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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Light in the Clearing, by Irving
+Bacheller, Illustrated by Arthur I. Keller
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Light in the Clearing
+
+Author: Irving Bacheller
+
+Release Date: November 25, 2004  [eBook #14150]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIGHT IN THE CLEARING***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Rick Niles, Charlie Kirschner, and the Project
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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.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIGHT IN THE CLEARING***
+
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Light in the Clearing, by Irving
+Bacheller, Illustrated by Arthur I. Keller</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: The Light in the Clearing</p>
+<p>Author: Irving Bacheller</p>
+<p>Release Date: November 25, 2004  [eBook #14150]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIGHT IN THE CLEARING***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Rick Niles, Charlie Kirschner,<br />and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/illus001.jpg"><img src=
+"images/illus001.jpg" width="55%" alt="" title="" /></a><br />
+<b>The Silent Woman stood, pointing at him with her
+finger</b>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+</div>
+<div>
+<h1>THE LIGHT IN<br />
+THE CLEARING</h1>
+<br />
+<h3><i>A Tale of the North Country<br />
+in the Time of Silas Wright</i></h3>
+<h4>BY</h4>
+<h2>IRVING BACHELLER</h2>
+<h4>AUTHOR OF<br />
+<i>EBEN HOLDEN</i>, <i>KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE</i>, ETC.</h4>
+<br />
+<h5>ILLUSTRATED BY</h5>
+<h3>ARTHUR I. KELLER.</h3>
+</div>
+<div class="figcenter"><i>The Spirit of Man is the Candle of the
+Lord</i><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;">&mdash;PROVERBS XX,
+27</span></div>
+<h4>1917</h4>
+<div class="figcenter"><br />
+<br />
+TO MY FRIEND<br />
+THOMAS R. PROCTOR, OF UTICA<br />
+LOVER OF THE TRUE IDEALS OF DEMOCRACY<br />
+WHOSE LIFE HAS BEEN A SHINING EXAMPLE TO ALL MEN OF WEALTH<br />
+HONORED GENTLEMAN AND PHILANTHROPIST<br />
+AT THE GATE OF THE LAND OF<br />
+WHICH I HAVE WRITTEN<br />
+DEDICATE THESE CHRONICLES OF THAT LAND<br />
+AND OF ITS GREAT HERO</div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>FOREWORD</h2>
+<p><i>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.</i></p>
+<p>THE AUTHOR.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>PREFACE</h2>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">"Man of the millions thou art lost too
+soon!<br />
+Portents at which the bravest stand aghast<br />
+The birth throes of a future strange and vast<br />
+Alarm the land. Yet thou so wise and strong<br />
+Suddenly summoned to the burial bed,<br />
+Lapped in its slumbers deep and ever long,<br />
+Hear'st not the tumult surging over head.<br />
+Who now shall rally Freedom's scattering host?<br />
+Who wear the mantle of the leader lost?"</div>
+<p>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 <i>Thirty Years' View</i>:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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&mdash;a part of his
+letter written to Judge Fine just before the Baltimore convention
+of 1844, to wit:</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"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....</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>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"</p>
+<p>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 <i>The North American Review, The United
+States Magazine and Democratic Review, The New York Mirror, The
+Knickerbocker, The St. Lawrence Republican</i>, Benton's <i>Thirty
+Years' View</i>, Bancroft's <i>Life of Martin Van Buren</i>,
+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.</p>
+<p>To any who may think that they discover portraits in these pages
+I desire to say that all the characters&mdash;save only Silas
+Wright and President Van Buren and Barton Baynes&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>THE AUTHOR.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<div class="figcenter"><a href="#BOOK_ONE"><b>BOOK
+ONE</b></a><br />
+WHICH IS THE STORY OF THE CANDLE AND COMPASS<br />
+<table summary="">
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I&nbsp;&nbsp;</a></td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">The Melon Harvest</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II&nbsp;&nbsp;</a></td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">I Meet the Silent Woman and Silas Wright,
+Jr</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III&nbsp;&nbsp;</a></td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">We Go to Meeting and See Mr. Wright
+Again</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV&nbsp;&nbsp;</a></td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Our Little Strange Companion</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V&nbsp;&nbsp;</a></td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">In the Light of the Candles</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI&nbsp;&nbsp;</a></td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">The Great Stranger</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII&nbsp;&nbsp;</a></td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">My Second Peril</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII&nbsp;&nbsp;</a></td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">My Third Peril</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<br />
+<a href="#BOOK_TWO"><b>BOOK TWO</b></a><br />
+WHICH IS THE STORY OF THE PRINCIPAL WITNESS<br />
+<table summary="">
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">In Which I Meet Other Great Men</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">I Meet President Van Buren and Am<br />
+Cross-Examined by Mr. Grimshaw</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">A Party and&mdash;My Fourth
+Peril?</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">The Spirit of Michael Henry and
+Others</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">The Thing and Other Things</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">The Bolt Falls</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<br />
+<a href="#BOOK_THREE"><b>BOOK THREE</b></a><br />
+WHICH IS THE STORY OF THE CHOSEN WAYS<br />
+<table summary="">
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">Uncle Peabody's Way and Mine</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">I Use My Own Compass at a Fork in the
+Road</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">The Man with the Scythe</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href=
+"#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">I Start in a Long Way</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">On the Summit</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td><a href="#EPILOGUE">Epilogue</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="BOOK_ONE" id="BOOK_ONE"></a>BOOK ONE</h2>
+<h3>Which is the Story of the Candle and the Compass</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE LIGHT IN THE CLEARING</h2>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<h3>THE MELON HARVEST</h3>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;he about thirty-eight and she a little beyond the
+far-distant goal of forty.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"No wonder they're dead," she used to say, when out of patience
+with me and&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;poor soul!</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Children are great rememberers. They are the recording
+angels&mdash;the keepers of the book of life. Man forgets&mdash;how
+easily!&mdash;and easiest of all, the solemn truth that children do
+<i>not</i> forget.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;you pest!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"My wreath! my wreath!" I heard her moaning.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;a sorrowing
+little refugee hunched up in a corner&mdash;she said: "I'll have to
+tell your Uncle Peabody&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>"Oh please don't tell my Uncle Peabody," I wailed.</p>
+<p>"Ayes! I'll have to tell him," she answered firmly.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"I guess you'll have to take that boy away&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>"What now?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"My stars! he sneaked into the parlor and tipped over the
+what-not and smashed that beautiful wax wreath!"</p>
+<p>Her voice trembled.</p>
+<p>"Not them Minervy flowers?" he asked in a tone of doleful
+incredulity.</p>
+<p>"Ayes he did!"</p>
+<p>"And tipped over the hull what-not?"</p>
+<p>"Ayes!"</p>
+<p>"Jerusalem four-corners!" he exclaimed. "I'll have
+to&mdash;"</p>
+<p>He stopped as he was wont to do on the threshold of strong
+opinions and momentous resolutions.</p>
+<p>The rest of the conversation was drowned in my own cries and
+Uncle Peabody came and lifted me tenderly and carried me
+up-stairs.</p>
+<p>He sat down with me on his lap and hushed my cries. Then he said
+very gently:</p>
+<p>"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?"</p>
+<p>"I don't know," I whimpered and began to cry out in fearful
+anticipation.</p>
+<p>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!"</p>
+<p>I knew that my sins were responsible for this violence. It
+frightened me and my cries increased.</p>
+<p>The door at the bottom of the stairs opened suddenly.</p>
+<p>Aunt Deel called:</p>
+<p>"Don't lose your temper, Peabody. I think you've gone fur
+'nough&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>Uncle Peabody stopped and blew as if he were very tired and then
+I caught a look in his face that reassured me.</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>"Well don't be too severe. You'd better come now and git me a
+pail o' water&mdash;ayes, I think ye had."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Little boy, come here," it said, and it was the voice of the
+what-not.</p>
+<p>"Just step up on this lower shelf," says the old what-not. "I
+want to show ye somethin'."</p>
+<p>The what-not was all covered with shiny things and looked as
+innocent as a lamb.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Who be you talkin' to?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"Who be I talkin' to, Bub? Why I'm talkin' to my friends."</p>
+<p>"Friends?" I said.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>He was a bachelor and for a singular reason. I have always laid
+it to the butternut trousers&mdash;the most sacred bit of apparel
+of which I have any knowledge.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;those days
+people just went to meeting but they always "attended"
+sociables&mdash;"You're a wearin' `em threadbare, ayes! I suppose
+you've sot yer eyes on some one o' the girls. I can always
+tell&mdash;ayes I can! When you git your long legs in them
+butternut trousers I know you're warmin' up&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Once Uncle Peabody had put on the butternut trousers, against
+the usual protest, to go to meeting.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>Edna Perry was a widow of about his age who was visiting her
+sister in the neighborhood.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>When we got home at last we found my aunt sitting in her
+armchair by the stove.</p>
+<p>"You did it&mdash;didn't ye?&mdash;ayes," she demanded rather
+angrily as we came in.</p>
+<p>"Done what?" asked Uncle Peabody.</p>
+<p>"Shinin' up to that Perry woman&mdash;ain't ye?&mdash;ayes! I
+see you're bound to git married&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Aunt Deel's voice and manner seemed to indicate that she had
+borne with him to the limit of her patience.</p>
+<p>"Delia," said my uncle, "I wouldn't be so&mdash;"</p>
+<p>Again he checked himself for fear of going too far, I
+suppose.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;well, her tongue has
+spoken for itself. I suppose that she will seem inhumanly selfish
+with this jealousy of her brother.</p>
+<p>"I promised ma that I would look after you and I'm a-goin' to do
+it&mdash;ayes!" I used to hear her say to my uncle.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>He and I slept in the little room up-stairs, "under the
+shingles"&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>I was seven years old when Uncle Peabody gave me the watermelon
+seeds. I put one of them in my mouth and bit it.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"Why?" was my query.</p>
+<p>"'Cause it was made to put in the ground. Didn't you know it was
+alive?"</p>
+<p>"Alive!" I exclaimed.</p>
+<p>"Alive," said he, "I'll show ye."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"What makes it grow?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Nospanks and bread and butter&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Uncle Peabody," I shouted, "my melon is gone."</p>
+<p>"Well I van!" said he, "somebody must 'a' stole it."</p>
+<p>"Stole it?" I repeated the words without fully comprehending
+what they meant.</p>
+<p>"But it was my melon," I said with a trembling voice.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>There were tears in my eyes when I asked:</p>
+<p>"They'll bring it back, won't they?"</p>
+<p>"Never!" said Uncle Peabody, "I'm afraid they've et it up."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"Ayes so he did! Well I declare! I never thought o'
+that&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>Aunt Deel spoke in a low, kindly tone and came and lifted me to
+my feet very tenderly.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;ayes I be!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Now you see, Bart, how low and mean anybody is that takes what
+don't belong to 'em&mdash;ayes! They're snakes! Everybody hates 'em
+an' stamps on 'em when they come in sight&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"I hate you," I said as I approached him.</p>
+<p>"I hate you," he answered.</p>
+<p>"You're a snake!" I said.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Mrs. Wills ran out of the house and parted us. Our blood was
+hot, and leaking through the skin of our faces a little.</p>
+<p>"He pitched on me," Henry explained.</p>
+<p>I couldn't speak.</p>
+<p>"Go right home&mdash;this minute&mdash;you brat!" said Mrs.
+Wills in anger. "Here's your tea. Don't you ever come here
+again."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Well here ye be&mdash;I was kind o' worried, Bub."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Why, what's the matter?" he asked gently, as he took the tea
+cup from my hand, and sat down upon his heels.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"That Wills boy stole my melon," I said, and the words came slow
+with sobs.</p>
+<p>"Oh, no he didn't," said Uncle Peabody.</p>
+<p>"Yes he did. I saw a piece o' the rin'."</p>
+<p>"Well by&mdash;" said Uncle Peabody, stopping, as usual, at the
+edge of the precipice.</p>
+<p>"He's a snake," I added.</p>
+<p>"And you fit and he scratched you up that way?"</p>
+<p>"I scratched him, too."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"If Aunt Deel asks ye about them scratches you just tell her
+that you and Hen had a little disagreement," said my uncle.</p>
+<p>She didn't ask me, probably because Uncle Peabody had explained
+in his own way, and requested her to say nothing.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>One day Uncle Peabody had given me an egg and, said that there
+was a chicken in it.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>She was like many things on the farm&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><br />
+<a href="images/illus040.jpg"><img src="images/illus040.jpg" width=
+"50%" alt="" title="" /></a><br />
+<b>Slowly her right hand rose above her</b></div>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Jerusalem four-corners!" he exclaimed. "It's Mr. and Mrs.
+Horace Dunkelberg."</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>I ran for the brook and before I had returned to my uncle I
+heard the horn blow.</p>
+<p>"The Dunkelbergs!&mdash;the Dunkelbergs! Come quick!" it seemed
+to say.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Little boy, come here and I will make you a present," said
+he.</p>
+<p>It reminded me of my disappointment when uncle tried to shoot
+his gun at a squirrel and only the cap cracked.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Sally, this is Barton Baynes&mdash;can't you shake hands with
+him?" said Mrs. Dunkelberg.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Won't you come and play with me?" she asked.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"Now you be my husband," said she.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"What's that?" I asked.</p>
+<p>She laughed and answered: "Somebody that a girl is married
+to."</p>
+<p>"You mean a father?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"Once I had a father," I boasted.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I did as she bade me but I was not glad enough to see her.</p>
+<p>"You must kiss me," she prompted in a whisper.</p>
+<p>I kissed her very swiftly and gingerly&mdash;like one picking up
+a hot coal&mdash;and she caught me in her arms and kissed me three
+times while her soft hair threw its golden veil over our faces.</p>
+<p>"Oh I'm so glad to see you," she said as she drew away from me
+and shook back her hair.</p>
+<p>"Golly! this is fun!" I said.</p>
+<p>"Ask: 'How are the babies?'" she whispered.</p>
+<p>"How are the babies?" I asked, feeling rather silly.</p>
+<p>"They're fine. I'm just putting them to bed."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Now go to sleep and I'll tell you a story," said she.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>A query had entered my mind and soon after we began eating I
+asked:</p>
+<p>"Aunt Deel, what is the difference between a boy and a
+girl?"</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Goodness, gracious sakes alive!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<h3>I MEET THE SILENT WOMAN AND SILAS WRIGHT, JR.</h3>
+<p>Amos Grimshaw was there in our dooryard the day that the old
+ragged woman came along and told our fortunes&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>I was afraid of the old woman&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>Aunt Deel nodded and said:</p>
+<p>"Ayes, Kate&mdash;tell their fortunes if ye've anything to
+say&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"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&mdash;"</p>
+</div>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;but we
+shall know soon what reminded us of the prophet woman.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"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?"</p>
+<p>"Three cents," said my uncle.</p>
+<p>"Guess again&mdash;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&mdash;said it was
+all the change he had. He and his boy are eating them with some
+apples that they had in their pockets."</p>
+<p>I remember how my uncle and the man laughed as the latter said:
+"His wealth costs too much altogether. 'Tain't worth it"&mdash;a
+saying which my uncle often quoted.</p>
+<p>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!</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Go back, Shep&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>Shep was fawning at my uncle's foot and rubbing his neck on his
+boot and looking up at him.</p>
+<p>"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?"</p>
+<p>It was a clever ruse of Uncle Peabody, for Aunt Deel was
+softened by his interpretation of the dog's heart and she
+proposed:</p>
+<p>"Le's take him along with us&mdash;poor dog! ayes!"</p>
+<p>Then Uncle Peabody shouted:</p>
+<p>"Jump right into the sleigh&mdash;you ol' skeezucks!&mdash;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&mdash;not by a
+jug full&mdash;no, sir! I wouldn't wonder if Jesus died for dogs
+an' hosses as well as for men."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>In the spring my uncle hired a man to work for us&mdash;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&mdash;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:</p>
+<p>"You'll have to send that loafer away, right now, ayes I guess
+you will."</p>
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+<p>"Because this boy has learnt to swear like a
+pirate&mdash;ayes&mdash;he has!"</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Hand me that stake, Bub. Don't be so much of a gentleman."</p>
+<p>I handed the stake to him and then I said:</p>
+<p>"Uncle Peabody, I want to be a gentleman."</p>
+<p>"A gentleman!" he exclaimed as he looked down at me
+thoughtfully.</p>
+<p>"A grand, noble gentleman with a sword and a gold watch and
+chain and diamonds on," I exclaimed.</p>
+<p>He leaned against the top rail of the fence and looked down at
+me and laughed.</p>
+<p>"Whatever put that in yer head?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I don't know&mdash;how do ye be it?" I demanded.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;swords and gold and diamonds, or rags an' dirt an' shovels
+an' crowbars."</p>
+<p>I wondered what I had inside of me.</p>
+<p>"I guess I ain't got any sword in me," I said.</p>
+<p>"When you've been eating green apples and I wouldn't wonder," he
+answered as he went on with his work.</p>
+<p>"Once I thought I heard a watch tickin' in my throat," I said
+hopefully.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>I began to watch myself for symptoms of power.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;and I regret to say
+that he did now and then&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+<p>"For fear I'll break er lose it an' git licked," he
+answered.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Don't you ever git licked?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"No," I answered.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>After a moment of silence he exclaimed:</p>
+<p>"Gosh! It's awful lonesome here! Gee whittaker! this is the
+worst place I ever saw!"</p>
+<p>I tried to think of something that I could say for it.</p>
+<p>"We have got a new corn sheller," I said, rather timidly.</p>
+<p>"I don't care about your corn shellers," he answered with a look
+of scorn.</p>
+<p>He took a little yellow paper-covered book from his pocket and
+began to read to himself.</p>
+<p>I felt thoroughly ashamed of the place and sat near him and, for
+a time, said nothing as he read.</p>
+<p>"What's that?" I ventured to ask by and by.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>He stopped, by and by, and confided to me the fact that he
+thought he would run away and join a band of robbers.</p>
+<p>"How do you run away?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>He stopped suddenly and demanded: "Is there a long rope
+here?"</p>
+<p>I pointed to Uncle Peabody's hay rope hanging on a peg.</p>
+<p>"Le's hang a captive," he proposed.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"We'll draw him up once&mdash;it won't hurt him any," he
+proposed.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Come right down off'm that mow&mdash;this minute," said
+she.</p>
+<p>When we had come down and the dog had followed pulling the rope
+after him, Aunt Deel was pale with anger.</p>
+<p>"Go right home&mdash;right home," said she to Amos.</p>
+<p>"Mr. Baynes said that he would take me up with the horses," said
+Amos.</p>
+<p>"Ye can use shank's horses&mdash;ayes!&mdash;they're good enough
+for you," Aunt Deel insisted, and so the boy went away in
+disgrace.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Where are your pennies?" Aunt Deel said to me.</p>
+<p>I felt in my pockets but couldn't find them.</p>
+<p>"Where did ye have `em last?" my aunt demanded.</p>
+<p>"On the haymow."</p>
+<p>"Come an' show me."</p>
+<p>We went to the mow and search for the pennies, but not one of
+them could we find.</p>
+<p>I remembered that when I saw them last Amos had them in his
+hand.</p>
+<p>"I'm awful 'fraid for him&mdash;ayes I be!" said Aunt Deel. "I'm
+'fraid Rovin' Kate was right about him&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>"What did she say?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"That he was goin' to be hung&mdash;ayes! You can't play with
+him no more. Boys that take what don't belong to `em&mdash;which I
+hope he didn't&mdash;ayes I hope it awful&mdash;are apt to be hung
+by their necks until they are dead&mdash;jest as he was goin' to
+hang ol' Shep&mdash;ayes!&mdash;they are!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Uncle Peabody seemed to feel very badly when he learned how Amos
+had turned out.</p>
+<p>"Don't say a word about it," said he. "Mebbe you lost the
+pennies. Don't mind 'em."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;the pan and I&mdash;with a great crash.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Well, by&mdash;" he stopped and came closer and asked.</p>
+<p>"What's happened?"</p>
+<p>"Bee stung me," I answered.</p>
+<p>"Where did ye find so much honey that ye could go swimmin' in
+it?" he asked.</p>
+<p>I heard the door of the house open suddenly and the voice of
+Aunt Deel.</p>
+<p>"Peabody! Peabody! come here quick," she called.</p>
+<p>Uncle Peabody ran to the house, but I stayed out with the
+dog.</p>
+<p>Through the open door I heard Aunt Deel saying: "I can't stan'
+it any longer and I won't&mdash;not another day&mdash;ayes, I can't
+stan' it. That boy is a reg'lar pest."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Come here, sir," Uncle Peabody called.</p>
+<p>I knew it was serious, for he had never called me "sir" before.
+I went slowly to the steps.</p>
+<p>"My lord!" Aunt Deel exclaimed. "Look at that lip and the honey
+all over him&mdash;ayes! I tell ye&mdash;I can't stan' it."</p>
+<p>"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?"</p>
+<p>I was near breaking down in this answer:</p>
+<p>"I went into the but'ry and that pan jumped on to me."</p>
+<p>"Didn't you taste the honey?"</p>
+<p>"No," I drew in my breath and shook my head.</p>
+<p>"Liar, too!" said Aunt Deel. "I can't stan' it an' I won't."</p>
+<p>Uncle Peabody was sorely tried, but he was keeping down his
+anger. His voice trembled as he said:</p>
+<p>"Boy, I guess you'll have to&mdash;"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>I think that the sight of me must have touched the heart of Aunt
+Deel.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;ayes!&mdash;he ain't got no other place to go to."</p>
+<p>"But if you can't stan' it," said Uncle Peabody.</p>
+<p>"I've got to stan' it&mdash;ayes!&mdash;I can't stan' it, but
+I've got to&mdash;ayes! So have you."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Hello!" a voice called.</p>
+<p>I turned and looked up at Dug Draper, in a single buggy, dressed
+in his Sunday suit.</p>
+<p>"Is it much further to where the Dunkelbergs live?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"The Dunkelbergs? Who be they?"</p>
+<p>It seemed to me very strange that he didn't know the
+Dunkelbergs.</p>
+<p>"Where Sally Dunkelberg lives."</p>
+<p>That was a clincher. He laughed and swore and said:</p>
+<p>"Git in here, boy. I'll take ye there."</p>
+<p>I got into the buggy, and he struck his horse with the whip and
+went galloping away in the dusk.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I have omitted and shall omit the oaths and curses with which
+his talk was flavored.</p>
+<p>"I'm gittin' out o' this country myself," said he. "It's too
+pious for me."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>It was dark and I felt very cold and began to wish myself home
+in bed.</p>
+<p>"Ain't we most to the Dunkelbergs'?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"No&mdash;not yet," he answered.</p>
+<p>I burst into tears and he hit me a sounding whack in the face
+with his hand.</p>
+<p>"No more whimperin'," he shouted. "Do ye hear me?"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>He shook me roughly and shoved me down on the buggy floor and
+said:</p>
+<p>"You lay there and keep still; do you hear?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," I sobbed.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>What an angel of mercy is sleep! Down falls her curtain and away
+she leads us&mdash;delivered! free!&mdash;into some magic country
+where are the things we have lost&mdash;perhaps even joy and youth
+and strength and old friendships.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Hello, boy!" said he. "Where did you come from?"</p>
+<p>I was frightened and confused, but his gentle voice reassured
+me.</p>
+<p>"Uncle Peabody!" I called, as I arose and looked about me and
+began to cry.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Tell me what's your name," he urged.</p>
+<p>"Barton Baynes," I said as soon as I could speak.</p>
+<p>"Where is your father?"</p>
+<p>"In Heaven," I answered, that being the place to which he had
+moved, as I understood it.</p>
+<p>"Where do you live?"</p>
+<p>"In Lickitysplit."</p>
+<p>"How did you get here?"</p>
+<p>"Dug Draper brought me. Do you know where Sally Dunkelberg
+lives?"</p>
+<p>"Is she the daughter of Horace Dunkelberg?"</p>
+<p>"Mr. and Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg," I amended.</p>
+<p>"Oh, yes, I know her. Sally is a friend of mine. We'll get some
+breakfast and then we'll go and find her."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"You sit there and I'll have a fire going in a minute and get
+you warmed up."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Captain Moody wants to know if you'll come up to dinner?"</p>
+<p>There was a note of dignity in the reply which was new to me,
+and for that reason probably I have always remembered it.</p>
+<p>"Please present my thanks to the Captain and tell him that I
+expect to go up to Lickitysplit in the town of Ballybeen."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Could I have some more?"</p>
+<p>"All you want," he answered, as he put another ladle full in my
+bowl.</p>
+<p>When we had finished eating he set aside the dishes and I
+asked:</p>
+<p>"Now could I go and see Sally Dunkelberg?"</p>
+<p>"What in the world do you want of Sally Dunkelberg?" he
+asked.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"Haven't you any one to play with at home?"</p>
+<p>"Only my Uncle Peabody."</p>
+<p>"Don't you like to play with him?"</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;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&mdash;just a wee little while."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"Good morning, Sile," some said, as we passed them, or, "How are
+you, Comptroller?"</p>
+<p>It was a square, frame house&mdash;that of the
+Dunkelbergs&mdash;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:</p>
+<p>"It's that Baynes boy. Don't he look dirty?"</p>
+<p>I stopped and withdrew my hand from that of my guide.</p>
+<p>"Come on, Bart," he said.</p>
+<p>I shook my head and stood looking over at that little, hostile
+tribe near me.</p>
+<p>"Go and play with them while I step into the house," he
+urged.</p>
+<p>Again I shook my head.</p>
+<p>"Well, then, you wait here a moment," said my new-found
+friend.</p>
+<p>He left me and I sat down upon the ground, thoughtful and
+silent.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Hello, Bart!" said Sally.</p>
+<p>"Hello!" I answered.</p>
+<p>"Wouldn't you like to play with us?"</p>
+<p>I shook my head.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>In a moment my friend came out with Mrs. Dunkelberg, who kissed
+me, and asked me to tell how I happened to be there.</p>
+<p>"I just thought I would come," I said as I twisted a button on
+my coat, and would say no more to her.</p>
+<p>"Mr. Wright, you're going to take him home, are you?" Mrs.
+Dunkelberg asked.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"Let him stay here with us until you're ready to go."</p>
+<p>"I don't want to stay here," I said, seizing my friend's
+hand.</p>
+<p>"Well, Sally, you go down to the office and stay with Bart until
+they go."</p>
+<p>"You'd like that wouldn't you?" the man asked of me.</p>
+<p>"I don't know," I said.</p>
+<p>"That means yes," said the man.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Is there anything you'd like there, Bart?" the man asked.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"Come right in," he said, and I remember that when we entered
+the store I could hear my heart beating.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>The man took us into his office and told us to sit down until he
+could write a letter.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Mr. Wright, I never wished that I lived in a palace until
+now."</p>
+<p>He didn't notice me until I held up both feet and called: "Look
+a' there, Uncle Peabody."</p>
+<p>Then he came and took me out of the buggy and I saw the tears in
+his eyes when he kissed me.</p>
+<p>The man told of finding me on his little veranda, and I told of
+my ride with Dug Draper, after which Uncle Peabody said:</p>
+<p>"I'm goin' to put in your hoss and feed him, Comptroller."</p>
+<p>"And I'm goin' to cook the best dinner I ever cooked in my
+life," said Aunt Deel.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;a suspicion justified by
+the facts of history.</p>
+<p>When the great man had gone Uncle Peabody took me in his lap and
+said very gently and with a serious look:</p>
+<p>"You didn't think I meant it, did ye?&mdash;that you would have
+to go 'way from here?"</p>
+<p>"I don't know," was my answer.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Take 'em right off," said she. "It ain't a goin' to do to wear
+'em common&mdash;no, sir-ee! They're for meetin' or when company
+comes&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>I regretfully took off the shoes and gave them to her, and
+thereafter the shoes were guarded as carefully as the butternut
+trousers.</p>
+<p>That evening as I was about to go up-stairs to bed, Aunt Deel
+said to my uncle:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I went to sleep that night thinking of the strange, old, ragged,
+silent woman.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<h3>WE GO TO MEETING AND SEE MR. WRIGHT AGAIN</h3>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;don't it?&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>"If any one needs help Sile Wright is always on hand," said
+Uncle Peabody.</p>
+<p>I was soon out of bed and he came no more to sit up with me.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"Could I wear my new shoes and trousers?" I asked joyfully.</p>
+<p>"Ayes I guess ye can if you're a good boy&mdash;ayes!" said Aunt
+Deel.</p>
+<p>I had told Aunt Deel what Sally had said of my personal
+appearance.</p>
+<p>"Your coat is good enough for anybody&mdash;ayes!" said she.
+"I'll make you a pair o' breeches an' then I guess you won't have
+to be 'shamed no more."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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 <i>St. Lawrence Republican</i>. Both occupations
+deprived him utterly of his usefulness as an uncle. I remember that
+I regarded the razor and the <i>Republican</i> as my worst enemies.
+The <i>Republican</i> 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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Come, we're goin' down to speak to Mr. Wright."</p>
+<p>We saw Mr. and Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg in the aisle, who said
+that they would wait for us outside the church.</p>
+<p>I remember that Mr. Wright kissed me and said:</p>
+<p>"Hello! Here's my boy in a new pair o' trousers!"</p>
+<p>"Put yer hand in there," I said proudly, as I took my own out of
+one of my pockets, and pointed the way.</p>
+<p>He did not accept the invitation, but laughed heartily and gave
+me a little hug.</p>
+<p>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!"</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Of course you'll come to dinner with us?"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Thank ye, but we've got a good ways to go and we fetched a bite
+with us&mdash;ayes!" said Aunt Deel.</p>
+<p>Eagerly I awaited an invitation from the great Mrs. Dunkelberg
+that should be decisively urgent, but she only said:</p>
+<p>"I'm very sorry you can't stay."</p>
+<p>My hopes fell like bricks and vanished like bubbles.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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:</p>
+<p>"Mebbe we better git dinner here?"</p>
+<p>Aunt Deel hesitated at the edge of the stable yard, surrounded
+as she was by the aroma of the fleshpots, then:</p>
+<p>"I guess we better go right home and save our money,
+Peabody&mdash;ayes!" said she. "We told Mr. and Mrs. Horace
+Dunkelberg that we was goin' home and they'd think we was
+liars."</p>
+<p>"We orto have gone with `em," said Uncle Peabody as he unhitched
+the horses.</p>
+<p>"Well, Peabody Baynes, they didn't appear to be very anxious to
+have us," Aunt Deel answered with a sigh.</p>
+<p>We had started away up the South road when, to my surprise, Aunt
+Deel mildly attacked the Dunkelbergs.</p>
+<p>"These here village folks like to be waited
+on&mdash;ayes!&mdash;an' they're awful anxious you should come to
+see 'em when ye can't&mdash;ayes!&mdash;but when ye git to the
+village they ain't nigh so anxious&mdash;no they ain't!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>The sun was low when they awoke me in our dooryard.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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!</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<h3>OUR LITTLE STRANGE COMPANION</h3>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>It seemed to say: "Look! I know not which way is yours, but
+this&mdash;this is my way and all the little cross roads lead off
+it."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;beech and birch and maple and balsam
+and spruce and pine and tamarack&mdash;forever whispering of the
+unconquered lands that rolled in great billowy ridges to the far
+horizon.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Why does it point toward the north star?" I used to ask.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"You talk like one o' them Universalists," said Aunt Deel.
+"They're gettin' thick as flies around here."</p>
+<p>"Wal, I kind o' believe&mdash;" he paused at the edge of what
+may have been a dangerous opinion.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Do folks take compasses with 'em when they die?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"No, they don't need 'em then," said Uncle Peabody. "Everybody
+has a kind of a compass in his own heart&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>"An' the way o' uselessness is the way to hell," Aunt Deel
+added.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>His vivid words touched my imagination and I have often recalled
+them.</p>
+<p>"Well, now by mighty! I&mdash;" 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."</p>
+<p>"Is your spring's work done?"</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"Bart, are you with us?" said Mr. Wright as he gave me a playful
+poke with his hand.</p>
+<p>"May I go?" I asked my uncle.</p>
+<p>"I wouldn't wonder&mdash;go an' ask yer aunt," said Uncle
+Peabody.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Aunt Deel, I'm goin' fishin'," I said.</p>
+<p>"Fishin'! I guess not&mdash;ayes I do," she answered.</p>
+<p>It was more than I could stand. A roar of distress and
+disappointment came from my lips.</p>
+<p>Uncle Peabody hurried into the kitchen.</p>
+<p>"The Comptroller wants him to go," said he.</p>
+<p>"He does?" she repeated as she stood with her hands on her hips
+looking up at her brother.</p>
+<p>"He likes Bart and wants to take him along."</p>
+<p>"Wal, then, you'll have to be awful careful of him," said Aunt
+Deel. "I'm 'fraid he'll plague ye&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>"No, he won't&mdash;we'll love to have him."</p>
+<p>"Wal, I guess you could git Mary Billings to come over and stay
+with me an' help with the chores&mdash;ayes, I wouldn't
+wonder!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Peepers and men who talked politics were alike to me those days.
+They were beyond my understanding and generally put me to
+sleep&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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?</p>
+<p>"Hello, Bart!" said he. "It's to-morrer."</p>
+<p>I sat up. The delicious odor of frying ham was in the air. The
+glow of the morning sunlight was on the meadows.</p>
+<p>"Come on, ol' friend! By mighty! We're goin' to&mdash;" said
+Uncle Peabody.</p>
+<p>Happy thoughts came rushing into my brain again. What a tumult!
+I leaped out of bed.</p>
+<p>"I'll be ready in a minute, Uncle Peabody," I said as, yawning,
+I drew on my trousers.</p>
+<p>"Don't tear yer socks," he cautioned as I lost patience with
+their unsympathetic behavior.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Breakfast is ready."</p>
+<p>Aunt Deel never shortened her words when company was there. Her
+respect was always properly divided between her guest and the
+English language.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"If we see a deer we ain't goin' to let him bite us," said Uncle
+Peabody.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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!"</p>
+<p>"Want to go fishin'?" Uncle Peabody called.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;damned if I
+didn't! Want to go up the river?"</p>
+<p>"We thought we'd go up to your camp and fish a day or two."</p>
+<p>"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?"</p>
+<p>"This is Mr. Silas Wright&mdash;the Comptroller," said Uncle
+Peabody.</p>
+<p>"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!"</p>
+<p>"It won't hurt me any&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>The horses were hitched in and the canoes washed out. Then we
+all turned to and dug some angle-worms. The poles were
+brought&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"We are a fishing party. There are four of us who have come
+together with one purpose&mdash;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&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>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&mdash;that of throwing light into dark places so that all could
+see the truth that was hidden there.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"What's the matter?" Uncle Peabody demanded.</p>
+<p>"I was 'fraid&mdash;Mr. Wright&mdash;was goin' to be drownded,"
+I managed to say.</p>
+<p>The Comptroller shook his arms and came and knelt by my side and
+kissed me.</p>
+<p>"God bless the dear boy!" he exclaimed. "It's a long time since
+any one cried for me. I love you, Bart."</p>
+<p>When Bill swore after that the Comptroller raised his hand and
+shook his head and uttered a protesting hiss.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"The fish are smaller there and I guess you could catch 'em,"
+said he.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Bart, I'm 'fraid we're going wrong. Let's sit down here and
+take a look at the compass."</p>
+<p>He took out his compass and I stood by his knee and watched the
+quivering needle.</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir," he went on. "We just turned around up there on the
+hill and started for Alder Brook again."</p>
+<p>As we went on he added: "When you're in doubt look at the
+compass. It always knows its way."</p>
+<p>"How does it know?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"It couldn't tell ye how and I couldn't. There are lots o'
+things in the world that nobody can understand."</p>
+<p>The needle now pointed toward its favorite star.</p>
+<p>"My uncle says that everything and everybody has compasses in
+'em to show 'em the way to go," I remarked thoughtfully.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"What's partner?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"Somebody you like to have with you."</p>
+<p>Always when we were together after that hour the great man
+called me "partner."</p>
+<p>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&mdash;the
+meanest boy in school&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"What ye doing here?" he asked in surprise.</p>
+<p>"Nothing," I answered gravely.</p>
+<p>The Comptroller must have observed the sorrow in my face, for he
+asked:</p>
+<p>"What's the matter?"</p>
+<p>"Nothing," I lied, and then my conscience caught up with my
+tongue and I added: "It's a secret."</p>
+<p>Fearing that my uncle would disgrace himself in the hearing of
+Mr. Wright, I said something&mdash;I do not remember what, save
+that it related to the weather&mdash;in a loud voice by way of
+warning.</p>
+<p>They noticed the downcast look of me when we entered camp.</p>
+<p>"Why, Bub, you look tired," said Uncle Peabody as he gave me
+that familiar hug of his.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Lay down on this old sheep skin and take a nap," said he. "It's
+warm in here."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>"Say, by&mdash;" Uncle Peabody paused. "He must a stole up here
+and heard me tellin' that&mdash;" 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&mdash;ye can't take no rest or vacation at all whatever."</p>
+<p>"You've got to be sound through and through or they'll find it
+out," said the Comptroller. "You can't fool 'em long."</p>
+<p>"He's got a purty keen edge on him," said Bill Seaver.</p>
+<p>"On the whole I think he's the most interesting child I ever
+saw," said Mr. Wright.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Well, I want to know!&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"I've got to tell you something," I said.</p>
+<p>"What is it?" she asked.</p>
+<p>"I heard him say naughty words."</p>
+<p>"What words?"</p>
+<p>"I&mdash;I can't say `em. They're wicked. I'm&mdash;I'm 'fraid
+he's goin' to be burnt up," I stammered.</p>
+<p>"It's so. I said 'em," my uncle confessed.</p>
+<p>Aunt Deel turned to me and said: "Bart, you go right down to the
+barn and bring me a strap&mdash;ayes!&mdash;you bring me a
+strap&mdash;right away."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Then I heard Aunt Deel call to me: "Hurry up, Bart."</p>
+<p>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&mdash;I don't think he meant it."</p>
+<p>"He'll have to be punished&mdash;just the
+same&mdash;ayes&mdash;he will."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Are you willin' to kiss me?"</p>
+<p>I kissed him and then he said:</p>
+<p>"If ye ever hear me talk like that ag'in, I'll let the stoutest
+man in Ballybeen hit me with his ax."</p>
+<p>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&mdash;ayes! Ain't that
+awful!&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>"Pretend ye ain't noticed it," said Uncle Peabody. "He's had
+trouble enough for one day."</p>
+<p>A deep silence followed in which I knew that Aunt Deel was
+probably wiping tears from her eyes. I went to bed feeling
+better.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"DEAR SIR&mdash;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.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<div class="blockquot">
+"Yours respectfully,<br />
+S. WRIGHT, JR.</div></div>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"P.S.&mdash;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."</p>
+</div>
+<p>"I guess Bart has made a friend o' this great man&mdash;sartin
+ayes!" said Aunt Deel. "I wonder who'll be the next one."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+<h3>IN THE LIGHT OF THE CANDLES</h3>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;a light-house
+on the shore of the great deep.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;that of the candles&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>At first we had only <i>The Horse Farrier, The Cattle Book, The
+Story of the Indian Wars</i>&mdash;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 <i>St. Lawrence
+Republican</i> were always with us.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;my rosary in every time of trouble&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>I remember vividly that evening when we took out the books and
+tenderly felt their covers and read their titles. There were
+<i>Cruikshanks' Comic Almanac</i> and <i>Hood's Comic Annual</i>;
+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, <i>The Life and Writings of
+Doctor Duckworth</i>, <i>The Stolen Child</i>, by "John Galt,
+Esq."; <i>Rosine Laval</i>, by "Mr. Smith"; <i>Sermons and
+Essays</i>, by William Ellery Channing. We found in the box, also,
+thirty numbers of the <i>United States Magazine and Democratic
+Review</i> and sundry copies of the <i>New York Mirror</i>.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>"Well she wasn't&mdash;" Uncle Peabody began and stopped
+suddenly. What he meant to say about her will never be definitely
+known. In half a moment he added:</p>
+<p>"I guess if Sue Wright recommends 'em they won't hurt us
+any."</p>
+<p>"Ayes! I ain't afraid&mdash;we'll wade into 'em," she answered
+recklessly. "Ayes! we'll see what they're about."</p>
+<p>Aunt Deel began with <i>The Stolen Child</i>. 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:</p>
+<p>"Call it 'snags' and go on."</p>
+<p>The "snags" were numerous in certain of the books we read, in
+which case Uncle Peabody would exclaim:</p>
+<p>"Say, that's purty rough plowin'. Mebbe you better move into
+another field."</p>
+<p>How often I have heard Aunt Deel reading when the effect was
+like this:</p>
+<p>"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!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>In those magazines we read of the great West&mdash;"the poor
+man's paradise"&mdash;"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!</p>
+<p>One evening a neighbor had brought the <i>Republican</i> from
+the post-office. I opened it and read aloud these words, in large
+type at the top of the page:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Silas Wright Elected to the U.S. Senate.</p>
+</div>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"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."</p>
+</div>
+<p>"That's his way," said Uncle Peabody. "They had hard work to
+convince him that he knew enough to be Surrogate."</p>
+<p>"Big men have little conceit&mdash;ayes!" said Aunt Deel with a
+significant glance at me.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Ayes," said Aunt Deel, "there are four perils."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Poor ol' Kate&mdash;ayes! Here's somethin' for
+ye&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>She turned to, my uncle and said:</p>
+<p>"Peabody Baynes, what'll we do&mdash;I'd like to
+know&mdash;ayes! She can't rove all night."</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>He brought the lantern&mdash;a little tower of perforated
+tin&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"Well I declare! It's a long time since she went up this
+road&mdash;ayes!" said Aunt Deel, yawning as she resumed her
+chair.</p>
+<p>"Who is ol' Kate?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"Oh, just a poor ol' crazy woman&mdash;wanders all
+'round&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>"What made her crazy?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, I guess somebody misused and deceived her when she was
+young&mdash;ayes! It's an awful wicked thing to do. Come,
+Bart&mdash;go right up to bed now. It's high time&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>"I want to wait 'til Uncle Peabody comes back," said I.</p>
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+<p>"I&mdash;I'm afraid she'll do somethin' to him."</p>
+<p>"Nonsense! Ol' Kate is just as harmless as a kitten. You take
+your candle and go right up to bed&mdash;this
+minute&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"What's that?" I whispered.</p>
+<p>"I guess it's ol' Kate ravin'," said Uncle Peabody.</p>
+<p>It touched my heart and I lay listening for a time but heard
+only the loud whisper of the popple leaves.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<h3>THE GREAT STRANGER</h3>
+<p>Some strangers came along the road those days&mdash;hunters,
+peddlers and the like&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"I'm sorry, but it's been a hundred Sundays since I had a dollar
+in my wallet for more than ten minutes."</p>
+<p>I have his old account book for the years of 1837 and 1838. Here
+are some of the entries:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"Sold two sheep to Flavius Curtis and took his note for $6,
+payable in boots on or before March the first."</p>
+</div>
+<p>Only one entry in more than a hundred mentions money, and this
+was the sum of eleven cents received in balance from a
+neighbor.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>She did her best, also, to keep our minds in a cleanly state of
+preservation&mdash;a work in which the teacher rendered important
+service. He was a young man from Canton.</p>
+<p>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?</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>What a simple rule was this of the teacher!&mdash;and
+yet&mdash;well the very next thing he said was:</p>
+<p>"Where did you hear all that swearing?"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"Speak no evil of the absent for it is unjust."</p>
+<p>"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of
+celestial fire called conscience."</p>
+</div>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>I copy from an old memorandum book a statement of my daily
+routine just as I put it down one of those days:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"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."</p>
+</div>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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"&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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!</p>
+<p>When the Axtells had gone away Aunt Deel said:</p>
+<p>"It's grand! It is sartin&mdash;but I'm 'fraid we can't afford
+it&mdash;ayes I be!"</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"How much did it cost?" she asked.</p>
+<p>"Not much differ'nt from thirty-four dollars in sheep and
+grain," he answered.</p>
+<p>Rodney Barnes stayed to supper and spent a part of the evening
+with us.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Tell this man what you think about the kind o' land we got
+here," Grimshaw had demanded.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>Our cousin twisted the poker in his great hands until it
+squeaked as he stood before my uncle and said:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>The poker broke and he threw the pieces under the stove.</p>
+<p>"Why?" my uncle asked.</p>
+<p>Mr. Barnes got hold of another stick of wood and went on.</p>
+<p>"'Fraid o' Grimshaw. He didn't want me to be able to pay it. The
+place is worth more than six hundred dollars now&mdash;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'."</p>
+<p>My uncle went and took a drink at the water pail. I saw by his
+face that he was unusually wrought up.</p>
+<p>"My heavens an' earth!" he exclaimed as he sat down again.</p>
+<p>"It's the brain colic," I said to myself as I looked at him.</p>
+<p>Mr. Barnes seemed to have it also.</p>
+<p>"Too much note," I whispered.</p>
+<p>"I'm awful sorry, but I've done everything I could," said Mr.
+Barnes.</p>
+<p>"Ain't there somebody that'll take another mortgage?&mdash;it
+ought to be safe now," my uncle suggested.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>So I saw how Rodney Barnes, like other settlers in Lickitysplit,
+had gone into bondage to the landlord.</p>
+<p>"How much do you owe on this place?" Barnes asked.</p>
+<p>"Seven hundred an' fifty dollars," said my uncle.</p>
+<p>"Is it due?"</p>
+<p>"It's been due a year an' if I have to pay that note I'll be
+short my interest."</p>
+<p>"God o' Israel! I'm scairt," said Barnes.</p>
+<p>Down crashed the stick of wood into the box.</p>
+<p>"What about?"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"If he does I'll do all I can," said Barnes, "whatever I've got
+will be yours."</p>
+<p>The nail came out of the wall.</p>
+<p>"I had enough saved to pay off the mortgage," my uncle answered.
+"I suppose it'll have to go for the note."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"I guess I better go or I'll break everything you've got here. I
+kind o' feel that way."</p>
+<p>Rodney Barnes left us.</p>
+<p>I remember how Uncle Peabody stood in the middle of the floor
+and whistled the merriest tune he knew.</p>
+<p>"Stand right up here," he called in his most cheerful tone.
+"Stand right up here before me, both o' ye."</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>This irresistible spirit of the man bridged a bad hour and got
+us off to bed in fairly good condition.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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!</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"If you hadn't been a fool," my aunt exclaimed with a look of
+great distress&mdash;"ayes! if you hadn't been a fool."</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"I'll stay at home an' work," I proposed bravely.</p>
+<p>"You ain't old enough for that," sighed Aunt Deel.</p>
+<p>"I want to keep you in school," said Uncle Peabody, who sat
+making a splint broom.</p>
+<p>While we were talking in walked Benjamin Grimshaw&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"Why, Mr. Grimshaw, it's years since you've been in our
+house&mdash;ayes!" said Aunt Deel.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>He drew in his breath quickly and with a hissing sound after
+every sentence.</p>
+<p>"How are your folks?" my aunt asked.</p>
+<p>"So's to eat their allowance&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;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?"</p>
+<p>"If I've ever acted like a rich man it's been when I wa'n't
+lookin'," said Uncle Peabody.</p>
+<p>"What business have you got enlargin' yer family&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>He raised his cane and shook it in the air as he spoke.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I ain't no doubt o' that," said Uncle Peabody. "You'll have
+to have yer money&mdash;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&mdash;you don't know what a good boy he is and what a comfort
+he's been to us!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"I tell ye I'd rather have that boy than all the money you've
+got, Mr. Grimshaw," Uncle Peabody added.</p>
+<p>My aunt came and patted my shoulder and said:
+"Sh&mdash;sh&mdash;sh! Don't you care, Bart! You're just the same
+as if you was our own boy&mdash;ayes!&mdash;you be."</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;wasn't ye? I
+don't mind pride unless it keeps a man from payin' his honest
+debts. You ought to have better sense."</p>
+<p>"An' you ought to keep yer breath to cool yer porridge," said
+Uncle Peabody.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;mebbe less."</p>
+<p>He closed the door and went away.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"He's the dam'dest&mdash;"</p>
+<p>He stopped, set the half-splintered stick aside, closed his
+jackknife and went to the water-pail to cool his emotions with a
+drink.</p>
+<p>Aunt Deel took up the subject where he had dropped it, as if no
+half-expressed sentiment would satisfy her, saying:</p>
+<p>"&mdash;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&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>Having recovered my composure I repeated that I should like to
+give up school and stay at home and work.</p>
+<p>Aunt Deel interrupted me by saying:</p>
+<p>"I have an idee that Sile Wright will help us&mdash;ayes! He's
+comin' home an' you better go down an' see him&mdash;ayes! Hadn't
+ye?"</p>
+<p>"Bart an' I'll go down to-morrer," said Uncle Peabody.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Aunt Deel called at the bottom of the stairs in a generous
+tone:</p>
+<p>"Peabody, if I was you I'd put on them butternut
+trousers&mdash;ayes! an' yer new shirt an' hat an' necktie, but you
+must be awful careful of 'em&mdash;ayes."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Now may the Lord help ye to be careful&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>To Aunt Deel wagon grease was the worst enemy of a happy and
+respectable home.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;a low, weather-stained, frame building, hard
+by the main road, with a narrow hanging stair on the side of
+it.</p>
+<p>"She keeps watch by the winder when she ain't travelin'," said
+Uncle Peabody. "Knows all that's goin' on&mdash;that
+woman&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Hello, Bart! How you've grown! and how handsome you look!
+Where's your uncle?"</p>
+<p>"He's there by the door," I answered.</p>
+<p>"Well, le's go and see him."</p>
+<p>Then I followed him out of the office.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Baynes, I'm glad to see you," he said heartily. "Did ye bring
+me any jerked meat?"</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"I'd like to take some to Washington but I wouldn't have you
+bring it so far."</p>
+<p>"I'd like to bring it&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"That's first rate," said my uncle. "The chores ain't much these
+days an' I guess my sister can git along with 'em."</p>
+<p>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 <i>Republican</i> had already made us familiar.</p>
+<p>"Here," said the Senator as he put his hand on my head, "is a
+coming man in the Democratic party."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Well I swan!" said the merchant in the treble voice which I
+remembered so well. "This is Bart and Peabody! How are you?"</p>
+<p>"Pretty well," I answered, my uncle being too slow of speech to
+suit my sense of propriety. "How is Sally?"</p>
+<p>The two men laughed heartily much to my embarrassment.</p>
+<p>"He's getting right down to business," said my uncle.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>By and by I asked, "Are you 'most ready to go?"</p>
+<p>"Yes&mdash;come on&mdash;it's after twelve o'clock," said Mr.
+Dunkelberg. "Sally will be back from school now."</p>
+<p>My conscience got the better of me and I confessed about the ink
+bottle and was forgiven.</p>
+<p>So we walked to the big house of the Dunkelbergs and I could
+hear my heart beating when we turned in at the gate&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;less playful and more beautiful with long yellow curls
+covering her shoulders.</p>
+<p>"How nice you look!" she said as she took my arm and led me into
+her playroom.</p>
+<p>"These are my new clothes," I boasted. "They are very expensive
+and I have to be careful of them."</p>
+<p>I remember not much that we said or did but I could never forget
+how she played for me on a great shiny piano&mdash;I had never seen
+one before&mdash;and made me feel very humble with music more to my
+liking than any I have heard since&mdash;crude and simple as it
+was&mdash;while her pretty fingers ran up and down the
+keyboard.</p>
+<p>O magic ear of youth! I wonder how it would sound to me
+now&mdash;the rollicking lilt of <i>Barney Leave the Girls
+Alone</i>&mdash;even if a sweet maid flung its banter at me with
+flashing fingers and well-fashioned lips.</p>
+<p>I behaved myself with great care at the table&mdash;I remember
+that&mdash;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!"</p>
+<p>As we were leaving late in the afternoon she said:</p>
+<p>"I wish you would come here to school."</p>
+<p>"I suppose he will sometime," said Uncle Peabody.</p>
+<p>A new hope entered my breast, that moment, and began to grow
+there.</p>
+<p>"Aren't you going to kiss her?" said Mr. Dunkelberg with a
+smile.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"You're looking the wrong way for the scenery," said Mr.
+Dunkelberg.</p>
+<p>She turned and walked toward me with a look Of resolution in her
+pretty face and said:</p>
+<p>"I'm not afraid of him."</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;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!</p>
+<p>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!</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"We poor people are trusting you to look out for us&mdash;we
+poor people are trusting you to see that we get treated fair. We're
+havin' a hard time."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;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&mdash;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?"</p>
+<p>My uncle told him about the note and the visit of Mr. Grimshaw
+and of his threats and upbraidings.</p>
+<p>"Did he say that in Bart's hearing?" asked the Senator.</p>
+<p>"Ayes!&mdash;right out plain."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"We'll miss Bart but we'll be tickled to death&mdash;there's no
+two ways about that," said Uncle Peabody.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>The Senator tested my arithmetic and grammar and geography as we
+rode along in the darkness and said by and by:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>As I was going to bed the Senator called me to him and said:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>In the morning Aunt Deel put it in my hands.</p>
+<p>"I wonder what in the world he wrote there&mdash;ayes!" said
+she. "We must keep it careful&mdash;ayes!&mdash;I'll put it in my
+trunk an' give it to ye when ye go to Canton to school."</p>
+<p>"Has Mr. Wright gone?" I asked rather sadly.</p>
+<p>"Ayes! Land o' mercy! He went away long before daylight with a
+lot o' jerked meat in a pack basket&mdash;ayes! Yer uncle is goin'
+down to the village to see 'bout the mortgage this afternoon,
+ayes!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Why, Bart, you're a grand worker," my uncle would say in my
+fancy. "You're as good as a hired man."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>What a day it was!&mdash;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!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Don't bother me now, Bub. I'll git that candy for ye the next
+time I go to the village."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>I went out on the porch and stood looking down with a sad
+countenance. Aunt Deel followed me.</p>
+<p>"W'y, Bart!" she exclaimed, "you're too tired to eat&mdash;ayes!
+Be ye sick?"</p>
+<p>I shook my head.</p>
+<p>"Peabody," she called, "this boy has worked like a beaver every
+minute since you left&mdash;ayes he has! I never see anything to
+beat it&mdash;never! I want you to come right out into the
+wood-shed an' see what he's done&mdash;this minute&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>I followed them into the shed.</p>
+<p>"W'y of all things!" my uncle exclaimed. "He's worked like a
+nailer, ain't he?"</p>
+<p>There were tears in his eyes when he took my hand in his rough
+palm and squeezed it and said:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"Stop!" Aunt Deel exclaimed with a playful tap on his shoulder.
+"W'y! ye mustn't go on like that."</p>
+<p>"I'm tellin' just what he said," my uncle answered.</p>
+<p>"I guess he only meant that Bart looked clean an'
+decent&mdash;that's all&mdash;ayes! He didn't mean that Bart was
+purty. Land sakes!&mdash;no."</p>
+<p>I observed the note of warning in the look she gave my
+uncle.</p>
+<p>"No, I suppose not," he answered, as he turned away with a smile
+and brushed one of his eyes with a rough finger.</p>
+<p>I repeated the rules I had learned as we went to the table.</p>
+<p>"I'm goin' to be like Silas Wright if I can," I added.</p>
+<p>"That's the idee!" said Uncle Peabody. "You keep on as you've
+started an' everybody'll milk into your pail."</p>
+<p>I kept on&mdash;not with the vigor of that first day with its
+new inspiration&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>I began to know then that ol' Kate had somehow been at work in
+my soul&mdash;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.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<h3>MY SECOND PERIL</h3>
+<p>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!</p>
+<p>Mr. Franklin Purvis was our hired man&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"You don't look very stout," I said.</p>
+<p>"I ain't as big as some, but I'm all gristle from my head to my
+heels, inside an' out," he answered.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;glad and a bit apprehensive as they began to
+develop.</p>
+<p>"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'."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"You'll find me wide awake, I <i>guess</i>. I ain't afraid o'
+anythin' but lightnin'&mdash;no, sir!&mdash;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&mdash;none
+whatsomever! No, sir! I'd rather be harmless than not&mdash;a good
+deal."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Have you ever hurt anybody?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"Several," he answered.</p>
+<p>"Did you kill 'em?"</p>
+<p>"No, I never let myself go too fur. Bein' so stout, I have to be
+kind o' careful."</p>
+<p>After a moment's pause he went on:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>Aunt Deel called us to supper.</p>
+<p>"Le's go in an' squench our hunger," Mr. Purvis proposed as he
+rose and shut his jackknife.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"He's a good man to work, but Jerusalem&mdash;!"</p>
+<p>He stopped. He always stopped at the brink of every such
+precipice. I had never heard him finish an uncomplimentary
+sentence.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"What's the rip?" I asked as my uncle returned looking very
+sober.</p>
+<p>"We won't talk about it now," he answered.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Grimshaw has demanded his mortgage money an' he wants it in
+gold coin. We'll have to git it some way, I dunno how."</p>
+<p>"W'y of all things!" my aunt exclaimed. "How are we goin' to git
+all that money&mdash;these hard times?&mdash;ayes! I'd like to
+know?"</p>
+<p>"Well, I can't tell ye," said Uncle Peabody. "I guess he can't
+forgive us for savin' Rodney Barnes."</p>
+<p>"What did he say?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"I can stay out o' school and keep on with my lessons," I
+said.</p>
+<p>"Not an' please him. He was mad when he see ye with a book in
+yer hand out there in the corn-field."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;of the only
+kind available&mdash;and not work to me.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;everybody carried
+nails in one pocket those days&mdash;and I remember that my uncle's
+pockets were a museum of bolts and nuts and screws and washers.</p>
+<p>The idea occurred to me that I would make a kind of sled which
+was called a jumper.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;a
+slow task to be done with the bare hand&mdash;or to fling my palms
+against my shoulders and thus warm myself a little.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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?"</p>
+<p>"I'm all right, but these horses are awful tired. Had to let 'em
+rest every few minutes."</p>
+<p>I told him about the wagon&mdash;and how it relieved me to hear
+him say:</p>
+<p>"As long as you're all right, boy, I ain't goin' to worry 'bout
+the ol' wagon&mdash;not a bit. Where'd ye git yer jumper?"</p>
+<p>"Made it with the ax and some nails," I answered.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;our own
+fields not far from the house&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>How proud it made me to hear him say:</p>
+<p>"Deel, our boy is a man now&mdash;made this jumper all 'lone by
+himself an' has got through all right."</p>
+<p>She came and held the lantern up to my face and looked at my
+hands.</p>
+<p>"Well, my stars, Bart!" she exclaimed in a moment. "I thought ye
+would freeze up solid&mdash;ayes&mdash;poor boy!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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!</p>
+<p>"I guess you've gone through the second peril that ol' Kate
+spoke of," said Aunt Deel as I went up-stairs.</p>
+<p>Uncle Peabody went out to look at the horses.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Balance yer partners!" he shouted. "You an' I ain't goin' to be
+discouraged if all the hosses die&mdash;be we, Bart?"</p>
+<p>"Never," I answered.</p>
+<p>"That's the talk! If nec'sary we'll hitch Purvis up with t'other
+hoss an' git our haulin' done."</p>
+<p>He and Purvis roared with laughter and the strength of the
+current swept me along with them.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Rodney Barnes came over that afternoon and said that he would
+lend us a horse for the hauling.</p>
+<p>When we went to bed that night Uncle Peabody whispered:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>We felt easy then.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+<h3>MY THIRD PERIL</h3>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>So he gave me permission to ride with Purvis to the
+post-office&mdash;a distance of three miles&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>We heard a quick stir in the bushes by the roadside.</p>
+<p>"What's that?" Purvis demanded in a half-whisper of excitement.
+We stopped.</p>
+<p>Then promptly a voice&mdash;a voice which I did not
+recognize&mdash;broke the silence with these menacing words sharply
+spoken:</p>
+<p>"Your money or your life!"</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Drive up the road as quick as you can. A man has been
+murdered."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;not one, or two, even, but a band of them&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;a timid, tired-looking, bony little woman who was
+never seen outside of her own house&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"You never had any idee who that robber was, did ye?" he asked
+by and by.</p>
+<p>"No&mdash;I could not see plain&mdash;it was so dusk," I
+said.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>How well I remember the long silence that followed and the
+distant voices that flashed across it now and then&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Your money or your home!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>We came to the sand-hills and then Uncle Peabody broke the
+silence by saying:</p>
+<p>"I wouldn't give fifty cents for as much o' this land as a bird
+could fly around in a day."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Before we reached home I knew what was in his mind, but neither
+dared to speak of it.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"It's very warm!" I said as I picked a stalk of fire-weed.</p>
+<p>What was there about the girl which so thrilled me with
+happiness?</p>
+<p>She turned away and felt the ribbon by which her hair was
+gathered at the back of her head.</p>
+<p>I wanted to kiss her as I had done years before, but I was
+afraid.</p>
+<p>She turned suddenly and said to me:</p>
+<p>"A penny for your thoughts."</p>
+<p>"You won't laugh at me?"</p>
+<p>"No."</p>
+<p>"I was thinking how beautiful you are and how homely I am."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>Oh, the vanity of youth! I had never been so happy as then.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;honest I was!"</p>
+<p>"But you didn't run away."</p>
+<p>"I didn't think of it or I guess I would have."</p>
+<p>After a moment of silence I ventured:</p>
+<p>"I guess you've never fallen in love."</p>
+<p>"Yes, I have."</p>
+<p>"Who with?"</p>
+<p>"I don't think I dare tell you," she answered, slowly, looking
+down as she walked.</p>
+<p>"I'll tell you who I love if you wish," I said.</p>
+<p>"Who?"</p>
+<p>"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:</p>
+<p>"What makes you think you love me?"</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>We stopped and listened to the song of a bird&mdash;I do not
+remember what bird it was&mdash;and then she whispered:</p>
+<p>"Will you love me always and forever?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," I answered in the careless way of youth.</p>
+<p>She stopped and looked into my eyes and I looked into hers.</p>
+<p>"May I kiss you?" I asked, and afraid, with cheeks burning.</p>
+<p>She turned away and answered: "I guess you can if you want
+to."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;the sweetest and dearest kind of play which the
+young may enjoy, and possibly, also, the most dangerous.</p>
+<p>She held my hand very tightly as we went on and I told her of my
+purpose to be a great man.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"Yes," I answered.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I took the letter and read again the superscription on its
+envelope:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>To Master Barton Baynes&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">(To be opened when he leaves home
+to</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">go to school.)</span></p></div>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"That'll be grand," said Uncle Peabody, but, as to myself, just
+then, I knew not what to think of it.</p>
+<p>We were picking up potatoes in the field.</p>
+<p>"Without 'taters an' imitators this world would be a poor place
+to live in," said Mr. Hacket. "Some imitate the wise&mdash;thank
+God!&mdash;some the foolish&mdash;bad 'cess to the devil!"</p>
+<p>As he spoke we heard a wonderful bird song in a tall spruce down
+by the brook.</p>
+<p>"Do ye hear the little silver bells in yon tower?" he asked.</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Shep was rubbing his neck fondly on the schoolmaster's boot.</p>
+<p>"That dog couldn't think more o' me if I were a bone," he said
+as he went away.</p>
+<h3>END OF BOOK ONE</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="BOOK_TWO" id="BOOK_TWO"></a>BOOK TWO</h2>
+<h3>Which is the Story of the Principal Witness</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+<h3>IN WHICH I MEET OTHER GREAT MEN</h3>
+<p>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&mdash;they
+pricked so.</p>
+<p>The suit which I had grown into&mdash;"the Potsdam clothes," we
+called them often, but more often "the boughten clothes"&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>When the chest was about full, I remember that my aunt brought
+something wrapped in a sheet of the <i>St. Lawrence Republican</i>
+and put it into my hands.</p>
+<p>"There are two dozen cookies an' some dried meat," said she.
+"Ayes, I thought mebbe you'd like 'em&mdash;if you was hungry some
+time between meals. Wait a minute."</p>
+<p>She went to her room and Uncle Peabody and I waited before we
+shut the hasp with a wooden peg driven into its staple.</p>
+<p>Aunt Deel returned promptly with the Indian Book in her
+hands.</p>
+<p>"There," said she, "you might as well have
+it&mdash;ayes!&mdash;you're old enough now. You'll enjoy readin' it
+sometimes in the evenin', mebbe&mdash;ayes! Please be awful careful
+of it, Bart, for it was a present from my mother to me&mdash;ayes
+it was!"</p>
+<p>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&mdash;greater, far greater than that which has brought
+me gifts of silver and gold&mdash;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&mdash;my great
+grandfather&mdash;had been killed by the Indians.</p>
+<p>I remember the sad excitement of that ride to the village and
+all the words of advice and counsel spoken by my aunt.</p>
+<p>"Don't go out after dark," said she. "I'm 'fraid some o' them
+rowdies'll pitch on ye."</p>
+<p>"If they do I guess they'll be kind o' surprised," said Uncle
+Peabody.</p>
+<p>"I don't want him to fight."</p>
+<p>"If it's nec'sary, I believe in fightin' tooth an' nail," my
+uncle maintained.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"I dunno but what it's goin' to rain."</p>
+<p>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!&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;so drunk that I thought their horses were
+ashamed of them, being always steaming hot and in a great
+hurry.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Bart," he called, "I've a friend here who has something to say
+to you. Come in."</p>
+<p>I turned and went into the house.</p>
+<p>"Away with sadness&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>The last words were spoken in a whisper, with one hand on my
+breast.</p>
+<p>He tuned the strings and played the <i>Fisher's Hornpipe</i>.
+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.</p>
+<p>"Now, God bless your soul, boy!" he exclaimed, by and by, as he
+put down his instrument. "We shall have a good time
+together&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>Then with his microscope he showed me into the wonder world of
+littleness of which I had had no knowledge.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;like the kitchen chairs of to-day. In the middle of the
+table was an empty one&mdash;painted green. Before he sat down Mr.
+Hacket put his hand on the back of this chair and said:</p>
+<p>"A merry heart to you, Michael Henry."</p>
+<p>I wondered at the meaning of this, but dared not to ask. The
+oldest daughter acted as a kind of moderator with the others.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"I believe that Sally Dunkelberg is your friend," he said to me
+presently.</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir," I answered.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I blushed and Mary and her mother and the boy John looked at me
+and laughed.</p>
+<p>"<i>Puer pulcherrime!</i>" Mr. Hacket exclaimed with a kindly
+smile.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"What does that mean?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>Again they laughed and again I blushed.</p>
+<p>"Hold up yer head, my brave lad," he went on. "Ye've a perfect
+right to like Sally if ye've a heart to."</p>
+<p>He sang a rollicking ballad of which I remember only the
+refrain:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p><i>A lad in his teens will never know beans if he hasn't an eye
+for the girls</i>.</p>
+</div>
+<p>It was a merry supper, and when it ended Mr. Hacket rose and
+took the green chair from the table, exclaiming:</p>
+<p>"Michael Henry, God bless you!"</p>
+<p>Then he kissed his wife and said:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Let's play backgammon," Mary proposed.</p>
+<p>"I don't want to," said John.</p>
+<p>"Don't forget Michael Henry," she reminded.</p>
+<p>"Who is Michael Henry?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"Sure, he's the boy that has never been born," said Mrs. Hacket.
+"He was to be the biggest and noblest one o' them&mdash;kind an'
+helpful an' cheery hearted an' beloved o' God above all the others.
+We try to live up to him."</p>
+<p>He seemed to me a very strange and wonderful creature&mdash;this
+invisible occupant of the green chair.</p>
+<p>I know now what I knew not then that Michael Henry was the
+spirit of their home&mdash;an ideal of which the empty green chair
+was a constant reminder.</p>
+<p>We played backgammon and Old Maid and Everlasting until Mr.
+Hacket returned.</p>
+<p>He sat down and read aloud from the <i>Letters of an
+Englishwoman in America</i>.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"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!&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>He turned and bade me good night and went away and closed the
+door.</p>
+<p>I sat down and opened the sealed envelope with trembling hands,
+and found in it this brief note:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"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:</p>
+<p>"'His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie
+down with him in the dust.'</p>
+<p>"I believe that they are the most impressive in all the
+literature I have read.</p>
+<p>"Yours truly,<br />
+SILAS WRIGHT, JR."</p>
+</div>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>What was the meaning of this? What had Amos Grimshaw been doing?
+I trembled as I got back into bed&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>I was up at daylight and Mr. Hacket came to my door while I was
+dressing.</p>
+<p>"A merry day to you!" he exclaimed. "I'll await you below and
+introduce you to the humble herds and flocks of a
+schoolmaster."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Now you know the duties o' your office," said the schoolmaster
+as we went in to breakfast.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"The Senator! God prosper him! I hear that he came on the
+Plattsburg stage last night," he said as he began the
+reading&mdash;an announcement which caused me and the children to
+clap our hands with joy.</p>
+<p>Mr. Hacket thoughtfully repeated the words from Job with a most
+impressive intonation.</p>
+<p>He passed the letter back to me and said:</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"Ye might as well pity a goose for going bare-footed," the
+schoolmaster remarked.</p>
+<p>In the midst of our laughter Colonel Hand rapped at the door and
+Mr. Hacket admitted him.</p>
+<p>"I tell you the country is going to the dogs," I heard the
+Colonel saying as he came into the house.</p>
+<p>"You inhuman Hand!" said the schoolmaster. "I should think you
+would be tired of trying to crush that old indestructible
+worm."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"What do ye think has happened?" he asked as he looked down upon
+us with a majestic movement of his hand.</p>
+<p>He stood with a stern face, like an orator, and seemed to enjoy
+our suspense.</p>
+<p>"What do you think has happened?" he repeated.</p>
+<p>"God knows! It may be that Bill Harriman has swapped horses
+again or that somebody has been talked to death by old Granny
+Barnes&mdash;which is it?" asked the schoolmaster.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"For murder?" asked Mr. and Mrs. Hacket in one breath.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;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&mdash;you mark my
+words."</p>
+<p>He bowed and left us. When the door had closed behind him Mr.
+Hacket said:</p>
+<p>"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
+&AElig;neas&mdash;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?"</p>
+<p>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?"</p>
+<p>"No," the girl answered.</p>
+<p>"We mustn't be letting Mike get ahead of us always," said her
+father.</p>
+<p>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?&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"You saw the crime, I believe," said Mr. Hacket as he turned to
+me.</p>
+<p>I told them all that I knew of it.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>The schoolmaster and I went over to Mr. Wright's house&mdash;a
+white, frame building which had often been pointed out to me.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Mr. Hacket asked for the time and she answered:</p>
+<p>"It wants one minute of seven."</p>
+<p>I quote her words to show how early the day began with us back
+in those times.</p>
+<p>"We've plenty of time and we'll wait for him," said the
+schoolmaster.</p>
+<p>"I see him!" said little John as he and Ruth ran to the gate and
+down the rough plank walk to meet him.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Well, I see ye still love the tender embrace o' the
+wheelbarrow," said Mr. Hacket as we approached the Senator.</p>
+<p>"My embrace is the tenderer of the two," the latter laughed with
+a look at his hands.</p>
+<p>He recognized me and seized my two hands and shook them as he
+said:</p>
+<p>"Upon my word, here is my friend Bart. I was not looking for you
+here."</p>
+<p>He put his hand on my head, now higher than his shoulder, and
+said: "I was not looking for you <i>here</i>."</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>"We are all forever moving," said the schoolmaster. "No man is
+ever two days in the same altitude unless he's a Whig."</p>
+<p>"Or a <i>born</i> fool," the Senator laughed with a subtlety
+which I did not then appreciate.</p>
+<p>He asked about my aunt and uncle and expressed joy at learning
+that I was now under Mr. Hacket.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>We bade him good morning and he went on with his wheelbarrow,
+which was loaded, I remember, with stout sacks of meal and
+flour.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Among the handsome, well-dressed boys of the village was Henry
+Wills&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>While I was talking with this man Sally passed me walking with
+another girl and said:</p>
+<p>"Hello, Bart!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Well, Bart, how do you like school?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Not very well," I answered.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"I want to go home," I declared.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>He went on with his work, and, as I walked away, I understood
+that the needle he referred to was my conscience.</p>
+<p>As I neared the schoolmaster's the same drunken man that I had
+seen before went zigzagging up the road.</p>
+<p>Mr. Hacket stood in his dooryard.</p>
+<p>"Who is that?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"Nick Tubbs&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Those in favor of his punishment will please say aye?" said the
+schoolmaster.</p>
+<p>I remember that we had a divided house on that important
+question.</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>This meant lying for a painful moment across his father's
+knee.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Let us walk up to the jail and spend a few minutes with
+Amos."</p>
+<p>We hurried to the jail. The sheriff, a stout-built, stern-faced
+man, admitted us.</p>
+<p>"Can we see the Grimshaw boy?" Mr. Hacket inquired.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Hello, Grimshaw," he said sternly. "Step out here."</p>
+<p>It all went to my heart&mdash;the manners of the sheriff so like
+the cold iron of his keys and doors&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>He asked if he could see me alone and the sheriff shook his head
+and said sternly:</p>
+<p>"Against the rules."</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;let me know. Have ye a lawyer?"</p>
+<p>"There's one coming to-morrow."</p>
+<p>"Don't say a word about the case, boy, to any one but your
+lawyer&mdash;mind that."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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!</p>
+<p>"Why does she follow him that way?" I asked the storekeeper when
+they were gone.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I dunno, boy!" he answered. "She's crazy an' I guess she
+dunno what she's doin'."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>I started for the big schoolhouse and a number of boys joined me
+with pleasant words.</p>
+<p>"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'."</p>
+<p>The boys were of one accord about that.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+<h3>I MEET PRESIDENT VAN BUREN AND AM CROSS-EXAMINED BY MR.
+GRIMSHAW</h3>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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&mdash;God bless your soul! We shall take Bart with us an'
+doughnuts an' cheese an' cookies an' dried meat for all."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"I promised to spend the morning in the field with Mr. Wright,
+if I may have your consent, sir," I said.</p>
+<p>"Then we shall console ourselves, knowing that you are in better
+company," said Mr. Hacket.</p>
+<p>Mr. Dunkelberg called at the house in Ashery Lane to see me
+after breakfast.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>I blushed and surveyed my garments and said:</p>
+<p>"I guess I look pretty badly, don't I?"</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>It should be understood that well-to-do people in the towns were
+more particular about their dress those days than now.</p>
+<p>"I'll ask my aunt and uncle about it," I proposed.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>He left me and I went over to Mr. Wright's.</p>
+<p>They told me that he was cutting corn in the back lot, where I
+found him.</p>
+<p>"How do I look in these clothes?" I bravely asked.</p>
+<p>"Like the son of a farmer up in the hills and that's just as you
+ought to look," he answered.</p>
+<p>In a moment he added as he reaped a hill of corn with his
+sickle.</p>
+<p>"I suppose they are making fun of you, partner."</p>
+<p>"Some," I answered, blushing.</p>
+<p>"Don't mind that," he advised, and then quoted the stanza:</p>
+<p>"Were I as tall to reach the pole<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or grasp the ocean in a
+span,</span><br />
+I'd still me measured by my soul;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The mind's the standard of the
+man."</span></p>
+<p>"Mr. Dunkelberg came this morning and wanted to buy me some new
+clothes and boots," I said.</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><br />
+<a href="images/illus220.jpg"><img src="images/illus220.jpg" width=
+"50%" alt="" title="" /></a><br />
+<b>"Good Lord! What wilt thou give me when I grow
+childless?"</b></div>
+<p>The Senator stopped work and stood looking at me with his hands
+upon his hips.</p>
+<p>"I wouldn't let him do it if I were you," he said
+thoughtfully.</p>
+<p>Just then I saw a young man come running toward us in the
+distant field.</p>
+<p>Mr. Wright took out his compass.</p>
+<p>"Look here," he said, "you see the needle points due north."</p>
+<p>He took a lodestone out of his pocket and holding it near the
+compass moved it back and forth. The needle followed it.</p>
+<p>The young man came up to us breathing deeply. Perspiration was
+rolling off his face. He was much excited and spoke with some
+difficulty.</p>
+<p>"Senator Wright," he gasped, "Mrs. Wright sent me down to tell
+you that President Van Buren is at the house."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Tell Mrs. Wright to make him comfortable in our easiest chair
+and to say to the President that I shall be up directly."</p>
+<p>To my utter surprise he resumed his talk with me as the young
+man went away.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;you're lost."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"What I fear is that they may try to tamper with your compass.
+Look out for lodestones."</p>
+<p>He was near the end of a row and went on with his reaping as he
+said:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>He bound the last bundle and then we walked together toward the
+house, the Senator carrying his sickle.</p>
+<p>"I shall introduce you to the President," he said as we neared
+our destination. "Then perhaps you had better leave us."</p>
+<p>At home we had read much about the new President and regarded
+him with deep veneration. In general I knew the grounds of
+it&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"What shall I say when&mdash;when you&mdash;introduce me?"</p>
+<p>"Oh, say anything that you want to say," he answered with a look
+of amusement.</p>
+<p>"I'm kind o' scared," I said.</p>
+<p>"You needn't be&mdash;he was once a poor boy just like you."</p>
+<p>"Just like <i>me</i>!" 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.</p>
+<p>"Just like <i>you</i>&mdash;cowhide and all&mdash;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!&mdash;and that's a pretty full
+word&mdash;isn't it?"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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&mdash;black, saving
+the gray waistcoat, with shiny, brass buttons&mdash;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:</p>
+<p>"He sows ill luck who hinders the reaper."</p>
+<p>Mr. Wright hung his sickle on a small tree in the dooryard and
+answered.</p>
+<p>"The plowman has overtaken the reaper, Mr. President. I bid you
+welcome to my humble home."</p>
+<p>"It is a pleasure to be here and a regret to call you back to
+Washington," said the President as they shook hands.</p>
+<p>"I suppose that means an extra session," the Senator
+answered.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"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:</p>
+<p>"Mr. President, this is my young friend Barton Baynes of the
+neighborhood of Lickitysplit in the town of Ballybeen&mdash;a
+coming man of this county."</p>
+<p>"Come on," was the playful remark of the President as he took my
+hand. "I shall be looking for you."</p>
+<p>I had carefully chosen my words and I remember saying, with some
+dignity, like one in a story book, although with a trembling
+voice:</p>
+<p>"It is an honor to meet you, sir, and thank you for the right to
+vote&mdash;when I am old enough."</p>
+<p>Vividly, too, I remember his gentle smile as he looked down at
+me and said in a most kindly tone:</p>
+<p>"I think it a great honor to hear you say that."</p>
+<p>He put his hands upon my shoulders and turning to the Senator
+said:</p>
+<p>"Wright, I often wish that I had your modesty."</p>
+<p>"I need it much more than you do," the Senator laughed.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;many in their best
+clothes.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>How charming she looked as she walked toward me! I had never
+seen her quite so fixed up.</p>
+<p>"Bart," she said. "I suppose you're not going to speak to
+me."</p>
+<p>"If you'll speak to me," I answered.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"I can't," I said. "I've got to study my lessons before I go
+away with your father."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;not to keep it waiting&mdash;and sat down with my eyes on
+my book and my mind at the Dunkelbergs'&mdash;where I heard in a
+way what Sally was saying and what "Mr. and Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg"
+were saying.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"I hear you met the President," he remarked.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"What did he have to say?"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>What a thrill came to me when I saw the house and the popple
+tree and the lilac bushes&mdash;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!"</p>
+<p>Aunt Deel shook hands with Mr. Dunkelberg and then came to me
+and said:</p>
+<p>"Wal, Bart Baynes! I never was so glad to see anybody in all the
+days o' my life&mdash;ayes! We been lookin' up the road for an
+hour&mdash;ayes! You come right into the house this
+minute&mdash;both o' you."</p>
+<p>The table was spread with the things I enjoyed most&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"Set right down an' eat&mdash;I just want to see ye
+eat&mdash;ayes I do!"</p>
+<p>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&mdash;there could be no doubt of that&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Tell me what you know about that murder," he demanded.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>It surprised me that my uncle knew all this. He had said nothing
+to me of his journey or its result.</p>
+<p>"How do you know?" snapped Mr. Grimshaw.</p>
+<p>"This boy see it plain. It was a gun with a piece o' wood broke
+out o' the stock."</p>
+<p>"Is that so?" was the brusque demand of the money-lender as he
+turned to me.</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir," I answered.</p>
+<p>"The boy lies," he snapped, and turning to my uncle added: "Yer
+mad 'cause I'm tryin' to make ye pay yer honest debts&mdash;ain't
+ye now?"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>Mr. Dunkelberg jumped into the breach then, saying:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"Of course I'll help in any way I can," my uncle answered. "I
+couldn't harm him if I tried&mdash;not if he's innocent. All he's
+got to do is to prove where he was that night."</p>
+<p>"Suppose he was lost in the woods?" Mr. Dunkelberg asked.</p>
+<p>"The truth wouldn't harm him any," my uncle insisted. "Them
+tracks wouldn't fit his boots, an' they'd have to."</p>
+<p>Mr. Dunkelberg turned to me and asked:</p>
+<p>"Are you sure that the stock of the gun you saw was broken?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir-and I'm almost sure it was Amos that ran away with
+it."</p>
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Huh!&mdash;Liar!" he muttered.</p>
+<p>"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:</p>
+<p>"Hush, Bart! Keep your temper, son."</p>
+<p>"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?"</p>
+<p>I answered: "Yes, sir&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"By the eternal jumpin'&mdash;"</p>
+<p>He stopped, pulled down the left sleeve of his flannel shirt and
+walked to the water pail and drank out of the dipper.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>There was that in his tone and face which indicated that in his
+opinion Sile had more "eddication" than any man needed.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;he's too much of a man. If you're scared o'
+the truth you mus' know that Amos is guilty."</p>
+<p>Mr. Grimshaw shook his head with anger and beat the floor with
+the end of his cane.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>Uncle Peabody shook his head with a look of firmness.</p>
+<p>Again Grimshaw laughed between his teeth as he looked at my
+uncle. In his view every man had his price.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>Again Uncle Peabody rose from his chair with a look in his face
+which I have never forgotten. How his voice rang out!</p>
+<p>"<i>No, sir</i>!" 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:</p>
+<p>"NO, SIR! YE CAN'T BUY THE NAIL ON MY LITTLE FINGER OR HIS WITH
+ALL YER MONEY&mdash;DAMN YOU!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Mr. Dunkelberg turned to my aunt, his face scarlet, and muttered
+an apology for the disturbance and followed the money-lender.</p>
+<p>I remember that my own eyes were wet as I went to my aunt and
+kissed her. She kissed me&mdash;a rare thing for her to
+do&mdash;and whispered brokenly but with a smile: "We'll go down to
+the poorhouse together, Bart, but we'll go honest."</p>
+<p>"Come on, Bart," Uncle Peabody called cheerfully, as he walked
+toward the barnyard. "Le's go an' git in them but'nuts."</p>
+<p>He paid no attention to our visitors&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"Give it to 'em, ol' Dick," said Uncle Peabody with a clap of
+his hands. "Tell 'em what ye think of 'em."</p>
+<p>At last the Dunkelbergs had fallen&mdash;the legendary,
+incomparable Dunkelbergs!</p>
+<p>"Wal, I'm surprised at Mr. Horace Dunkelberg tryin' to come it
+over us like that&mdash;ayes! I be," said Aunt Deel.</p>
+<p>"Wal, I ain't," said Uncle Peabody. "Ol' Grimshaw has got him
+under his thumb&mdash;that's what's the matter. You'll find he's up
+to his ears in debt to Grimshaw&mdash;prob'ly."</p>
+<p>As we followed him toward the house, he pushing the wheelbarrow
+loaded with sacks of nuts, he added:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>He stopped his wheelbarrow by the steps and we sat down together
+on the edge of the stoop as he added:</p>
+<p>"I got mad&mdash;they kep' pickin' on me so&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Do you remember what you read out of a book one night about a
+man sellin' his honor?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," I answered. "It's one o' the books that Mr. Wright gave
+us."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I found the book and read aloud the following passage:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"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&mdash;a thing to be watched and driven and
+cudgelled like the ox&mdash;for he has sold that he can not buy,
+not if all the riches in the world were his."</p>
+</div>
+<p>A little silence followed the words. Then Uncle Peabody
+said:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>Uncle Peabody voiced my own feeling when he said:</p>
+<p>"I feel sorry, awful sorry, for that boy."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+<h3>A PARTY AND&mdash;MY FOURTH PERIL?</h3>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"Water never scares a live fish," he declared with a chuckle as
+he turned around. "Good-by, Bart."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Come in," said the voice of the schoolmaster at the door.
+"There's good weather under this roof."</p>
+<p>He saw my plight as I entered.</p>
+<p>"I'm like a shaggy dog that's been in swimming," I said.</p>
+<p>"Upon my word, boy, we're in luck," remarked the
+schoolmaster.</p>
+<p>I looked up at him.</p>
+<p>"Michael Henry's clothes!&mdash;sure, they're just the thing for
+you!"</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I followed him up-stairs, wondering how it had happened that
+Michael Henry had clothes.</p>
+<p>He took me into his room and brought some handsome soft clothes
+out of a press with shirt, socks and boots to match.</p>
+<p>"There, my laddie buck," said he, "put them on."</p>
+<p>"These will soon dry on me," I said.</p>
+<p>"Put them on&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>I put them on and with a great sense of relief and comfort. They
+were an admirable fit&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Never mind, my brave lad&mdash;no glass ever perished in a
+better cause. God bless you!"</p>
+<p>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&mdash;hasn't it?</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>In the midst of it all Mr. Hacket arose and tapped his cup with
+his spoon.</p>
+<p>"Oh you merry, God-blessed people," he said. "Michael Henry has
+bade me speak for him."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"'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.'</p>
+<p>"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:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">"TO RUTH<br />
+<br />
+"'Little lady, draw thy will<br />
+With this Golden Robin's quill&mdash;<br />
+Sun-stained, night-tipped, elfish thing&mdash;<br />
+Symbol of thy magic wing!<br />
+<br />
+"'Give to me thy fairy lands<br />
+And palaces, on silver sands.<br />
+Oh will to me, my heart implores,<br />
+Their alabaster walls and floors!<br />
+Their gates that ope on Paradise<br />
+Or earth, or Eden in a trice.<br />
+Give me thy title to the hours<br />
+That pass in fair Aladdin towers.<br />
+But most I'd prize thy heavenly art<br />
+To win and lead the stony heart.<br />
+Give these to me that solemn day<br />
+Thou'rt done with them, I humbly pray.<br />
+<br />
+"'Little lady, draw thy will<br />
+With this Golden Robin's quill.'"</div>
+<p>He bowed to our young guest and kissed her hand and sat down in
+the midst of our cheering.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Mr. Hacket allowed me to write down the lines in my little diary
+of events and expenses, from which I have just copied them.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"I guess mine are dry now," I answered.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I remember that a number of men who worked in Grimshaw's
+saw-mill were passing as he spoke.</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir," I answered, much elated by the prospect of earning
+money.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>When I returned from the mill they were gone.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>I asked a boy in my Latin class to tell me.</p>
+<p>"Oh, ye just fly around an' kiss and git kissed till ye feel
+like a fool."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Who's there?"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"It's Kate," the answer came in a hoarse whisper as I recognized
+her form and staff.</p>
+<p>"Run, boy&mdash;they have just come out o' the woods. I saw
+them. They will take you away. Run."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Then I heard the voice of the schoolmaster saying:</p>
+<p>"Is it you, my lad?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," I answered, as I came up to him and Mary, in a condition
+of breathless excitement.</p>
+<p>I told them of the curious adventure I had had.</p>
+<p>"Come quick," said the schoolmaster. "Let's go back and find the
+man in the stubble."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Hush," said the schoolmaster.</p>
+<p>We listened and heard a wagon rattling at a wild pace down the
+road toward the river.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;God bless
+ye!"</p>
+<p>"What would they 'a' done with me?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;sure we
+will. Come, we'll go up to the barn and see if Kate is there."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Don't be afraid. I brought my gun in case we'd meet a painter.
+But the danger is past."</p>
+<p>He drew a long pistol from his coat pocket and held it in the
+light of the lantern.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>As we were going into the house the schoolmaster said:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"This shows the power o' knowledge. Bart," he said to me when we
+entered the house.</p>
+<p>I wondered what he meant and he went on:</p>
+<p>"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
+<i>principal witness</i>."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>He put his hand on the deacon's shoulder and gave him a little
+shake.</p>
+<p>"Awake, ye limb o' the law," he demanded. "Prayer is better than
+sleep."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I remember that through the morning's work the sleepy deacon and
+the alert constable contended over the possession of his stout
+frame.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Mr. Hacket met us at the kitchen door, where Deacon Binks said
+to him:</p>
+<p>"If you'll look after the boy to-day, I'll go home and get a
+little rest."</p>
+<p>"God bless yer soul, ye had a busy night," said the schoolmaster
+with a smile.</p>
+<p>He added as he went into the house:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+<h3>THE SPIRIT OF MICHAEL HENRY AND OTHERS</h3>
+<p>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.</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"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."</p>
+</div>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;one would say&mdash;she followed his steps.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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?</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Here's somethin' else," she said. "I was keepin' 'em for
+Chris'mas&mdash;ayes!&mdash;but it's so cold I guess ye better have
+'em now&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>Then she gave me a pair of mittens with a red fringe around the
+wristbands, and two pairs of socks.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>One Saturday while I was at work on the big ledger of the
+merchant I ran upon this item:</p>
+<p>October 3. S. Wright&mdash;To one suit of<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">clothes for Michael
+Henry</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">from measures furnished
+by</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">S. Robinson&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
+&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; $14.30</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Shirts to match&nbsp; &nbsp;
+&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 1.70</span></p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>I observed, also, that numerous articles&mdash;a load of wood,
+two sacks of flour, three pairs of boots, one coat, ten pounds of
+salt pork and four bushels of potatoes&mdash;all for "Michael
+Henry" had been charged to Silas Wright.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;a topic of old wives and gabbing husbands at
+the fireside for unnumbered years.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>As he was tucking the blankets around my feet old Nick Tubbs
+came zigzagging up the road from the tavern.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>The bells rang merrily as we hurried through the swamp in the
+hard snow paths.</p>
+<p>"We're goin' to move," said my uncle presently. "We've agreed to
+get out by the middle o' May."</p>
+<p>"How does that happen?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>He playfully nudged my ribs with his elbow.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I promised.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Why, Bart! You're growin' like a weed&mdash;ain't
+ye?&mdash;ayes ye be," my aunt said as she stood and looked at me.
+"Set right down here an' warm ye&mdash;ayes!&mdash;I've done all
+the chores&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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!</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;didn't
+they, Bart?"</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"That's sound!" Uncle Peabody exclaimed with enthusiasm.</p>
+<p>Aunt Deel took my hand in hers and surveyed it thoughtfully for
+a moment without speaking.</p>
+<p>"You ain't goin' to have to suffer that way no more," she said
+in a low tone.</p>
+<p>I rose and went to the parlor door.</p>
+<p>"Ye mustn't go in there," she warned me.</p>
+<p>Delightful suspicions came out of the warning and their
+smiles.</p>
+<p>"We're goin' to be more comf'table&mdash;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&mdash;I want to lay down with 'em by an' by an' wait for the
+sound o' the trumpet&mdash;ayes!&mdash;mebbe it'll be for thousands
+o' years&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>"You don't suppose their souls are a-sleepin' there&mdash;do
+ye?" my uncle asked.</p>
+<p>"That's what the Bible says," Aunt Deel answered.</p>
+<p>"Wal the Bible&mdash;?" Uncle Peabody stopped. What was in his
+mind we may only imagine.</p>
+<p>To our astonishment the clock struck twelve.</p>
+<p>"Hurrah! It's merry Christmas!" said Uncle Peabody as he jumped
+to his feet and began to sing of the little Lord Jesus.</p>
+<p>We joined him while he stood beating time with his right hand
+after the fashion of a singing master.</p>
+<p>"Off with yer boots, friend!" he exclaimed when the stanza was
+finished. "We don't have to set up and watch like the
+shepherds."</p>
+<p>We drew our boots on the chair round with hands clasped over the
+knee&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>How good it seemed to be back in the old room under the
+shingles! The heat of the stove-pipe had warmed its
+hospitality.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;it gits so warm."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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?</p>
+<p>"This ain't no common Chris'mas&mdash;I tell ye," Aunt Deel went
+on. "Santa Claus won't git here short o' noon I wouldn't
+wonder&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>"By thunder!" exclaimed Uncle Peabody as he sat down at the
+table. "This is goin' to be a day o' pure fun&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>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&mdash;an ancient token of good will&mdash;the
+first form of the accolade, I fancy. What joyful good humor there
+was in those simple men and women!&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>What a wonderful sight was the Christmas tree&mdash;the first we
+had had in our house&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>Uncle Jabez held one foot in both hands before him and joyfully
+hopped around the tree.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"From Santa Claus for Bart!"</p>
+<p>A murmur of admiration ran through the company which gathered
+around me as I held the treasure in my trembling hands.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"Good land o' Goshen! Don't be in such a hurry," said Aunt
+Deel.</p>
+<p>"Sorry, but the stage can't wait for nobody at all&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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!</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>Then what Falstaffian peals of laughter!</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Merry Chris'mas!" we all shouted.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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!&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Dinner's ready!" exclaimed the cheerful voice of Aunt Deel.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Uncle Jabez&mdash;a member of the white church&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Peabody you mus' be gittin' rich," said Hiram Bentley.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;give a Chris'mas&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>The day had turned dark. The temperature had risen and the air
+was dank and chilly. The men began to hitch up their horses.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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!</p>
+<p>"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:</p>
+<p>"That is my Christmas present to you. I earned it myself."</p>
+<p>I remember so well their astonishment and the trembling of their
+hands and the look of their faces.</p>
+<p>"It's grand&mdash;ayes!" Aunt Deel said in a low tone.</p>
+<p>She rose in a moment and beckoned to me and my uncle. We
+followed her through the open door to the other room.</p>
+<p>"I'll tell ye what I'd do," she whispered. "I'd give 'em to ol'
+Kate&mdash;ayes! She's goin' to stay with us till to-morrow."</p>
+<p>"Good idee!" said Uncle Peabody.</p>
+<p>So I took the money out of their hands and went in and gave it
+to the Silent Woman.</p>
+<p>"That's your present from me," I said.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Aunt Deel broke it by singing in a low tone as she rocked:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"My days are passing swiftly by<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And I&mdash;a pilgrim
+stranger&mdash;</span><br />
+Would not detain them as they fly,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">These days of toil and
+danger."</span></p></div>
+<p>Uncle Peabody rose and got a candle and lighted it at the
+hearth.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I held the lantern while Uncle Peabody fed the sheep and the two
+cows and milked&mdash;a slight chore these winter days.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>He was yawning as he spoke and soon we were both asleep under
+the shingles.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+<h3>THE THING AND OTHER THINGS</h3>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>Little John led me into the group and the schoolmaster
+began:&mdash;Let us call this bit of a story: <i>The Guide to
+Paradise</i>.</p>
+<p>"One day in early June I was lyin' under the big apple tree in
+the garden&mdash;sure I was. It was all white and sweet with the
+blossoms like a bride in her veil&mdash;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&mdash;no longer than the
+thumb o' Mary&mdash;God love her!&mdash;on its wee porch an'
+lookin' down at me.</p>
+<p>"'Good luck to ye!' says I. 'Who are you?'</p>
+<p>"'Who do ye think I am?' says he.</p>
+<p>"'Nobody,' says I.</p>
+<p>"'That's just who I am,' says he, 'I'm Nobody from
+Nowhere&mdash;God save you from the like.'</p>
+<p>"'Glad to see ye,' says I.</p>
+<p>"'Glad to be seen,' says he. 'There's a mighty few people can
+see me.'</p>
+<p>"'Looks to me as if ye were tellin' the truth,' says I.</p>
+<p>"'Nobody is the only one that always tells the truth&mdash;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&mdash;better luck to them!'</p>
+<p>"'Where is it?' says I.</p>
+<p>"'Up above the earth where the great God keeps His fiddle,' says
+he.</p>
+<p>"'What fiddle?' says I.</p>
+<p>"'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&mdash;ye call 'em stars. The winds and the birds play on
+it. Sure, the birds are my hens.'</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;the hussy!</p>
+<p>"'She's my watch hen,' says Nobody. 'Guards the house and lays
+eggs for me&mdash;the darlin'! Sure, I've a wonderful farm up here
+in the air&mdash;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&mdash;sure it
+would. Somewhere must be next to Nowhere&mdash;or it wouldn't be
+anywhere, I'm thinkin'. All the light and rain and beauty o' the
+world come out o' Nowhere&mdash;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?'</p>
+<p>"'Sure, I like ye,' says I.</p>
+<p>"'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&mdash;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.'</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>"Couldn't anybody do that?" said little John.</p>
+<p>"I didn't say they could&mdash;did I? ye unbeliever!" said the
+schoolmaster as he rose and led us in to the supper table. "I said
+Nobody did it."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I wondered a little why he should say that, and while I was
+wondering he felled me with a stinging blow on my nose.</p>
+<p>"Ah, my lad&mdash;there's the best thing I have seen ye
+do&mdash;get up an' come back with no mad in ye," he said as he
+gave me his hand.</p>
+<p>One day the schoolmaster called the older boys to the front
+seats in his room and I among them.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>For some months I had been studying a book just published,
+entitled, <i>Stenographic Sound-Hand</i> and had learned its
+alphabet and practised the use of it. That evening I took down the
+remarks of Mr. Hacket in sound-hand.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;the chief
+actor&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"My friend and classmate, George Bancroft, the historian, has
+written this letter to me out of a full heart:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"'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.'"</p>
+</div>
+<p>With what pride and joy I heard of this great thing that my
+friend had accomplished! The schoolmaster went on:</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"<i>First</i>&mdash;Know your subject-inside and outside and
+round about and from beginning to end.</p>
+<p>"<i>Second</i>&mdash;Know the opinions of wise men and your own
+regarding it.</p>
+<p>"<i>Third</i>&mdash;Be modest in the use of your own opinions
+and above all be honest.</p>
+<p>"<i>Fourth</i>&mdash;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 <i>you</i> but
+<i>the thing you stand for</i> that is important.</p>
+<p>"<i>Fifth</i>&mdash;The good of all the people must be the thing
+you stand for&mdash;the United States of America.</p>
+<p>"Now I wish you to observe how our great fellow townsman keeps
+his subject to the fore and himself in the background.</p>
+<p>"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:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"'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.'</p>
+</div>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"Invitations to accept public dinners as a compliment to himself
+have received from him this kind of reply:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"'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.'"</p>
+</div>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>In following the schoolmaster I have got a bit ahead of my
+history. Soon after the opening of the new year&mdash;ten days or
+so later it may have been&mdash;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&mdash;that mysterious hidden thing!</p>
+<p>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&mdash;as I had come to think of it&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"There'll be no more interference," said he. "It's goin' to be a
+fair fight."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;not a one o' you."</p>
+<p>Then said the schoolmaster:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>May had returned&mdash;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.</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><br />
+<a href="images/illus292.jpg"><img src="images/illus292.jpg" width=
+"50%" alt="" title="" /></a><br />
+<b>She stopped the pony and leaned toward me.</b></div>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>They surprised me a little&mdash;those fine words that came so
+easily. What a school of talk was the house I lived in those
+days!</p>
+<p>"I guess I'm getting Mr. Hacket's gift o' gab," I said to
+myself.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Bart, I hate somebody terribly," said she.</p>
+<p>"Whom?"</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"I guess they're only fooling you," I said.</p>
+<p>"No, they mean it. I have heard them talking it over."</p>
+<p>"He can not marry you."</p>
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+<p>It seemed to me that the time had come for me to speak out, and
+with burning cheeks I said:</p>
+<p>"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?"</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"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?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>We had faced about and were walking back toward Canton, I close
+by the pony's side.</p>
+<p>"May I kiss you again?"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>We walked on and a song sparrow followed us perching on the
+fence-rails and blessing us with his song.</p>
+<p>"I guess God has married us again," I declared.</p>
+<p>"I knew that you were walking on this road and I had to see
+you," said she. "People have been saying such terrible things."</p>
+<p>"What?"</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>Now The Thing stood uncovered before me in all its
+ugliness&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"It's a lie&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>"I knew that your uncle didn't do it," she went on. "Father and
+mother couldn't tell you. So I had to."</p>
+<p>"Why couldn't your father and mother tell me?"</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>We went on in silence for a moment.</p>
+<p>"I guess you know now why I couldn't let you go home with me
+that night," she remarked.</p>
+<p>"Yes, and I think I know why you wouldn't have anything more to
+do with Henry Wills."</p>
+<p>"I hate him. He said such horrid things about you and your
+uncle."</p>
+<p>In a moment she asked: "What time is it?"</p>
+<p>I looked at my new watch and answered: "It wants ten minutes of
+five."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"She is hunting bees," I said as we stopped beside her.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"She means that there is some danger ahead of you," I said.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"She is fixing a charm," I said.</p>
+<p>She smiled and nodded as she put a drop of honey on Sally's
+upper lip.</p>
+<p>She held up her hands while her lips moved as if she were
+blessing us.</p>
+<p>"I suppose it will not save me if I brush it off," said
+Sally.</p>
+<p>We went on and in a moment a bee lighted on the honey. Nervously
+she struck at it and then cried out with pain.</p>
+<p>"The bee has stung you," I said.</p>
+<p>She covered her face with her handkerchief and made no
+answer.</p>
+<p>"Wait a minute&mdash;I'll get some clay," I said as I ran to the
+river bank.</p>
+<p>I found some clay and moistened it with the water and
+returned.</p>
+<p>"There, look at me!" she groaned. "The bee hit my nose."</p>
+<p>She uncovered her face, now deformed almost beyond recognition,
+her nose having swollen to one of great size and redness.</p>
+<p>"You look like Rodney Barnes," I said with a laugh as I applied
+the clay to her afflicted nose.</p>
+<p>"And I feel like the old boy. I think my nose is trying to jump
+off and run away."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"What a fright I am!" she mused.</p>
+<p>"But you are the best girl in the world."</p>
+<p>"Don't waste your pretty talk on me now. I can't enjoy
+it&mdash;my nose aches so. I'd rather you'd tell me when&mdash;when
+it is easier for you to say it."</p>
+<p>"We don't see each other very often."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"All right. I'll be here at four-thirty and I'll be thinking
+about it every day until then."</p>
+<p>"My nose feels better now," she said presently and added: "You
+might tell me a little more if you want to."</p>
+<p>"I love you even when you have ceased to be beautiful," I said
+with the ardor of the young.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Why, girl, what has happened to you?" her father asked.</p>
+<p>Then I saw what a playful soul was Sally's. The girl was a born
+actress.</p>
+<p>"Been riding in the country," said she. "Is this Mr.
+Latour?"</p>
+<p>"This is Mr. Latour, Sally," said her father.</p>
+<p>They shook hands.</p>
+<p>"I am glad to see you," said the stranger.</p>
+<p>"They say I am worth seeing," said Sally. "This is my friend,
+Mr. Baynes. When you are tired of seeing me, look at him."</p>
+<p>I shook the hand he offered me.</p>
+<p>"Of course, we can't all be good looking," Sally remarked with a
+sigh, as if her misfortune were permanent.</p>
+<p>Mr. Horace Dunkelberg and I laughed heartily&mdash;for I had
+told him in a whisper what had happened to Sally&mdash;while Mr.
+Latour looked a little embarrassed.</p>
+<p>"My face is not beautiful, but they say that I have a good
+heart," Sally assured the stranger.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Uncle Peabody came for me that evening. It was about the middle
+of the next week that I received this letter from Sally:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"DEAR BART&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"Yours forever,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">"SALLY DUNKELBERG."</span></p>
+</div>
+<p>How often I read those words&mdash;so like all the careless
+words of the young!</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+<h3>THE BOLT FALLS</h3>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"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."</p>
+</div>
+<p>It was the swift and deadly execution of Lightfoot which Amos
+had been imitating, as he presently confessed.</p>
+<p>I knew then the power of words&mdash;even foolish
+words&mdash;over the minds of the young when they are printed and
+spread abroad.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;like a mighty oak in a storm. The
+look of him thrilled me&mdash;it suggested that something was going
+to happen.</p>
+<p>The Silent Woman&mdash;as ragged as ever&mdash;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:</p>
+<p>"<i>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.</i>"</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"Dead!" she muttered.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"Who got him?" another asked.</p>
+<p>"Rovin' Kate. She killed him pointing her finger at
+him&mdash;so."</p>
+<p>"She's got an evil eye. Everybody's afraid o' the crazy ol'
+Trollope!"</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"It's all over. Let one o' these boys go down and bring the
+undertaker."</p>
+<p>Benjamin Grimshaw, the richest man in the township, was dead,
+and I have yet to hear of any mourners.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"The scarlet sins of his youth are lying down with him in the
+dust," Hacket whispered as we walked away together.</p>
+<h3>END OF BOOK TWO</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="BOOK_THREE" id="BOOK_THREE"></a>BOOK THREE</h2>
+<h3>Which is the Story of the Chosen Ways</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+<h3>UNCLE PEABODY'S WAY AND MINE</h3>
+<p>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&mdash;my countrymen&mdash;the best fruitage of the great garden
+of my youth and save it from the cold storage of unknowing
+history.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;each a grasping usurer with unjust claims.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;God help ye! An' I think ye have got more out o' the one
+than ye have out o' the six."</p>
+<p>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?</p>
+<p>"It's God's book o' life, boy, an' I should say ye'd done very
+well in it."</p>
+<p>After a little he asked: "Have ye ever heard of a man who had
+the Grimshaws?"</p>
+<p>I shook my head as I looked at him, not knowing just what he was
+driving at.</p>
+<p>"Sure, it's a serious illness an' it has two phases. First
+there's the Grimshaw o' greed&mdash;swinish, heartless
+greed&mdash;the other is the Grimshaw o' vanity&mdash;the strutter,
+with sword at belt, who would have men bow or flee before him."</p>
+<p>That is all he said of that seventh book and it was enough.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"I wish you would let me know when he comes," I said.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>So saying he handed me this letter:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"CANTERBURY, VT.,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">June 1.</span></p>
+<p>"DEAR SIR&mdash;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,</p>
+<p>"God's humble servant,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">KATE FULLERTON."</span></p>
+</div>
+<p>"Why, this is the writing of the Silent Woman," I said before I
+had read the letter half through.</p>
+<p>"Rovin' Kate?"</p>
+<p>"Roving Kate; I never knew her other name, but I saw her
+handwriting long ago."</p>
+<p>"But look&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>I turned to him with a look of inquiry and asked:</p>
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>There was a little moment of silence then&mdash;how well I
+remember it! The schoolmaster broke the silence by adding:</p>
+<p>"Well ye know, lad, I think the greatest thing that Jesus Christ
+did was showing to a wicked world the sanctity o' motherhood."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"I wonder why Kate is asking about me," I said.</p>
+<p>"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?"</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"I think that it did."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>Having come to the first flight of the uplands, he left me with
+many a kind word&mdash;how much they mean to a boy who is choosing
+his way with a growing sense of loneliness!</p>
+<p>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&mdash;chicken pie and strawberry shortcake.</p>
+<p>"I wallered in the grass all the forenoon tryin' to git enough
+berries for this celebration&mdash;ayes!&mdash;they ain't many of
+'em turned yit," said Aunt Deel. "No, sir&mdash;nothin' but pure
+cream on this cake. I ain't a goin' to count the expense."</p>
+<p>Uncle Peabody danced around the table and sang a stanza of the
+old ballad, which I have forgotten, but which begins:</p>
+<p><i>Come, Philander, let us be a-marchin'.</i></p>
+<p>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!</p>
+<p>While we were eating I told them about the letter of old
+Kate.</p>
+<p>"Fullerton!" Aunt Deel exclaimed. "Are ye sure that was the
+name, Bart?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"Goodness gracious sakes alive!"</p>
+<p>She and Uncle Peabody gave each other looks of surprised
+inquiry.</p>
+<p>"Do you know anybody by that name?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"We used to," said Aunt Deel as she resumed her eating. "Can't
+be she's one o' the Sam Fullertons, can it?"</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;couldn't see much&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"Seems so I kind o' said to the ol' bear: 'Excuse me.'</p>
+<p>"Seems so the ol' bear kind o' answered: 'Sart'nly.'</p>
+<p>"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 <i>was</i> 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."</p>
+<p>"How did it happen that the stone jumped?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"Oh, I guess 't was a rabbit," said Uncle Peabody.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>When they were about to go the men filled their cups and drank
+to Aunt Deel.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Now, boys, come up here an' stand right before me, every one o'
+you."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"I want ye to drink to Peabody Baynes&mdash;one o' the squarest
+men that ever stood in cowhide."</p>
+<p>They drank the toast&mdash;not one of them would have dared
+refuse.</p>
+<p>"Now three cheers for the new home and every one that lives in
+it," he demanded.</p>
+<p>They cheered lustily and went away.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"W'y, of all things! Ain't that an awful burnin' shame-ayes!"
+said Aunt Deel as she covered her face with her hand.</p>
+<p>"Damn, little souled, narrer contracted&mdash;" 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.</p>
+<p>"As long as we're honest we don't care what they say," he
+remarked as he returned to his chair.</p>
+<p>"If they won't believe us we ought to show 'em the
+papers&mdash;ayes," said Aunt Deel.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>We sat for a long time thinking as the night came on. By and by
+Uncle Peabody began the hymn in which we joined:</p>
+<p>"Oh, keep my heart from sadness, God;<br />
+Let not its sorrows stay,<br />
+Nor shadows of the night erase<br />
+The glories of the day."</p>
+<p>"Say&mdash;by thunder!&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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 <i>Course of Legal Study</i>. She had written on its
+fly-leaf:</p>
+<p>"To Barton Baynes, from a friend."</p>
+<p>"That woman 'pears to like you purty thorough," said Uncle
+Peabody.</p>
+<p>"Well, let her if she wants to&mdash;poor thing!" Aunt Deel
+answered. "A woman has got to have somebody to
+like&mdash;ayes!&mdash;or I dunno how she'd live&mdash;I declare I
+don't&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>"I like her, too," I said. "She's been a good friend to me."</p>
+<p>"She has, sart'n," my uncle agreed.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;wife of the deacon and the constable&mdash;came in
+while I was at the latter task early one morning to see if there
+were anything she could do.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;the First&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>When the day's work was ended Mrs. Wright exclaimed:</p>
+<p>"Thank goodness! the Binkses have not returned."</p>
+<p>We always referred to Mrs. Binks as the Binkses after that.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"I wonder what brought him here," said Mrs. Wright.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>The ladies laughed.</p>
+<p>"It's lucky," said Mrs. Wright. "Doesn't Horace Dunkelberg know
+about him?"</p>
+<p>"I suppose he does, but the man is money crazy."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Who is young Latour?" I asked when Mrs. Jenison had left
+us.</p>
+<p>"A rake and dissolute young man whose father is very rich and
+lives in a great mansion over in Jefferson County," Mrs. Wright
+answered.</p>
+<p>I wondered then if there had been a purpose in that drop of
+honey from the cup of the Silent Woman.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"The good lady enjoys a singular plurality," he remarked.</p>
+<p>"She enjoys it better than we do," said Mrs. Wright.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"I've had good reports of you, Bart, and I'm very glad to see
+you," he said.</p>
+<p>"I believe your own marks have been excellent in the last year,"
+I ventured.</p>
+<p>"Poorer than I could wish. The teacher has been very kind to
+me," he laughed. "What have you been studying?"</p>
+<p>"Latin (I always mentioned the Latin first), Algebra,
+Arithmetic, Grammar, Geography and History."</p>
+<p>"Including the history of the Binkses," he laughed.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"She is a very excellent woman, after all," he added.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"I shall go up to see them soon," he said.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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?"</p>
+<p>I made out the statement very neatly and carefully and put it in
+his hands.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Is Senator Wright here?" the stranger inquired of me.</p>
+<p>I pointed to the chopper.</p>
+<p>"I beg your pardon&mdash;I am looking for the distinguished
+United States Senator," he explained with a smile.</p>
+<p>Again I pointed at the man with the ax and said:</p>
+<p>"That is the Senator."</p>
+<p>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?"</p>
+<p>I halted his ax and conveyed the message.</p>
+<p>"Is this the hero of Plattsburg?" Mr. Wright asked.</p>
+<p>"Well, I have been there," said the General.</p>
+<p>They shook hands and went up to the house together.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+</div>
+<p>That evening I wrote my first love-letter&mdash;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.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+<h3>I USE MY OWN COMPASS AT A FORK IN THE ROAD</h3>
+<p>Swiftly now I move across the border into manhood&mdash;a
+serious, eager, restless manhood. It was the fashion of the young
+those days.</p>
+<p>I spent a summer of hard work in the fields. Evenings I read the
+books which Mr. Wright had loaned to me, Blackstone's
+<i>Commentaries</i> and <i>Greenleaf on Evidence</i> and a
+translation by Doctor Bowditch of LaPlace's <i>M&eacute;canique
+Celeste</i>. 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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"I never did anything in the Senate that seemed half so
+important as this," he remarked thoughtfully.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"It will do for a start," he said. "A little later I shall try
+to find a better place for you."</p>
+<p>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&mdash;in
+politics for what he could get out of it.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"What's that, mister?" asked Rodney Barnes.</p>
+<p>The stranger repeated his statement and added that he could
+prove it.</p>
+<p>"Le's see ye," said Barnes as he approached him.</p>
+<p>There was a half moment of silence.</p>
+<p>"Go on with yer proof," Rodney insisted, his great right hand
+trembling as he whittled.</p>
+<p>"There are plenty of men in Albany that know the facts," said
+the stranger.</p>
+<p>"Any other proof to offer?"</p>
+<p>"That's enough."</p>
+<p>"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?"</p>
+<p>"None o' your dam' business."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>A crowd had begun to gather.</p>
+<p>"I want you all to take a look at that man," Rodney shouted. "He
+says Sile Wright is a drunkard an' a thief."</p>
+<p>Loud jeers followed the statement, then a volley of oaths and a
+moment of danger, for somebody shouted:</p>
+<p>"Le's tar an' feather him."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Then the loud voice of Rodney Barnes rang like a trumpet in the
+words:</p>
+<p>"Any man who says a mean thing of another when he can't prove it
+ought to be treated in the same way."</p>
+<p>"That's so," a number of voices answered.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"DEAR BART&mdash;It's all over for a long time, perhaps
+forever&mdash;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&mdash;what do you think of that? Mother
+says that we must wait&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;Amour omnia vincit, but do not sign your
+name.</p>
+<p>"SALLY."</p>
+</div>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;I suppose it was the only dollar she
+had&mdash;and looked at it a moment and then handed it up to
+me.</p>
+<p>"You better take it," she said. "I'm 'fraid you won't have
+enough."</p>
+<p>How her hand and lips trembled! I have always kept that
+dollar.</p>
+<p>I couldn't see them as we drove away.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;mentally blazing a trail for fear of
+getting lost&mdash;and looked wistfully up a long street. There
+were many people, but no Sally.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>Judge Westbrook, in whose office I worked, was counsel and
+collector for the patroons, notably for the manors of Livingston
+and Van Renssalaer&mdash;two little kingdoms in the heart of the
+great republic.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"I think that I would enjoy the task," I said in ignorance of
+that hornet's nest back in the hills.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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"&mdash;perhaps
+because I had unconsciously acquired a dignity and courtesy of
+manner beyond my years a little.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"You will need a sheriff's deputy anyhow, and I have been
+appointed for just this kind of work," he assured me.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>He was four years older than I but I had better judgment, poor
+as it was, and our chief knew it.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>The young man drew rein and asked:</p>
+<p>"What's the matter?"</p>
+<p>"Only this. I shall have to try to lick you before we go any
+further."</p>
+<p>"How's that?"</p>
+<p>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&mdash;the
+Silent Woman&mdash;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:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>This was not the language of diplomacy but at the time it seemed
+to me rather kind and flattering.</p>
+<p>Latour flashed red and jumped off his horse and struck at me
+with his crop. I caught it in my hand and said:</p>
+<p>"Hold on. Let's proceed decently and in order. Purvis, you hold
+these horses while we fight it out."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>I felt as fresh as if I had mowed only once around the field, to
+quote a saying of my uncle.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>He reeled with weakness as he started toward his horse. I helped
+him into the saddle.</p>
+<p>"I guess I'm not as bad as I talk," he remarked.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Young Mr. Latour fell behind me as we rode on. The silence was
+broken presently by "Mr. Purvis," who said:</p>
+<p>"You can hit like the hind leg of a horse. I never sees more
+speed an' gristle in a feller o' your age."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"What's that?"</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"I never git conceited&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>I turned my head away to hide my smiles and we rode on in
+silence.</p>
+<p>"I guess I've got somethin' here that is cocollated to please
+ye," he said.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"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&mdash;especially one day."</p>
+</div>
+<p>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&mdash;true-hearted, romantic, wonder-working youth&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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!</p>
+<p>"Hello, mister!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Where ye goin'?"</p>
+<p>"Up to the Van Heusen place."</p>
+<p>"Where do ye hail from?"</p>
+<p>"Cobleskill."</p>
+<p>"On business for Judge Westbrook?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"Writs to serve?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," I answered with no thought of my imprudence.</p>
+<p>"Say, young man, by hokey nettie! I advise you to turn right
+around and go back."</p>
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+<p>"'Cause if ye try to serve any writs ye'll git into
+trouble."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"Say mister, look down into that valley there," the stranger
+began. "See all them houses&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;that's what's the
+matter&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"If what you say is true I think you are right," I said.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;not as long as I live&mdash;and I won't git out,
+either."</p>
+<p>"Mr. Latour, you and Purvis may go on slowly&mdash;I'll overtake
+you soon," I said.</p>
+<p>They went on and left me alone with Curtis. He was getting
+excited and I wished to allay his fears.</p>
+<p>"Don't let him try to serve no writs or there'll be hell to pay
+in this valley," said Curtis.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"I don't like that young feller," said Curtis. "He's in fer
+trouble."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;nor could I at any time have sworn that it was he.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Order! Sh-sh-sh," was the loud command of the man beside me in
+whom I recognized&mdash;or thought that I did&mdash;the voice of
+Josiah Curtis.</p>
+<p>"What has happened?"</p>
+<p>"One o' them tried to serve a writ an' we have tarred an'
+feathered him."</p>
+<p>Just then I heard the voice of Purvis shouting back in the crowd
+this impassioned plea:</p>
+<p>"Bart, for God's sake, come here."</p>
+<p>I turned to Curtis and said:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>They brought Latour on a rail amidst roars of laughter. What a
+bear-like, poultrified, be-poodled object he was!&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Don't be in a hurry, young feller," said one of the Indians,
+and then there was another roar of laughter.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I helped in the process and got my fingers badly tarred.</p>
+<p>"This is a dangerous man to touch&mdash;his soul is tarred,"
+said Curtis. "Keep away from him."</p>
+<p>"What a lookin' skunk you be!" he laughed as he went on with the
+picking.</p>
+<p>We resumed our journey. Our guide left us at the town line some
+three miles beyond.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"They'll have to pay for this. Every one o' those jackrabbits
+will have to settle with me."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"You're always against the capitalist," he answered.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"I shall send the sheriff and a posse," he said with a troubled
+look.</p>
+<p>"Pardon me, but I think it will make a bad matter worse," I
+answered.</p>
+<p>"We must not forget that the patroons are our clients," he
+remarked.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;a conflict with Thrift and
+Fear on one side and Conscience on the other.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Why?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"Because their position is unjust, un-American and untenable,"
+was my answer.</p>
+<p>He rose and gave me his hand and a smile of forbearance in
+consideration of my youth, as I took it.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>Again I had chosen my way and with due regard to the
+compass.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+<h3>THE MAN WITH THE SCYTHE</h3>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"She was lookin' top-notch&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;a comfortable white house at the head of a
+beautiful valley with wooded hills behind it&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"Is this where Senator Wright lived when he was a boy?" I
+asked.</p>
+<p>"Yes, sir," the old lady answered.</p>
+<p>"I am from Canton."</p>
+<p>She rose from her chair.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I dismounted and she came near me.</p>
+<p>"Silas Wright is my boy," she said. "What is your name?"</p>
+<p>"Barton Baynes," I answered as I hitched my horse.</p>
+<p>"Barton Baynes! Why, Silas has told me all about you in his
+letters. He writes to me every week. Come and sit down."</p>
+<p>We sat down together on the porch.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"I wish that he would take you to Washington to help him. The
+poor man has too much to do."</p>
+<p>"I should think it a great privilege to go," I answered.</p>
+<p>"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.'"</p>
+<p>"'For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,'" I quoted.</p>
+<p>"You see I know much about you and much about your aunt and
+uncle," said Mrs. Wright.</p>
+<p>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!</p>
+<p>"I hope that Silas will get you to help him"&mdash;those were
+the last words she said to me when I bade her good-by.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"It's a fine day," I said.</p>
+<p>"No, it ain't, nuther-too much hard work in it," said he.</p>
+<p>"Do you know where Kate Fullerton lives?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment and added:</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;don't seem so&mdash;I
+declare it don't. Do ye see that big house down there in the
+trees?"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Yes," I answered.</p>
+<p>"No ye can't, nuther&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;he's Kate's father."</p>
+<p>"Does the squire live there?"</p>
+<p>"No, sir&mdash;not eggzac'ly. He's dyin' there&mdash;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?"</p>
+<p>"No."</p>
+<p>"Nor no friend o' his?"</p>
+<p>"No!"</p>
+<p>"Course not. He never had a friend in his life&mdash;too mean!
+He's too mean to die, mister&mdash;too mean fer hell an' I wouldn't
+wonder&mdash;honest, I wouldn't&mdash;mebbe that's why God is
+keepin' him here&mdash;jest to meller him up a little. Say, mister,
+be you in a hurry?"</p>
+<p>"No."</p>
+<p>"Yis ye be. Everybody's in a hurry&mdash;seems to me&mdash;since
+we got steam power in the country. Say, hitch yer hoss an' come in
+here. I want to show ye suthin'."</p>
+<p>He seemed to enjoy contradicting me.</p>
+<p>"Nobody seems in a hurry in this town," I said.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Here's where the buryin' begun," said my guide. "The first hole
+in the hill was dug for a Fullerton."</p>
+<p>There were many small monuments and slabs of marble&mdash;some
+spotted with lichens and all in commemoration of departed
+Fullertons.</p>
+<p>"Say, look a' that," said my guide as he pulled aside the stem
+of a leafy brier red with roses. "Jest read that, mister."</p>
+<p>My keen eyes slowly spelled out the time-worn words on a slab of
+stained marble:</p>
+<div>
+<p class="figcenter">Sacred to the memory of<br />
+Katherine Fullerton<br />
+1787-1806<br />
+"Proclaim his Word in every place<br />
+That they are dead who fall from grace."</p>
+</div>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"I understand," I said.</p>
+<p>"No ye don't. Leastways I don't believe ye do&mdash;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&mdash;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?"</p>
+<p>I shook my head.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;that's sartin&mdash;an' it was
+mostly fer women an' children&mdash;that's sartiner&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>We sat down together and he went on as follows:</p>
+<p>"Did ye ever see Kate Fullerton?"</p>
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;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&mdash;yis,
+sir&mdash;ye couldn't beat her fer looks. That was years and years
+ago. Her mother died when Kate was ten year old&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;yis, sir. Do ye know
+why?"</p>
+<p>Before I could answer he went on:</p>
+<p>"No ye don't&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;yis,
+sir&mdash;it was in the night that he sent her away. Goldarn him!
+He didn't have no more heart than a grasshopper&mdash;no
+sir&mdash;not a bit. I could 'a' brained him with my shovel, but I
+didn't.</p>
+<p>"I found out where the gal had gone an' I follered her&mdash;yis
+I did&mdash;found her in the poorhouse way over on Pussley
+Hill&mdash;uh huh! She jes' put her arms 'round my neck an' cried
+an' cried. I guess 'twas 'cause I looked kind o' friendly&mdash;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&mdash;yis,
+sir, I did.</p>
+<p>"She was sick all summer long&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;yis,
+sir&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"We brought him up an' he was alwuss a good boy. We called him
+Enoch&mdash;Enoch Rone&mdash;did ye ever hear the name?"</p>
+<p>"'No.'</p>
+<p>"I didn't think 'twas likely but I'm alwuss hopin'.</p>
+<p>"Early that fall Kate got better an' left the poorhouse afoot.
+Went away somewheres&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"Wal, 'bout five year ago the squire buried his second
+wife&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;no, sir, we wouldn't&mdash;fer the squire
+ain't sociable an' the neighbors never darken his door. She must
+'a' come in the night, jest as she went&mdash;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&mdash;uh huh&mdash;an' she knew
+me&mdash;yis, sir&mdash;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&mdash;not a word. The ol' squire
+had the palsy, so 't he couldn't use his hands an' his throat was
+paralyzed&mdash;couldn't speak ner nothin'. Where do ye suppose he
+was when I found him?"</p>
+<p>"In bed?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"No, sir&mdash;no, siree! He was in hell&mdash;that's where he
+was&mdash;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!</p>
+<p>"All to once it come acrost me what he wanted&mdash;quick as ye
+could say scat. He wanted to have Kate's headstun took down an' put
+away&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;no,
+sir!</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"Damn him! it don't give him no rest. He tries to tell everybody
+he sees&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;no, sir&mdash;not
+'til he gits to the judgment seat, anyway."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"What has become of Enoch?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"Wal, sir, Enoch started off west 'bout three year ago an' we
+ain't heard a word from him since that day&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>I could see a glimmer of a light in the thicket of pines down
+the valley. I unhitched and mounted my horse.</p>
+<p>"Take the first turn to the right," said the old man as he
+picked up his scythe.</p>
+<p>"I'm very much obliged to you," I said.</p>
+<p>"No ye ain't, nuther," he answered. "Leastways there ain't no
+reason why ye should be."</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"Who's there?" he demanded.</p>
+<p>"My name is Barton Baynes from St. Lawrence County. Kate
+Fullerton is my friend and I wish to see her."</p>
+<p>"Come up to the steps, sor. Don't git off yer horse&mdash;'til
+I've chained the dog. Kate'll be out in a minute."</p>
+<p>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!</p>
+<p>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!</p>
+<p>The way she held me to her breast and patted my shoulder and
+said "my boy!"&mdash;in a low, faint, treble voice so like that of
+a child&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>She led me into the house. She looked very neat now&mdash;in a
+black gown over which was a spotless white apron and collar of
+lace&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"News?"</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Sally?"</p>
+<p>"She has been at school in Albany for a year," I said. "She is
+at home now and I am going to see her."</p>
+<p>"You love Sally?" she whispered.</p>
+<p>"Better than I love my life."</p>
+<p>Again she whispered: "Get married!"</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Money thirst!"</p>
+<p>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&mdash;a weird, empty, inhuman voice it was, utterly cut off
+from his intelligence. It came out of the troubled depths of his
+misery.</p>
+<p>So that house&mdash;the scene of his great sin which would
+presently lie down with him in the dust&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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."</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>Kate rose and came to my side and leaning toward my ear
+whispered:</p>
+<p>"It is my father. He is always thinking of when I was a girl. He
+wants me."</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Would ye like to go to bed?"</p>
+<p>"Yes, I am tired."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;sure it
+is."</p>
+<p>I went with him to the stable yard where he did his milking and
+talked of his long service with the squire.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;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&mdash;ye couldn't move him when
+he put his foot down."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+<h3>I START IN A LONG WAY</h3>
+<p>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&mdash;always a well-dressed man of much dignity
+and filled with the news of the time, that being a part of his
+entertainment&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Now God be praised&mdash;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&mdash;that I am!"</p>
+<p>I wondered what he meant for a second and then asked:</p>
+<p>"How go these days with you?"</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>They came quickly and gathered about me&mdash;a noisy, happy
+group. The younger children kissed me and sat on my knees and gave
+me the small news of the neighborhood.</p>
+<p>How good were the look of those friendly faces and the
+full-hearted pleasure of the whole family at my coming!</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"I intend to walk up to the hills to-night," I said.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;thank God!"</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"How are the Dunkelbergs?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"What is that?"</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I think that he must have seen the flame of color playing on my
+face, for he quickly added:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"Do you think so?"</p>
+<p>"Sure I do. Didn't she as much as tell me that here in this
+room&mdash;not a week ago? She loves ye, boy, as true as God loves
+ye, an' she's a girl of a thousand.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;a camellia man!&mdash;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&mdash;well-unexpected!
+Six shillings a week to the church and four to charity, as if that
+were the contract&mdash;no more, no less! But did ye ever hear o'
+his going out o' his way to do a good thing&mdash;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.'"</p>
+<p>"Why did they go away? Was it because I was coming?"</p>
+<p>"I think it likely, my fine lad. The man heard o' it some
+way&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>"I think I shall go and try to find her," I said.</p>
+<p>"I am to counsel ye about that," said the schoolmaster. "She's
+as keen as a brier&mdash;the fox! She says, 'Keep away. Don't alarm
+him, or he'll bundle us off to Europe for two or three years.'</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"I guess you like it better than I do," was my answer.</p>
+<p>"Ah, my lad, I know the heart o' youth! Ye'd like to be puttin'
+yer arms around her&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>A little silence followed. He broke it with these words:</p>
+<p>"Ye're done with that business in Cobleskill, an' I'm glad. Ye
+didn't know ye were bein' tried there&mdash;did ye? Ye've stood it
+like a man. What will ye be doin' now?"</p>
+<p>"I'd like to go to Washington with the Senator."</p>
+<p>He laughed heartily.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"How is Deacon Binks?" I asked presently.</p>
+<p>"Soul buried in fat! The sparkler on his bosom suggests a
+tombstone stickin' out of a soiled snowbank."</p>
+<p>A little more talk and we were off to bed with our candles.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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!</p>
+<p>"Why, you look like the Senator when he is just gittin' home
+from the capital," said Mr. Jenison.</p>
+<p>They were not yet willing to take me at the par of my
+appearance.</p>
+<p>I met Betsy Price&mdash;one of my schoolmates&mdash;on the
+street. She was very cordial and told me that the Dunkelbergs had
+gone to Saratoga.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I wonder if she really enjoyed sticking this thorn into my
+flesh&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Say, stranger, have you seen anything of a feller by the name
+o' Bart Baynes?" he demanded.</p>
+<p>"Have you?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"No, sir, I ain't. Gosh a'mighty! Say! what have ye done with
+that boy of our'n?"</p>
+<p>"What have you done to our house?" I asked again.</p>
+<p>"Built on an addition."</p>
+<p>"That's what I've done to your boy," I answered.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>We ran pell-mell up the lane to the steps like a pair of
+children.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"All right," Purvis answered.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>I remember how they felt the cloth on my back and how proudly
+they surveyed it.</p>
+<p>"Couldn't buy them goods 'round these parts," said Uncle
+Peabody. "Nor nothin' like 'em&mdash;no, sir."</p>
+<p>"Feels a leetle bit like the butternut trousers," said Aunt Deel
+as she felt my coat.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"Ayes! Wal I guess a man can't grow old without his pants
+growin' old, too&mdash;ayes!" said Aunt Deel.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"An' the longer the legs the harder the sermons&mdash;in them
+little seats over 't the schoolhouse&mdash;ayes!" Aunt Deel added
+by way of justifying his complaint. "There wouldn't be so much wear
+in a ten-mile walk&mdash;no!"</p>
+<p>The chicken pie was baking and the strawberries were ready for
+the shortcake.</p>
+<p>"I've been wallerin' since the dew was off gittin' them berries
+an' vi'lets&mdash;ayes!" said Aunt Deel, now busy with her work at
+the stove.</p>
+<p>"Aunt, you look as young as ever," I remarked.</p>
+<p>She slapped my arm and said with mock severity:</p>
+<p>"Stop that! W'y! You know better&mdash;ayes!"</p>
+<p>How vigorously she stirred the fire then.</p>
+<p>"I can't return the compliment&mdash;my soul! how you've
+changed!&mdash;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&mdash;no, it don't!"</p>
+<p>"Why, Aunt Deel, what in the world do you mean?" I asked.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"I b'lieve I'm goin' to vote for abolition," said Uncle Peabody.
+"I wonder what Sile Wright will say to that."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>"DEAR BARTON BAYNES&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;you were very little. It is long, long ago since I first
+saw you in your father's dooryard&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"God bless you,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">KATE FULLERTON."</span></p>
+</div>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>We went by driving south a few miles and tramping in to the foot
+of the stillwater on our river&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"I am waiting for the call to go," I said.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;that is the
+all-important matter. You will encounter strange company in the
+game of politics. Let me tell you a story."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"I couldn't shoot at him, it was such a beautiful bit of
+politics," said the Senator.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;the Whig and the Democratic&mdash;and they are always
+shot at from one bank or the other."</p>
+<p>I remember it surprised me a little to hear him say that they
+came in from both shores.</p>
+<p>"Just what do you want to do?" he asked presently.</p>
+<p>"I should like to go down to Washington with you and help you in
+any way that I can."</p>
+<p>"All right, partner&mdash;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&mdash;who knows? You are young yet. It
+will be good training and you will witness the making of some
+history now and then."</p>
+<p>What elation I felt!</p>
+<p>Again the voice of the hound which had been ringing in the
+distant hills was coming nearer.</p>
+<p>"We must keep watch&mdash;another deer is coming," said the
+Senator.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"How shall we get him?" my friend asked.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Well, I guess your big thighs and broad shoulders can stand
+it," said he.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>Leaves of the beeches, maples and basswoods&mdash;yellowed by
+frost&mdash;hung like tiny lanterns, glowing with noonday light,
+above the dim forest-aisle which we traveled.</p>
+<p>The sun was down when we got to the clearing.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<p>We rode on in silence with the calls of the swamp robin and the
+hermit thrush ringing in our ears as the night fell.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;didn't you?"</p>
+<p>"Yes," I answered.</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>It touched me to the soul&mdash;this long-delayed vindication of
+my beloved Uncle Peabody.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"Bart, I believe I'll plant corn on that ten-acre lot next
+spring&mdash;darned if I don't," he said as he returned to his
+chair.</p>
+<p>None of us ever spoke of the matter again to my knowledge.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+<h3>ON THE SUMMIT</h3>
+<p>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 <i>&AElig;neid</i>; 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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;and I have used many in the effort&mdash;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"&mdash;most formidable in debate&mdash;but I was
+soon to learn that neither nor all of these men&mdash;gifted of
+heaven so highly&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;well, you know, the old-time Yankee of
+good stock was fairly steadfast, whatever else may be said of
+him&mdash;often a little too steadfast, as were Ben Grimshaw and
+Squire Fullerton.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;I had to&mdash;and she had shown a tender, sympathetic
+interest in the story.</p>
+<p>The Senator had said to me one day, with a gentle smile:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>I took the stage to Baltimore next day&mdash;the twenty-sixth of
+May. The convention thrilled me&mdash;the flags, the great crowd,
+the bands, the songs, the speeches, the cheering&mdash;I see and
+hear it all in my talk. The uproar lasted for twenty minutes when
+Van Buren's name was put in nomination.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>He read the letter of which I knew.</p>
+<p>Mr. Benjamin F. Butler then said:</p>
+<p>"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&mdash;a strong party
+man&mdash;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."</p>
+<p>The suggestion was unanimously approved and within an hour,
+mounted on one of the best horses in Maryland&mdash;so his groom
+informed me&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>The butler opened the door.</p>
+<p>Yes, the Senator was up and had just returned from a walk and
+was in his study. I found him there.</p>
+<p>"Well, Bart, how does this happen?" he asked.</p>
+<p>"It's important business," I said, as I presented the
+letter.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"Well, Bart, what do you think we had better do about it?"</p>
+<p>"I&mdash;I was hoping&mdash;you&mdash;you would take it," I
+stammered.</p>
+<p>"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?"</p>
+<p>"No," I answered.</p>
+<p>Immediately he turned to his desk and wrote the telegram which
+fixed his place in history. It said no.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;the lights that are shining into the
+souls of the young&mdash;the eager, open, expectant, welcoming
+souls of the young!&mdash;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&mdash;believe
+me.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>If one is to follow the compass he can have but one
+king&mdash;his God.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>It was a summer morning that shortens the road&mdash;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&mdash;shapely ornament of my native hills&mdash;were in
+blossom. A cloud of pigeons swept across the blue deep above my
+head. The great choir of the fields sang to me&mdash;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:</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src=
+"images/illus416.png" width="60%" alt="" title="" /><br />
+<br /></div>
+<p>When, years later, I heard the wedding march in Lohengrin I knew
+where Wagner had got his theme.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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&mdash;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: <i>Barney Leave the Girls Alone</i>. I turned and
+saw&mdash;your mother, my son<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id=
+"FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class=
+"fnanchor">[1]</a>. 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:</p>
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href=
+"#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> These last lines
+were dictated to his son.</p>
+</div>
+<p>"Young man, why have you come here?"</p>
+<p>"To get you," I answered.</p>
+<p>"What do you want of me?" She was looking at her face in the
+water.</p>
+<p>"I want to marry you," I answered bravely.</p>
+<p>"Then you may help me ashore if you please. I am in my best,
+white slippers and you are to be very careful."</p>
+<p>Beautiful! She was the spirit of the fields of June then and
+always.</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>"When do you wish to marry me?" she whispered.</p>
+<p>"As soon as possible, but my pay is only sixty dollars a month
+now."</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<p>"We are prepared either for a picnic or a wedding," was the
+whisper of Kate.</p>
+<p>"Let's make it both," I proposed to Sally.</p>
+<p>"Surely there couldn't be a better place than here under the big
+pine&mdash;it's so smooth and soft and shady," said she.</p>
+<p>"Nor could there be a better day or better company," I urged,
+for I was not sure that she would agree.</p>
+<p>The boats came along. Sally and I waved a welcome from the bank
+and she merrily proclaimed:</p>
+<p>"It's to be a wedding."</p>
+<p>Then a cheer from the boats, in which I joined.</p>
+<p>I shall never forget how, when the company had landed and the
+greetings were over, Uncle Peabody approached your mother and
+said:</p>
+<p>"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.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>There is a lonely grave up in the hills&mdash;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.</p>
+<p>"It is very sorrowful," she whispered. "He was trying to find me
+when he died."</p>
+<p>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.</p>
+<p>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:</p>
+<p>"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."</p>
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="EPILOGUE" id="EPILOGUE"></a>EPILOGUE</h2>
+<p><i>Wanted by all the people</i>&mdash;<br />
+A servant<br />
+Born of those who serve and aspire<br />
+Who has known want and trouble<br />
+And all that passes in The Little House of the Poor:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lonely thought, counsels of love
+and prudence,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The happiness born of a
+penny,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The need of the strange and mighty
+dollar</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the love of things above all
+its power of measurement.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The dreams that come of weariness
+and the hard bed,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The thirst for learning as a Great
+Deliverer.</span><br />
+Who has felt in his heart the weakness and the strength of his
+brothers<br />
+And, above all, the divinity that dwells in them.<br />
+Who, therefore, shall have faith in men and women<br />
+And knowledge of their wrongs and needs and of their proneness to
+error.<br />
+Humbly must he listen to their voice, as one who knows that God
+will<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">often speak in it,</span><br />
+And have charity even for his own judgments.<br />
+Thus removed, far removed from the conceit and vanity of
+Princes<br />
+Shall he know how great is the master he has chosen to serve.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIGHT IN THE CLEARING***</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Light in the Clearing, by Irving
+Bacheller, Illustrated by Arthur I. Keller
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Light in the Clearing
+
+Author: Irving Bacheller
+
+Release Date: November 25, 2004  [eBook #14150]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIGHT IN THE CLEARING***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Rick Niles, Charlie Kirschner, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 14150-h.htm or 14150-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/5/14150/14150-h/14150-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/5/14150/14150-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+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 AEneas--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 _Mecanique 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 _AEneid_; 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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