       The mind's the standard of the man."

"Mr. Dunkelberg came this morning and wanted to buy me some new clothes
and boots," I said.

[Illustration: "Good Lord! What wilt thou give me when I grow
childless?"]

The Senator stopped work and stood looking at me with his hands upon his
hips.

"I wouldn't let him do it if I were you," he said thoughtfully.

Just then I saw a young man come running toward us in the distant field.

Mr. Wright took out his compass.

"Look here," he said, "you see the needle points due north."

He took a lodestone out of his pocket and holding it near the compass
moved it back and forth. The needle followed it.

The young man came up to us breathing deeply. Perspiration was rolling
off his face. He was much excited and spoke with some difficulty.

"Senator Wright," he gasped, "Mrs. Wright sent me down to tell you that
President Van Buren is at the house."

I remember vividly the look of mild amusement in the Senator's face and
the serene calmness with which he looked at the young man and said to
him:

"Tell Mrs. Wright to make him comfortable in our easiest chair and to
say to the President that I shall be up directly."

To my utter surprise he resumed his talk with me as the young man went
away.

"You see all ways are north when you put this lodestone near the
needle," he went on. "If it is to tell you the truth you must keep the
lodestone away from the needle. It's that way, too, with the compass of
your soul, partner. There the lodestone is selfishness, and with its
help you can make any direction look right to you and soon--you're
lost."

He put his hand on my arm and said in a low tone which made me to
understand that it was for my ear only.

"What I fear is that they may try to tamper with your compass. Look out
for lodestones."

He was near the end of a row and went on with his reaping as he said:

"I could take my body off this row any minute, but the only way to get
my mind off it is to go to its end."

He bound the last bundle and then we walked together toward the house,
the Senator carrying his sickle.

"I shall introduce you to the President," he said as we neared our
destination. "Then perhaps you had better leave us."

At home we had read much about the new President and regarded him with
deep veneration. In general I knew the grounds of it--his fight against
the banks for using public funds for selfish purposes and "swapping
mushrats for mink" with the government, as uncle put it, by seeking to
return the same in cheapened paper money; his long battle for the
extension of the right of suffrage in our state; his fiery eloquence in
debate. Often I had heard Uncle Peabody say that Van Buren had made it
possible for a poor man to vote in York State and hold up his head like
a man. So I was deeply moved by the prospect of seeing him.

I could not remember that I had ever been "introduced" to anybody. I
knew that people put their wits on exhibition and often flung down a
"snag" by way of demonstrating their fitness for the honor, when they
were introduced in books. I remember asking rather timidly:

"What shall I say when--when you--introduce me?"

"Oh, say anything that you want to say," he answered with a look of
amusement.

"I'm kind o' scared," I said.

"You needn't be--he was once a poor boy just like you."

"Just like _me_!" I repeated, thoughtfully, for while I had heard a good
deal of that kind of thing in our home, it had not, somehow, got under
my jacket, as they used to say.

"Just like _you_--cowhide and all--the son of a small freeholder in
Kinderhook on the Hudson," he went on. "But he was well fed in brain and
body and kept his heart clean. So, of course, he grew and is still
growing. That's a curious thing about men and women, Bart. If
they are in good ground and properly cared for they never stop
growing-never!--and that's a pretty full word--isn't it?"

I felt its fulness, but the Senator had a way of stopping just this side
of the grave in all his talks with me, and so there was no sign of
preaching in any of it.

"As time goes on you'll meet a good many great men, I presume," he
continued. "They're all just human beings like you and me. Most of them
enjoy beefsteak, and apple pie and good boys."

We had come in sight of the house. I lagged behind a little when I saw
the great man sitting on the small piazza with Mrs. Wright. I shall
never forget the grand clothes he wore--black, saving the gray
waistcoat, with shiny, brass buttons--especially the great, white
standing collar and cravat. I see vividly, too, as I write, the full
figure, the ruddy, kindly face, the large nose, the gray eyes, the thick
halo of silvered hair extending from his collar to the bald top of his
head. He rose and said in a deep voice:

"He sows ill luck who hinders the reaper."

Mr. Wright hung his sickle on a small tree in the dooryard and answered.

"The plowman has overtaken the reaper, Mr. President. I bid you welcome
to my humble home."

"It is a pleasure to be here and a regret to call you back to
Washington," said the President as they shook hands.

"I suppose that means an extra session," the Senator answered.

"First let me reassure you. I shall get away as soon as possible, for I
know that a President is a heavy burden for one to have on his hands."

"Don't worry. I can get along with almost any kind of a human being,
especially if he likes pudding and milk as well as you do," said the
Senator, who then introduced me in these words:

"Mr. President, this is my young friend Barton Baynes of the
neighborhood of Lickitysplit in the town of Ballybeen--a coming man of
this county."

"Come on," was the playful remark of the President as he took my hand.
"I shall be looking for you."

I had carefully chosen my words and I remember saying, with some
dignity, like one in a story book, although with a trembling voice:

"It is an honor to meet you, sir, and thank you for the right to
vote--when I am old enough."

Vividly, too, I remember his gentle smile as he looked down at me and
said in a most kindly tone:

"I think it a great honor to hear you say that."

He put his hands upon my shoulders and turning to the Senator said:

"Wright, I often wish that I had your modesty."

"I need it much more than you do," the Senator laughed.

Straightway I left them with an awkward bow and blushing to the roots of
my hair. A number of boys and girls stood under the shade trees opposite
looking across at the President. In my embarrassment I did not identify
any one in the group. Numbers of men and women were passing the house
and, as they did so, taking "a good look," in their way of speaking at
the two great men. Not before had I seen so many people walking
about--many in their best clothes.

As I neared the home of Mr. Hacket I heard hurrying footsteps behind me
and the voice of Sally calling my name. I stopped and faced about.

How charming she looked as she walked toward me! I had never seen her
quite so fixed up.

"Bart," she said. "I suppose you're not going to speak to me."

"If you'll speak to me," I answered.

"I love to speak to you," she said. "I've been looking all around for
you. Mother wants you to come over to dinner with us at just twelve
o'clock. You're going away with father as soon as we get through."

I wanted to go but got the notion all at once that the Dunkelbergs were
in need of information about me and that the time had come to impart it.
So then and there, that ancient Olympus of our family received notice
as it were.

"I can't," I said. "I've got to study my lessons before I go away with
your father."

It was a blow to her. I saw the shadow that fell upon her face. She was
vexed and turned and ran away from me without another word and I felt a
pang of regret as I went to the lonely and deserted home of the
schoolmaster.

I had hoped that the Senator would ask me to dinner, but the coming of
the President had upset the chance of it. It was eleven o'clock. Mrs.
Hacket had put a cold bite on the table for me. I ate it--not to keep it
waiting--and sat down with my eyes on my book and my mind at the
Dunkelbergs'--where I heard in a way what Sally was saying and what "Mr.
and Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg" were saying.

At twelve-thirty Mr. Dunkelberg came for me, with a high-stepping horse
in a new harness and a shiny still-running buggy. He wore gloves and a
beaver hat and sat very erect and had little to say.

"I hear you met the President," he remarked.

"Yes, sir. I was introduced to him this morning," I answered a bit too
proudly, and wondering how he had heard of my good fortune, but deeply
gratified at his knowledge of it.

"What did he have to say?"

I described the interview and the looks of the great man. Not much more
was said as we sped away toward the deep woods and the high hills.

I was eager to get home but wondered why he should be going with me to
talk with Mr. Grimshaw and my uncle. Of course I suspected that it had
to do with Amos but how I knew not. He hummed in the rough going and
thoughtfully nicked the bushes with his whip. I never knew a more
persistent hummer.

What a thrill came to me when I saw the house and the popple tree and
the lilac bushes--they looked so friendly! Old Shep came barking up the
road to meet us and ran by the buggy side with joyful leaps and cries.
With what affection he crowded upon me and licked my face and hands when
my feet were on the ground at last! Aunt Deel and Uncle Peabody were
coming in from the pasture lot with sacks of butternuts on a
wheelbarrow. My uncle clapped his hands and waved his handkerchief and
shouted "Hooray!"

Aunt Deel shook hands with Mr. Dunkelberg and then came to me and said:

"Wal, Bart Baynes! I never was so glad to see anybody in all the days o'
my life--ayes! We been lookin' up the road for an hour--ayes! You come
right into the house this minute--both o' you."

The table was spread with the things I enjoyed most--big brown biscuits
and a great comb of honey surrounded with its nectar and a pitcher of
milk and a plate of cheese and some jerked meat and an apple pie.

"Set right down an' eat--I just want to see ye eat--ayes I do!"

Aunt Deel was treating me like company and with just a pleasant touch of
the old company finish in her voice and manner. It was for my
benefit--there could be no doubt of that--for she addressed herself to
me, chiefly, and not to Mr. Dunkelberg. My absence of a few days had
seemed so long to them! It had raised me to the rank of company and even
put me above the exalted Dunkelbergs although if Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg
had been there in her blue silk and gold chain "big enough to drag a
stone boat," as Aunt Deel used to say, she might have saved the day for
them. Who knows? Aunt Deel was never much impressed by any man save
Silas Wright, Jr.

Mr. Grimshaw came soon after we had finished our luncheon. He hitched
his horse at the post and came in. He never shook hands with anybody. In
all my life I have met no man of scanter amenities. All that kind of
thing was, in his view, I think, a waste of time, a foolish
encouragement to men who were likely to be seeking favors.

"Good day," he said, once and for all, as he came in at the open door.
"Baynes, I want to have a talk with you and the boy."

I remember how each intake of his breath hissed through his lips as he
sat down. How worn and faded were his clothes and hat, which was still
on his head! The lines on his rugged brow and cheeks were deeper than
ever.

"Tell me what you know about that murder," he demanded.

"Wal, I had some business over to Plattsburg," my uncle began. "While I
was there I thought I'd go and see Amos. So I drove out to Beekman's
farm. They told me that Amos had left there after workin' four days.
They gave him fourteen shillin's an' he was goin' to take the stage in
the mornin'. He left some time in the night an' took Beekman's rifle
with him, so they said. There was a piece o' wood broke out o' the stock
o' the rifle. That was the kind o' gun that was used in the murder."

It surprised me that my uncle knew all this. He had said nothing to me
of his journey or its result.

"How do you know?" snapped Mr. Grimshaw.

"This boy see it plain. It was a gun with a piece o' wood broke out o'
the stock."

"Is that so?" was the brusque demand of the money-lender as he turned to
me.

"Yes, sir," I answered.

"The boy lies," he snapped, and turning to my uncle added: "Yer mad
'cause I'm tryin' to make ye pay yer honest debts--ain't ye now?"

We were stunned by this quick attack. Uncle Peabody rose suddenly and
sat down again. Mr. Grimshaw looked at him with a strange smile and a
taunting devilish laugh came out of his open lips.

Uncle Peabody, keeping his temper, shook his head and calmly said: "No I
ain't anything ag'in' you or Amos, but it's got to be so that a man can
travel the roads o' this town without gettin' his head blowed off."

Mr. Dunkelberg jumped into the breach then, saying:

"I told Mr. Grimshaw that you hadn't any grudge against him or his boy
and that I knew you'd do what you could to help in this matter."

"Of course I'll help in any way I can," my uncle answered. "I couldn't
harm him if I tried--not if he's innocent. All he's got to do is to
prove where he was that night."

"Suppose he was lost in the woods?" Mr. Dunkelberg asked.

"The truth wouldn't harm him any," my uncle insisted. "Them tracks
wouldn't fit his boots, an' they'd have to."

Mr. Dunkelberg turned to me and asked:

"Are you sure that the stock of the gun you saw was broken?"

"Yes, sir-and I'm almost sure it was Amos that ran away with it."

"Why?"

"I picked up a stone and threw it at him and it grazed the left side of
his face, and the other night I saw the scar it made."

My aunt and uncle and Mr. Dunkelberg moved with astonishment as I spoke
of the scar. Mr. Grimshaw, with keen eyes fixed upon me, gave a little
grunt of incredulity.

"Huh!--Liar!" he muttered.

"I am not a liar," I declared with indignation, whereupon my aunt
angrily stirred the fire in the stove and Uncle Peabody put his hand on
my arm and said:

"Hush, Bart! Keep your temper, son."

"If you tell these things you may be the means of sending an innocent
boy to his death," Mr. Dunkelberg said to me. "I wouldn't be too sure
about 'em if I were you. It's so easy to be mistaken. You couldn't be
sure in the dusk that the stone really hit him, could you?"

I answered: "Yes, sir--I saw the stone hit and I saw him put his hand on
the place while he was running. I guess it hurt him some."

"Look a' here, Baynes," Mr. Grimshaw began in that familiar scolding
tone of his. "I know what you want an' we might jest as well git right
down to business first as last. You keep this boy still an' I'll give ye
five years' interest."

Aunt Deel gave a gasp and quickly covered her mouth with her hand. Uncle
Peabody changed color as he rose from his chair with a strange look on
his face. He swung his big right hand in the air as he said:

"By the eternal jumpin'--"

He stopped, pulled down the left sleeve of his flannel shirt and walked
to the water pail and drank out of the dipper.

"The times are hard," Grimshaw resumed in a milder tone. "These days the
rich men dunno what's a-comin' to 'em. If you don't have no interest to
pay you ought to git along easy an' give this boy the eddication of a
Sile Wright."

There was that in his tone and face which indicated that in his opinion
Sile had more "eddication" than any man needed.

"Say, Mr. Grimshaw, I'm awful sorry for ye," said my uncle as he
returned to his chair, "but I've always learnt this boy to tell the
truth an' the hull truth. I know the danger I'm in. We're gettin' old.
It'll be hard to start over ag'in an' you can ruin us if ye want to an'
I'm as scared o' ye as a mouse in a cat's paw, but this boy has got to
tell the truth right out plain. I couldn't muzzle him if I tried--he's
too much of a man. If you're scared o' the truth you mus' know that Amos
is guilty."

Mr. Grimshaw shook his head with anger and beat the floor with the end
of his cane.

"Nobody knows anything o' the kind, Baynes," said Mr. Dunkelberg. "Of
course Amos never thought o' killing anybody. He's a harmless kind of a
boy. I know him well and so do you. The only thing that anybody ever
heard against him is that he's a little lazy. Under the circumstances
Mr. Grimshaw is afraid that Bart's story will make it difficult for Amos
to prove his innocence. Just think of it. That boy was lost and
wandering around in the woods at the time o' the murder. As to that
scar, Amos says that he ran into a stub when he was going through a
thicket in the night."

Uncle Peabody shook his head with a look of firmness.

Again Grimshaw laughed between his teeth as he looked at my uncle. In
his view every man had his price.

"I see that I'm the mouse an' you're the cat," he resumed, as that
curious laugh rattled in his throat. "Look a' here, Baynes, I'll tell ye
what I'll do. I'll cancel the hull mortgage."

Again Uncle Peabody rose from his chair with a look in his face which I
have never forgotten. How his voice rang out!

"_No, sir_!" he shouted so loudly that we all jumped to our feet and
Aunt Deel covered her face with her apron and began to cry. It was like
the explosion of a blast. Then the fragments began falling with a loud
crash:

"NO, SIR! YE CAN'T BUY THE NAIL ON MY LITTLE FINGER OR HIS WITH ALL YER
MONEY--DAMN YOU!"

It was like the shout of Israel from the top of the mountains. Shep
bounced into the house with hair on end and the chickens cackled and the
old rooster clapped his wings and crowed with all the power of his
lungs. Every member of that little group stood stock-still and
breathless.

I trembled with a fear I could not have defined. Quick relief came when,
straightway, my uncle went out of the room and stood on the stoop, back
toward us, and blew his nose vigorously with his big red handkerchief.
He stood still looking down and wiping his eyes. Mr. Grimshaw shuffled
out of the door, his cane rapping the floor as if his arm had been
stricken with palsy in a moment.

Mr. Dunkelberg turned to my aunt, his face scarlet, and muttered an
apology for the disturbance and followed the money-lender.

I remember that my own eyes were wet as I went to my aunt and kissed
her. She kissed me--a rare thing for her to do--and whispered brokenly
but with a smile: "We'll go down to the poorhouse together, Bart, but
we'll go honest."

"Come on, Bart," Uncle Peabody called cheerfully, as he walked toward
the barnyard. "Le's go an' git in them but'nuts."

He paid no attention to our visitors--neither did my aunt, who followed
us. The two men talked together a moment, unhitched their horses, got
into their buggies and drove away. The great red rooster had stood on
the fence eying them. As they turned their horses and drove slowly
toward the gate, he clapped his wings and crowed lustily.

"Give it to 'em, ol' Dick," said Uncle Peabody with a clap of his hands.
"Tell 'em what ye think of 'em."

At last the Dunkelbergs had fallen--the legendary, incomparable
Dunkelbergs!

"Wal, I'm surprised at Mr. Horace Dunkelberg tryin' to come it over us
like that--ayes! I be," said Aunt Deel.

"Wal, I ain't," said Uncle Peabody. "Ol' Grimshaw has got him under his
thumb--that's what's the matter. You'll find he's up to his ears in debt
to Grimshaw--prob'ly."

As we followed him toward the house, he pushing the wheelbarrow loaded
with sacks of nuts, he added:

"At last Grimshaw has found somethin' that he can't buy an' he's awful
surprised. Too bad he didn't learn that lesson long ago."

He stopped his wheelbarrow by the steps and we sat down together on the
edge of the stoop as he added:

"I got mad--they kep' pickin' on me so--I'm sorry, but I couldn't help
it. We'll start up ag'in somewheres if we have to. There's a good many
days' work in me yet."

As we carried the bags to the attic room I thought of the lodestone and
the compass and knew that Mr. Wright had foreseen what was likely to
happen. When we came down Uncle Peabody said to me:

"Do you remember what you read out of a book one night about a man
sellin' his honor?"

"Yes," I answered. "It's one o' the books that Mr. Wright gave us."

"It's somethin' purty common sense," he remarked, "an' we stopped and
talked it over. I wish you'd git the book an' read it now."

I found the book and read aloud the following passage:

     "Honor is a strange commodity. It can not be divided and sold in
     part. All or none is the rule of the market. While it can be sold
     in a way, it can not be truly bought. It vanishes in the transfer
     of its title and is no more. Who seeks to buy it gains only loss.
     It is the one thing which distinguishes manhood from property. Who
     sells his honor sells his manhood and becomes simply a thing of
     meat and blood and bones--a thing to be watched and driven and
     cudgelled like the ox--for he has sold that he can not buy, not if
     all the riches in the world were his."

A little silence followed the words. Then Uncle Peabody said:

"That's the kind o' stuff in our granary. We've been reapin' it out o'
the books Mr. Grimshaw scolded about, a little here an' a little there
for years, an' we knew it was good wheat. If he had books like that in
his house mebbe Amos would 'a' been different. An' he'd 'a' been
different. He wouldn't 'a' had to come here tryin' to buy our honor like
you'd buy a hoss."

"Oh, dear!" Aunt Deel exclaimed wearily, with her hands over her eyes;
"a boy has to have somethin' besides pigs an' cattle an' threats an'
stones an' hoss dung an' cow manure to take up his mind."

Uncle Peabody voiced my own feeling when he said:

"I feel sorry, awful sorry, for that boy."

We spent a silent afternoon gathering apples. After supper we played Old
Sledge and my uncle had hard work to keep us in good countenance. We
went to bed early and I lay long hearing the autumn wind in the popple
leaves and thinking of that great thing which had grown strong within
us, little by little, in the candle-light.




CHAPTER XI

A PARTY AND--MY FOURTH PERIL?


"A dead fish can swim down-stream but only a live one can swim up it,"
said Uncle Peabody as we rode toward the village together. We had been
talking of that strong current of evil which had tried to carry us along
with it. I understood him perfectly.

It was a rainy Sunday. In the middle of the afternoon Uncle Peabody and
I had set out in our spring buggy with the family umbrella--a faded but
sacred implement, always carefully dried, after using, and hung in the
clothes press. I remember that its folded skirt was as big around as my
coat sleeve and that Uncle Peabody always grasped it in the middle, with
hand about its waist, in a way of speaking, when he carried it after a
shower. The rain came on again and with such violence that we were
drenched to the skin in spite of the umbrella. It was still raining when
we arrived at the familiar door in Ashery Lane. Uncle Peabody wouldn't
stop.

"Water never scares a live fish," he declared with a chuckle as he
turned around. "Good-by, Bart."

He hurried away. We pioneers rarely stopped or even turned out for the
weather. Uncle Peabody used to say that the way to get sick was to
change your clothes every time you got wet. It was growing dusk and I
felt sorry for him.

"Come in," said the voice of the schoolmaster at the door. "There's good
weather under this roof."

He saw my plight as I entered.

"I'm like a shaggy dog that's been in swimming," I said.

"Upon my word, boy, we're in luck," remarked the schoolmaster.

I looked up at him.

"Michael Henry's clothes!--sure, they're just the thing for you!"

"Will they go on me?" I asked, for, being large of my age, I had
acquired an habitual shyness of things that were too small for me, and
things, too, had seemed to have got the habit of being too small.

"As easily as Nick Tubbs goes on a spree, and far more becoming, for I
do not think a spree ever looks worse than when Tubbs is on it. Come
with me."

I followed him up-stairs, wondering how it had happened that Michael
Henry had clothes.

He took me into his room and brought some handsome soft clothes out of
a press with shirt, socks and boots to match.

"There, my laddie buck," said he, "put them on."

"These will soon dry on me," I said.

"Put them on--ye laggard! Michael Henry told me to give them to you.
It's the birthday night o' little Ruth, my boy. There's a big cake with
candles and chicken pie and jellied cookies and all the like o' that.
Put them on. A wet boy at the feast would dampen the whole proceedings."

I put them on and with a great sense of relief and comfort. They were an
admirable fit--too perfect for an accident, although at the time I
thought only of their grandeur as I stood surveying myself in the
looking-glass. They were of blue cloth and I saw that they went well
with my blond hair and light skin. I was putting on my collar and
necktie when Mr. Hacket returned.

"God bless ye, boy," said he. "There's not a bear in the township whose
coat and trousers are a better fit. Sure if ye had on a beaver hat ye'd
look like a lawyer or a statesman. Boy! How delighted Michael Henry will
be! Come on now. The table is spread and the feast is waiting. Mind ye,
give a good clap when I come in with the guest."

We went below and the table was very grand with its great frosted cake
and its candles, in shiny brass sticks, and its jellies and preserves
with the gleam of polished pewter among them. Mrs. Hacket and all the
children, save Ruth, were waiting for us in the dining-room.

"Now sit down here, all o' ye, with Michael Henry," said the
schoolmaster. "The little lady will be impatient. I'll go and get her
and God help us to make her remember the day."

He was gone a moment, only, when he came back with Ruth in lovely white
dress and slippers and gay with ribbons, and the silver beads of Mary on
her neck. We clapped our hands and cheered and, in the excitement of the
moment, John tipped over his drinking glass and shattered it on the
floor.

"Never mind, my brave lad--no glass ever perished in a better cause. God
bless you!"

What a merry time we had in spite of recurring thoughts of Uncle Peabody
and the black horse toiling over the dark hills and flats in the rain
toward the lonely farm and the lonelier, beloved woman who awaited him!
There were many shadows in the way of happiness those days but, after
all, youth has a way of speeding through them--hasn't it?

We ate and jested and talked, and the sound of our laughter drowned the
cry of the wind in the chimney and the drumming of the rain upon the
windows.

In the midst of it all Mr. Hacket arose and tapped his cup with his
spoon.

"Oh you merry, God-blessed people," he said. "Michael Henry has bade me
speak for him."

The schoolmaster took out of his pocketbook a folded sheet of paper. As
he opened it a little, golden, black-tipped feather fell upon the table.

"Look! here is a plume o' the golden robin," the schoolmaster went on.
"He dropped it in our garden yesterday to lighten ship, I fancied,
before he left, the summer's work and play being ended. Ye should 'a'
seen Michael Henry when he looked at the feather. How it tickled his
fancy! I gave him my thought about it.

"'Nay, father,' he answered. 'Have ye forgotten that to-morrow is the
birthday o' our little Ruth? The bird knew it and brought this gift to
her. It is out o' the great gold mines o' the sky which are the richest
in the world.'

"Then these lines came off his tongue, with no more hesitation about it
than the bird has when he sings his song on a bright summer morning and
I put them down to go with the feather. Here they are now:

     "TO RUTH

     "'Little lady, draw thy will
     With this Golden Robin's quill--
     Sun-stained, night-tipped, elfish thing--
     Symbol of thy magic wing!

     "'Give to me thy fairy lands
     And palaces, on silver sands.
     Oh will to me, my heart implores,
     Their alabaster walls and floors!
     Their gates that ope on Paradise
     Or earth, or Eden in a trice.
     Give me thy title to the hours
     That pass in fair Aladdin towers.
     But most I'd prize thy heavenly art
     To win and lead the stony heart.
     Give these to me that solemn day
     Thou'rt done with them, I humbly pray.

     "'Little lady, draw thy will
     With this Golden Robin's quill.'"

He bowed to our young guest and kissed her hand and sat down in the
midst of our cheering.

I remember well the delightful sadness that came into my heart on the
musical voice of the reader. The lines, simple as they were, opened a
new gate in my imagination beyond which I heard often the sound of music
and flowing fountains and caught glimpses, now and then, of magic towers
and walls of alabaster. There had been no fairies in Lickitysplit. Two
or three times I had come upon fairy footprints in the books which Mr.
Wright had sent to us, but neither my aunt nor my uncle could explain
whence they came or the nature of their errand.

Mr. Hacket allowed me to write down the lines in my little diary of
events and expenses, from which I have just copied them.

We sang and spoke pieces until nine o'clock and then we older members of
the party fell to with Mrs. Hacket and washed and dried the dishes and
put them away.

Next morning my clothes, which had been hung by the kitchen stove, were
damp and wrinkled. Mr. Racket came to my room before I had risen.

"Michael Henry would rather see his clothes hanging on a good boy than
on a nail in the closet," said he. "Sure they give no comfort to the
nail at all."

"I guess mine are dry now," I answered.

"They're wet and heavy, boy. No son o' Baldur could keep a light heart
in them. Sure ye'd be as much out o' place as a sunbeam in a cave o'
bats. If ye care not for your own comfort think o' the poor lad in the
green chair. He's that proud and pleased to see them on ye it would be a
shame to reject his offer. Sure, if they were dry yer own garments would
be good enough, God knows, but Michael Henry loves the look o' ye in
these togs and then the President is in town."

That evening he discovered a big stain, black as ink, on my coat and
trousers. Mr. Hacket expressed the opinion that it might have come from
the umbrella but I am quite sure that he had spotted them to save me
from the last home-made suit I ever wore, save in rough work, and keep
Michael Henry's on my back. In any event I wore them no more save at
chore time.

I began to make good progress in my studies that week and to observe the
affection with which Mr. Hacket was regarded in the school and village.
I remember that his eyes gave out and had to be bandaged but the boys
and girls in his room behaved even better than before. It was curious to
observe how the older ones controlled the younger in that emergency.

Sally came and went, with the Wills boy, and gave no heed to me. In her
eyes I had no more substance than a ghost, it seemed to me, although I
caught her, often, looking at me. I judged that her father had given her
a bad report of us and had some regrets, in spite of my knowledge that
we were right, although they related mostly to Amos.

Next afternoon I saw Mr. Wright and the President walking back and forth
on the bridge as they talked together. A number of men stood in front of
the blacksmith shop, by the river shore, watching them, as I passed, on
my way to the mill on an errand. The two statesmen were in broadcloth
and white linen and beaver hats. They stopped as I approached them.

"Well, partner, we shall be leaving in an hour or so," said Mr. Wright
as he gave me his hand. "You may look for me here soon after the close
of the session. Take care of yourself and go often to see Mrs. Wright
and obey your captain and remember me to your aunt and uncle."

"See that you keep coming, my good boy," said the President as he gave
me his hand, with playful reference, no doubt, to Mr. Wright's remark
that I was a coming man.

"Bart, I've some wheat to be threshed in the barn on the back lot," said
the Senator as I was leaving them. "You can do it Saturdays, if you care
to, at a shilling an hour. Stack the straw out-of-doors until you've
finished then put it back in the bay. Winnow the wheat carefully and
sack it and bring it down to the granary and I'll settle with you when I
return."

I remember that a number of men who worked in Grimshaw's saw-mill were
passing as he spoke.

"Yes, sir," I answered, much elated by the prospect of earning money.

I left with a feeling of keen disappointment that I was to see so little
of my distinguished friend and a thought of the imperious errands of men
which put the broad reaches of the earth between friend and friend.

I remember repeating to myself the words of the Senator which began:
"You may look for me here soon after the close of the session," in the
tone in which he had said them. As of old, I admired and tried to
imitate his dignity of speech and bearing.

When I returned from the mill they were gone.

The examination of Amos was set down for Monday and the people of the
village were stirred and shaken by wildest rumors regarding the evidence
to be adduced. Every day men and women stopped me in the Street to ask
what I knew of the murder. I followed the advice of Bishop Perkins and
kept my knowledge to myself.

My life went on at the same kindly, merry pace in the home of the
schoolmaster. The bandages over his eyes had in no way clouded his
spirit.

"Ah, now, I wish that I could see you," he said one evening when we were
all laughing at some remark of his. "I love the look of a merry face."

I continued to wear the mysterious clothes of Michael Henry, save at
chore time, when I put on the spotted suit of homespun. I observed that
it made a great difference with my social standing. I was treated with a
greater deference at the school, and Elizabeth Allen invited me to her
party, to which, however, I had not the courage to go, having no idea
what happened to one at a village party.

I asked a boy in my Latin class to tell me.

"Oh, ye just fly around an' kiss and git kissed till ye feel like a
fool."

That settled it for me. Not that I would have failed to enjoy kissing
Sally, but we were out, as they used to say, and it would have
embarrassed both of us to meet at a party.

Saturday came and, when the chores were done, I went alone to the grain
barn in the back lot of the Senator's farm with flail and measure and
broom and fork and shovel and sacks and my luncheon, in a push cart,
with all of which Mrs. Wright had provided me.

It was a lonely place with woods on three sides of the field and a road
on the other. I kept laying down beds of wheat on the barn-floor and
beating them out with the flail until the sun was well over the roof
when I sat down to eat my luncheon. Then I swept up the grain and
winnowed out the chaff and filled one of my sacks. That done, I covered
the floor again and the thump of the flail eased my loneliness until in
the middle of the afternoon two of my schoolmates came and asked me to
go swimming, with them. The river was not forty rods away and a good
trail led to the swimming hole. It was a warm bright day and I was hot
and thirsty. The thought of cool waters and friendly companionship was
too much for me. I went with them.

More ancient than the human form is that joy of the young in the feel
of air and water on the naked skin, in the frog-like leap and splash and
the monkey-chatter of the swimming hole. There were a number of the
"swamp boys" in the water. They lived in cabins on the edges of the near
swamp. I stayed with them longer than I intended. I remember saying as I
dressed that I should have to work late and go without my supper in
order to finish my stent.

It was almost dark when I was putting the last sack of wheat into my
cart, in the gloomy barn, and getting ready to go.

A rustling in the straw near where I stood stopped me suddenly. My skin
prickled and began to stir on my head and my feet and hands felt numb
with a new fear. I heard stealthy footsteps in the darkness. I stood my
ground and demanded:

"Who's there?"

I saw a form approaching in the gloom with feet as noiseless as a cat's.
I took a step backward and, seeing that it was a woman, stopped.

"It's Kate," the answer came in a hoarse whisper as I recognized her
form and staff.

"Run, boy--they have just come out o' the woods. I saw them. They will
take you away. Run."

She had picked up the flail and now she put it in my hands and gave me a
push toward the door. I ran, and none too quickly, for I had not gone
fifty feet from the barn in the stubble when I heard them coming after
me, whoever they were. I saw that they were gaining and turned quickly.
I had time to raise my flail and bring it down upon the head of the
leader, who fell as I had seen a beef fall under the ax. Another man
stopped beyond the reach of my flail and, after a second's hesitation,
turned and ran away in the darkness.

I could hear or see no other motion in the field. I turned and ran on
down the slope toward the village. In a moment I saw some one coming out
of the maple grove at the field's end, just ahead, with a lantern.

Then I heard the voice of the schoolmaster saying:

"Is it you, my lad?"

"Yes," I answered, as I came up to him and Mary, in a condition of
breathless excitement.

I told them of the curious adventure I had had.

"Come quick," said the schoolmaster. "Let's go back and find the man in
the stubble."

I remembered that I had struck the path in my flight just before
stopping to swing the flail. The man must have fallen very near it. Soon
we found where he had been lying and drops of fresh blood on the
stubble.

"Hush," said the schoolmaster.

We listened and heard a wagon rattling at a wild pace down the road
toward the river.

"There he goes," said Mr. Hacket. "His companions have carried him away.
Ye'd be riding in that wagon now, yerself, my brave lad, if ye hadn't
'a' made a lucky hit with the flail--God bless ye!"

"What would they 'a' done with me?" I asked.

"Oh, I reckon they'd 'a' took ye off, lad, and kep' ye for a year or so
until Amos was out o' danger," said Mr. Hacket. "Maybe they'd drowned ye
in the river down there an' left yer clothes on the bank to make it look
like an honest drowning. The devil knows what they'd 'a' done with ye,
laddie buck. We'll have to keep an eye on ye now, every day until the
trial is over--sure we will. Come, we'll go up to the barn and see if
Kate is there."

Just then we heard the receding wagon go roaring over the bridge on
Little River. Mary shuddered with fright. The schoolmaster reassured us
by saying:

"Don't be afraid. I brought my gun in case we'd meet a painter. But the
danger is past."

He drew a long pistol from his coat pocket and held it in the light of
the lantern.

The loaded cart stood in the middle of the barn floor, where I had left
it, but old Kate had gone. We closed the barn, drawing the cart along
with us. When we came into the edge of the village I began to reflect
upon the strange peril out of which I had so luckily escaped. It gave me
a heavy sense of responsibility and of the wickedness of men.

I thought, of old Kate and her broken silence. For once I had heard her
speak. I could feel my flesh tingle when I thought of her quick words
and her hoarse passionate whisper. She must have come into the barn
while I was swimming and hidden behind the straw heap in the rear end of
it and watched the edge of the woods through the many cracks in the
boarding.

I knew, or thought I knew, why she took such care of me. She was in
league with the gallows and could not bear to see it cheated of its
prey. For some reason she hated the Grimshaws. I had seen the hate in
her eyes the day she dogged along behind the old money-lender through
the streets of the village when her pointing finger had seemed to say to
me: "There, there is the man who has brought me to this. He has put
these rags upon my back, this fire in my heart, this wild look in my
eyes. Wait and you shall see what I will put upon him."

I knew that old Kate was not the irresponsible, witless creature that
people thought her to be. I had begun to think of her with a kind of awe
as one gifted above all others. One by one the things she had said of
the future seemed to be coming true.

When we had pulled the cart into the stable I tried to shift one of the
bags of grain and observed that my hands trembled and that it seemed
very heavy.

As we were going into the house the schoolmaster said:

"Now, Mary, you take this lantern and go across the street to the house
o' Deacon Binks, the constable. You'll find him asleep by the kitchen
stove. Arrest his slumbers, but not rudely, and, when he has come to,
tell him that I have news o' the devil."

"This shows the power o' knowledge. Bart," he said to me when we entered
the house.

I wondered what he meant and he went on:

"You have knowledge of the shooting that no other man has. You could
sell it for any money ye would ask. Only ye can't sell it, now, because
it's about an evil thing. But suppose ye knew more than any other man
about the law o' contracts, or the science o' bridge building, or the
history o' nations or the habits o' bugs or whatever. Then ye become the
principal witness in a different kind o' case. Then it's proper to sell
yer knowledge for the good o' the world and they'll be as eager to get
it as they are what ye know about the shooting. And nobody'll want to
kill ye. Every man o' them'll want to keep ye alive. But mind, ye must
be the _principal witness_."

Deacon Binks arrived, a fat man with a big round body and a very wise
and serious countenance between side whiskers bending from his temple to
his neck and suggesting parentheses of hair, as if his head and its
accessories were in the nature of a side issue. He and the schoolmaster
went out-of-doors and must have talked together while I was eating a
bowl of bread and milk which Mrs. Hacket had brought to me.

When I went to bed, by and by, I heard somebody snoring on the little
porch under my window. The first sound that reached my ear at the break
of dawn was the snoring of the same sleeper. I dressed and went below
and found the constable in his coon-skin overcoat asleep on the porch
with a long-barreled gun at his side. While I stood there the
schoolmaster came around the corner of the house from the garden. He
smiled as he saw the deacon.

"Talk about the placid rest of Egyptian gods!" he exclaimed. "Look at
the watchful eye o' Justice. How well she sleeps in this peaceful
valley! Sometimes ye can hardly wake her up at all, at all."

He put his hand on the deacon's shoulder and gave him a little shake.

"Awake, ye limb o' the law," he demanded. "Prayer is better than sleep."

The deacon arose and stretched himself and cleared his throat and
assumed an air of alertness and said it was a fine morning, which it was
not, the sky being overcast and the air dank and chilly. He removed his
greatcoat and threw it on the stoop saying:

"Deacon, you lay there. From now on I'm constable and ready for any act
that may be necessary to maintain the law. I can be as severe as
Napoleon Bonaparte and as cunning as Satan, if I have to be."

I remember that through the morning's work the sleepy deacon and the
alert constable contended over the possession of his stout frame.

The constable shouldered the gun and followed me into the pasture where
I went to get the cow. I saw now that his intention was to guard me from
further attacks. While I was milking, the deacon sat on a bucket in the
doorway of the stable and snored until I had finished. He awoke when I
loosed the cow and the constable went back to the pasture with me,
yawning with his hand over his mouth much of the way. The deacon leaned
his elbow on the top of the pen and snored again, lightly, while I mixed
the feed for the pigs.

Mr. Hacket met us at the kitchen door, where Deacon Binks said to him:

"If you'll look after the boy to-day, I'll go home and get a little
rest."

"God bless yer soul, ye had a busy night," said the schoolmaster with a
smile.

He added as he went into the house:

"I never knew a man to rest with more energy and persistence. It was a
perfect flood o' rest. It kept me awake until long after midnight."




CHAPTER XII

THE SPIRIT OF MICHAEL HENRY AND OTHERS


That last peril is one of the half-solved mysteries of my life. The
following affidavit, secured by an assistant of the district attorney
from a young physician in a village above Ballybeen, never a matter of
record, heightened its interest for me and my friends.

     "Deponent saith that about eleven o'clock on the evening of the,
     24th of September (that on which the attack upon me was made) a man
     unknown to him called at his office and alleged that a friend of
     the stranger had been injured and was in need of surgical aid. He
     further alleged that his friend was in trouble and being sought
     after and that he, the caller, dared not, therefore, reveal the
     place where his friend had taken refuge. He offered the deponent
     the sum of ten dollars to submit to the process of blindfolding and
     of being conducted to I said place for the purpose of giving relief
     to the injured man. Whereupon the deponent declares that he
     submitted to said process and was conducted by wagon and trail to a
     bark shanty at some place in the woods unknown to him where the
     bandage was removed from his eyes. He declares further that he
     found there, a strong built, black-bearded man about thirty years
     of age, and a stranger to him, lying on a bed of boughs in the
     light of a fire and none other. This man was groaning in great pain
     from a wound made by some heavy weapon on the side of his head. The
     flesh of the cheek and ear were swollen and lacerated. Deponent
     further declares that he administered an opiate and dressed and put
     a number of stitches in the injured parts and bound them with a
     bandage soaked in liniment. Then deponent returned to his home,
     blindfolded as he had left it. He declares that the time consumed
     in the journey from the shanty to his home was one hour and ten
     minutes."

It should be said that, in the theory of the district attorney the
effort to retire the principal witness, if, indeed, that were the
intention of their pursuit of me, originated in the minds of lawless and
irresponsible men. I know that there are those who find a joy in
creating mysteries and defeating the law, but let it be set down here
that I have never concurred in the views of that able officer.

At the examination of Amos Grimshaw my knowledge was committed to the
records and ceased to be a source of danger to me. Grimshaw came to the
village that day. On my way to the court room I saw him walking slowly,
with bent head as I had seen him before, followed by old Kate. She
carried her staff in her left hand while the forefinger of her right
was pointing him out. Silent as a ghost and as unheeded--one would
say--she followed his steps.

I remember when I went on the stand my eyes filled with tears. Amos gave
me an appealing look that went to my heart. It was hard for me to tell
the truth that day--never has it been so hard. If I had had the riches
of Grimshaw himself I would have given them to be relieved. Was there
nothing that I could do for Amos?

I observed that old Kate sat on a front seat with her hand to her ear
and Grimshaw beside his lawyer at a big table and that when she looked
at him her lips moved in a strange unuttered whisper of her spirit. Her
face filled with joy as one damning detail after another came out in the
evidence.

Aunt Deel and Uncle Peabody came to the village that day and sat in the
court room. They had dinner with us at the schoolmaster's, but I had
little chance to talk with them. Aunt Deel went up to my room with me
and slyly gave me some fresh cookies wrapped in a piece of newspaper
which she carried in a little basket bought from the Indians.

"Here's somethin' else," she said. "I was keepin' 'em for
Chris'mas--ayes!--but it's so cold I guess ye better have 'em
now--ayes!"

Then she gave me a pair of mittens with a red fringe around the
wristbands, and two pairs of socks.

I remember that my uncle laughed at the jests of Mr. Hacket but said
little and was not, I thought, in good spirits. They went home before
the examination ended.

The facts hereinbefore alleged, and others, were proven, for the tracks
fitted the shoes of Amos. The young man was held and presently indicted.
The time of his trial was not determined.

I received much attention from young and old in the village after that,
for I found soon that I had acquired a reputation for bravery, of the
slender foundation for which the reader is well aware. I was invited to
many parties, but had not much heart for them and went only to one at
the home of Nettie Barrows. Sally was there. She came to me as if
nothing had interrupted our friendship and asked if I would play Hunt
the Squirrel with them. Of course I was glad to make this treaty of
peace, which was sealed with many kisses as we played together in those
lively games of the old time. I remember that I could think of nothing
in this world with which to compare her beauty. I asked if I could walk
home with her and she said that she was engaged, and while she was as
amiable as ever I came to know that night that a kind of wall had risen
between us.

I wrote a good hand those days and the leading merchant of the village
engaged me to post his books every Saturday at ten cents an hour.
Thenceforward until Christmas I gave my free days to that task. I
estimated the sum that I should earn and planned to divide it in equal
parts and proudly present it to my aunt and uncle on Christmas day.

One Saturday while I was at work on the big ledger of the merchant I ran
upon this item:

     October 3. S. Wright--To one suit of
                clothes for Michael Henry
                from measures furnished by
                S. Robinson               $14.30
                Shirts to match             1.70

I knew then the history of the suit of clothes which I had worn since
that rainy October night, for I remembered that Sam Robinson, the
tailor, had measured me at our house and made up the cloth of Aunt
Deel's weaving.

I observed, also, that numerous articles--a load of wood, two sacks of
flour, three pairs of boots, one coat, ten pounds of salt pork and four
bushels of potatoes--all for "Michael Henry" had been charged to Silas
Wright.

So by the merest chance I learned that the invisible "Michael Henry" was
the almoner of the modest statesman and really the spirit of Silas
Wright feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and warming the cold
house, in the absence of its owner. It was the heart of Wright joined to
that of the schoolmaster, which sat in the green chair.

I fear that my work suffered a moment's interruption, for just then I
began to know the great heart of the Senator. Its warmth was in the
clothing that covered my back, its delicacy in the ignorance of those
who had shared its benefactions.

I count this one of the great events of my youth. But there was a
greater one, although it seemed not so at the time of it. A traveler on
the road to Ballybeen had dropped his pocketbook containing a large
amount of money--two thousand seven hundred dollars was the sum, if I
remember rightly. He was a man who, being justly suspicious of the
banks, had withdrawn his money. Posters announced the loss and the offer
of a large reward. The village was profoundly stirred by them. Searching
parties went up the road stirring its dust and groping in its grass and
briers for the great prize which was supposed to be lying there. It was
said, however, that the quest had been unsuccessful. So the lost
pocketbook became a treasured mystery of the village and of all the
hills and valleys toward Ballybeen--a topic of old wives and gabbing
husbands at the fireside for unnumbered years.

By and by the fall term of school ended. Uncle Peabody came down to get
me the day before Christmas. I had enjoyed my work and my life at the
Hackets', on the whole, but I was glad to be going home again. My uncle
was in high spirits and there were many packages in the sleigh.

"A merry Christmas to ye both an' may the Lord love ye!" said Mr. Hacket
as he bade us good-by. "Every day our thoughts will be going up the
hills to your house."

As he was tucking the blankets around my feet old Nick Tubbs came
zigzagging up the road from the tavern.

"What stimulation travels with that man!" said the schoolmaster. "He
might be worse, God knows. Reeling minds are worse than reeling bodies.
Some men are born drunk like our friend Colonel Hand and that kind is
beyond reformation."

The bells rang merrily as we hurried through the swamp in the hard snow
paths.

"We're goin' to move," said my uncle presently. "We've agreed to get out
by the middle o' May."

"How does that happen?" I asked.

"I settled with Grimshaw and agreed to go. If it hadn't 'a' been for
Wright and Baldwin we wouldn't 'a' got a cent. They threatened to bid
against him at the sale. So he settled. We're goin' to have a new home.
We've bought a hundred an' fifty acres from Abe Leonard. Goin' to build
a new house in the spring. It will be nearer the village."

He playfully nudged my ribs with his elbow.

"We've had a little good luck, Bart," he went on. "I'll tell ye what it
is if you won't say anything about it."

I promised.

"I dunno as it would matter much," he continued, "but I don't want to do
any braggin'. It ain't anybody's business but ours, anyway. An old uncle
over in Vermont died three weeks ago and left us thirty-eight hundred
dollars. It was old Uncle Ezra Baynes o' Hinesburg. Died without a chick
or child. Your aunt and me slipped down to Potsdam an' took the stage
an' went over an' got the money. It was more money than I ever see
before in my life. We put it in the bank in Potsdam to keep it out o'
Grimshaw's hands. I wouldn't trust that man as fur as you could throw a
bull by the tail."

It was a cold clear night and when we reached home the new stove was
snapping with the heat in its fire-box and the pudding puffing in the
pot and old Shep dreaming in the chimney corner. Aunt Deel gave me a hug
at the door. Shep barked and leaped to my shoulders.

"Why, Bart! You're growin' like a weed--ain't ye?--ayes ye be," my aunt
said as she stood and looked at me. "Set right down here an' warm
ye--ayes!--I've done all the chores--ayes!"

How warm and comfortable was the dear old room with those beloved faces
in it. I wonder if paradise itself can seem more pleasant to me. I have
had the best food this world can provide in my time, but never anything
that I ate with a keener relish than the pudding and milk and bread and
butter and cheese and pumpkin pie which Aunt Deel gave us that night.

Supper over, I wiped the dishes for my aunt while Uncle Peabody went out
to feed and water the horses. Then we sat down in the genial warmth
while I told the story of my life in "the busy town," as they called it.
What pride and attention they gave me then!

Three days before they had heard of my adventure with the flail, as to
which Mr. Hacket, the district attorney and myself had maintained the
strictest reticence. It seemed that the deacon had blabbed, as they used
to say, regarding his own brave part in the subsequent proceedings.

My fine clothes and the story of how I had come by them taxed my
ingenuity somewhat, although not improperly. I had to be careful not to
let them know that I had been ashamed of the home-made suit. They,
somehow, felt the truth about it and a little silence followed the
story. Then Aunt Deel drew her chair near me and touched my hair very
gently and looked into my face without speaking.

"Ayes! I know," she said presently, in a kind of caressing tone, with a
touch of sadness in it. "They ain't used to coarse homespun stuff down
there in the village. They made fun o' ye--didn't they, Bart?"

"I don't care about that," I assured them. "'The mind's the measure of
the man,'" I quoted, remembering the lines the Senator had repeated to
me.

"That's sound!" Uncle Peabody exclaimed with enthusiasm.

Aunt Deel took my hand in hers and surveyed it thoughtfully for a moment
without speaking.

"You ain't goin' to have to suffer that way no more," she said in a low
tone.

I rose and went to the parlor door.

"Ye mustn't go in there," she warned me.

Delightful suspicions came out of the warning and their smiles.

"We're goin' to be more comf'table--ayes," said Aunt Deel as I resumed
my chair. "Yer uncle thought we better go west, but I couldn't bear to
go off so fur an' leave mother an' father an' sister Susan an' all the
folks we loved layin' here in the ground alone--I want to lay down with
'em by an' by an' wait for the sound o' the trumpet--ayes!--mebbe it'll
be for thousands o' years--ayes!"

"You don't suppose their souls are a-sleepin' there--do ye?" my uncle
asked.

"That's what the Bible says," Aunt Deel answered.

"Wal the Bible--?" Uncle Peabody stopped. What was in his mind we may
only imagine.

To our astonishment the clock struck twelve.

"Hurrah! It's merry Christmas!" said Uncle Peabody as he jumped to his
feet and began to sing of the little Lord Jesus.

We joined him while he stood beating time with his right hand after the
fashion of a singing master.

"Off with yer boots, friend!" he exclaimed when the stanza was finished.
"We don't have to set up and watch like the shepherds."

We drew our boots on the chair round with hands clasped over the
knee--how familiar is the process, and yet I haven't seen it in more
than half a century! I lighted a candle and scampered up-stairs in my
stocking feet, Uncle Peabody following close and slapping my thigh as if
my pace were not fast enough for him. In the midst of our skylarking the
candle tumbled to the floor and I had to go back to the stove and
relight it.

How good it seemed to be back in the old room under the shingles! The
heat of the stove-pipe had warmed its hospitality.

"It's been kind o' lonesome here," said Uncle Peabody as he opened the
window. "I always let the wind come in to keep me company--it gits so
warm."

I lay down between flannel sheets on the old feather bed. What a stage
of dreams and slumbers it had been, for it was now serving the third
generation of Bayneses! The old popple tree had thrown off its tinkling
cymbals and now the winter wind hissed and whistled in its stark
branches. Then the deep, sweet sleep of youth from which it is a joy and
a regret to come back to the world again. I wish that I could know it
once more.

"Ye can't look at yer stockin' yit," said Aunt Deel when I came
down-stairs about eight o'clock, having slept through chore time. I
remember it was the delicious aroma of frying ham and buckwheat cakes
which awoke me, and who wouldn't rise and shake off the cloak of slumber
on a bright, cold winter morning with such provocation?

"This ain't no common Chris'mas--I tell ye," Aunt Deel went on. "Santa
Claus won't git here short o' noon I wouldn't wonder--ayes!"

"By thunder!" exclaimed Uncle Peabody as he sat down at the table. "This
is goin' to be a day o' pure fun--genuwine an' uncommon. Take some
griddlers," he added as three or four of them fell on my plate. "Put on
plenty o' ham gravy an' molasses. This ain't no Jackman tavern. I got
hold o' somethin' down there that tasted so I had to swaller twice on
it."

About eleven o'clock Uncle Hiram and Aunt Eliza and their five children
arrived with loud and merry greetings. Then came other aunts and uncles
and cousins. With what noisy good cheer the men entered the house after
they had put up their horses! I remember how they laid their hard, heavy
hands on my head and shook it a little as they spoke of my "stretchin'
up" or gave me a playful slap on the shoulder--an ancient token of good
will--the first form of the accolade, I fancy. What joyful good humor
there was in those simple men and women!--enough to temper the woes of a
city if it could have been applied to their relief. They stood thick
around the stove warming themselves and taking off its griddles and
opening its doors and surveying it inside and out with much curiosity.

Suddenly Uncle Hiram tried to put Uncle Jabez in the wood-box while the
others laughed noisily. I remember that my aunts rallied me on my
supposed liking for "that Dunkelberg girl."

"Now for the Chris'mas tree," said Uncle Peabody as he led the way into
our best room, where a fire was burning in the old Franklin grate. "Come
on, boys an' girls."

What a wonderful sight was the Christmas tree--the first we had had in
our house--a fine spreading balsam loaded with presents! Uncle Hiram
jumped into the air and clapped his feet together and shouted: "Hold me,
somebody, or I'll grab the hull tree an' run away with it."

Uncle Jabez held one foot in both hands before him and joyfully hopped
around the tree.

These relatives had brought their family gifts, some days before, to be
hung on its branches. The thing that caught my eye was a big silver
watch hanging by a long golden chain to one of the boughs. Uncle Peabody
took it down and held it aloft by the chain, so that none should miss
the sight, saying:

"From Santa Claus for Bart!"

A murmur of admiration ran through the company which gathered around me
as I held the treasure in my trembling hands.

"This is for Bart, too," Uncle Peabody shouted as he took down a bolt of
soft blue cloth and laid it in my arms. "Now there's somethin' that's
jest about as slick as a kitten's ear. Feel of it. It's for a suit o'
clothes. Come all the way from Burlington."

"Good land o' Goshen! Don't be in such a hurry," said Aunt Deel.

"Sorry, but the stage can't wait for nobody at all--it's due to leave
right off," Uncle Peabody remarked as he laid a stuffed stocking on top
of the cloth and gave me a playful slap and shouted: "Get-ap, there.
You've got yer load."

I moved out of the way in a hurricane of merriment. It was his one great
day of pride and vanity. He did not try to conceal them.

The other presents floated for a moment in this irresistible tide of
laughing good will and found their owners. I have never forgotten how
Uncle Jabez chased Aunt Minerva around the house with a wooden snake
cunningly carved and colored. I observed there were many things on the
tree which had not been taken down when we younger ones gathered up our
wealth and repaired to Aunt Deel's room to feast our eyes upon it and
compare our good fortune.

The women and the big girls rolled up their sleeves and went to work
with Aunt Deel preparing the dinner. The great turkey and the chicken
pie were made ready and put in the oven and the potatoes and the onions
and the winter squash were soon boiling in their pots on the stove-top.
Meanwhile the children were playing in my aunt's bedroom and Uncle Hiram
and Uncle Jabez were pulling sticks in a corner while the other men sat
tipped against the wall watching and making playful comments--all save
my Uncle Peabody, who was trying to touch his head to the floor and then
straighten up with the aid of the broomstick.

By and by I sat on top of the wood with which I had just filled the big
wood-box and very conscious of the shining chain on my breast. Suddenly
the giant, Rodney Barnes, jumped out of his chair and, embracing the
wood-box, lifted it and the wood and me in his great arms and danced
lightly around a group of the ladies with his burden and set it down in
its place again very gently. What a hero he became in my eyes after
that!

"If ye should go off some day an' come back an' find yer house missin'
ye may know that Rodney Barnes has been here," said Uncle Hiram. "A man
as stout as Rodney is about as dangerous as a fire."

Then what Falstaffian peals of laughter!

In the midst of it Aunt Deel opened the front door and old Kate, the
Silent Woman, entered. To my surprise, she wore a decent-looking dress
of gray homespun cloth and a white cloud looped over her head and ears
and tied around her neck and a good pair of boots.

"Merry Chris'mas!" we all shouted.

She smiled and nodded her head and sat down in the chair which Uncle
Peabody had placed for her at the stove side. Aunt Deel took the cloud
off her head while Kate drew her mittens--newly knitted of the best
yarn. Then my aunt brought some stockings and a shawl from the tree and
laid them on the lap of old Kate. What a silence fell upon us as we saw
tears coursing down the cheeks of this lonely old woman of the
countryside!--tears of joy, doubtless, for God knows how long it had
been since the poor, abandoned soul had seen a merry Christmas and
shared its kindness. I did not fail to observe how clean her face and
hands looked! She was greatly changed.

She took my hand as I went to her side and tenderly caressed it. A
gentler smile came to her face than ever I had seen upon it. The old
stern look returned for a moment as she held one finger aloft in a
gesture which only I and my Aunt Deel understood. We knew it signalized
a peril and a mystery. That I should have to meet it, somewhere up the
hidden pathway, I had no doubt whatever.

"Dinner's ready!" exclaimed the cheerful voice of Aunt Deel.

Then what a stirring of chairs and feet as we sat down at the table. Old
Kate sat by the side of my aunt and we were all surprised at her good
manners.

Uncle Jabez--a member of the white church--prayed for a moment as we sat
with bowed heads. I have never forgotten his simple eloquence as he
prayed for the poor and for him who was sitting in the shadow of death
(I knew that he referred to Amos Grimshaw and whispered amen) and for
our forgiveness.

We jested and laughed and drank cider and reviewed the year's history
and ate as only they may eat who have big bones and muscles and the
vitality of oxen. I never taste the flavor of sage and currant jelly or
hear a hearty laugh without thinking of those holiday dinners in the old
log house on Rattleroad.

Some of the men and two of the women filled their pipes and smoked while
the dishes were being picked up and washed. By and by the men and the
big boys went with us down to the brook where we chopped holes in the
ice to give the sheep and the cattle a chance to drink. Then they looked
at the horses.

"Peabody you mus' be gittin' rich," said Hiram Bentley.

"No I ain't. I've had to give up here, but a little windfall come to us
t'other day from an old uncle in Vermont. It ain't nothin' to brag of,
but it'll give us a start an' we thought that while we had the money
we'd do somethin' that we've been wantin' to do for years an'
years--give a Chris'mas--an' we've done it. The money'll go some way an'
we may never have another chance. Bart is a good boy an' we made up our
minds he'd enjoy it better now than he ever would ag'in."

That Christmas brought me nothing better than those words, the memory of
which is one of the tallest towers in that long avenue of my past down
which I have been looking these many days. About all you can do for a
boy, worth while, is to give him something good to remember.

The day had turned dark. The temperature had risen and the air was dank
and chilly. The men began to hitch up their horses.

"Kind o' thawin' a little," said Uncle Hiram as he got into his sleigh
and drove up to the door. "Come on, there. Stop yer cacklin' an' git
into this sleigh," he shouted in great good humor to the women and
children who stood on the porch. "It'll be snowin' like sixty 'fore we
git home."

So, one by one, the sleighloads left us with cheery good-bys and a
grinding of runners and a jingling of bells. When the last had gone
Uncle Peabody and I went into the house. Aunt Deel sat by the stove, old
Kate by the window looking out at the falling dusk. How still the house
seemed!

"There's one thing I forgot," I said as I proudly took out of my wallet
the six one-dollar bills which I had earned by working Saturdays and
handed three of them to my aunt and three to my uncle, saying:

"That is my Christmas present to you. I earned it myself."

I remember so well their astonishment and the trembling of their hands
and the look of their faces.

"It's grand--ayes!" Aunt Deel said in a low tone.

She rose in a moment and beckoned to me and my uncle. We followed her
through the open door to the other room.

"I'll tell ye what I'd do," she whispered. "I'd give 'em to ol'
Kate--ayes! She's goin' to stay with us till to-morrow."

"Good idee!" said Uncle Peabody.

So I took the money out of their hands and went in and gave it to the
Silent Woman.

"That's your present from me," I said.

How can I forget how she held my arm against her with that loving,
familiar, rocking motion of a woman who is soothing a baby at her breast
and kissed my coat sleeve? She released my arm and, turning to the
window, leaned her head upon its sill and shook with sobs. The dusk had
thickened. As I returned to my seat by the stove I could dimly see her
form against the light of the window. We sat in silence for a little
while.

Aunt Deel broke it by singing in a low tone as she rocked:

     "My days are passing swiftly by
       And I--a pilgrim stranger--
     Would not detain them as they fly,
       These days of toil and danger."

Uncle Peabody rose and got a candle and lighted it at the hearth.

"Wal, Bart, we'll do the chores, an' then I warn ye that we're goin' to
have some fun," he said as he got his lantern. "There's goin' to be some
Ol' Sledge played here this evenin' an' I wouldn't wonder if Kate could
beat us all."

I held the lantern while Uncle Peabody fed the sheep and the two cows
and milked--a slight chore these winter days.

"There's nothing so cold on earth as a fork stale on a winter night," he
remarked as he was pitching the hay. "Wish I'd brought my mittens."

"You and I are to go off to bed purty early," he said as we were going
back to the house. "Yer Aunt Deel wants to see Kate alone and git her to
talk if she can."

Kate played with us, smiling now and then at my uncle's merry ways and
words, but never speaking. It was poor fun, for the cards seemed to take
her away from us into other scenes so that she had to be reminded of her
turn to play.

"I dunno but she'll swing back into this world ag'in," said Uncle
Peabody when we had gone up to our little room. "I guess all she needs
is to be treated like a human bein'. Yer Aunt Deel an' I couldn't git
over thinkin' o' what she done for you that night in the ol' barn. So I
took some o' yer aunt's good clothes to her an' a pair o' boots an'
asked her to come to Chris'mas. She lives in a little room over the
blacksmith shop down to Butterfield's mill. I told her I'd come after
her with the cutter but she shook her head. I knew she'd rather walk."

He was yawning as he spoke and soon we were both asleep under the
shingles.




CHAPTER XIII

THE THING AND OTHER THINGS


I returned to Mr. Hacket's house late in the afternoon of New Year's
day. The schoolmaster was lying on a big lounge in a corner of their
front room with the children about him. The dusk was falling.

"Welcome, my laddie buck!" he exclaimed as I entered. "We're telling
stories o' the old year an' you're just in time for the last o' them.
Sit down, lad, and God give ye patience! It'll soon be over."

Little John led me into the group and the schoolmaster began:--Let us
call this bit of a story: _The Guide to Paradise_.

"One day in early June I was lyin' under the big apple tree in the
garden--sure I was. It was all white and sweet with the blossoms like a
bride in her veil--an' I heard the hum o' the bee's wing an' odors o'
the upper world come down to me. I was lookin' at the little bird house
that we had hung in the tree-top. Of a sudden I saw a tiny bit o' a
'warf--no longer than the thumb o' Mary--God love her!--on its wee porch
an' lookin' down at me.

"'Good luck to ye!' says I. 'Who are you?'

"'Who do ye think I am?' says he.

"'Nobody,' says I.

"'That's just who I am,' says he, 'I'm Nobody from Nowhere--God save you
from the like.'

"'Glad to see ye,' says I.

"'Glad to be seen,' says he. 'There's a mighty few people can see me.'

"'Looks to me as if ye were tellin' the truth,' says I.

"'Nobody is the only one that always tells the truth--God help ye,' says
he. 'And here's a big chunk o' it. Not one in a thousand ever gets the
feet o' his mind in the land o' Nowhere--better luck to them!'

"'Where is it?' says I.

"'Up above the earth where the great God keeps His fiddle,' says he.

"'What fiddle?' says I.

"'The fiddle o' silence,' says he. 'Sure, I'm playin' it now. It has
long strings o' gold that reach 'way out across the land o' Nowhere--ye
call 'em stars. The winds and the birds play on it. Sure, the birds are
my hens.'

"He clapped his little hands and down came a robin and sat beside him.
Nobody rumpled up the feathers on her back and she queed like she was
goin' to peck me--the hussy!

"'She's my watch hen,' says Nobody. 'Guards the house and lays eggs for
me--the darlin'! Sure, I've a wonderful farm up here in the
air--millions o' acres, and the flowers and the tops o' the trees and
the gold mines o' the sky are in it. The flowers are my cattle and the
bees are my hired men. Do ye see 'em milkin' this big herd o'
apple-blossoms? My hired men carry their milk away to the hollow trees
and churn it into honey. There's towers and towers of it in the land o'
Nowhere. If it wasn't for Nowhere your country would be as dark as a
pocket and as dry as dust--sure it would. Somewhere must be next to
Nowhere--or it wouldn't be anywhere, I'm thinkin'. All the light and
rain and beauty o' the world come out o' Nowhere--don't they? We have
the widest ocean up here with wonderful ships. I call it God's ferry. Ye
see, Nowhere is not to be looked down upon just because ye don't find it
in Mary's geography. There's lots o' things ye don't know, man. I'm one
o' them. What do ye think o' me?'

"'Sure, I like ye,' says I.

"'Lucky man!' says he. 'Everybody must learn to like me an' play with me
as the children do. I can get along with the little folks, but it's hard
to teach men how to play with me--God pity them! They forget how to
believe. I am the guide to paradise and unless ye become as a little
child I can not lead ye.'

"He ran to the edge o' the tree roof and took hold o' the end of a long
spider's rope hangin' down in the air. In a jiffy he swung clear o' the
tree and climbed, hand over hand, until he had gone awa-a-a-a-y out o'
sight in the sky."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Couldn't anybody do that?" said little John.

"I didn't say they could--did I? ye unbeliever!" said the schoolmaster
as he rose and led us in to the supper table. "I said Nobody did it."

We got him to tell this little tale over and over again in the days that
followed, and many times since then that impersonal and mysterious guide
of the schoolmaster's fancy has led me to paradise.

After supper he got out his boxing-gloves and gave me a lesson in the
art of self-defense, in which, I was soon to learn, he was highly
accomplished, for we had a few rounds together every day after that. He
keenly enjoyed this form of exercise and I soon began to. My capacity
for taking punishment without flinching grew apace and before long I got
the knack of countering and that pleased him more even than my work in
school, I have sometimes thought.

"God bless ye, boy!" he exclaimed one day after I had landed heavily on
his cheek, "ye've a nice way o' sneakin' in with yer right. I've a
notion ye may find it useful some day."

I wondered a little why he should say that, and while I was wondering he
felled me with a stinging blow on my nose.

"Ah, my lad--there's the best thing I have seen ye do--get up an' come
back with no mad in ye," he said as he gave me his hand.

One day the schoolmaster called the older boys to the front seats in his
room and I among them.

"Now, boys, I'm going to ask ye what ye want to do in the world," he
said. "Don't be afraid to tell me what ye may never have told before and
I'll do what I can to help ye."

He asked each one to make confession and a most remarkable exhibit of
young ambition was the result. I remember that most of us wanted to be
statesmen--a fact due probably to the shining example of Silas Wright.
Then he said that on a certain evening he would try "to show us the way
over the mountains."

For some months I had been studying a book just published, entitled,
_Stenographic Sound-Hand_ and had learned its alphabet and practised the
use of it. That evening I took down the remarks of Mr. Hacket in
sound-hand.

The academy chapel was crowded with the older boys and girls and the
town folk. The master never clipped his words in school as he was wont
to do when talking familiarly with the children.

"Since the leaves fell our little village has occupied the center of the
stage before an audience of millions in the great theater of congress.
Our leading citizen--the chief actor--has been crowned with immortal
fame. We who watched the play were thrilled by the query: Will Uncle Sam
yield to temptation or cling to honor? He has chosen the latter course
and we may still hear the applause in distant galleries beyond the sea.
He has decided that the public revenues must be paid in honest money.

"My friend and classmate, George Bancroft, the historian, has written
this letter to me out of a full heart:

     "'Your fellow townsman, Silas Wright, is now the largest figure in
     Washington. We were all worried by the resolution of Henry Clay
     until it began to crumble under the irresistible attack of Mr.
     Wright. On the 16th he submitted a report upon it which for lucid
     and accurate statements presented in the most unpretending manner,
     won universal admiration and will be remembered alike for its
     intrinsic excellence and for having achieved one of the most
     memorable victories ever gained in the United States Senate. After
     a long debate Clay himself, compelled by the irresistible force of
     argument in the report of Mr. Wright, was obliged to retire from
     his position, his resolution having been rejected by a vote of 44
     to 1.'"

With what pride and joy I heard of this great thing that my friend had
accomplished! The schoolmaster went on:

"It is a very good and proper thing, my boys, that you should be
inspired by the example of the great man, whose home is here among us
and whose beloved face is as familiar as my own, to try your talents in
the service of the state. There are certain things that I would have you
remember.

"_First_--Know your subject-inside and outside and round about and from
beginning to end.

"_Second_--Know the opinions of wise men and your own regarding it.

"_Third_--Be modest in the use of your own opinions and above all be
honest.

"_Fourth_--Remember that it is your subject and not yourself that is of
prime importance. You will be tempted to think that you are the great
part of the business. My young friends, it will not be true. It can not
be true. It is not _you_ but _the thing you stand for_ that is
important.

"_Fifth_--The good of all the people must be the thing you stand
for--the United States of America.

"Now I wish you to observe how our great fellow townsman keeps his
subject to the fore and himself in the background.

"It was in 1834 that he addressed the Senate regarding the deposits of
public money. He rose to voice the wishes of the people of this state.
If he had seemed to be expressing his own opinions he would have missed
his great point. Now mark how he cast himself aside when he began:

     "'I must not be understood as, for one moment, entertaining the
     vain impression that opinions and views pronounced by me, here or
     elsewhere, will acquire any importance because they are my opinions
     and views. I know well, sir, that my name carries not with it
     authority anywhere, but I know, also, that so far as I may
     entertain and shall express opinions which are, or which shall be
     found, in accord with the enlightened public opinion of this
     country, so far they will be sustained and no further.'

"Then by overwhelming proof he set forth the opinion of our people on
the subject in hand. Studiously the Senator has hidden himself in his
task and avoided in every possible way attracting attention from his
purposes to his personality.

"Invitations to accept public dinners as a compliment to himself have
received from him this kind of reply:

     "'A proper attention to the duties, on the discharge of which you
     so kindly desire to compliment me requires that I should decline
     your invitation.'"

All this was new to me, although much more was said touching his love
for simple folk regarding which I needed no instruction. Altogether, it
helped me to feel the deep foundations on which my friend, the Senator,
had been building in his public life.

Going out with the crowd that evening, I met Sally and Mr. and Mrs.
Dunkelberg. The latter did not speak to me and when I asked Sally if I
could walk home with her she answered curtly, "No, thank you."

In following the schoolmaster I have got a bit ahead of my history. Soon
after the opening of the new year--ten days or so later it may have
been--I had begun to feel myself encompassed by a new and subtle force.
It was a thing as intangible as heat but as real as fire and more
terrible, it seemed to me. I felt it first in the attitude of my play
fellows. They denied me the confidence and intimacy which I had enjoyed
before. They whispered together in my presence. In all this I had not
failed to observe that Henry Wills had taken a leading part. The
invisible, inaudible, mysterious thing wrought a great change in me. It
followed me through the day and lay down with me at night. I wondered
what I had done. I carefully surveyed my clothes. They looked all right
to me. My character was certainly no worse than it had been. How it
preyed upon my peace and rest and happiness--that mysterious hidden
thing!

One day Uncle Peabody came down to see me and I walked through the
village with him. We met Mr. Dunkelberg, who merely nodded and hurried
along. Mr. Bridges, the merchant, did not greet him warmly and chat with
him as he had been wont to do. I saw that The Thing--as I had come to
think of it--was following him also. How it darkened his face! Even now
I can feel the aching of the deep, bloodless wounds of that day. I could
bear it better alone. We were trying to hide our pain from each other
when we said good-by. How quickly my uncle turned away and walked toward
the sheds! He came rarely to the village of Canton after that.

I was going home at noon one day and while passing a crowd of boys I was
shoved rudely into the fence. Turning, I saw Henry Wills and my fist
flashed to his face. He fell backward and rising called me a thief and
the son of a thief. He had not finished the words when I was upon him.
The others formed a ring around us and we began a savage battle. One of
Wills' friends tried to trip me. In the midst of it I saw the
schoolmaster just outside the ring. He seized a boy by the collar.

"There'll be no more interference," said he. "It's goin' to be a fair
fight."

I had felt another unfriendly foot but had not seen its owner. We fought
up and down, with lips and noses bleeding. At last the time had come
when I was quicker and stronger than he. Soon Henry Wills lay on the
ground before me with no disposition to go on with the fight. I helped
him up and he turned away from me. Some of the boys began to jeer him.

"He's a gentleman compared with the rest o' you," I said. "He had
courage enough to say what he thought. There's not another one o' you
would dare do it--not a one o' you."

Then said the schoolmaster:

"If there's any more o' you boys that has any such opinion o' Bart
Baynes let him be man enough to step up an' say it now. If he don't he
ought to be man enough to change his mind on the spot."

A number of the boys and certain of the townsfolk who had gathered about
us clapped their hands. For a long time thereafter I wondered why Henry
had called me a thief. I concluded that it was because "thief" was the
meanest word he could think of in his anger. However that might be, The
Thing forsook me. I felt no more its cold, mysterious shadow between me
and my school fellows. It had stepped out of my path into that of Henry
Wills. His popularity waned and a lucky circumstance it was for him.
From that day he began to take to his books and to improve his standing
in the school.

I observed that he did not go about with Sally as he had done. I had had
no word with her since the night of Mr. Hacket's lecture save the
briefest greeting as we passed each other in the street. Those fine
winter days I used to see her riding a chestnut pony with a long silver
mane that flowed back to her yellow curls in his lope. I loved the look
of her as she went by me in the saddle and a longing came into my heart
that she should think well of me. I made an odd resolve. It was this: I
would make it impossible for her to think ill of me.

I went home one Saturday, having thought much of my aunt and uncle since
The Thing had descended upon us. I found them well and as cheerful as
ever. For fear of disturbing their peace I said nothing of my fight with
Wills or the cause of it. Uncle Peabody had cut the timber for our new
house and hauled it to the mill. I returned to school in a better mind
about them.

May had returned--a warm bright May. The roads were dry. The thorn trees
had thatched their shapely roofs with vivid green. The maple leaves were
bigger than a squirrel's foot, which meant as well, I knew, that the
trout were jumping. The robins had returned. I had entered my
seventeenth year and the work of the term was finished.

[Illustration: She stopped the pony and leaned toward me.]

Having nothing to do one afternoon, I walked out on the road toward
Ogdensburg for a look at the woods and fields. Soon I thought that I
heard the sound of galloping hoofs behind me. Turning, I saw nothing,
but imagined Sally coming and pulling up at my side. I wondered what I
should say if she were really to come.

"Sally!" I exclaimed. "I have been looking at the violets and the green
fields and back there I saw a thorn tree turning white, but I have seen
no fairer thing than you."

They surprised me a little--those fine words that came so easily. What a
school of talk was the house I lived in those days!

"I guess I'm getting Mr. Hacket's gift o' gab," I said to myself.

Again I heard the sound of galloping hoofs and as I looked back I saw
Sally rounding the turn by the river and coming toward me at full speed,
the mane of her pony flying back to her face. She pulled up beside me
just as I had imagined she would do.

"Bart, I hate somebody terribly," said she.

"Whom?"

"A man who is coming to our house on the stage to-day. Granny Barnes is
trying to get up a match between us. Father says he is rich and hopes he
will want to marry me. I got mad about it. He is four years older than I
am. Isn't that awful? I am going to be just as mean and hateful to him
as I can."

"I guess they're only fooling you," I said.

"No, they mean it. I have heard them talking it over."

"He can not marry you."

"Why?"

It seemed to me that the time had come for me to speak out, and with
burning cheeks I said:

"Because I think that God has married you to me already. Do you remember
when we kissed each other by the wheat-field one day last summer?"

"Yes." She was looking down at the mane of her pony and her cheeks were
red and her voice reminded me of the echoes that fill the cavern of a
violin when a string is touched.

"Seems to me we were married that day. Seems so, every time I think of
it, God asked me all the questions an' I answered yes to 'em. Do ye
remember after we had kissed each other how that little bird sang?"

"Yes."

We had faced about and were walking back toward Canton, I close by the
pony's side.

"May I kiss you again?"

She stopped the pony and leaned toward me and our lips met in a kiss the
thought of which makes me lay down my pen and bow my head a moment while
I think with reverence of that pure, sweet spring of memory in whose
waters I love to wash my spirit.

We walked on and a song sparrow followed us perching on the fence-rails
and blessing us with his song.

"I guess God has married us again," I declared.

"I knew that you were walking on this road and I had to see you," said
she. "People have been saying such terrible things."

"What?"

"They say your uncle found the pocketbook that was lost and kept the
money. They say he was the first man that went up the road after it was
lost."

Now The Thing stood uncovered before me in all its ugliness--The Thing
born not of hate but of the mere love of excitement in people wearied by
the dull routine and the reliable, plodding respectability of that
countryside. The crime of Amos had been a great help in its way but as a
topic it was worn out and would remain so until court convened.

"It's a lie--my uncle never saw the pocketbook. Some money was left to
him by a relative in Vermont. That's how it happened that he bought a
farm instead of going to the poorhouse when Grimshaw put the screws on
him."

"I knew that your uncle didn't do it," she went on. "Father and mother
couldn't tell you. So I had to."

"Why couldn't your father and mother tell me?"

"They didn't dare. Mr. Grimshaw made them promise that they would not
speak to you or to any of your family. I heard them say that you and
your uncle did right. Father told mother that he never knew a man so
honest as your Uncle Peabody."

We went on in silence for a moment.

"I guess you know now why I couldn't let you go home with me that
night," she remarked.

"Yes, and I think I know why you wouldn't have anything more to do with
Henry Wills."

"I hate him. He said such horrid things about you and your uncle."

In a moment she asked: "What time is it?"

I looked at my new watch and answered: "It wants ten minutes of five."

"The stage is in long ago. They will be coming up this road to meet me.
Father was going to take him for a walk before supper."

Just then we came upon the Silent Woman sitting among the dandelions by
the roadside. She held a cup in her hand with some honey on its bottom
and covered with a piece of glass.

"She is hunting bees," I said as we stopped beside her.

She rose and patted my shoulder with a smile and threw a kiss to Sally.
Suddenly her face grew stern. She pointed toward the village and then at
Sally. Up went her arm high above her head with one finger extended in
that ominous gesture so familiar to me.

"She means that there is some danger ahead of you," I said.

The Silent Woman picked a long blade of grass and tipped its end in the
honey at the bottom of the cup. She came close to Sally with the blade
of grass between her thumb and finger.

"She is fixing a charm," I said.

She smiled and nodded as she put a drop of honey on Sally's upper lip.

She held up her hands while her lips moved as if she were blessing us.

"I suppose it will not save me if I brush it off," said Sally.

We went on and in a moment a bee lighted on the honey. Nervously she
struck at it and then cried out with pain.

"The bee has stung you," I said.

She covered her face with her handkerchief and made no answer.

"Wait a minute--I'll get some clay," I said as I ran to the river bank.

I found some clay and moistened it with the water and returned.

"There, look at me!" she groaned. "The bee hit my nose."

She uncovered her face, now deformed almost beyond recognition, her nose
having swollen to one of great size and redness.

"You look like Rodney Barnes," I said with a laugh as I applied the clay
to her afflicted nose.

"And I feel like the old boy. I think my nose is trying to jump off and
run away."

The clay having been well applied she began surveying herself with a
little hand mirror which she had carried in the pocket of her riding
coat.

"What a fright I am!" she mused.

"But you are the best girl in the world."

"Don't waste your pretty talk on me now. I can't enjoy it--my nose aches
so. I'd rather you'd tell me when--when it is easier for you to say it."

"We don't see each other very often."

"If you will come out on this road next Saturday afternoon I will ride
until I find you and then we can have another talk."

"All right. I'll be here at four-thirty and I'll be thinking about it
every day until then."

"My nose feels better now," she said presently and added: "You might
tell me a little more if you want to."

"I love you even when you have ceased to be beautiful," I said with the
ardor of the young.

"That is grand! You know old age will sting us by and by, Bart," she
answered with a sigh and in a tone of womanly wisdom.

We were nearing the village. She wiped the mud from her prodigious nose
and I wet her handkerchief in a pool of water and helped her to wash it.
Soon we saw two men approaching us in the road. In a moment I observed
that one was Mr. Horace Dunkelberg; the other a stranger and a
remarkably handsome young man he was, about twenty-two years of age and
dressed in the height of fashion. I remember so well his tall, athletic
figure, his gray eyes, his small dark mustache and his admirable
manners. Both were appalled at the look of Sally.

"Why, girl, what has happened to you?" her father asked.

Then I saw what a playful soul was Sally's. The girl was a born actress.

"Been riding in the country," said she. "Is this Mr. Latour?"

"This is Mr. Latour, Sally," said her father.

They shook hands.

"I am glad to see you," said the stranger.

"They say I am worth seeing," said Sally. "This is my friend, Mr.
Baynes. When you are tired of seeing me, look at him."

I shook the hand he offered me.

"Of course, we can't all be good looking," Sally remarked with a sigh,
as if her misfortune were permanent.

Mr. Horace Dunkelberg and I laughed heartily--for I had told him in a
whisper what had happened to Sally--while Mr. Latour looked a little
embarrassed.

"My face is not beautiful, but they say that I have a good heart," Sally
assured the stranger.

They started on. I excused myself and took a trail through the woods to
another road. Just there, with Sally waving her hand to me as I stood
for a moment in the edge of the woods, the curtain falls on this highly
romantic period of my life.

Uncle Peabody came for me that evening. It was about the middle of the
next week that I received this letter from Sally:

     "DEAR BART--Mr. Latour gave up and drove to Potsdam in the evening.
     Said he had to meet Mr. Parish. I think that he had seen enough of
     me. I began to hope he would stay--he was so good looking, but
     mother is very glad that he went, and so am I, for our minister
     told us that he is one of the wickedest young men in the state. He
     is very rich and very bad, they say. I wonder if old Kate knew
     about him. Her charm worked well anyway--didn't it? My nose was all
     right in the morning. Sorry that I can't meet you Saturday. Mother
     and I are packing up to go away for the summer. Don't forget me. I
     shall be thinking every day of those lovely things you said to me.
     I don't know what they will try to do with me, and I don't care. I
     really think as you do, Bart, that God has married us to each
     other.

     "Yours forever,
            SALLY DUNKELBERG."

How often I read those words--so like all the careless words of the
young!




CHAPTER XIV

THE BOLT FALLS


Three times that winter I had seen Benjamin Grimshaw followed by the
Silent Woman clothed in rags and pointing with her finger. Mr. Hacket
said that she probably watched for him out of her little window above
the blacksmith shop that overlooked the south road. When he came to town
she followed. I always greeted the woman when I passed her, but when she
was on the trail of the money-lender she seemed unaware of my presence,
so intent was she on the strange task she had set herself. If he were
not in sight she smiled when passing me, but neither spoke nor nodded.

Grimshaw had gone about his business as usual when I saw him last, but I
had noted a look of the worried rat in his face. He had seemed to be
under extreme irritation. He scolded every man who spoke to him. The
notion came to me that her finger was getting down to the quick.

The trial of Amos came on. He had had "blood on his feet," as they used
to say, all the way from Lickitysplit to Lewis County in his flight,
having attacked and slightly wounded two men with a bowie knife who had
tried to detain him at Rainy Lake. He had also shot at an officer in the
vicinity of Lowville, where his arrest was effected. He had been
identified by all these men, and so his character as a desperate man had
been established. This in connection with the scar on his face and the
tracks, which the boots of Amos fitted, and the broken gun stock
convinced the jury of his guilt.

The most interesting bit of testimony which came out at the trial was
this passage from a yellow paper-covered tale which had been discovered
hidden in the haymow of the Grimshaw barn:

     "Lightfoot waited in the bushes with his trusty rifle in hand. When
     the two unsuspecting travelers reached a point nearly opposite him
     he raised his rifle and glanced over its shining barrel and saw
     that the flight of his bullet would cut the throats of both his
     persecutors. He pulled the trigger and the bullet sped to its mark.
     Both men plunged to the ground as if they had been smitten by a
     thunderbolt. Lightfoot leaped from cover and seized the rearing
     horses, and mounting one of them while he led the other, headed
     them down the trail, and in no great hurry, for he knew that the
     lake was between him and Blodgett and that the latter's boat was in
     no condition to hold water."

It was the swift and deadly execution of Lightfoot which Amos had been
imitating, as he presently confessed.

I knew then the power of words--even foolish words--over the minds of
the young when they are printed and spread abroad.

I remember well the look of the venerable Judge Cady as he pronounced
the sentence of death upon Amos Grimshaw. A ray of sunlight slanting
through a window in the late afternoon fell upon his gracious
countenance, shining also, with the softer light of his spirit. Slowly,
solemnly, kindly, he spoke the words of doom. It was his way of saying
them that first made me feel the dignity and majesty of the law. The
kind and fatherly tone of his voice put me in mind of that Supremest
Court which is above all question and which was swiftly to enter
judgment in this matter and in others related to it.

Slowly the crowd moved out of the court room. Benjamin Grimshaw rose and
calmly whispered to his lawyer. He had not spoken to his son or seemed
to notice him since the trial had begun, nor did he now. Many had shed
tears that day, but not he. Mr. Grimshaw never showed but one
emotion--that of anger. He was angry now. His face was hard and stern.
He muttered as he walked out of the court room, his cane briskly beating
the floor. I and others followed him, moved by differing motives. I was
sorry for him and if I had dared I should have told him that. I was
amazed to see how sturdily he stood under this blow--like a mighty oak
in a storm. The look of him thrilled me--it suggested that something was
going to happen.

The Silent Woman--as ragged as ever--was waiting on the steps. Out went
her bony finger as he came down. He turned and struck at her with his
cane and shouted in a shrill voice that rang out like a trumpet in his
frenzy:

"_Go 'way from me. Take her away, somebody. I can't stan' it. She's
killin' me. Take her away. Take her away. Take her away._"

His face turned purple and then white. He reeled and fell headlong, like
a tree severed from its roots, and lay still on the hard, stone
pavement. It seemed as if snow were falling on his face--it grew so
white. The Silent Woman stood as still as he, pointing at him with her
finger, her look unchanged. People came running toward us. I lifted the
head of Mr. Grimshaw and laid it on my knee. It felt like the head of
the stranger in Rattleroad. Old Kate bent over and looked at the eyelids
of the man, which fluttered faintly and were still.

"Dead!" she muttered.

Then, as if her work were finished, she turned and made her way through
the crowd and walked slowly down the street. Men stood aside to let her
pass, as if they felt the power of her spirit and feared the touch of
her garments.

Two or three men had run to the house of the nearest doctor. The crowd
thickened. As I sat looking down at the dead face in my lap, a lawyer
who had come out of the court room pressed near me and bent over and
looked at the set eyes of Benjamin Grimshaw and said:

"She floored him at last. I knew she would. He tried not to see her, but
I tell ye that bony old finger of hers burnt a hole in him. He couldn't
stand it. I knew he'd blow up some day under the strain. She got him at
last."

"Who got him?" another asked.

"Rovin' Kate. She killed him pointing her finger at him--so."

"She's got an evil eye. Everybody's afraid o' the crazy ol' Trollope!"

"Nonsense! She isn't half as crazy as the most of us," said the lawyer.
"In my opinion she had a good reason for pointing her finger at that
man. She came from the same town he did over in Vermont. Ye don't know
what happened there."

The doctor arrived. The crowds made way for him. He knelt beside the
still figure and made the tests. He rose and shook his head, saying:

"It's all over. Let one o' these boys go down and bring the undertaker."

Benjamin Grimshaw, the richest man in the township, was dead, and I have
yet to hear of any mourners.

Three days later I saw his body lowered into its grave. The little,
broken-spirited wife stood there with the same sad smile on her face
that I had noted when I first saw her in the hills. Rovin' Kate was
there in the clothes she had worn Christmas day. She was greatly
changed. Her hair was neatly combed. The wild look had left her eyes.
She was like one whose back is relieved of a heavy burden. Her lips
moved as she scattered little red squares of paper into the grave. I
suppose they thought it a crazy whim of hers--they who saw her do it. I
thought that I understood the curious bit of symbolism and so did the
schoolmaster, who stood beside me. Doubtless the pieces of paper
numbered her curses.

"The scarlet sins of his youth are lying down with him in the dust,"
Hacket whispered as we walked away together.


END OF BOOK TWO




BOOK THREE

Which is the Story of the Chosen Ways




CHAPTER XV

UNCLE PEABODY'S WAY AND MINE


I am old and love my ease and sometimes dare to think that I have earned
it. Why do I impose upon myself the task of writing down these memories,
searching them and many notes and records with great care so that in
every voice and deed the time shall speak? My first care has been that
neither vanity nor pride should mar a word of all these I have written
or shall write. So I keep my name from you, dear reader, for there is
nothing you can give me that I want. I have learned my lesson in that
distant time and, having learned it, give you the things I stand for and
keep myself under a mask. These things urge me to my task. I do it that
I may give to you--my countrymen--the best fruitage of the great garden
of my youth and save it from the cold storage of unknowing history.

It is a bad thing to be under a heavy obligation to one's self of which,
thank God, I am now acquitted. I have known men who were their own worst
creditors. Everything they earned went swiftly to satisfy the demands
of Vanity or Pride or Appetite. I have seen them literally put out of
house and home, thrown neck and crop into the street, as it were, by one
or the other of these heartless creditors--each a grasping usurer with
unjust claims.

I remember that Rodney Barnes called for my chest and me that fine
morning in early June when I was to go back to the hills, my year's work
in school being ended. I elected to walk, and the schoolmaster went with
me five miles or more across the flats to the slope of the high country.
I felt very wise with that year's learning in my head. Doubtless the
best of it had come not in school. It had taken me close to the great
stage and in a way lifted the curtain. I was most attentive, knowing
that presently I should get my part.

"I've been thinking, Bart, o' your work in the last year," said the
schoolmaster as we walked. "Ye have studied six books and one--God help
ye! An' I think ye have got more out o' the one than ye have out o' the
six."

In a moment of silence that followed I counted the books on my fingers:
Latin, Arithmetic, Algebra, Grammar, Geography, History. What was this
one book he referred to?

"It's God's book o' life, boy, an' I should say ye'd done very well in
it."

After a little he asked: "Have ye ever heard of a man who had the
Grimshaws?"

I shook my head as I looked at him, not knowing just what he was driving
at.

"Sure, it's a serious illness an' it has two phases. First there's the
Grimshaw o' greed--swinish, heartless greed--the other is the Grimshaw
o' vanity--the strutter, with sword at belt, who would have men bow or
flee before him."

That is all he said of that seventh book and it was enough.

"Soon the Senator will be coming," he remarked presently. "I have a long
letter from him and he asks about you and your aunt and uncle. I think
that he is fond o' you, boy."

"I wish you would let me know when he comes," I said.

"I am sure he will let you know, and, by the way, I have heard from
another friend o' yours, my lad. Ye're a lucky one to have so many
friends--sure ye are. Here, I'll show ye the letter. There's no reason
why I shouldn't. Ye will know its writer, probably. I do not."

So saying he handed me this letter:

     "CANTERBURY, VT.,
                June 1.

     "DEAR SIR--I am interested in the boy Barton Baynes. Good words
     about him have been flying around like pigeons. When school is out
     I would like to hear from you, what is the record? What do you
     think of the soul in him? What kind of work is best for it? If you
     will let me maybe I can help the plans of God a little. That is my
     business and yours. Thanking you for reading this, I am, as ever,

     "God's humble servant,
                  KATE FULLERTON."

"Why, this is the writing of the Silent Woman," I said before I had read
the letter half through.

"Rovin' Kate?"

"Roving Kate; I never knew her other name, but I saw her handwriting
long ago."

"But look--this is a neatly written, well-worded letter an' the sheet is
as white and clean as the new snow. Uncanny woman! They say she carries
the power o' God in her right hand. So do all the wronged. I tell ye,
lad, there's only one thing in the world that's sacred."

I turned to him with a look of inquiry and asked:

"What is it?"

"The one and only miracle we know-the gate o' birth through which comes
human life and the lips commanding our love and speaking the wisdom of
childhood. Show me how a man treats women an' I'll tell ye what he
amounts to. There's the test that shows whether he's a man or a spaniel
dog."

There was a little moment of silence then--how well I remember it! The
schoolmaster broke the silence by adding:

"Well ye know, lad, I think the greatest thing that Jesus Christ did was
showing to a wicked world the sanctity o' motherhood."

That, I think, was the last lesson in the school year. Just beyond us I
could see the slant of Bowman's Hill. What an amount of pains they gave
those days to the building of character! It will seem curious and
perhaps even wearisome now, but it must show here if I am to hold the
mirror up to the time.

"I wonder why Kate is asking about me," I said.

"Never mind the reason. She is your friend and let us thank God for it.
Think how she came to yer help in the old barn an' say a thousand
prayers, my lad. I shall write to her to-day, and what shall I say as to
the work?"

"Well, I've been consulting the compass," I answered thoughtfully, as I
looked down at the yielding sand under my feet. "I think that I want to
be a lawyer."

"Good! I would have guessed it. I suppose your week in the court room
with the fine old judge and the lawyers settled that for ye."

"I think that it did."

"Well, the Senator is a lawyer, God prosper him, an' he has shown us
that the chief business o' the lawyer is to keep men out o' the law."

Having come to the first flight of the uplands, he left me with many a
kind word--how much they mean to a boy who is choosing his way with a
growing sense of loneliness!

I reached the warm welcome of our little home just in time for dinner.
They were expecting me and it was a regular company dinner--chicken pie
and strawberry shortcake.

"I wallered in the grass all the forenoon tryin' to git enough berries
for this celebration--ayes!--they ain't many of 'em turned yit," said
Aunt Deel. "No, sir--nothin' but pure cream on this cake. I ain't a
goin' to count the expense."

Uncle Peabody danced around the table and sang a stanza of the old
ballad, which I have forgotten, but which begins:

     _Come, Philander, let us be a-marchin'._

How well I remember that hour with the doors open and the sun shining
brightly on the blossoming fields and the joy of man and bird and beast
in the return of summer and the talk about the late visit of Alma Jones
and Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln!

While we were eating I told them about the letter of old Kate.

"Fullerton!" Aunt Deel exclaimed. "Are ye sure that was the name, Bart?"

"Yes."

"Goodness gracious sakes alive!"

She and Uncle Peabody gave each other looks of surprised inquiry.

"Do you know anybody by that name?" I asked.

"We used to," said Aunt Deel as she resumed her eating. "Can't be she's
one o' the Sam Fullertons, can it?"

"Oh, prob'ly not," said Uncle Peabody. "Back east they's more Fullertons
than ye could shake a stick at. Say, I see the biggest bear this mornin'
that I ever see in all the born days o' my life.

"It was dark. I'd come out o' the fifty-mile woods an' down along the
edge o' the ma'sh an' up into the bushes on the lower side o' the
pastur. All to once I heerd somethin'! I stopped an' peeked through the
bushes--couldn't see much--so dark. Then the ol' bear riz up on her hind
legs clus to me. We didn't like the looks o' one 'nother an' begun to
edge off very careful.

"Seems so I kind o' said to the ol' bear: 'Excuse me.'

"Seems so the ol' bear kind o' answered: 'Sart'nly.'

"I got down to a little run, near by, steppin' as soft as a cat. I could
just see a white stun on the side o' it. I lifted my foot to step on
the stun an' jump acrost. B-r-r-r-r! The stun jumped up an' scampered
through the bushes. Then I _was_ scairt. Goshtalmighty! I lost
confidence in everything. Seemed so all the bushes turned into bears.
Jeerusalem, how I run! When I got to the barn I was purty nigh used up."

"How did it happen that the stone jumped?" I asked.

"Oh, I guess 't was a rabbit," said Uncle Peabody.

Thus Uncle Peabody led us off into the trail of the bear and the problem
of Kate and the Sam Fullertons concerned us no more at that time.

A week later we had our raising. Uncle Peabody did not want a public
raising, but Aunt Deel had had her way. We had hewed and mortised and
bored the timbers for our new home. The neighbors came with pikes and
helped to raise and stay and cover them. A great amount of human
kindness went into the beams and rafters of that home and of others like
it. I knew that The Thing was still alive in the neighborhood, but even
that could not paralyze the helpful hands of those people. Indeed, what
was said of my Uncle Peabody was nothing more or less than a kind of
conversational firewood. I can not think that any one really believed
it.

We had a cheerful day. A barrel of hard cider had been set up in the
dooryard, and I remember that some drank it too freely. The he-o-hee of
the men as they lifted on the pikes and the sound of the hammer and
beetle rang in the air from morning until night. Mrs. Rodney Barnes and
Mrs. Dorothy came to help Aunt Deel with the cooking and a great dinner
was served on an improvised table in the dooryard, where the stove was
set up. The shingles and sheathes and clapboards were on before the day
ended.

When they were about to go the men filled their cups and drank to Aunt
Deel.

I knew, or thought I knew, why they had not mentioned my Uncle Peabody,
and was very thoughtful about it. Suddenly the giant Rodney Barnes
strode up to the barrel. I remember the lion-like dignity of his face as
he turned and said:

"Now, boys, come up here an' stand right before me, every one o' you."

He ranged them in a circle around the barrel. He stood at the spigot and
filled every cup. Then he raised his own and said:

"I want ye to drink to Peabody Baynes--one o' the squarest men that ever
stood in cowhide."

They drank the toast--not one of them would have dared refuse.

"Now three cheers for the new home and every one that lives in it," he
demanded.

They cheered lustily and went away.

Uncle Peabody and I put in the floors and stairway and partitions. More
than once in the days we were working together I tried to tell him what
Sally had told me, but my courage failed.

We moved our furniture. I remember that Uncle Peabody called it "the
houseltree." We had greased paper on the windows for a time after we
moved until the sash came. Aunt Deel had made rag carpets for the parlor
and the bedroom which opened off it. Our windows looked down into the
great valley of the St. Lawrence, stretching northward thirty miles or
more from our hilltop. A beautiful grove of sugar maples stood within a
stone's throw of the back door.

What a rustic charm in the long slant of the green hill below us with
its gray, mossy boulders and lovely thorn trees! It was, I think, a
brighter, pleasanter home than that we had left. It was built on the
cellar of one burned a few years before. The old barn was still there
and a little repairing had made it do.

The day came, shortly, when I had to speak out, and I took the straight
way of my duty as the needle of the compass pointed. It was the end of a
summer day and we had watched the dusk fill the valley and come creeping
up the slant, sinking the boulders and thorn tops in its flood, one by
one. As we sat looking out of the open door that evening I told them
what Sally had told me of the evil report which had traveled through
the two towns. Uncle Peabody sat silent and perfectly motionless for a
moment, looking out into the dusk.

"W'y, of all things! Ain't that an awful burnin' shame-ayes!" said Aunt
Deel as she covered her face with her hand.

"Damn, little souled, narrer contracted--" Uncle Peabody, speaking in a
low, sad tone, but with deep feeling, cut off this highly promising
opinion before it was half expressed, and rose and went to the water
pail and drank.

"As long as we're honest we don't care what they say," he remarked as he
returned to his chair.

"If they won't believe us we ought to show 'em the papers--ayes," said
Aunt Deel.

"Thunder an' Jehu! I wouldn't go 'round the town tryin' to prove that I
ain't a thief," said Uncle Peabody. "It wouldn't make no differ'nce.
They've got to have somethin' to play with. If they want to use my name
for a bean bag let 'em as long as they do it when I ain't lookin'. I
wouldn't wonder if they got sore hands by an' by."

I never heard him speak of it again. Indeed, although I knew the topic
was often in our thoughts it was never mentioned in our home but once
after that, to my knowledge.

We sat for a long time thinking as the night came on. By and by Uncle
Peabody began the hymn in which we joined:

     "Oh, keep my heart from sadness, God;
     Let not its sorrows stay,
     Nor shadows of the night erase
     The glories of the day."

"Say--by thunder!--we don't have to set in the shadows. Le's fill the
room with the glory of the day," said Uncle Peabody as he lighted the
candles. "It ain't a good idee to go slidin' down hill in the
summer-time an' in the dark, too. Le's have a game o' cards."

I remember that we had three merry games and went to bed. All outward
signs of our trouble had vanished in the glow of the candles.

Next day I rode to the post-office and found there a book addressed to
me in the handwriting of old Kate. It was David Hoffman's _Course of
Legal Study_. She had written on its fly-leaf:

"To Barton Baynes, from a friend."

"That woman 'pears to like you purty thorough," said Uncle Peabody.

"Well, let her if she wants to--poor thing!" Aunt Deel answered. "A
woman has got to have somebody to like--ayes!--or I dunno how she'd
live--I declare I don't--ayes!"

"I like her, too," I said. "She's been a good friend to me."

"She has, sart'n," my uncle agreed.

We began reading the book that evening in the candle-light and soon
finished it. I was thrilled by the ideal of human service with which the
calling of the lawyer was therein lifted up and illuminated. After that
I had no doubt of my way.

That week a letter came to me from the Senator, announcing the day of
Mrs. Wright's arrival in Canton and asking me to meet and assist her in
getting the house to rights. I did so. She was a pleasant-faced, amiable
woman and a most enterprising house cleaner. I remember that my first
task was mending the wheelbarrow.

"I don't know what Silas would do if he were to get home and find his
wheelbarrow broken," said she. "It is almost an inseparable companion of
his."

The schoolmaster and his family were fishing and camping upon the river,
and so I lived at the Senator's house with Mrs. Wright and her mother
until he arrived. What a wonderful house it was, in my view! I was awed
by its size and splendor, its soft carpets and shiny brass and mahogany.
Yet it was very simple.

I hoed the garden and cleaned its paths and mowed the dooryard and did
some painting in the house. I remember that Mrs. Ebenezer Binks--wife
of the deacon and the constable--came in while I was at the latter task
early one morning to see if there were anything she could do.

She immediately sat down and talked constantly until noon of her family
and especially of the heartlessness and general misconduct of her son
and daughter-in-law because they had refused to let her apply the name
of Divine Submission to the baby. It had been a hard blow to Mrs. Binks,
because this was the one and only favor which she had ever asked of
them. She reviewed the history of the Binkses from Ebenezer--the
First--down to that present day. There had been three Divine Submissions
in the family and they had made the name of Binks known wherever people
knew anything. When Mrs. Wright left the room Mrs. Binks directed her
conversation at me, and when Mrs. Wright returned I only got the spray
of it. By dinner time we were drenched in a way of speaking and Mrs.
Binks left, assuring us that she would return later and do anything in
her power.

"My stars!" Mrs. Wright exclaimed. "If you see her coming lock the door
and go and hide in a closet until she goes away. Mrs. Binks always
brings her ancestors with her and they fill the house so that there's no
room for anybody else."

When the day's work was ended Mrs. Wright exclaimed:

"Thank goodness! the Binkses have not returned."

We always referred to Mrs. Binks as the Binkses after that.

Mrs. Jenison, a friend of the Wrights, came in that afternoon and told
us of the visit of young Latour to Canton and of the great relief of the
decent people at his speedy departure.

"I wonder what brought him here," said Mrs. Wright.

"It seems that he had heard of the beauty of Sally Dunkelberg. But a bee
had stung her nose just before he came and she was a sight to behold."

The ladies laughed.

"It's lucky," said Mrs. Wright. "Doesn't Horace Dunkelberg know about
him?"

"I suppose he does, but the man is money crazy."

I couldn't help hearing it, for I was working in the room in which they
talked. Well, really, it doesn't matter much now. They are all gone.

"Who is young Latour?" I asked when Mrs. Jenison had left us.

"A rake and dissolute young man whose father is very rich and lives in a
great mansion over in Jefferson County," Mrs. Wright answered.

I wondered then if there had been a purpose in that drop of honey from
the cup of the Silent Woman.

I remember that the Senator, who returned to Canton that evening on the
Watertown stage, laughed heartily when, as we were sitting by the
fireside, Mrs. Wright told of the call of the Binkses.

"The good lady enjoys a singular plurality," he remarked.

"She enjoys it better than we do," said Mrs. Wright.

The Senator had greeted me with a fatherly warmth. Again I felt that
strong appeal to my eye in his broadcloth and fine linen and beaver hat
and in the splendid dignity and courtesy of his manners.

"I've had good reports of you, Bart, and I'm very glad to see you," he
said.

"I believe your own marks have been excellent in the last year," I
ventured.

"Poorer than I could wish. The teacher has been very kind to me," he
laughed. "What have you been studying?"

"Latin (I always mentioned the Latin first), Algebra, Arithmetic,
Grammar, Geography and History."

"Including the history of the Binkses," he laughed.

There was never a note of humor in his speeches, but he was playful in
his talk at times, especially when trusted friends were with him.

"She is a very excellent woman, after all," he added.

He asked about my aunt and uncle and I told him of all that had befallen
us, save the one thing of which I had spoken only with them and Sally.

"I shall go up to see them soon," he said.

The people of the little village had learned that he preferred to be let
alone when he had just returned over the long, wearisome way from the
scene of his labors. So we had the evening to ourselves.

I remember my keen interest in his account of riding from Albany to
Utica on the new railroads. He spoke with enthusiasm of the smoothness
and swiftness of the journey.

"With no mishap they now make it in about a half a day," he said, as we
listened with wonder. "It is like riding in a house with a good deal of
smoke coming out of the chimney and in at the windows. You sit on a
comfortable bench with a back and a foot-rest in front and look out of
the window and ride. But I tremble sometimes to think of what might
happen with all that weight and speed.

"We had a little mishap after leaving Ballston Spa. The locomotive
engine broke down and the train stopped. The passengers poured out like
bees. We put our hands and shoulders on the train and pushed it
backwards about a third of a mile to a passing station. There the
engine got out of our way and after an hour's wait a horse was hitched
to the train. With the help of the men he started it. At the next town
our horse was reinforced by two others. They hauled us to the engine
station four miles beyond, where another locomotive engine was attached
to the train, and we went on by steam and at a fearful rate of speed."

Mrs. Wright, being weary after the day's work, went to bed early and, at
his request, I sat with the Senator by the fire for an hour or so. I
have always thought it a lucky circumstance, for he asked me to tell of
my plans and gave me advice and encouragement which have had a marked
effect upon my career.

I remember telling him that I wished to be a lawyer and my reasons for
it. He told me that a lawyer was either a pest or a servant of justice
and that his chief aim should be the promotion of peace and good will in
his community. He promised to try and arrange for my accommodation in
his office in the autumn and meanwhile to lend me some books to read
while I was at home.

"Before we go to bed let us have a settlement," said the Senator. "Will
you kindly sit down at the table there and make up a statement of all
the time you have given me?"

I made out the statement very neatly and carefully and put it in his
hands.

"That is well done," said he. "I shall wish you to stay until the day
after to-morrow, if you will. So you will please add another day."

I amended the statement and he paid me the handsome sum of seven
dollars. I remember that after I went to my room that night I stitched
up the opening in my jacket pocket, which contained my wealth, with the
needle and thread which Aunt Deel had put in my bundle, and slept with
the jacket under my mattress.

The Senator and I were up at five o'clock and at work in the garden.
What a contrast to see him spading in his old farm suit! Mrs. Wright
cooked our breakfast and called us in at six.

I remember we were fixing the fence around his pasture lot that day when
a handsomely dressed gentleman came back in the field. Mr. Wright was
chopping at a small spruce.

"Is Senator Wright here?" the stranger inquired of me.

I pointed to the chopper.

"I beg your pardon--I am looking for the distinguished United States
Senator," he explained with a smile.

Again I pointed at the man with the ax and said:

"That is the Senator."

Often I have thought of the look of astonishment on the face of the
stranger as he said: "Will you have the kindness to tell him that
General Macomb would like to speak with him?"

I halted his ax and conveyed the message.

"Is this the hero of Plattsburg?" Mr. Wright asked.

"Well, I have been there," said the General.

They shook hands and went up to the house together.

I walked back to the hills that evening. There I found a letter from
Sally. She and her mother, who was in ill health, were spending the
summer with relatives at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She wrote of riding
and fishing and sailing, but of all that she wrote I think only of these
words now:

     "I meet many good-looking boys here, but none of them are like you.
     I wonder if you remember what you said to me that day. If you want
     to unsay it, you can do it by letter, you know. I think that would
     be the best way to do it. So don't be afraid of hurting my
     feelings. Perhaps I would be glad. You don't know. What a long day
     that was! It seems as if it wasn't over yet. How lucky for me that
     it was such a beautiful day! You know I have forgotten all about
     the pain, but I laugh when I think how I looked and how Mr. Latour
     looked. He laughed a good deal going home, as if thinking of some
     wonderful joke. In September I am going away to a young ladies'
     school in Albany. I hate it. Can you imagine why? I am to learn
     fine manners and French and Spanish and dancing and be good enough
     for any man's wife. Think of that. Father says that I must marry a
     big man. Jiminy Crimps! As if a big man wouldn't know better. I am
     often afraid that you will know too much. I know what will happen
     when your intellect sees how foolish I am. My grandmother says that
     I am frivolous and far from God. I am afraid it's true, but
     sometimes I want to be good--only sometimes. I remember you said,
     once, that you were going to be like Silas Wright. Honestly I
     believe that you could. So does mother. I want you to keep trying,
     but it makes me afraid. Oh, dear! How sad and homesick I feel
     to-day! Tell me the truth now, when you write."

That evening I wrote my first love-letter--a fairly warm and moving
fragment of history. My family have urged me to let it go in the record,
but I have firmly refused. There are some things which I can not do even
in this little masquerade. It is enough to say that when the day ended I
had deliberately chosen two of the many ways that lay before me.




CHAPTER XVI

I USE MY OWN COMPASS AT A FORK IN THE ROAD


Swiftly now I move across the border into manhood--a serious, eager,
restless manhood. It was the fashion of the young those days.

I spent a summer of hard work in the fields. Evenings I read the books
which Mr. Wright had loaned to me, Blackstone's _Commentaries_ and
_Greenleaf on Evidence_ and a translation by Doctor Bowditch of
LaPlace's _Mécanique Celeste_. The latter I read aloud. I mention it
because in a way it served as an antidote for that growing sense of
expansion in my intellect. In the vastness of infinite space I found the
littleness of man and his best accomplishments.

Mr. Wright came up for a day's fishing in July. My uncle and I took him
up the river. I remember that after he had landed a big trout he sat
down and held the fish up before him and looked proudly at the graceful,
glowing, arrowy shape.

"I never did anything in the Senate that seemed half so important as
this," he remarked thoughtfully.

While we ate our luncheon he described Jackson and spoke of the famous
cheese which he had kept on a table in the vestibule of the White House
for his callers. He described his fellow senators--Webster, Clay, Rives,
Calhoun and Benton. I remember that Webster was, in his view, the least
of them, although at his best the greatest orator. We had a delightful
day, and when I drove back to the village with him that night he told me
that I could go into the office of Wright and Baldwin after harvesting.

"It will do for a start," he said. "A little later I shall try to find a
better place for you."

I began my work taking only the studies at school which would qualify me
for surveying. I had not been in Canton a week when I received a rude
shock which was my first lesson in the ungentle art of politics. Rodney
Barnes and Uncle Peabody were standing with me in front of a store. A
man came out with Colonel Hand and said in a loud voice that Sile Wright
was a spoilsman and a drunkard--in politics for what he could get out of
it.

My uncle turned toward the stranger with a look of amazement. Rodney
Barnes dropped the knife with which he had been whittling. I felt my
face turning red.

"What's that, mister?" asked Rodney Barnes.

The stranger repeated his statement and added that he could prove it.

"Le's see ye," said Barnes as he approached him.

There was a half moment of silence.

"Go on with yer proof," Rodney insisted, his great right hand trembling
as he whittled.

"There are plenty of men in Albany that know the facts," said the
stranger.

"Any other proof to offer?"

"That's enough."

"Oh, I see, ye can't prove it to-day, but ye don't mind sayin' it
to-day. Say, mister, where do you live?"

"None o' your dam' business."

Swift as a cat's paw the big, right hand of Rodney caught the man by his
shoulder and threw him down. Seizing him by the collar and the seat of
his trousers our giant friend lifted the slanderer and flung him to the
roof of a wooden awning in front of the grocer's shop near which we
stood.

"Now you stay there 'til I git cooled off or you'll be hurt," said
Rodney. "You better be out o' my reach for a few minutes."

A crowd had begun to gather.

"I want you all to take a look at that man," Rodney shouted. "He says
Sile Wright is a drunkard an' a thief."

Loud jeers followed the statement, then a volley of oaths and a moment
of danger, for somebody shouted:

"Le's tar an' feather him."

"No, we'll just look at him a few minutes," Rodney Barnes shouted. "He's
one o' the greatest curiosities that ever came to this town."

The slanderer, thoroughly frightened, stood silent a few moments like a
prisoner in the stocks. Soon the grocer let him in at an upper window.

Then the loud voice of Rodney Barnes rang like a trumpet in the words:

"Any man who says a mean thing of another when he can't prove it ought
to be treated in the same way."

"That's so," a number of voices answered.

The slanderer stayed in retirement the rest of the day and the incident
passed into history, not without leaving its impression on the people of
the two towns.

My life went on with little in it worth recording until the letter came.
I speak of it as "the letter," because of its effect upon my career. It
was from Sally, and it said:

     "DEAR BART--It's all over for a long time, perhaps forever--that
     will depend on you. I shall be true to you, if you really love me,
     even if I have to wait many, many years. Mother and father saw and
     read your letter. They say we are too young to be thinking about
     love and that we have got to stop it. How can I stop it? I guess I
     would have to stop living. But we shall have to depend upon our
     memories now. I hope that yours is as good as mine. Father says no
     more letters without his permission, and he stamped his foot so
     hard that I think he must have made a dent in the floor. Talk about
     slavery--what do you think of that? Mother says that we must
     wait--that it would make father a great deal of trouble if it were
     known that I allowed you to write. I guess the soul of old Grimshaw
     is still following you. Well, we must stretch out that lovely day
     as far as we can. Its words and its sunshine are always in my
     heart. I am risking the salvation of my soul in writing this. But
     I'd rather burn forever than not tell you how happy your letter
     made me, dear Bart. It is that Grimshaw trouble that is keeping us
     apart. On the third of June, 1844, we shall both be twenty-one--and
     I suppose that we can do as we please then. The day is a long way
     off, but I will agree to meet you that day at eleven in the morning
     under the old pine on the river where I met you that day and you
     told me that you loved me. If either or both should die our souls
     will know where to find each other. If you will solemnly promise,
     write these words and only these to my mother--Amour omnia vincit,
     but do not sign your name.

     "SALLY."

What a serious matter it seemed to me then! I remember that it gave Time
a rather slow foot. I wrote the words very neatly and plainly on a
sheet of paper and mailed it to Mrs. Dunkelberg. I wondered if Sally
would stand firm and longed to know the secrets of the future. More than
ever I was resolved to be the principal witness in some great matter, as
my friend in Ashery Lane had put it.

I was eight months with Wright and Baldwin when I was offered a
clerkship in the office of Judge Westbrook, at Cobleskill, in Schoharie
County, at two hundred a year and my board. I knew not then just how the
offer had come, but knew that the Senator must have recommended me. I
know now that he wanted a reliable witness of the rent troubles which
were growing acute in Schoharie, Delaware and Columbia Counties.

It was a trial to go so far from home, as Aunt Deel put it, but both my
aunt and uncle agreed that it was "for the best."

"Mr. Purvis" had come to work for my uncle. In the midst of my
preparations the man of gristle decided that he would like to go with me
and see the world and try his fortune in another part of the country.

How it wrung my heart, when Mr. Purvis and I got into the stage at
Canton, to see my aunt and uncle standing by the front wheel looking up
at me. How old and lonely and forlorn they looked! Aunt Deel had her
purse in her hand. I remember how she took a dollar bill out of it--I
suppose it was the only dollar she had--and looked at it a moment and
then handed it up to me.

"You better take it," she said. "I'm 'fraid you won't have enough."

How her hand and lips trembled! I have always kept that dollar.

I couldn't see them as we drove away.

I enjoyed the ride and the taverns and the talk of the passengers and
the steamboat journey through the two lakes and down the river, but
behind it all was a dark background. The shadows of my beloved friends
fell every day upon my joys. However, I would be nearer Sally. It was a
comfort when we were in Albany to reflect that she was somewhere in that
noisy, bewildering spread of streets and buildings. I walked a few
blocks from the landing, taking careful note of my way--mentally blazing
a trail for fear of getting lost--and looked wistfully up a long street.
There were many people, but no Sally.

The judge received me kindly and gave Purvis a job in his garden. I was
able to take his dictation in sound-hand and spent most of my time in
taking down contracts and correspondence and drafting them into proper
form, which I had the knack of doing rather neatly. I was impressed by
the immensity of certain towns in the neighborhood, and there were some
temptations in my way. Many people, and especially the prominent men,
indulged in ardent spirits.

One of my young friends induced me to go to dinner with him at Van
Brocklin's, the fashionable restaurant of a near city. We had a bottle
of wine and some adventures and I was sick for a week after it. Every
day of that week I attended a convention of my ancestors and received
much good advice. Toward the end of it my friend came to see me.

"There's no use of my trying to be a gentleman," I said. "I fear that
another effort would hang my pelt on the door. It's a disgrace,
probably, but I've got to be good. I'm driven to it."

"The way I look at it is this," said he. "We're young fellows and making
a good deal of money and we can't tell when we'll die and leave a lot
that we'll never get any good of."

It was a down-country, aristocratic view of the responsibilities of
youth and quite new to me. Caligula was worried in a like manner, I
believe. We had near us there a little section of the old world which
was trying, in a half-hearted fashion, to maintain itself in the midst
of a democracy. It was the manorial life of the patroons--a relic of
ancient feudalism which had its beginning in 1629, when The West Indies
Company issued its charter of Privileges and Exemptions. That charter
offered to any member of the company who should, within four years,
bring fifty adults to the New Netherlands and establish them along the
Hudson, a liberal grant of land, to be called a manor, of which the
owner or patroon should be full proprietor and chief magistrate. The
settlers were to be exempt from taxation for ten years, but under bond
to stay in one place and develop it. In the beginning the patroon built
houses and barns and furnished cattle, seed and tools. The tenants for
themselves and their heirs agreed to pay him a fixed rent forever in
stock and produce and, further, to grind at the owner's mill and neither
to hunt nor fish.

Judge Westbrook, in whose office I worked, was counsel and collector for
the patroons, notably for the manors of Livingston and Van
Renssalaer--two little kingdoms in the heart of the great republic.

I spent two years at my work and studied in the office of the learned
judge with an ever-present but diminishing sense of homesickness. I
belonged to the bowling and athletic club and had many friends.

Mr. Louis Latour, of Jefferson County, whom I had met in the company of
Mr. Dunkelberg, came during my last year there to study law in the
office of the judge, a privilege for which he was indebted to the
influence of Senator Wright, I understood. He was a gay Lothario,
always boasting of his love affairs, and I had little to do with him.

One day in May near the end of my two years in Cobleskill Judge
Westbrook gave me two writs to serve on settlers in the neighborhood of
Baldwin Heights for non-payment of rent. He told me what I knew, that
there was bitter feeling against the patroons in that vicinity and that
I might encounter opposition to the service of the writs. If so I was
not to press the matter, but bring them back and he would give them to
the sheriff.

"I do not insist on your taking this task upon you," he added. "I want a
man of tact to go and talk with these people and get their point of
view. If you don't care to undertake it I'll send another man."

"I think that I would enjoy the task," I said in ignorance of that
hornet's nest back in the hills.

"Take Purvis with you," he said. "He can take care of the horses, and as
those back-country folk are a little lawless it will be just as well to
have a witness with you. They tell me that Purvis is a man of nerve and
vigor."

Thus very deftly and without alarming me he had given me a notion of the
delicate nature of my task. He had great faith in me those days. Well, I
had had remarkably good luck with every matter he had put into my
hands. He used to say that I would make a diplomat and playfully called
me "Lord Chesterfield"--perhaps because I had unconsciously acquired a
dignity and courtesy of manner beyond my years a little.

"Mr. Purvis" had been busy building up a conversational reputation for
frightfulness in the gardens. He was held in awe by a number of the
simple-minded men with whom he worked. For him life had grown very
pleasant again--a sweet, uninterrupted dream of physical power and
fleeing enemies. I tremble to think what might have happened if his
strength and courage had equaled his ambition. I smiled when the judge
spoke of his nerve and vigor. Still I was glad of his company, for I
enjoyed Purvis.

I had drafted my letters for the day and was about to close my desk and
start on my journey when Louis Latour came in and announced that he had
brought the writs from the judge and was going with me.

"You will need a sheriff's deputy anyhow, and I have been appointed for
just this kind of work," he assured me.

"I don't object to your going but you must remember that I am in
command," I said, a little taken back, for I had no good opinion either
of his prudence or his company.

He was four years older than I but I had better judgment, poor as it
was, and our chief knew it.

"The judge told me that I could go but that I should be under your
orders," he answered. "I'm not going to be a fool. I'm trying to
establish a reputation for good sense myself."

We got our dinners and set out soon after one o'clock. Louis wore a
green velvet riding coat and handsome top boots and snug-fitting, gray
trousers. He was a gallant figure on the high-headed chestnut mare which
his father had sent to him. Purvis and I, in our working suits, were
like a pair of orderlies following a general. We rode two of the best
saddle horses in the judge's stable and there were no better in that
region.

I had read the deeds of the men we were to visit. They were brothers and
lived on adjoining farms with leases which covered three hundred and
fifty acres of land. Their great-grandfather had agreed to pay a yearly
rent forever of sixty-two bushels of good, sweet, merchantable, winter
wheat, eight yearling cattle and four sheep in good flesh and sixteen
fat hens, all to be delivered in the city of Albany on the first day of
January of each year. So, feeling that I was engaged in a just cause, I
bravely determined to serve the writs if possible.

It was a delightful ride up into the highlands through woods just
turning green. Full flowing noisy brooks cut the road here and there on
their way to the great river. Latour rode along beside me for a few
miles and began to tell of his sentimental adventures and conquests. His
talk showed that he had the heart of a stone. It made me hate him and
the more because he had told of meeting Sally on the street in Albany
and that he was in love with her. It was while he was telling me how he
had once fooled a country girl that I balked. He thought it a fine joke,
for his father had cut his allowance two hundred a year so that the sum
they had had to pay in damages had kept his nose "on the grindstone" for
two years. Then I stopped my horse with an exclamation which would have
astonished Lord Chesterfield, I am sure.

The young man drew rein and asked:

"What's the matter?"

"Only this. I shall have to try to lick you before we go any further."

"How's that?"

I dismounted and tightened the girth of my saddle. My spirit was taking
swift counsel with itself at the brink of the precipice. It was then
that I seemed to see the angry face of old Kate--the Silent Woman--at my
elbow, and it counseled me to speak out. Again her spirit was leading
me. Calmly and slowly these words came from my lips:

"Because I think you are a low-lived, dirty-souled dog of a man and if
you can stand that without fighting you are a coward to boot."

This was not the language of diplomacy but at the time it seemed to me
rather kind and flattering.

Latour flashed red and jumped off his horse and struck at me with his
crop. I caught it in my hand and said:

"Hold on. Let's proceed decently and in order. Purvis, you hold these
horses while we fight it out."

Purvis caught Latour's horse and brought the others close to mine and
gathered the reins in his hand. I shall never forget how pale he looked
and how fast he was breathing and how his hands trembled.

I jumped off and ran for my man. He faced me bravely. I landed a
stunning blow squarely on his nose and he fell to the ground. Long
before, Hacket had told me that a swift attack was half the battle and I
have found it so more than once, for I have never been slow to fight for
a woman's honor or a friend's or my own--never, thank God! Latour lay so
quietly for a moment that I was frightened. His face was covered with
blood. He came to and I helped him up and he rushed at me like a tiger.
I remember that we had a long round then with our fists. I knew how to
take care of my face and stomach and that I did while he wore himself
out in wild blows and desperate lunges.

We had dismounted near the end of a bridge. He fought me to the middle
of it and when his speed slackened I took the offensive and with such
energy that he clinched. I threw him on the planks and we went down
together, he under me, in a fall so violent that it shook the bridge and
knocked the breath out of him. This seemed to convince Latour that I was
his master. His distress passed quickly and he got up and began brushing
the dust from his pretty riding coat and trousers. I saw that he was
winded and in no condition to resume the contest.

I felt as fresh as if I had mowed only once around the field, to quote a
saying of my uncle.

"We'll have to fight it out some other day," he said. "I'm weak from the
loss of blood. My nose feels as if it was turned wrong side out."

"It ought to be used to the grindstone after two years of practise," I
remarked. "Come down to the brook and let me wash the blood off you."

Without a word he followed me and I washed his face as gently as I could
and did my best to clean his shirt and waistcoat with my handkerchief.
His nose was badly swollen.

"Latour, women have been good to me," I said. "I've been taught to think
that a man who treats them badly is the basest of all men. I can't help
it. The feeling has gone into my bones. I'll fight you as often as I
hear you talk as you did."

He reeled with weakness as he started toward his horse. I helped him
into the saddle.

"I guess I'm not as bad as I talk," he remarked.

If it were so he must have revised his view of that distinction which he
had been lying to achieve. It was a curious type of vanity quite new to
me then.

Young Mr. Latour fell behind me as we rode on. The silence was broken
presently by "Mr. Purvis," who said:

"You can hit like the hind leg of a horse. I never sees more speed an'
gristle in a feller o' your age."

"Nobody could swing the scythe and the ax as much as I have without
getting some gristle, and the schoolmaster taught me how to use it," I
answered. "But there's one thing that no man ought to be conceited
about."

"What's that?"

"His own gristle. I remember Mr. Hacket told me once that the worst kind
of a fool was the man who was conceited over his fighting power and
liked to talk about it. If I ever get that way I hope that I shall have
it licked out of me."

"I never git conceited--not that I ain't some reason to be," said Mr.
Purvis with a highly serious countenance. He seemed to have been blind
to that disparity between his acts and sayings which had distinguished
him in Lickitysplit.

I turned my head away to hide my smiles and we rode on in silence.

"I guess I've got somethin' here that is cocollated to please ye," he
said.

He took a letter from his pocket and gave it to me. My heart beat faster
when I observed that the superscription on the envelope was in Sally's
handwriting. The letter, which bore neither signature nor date line,
contained these words:

     "Will you please show this to Mr. Barton Baynes? I hope it will
     convince him that there is one who still thinks of the days of the
     past and of the days that are coming--especially one day."

Tears dimmed my eyes as I read and re-read the message. More than two of
those four years had passed and, as the weeks had dragged along I had
thought more and more of Sally and the day that was coming. I had bought
a suit of evening clothes and learned to dance and gone out to parties
and met many beautiful young ladies but none of them had the charm of
Sally. The memory of youth--true-hearted, romantic, wonder-working
youth--had enthroned her in its golden castle and was defending her
against the present commonplace herd of mere human beings. No one of
them had played with me in the old garden or stood by the wheat-field
with flying hair, as yellow as the grain, and delighted me with the
sweetest words ever spoken. No one of them had been glorified with the
light and color of a thousand dreams.

I rode in silence, thinking of her and of those beautiful days now
receding into the past and of my aunt and uncle. I had written a letter
to them every week and one or the other had answered it. Between the
lines I had detected the note of loneliness. They had told me the small
news of the countryside. How narrow and monotonous it all seemed to me
then! Rodney Barnes had bought a new farm; John Axtell had been hurt in
a runaway; my white mare had got a spavin!

"Hello, mister!"

I started out of my reverie with a little jump of surprise. A big,
rough-dressed, bearded man stood in the middle of the road with a gun on
his shoulder.

"Where ye goin'?"

"Up to the Van Heusen place."

"Where do ye hail from?"

"Cobleskill."

"On business for Judge Westbrook?"

"Yes."

"Writs to serve?"

"Yes," I answered with no thought of my imprudence.

"Say, young man, by hokey nettie! I advise you to turn right around and
go back."

"Why?"

"'Cause if ye try to serve any writs ye'll git into trouble."

"That's interesting," I answered. "I am not seeking a quarrel, but I do
want to see how the people feel about the payment of their rents."

"Say mister, look down into that valley there," the stranger began. "See
all them houses--they're the little houses o' the poor. See how smooth
the land is? Who built them houses? Who cleaned that land? Was it Mr.
Livingston? By hokey nettie! I guess not. The men who live there built
the houses an' cleaned the land. We ain't got nothin' else--not a
dollar! It's all gone to the landlord. I am for the men who made every
rod o' that land an' who own not a single rod of it. Years an' years ago
a king gave it to a man who never cut one tree or laid one stone on
another. The deeds say that we must pay a rent o' so many bushels o'
wheat a year but the land is no good for wheat, an' ain't been for a
hundred years. Why, ye see, mister, a good many things have happened in
three hundred years. The land was willin' to give wheat then an' a good
many folks was willin' to be slaves. By hokey nettie! they had got used
to it. Kings an' magistrates an' slavery didn't look so bad to 'em as
they do now. Our brains have changed--that's what's the matter--same as
the soil has changed. We want to be free like other folks in this
country. America has growed up around us but here we are livin' back in
old Holland three hundred years ago. It don't set good. We see lots o'
people that don't have to be slaves. They own their land an' they ain't
worked any harder than we have or been any more savin'. That's why I say
we can't pay the rents no more an' ye mustn't try to make us. By hokey
nettie! You'll have trouble if ye do."

The truth had flashed upon me out of the words of this simple man. Until
then I had heard only one side of the case. If I were to be the servant
of justice, as Mr. Wright had advised, what was I to do? These tenants
had been Grimshawed and were being Grimshawed out of the just fruits of
their toil by the feudal chief whose remote ancestor had been a king's
favorite. For half a moment I watched the wavering needle of my compass
and then:

"If what you say is true I think you are right," I said.

"I don't agree with you," said young Latour. "The patroons have a clear
title to this land. If the tenants don't want to pay the rents they
ought to get out and make way for others."

"Look here, young man, my name is Josiah Curtis," said the stranger. "I
live in the first house on the right-hand side o' the road. You may
tell the judge that I won't pay rent no more--not as long as I live--and
I won't git out, either."

"Mr. Latour, you and Purvis may go on slowly--I'll overtake you soon," I
said.

They went on and left me alone with Curtis. He was getting excited and I
wished to allay his fears.

"Don't let him try to serve no writs or there'll be hell to pay in this
valley," said Curtis.

"In that case I shall not try to serve the writs. I don't want to stir
up the neighborhood, but I want to know the facts. I shall try to see
other tenants and report what they say. It may lead to a settlement."

We went on together to the top of the hill near which we had been
standing. Far ahead I saw a cloud of dust but no other sign of Latour
and Purvis. They must have spurred their horses into a run. The fear
came to me that Latour would try to serve the writs in spite of me. They
were in his pocket. What a fool I had been not to call for them. My
companion saw the look of concern in my face.

"I don't like that young feller," said Curtis. "He's in fer trouble."

He ran toward his house, which was only a few rods beyond us, while I
started on in pursuit of the two men at top speed. Before my horse had
taken a dozen jumps I heard a horn blowing behind me and its echo in
the hills. Within a half a moment a dozen horns were sounding in the
valleys around me. What a contrast to the quiet in which we had been
riding was this pandemonium which had broken loose in the countryside. A
little ahead I could see men running out of the fields. My horse had
begun to lather, for the sun was hot. My companions were far ahead. I
could not see the dust of their heels now. I gave up trying to catch
them and checked the speed of my horse and went on at a walk. The horns
were still sounding. Some of them seemed to be miles away. About twenty
rods ahead I saw three riders in strange costumes come out of a dooryard
and take the road at a wild gallop in pursuit of Latour and Purvis. They
had not discovered me. I kept as calm as I could in the midst of this
excitement. I remember laughing when I thought of the mess in which "Mr.
Purvis" would shortly find himself.

I passed the house from which the three riders had just turned into the
road. A number of women and an old man and three or four children stood
on the porch. They looked at me in silence as I was passing and then
began to hiss and jeer. It gave me a feeling I have never known since
that day. I jogged along over the brow of a hill when, at a white, frame
house, I saw the center toward which all the men of the countryside were
coming.

Suddenly I heard the hoof-beats of a horse behind me. I stopped, and
looking over my shoulder saw a rider approaching me in the costume of an
Indian chief. A red mask covered his face. A crest of eagle feathers
circled the edge of his cap. Without a word he rode on at my side. I
knew not then that he was the man Josiah Curtis--nor could I at any time
have sworn that it was he.

A crowd had assembled around the house ahead. I could see a string of
horsemen coming toward it from the other side. I wondered what was going
to happen to me. What a shouting and jeering in the crowded dooryard! I
could see the smoke of a fire. We reached the gate. Men in Indian masks
and costumes gathered around us.

"Order! Sh-sh-sh," was the loud command of the man beside me in whom I
recognized--or thought that I did--the voice of Josiah Curtis.

"What has happened?"

"One o' them tried to serve a writ an' we have tarred an' feathered
him."

Just then I heard the voice of Purvis shouting back in the crowd this
impassioned plea:

"Bart, for God's sake, come here."

I turned to Curtis and said:

"If the gentleman tried to serve the writ he acted without orders and
deserves what he has got. The other fellow is simply a hired man who
came along to take care of the horses. He couldn't tell the difference
between a writ and a hole in the ground."

"Men, you have gone fur enough," said Curtis. "This man is all right.
Bring the other men here and put 'em on their horses an' I'll escort 'em
out o' the town."

They brought Latour on a rail amidst roars of laughter. What a
bear-like, poultrified, be-poodled object he was!--burred and sheathed
in rumpled gray feathers from his hair to his heels. The sight and smell
of him scared the horses. There were tufts of feathers over his ears and
on his chin. They had found great joy in spoiling that aristocratic
livery in which he had arrived.

Then came poor Purvis. They had just begun to apply the tar and feathers
to him when Curtis had stopped the process. He had only a shaking ruff
of long feathers around his neck. They lifted the runaways into their
saddles. Purvis started off at a gallop, shouting "Come on, Bart," but
they stopped him.

"Don't be in a hurry, young feller," said one of the Indians, and then
there was another roar of laughter.

"Go back to yer work now," Curtis shouted, and turning to me added: "You
ride along with me and let our feathered friends follow us."

So we started up the road on our way back to Cobleskill. Soon Latour
began to complain that he was hot and the feathers pricked him.

"You come alongside me here an' raise up a little an' I'll pick the
inside o' yer legs an' pull out yer tail feathers," said Curtis. "If you
got 'em stuck into yer skin you'd be a reg'lar chicken an' no mistake."

I helped in the process and got my fingers badly tarred.

"This is a dangerous man to touch--his soul is tarred," said Curtis.
"Keep away from him."

"What a lookin' skunk you be!" he laughed as he went on with the
picking.

We resumed our journey. Our guide left us at the town line some three
miles beyond.

"Thank God the danger is over," said Purvis. "The tar on my neck has
melted an' run down an' my shirt sticks like the bark on a tree. I'm
sick o' the smell o' myself. If I could find a skunk I'd enjoy holdin'
him in my lap a while. I'm goin' back to St. Lawrence County about as
straight as I can go. I never did like this country anyway."

He had picked the feathers out of his neck and Latour was now busy
picking his arms and shoulders. Presently he took off his feathered coat
and threw it away, saying:

"They'll have to pay for this. Every one o' those jackrabbits will have
to settle with me."

"You brought it on yourself," I said. "You ran away from me and got us
all into trouble by being too smart. You tried to be a fool and
succeeded beyond your expectation. My testimony wouldn't help you any."

"You're always against the capitalist," he answered.

It was dark when I left my companions in Cobleskill. I changed my
clothes and had my supper and found Judge Westbrook in his home and
reported the talk of Curtis and our adventure and my view of the
situation back in the hills. I observed that he gave the latter a cold
welcome.

"I shall send the sheriff and a posse," he said with a troubled look.

"Pardon me, but I think it will make a bad matter worse," I answered.

"We must not forget that the patroons are our clients," he remarked.

I yielded and went on with my work. In the next week or so I satisfied
myself of the rectitude of my opinions. Then came the most critical
point in my history--a conflict with Thrift and Fear on one side and
Conscience on the other.

The judge raised my salary. I wanted the money, but every day I would
have to lend my help, directly or indirectly, to the prosecution of
claims which I could not believe to be just. My heart went out of my
work. I began to fear myself. For weeks I had not the courage to take
issue with the learned judge.

One evening I went to his home determined to put an end to my
unhappiness. After a little talk I told him frankly that I thought the
patroons should seek a friendly settlement with their tenants.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because their position is unjust, un-American and untenable," was my
answer.

He rose and gave me his hand and a smile of forbearance in consideration
of my youth, as I took it.

I left much irritated and spent a sleepless night in the course of which
I decided to cling to the ideals of David Hoffman and Silas Wright.

In the morning I resigned my place and asked to be relieved as soon as
the convenience of the judge would allow it. He tried to keep me with
gentle persuasion and higher pay, but I was firm. Then I wrote a long
letter to my friend the Senator.

Again I had chosen my way and with due regard to the compass.




CHAPTER XVII

THE MAN WITH THE SCYTHE


It was late in June before I was able to disengage myself from the work
of the judge's office. Meanwhile there had been blood shed back in the
hills. One of the sheriff's posse had been severely wounded by a bullet
and had failed to serve the writs. The judge had appealed to the
governor. People were talking of "the rent war."

Purvis had returned to St. Lawrence County and hired to my uncle for the
haying. He had sent me a letter which contained the welcome information
that the day he left the stage at Canton, he had seen Miss Dunkelberg on
the street.

"She was lookin' top-notch--stop't and spoke to me," he went on. "You
cood a nocked me down with a fether I was that scairt. She ast me how
you was an' I lookt her plum in the eye an' I says: all grissul from his
head to his heels, mam, an' able to lick Lew Latour, which I seen him do
in quick time an' tolable severe. He can fight like a bob-tailed cat
when he gits a-goin', I says."

What a recommendation to the sweet, unsullied spirit of Sally! Without
knowledge of my provocation what would she think of me? He had endowed
me with all the frightfulness of his own cherished ideal, and what was I
to do about it? Well, I was going home and would try to see her.

What a joy entered my heart when I was aboard the steamboat, at last,
and on my way to all most dear to me! As I entered Lake Champlain I
consulted the map and decided to leave the boat at Chimney Point to find
Kate Fullerton, who had written to the schoolmaster from Canterbury. My
aunt had said in a letter that old Kate was living there and that a
great change had come over her. So I went ashore and hired a horse of
the ferryman--one of those "Green Mountain ponies" of which my uncle had
told me: "They'll take any gait that suits ye, except a slow one, an'
keep it to the end o' the road."

I think that I never had a horse so bent on reaching that traditional
"end of the road." He was what they called a "racker" those days, and a
rocking-chair was not easier to ride. He took me swiftly across the wide
flat and over the hills and seemed to resent my effort to slow him.

I passed through Middlebury and rode into the grounds of the college,
where the Senator had been educated, and on out to Weybridge to see
where he had lived as a boy. I found the Wright homestead--a
comfortable white house at the head of a beautiful valley with wooded
hills behind it--and rode up to the door. A white-haired old lady in a
black lace cap was sitting on its porch looking out at the sunlit
fields.

"Is this where Senator Wright lived when he was a boy?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," the old lady answered.

"I am from Canton."

She rose from her chair.

"You from Canton!" she exclaimed. "Why, of all things! That's where my
boy's home is. I'm glad to see you. Go an' put your horse in the barn."

I dismounted and she came near me.

"Silas Wright is my boy," she said. "What is your name?"

"Barton Baynes," I answered as I hitched my horse.

"Barton Baynes! Why, Silas has told me all about you in his letters. He
writes to me every week. Come and sit down."

We sat down together on the porch.

"Silas wrote in his last letter that you were going to leave your place
in Cobleskill," she continued to my surprise. "He said that he was glad
you had decided not to stay."

It was joyful news to me, for the Senator's silence had worried me and
I had begun to think with alarm of my future.

"I wish that he would take you to Washington to help him. The poor man
has too much to do."

"I should think it a great privilege to go," I answered.

"My boy likes you," she went on. "You have been brought up just as he
was. I used to read to him every evening when the candles were lit. How
hard he worked to make a man of himself! I have known the mother's joy.
I can truly say, 'Now let thy servant depart in peace.'"

"'For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,'" I quoted.

"You see I know much about you and much about your aunt and uncle," said
Mrs. Wright.

She left me for a moment and soon the whole household was gathered about
me on the porch, the men having come up from the fields. The Senator had
told them on his last visit of my proficiency as a sound-hand writer and
I amused them by explaining the art of it. They put my horse in the barn
and pressed me to stay for dinner, which I did. It was a plain boiled
dinner at which the Senator's cousin and his hired man sat down in their
shirt-sleeves and during which I heard many stories of the boyhood of
the great man. As I was going the gentle old lady gave me a pair of
mittens which her distinguished son had worn during his last winter in
college. I remember well how tenderly she handled them!

"I hope that Silas will get you to help him"--those were the last words
she said to me when I bade her good-by.

The visit had set me up a good deal. The knowledge that I had been so
much in the Senator's thoughts, and that he approved my decision to
leave the learned judge, gave me new heart. I had never cherished the
thought that he would take me to Washington although, now and then, a
faint star of hope had shone above the capitol in my dreams. As I rode
along I imagined myself in that great arena and sitting where I could
see the flash of its swords and hear the thunder of Homeric voices. That
is the way I thought of it. Well, those were no weak, piping times of
peace, my brothers. They were times of battle and as I rode through that
peaceful summer afternoon I mapped my way to the fighting line. I knew
that I should enjoy the practise of the law but I had begun to feel that
eventually my client would be the people whose rights were subject to
constant aggression as open as that of the patroons or as insidious as
that of the canal ring.

The shadows were long when I got to Canterbury. At the head of its main
street I looked down upon a village green and some fine old elms. It was
a singularly quiet place. I stopped in front of a big white meeting
house. An old man was mowing in its graveyard near the highway. Slowly
he swung his scythe.

"It's a fine day," I said.

"No, it ain't, nuther-too much hard work in it," said he.

"Do you know where Kate Fullerton lives?" I asked.

"Well, it's purty likely that I do," he answered as he stood resting on
his snath. "I've lived seventy-two years on this hill come the
fourteenth day o' June, an' if I didn't know where she lived I'd be
'shamed of it."

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment and added:

"I know everybody that lives here an' everybody that dies here, an' some
that orto be livin' but ain't an' some that orto be dead which ye
couldn't kill `em with an ax--don't seem so--I declare it don't. Do ye
see that big house down there in the trees?"

I could see the place at which he pointed far back from the village
street in the valley below us, the house nearly hidden by tall
evergreens.

"Yes," I answered.

"No ye can't, nuther--leastways if ye can ye've got better eyes'n mos'
people, ye can't see only a patch o' the roof an' one chimney--them pine
trees bein' thicker'n the hair on a dog. It's the gloomiest ol' house
in all creation, I guess. Wal, that's the Squire Fullerton place--he's
Kate's father."

"Does the squire live there?"

"No, sir--not eggzac'ly. He's dyin' there--been dyin' there fer two year
er more. By gosh! It's wonderful how hard 'tis fer some folks to quit
breathin'. Say, be you any o' his fam'ly?"

"No."

"Nor no friend o' his?"

"No!"

"Course not. He never had a friend in his life--too mean! He's too mean
to die, mister--too mean fer hell an' I wouldn't wonder--honest, I
wouldn't--mebbe that's why God is keepin' him here--jest to meller him
up a little. Say, mister, be you in a hurry?"

"No."

"Yis ye be. Everybody's in a hurry--seems to me--since we got steam
power in the country. Say, hitch yer hoss an' come in here. I want to
show ye suthin'."

He seemed to enjoy contradicting me.

"Nobody seems in a hurry in this town," I said.

"Don't, hey? Wal, ye ought to 'a' seen Deacon Norton run when some
punkins on his side hill bu'st their vines an' come rollin' down an'
chased him half a mile into the valley."

I dismounted and hitched my horse to the fence and followed him into the
old churchyard, between weather-stained mossy headstones and graves
overgrown with wild roses. Near the far end of these thick-sown acres he
stopped.

"Here's where the buryin' begun," said my guide. "The first hole in the
hill was dug for a Fullerton."

There were many small monuments and slabs of marble--some spotted with
lichens and all in commemoration of departed Fullertons.

"Say, look a' that," said my guide as he pulled aside the stem of a
leafy brier red with roses. "Jest read that, mister."

My keen eyes slowly spelled out the time-worn words on a slab of stained
marble:

     Sacred to the memory of
     Katherine Fullerton
          1787-1806
     "Proclaim his Word in every place
     That they are dead who fall from grace."

A dark shadow fell upon the house of my soul and I heard a loud rapping
at its door which confused me until, looking out, I saw the strange
truth of the matter. Rose leaves and blossoms seemed to be trying to
hide it with their beauty, but in vain.

"I understand," I said.

"No ye don't. Leastways I don't believe ye do--not correct. Squire
Fullerton dug a grave here an' had an empty coffin put into it away back
in 1806. It means that he wanted everybody to understan' that his girl
was jest the same as dead to him an' to God. Say, he knew all about
God's wishes--that man. Gosh! He has sent more folks to hell than there
are in it, I guess. Say, mister, do ye know why he sent her there?"

I shook my head.

"Yis ye do, too. It's the same ol' thing that's been sendin' women to
hell ever since the world begun. Ye know hell must 'a' been the
invention of a man--that's sartin--an' it was mostly fer women an'
children--that's sartiner--an' fer all the men that didn't agree with
him. Set down here an' I'll tell ye the hull story. My day's work is
done."

We sat down together and he went on as follows:

"Did ye ever see Kate Fullerton?"

"Yes."

"No ye didn't, nuther. Yer too young. Mebbe ye seen her when she was old
an' broke down but that wa'n't Kate--no more'n I'm Bill Tweedy, which I
ain't. Kate was as handsome as a golden robin. Hair yeller as his breast
an' feet as spry as his wings an' a voice as sweet as his song, an' eyes
as bright as his'n--yis, sir--ye couldn't beat her fer looks. That was
years and years ago. Her mother died when Kate was ten year old--there's
her grave in there with the sickle an' the sheaf an' the portry on it.
That was unfort'nit an' no mistake. Course the squire married ag'in but
the new wife wa'n't no kind of a mother to the girl an' you know,
mister, there was a young scoundrel here by the name o' Grimshaw. His
father was a rich man--owned the cooper shop an' the saw-mill an' the
tannery an' a lot o' cleared land down in the valley. He kep' comp'ny
with her fer two or three year. Then all of a sudden folks began to
talk--the women in partic'lar. Ye know men invented hell an' women keep
up the fire. Kate didn't look right to 'em. Fust we knew, young Grimshaw
had dropped her an' was keepin' comp'ny with another gal--yis, sir. Do
ye know why?"

Before I could answer he went on:

"No ye don't--leastways I don't believe ye do. It was 'cause her father
was richer'n the squire an' had promised his gal ten thousan' dollars
the day she was married. All of a sudden Kate disappeared. We didn't
know what had happened fer a long time."

"One day the ol' squire got me to dig this grave an' put up the headstun
an' then he tol' me the story. He'd turned the poor gal out o' doors.
God o' Israel! It was in the night--yis, sir--it was in the night that
he sent her away. Goldarn him! He didn't have no more heart than a
grasshopper--no sir--not a bit. I could 'a' brained him with my shovel,
but I didn't.

"I found out where the gal had gone an' I follered her--yis I did--found
her in the poorhouse way over on Pussley Hill--uh huh! She jes' put her
arms 'round my neck an' cried an' cried. I guess 'twas 'cause I looked
kind o' friendly--uh huh! I tol' her she should come right over to our
house an' stay jest as long as she wanted to as soon as she got
well--yis, sir, I did.

"She was sick all summer long--kind o' out o' her head, ye know, an' I
used to go over hossback an' take things fer her to eat. An' one day
when I was over there they was wonderin' what they was goin' to do with
her little baby. I took it in my arms an' I'll be gol dummed if it
didn't grab hold o' my nose an' hang on like a puppy to a root. When
they tried to take it away it grabbed its fingers into my whiskers an'
hollered like a panther--yis, sir. Wal, ye know I jes' fetched that
little baby boy home in my arms, ay uh! My wife scolded me like Sam
Hill--yis, sir--she had five of her own. I tol' her I was goin' to take
it back in a day er two but after it had been in the house three days ye
couldn't 'a' pulled it away from her with a windlass.

"We brought him up an' he was alwuss a good boy. We called him
Enoch--Enoch Rone--did ye ever hear the name?"

"'No.'

"I didn't think 'twas likely but I'm alwuss hopin'.

"Early that fall Kate got better an' left the poorhouse afoot. Went away
somewheres--nobody knew where. Some said she'd crossed the lake an' gone
away over into York State, some said she'd drowned herself. By'm by we
heard that she'd gone way over into St. Lawrence County where Silas
Wright lives an' where young Grimshaw had settled down after he got
married.

"Wal, 'bout five year ago the squire buried his second wife--there 'tis
over in there back o' Kate's with the little speckled angel on it.
Nobody had seen the squire outside o' his house for years until the
funeral--he was crippled so with rheumatiz. After that he lived all
'lone in the big house with ol' Tom Linney an' his wife, who've worked
there fer 'bout forty year, I guess.

"Wal, sir, fust we knew Kate was there in the house livin' with her
father. We wouldn't 'a' knowed it, then, if it hadn't been that Tom
Linney come over one day an' said he guessed the ol' squire wanted to
see me--no, sir, we wouldn't--fer the squire ain't sociable an' the
neighbors never darken his door. She must 'a' come in the night, jest as
she went--nobody see her go an' nobody see her come, an' that's a fact.
Wal, one day las' fall after the leaves was off an' they could see a
corner o' my house through the bushes, Tom was walkin' the ol' man
'round the room. All to once he stopped an' p'inted at my house through
the winder an' kep' p'intin'. Tom come over an' said he ca'llated the
squire wanted to see me. So I went there. Kate met me at the door. Gosh!
How old an' kind o' broke down she looked! But I knew her the minute I
set my eyes on her--uh huh--an' she knew me--yis, sir--she smiled an'
tears come to her eyes an' she patted my hand like she wanted to tell me
that she hadn't forgot, but she never said a word--not a word. The ol'
squire had the palsy, so 't he couldn't use his hands an' his throat was
paralyzed--couldn't speak ner nothin'. Where do ye suppose he was when I
found him?"

"In bed?" I asked.

"No, sir--no, siree! He was in hell--that's where he was--reg'lar ol'
fashioned, down-east hell, burnin' with fire an' brimstun, that he'd had
the agency for an' had recommended to every sinner in the neighborhood.
He was settin' in his room. God o' Isr'el! You orto 'a' seen the motions
he made with his hands an' the way he tried to speak when I went in
there, but all I could hear was jest a long yell an' a kind of a rattle
in his throat. Heavens an' airth! how desperit he tried to spit out the
thing that was gnawin' his vitals. Ag'in an' ag'in he'd try to tell me.
Lord God! how he did work!

"All to once it come acrost me what he wanted--quick as ye could say
scat. He wanted to have Kate's headstun took down an' put away--that's
what he wanted. That stun was kind o' layin' on his stummick an' painin'
of him day an' night. He couldn't stan' it. He knew that he was goin' to
die purty soon an' that Kate would come here an' see it an' that
everybody would see her standin' here by her own grave, an' it worried
him. It was kind o' like a fire in his belly.

"I guess, too, he couldn't bear the idee o' layin' down fer his las'
sleep beside that hell hole he'd dug fer Kate--no, sir!

"Wal, ye know, mister, I jes' shook my head an' never let on that I knew
what he meant an' let him wiggle an' twist like a worm on a hot griddle,
an' beller like a cut bull 'til he fell back in a swoon.

"Damn him! it don't give him no rest. He tries to tell everybody he
sees--that's what they say. He bellers day an' night an' if you go down
there he'll beller to you an' you'll know what it's about, but the
others don't.

"You an' me are the only ones that knows the secret, I guess. Some day,
'fore he dies, I'm goin' to take up that headstun an' hide it, but he'll
never know it's done--no, sir--not 'til he gits to the judgment seat,
anyway."

The old man stopped and rubbed his hands together as if he were washing
them of the whole matter. The dusk of evening had fallen and crocked the
white marble and blurred the lettered legends around us. The mossy
stones now reminded me only of the innumerable host of the dead. Softly
the notes of a song sparrow scattered down into the silence that
followed the strange story.

The old man rose and straightened himself and blew out his breath and
brushed his hands upon his trousers by way of stepping down into this
world again out of the close and dusty loft of his memory. But I called
him back.

"What has become of Enoch?" I asked.

"Wal, sir, Enoch started off west 'bout three year ago an' we ain't
heard a word from him since that day--nary a word, mister. I suppose we
will some time. He grew into a good man, but there was a kind of a queer
streak in the blood, as ye might say, on both sides kind o'. We've wrote
letters out to Wisconsin, where he was p'intin' for, an' to places on
the way, but we can't git no news 'bout him. Mebbe he was killed by the
Injuns."

We walked out of the graveyard together in silence. Dimly above a
distant ridge I could see stark, dead timber looming on a scarlet cloud
in the twilight. It is curious how carefully one notes the setting of
the scene in which his spirit has been deeply stirred.

I could see a glimmer of a light in the thicket of pines down the
valley. I unhitched and mounted my horse.

"Take the first turn to the right," said the old man as he picked up his
scythe.

"I'm very much obliged to you," I said.

"No ye ain't, nuther," he answered. "Leastways there ain't no reason why
ye should be."

My horse, impatient as ever to find the end of the road, hurried me
along and in a moment or two we were down under the pine grove that
surrounded the house of old Squire Fullerton--a big, stone house with a
graveled road around it. A great black dog came barking and growling at
me from the front porch. I rode around the house and he followed. Beyond
the windows I could see the gleam of candle-light and moving figures. A
man came out of the back door as I neared it.

"Who's there?" he demanded.

"My name is Barton Baynes from St. Lawrence County. Kate Fullerton is my
friend and I wish to see her."

"Come up to the steps, sor. Don't git off yer horse--'til I've chained
the dog. Kate'll be out in a minute."

He chained the dog to the hitching post and as he did so a loud, long,
wailing cry broke the silence of the house. It put me in mind of the
complaint of the damned which I remembered hearing the minister
describe years before at the little schoolhouse in Lickitysplit. How it
harrowed me!

The man went into the house. Soon he came out of the door with a lighted
candle in his hand, a woman following. How vividly I remember the little
murmur of delight that came from her lips when he held the candle so
that its light fell upon my face! I jumped off my horse and gave the
reins to the man and put my arms around the poor woman, whom I loved for
her sorrows and for my debt to her, and rained kisses upon her withered
cheek. Oh God! what a moment it was for both of us!

The way she held me to her breast and patted my shoulder and said "my
boy!"--in a low, faint, treble voice so like that of a child--it is one
of the best memories that I take with me into the new life now so near,
from which there is no returning.

"My boy!'" Did it mean that she had appointed me to be a kind of proxy
for the one she had lost and that she had given to me the affection
which God had stored in her heart for him? Of that, I know only what may
be conveyed by strong but unspoken assurance.

She led me into the house. She looked very neat now--in a black gown
over which was a spotless white apron and collar of lace--and much more
slender than when I had seen her last. She took me into a large room in
the front of the house with a carpet and furniture, handsome once but
now worn and decrepit. Old, time-stained engravings of scenes from the
Bible, framed in wood, hung on the walls.

She gave me a chair by the candle-stand and sat near me and looked into
my face with a smile of satisfaction. In a moment she pointed toward the
west with that forefinger, which in my presence had cut down her enemy,
and whispered the one word:

"News?"

I told all that I had heard from home and of my life in Cobleskill but
observed, presently, a faraway look in her eyes and judged that she was
not hearing me. Again she whispered:

"Sally?"

"She has been at school in Albany for a year," I said. "She is at home
now and I am going to see her."

"You love Sally?" she whispered.

"Better than I love my life."

Again she whispered: "Get married!"

"We hope to in 1844. I have agreed to meet her by the big pine tree on
the river bank at eleven o'clock the third of June, 1844. We are looking
forward to that day."

A kind of shadow seemed to come out of her spirit and rest upon her face
and for a moment she looked very solemn. I suppose that she divined the
meaning of all that. She shook her head and whispered:

"Money thirst!"

A tall, slim woman entered the room then and said that supper was ready.
Kate rose with a smile and I followed her into the dining-room where two
tables were spread. One had certain dishes on it and a white cover,
frayed and worn. She led me to the other table which was neatly covered
with snowy linen. The tall woman served a supper on deep, blue china,
cooked as only they could cook in old New England. Meanwhile I could
hear the voice of the aged squire--a weird, empty, inhuman voice it was,
utterly cut off from his intelligence. It came out of the troubled
depths of his misery.

So that house--the scene of his great sin which would presently lie down
with him in the dust--was flooded, a hundred times a day, by the unhappy
spirit of its master. In the dead of the night I heard its despair
echoing through the silent chambers.

Kate said little as we ate, or as we sat together in the shabby, great
room after supper, but she seemed to enjoy my talk and I went into the
details of my personal history. How those years of suffering and silence
had warped her soul and body in a way of speaking! They were a poor fit
in any company now. Her tongue had lost its taste for speech I doubt
not; her voice was gone, although I had heard a low plaintive murmur in
the words "my boy."

The look of her face, even while I was speaking, indicated that her
thoughts wandered restlessly, in the gloomy desert of her past. I
thought of that gay bird--like youth of hers of which the old man with
the scythe had told me and wondered. As I was thinking of this there
came a cry from the aged squire so loud and doleful that it startled me
and I turned and looked toward the open door.

Kate rose and came to my side and leaning toward my ear whispered:

"It is my father. He is always thinking of when I was a girl. He wants
me."

She bade me good night and left the room. Doubtless it was the outraged,
departed spirit of that golden time which was haunting the old squire. A
Bible lay on the table near me and I sat reading it for an hour or so. A
tall clock in a corner solemnly tolled the hour of nine. In came the
tall woman and asked in the brogue of the Irish:

"Would ye like to go to bed?"

"Yes, I am tired."

She took a candle and led me up a broad oaken stairway and into a room
of the most generous proportions. A big four-post bedstead, draped in
white, stood against a wall. The bed, sheeted in old linen, had quilted
covers. The room was noticeably clean; its furniture of old mahogany
and its carpet comparatively unworn.

When I was undressed I dreaded to put out the candle. For the first time
in years I had a kind of child-fear of the night. But I went to bed at
last and slept rather fitfully, waking often when the cries of the old
squire came flooding through the walls. How I longed for the light of
morning! It came at last and I rose and dressed and seeing the hired man
in the yard, went out-of-doors. He was a good-natured Irishman.

"I'm glad o' the sight o' ye this fine mornin'," said he. "It's a
pleasure to see any one that has all their senses--sure it is."

I went with him to the stable yard where he did his milking and talked
of his long service with the squire.

"We was glad when he wrote for Kate to come," he said. "But, sure, I
don't think it's done him any good. He's gone wild since she got here.
He was always fond o' his family spite o' all they say. Did ye see the
second table in the dinin'-room? Sure, that's stood there ever since his
first wife et her last meal on it, just as it was then, sor--the same
cloth, the same dishes, the same sugar in the bowl, the same pickles in
the jar. He was like one o' them big rocks in the field there--ye
couldn't move him when he put his foot down."

Kate met me at the door when I went back into the house and kissed my
cheek and again I heard those half-spoken words, "My boy." I ate my
breakfast with her and when I was about to get into my saddle at the
door I gave her a hug and, as she tenderly patted my cheek, a smile
lighted her countenance so that it seemed to shine upon me. I have never
forgotten its serenity and sweetness.




CHAPTER XVIII

I START IN A LONG WAY


I journeyed to Canton in the midst of the haying season. After the long
stretches of forest road we hurried along between fragrant fields of
drying hay. At each tavern we first entered the barroom where the
landlord--always a well-dressed man of much dignity and filled with the
news of the time, that being a part of his entertainment--received us
with cheerful words. His housekeeper was there and assigned our quarters
for the night. Our evenings were spent playing cards or backgammon or
listening to the chatter of our host by the fireside. At our last stop
on the road I opened my trunk and put on my best suit of clothes.

We reached Canton at six o'clock in the evening of a beautiful summer
day. I went at once to call upon the Dunkelbergs and learned from a man
at work in the dooryard that they had gone away for the summer. How keen
was my disappointment! I went to the tavern and got my supper and then
over to Ashery Lane to see Michael Hacket and his family. I found the
schoolmaster playing his violin.

"Now God be praised--here is Bart!" he exclaimed as he put down his
instrument and took my hands in his. "I've heard, my boy, how bravely
ye've weathered the capes an' I'm proud o' ye--that I am!"

I wondered what he meant for a second and then asked:

"How go these days with you?"

"Swift as the weaver's shuttle," he answered. "Sit you down, while I
call the family. They're out in the kitchen putting the dishes away.
Many hands make light labor."

They came quickly and gathered about me--a noisy, happy group. The
younger children kissed me and sat on my knees and gave me the small
news of the neighborhood.

How good were the look of those friendly faces and the full-hearted
pleasure of the whole family at my coming!

"What a joy for the spare room!" exclaimed the schoolmaster. "Sure I
wouldn't wonder if the old bed was dancin' on its four legs this very
minute."

"I intend to walk up to the hills to-night," I said.

"Up to the hills!" he exclaimed merrily. "An' the Hackets lyin' awake
thinkin' o' ye on the dark road! Try it, boy, an' ye'll get a crack with
the ruler and an hour after school. Yer aunt and uncle will be stronger
to stand yer comin' with the night's rest upon them. Ye wouldn't be
routin' them out o' bed an' they after a hard day with the hayin'! Then,
my kind-hearted lad, ye must give a thought to Michael Henry. He's still
alive an' stronger than ever--thank God!"

So, although I longed for those most dear to me up in the hills, I spent
the night with the Hackets and the schoolmaster and I sat an hour
together after the family had gone to bed.

"How are the Dunkelbergs?" I asked.

"Sunk in the soft embrace o' luxury," he answered. "Grimshaw made him;
Grimshaw liked him. He was always ready to lick the boots o' Grimshaw.
It turned out that Grimshaw left him an annuity of three thousand
dollars, which he can enjoy as long as he observes one condition."

"What is that?"

"He must not let his daughter marry one Barton Baynes, late o' the town
o' Ballybeen. How is that for spite, my boy? They say it's written down
in the will."

I think that he must have seen the flame of color playing on my face,
for he quickly added:

"Don't worry, lad. The will o' God is greater than the will o' Grimshaw.
He made you two for each other and she will be true to ye, as true as
the needle to the north star."

"Do you think so?"

"Sure I do. Didn't she as much as tell me that here in this room--not a
week ago? She loves ye, boy, as true as God loves ye, an' she's a girl
of a thousand.

"Her father is a bit too fond o' money. I've never been hard struck with
him. It has always seemed to me that he was afflicted with perfection--a
camellia man!--so invariably neat and proper and conventional! Such
precise and wearisome rectitude! What a relief it would be to see him in
his shirt-sleeves or with soiled boots or linen or to hear him say
something--well-unexpected! Six shillings a week to the church and four
to charity, as if that were the contract--no more, no less! But did ye
ever hear o' his going out o' his way to do a good thing--say to help a
poor woman left with a lot o' babies or a poor lad that wants to go to
school? 'No, I'm very sorry, but I give four shillings a week to charity
and that's all I can afford.'"

"Why did they go away? Was it because I was coming?"

"I think it likely, my fine lad. The man heard o' it some way--perhaps
through yer uncle. He's crazy for the money, but he'll get over that.
Leave him to me. I've a fine course o' instruction ready for my Lord o'
Dunkelberg."

"I think I shall go and try to find her," I said.

"I am to counsel ye about that," said the schoolmaster. "She's as keen
as a brier--the fox! She says, 'Keep away. Don't alarm him, or he'll
bundle us off to Europe for two or three years.'

"So there's the trail ye travel, my boy. It's the one that keeps away.
Don't let him think ye've anything up the sleeve o' yer mind. Ye know,
lad, I believe Sally's mother has hold o' the same rope with her and
when two clever women get their wits together the divvle scratches his
head. It's an old sayin', lad, an' don't ye go out an' cut the rope.
Keep yer head cool an' yer heart warm and go right on with yer business.
I like the whole plan o' this remarkable courtship o' yours."

"I guess you like it better than I do," was my answer.

"Ah, my lad, I know the heart o' youth! Ye'd like to be puttin' yer arms
around her--wouldn't ye, now? Sure, there's time enough! You two young
colts are bein' broke' an' bitted. Ye've a chance now to show yer
quality--yer faith, yer loyalty, yer cleverness. If either one o' ye
fails that one isn't worthy o' the other. Ye're in the old treadmill o'
God--the both o' ye! Ye're bein' weighed an' tried for the great prize.
It's not pleasant, but it's better so. Go on, now, an' do yer best an'
whatever comes take it like a man."

A little silence followed. He broke it with these words:

"Ye're done with that business in Cobleskill, an' I'm glad. Ye didn't
know ye were bein' tried there--did ye? Ye've stood it like a man. What
will ye be doin' now?"

"I'd like to go to Washington with the Senator."

He laughed heartily.

"I was hopin' ye'd say that," he went on. "Well, boy, I think it can be
arranged. I'll see the Senator as soon as ever he comes an' I believe
he'll be glad to know o' yer wishes. I think he's been hopin', like,
that ye would propose it. Go up to the farm and spend a happy month or
two with yer aunt an' uncle. It'll do ye good. Ye've been growin' plump
down there. Go an' melt it off in the fields."

"How is Deacon Binks?" I asked presently.

"Soul buried in fat! The sparkler on his bosom suggests a tombstone
stickin' out of a soiled snowbank."

A little more talk and we were off to bed with our candles.

Next morning I went down into the main street of the village before
leaving for home. I wanted to see how it looked and, to be quite frank,
I wanted some of the people of Canton to see how I looked, for my
clothes were of the best cloth and cut in the latest fashion. Many
stopped me and shook my hand--men and women who had never noticed me
before, but there was a quality in their smiles that I didn't quite
enjoy. I know now that they thought me a little too grand on the
outside. What a stern-souled lot those Yankees were! "All ain't gold
that glitters." How often I had heard that version of the old motto!

"Why, you look like the Senator when he is just gittin' home from the
capital," said Mr. Jenison.

They were not yet willing to take me at the par of my appearance.

I met Betsy Price--one of my schoolmates--on the street. She was very
cordial and told me that the Dunkelbergs had gone to Saratoga.

"I got a letter from Sally this morning," Betsy went on. "She said that
young Mr. Latour was at the same hotel and that he and her father were
good friends."

I wonder if she really enjoyed sticking this thorn into my flesh--a
thorn which made it difficult for me to follow the advice of the
schoolmaster and robbed me of the little peace I might have enjoyed. My
faith in Sally wavered up and down until it settled at its wonted level
and reassured me.

It was a perfect summer morning and I enjoyed my walk over the familiar
road and up into the hill country. The birds seemed to sing a welcome to
me. Men and boys I had known waved their hats in the hay-fields and
looked at me. There are few pleasures in this world like that of a boy
getting home after a long absence. My heart beat fast when I saw the
house and my uncle and Purvis coming in from the twenty-acre lot with a
load of hay. Aunt Deel stood on the front steps looking down the road.
Now and then her waving handkerchief went to her eyes. Uncle Peabody
came down the standard off his load and walked toward me.

"Say, stranger, have you seen anything of a feller by the name o' Bart
Baynes?" he demanded.

"Have you?" I asked.

"No, sir, I ain't. Gosh a'mighty! Say! what have ye done with that boy
of our'n?"

"What have you done to our house?" I asked again.

"Built on an addition."

"That's what I've done to your boy," I answered.

"Thunder an' lightnin'! How you've raised the roof!" he exclaimed as he
grabbed my satchel. "Dressed like a statesman an' bigger'n a bullmoose.
I can't 'rastle with you no more. But, say, I'll run ye a race. I can
beat ye an' carry the satchel, too."

We ran pell-mell up the lane to the steps like a pair of children.

Aunt Deel did not speak. She just put her arms around me and laid her
dear old head upon my breast. Uncle Peabody turned away. Then what a
silence! Off in the edge of the woodland I heard the fairy flute of a
wood-thrush.

"Purvis, you drive that load on the floor an' put up the hosses," Uncle
Peabody shouted in a moment. "If you don't like it you can hire 'nother
man. I won't do no more till after dinner. This slave business is played
out."

"All right," Purvis answered.

"You bet it's all right. I'm fer abolition an' I've stood your
domineerin', nigger-driver ways long enough fer one mornin'. If you
don't like it you can look for another man."

Aunt Deel and I began to laugh at this good-natured, make-believe
scolding of Uncle Peabody and the emotional strain was over. They led me
into the house where a delightful surprise awaited me, for the rooms had
been decorated with balsam boughs and sweet ferns. A glowing mass of
violets, framed in moss, occupied the center of the table. The house was
filled with the odors of the forest, which, as they knew, were dear to
me. I had written that they might expect me some time before noon, but I
had begged them not to meet me in Canton, as I wished to walk home after
my long ride. So they were ready for me.

I remember how they felt the cloth on my back and how proudly they
surveyed it.

"Couldn't buy them goods 'round these parts," said Uncle Peabody. "Nor
nothin' like 'em--no, sir."

"Feels a leetle bit like the butternut trousers," said Aunt Deel as she
felt my coat.

"Ayes, but them butternut trousers ain't what they used to be when they
was young an' limber," Uncle Peabody remarked. "Seems so they was
gettin' kind o' wrinkled an' baldheaded-like, 'specially where I set
down."

"Ayes! Wal I guess a man can't grow old without his pants growin' old,
too--ayes!" said Aunt Deel.

"If yer legs are in 'em ev'ry Sunday they ketch it of ye," my uncle
answered. "Long sermons are hard on pants, seems to me."

"An' the longer the legs the harder the sermons--in them little seats
over 't the schoolhouse--ayes!" Aunt Deel added by way of justifying his
complaint. "There wouldn't be so much wear in a ten-mile walk--no!"

The chicken pie was baking and the strawberries were ready for the
shortcake.

"I've been wallerin' since the dew was off gittin' them berries an'
vi'lets--ayes!" said Aunt Deel, now busy with her work at the stove.

"Aunt, you look as young as ever," I remarked.

She slapped my arm and said with mock severity:

"Stop that! W'y! You know better--ayes!"

How vigorously she stirred the fire then.

"I can't return the compliment--my soul! how you've changed!--ayes!"
she remarked. "I hope you ain't fit no more, Bart. I can't bear to think
o' you flyin' at folks an' poundin' of 'em. Don't seem right--no, it
don't!"

"Why, Aunt Deel, what in the world do you mean?" I asked.

"It's Purvis's brain that does the poundin', I guess," said my uncle.
"It's kind o' got the habit. It's a reg'lar beetle brain. To hear him
talk, ye'd think he an' you could clean out the hull Mexican
nation--barrin' accidents. Why, anybody would suppose that yer enemies
go to climbin' trees as soon as they see ye comin' an' that you pull the
trees up by the roots to git at 'em."

"A certain amount of such deviltry is necessary to the comfort of Mr.
Purvis," I remarked. "If there is nobody else to take the responsibility
for it he assumes it himself. His imagination has an intense craving for
blood and violence. It's that type of American who, egged on by the
slave power, is hurrying us into trouble with Mexico."

Purvis came in presently with a look in his face which betrayed his
knowledge of the fact that all the cobwebs spun by his fancy were now to
be brushed away. Still he enjoyed them while they lasted and there was a
kind of tacit claim in his manner that there were subjects regarding
which no honest man could be expected to tell the truth.

As we ate our dinner they told me that an escaped slave had come into a
neighboring county and excited the people with stories of the auction
block and of negroes driven like yoked oxen on plantations in South
Carolina, whence he had escaped on a steamboat.

"I b'lieve I'm goin' to vote for abolition," said Uncle Peabody. "I
wonder what Sile Wright will say to that."

"He'll probably advise against it, the time isn't ripe for so great a
change," was my answer. "He thinks that the whole matter should be left
to the glacial action of time's forces."

Indeed I had spoken the view of the sounder men of the North. The
subject filled them with dread alarm. But the attitude of Uncle Peabody
was significant. The sentiment in favor of a change was growing. It was
now to be reckoned with, for the abolition party was said to hold the
balance of power in New York and New England and was behaving itself
like a bull in a china shop.

After dinner I tried to put on some of my old clothes, but found that my
nakedness had so expanded that they would not cover it, so I hitched my
white mare on the spring wagon and drove to the village for my trunk.

Every week day after that I worked in the fields until the Senator
arrived in Canton about the middle of August. On one of those happy
days I received a letter from old Kate, dated, to my surprise, in
Saratoga. It said:

     "DEAR BARTON BAYNES--I thought I would let you know that my father
     is dead. I have come here to rest and have found some work to do. I
     am better now. Have seen Sally. She is very beautiful and kind. She
     does not know that I am the old witch, I have changed so. The
     others do not know--it is better that way. I think it was the Lord
     that brought me here. He has a way of taking care of some people,
     my boy. Do you remember when I began to call you my boy--you were
     very little. It is long, long ago since I first saw you in your
     father's dooryard--you said you were going to mill on a butterfly's
     back. You looked just as I thought my boy would look. You gave me a
     kiss. What a wonderful gift it was to me then! I began to love you.
     I have no one else to think of now. I hope you won't mind my
     thinking so much of you.

     "God bless you,
            KATE FULLERTON."

I understood now why the strong will and singular insight of this woman
had so often exercised themselves in my behalf. I could not remember the
far day and the happy circumstance of which she spoke, but I wrote her a
letter which must have warmed her heart I am sure.

Silas Wright arrived in Canton and drove up to our home. He reached our
door at eight in the morning with his hound and rifle. He had aged
rapidly since I had seen him last. His hair was almost white. There were
many new lines in his face. He seemed more grave and dignified. He did
not lapse into the dialect of his fathers when he spoke of the ancient
pastimes of hunting and fishing as he had been wont to do.

"Bart," he said when the greetings were over, "let's you and me go and
spend a day in the woods. I'll leave my man here to help your uncle
while you're gone."

We went by driving south a few miles and tramping in to the foot of the
stillwater on our river--a trail long familiar to me. The dog left us
soon after we took it and began to range over thick wooded hills. We sat
down among small, spire-like spruces at the river's edge with a long
stretch of water in sight while the music of the hound's voice came
faintly to our ears from the distant forest.

"Oh, I've been dreaming of this for a long time," said the Senator as he
leaned back against a tree and filled his lungs and looked out upon the
water, green with lily-pads along the edge and flecked with the last of
the white blossoms. "I believe you want to leave this lovely country."

"I am waiting for the call to go," I said.

"Well, I'm inclined to think you are the kind of man who ought to go,"
he answered almost sadly. "You are needed. I have been waiting until we
should meet to congratulate you on your behavior at Cobleskill. I think
you have the right spirit--that is the all-important matter. You will
encounter strange company in the game of politics. Let me tell you a
story."

He told me many stories of his life in Washington, interrupted by a
sound like that of approaching footsteps. We ceased talking and
presently a flock of partridges came near us, pacing along over the mat
of leaves in a leisurely fashion. We sat perfectly still. A young cock
bird with his beautiful ruff standing out, like the hair on the back of
a frightened dog, strode toward us with a comic threat in his manner. It
seemed as if he were of half a mind to knock us into the river. But we
sat as still as stumps and he spared us and went on with the others.

The baying of the hound was nearer now. Suddenly we saw a big buck come
down to the shore of the cove near us and on our side of the stream. He
looked to right and left. Then he made a long leap into the water and
waded slowly until it covered him. He raised his nose and laid his
antlers back over his shoulders and swam quietly down-stream, his nose
just showing above the water. His antlers were like a bit of driftwood.
If we had not seen him take the water his antlers might easily have
passed for a bunch of dead sticks. Soon the buck slowly lifted his head
and turned his neck and looked at both shores. Then very deliberately he
resumed his place under water and went on. We watched him as he took the
farther shore below us and made off in the woods again.

"I couldn't shoot at him, it was such a beautiful bit of politics," said
the Senator.

Soon the hound reached the cove's edge and swam the river and ranged up
and down the bank for half an hour before he found the buck's trail
again.

"I've seen many a rascal, driven to water by the hounds, go swimming
away as slyly as that buck, with their horns in the air, looking as
innocent as a bit of driftwood. They come in from both shores--the Whig
and the Democratic--and they are always shot at from one bank or the
other."

I remember it surprised me a little to hear him say that they came in
from both shores.

"Just what do you want to do?" he asked presently.

"I should like to go down to Washington with you and help you in any way
that I can."

"All right, partner--we'll try it," he answered gravely. "I hope that I
don't forget and work you as hard as I work myself. It wouldn't be
decent. I have a great many letters to write. I'll try thinking out
loud while you take them down in sound-hand. Then you can draft them
neatly and I'll sign them. You have tact and good manners and can do
many of my errands for me and save me from those who have no good reason
for taking up my time. You will meet the best people and the worst.
There's just a chance that it may come to something worth while--who
knows? You are young yet. It will be good training and you will witness
the making of some history now and then."

What elation I felt!

Again the voice of the hound which had been ringing in the distant hills
was coming nearer.

"We must keep watch--another deer is coming," said the Senator.

We had only a moment's watch before a fine yearling buck came down to
the opposite shore and stood looking across the river. The Senator
raised his rifle and fired. The buck fell in the edge of the water.

"How shall we get him?" my friend asked.

"It will not be difficult," I answered as I began to undress. Nothing
was difficult those days. I swam the river and towed the buck across
with a beech withe in his gambrel joints. The hound joined me before I
was half across with my burden and nosed the carcass and swam on ahead
yelping with delight.

We dressed the deer and then I had the great joy of carrying him on my
back two miles across the country to the wagon. The Senator wished to
send a guide for the deer, but I insisted that the carrying was my
privilege.

"Well, I guess your big thighs and broad shoulders can stand it," said
he.

"My uncle has always said that no man could be called a hunter until he
can go into the woods without a guide and kill a deer and bring it out
on his back. I want to be able to testify that I am at least partly
qualified."

"Your uncle didn't say anything about fetching the deer across a deep
river without a boat, did he?" Mr. Wright asked me with a smile.

Leaves of the beeches, maples and basswoods--yellowed by frost--hung
like tiny lanterns, glowing with noonday light, above the dim
forest-aisle which we traveled.

The sun was down when we got to the clearing.

"What a day it has been!" said Mr. Wright when we were seated in the
wagon at last with the hound and the deer's head between his feet and
mine.

"One of the best in my life," I answered with a joy in my heart the like
of which I have rarely known in these many years that have come to me.

We rode on in silence with the calls of the swamp robin and the hermit
thrush ringing in our ears as the night fell.

"It's a good time to think, and there we take different roads," said my
friend. "You will turn into the future and I into the past."

"I've been thinking about your uncle," he said by and by. "He is one of
the greatest men I have ever known. You knew of that foolish gossip
about him--didn't you?"

"Yes," I answered.

"Well, now, he's gone about his business the same as ever and showed by
his life that it couldn't be true. Not a word out of him! But Dave
Ramsey fell sick--down on the flat last winter. By and by his children
were crying for bread and the poor-master was going to take charge of
them. Well, who should turn up there, just in the nick of time, but
Delia and Peabody Baynes. They fed those children all winter and kept
them in clothes so that they could go to school. The strange thing about
it is this: it was Dave Ramsey who really started that story. He got up
in church the other night and confessed his crime. His conscience
wouldn't let him keep it. He said that he had not seen Peabody Baynes on
that road the day the money was lost but had only heard that he was
there. He knew now that he couldn't have been there. Gosh t'almighty!
as your uncle used to say when there was nothing else to be said."

It touched me to the soul--this long-delayed vindication of my beloved
Uncle Peabody.

The Senator ate supper with us and sent his hired man out for his horse
and buggy. When he had put on his overcoat and was about to go he turned
to my uncle and said:

"Peabody Baynes, if I have had any success in the world it is because I
have had the exalted honor and consciousness that I represented men like
you."

He left us and we sat down by the glowing candles. Soon I told them what
Ramsey had done. There was a moment of silence. Uncle Peabody rose and
went to the water-pail for a drink.

"Bart, I believe I'll plant corn on that ten-acre lot next
spring--darned if I don't," he said as he returned to his chair.

None of us ever spoke of the matter again to my knowledge.




CHAPTER XIX

ON THE SUMMIT


My mental assets would give me a poor rating I presume in the commerce
of modern scholarship when I went to Washington that autumn with Senator
and Mrs. Wright. Still it was no smattering that I had, but rather a few
broad areas of knowledge which were firmly in my possession. I had
acquired, quite by myself since leaving the academy, a fairly
serviceable reading knowledge of French; I had finished the _Æneid_; I
had read the tragedies of Shakespeare and could repeat from them many
striking passages; I had read the histories of Abbott and the works of
Washington Irving and certain of the essays of Carlyle and Macaulay. My
best asset was not mental but spiritual, if I may be allowed to say it,
in all modesty, for, therein I claim no special advantage, saving,
possibly, an unusual strength of character in my aunt and uncle. Those
days the candles were lighting the best trails of knowledge all over the
land. Never has the general spirit of this republic been so high and
admirable as then and a little later. It was to speak, presently, in
the immortal voices of Whittier, Emerson, Whitman, Greeley and Lincoln.
The dim glow of the candles had entered their souls and out of them came
a light that filled the land and was seen of all men. What became of
this mighty spirit of democracy? My friend, it broke down and came near
its death in a long, demoralizing war which gave to our young men a
thorough four-year course in the ancient school of infamy.

The railroads on which we traveled from Utica, the great cities through
which we passed, were a wonder and an inspiration to me. I was awed by
the grandeur of Washington itself. I took lodgings with the Senator and
his wife.

"Now, Bart," said he, when we had arrived, "I'm going to turn you loose
here for a little while before I put harness on you. Go about for a week
or so and get the lay of the land and the feel of it. Mrs. Wright will
be your guide until the general situation has worked its way into your
consciousness."

It seemed to me that there was not room enough in my consciousness for
the great public buildings and the pictures and the statues and the vast
machinery of the government. Beauty and magnitude have a wonderful
effect when they spring fresh upon the vision of a youth out of the back
country. I sang of the look of them in my letters and soon I began to
think about them and imperfectly to understand them. They had their
epic, lyric and dramatic stages in my consciousness.

One afternoon we went to hear Senator Wright speak. He was to answer
Calhoun on a detail of the banking laws. The floor and galleries were
filled. With what emotion I saw him rise and begin his argument as all
ears bent to hear him! He aimed not at popular sentiments in highly
finished rhetoric, as did Webster, to be quoted in the school-books and
repeated on every platform. But no words of mine--and I have used many
in the effort--are able to convey a notion of the masterful ease and
charm of his manner on the floor of the Senate or of the singular
modesty, courtesy, aptness and simplicity of his words as they fell from
his lips. There were the thunderous Webster, the grandeur of whose
sentences no American has equaled; the agile-minded Clay, whose voice
was like a silver clarion; the farseeing, fiery Calhoun, of "the swift
sword"--most formidable in debate--but I was soon to learn that neither
nor all of these men--gifted of heaven so highly--could cope with the
suave, incisive, conversational sentences of Wright, going straight to
the heart of the subject and laying it bare to his hearers. That was
what people were saying as we left the Senate chamber, late in the
evening; that, indeed, was what they were always saying after they had
heard him answer an adversary.

He had a priceless and unusual talent for avoiding school-reader English
and the arts of declamation and for preparing a difficult subject to
enter the average brain. The underlying secret of his power was soon
apparent to me. He stood always for that great thing in America which,
since then, Whitman has called "the divine aggregate," and seeing
clearly how every measure would be likely to affect its welfare, he
followed the compass. It had led him to a height of power above all
others and was to lead him unto the loneliest summit of accomplishment
in American history.

Not much in my term of service there is important to this little task of
mine. I did my work well, if I may believe the Senator, and grew
familiar with the gentle and ungentle arts of the politician.

One great fact grew in magnitude and sullen portent as the months
passed: the gigantic slave-holding interests of the South viewed with
growing alarm the spread of abolition sentiment. Subtly, quietly and
naturally they were feeling for the means to defend and increase their
power. Straws were coming to the surface in that session which betrayed
this deep undercurrent of purpose. We felt it and the Senator was
worried I knew, but held his peace. He knew how to keep his opinions
until the hour had struck that summoned them to service. The Senator
never played with his lance. By and by Spencer openly sounded the note
of conflict.

The most welcome year of my life dawned on the first of January, 1844. I
remember that I arose before daylight that morning and dressed and went
out on the street to welcome it.

I had less than six months to wait for that day appointed by Sally. I
had no doubt that she would be true to me. I had had my days of fear and
depression, but always my sublime faith in her came back in good time.

Oh, yes, indeed, Washington was a fair of beauty and gallantry those
days. I saw it all. I have spent many years in the capital and I tell
you the girls of that time had manners and knew how to wear their
clothes, but again the magic of old memories kept my lady on her throne.
There was one of them--just one of those others who, I sometimes
thought, was almost as graceful and charming and noble-hearted as Sally,
and she liked me I know, but the ideal of my youth glowed in the light
of the early morning, so to speak, and was brighter than all others.
Above all, I had given my word to Sally and--well, you know, the
old-time Yankee of good stock was fairly steadfast, whatever else may be
said of him--often a little too steadfast, as were Ben Grimshaw and
Squire Fullerton.

The Senator and I went calling that New Year's day. We saw all the great
people and some of them were more cheerful than they had a right to be.
It was a weakness of the time. I shall not go into details for fear of
wandering too far from my main road. Let me step aside a moment to say,
however, that there were two clouds in the sky of the Washington society
of those days. One was strong drink and the other was the crude,
rough-coated, aggressive democrat from the frontiers of the West. These
latter were often seen in the holiday regalia of farm or village at
fashionable functions. Some of them changed slowly and, by and by,
reached the stage of white linen and diamond breast-pins and waistcoats
of figured silk. It must be said, however, that their motives were
always above their taste.

The winter wore away slowly in hard work. Mr. Van Buren came down to see
the Senator one day from his country seat on the Hudson. The
Ex-president had been solicited to accept the nomination again. I know
that Senator Wright strongly favored the plan but feared that the South
would defeat him in convention, it being well known that Van Buren was
opposed to the annexation of Texas--a pet project of the slave-holders.
However, he advised his friend to make a fight for the nomination and
this the latter resolved to do. Thenceforward until middle May I gave my
time largely to the inditing of letters for the Senator in Van Buren's
behalf.

The time appointed for the convention in Baltimore drew near. One day
the Senator received an intimation that he would be put in nomination if
Van Buren failed. Immediately he wrote to Judge Fine, of Ogdensburg,
chairman of the delegation from the northern district of New York,
forbidding such use of his name on the ground that his acquiescence
would involve disloyalty to his friend the Ex-president.

He gave me leave to go to the convention on my way home to meet Sally. I
had confided to Mrs. Wright the details of my little love affair--I had
to--and she had shown a tender, sympathetic interest in the story.

The Senator had said to me one day, with a gentle smile:

"Bart, you have business in Canton, I believe, with which trifling
matters like the choice of a president and the Mexican question can not
be permitted to interfere. You must take time to spend a day or two at
the convention in Baltimore on your way.... Report to our friend Fine,
who will look after your comfort there. The experience ought to be
useful to a young man who, I hope, will have work to do in future
conventions."

I took the stage to Baltimore next day--the twenty-sixth of May. The
convention thrilled me--the flags, the great crowd, the bands, the
songs, the speeches, the cheering--I see and hear it all in my talk. The
uproar lasted for twenty minutes when Van Buren's name was put in
nomination.

Then the undercurrent! The slave interest of the South was against him
as Wright had foreseen. The deep current of its power had undermined
certain of the northern and western delegations. Ostensibly for Van
Buren and stubbornly casting their ballots for him, they had voted for
the two-thirds rule, which had accomplished his defeat before the
balloting began. It continued for two days without a choice. The enemy
stood firm. After adjournment that evening many of the Van Buren
delegates were summoned to a conference. I attended it with Judge Fine.

The Ex-president had withdrawn and requested his friends in the
convention to vote for Silas Wright. My emotions can be more readily
imagined than described when I heard the shouts of enthusiasm which
greeted my friend's name. Tears began to roll down my cheeks. Judge Fine
lifted his hand. When order was at last restored he began:

"Gentlemen, as a friend of the learned Senator and as a resident of the
county which is the proud possessor of his home, your enthusiasm has a
welcome sound to me; but I happen to know that Senator Wright will not
allow his name to go before the convention."

He read the letter of which I knew.

Mr. Benjamin F. Butler then said:

"When that letter was written Senator Wright was not aware that Mr. Van
Buren's nomination could not be accomplished, nor was he aware that his
own nomination would be the almost unanimous wish of this convention. I
have talked with the leading delegates from Missouri and Virginia
to-day. They say that he can be nominated by acclamation. Is it possible
that he--a strong party man--can resist this unanimous call of the party
with whose help he has won immortal fame? No, it is not so. It can not
be so. We must dispatch a messenger to him by horse at once who shall
take to him from his friend Judge Fine a frank statement of the
imperious demand of this convention and a request that he telegraph a
withdrawal of his letter in the morning."

The suggestion was unanimously approved and within an hour, mounted on
one of the best horses in Maryland--so his groom informed me--I was on
my way to Washington with the message of Judge Fine in my pocket. Yes, I
had two days to spare on my schedule of travel and reckoned that, by
returning to Baltimore next day I should reach Canton in good time.

It was the kind of thing that only a lithe, supple, strong-hearted lad
such as I was in the days of my youth, could relish--speeding over a
dark road by the light of the stars and a half-moon, with a horse that
loved to kick up a wind. My brain was in a fever, for the notion had
come to me that I was making history.

The lure of fame and high place hurried me on. With the Senator in the
presidential chair I should be well started in the highway of great
success. Then Mr. H. Dunkelberg might think me better than the legacy of
Benjamin Grimshaw. A relay awaited me twenty-three miles down the road.

Well, I reached Washington very sore, but otherwise in good form, soon
after daybreak. I was trembling with excitement when I put my horse in
the stable and rang the bell at our door. It seemed to me that I was
crossing the divide between big and little things. A few steps more and
I should be looking down into the great valley of the future. Yet, now
that I was there, I began to lose confidence.

The butler opened the door.

Yes, the Senator was up and had just returned from a walk and was in his
study. I found him there.

"Well, Bart, how does this happen?" he asked.

"It's important business," I said, as I presented the letter.

Something in his look and manner as he calmly adjusted his glasses and
read the letter of Judge Fine brought the blood to my face. It seemed to
puncture my balloon, so to speak, and I was falling toward the earth and
so swiftly my head swam. He laid the letter on his desk and, without
looking up and as coolly as if he were asking for the change of a
dollar, queried:

"Well, Bart, what do you think we had better do about it?"

"I--I was hoping--you--you would take it," I stammered.

"That's because the excitement of the convention is on you," he
answered. "Let us look at the compass. They have refused to nominate Mr.
Van Buren because he is opposed to the annexation of Texas. On that
subject the will of the convention is now clear. It is possible that
they would nominate me. We don't know about that, we never shall know.
If they did, and I accepted, what would be expected of me is also clear.
They would expect me to abandon my principles and that course of conduct
which I conceive to be best for the country. Therefore I should have to
accept it under false pretenses and take their yoke upon me. Would you
think the needle pointed that way?"

"No," I answered.

Immediately he turned to his desk and wrote the telegram which fixed his
place in history. It said no.

Into the lives of few men has such a moment fallen. I am sure the Lord
God must have thought it worth a thousand years of the world's toil. It
was that moment in the life of a great leader when Satan shows him the
kingdoms of the earth and their glory. I looked at him with a feeling of
awe. What sublime calmness and serenity was in his face! As if it were a
mere detail in the work of the day, and without a moment's faltering, he
had declined a crown, for he would surely have been nominated and
elected. He rose and stood looking out of the open window. Always I
think of him standing there with the morning sunlight falling upon his
face and shoulders. He had observed my emotion and I think it had
touched him a little. There was a moment of silence. A curious illusion
came to me then, for it seemed as if I heard the sound of distant music.
Looking thoughtfully out of the window he asked:

"Bart, do you know when our first fathers turned out of the trail of the
beast and found the long road of humanity? I think it was when they
discovered the compass in their hearts."

So now at last we have come to that high and lonely place, where we may
look back upon the toilsome, adventurous way we have traveled with the
aid of the candle and the compass. Now let us stop a moment to rest and
to think. How sweet the air is here! The night is falling. I see the
stars in the sky. Just below me is the valley of Eternal Silence. You
will understand my haste now. I have sought only to do justice to my
friend and to give my country a name, long neglected, but equal in glory
to those of Washington and Lincoln.

Come, let us take one last look together down the road we have traveled,
now dim in the evening shadows. Scattered along it are the little houses
of the poor of which I have written. See the lights in the windows--the
lights that are shining into the souls of the young--the eager, open,
expectant, welcoming souls of the young!--and the light carries many
things, but best of all a respect for the old, unchanging way of the
compass. After all that is the end and aim of the whole matter--believe
me.

My life has lengthened into these days when most of our tasks are
accomplished by machinery. We try to make men by the thousand, in vast
educational machines, and no longer by the one as of old. It was the
loving, forgiving, forbearing, patient, ceaseless toil of mother and
father on the tender soul of childhood, which quickened that
inextinguishable sense of responsibility to God and man in these people
whom I now leave to the judgment of my countrymen.

I have lived to see the ancient plan of kingcraft, for self-protection,
coming back into the world. It demands that the will and conscience of
every individual shall be regulated and controlled by some conceited
prince, backed by an army. It can not fail, I foresee, to accomplish
such devastation in the human spirit as shall imperil the dearest
possession of man.

If one is to follow the compass he can have but one king--his God.

       *       *       *       *       *

I am near the end. I rode back to Baltimore that forenoon. They had
nominated Mr. Polk, of Tennessee, for president and Silas Wright for
vice-president, the latter by acclamation. I knew that Wright would
decline the honor, as he did.

I hurried northward to keep my appointment with Sally. The boats were
slowed by fog. At Albany I was a day behind my schedule. I should have
only an hour's leeway if the boats on the upper lakes and the stage from
Plattsburg were on time. I feared to trust them. So I caught the
west-bound train and reached Utica three hours late. There I bought a
good horse and his saddle and bridle and hurried up the north road. When
he was near spent I traded him for a well-knit Morgan mare up in the
little village of Sandy Creek. Oh, I knew a good horse as well as the
next man and a better one than she I never owned--never. I was back in
my saddle at six in the afternoon and stopped for feed and an hour's
rest at nine and rode on through the night. I reached the hamlet of
Richville soon after daybreak and put out for a rest of two hours. I
could take it easy then. At seven o'clock the mare and I started again,
well fed and eager to go on.

It was a summer morning that shortens the road--even that of the young
lover. Its air was sweet with the breath of the meadows. The daisies and
the clover and the cornflowers and the wild roses seemed to be waving a
welcome to me and the thorn trees--shapely ornament of my native
hills--were in blossom. A cloud of pigeons swept across the blue deep
above my head. The great choir of the fields sang to me--bobolinks, song
sparrows, meadowlarks, bluebirds, warblers, wrens, and far away in the
edge of a spruce thicket I heard the flute of the white-throated sparrow
in this refrain:

[Illustration: Music.]

When, years later, I heard the wedding march in Lohengrin I knew where
Wagner had got his theme.

I bathed at a brook in the woods and put on a clean silk shirt and tie
out of my saddlebags. I rode slowly then to the edge of the village of
Canton and turned at the bridge and took the river road, although I had
time to spare. How my heart was beating as I neared the familiar scene!
The river slowed its pace there, like a discerning traveler, to enjoy
the beauty of its shores. Smooth and silent was the water and in it were
the blue of the sky and the feathery shadow-spires of cedar and tamarack
and the reflected blossoms of iris and meadow rue. It was a lovely
scene.

There was the pine, but where was my lady? I dismounted and tied my mare
and looked at my watch. It lacked twenty minutes of eleven. She would
come--I had no doubt of it. I washed my hands and face and neck in the
cool water. Suddenly I heard a voice I knew singing: _Barney Leave the
Girls Alone_. I turned and saw--your mother, my son[1]. She was in the
stern of a birch canoe, all dressed in white with roses in her hair. I
raised my hat and she threw a kiss at me. Old Kate sat in the bow waving
her handkerchief. They stopped and Sally asked in a tone of playful
seriousness:

[Footnote 1: These last lines were dictated to his son.]

"Young man, why have you come here?"

"To get you," I answered.

"What do you want of me?" She was looking at her face in the water.

"I want to marry you," I answered bravely.

"Then you may help me ashore if you please. I am in my best, white
slippers and you are to be very careful."

Beautiful! She was the spirit of the fields of June then and always.

I helped her ashore and held her in my arms and, you know, the lips
have a way of speaking then in the old, convincing, final argument of
love. They left no doubt in our hearts, my son.

"When do you wish to marry me?" she whispered.

"As soon as possible, but my pay is only sixty dollars a month now."

"We shall make it do," she answered. "My mother and father and your aunt
and uncle and the Hackets and the minister and a number of our friends
are coming in a fleet of boats."

"We are prepared either for a picnic or a wedding," was the whisper of
Kate.

"Let's make it both," I proposed to Sally.

"Surely there couldn't be a better place than here under the big
pine--it's so smooth and soft and shady," said she.

"Nor could there be a better day or better company," I urged, for I was
not sure that she would agree.

The boats came along. Sally and I waved a welcome from the bank and she
merrily proclaimed:

"It's to be a wedding."

Then a cheer from the boats, in which I joined.

I shall never forget how, when the company had landed and the greetings
were over, Uncle Peabody approached your mother and said:

"Say, Sally, I'm goin' to plant a kiss on both o' them red cheeks o'
yours, an' do it deliberate, too." He did it and so did Aunt Deel and
old Kate, and I think that, next to your mother and me, they were the
happiest people at the wedding.

       *       *       *       *       *

There is a lonely grave up in the hills--that of the stranger who died
long ago on Rattleroad. One day I found old Kate sitting beside it and
on a stone lately erected there was the name, Enoch Rone.

"It is very sorrowful," she whispered. "He was trying to find me when he
died."

We walked on in silence while I recalled the circumstances. How strange
that those tales of blood and lawless daring which Kate had given to
Amos Grimshaw had led to the slaying of her own son! Yet, so it
happened, and the old wives will tell you the story up there in the
hills.

The play ends just as the night is falling with Kate and me entering the
little home, so familiar now, where she lives and is ever welcome with
Aunt Deel and Uncle Peabody. The latter meets us at the door and is
saying in a cheerful voice:

"Come in to supper, you rovers. How solemn ye look! Say, if you expect
Sally and me to do all the laughin' here you're mistaken. There's a lot
of it to be done right now, an' it's time you j'ined in. We ain't done
nothin' but laugh since we got up, an' we're in need o' help. What's the
matter, Kate? Look up at the light in God's winder. How bright it shines
to-night! When I feel bad I always look at the stars."


THE END




EPILOGUE

_Wanted by all the people_--
A servant
Born of those who serve and aspire
Who has known want and trouble
And all that passes in The Little House of the Poor:
  Lonely thought, counsels of love and prudence,
  The happiness born of a penny,
  The need of the strange and mighty dollar
  And the love of things above all its power of measurement.
  The dreams that come of weariness and the hard bed,
  The thirst for learning as a Great Deliverer.
Who has felt in his heart the weakness and the strength of his brothers
And, above all, the divinity that dwells in them.
Who, therefore, shall have faith in men and women
And knowledge of their wrongs and needs and of their proneness to error.
Humbly must he listen to their voice, as one who knows that God will
  often speak in it,
And have charity even for his own judgments.
Thus removed, far removed from the conceit and vanity of Princes
Shall he know how great is the master he has chosen to serve.





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