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diff --git a/34194.txt b/34194.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3767387 --- /dev/null +++ b/34194.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2168 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Higgins, by Norman Duncan + +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: Higgins + A Man's Christian + +Author: Norman Duncan + +Release Date: November 2, 2010 [EBook #34194] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIGGINS *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank + + + + +[Illustration: F. E. Higgins, The Sky Pilot] + + + + +HIGGINS + +A MAN'S CHRISTIAN + +BY + +NORMAN DUNCAN + +HARPER & BROTHERS + +NEW YORK AND LONDON + +M--C--M--I--X + + + + +BOOKS BY NORMAN DUNCAN + + DR. GRENFELL'S PARISH: A Tract in Description + of the Deep Sea Mission Work + + GOING DOWN PROM JERUSALEM: The Narrative of a Journey Net $1.50 + + EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF: A Book of Short Stories 1.50 + + THE CRUISE OF THE 'SHINING LIGHT': A Novel of the Sea 1.50 + + DOCTOR LUKE OF THE 'LABRADOR': A Novel + + THE SUITABLE CHILD: A Christmas Story + + THE MOTHER: A Short Novel + + THE ADVENTURES OF BILLY TOPSAIL: A Story for Boys + + THE WAY OF THE SEA: A Book of Short Stories + + THE SOUL OF THE STREET: A Book of Short Stories + + HIGGINS--A MAN'S CHRISTIAN .50 + +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, N. Y. + +Copyright, 1909, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + +All rights reserved. + +Published November, 1909. + + + + +CONTENTS + + Chapter Page + I. HELL BENT 1 + II. THE PILOT OF SOULS 4 + III. IN THE SNAKE-ROOM 8 + IV. THE CLOTH IN QUEER PLACES 11 + V. JACK IN CAMP 20 + VI. "TO THE TALL TIMBER!" 25 + VII. ROBBING THE BLIND 32 + VIII. TOUCHING PITCH 43 + IX. IN SPITE OF LAUGHTER 54 + X. THE VOICE OF THE LORD 57 + XI. FIST-PLAY 65 + XII. MAKING THE GRADE 72 + XIII. STRAIGHT FROM THE SHOULDER 78 + XIV. THE SHOE ON THE OTHER FOOT 85 + XV. CAUSE AND EFFECT 97 + XVI. THE WAGES OF SACRIFICE 109 + + + + +TO THE READER + +What this book contains was learned by the writer in the course of two +visits with Mr. Higgins in the Minnesota woods--one in the lumber-camps +and lumber-towns at midwinter, and again at the time of the drive. Upon +both occasions Mr. Higgins was accompanied by his devoted and admirable +friend, the Rev. Thomas D. Whittles, to whose suggestions and leading +he responded with many a tale of his experiences, some of which are +here related. Mr. Whittles was at the same time good enough to permit +the writer to draw whatever information might seem necessary from a more +extended description of Mr. Higgins's work, called _The Lumber-jack's +Sky Pilot_, which he had written. + + + + +HIGGINS + +A MAN'S CHRISTIAN + + + + +HIGGINS--A MAN'S CHRISTIAN + + + + +I + +HELL BENT + + +Twenty thousand of the thirty thousand lumber-jacks and river-pigs of +the Minnesota woods are hilariously in pursuit of their own ruin for lack +of something better to do in town. They are not nice, enlightened men, +of course; the debauch is the traditional diversion--the theme of all +the brave tales to which the youngsters of the bunk-houses listen in +the lantern-light and dwell upon after dark. The lumber-jacks proceed +thus--being fellows of big strength in every physical way--to the +uttermost of filth and savagery and fellowship with every abomination. It +is done with shouting and laughter and that large good-humor which is +bedfellow with the bloodiest brawling, and it has for a bit, no doubt, +its amiable aspect; but the merry shouters are presently become like +Jimmie the Beast, that low, notorious brute, who, emerging drunk and +hungry from a Deer River saloon, robbed a bulldog of his bone and +gnawed it himself--or like Damned Soul Jenkins, who goes moaning into +the forest, after the spree in town, conceiving himself condemned to +roast forever in hell, without hope, nor even the ease which his +mother's prayers might win from a compassionate God. + +They can't help themselves, it seems. Not all of them, of course; but +most. + + + + +II + +THE PILOT OF SOULS + + +A big, clean, rosy-cheeked man in a Mackinaw coat and rubber +boots--hardly distinguishable from the lumber-jack crew except for +his quick step and high glance and fine resolute way--went swiftly +through a Deer River saloon toward the snake-room in search of a lad +from Toronto who had in the camps besought to be preserved from the +vicissitudes of the town. + +"There goes the Pilot," said a lumber-jack at the bar. "Hello, Pilot!" + +"'Lo, Tom!" + +"Ain't ye goin' t' preach no more at Camp Six?" + +"Sure, Tom!" + +"Well--when the hell?" + +"Week from Thursday, Tom," the vanishing man called back; "tell the +boys I'm coming." + +"Know the Pilot?" the lumber-jack asked. + +I nodded. + +"Higgins's job," said he, earnestly, "is keepin' us boys out o' +hell; an' he's the only man on the job." + +Of this I had been informed. + +"I want t' tell ye, friend," the lumber-jack added, with honest +reverence, "that he's a damned good Christian, if ever there was +one. Ain't that right, Billy?" + +"Higgins," the bartender agreed, "is a square man." + +The lumber-jack reverted to the previous interest. All at once he forgot +about the Pilot. + +"Hey, Billy!" he cried, severely, "where'd ye put that bottle?" + +Higgins was then in the snake-room of the place--a foul compartment +into which the stupefied and delirious are thrown when they are +penniless--searching the pockets of the drunken boy from Toronto for +some leavings of his wages. "Not a cent!" said he, bitterly. "They +haven't left him a cent! They've got every penny of three months' +wages! Don't blame the boy," he pursued, in pain and infinite +sympathy, easing the lad's head on the floor; "it isn't all his +fault. He came out of the camps without telling me--and some cursed +tin-horn gambler met him, I suppose--and he's only a boy--and they +didn't give him a show--and, oh, the pity of it! he's been here only +two days!" + +The boy was in a stupor of intoxication, but presently revived a little, +and turned very sick. + +"That you, Pilot?" he said. + +"Yes, Jimmie." + +"A' right." + +"Feel a bit better now?" + +"Uh-huh." + +The boy sighed and collapsed unconscious: Higgins remained in the +weltering filth of the room to ease and care for him. "Don't wait for +me, old man," said he, looking up from the task. "I'll be busy for a +while." + + + + +III + +IN THE SNAKE-ROOM + + +Frank necessity invented the snake-room of the lumber-town saloon. +There are times of gigantic debauchery--the seasons of paying off. A +logger then once counted one hundred and fifty men drunk in a single +hotel of a town of twelve hundred inhabitants where fourteen other +bar-rooms heartily flourished. They overflowed the snake-rooms--they lay +snoring on the bar-room floor--they littered the office--they were +doubled up on the stair-landings and stretched out in the corridors. +Drunken men stumbled over drunken men and fell helpless beside them; and +still, in the bar-room (said he)--beyond the men who slept or writhed +on the floor and had been kicked out of the way--the lumber-jacks were +clamoring three deep for whiskey at the bar. Hence the snake-room: one +may not eject drunken men into bitter weather and leave them to freeze. +Bartenders and their helpers carry them off to the snake-room when +they drop; others stagger in of their own notion and fall upon their +reeking fellows. There is no arrangement of the bodies--but a squirming +heap of them, from which legs and arms protrude, wherein open-mouthed +bearded faces appear in a tangle of contorted limbs. Men moan and +laugh and sob and snore; and some cough with early pneumonia, some +curse, some sing, some horribly grunt; and some, delirious, pick at +spiders in the air, and talk to monkeys, and scream out to be saved +from dogs and snakes. Men reel in yelling groups from the bar to +watch the spectacle of which they will themselves presently be a part. + + + + +IV + +THE CLOTH IN QUEER PLACES + + +This is the simple and veracious narrative of the singular ministerial +activities of the Rev. Francis Edmund Higgins, a Presbyterian, who +regularly ministers, without a church, acting under the Board of Home +Missions, to the lumber-jacks of the remoter Minnesota woods. Singular +ministerial activities these are, truly, appealing alike to those who +believe in God and to such as may deny Him. They are particularly robust. +When we walked from Camp Two to Camp Four of a midwinter day, with +the snow crackling underfoot and the last sunset light glowing like +heavenly fire beyond the great green pines-- + +"Boys," said Higgins, gravely, "there's just one thing that I regret; +and if I had to prepare for the ministry over again, I wouldn't make +the same mistake: I ought to have taken boxing lessons." + +No other minister of the gospel, possibly, could with perfect propriety, +in the sight of the unrighteous, who are the most severe critics of +propriety in this respect, lean easily over a bar (his right foot having +of long habit found the rail), and in terms of soundest common sense +reasonably urge upon the man behind the wet mahogany the shame of his +situation and the virtue of abandoning it; nor could any other whom I +know truculently crowd into the howling, brawling, drunken throng of +lumber-jacks, all gone mad of adulterated liquor, and with any confident +show of authority command the departure of some weakling who had followed +the debauch of his mates far beyond his little strength. + +"Come out o' this!" says Higgins. + +"Ah, go chase yerself, Pilot!" is the indulgent response, most amiably +delivered, with a loose, kind smile. + +"Come on!" says Higgins, in wrath. + +"Ah, Pilot," the youngster pleads, "I'm on'y havin' a little fun. +You go chase yerself, Pilot," says he, affectionately, with no offence +whatsoever, "an' le' me alone." + +The Rev. Francis Edmund Higgins, in the midst of an unholy up-roar--the +visible manifestation, this environment and behavior, it seems to me, +of the noise and smell and very abandonment of hell--is privileged to +seize the youngster by the throat and in no unnecessarily gentle way +to jerk him into the clean, frosty air of the winter night. In these +days of his ministry, nobody--the situation being an ordinary one--would +interfere. If, however, it seemed unwise to proceed in this way, Higgins +would at least strip the boy of his savings. + +"Hand over!" says he. + +The boy hands over every cent he possesses. If Higgins suspects, he will +turn out the pockets. And later--late in the night--with the wintry +dawn breaking, it may be--the sleepless Pilot carries the boy off on his +back to such saving care as he may be able to exercise. To a gentle +care--a soft, tender solicitude, all separate from the wild doings of the +bar-room, and all under cover, even as between the boy and the Pilot. +I have been secretly told that the good Pilot is at such times like a +brooding mother to the lusty, wayward youngsters of the camps, who, +in their prodigality, do but manfully emulate the most manly behavior +of which they are aware. + + * * * * * + +To confuse Higgins with cranks and freaks would be most injuriously +to wrong him. He is not an eccentric; his hair is cropped, his finger +nails are clean, there is a commanding achievement behind him, he +has manners, a mind variously interested, as the polite world demands. +Nor is he a fanatic; he would spit cant from his mouth in disgust if +ever it chanced within. He is a reasonable and highly efficient +worker--a man dealing with active problems in an intelligent and +thoroughly practical way; and he is as self-respecting and respected in +his peculiar field as any pulpit parson of the cities--and as sane as an +engineer. He is a big, jovial, rotund, rosy-cheeked Irish-Canadian +(pugnacious upon occasion), with a boy's smile and eyes and laugh, +with a hearty voice and way, with a head held high, with a man's +clean, confident soul gazing frankly from unwavering eyes: five foot +nine and two hundred pounds to him (which allows for a little rippling +fat). He is big of body and heart and faith and outlook and charity and +inspiration and belief in the work of his hands; and his life is +lived joyously--notwithstanding the dirty work of it--though deprived of +the common delights of life. He has no church: he straps a pack on +his back and tramps the logging-roads from camp to camp, whatever the +weather--twelve miles in a blizzard at forty below--and preaches every +day--and twice and three times a day--in the bunk-houses; and he buries +the boys--and marries them to the kind of women they know--and scolds +and beseeches and thrashes them, and banks for them. + +God knows what they would do without Higgins! He is as necessary to +them now--as much sought in trouble and as heartily regarded--as a +Presbyterian minister of the old school; he is as close and helpful and +dogmatic in intimate affairs. + +"Pilot," said Ol' Man Johnson, "take this here stuff away from me!" + +The Sky Pilot rose astounded. Ol' Man Johnson, in the beginnings of +his spree in town--half a dozen potations--was frantically emptying his +pockets of gold (some hundreds of dollars) on the preacher's bed in +the room above the saloon; and he blubbered like a baby while he threw +the coins from him. + +"Keep it away from me!" Ol' Man Johnson wept, drawing back from the +money with a gesture of terror. "For Christ's sake, Pilot!----keep it +away from me!" + +The Pilot understood. + +"If you don't," cried Ol' Man Johnson, "it'll kill me!" + +Higgins sent a draft for the money to Ol' Man Johnson when Ol' Man +Johnson got safely home to his wife in Wisconsin. Another spree in town +would surely have killed Ol' Man Johnson. + + + + +V + +JACK IN CAMP + + +The lumber-jack in camp can, in his walk and conversation, easily be +distinguished from the angels; but at least he is industrious and no +wild brawler. He is up and heartily breakfasted and off to the woods, +with a saw or an axe, at break of day; and when he returns in the +frosty dusk he is worn out with a man's labor, and presently ready +to turn in for sound sleep. They are all in the pink of condition +then--big and healthy and clear-eyed, and wholly able for the day's +work. A stout, hearty, kindly, generous crew, of almost every race +under the sun--in behavior like a pack of boys. It is the Saturday in +town--and the occasional spree--and the final debauch (which is all the +town will give them for their money) that litters the bar-room floor +with the wrecks of these masterful bodies. + + * * * * * + +Walking in from Deer River of a still, cold afternoon--with the sun low +and the frost crackling under foot and all round about--we encountered a +strapping young fellow bound out to town afoot. + +"Look here, boy!" said Higgins; "where _you_ going?" + +"Deer River, sir." + +"What for?" + +There was some reply to this. It was a childish evasion; the boy had no +honest business out of camp, with the weather good and the work pressing, +and he knew that Higgins understood. Meanwhile, he kicked at the snow, +with a sheepish grin, and would not look the Pilot in the eye. + +"You're from Three, aren't you?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"I _thought_ I saw you there in the fall," said the Pilot. "Well, +boy," he continued, putting a strong hand on the other's shoulder, +"look me in the eye." + +The boy looked up. + +"God help you!" said the Pilot, from his heart; "nobody else 'll give +you a show in Deer River." + +We walked on, Higgins in advance, downcast. I turned, presently, and +discovered that the young lumber-jack was running. + +"Can't get there fast enough," said Higgins. "I saw that his tongue +was hanging out." + +"He seeks his pleasure," I observed. + +"True," Higgins replied; "and the only pleasure the men of Deer River +will let him have is what he'll buy and pay for over a bar, until his +last red cent is gone. It isn't right, I tell you," he exploded; "the +boy hasn't a show, and it isn't right!" + +It was twelve miles from Camp Three to Deer River. We met other men +on the road to town--men with wages in their pockets, trudging blithely +toward the lights and liquor and drunken hilarity of the place. It +was Saturday; and on Monday, ejected from the saloons, they would +inevitably stagger back to the camps. I have heard of one kindly logger +who dispatches a team to the nearest town every Monday morning to +gather up his stupefied lumber-jacks from the bar-room floors and +snake-rooms and haul them into the woods. + + + + +VI + +"TO THE TALL TIMBER!" + + +It is "back to the tall timber" for the penniless lumber-jack. +Perhaps the familiar slang is derived from the necessity. I recall an +intelligent Cornishman--a cook with a kitchen kept sweet and clean--who +with a laugh contemplated the catastrophe of the snake-room, and the +nervous collapse, and the bedraggled return to the woods. + +"Of course," said he, "that's where I'll land in the spring!" + +It amazed me. + +"Can't help it," said he. "That's where my stake 'll go. Jake Boore +'ll get the most of it; and among the lot of them they'll get every +cent. I'll blow four hundred dollars in two weeks--if I'm lucky enough +to make it go that far." + +"When you know that they rob you?" + +"Certainly they will rob me; everybody knows _that_! But every year +for nine years, now, I've tried to get out of the woods with my stake, +and haven't done it. I intend to this year; but I know I won't. I'll +strike for Deer River when I get my money; and I'll have a drink at +Jake Boore's saloon, and when I get that drink down I'll be on my way. +It isn't because I want to; it's because I have to." + +"But why?" + +"They won't let you do anything else," said the cook. "I've tried +it for nine years. Every winter I've said to myself that I'll get out +of the woods in the spring, and every spring I've been kicked out of +a saloon dead broke. It's always been back to the tall timber for me." + +"What you need, Jones," said Higgins, who stood by, "is the grace of +God in your heart." + +Jones laughed. + +"You hear me, Jones?" the Pilot repeated. "What you need is the grace +of God in your heart." + +"The Pilot's mad," the cook laughed, but not unkindly. "The Pilot +and I don't agree about religion," he explained; "and now he's mad +because I won't go to church." + +This banter did not disturb the Pilot in the least. + +"I'm not mad, Jones," said he. "All I'm saying," he repeated, +earnestly, fetching the cook's flour-board a thwack with his fist, +"is that what you need is the grace of God in your heart." + +Again Jones laughed. + +"That's all right, Jones!" cried the indignant preacher. "But I tell +you that what you need is the grace of God in your heart. _And you know +it!_ And when I get you in the snake-room of Jake Boore's saloon in Deer +River next spring," he continued, in righteous anger, "_I'll rub it +into you!_ Understand me, Jones? When I haul you out of the snake-room, +and wash you, and get you sobered up, I'll rub it into you that what you +need is the grace of God in your heart to give you the first splinter of +a man's backbone." + +"I'll be humble--then," said Jones. + +"You'll have to be a good deal more than humble, friend," Higgins +retorted, "before there'll be a man in the skin that _you_ wear." + +"I don't doubt it, Pilot." + +"Huh!" the preacher sniffed, in fine scorn. + + * * * * * + +The story fortunately has an outcome. I doubt that the cook took the +Pilot's prescription; but, at any rate, he had wisdom sufficient to +warn the Pilot when his time was out, and his money was in his pocket, +and he was bound out of the woods in another attempt to get through Deer +River. It was midwinter when the Pilot prescribed the grace of God; it +was late in the spring when the cook secretly warned him to stand by +the forlorn essay; and it was later still--the drive was on--when, one +night, as we watched the sluicing, I inquired. + +"Jones?" the Pilot replied, puzzled. "What Jones?" + +"The cook who couldn't get through." + +"Oh," said the Pilot, "you mean Jonesy. Well," he added, with +satisfaction, "Jonesy got through this time." + +I asked for the tale of it. + +"You'd hardly believe it," said the Pilot, "but we cashed that big +check right in Jake Boore's saloon. I wouldn't have it any other +way, and neither would Jonesy. In we went, boys, brave as lions; and when +Jake Boore passed over the money Jonesy put it in his pocket. Drink? Not +he! Not a drop would he take. They tried all the tricks they knew, but +Jonesy wouldn't fall to them. They even put liquor under his nose; +and Jonesy let it stay there, and just laughed. I tell you boys, it was +fine! It was _great_! Jonesy and I stuck it out night and day together +for two days; and then I put Jonesy aboard train, and Jonesy swore +he'd never set foot in Deer River again. He was going South, somewhere, +to see--somebody." + +It was doubtless the grace of God, after all, that got the cook through: +if not the grace of God in the cook's heart, then in the Pilot's. + + + + +VII + +ROBBING THE BLIND + + +It it a perfectly simple situation. There are thirty thousand men-more +or less of them, according to the season--making the wages of men in the +woods. Most of them accumulate a hot desire to wring some enjoyment from +life in return for the labor they do. They have no care about money when +they have it. They fling it in gold over the bars (and any sober man may +rob their very pockets); they waste in a night what they earn in a +winter--and then crawl back to the woods. Naturally the lumber-towns +are crowded with parasites upon their lusts and prodigality--with +gamblers and saloon-keepers and purveyors of low passion. Some larger +capitalists, more acute and more acquisitive, of a greed less nice +-profess the three occupations at once. They are the men of real +power in the remoter communities, makers of mayors and chiefs of +police and magistrates--or were until Higgins came along to dispute +them. And their operations have been simple and enormously profitable--so +easy, so free from any fear of the law, that I should think they +would (in their own phrase) be ashamed to take the money. It seems +to be no trouble at all to abstract a drunken lumber-jack's wages. + + * * * * * + +It takes a big man to oppose these forces--a big heart and a big body, +and a store of hope and courage not easily depleted. It takes, too, a +good minister; it takes a loving heart and a fist quick to find the point +of the jaw to preach the gospel after the manner of Higgins. And Higgins +conceives it to be one of his sacred ministerial duties to protect his +parishioners in town. Behind the bunk-houses, in the twilight, they +say to him: "When you goin' t' be in Deer River, Pilot? Friday? All +right. I'm goin' home. See me through, won't you?" Having committed +themselves in this way, nothing can save them from Higgins--neither +their own drunken will (if they escape him for an interval) nor the +antagonism of the keepers of places. This is perilous and unscholarly +work; systematic theology has nothing to do with escorting through a +Minnesota lumber-town a weak-kneed boy who wants to take his money home +to his mother in Michigan. + +Once the Pilot discovered such a boy in the bar-room of a Bemidji saloon. + +"Where's your money?" he demanded. + +"'N my pocket." + +"Hand it over," said the Pilot. + +"Ain't going to." + +"Yes, you are; and you're going to do it quick. Come out of this!" + +Cowed by these large words, the boy yielded to the grip of Higgins's big +hand, and was led away a little. Then the bartender leaned over the bar. +A gambler or two lounged toward the group. There was a pregnant pause. + +"Look here, Higgins," said the bartender, "what business is this of +yours, anyhow?" + +"What business--of _mine?_" asked the astounded Pilot. + +"Yes; what you buttin' in for?" + +"This," said Higgins, "_is my job!_" + +The Pilot was leaning wrathfully over the bar, his face thrust +belligerently forward, alert for whatever might happen. The bartender +struck at him. Higgins had withdrawn. The bartender came over the bar at +a bound. The preacher caught him on the jaw in mid-air with a stiff +blow, and he fell headlong and unconscious. They made friends next +day--the boy being then safely out of town. It is not hard for +Higgins to make friends with bartenders. They seem to like it; +Higgins really does. + + * * * * * + +It was in some saloon of the woods that the watchful Higgins observed an +Irish lumber-jack empty his pockets on the bar and, in a great outburst +of joy, order drinks for the crowd. The men lined up; and the Pilot, too, +leaned over the bar, close to the lumber-jack. The bartender presently +whisked a few coins from the little heap of gold and silver. Higgins +edged nearer. In a moment, as he knew--just as soon as the lumber-jack +would for an instant turn his back--the rest of the money would be +deftly swept away. + +The thing was about to happen, when Higgins's big hand shot out and +covered the heap. + +"Pat," said he, quietly, "I'll not take a drink. This," he added, +as he put the money in his pocket, "is my treat." + +The Pilot stood them all off--the hangers on, the runners, the gamblers, +the bartender (with a gun), and the Irish lumber-jack himself. To the +bartender he remarked (while he gazed contemptuously into the muzzle of +the gun) that should ever the fellow grow into the heavy-weight class +he would be glad to "take him on." As it was, he was really not worth +considering in any serious way, and had better go get a reputation. It +was a pity--for the Pilot (said he) was fit and able--but the thrashing +must be postponed for the time. + +There was no shooting. + + * * * * * + +Further to illustrate the ease with which the lumber-jack may be robbed, +I must relate that last midwinter, in the office of a Deer River hotel, +the Pilot was greeted with hilarious affection by a boy of twenty or +thereabouts who had a moment before staggered out from the bar-room. +The youngster was having an immensely good time, it seemed; he was +full of laughter and wit and song--not yet quite full of liquor. It was +snowing outside, I recall, and a bitter wind was blowing from the +north; but it was warm and light in the office--bright, and cosy, +and companionable: very different, indeed, from the low, stifling, +crowded, ill-lit bunk-houses of the camps, nor was his elation like +the weariness of those places. There were six men lying drunk on the +office floor-in grotesque attitudes, very drunk, stretched out and +snoring where they had fallen. + +"Boy," demanded the Pilot, "where's your money?" + +The young lumber-jack said that it was in the safe-keeping of the +bartender. + +"How much you got left?" + +"Oh, I got lots yet," was the happy reply. + +Presently the boy went away, and presently he reeled back again, and put +a hand on the Pilot's shoulder. + +"Near all in?" asked the Pilot. + +"I came here yesterday morning with a hundred and twenty-three +dollars," said the boy, very drunkenly, "and I give it to the +bartender to keep for me, and I'm told I got two-thirty left." + +He was quite content; but Higgins knew that the money of which they were +robbing him was needed at his home, a day's journey to the east of Deer +River. + + * * * * * + +There is no pleasure thereabout (they say) but the spree, and the end of +the spree is the snake-room for by far the most of the merry-makers--r a +penniless condition for all--pneumonia for many--and for the survivors +a beggared, reeling return to the hard work of the woods. + +Higgins is used to picking over the bodies of drunken men in the +snake-room heaps--of entering sadly, but never reluctantly (he said), +in search of men who have been sorely wounded in brawls, or are taken +with pneumonia, or in whom there remains hope of regeneration. He +carries them off on his back to lodgings--or he wheels them away in a +barrow--and he washes them and puts them to bed and (sometimes angrily) +restrains them until their normal minds return. It has never occurred +to him, probably, that this is an amazing exhibition of primitive +Christian feeling and practice. He may have thought of it, however, +as a glorious opportunity for service, for which he should devoutly and +humbly give thanks to Almighty God. + + + + +VIII + +TOUCHING PITCH + + +Not long ago Bemidji was what the Pilot calls "the worst town on the +map." It was indescribably lawless and vicious. An adequate description +would be unprintable. The government--the police and magistrates--was +wholly in the hands of the saloon-keeping element. It was a thoroughly +noisome settlement. The town authorities laughed at the Pilot; the +state authorities gently listened to him and conveniently forgot him, +for political reasons. But he was determined to cleanse the place of +its established and flaunting wickednesses. He organized a W. C. T. U.; +and then--"Boys," said he to the keepers of places, "I'm going to +clean you out. I want to be fair to you--and so I tell you. Don't you +ever come sneaking up to me and say I didn't give you warning!" They +laughed at him when he stripped off his coat and got to work. In the +bar-rooms the toast was, "T' Higgins--and t' hell with Higgins!" and +down went the red liquor. But when the fight was over, when the shutters +were up for good--so had he compelled the respect of these men--they came +to the preacher, saying: "Higgins, you gave us a show; you fought +us fair--and we want to shake hands." + +"That's all right, boys," said Higgins. + +"Will you shake hands?" + +"Sure, I'll shake hands, boys!" + +Jack Worth--that notorious gambler and saloon-keeper of Bemidji--quietly +approached Higgins. + +"Frank," said he, "you win; but I've no hard feelings." + +"That's all right, Jack," said Higgins. + +The Pilot remembered that he had sat close to the death-bed of the young +motherless son of this same Jack Worth in the room above the saloon. +They had been good friends--the big Pilot and the boy. And Jack Worth +had loved the boy in a way that only Higgins knew. "Papa," said the +boy, at this time, death being then very near, "I want you to promise me +something." Jack Worth listened. "I want you to promise me, papa," +the boy went on, "that you'll never drink another drop in all your +life." Jack Worth promised, and kept his promise; and Jack Worth and +the preacher had preserved a queer friendship since that night. + +"Jack," said the Pilot, now, "what you going to do?" + +"I don't know, Frank." + +"Aren't you going to quit this dirty business." + +"I ran a square game in my house, and you know it," the gambler replied. + +"That's all right, Jack," Higgins said; "but look here, old man, +isn't little Johnnie _ever_ going to pull you out of this?" + +"Maybe, Frank," was the reply. "I don't know." + + * * * * * + +The gamblers, the bartenders, the little pickpockets are as surely the +Pilot's parishioners as anybody else, and they like and respect him. +Nobody is excluded from his ministry. I recall that Higgins was late +one night writing in his little room. There came a knock on the door-a +loud, angry demand--a forewarning of trouble, to one who knows about +knocks (as the Pilot says). Higgins opened, of course, and discovered +a big bartender, new to the town--a bigger man than he, and a man with a +fighting reputation. The object of the quarrelsome visit was perfectly +plain: the preacher braced himself for combat. + +"You Higgins?" + +"Higgins is my name." + +"Did you ever say that if it came to a row between the gamblers of this +town and the lumber-jacks that you'd fight with the lumber-jacks?" + +Higgins looked the man over. + +"Well," snarled the visitor, "how about it?" + +"Well, my friend," replied the Pilot, laying off his coat, "_I guess +you're my man!_" and advanced with guard up. + +"I'm no gambler," the visitor hastily explained. "I'm a bartender." + +"Don't matter," said Higgins. "You're my man just the same. I meant +bartenders, too." + +"Well," said the bartender, "I just come up to ask you a question." + +Higgins attended. + +"Are men made by conditions," the bartender propounded, "or do +conditions make men?" + +There ensued the hottest kind of an argument. It turned out that the +man was a Socialist--a propagandist who had come to Deer River to sow the +seed (he said). I have forgotten what the Pilot's contention was; +but, at any rate, it dodged the general issue and concerned itself +with the specific question of whether or not conditions at Deer River +made saloon-keepers and gamblers and worse and bartenders--the +affirmative of which he held to be an abominable opinion. They +carried the argument to the bar-room, where, one on each side of the +dripping bar, they disputed until daylight, Higgins at times loudly +taunting his opponent with the assertion that a bartender could do +nothing but shame Socialism in the community. It ended in this +amicable agreement: that the bartender was privileged to attempt the +persuasion of Higgins to Socialism, and that Higgins was permitted to +practise upon the bartender without let or hindrance with a view to +his conversion. + +"Have a drink?" said the bartender. + +"Wh--what!" exclaimed the Pilot. + +"Have a little something soft?" + +"I wouldn't take a glass of water over your dirty bar," Higgins is +said to have roared, "if I died of thirst!" + +The man will not compromise. + + * * * * * + +To all these men, as well as to the lumber-jacks, the Pilot gives his +help and carries his message: to all the loggers and lumber-jacks and +road-monkeys and cookees and punk-hunters and wood-butchers and +swamp-men and teamsters and bull-cooks and the what-nots of the woods, +and the gamblers and saloon-keepers and panderers and bartenders (and a +host of filthy little runners and pullers-in and small thieves) of the +towns. He has no abode near by, no church; he preaches in bunk-houses, +and sleeps above saloons and in the little back rooms of hotels and +in stables and wherever a blanket may be had in the woods. He ministers +to nobody else: just to men like these. To women, too: not to many, +perhaps, but still to those whom the pale men of the towns find necessary +to their gain. To women like Nellie, in swiftly failing health, who +could not escape (she said) because she had lost the knack of dressing +in any other way. She beckoned him, aboard train, well aware of his +profession; and when Higgins had listened to her ordinary little +story, her threadbare, pathetic little plea to be helped, he carried +her off to some saving Refuge for such as she. To women like little +Liz, too, whose consumptive hand Higgins held while she lay dying +alone in her tousled bed in the shuttered Fifth Red House. + +"Am I dyin', Pilot?" she asked. + +"Yes, my girl," he answered. + +"Dyin'--_now?_" + +Higgins said again that she was dying; and little Liz was dreadfully +frightened then--and began to sob for her mother with all her heart. + +I conceive with what tenderness the big, kind, clean Higgins comforted +her--how that his big hand was soft and warm enough to serve in that +extremity. It is not known to me, of course; but I fancy that little +Liz of the Fifth Red House died more easily--more hopefully--because +of the proximity of the Pilot's clear, uplifted soul. + + + + +IX + +IN SPITE OF LAUGHTER + + +Higgins was born on August 19, 1865, in Toronto, Ontario, the son of a +hotel-keeper. When he was seven years old his father died, and two +years later his mother remarried and went pioneering to Shelburne, +Dufferin County, Ontario, which was then a wilderness. There was no +school; consequently there was no schooling. Higgins went through the +experience of conversion when he was eighteen. Presently, thereafter, +he determined to be a minister; and they laughed at him. Everybody +laughed. Obviously, what he must have was education; but he had no +money, and (as they fancied) less capacity. At any rate, the dogged +Higgins began to preach; he preached--and right vigorously, too, no +doubt--to the stumps on his stepfather's farm; and he kept on preaching +until, one day, laughing faces slowly rose from behind the stumps, +whereupon he took to his heels. At twenty he started to school with +little children in Toronto. It was hard (he was still a laughing-stock); +and there were three years of it--and two more in the high school. +Then off went Higgins as a lay preacher of the Methodist Episcopal +Church to Annandale, Minnesota. Following this came two years at Hamline +University. In 1895 he was appointed to the charge of the little +Presbyterian church at Barnum, Minnesota, a town of four hundred, +where, subsequently, he married Eva L. Lucas, of Rockford, Minnesota. + +It was here (says he) that the call came. + + + + +X + +THE VOICE OF THE LORD + + +It was on the way between camps, of a Sunday afternoon in midwinter, when +the Pilot related the experience which led to the singular ministerial +activities in which he is engaged. He was wrapped in a thick Mackinaw +coat, with a cloth cap pulled down over his ears; and he wore big +overshoes, which buckled near to his knees. There was a heavy pack on +his pack; it contained a change of socks (for himself), and many +pounds of "readin' matter" (for "the boys"). He had preached in the +morning at one camp, in the afternoon at another, and was now bound to +a third, where (as it turned out) a hearty welcome was waiting. The +day--now drawn far toward evening--was bitterly cold. There was no wind. +It was still and white and frosty on the logging-road. + + * * * * * + +It seems that once from Barnum the Pilot went vacating into the woods +to see the log-drive. + +"You're a preacher," said the boys. "Give us a sermon." + +Higgins preached that evening, and the boys liked it. They liked the +sermon; they fancied their own singing of _Rock of Ages_ and _Jesus, +Lover of My Soul_. They asked Higgins to come again. Frequently after +that--and ever oftener--Higgins walked into the woods when the drive was +on, or into the camps in winter, to preach to the boys. They welcomed +him; they were always glad to see him--and with great delight they sang +_Jesus, Lover of My Soul_ and _Throw Out the Life-Line_. Nobody else +preached to them in those days; a great body of men--almost a multitude +in all those woods: the Church had quite forgotten them. + +"Boys," said Higgins, "you've always treated me right, here. Come in +to see me when you're in town. The wife 'll be glad to have you." + +They took him at his word. Without warning, one day, thirty lumber-jacks +crowded into the little parlor. They were hospitably received. + +"Pilot," said the spokesman, all now convinced of Higgins's +genuineness, "here's something for you from the boys." + +A piece of paper (a check for fifty-one dollars) was thrust into the +Pilot's hand, and the whole crew decamped on a run, with howls of +bashful laughter, like a pack of half-grown school-boys. And so the +relationship was first established. + + * * * * * + +It was in winter, Higgins says, that the call came; and the voice of +the Lord, as he says, was clear in direction. Two lumber-jacks came +out of the woods to fetch him to the bedside of a sick homesteader who +had been at work in the lumber-camps. The homesteader was a sick man +(said they), and he had asked for the Pilot. The doctor was first to +the man's mean home. There was no help for him, said he, in a log-cabin +deep in the woods; if he could be taken to the hospital in Duluth there +might be a chance. It was doubtful, of course; but to remain was death. + +"All right," said Higgins. "I'll take him to the hospital." + +The hospital doctor in Duluth said that the man was dying. The Pilot +so informed the homesteader and bade him prepare. But the man smiled. +He had already prepared. "I heard you preach--that night--in camp--on +the river," said he. It seems that he had been reared in a Christian +home, but had not for twenty years heard the voice of a minister in +exhortation until Higgins chanced that way. And afterward--when the +lights in the wannigan were out and the crew had gone to sleep--he +could not banish the vision of his mother. Life had been sweeter to +him since that night. The Pilot's message (said he) had saved him. + +"Mr. Higgins," said he, "go back to the camp and tell the boys about +Jesus." + +Higgins wondered if the Lord had spoken. + +"Go back to the camps," the dying man repeated, "and tell the boys +about Jesus." + +Nobody else was doing it. Why shouldn't Higgins? The boys had no +minister. Why shouldn't Higgins be that minister? Was not this the +very work the Lord had brought him to this far place to do? Had not +the Lord spoken with the tongue of this dying man? "Go back to the +camps and tell the boys about Jesus." The phrase was written on his +heart. "Go back to the camp and tell the boys about Jesus." How it +appealed to the young preacher--the very form of it! All that night, +the homesteader having died, Higgins--not then the beloved Pilot--walked +the hospital corridor. When day broke he had made up his mind. Whatever +dreams of a city pulpit he had cherished were gone. He would go back +to the camps for good and all. + +And back he went. + + * * * * * + +We had now come over the logging-road near to the third camp. The story +of the call was finished at sunset. + +"Well," said the Pilot, heartily, with half a smile, "here I am, you +see." + +"On the job," laughed one of the company. + +"For good and all," Higgins agreed. "It's funny about life," he +added, gravely. "I'm a great big wilful fellow, naturally evil, I +suppose; but it seems to me that all my lifelong the Lord has just led +me by the hand as if I were nothing but a little child. And I didn't +know what was happening to me! Now isn't that funny? Isn't the whole +thing funny?" + + + + +XI + +FIST-PLAY + + +It used sometimes to be difficult for Higgins to get a hearing in the +camps; this was before he had fought and preached his way completely +into the trust of the lumber-jacks. There was always a warm welcome for +him in the bunk-houses, to be sure, and for the most part a large +eagerness for the distraction of his discourses after supper; but here +and there in the beginning he encountered an obstreperous fellow (and +does to this day) who interrupted for the fun of the thing. It is +related that upon one occasion a big Frenchman began to grind his axe +of a Sunday evening precisely as Higgins began to preach. + +"Some of the boys here," Higgins drawled, "want to hear me preach, +and if the boys would just grind their axes some other time I'd be much +obliged." + +The grinding continued. + +"I say," Higgins proceeded, his voice rising a little, "that a good +many of the boys have asked me to preach a little sermon to them; but I +can't preach while one of the boys grinds his axe." + +No impression was made. + +"Now, boys," Higgins went on, "most of you want to hear me preach, and +_I'm going to preach_, all right; but I cant preach if anybody grinds +an axe." + +The Frenchman whistled a tune. + +"Friend, back there!" Higgins called out, "can't you oblige the boys +by grinding that axe another time?" + +There was some tittering in the bunk-house--and the grinding went on--and +the tune came saucily up from the door where the Frenchman stood. Higgins +walked slowly back; having come near, he paused--then put his hand on +the Frenchman's shoulder in a way not easily misunderstood. + +"Friend," he began, softly, "if you--" + +The Frenchman struck at him. + +"Keep back, boys!" an old Irishman yelled, catching up a peavy-pole. +"Give the Pilot a show! Keep out o' this or I'll brain ye!" + +The Sky Pilot caught the Frenchman about the waist--flung him against +a door--caught him again on the rebound--put him head foremost in a +barrel of water--and absent-mindedly held him there until the old +Irishman asked, softly, "Say, Pilot, ye ain't goin' t' _drown_ him, +are ye?" It was all over in a flash: Higgins is wisely no man for +half-way measures in an emergency; in a moment the Frenchman lay cast, +dripping and gasping, on the floor, and the bunk-house was in a tumult of +jeering. Then Higgins proceeded with the sermon; and--strangely--he is of +an earnestness and frankly mild and loving disposition so impressive +that this passionate incident had doubtless no destructive effect upon +the solemn service following. It is easy to fancy him passing unruffled +to the upturned cask which served him for a pulpit, readjusting the +blanket which was his altar-cloth, raising his dog-eared little +hymn-book to the smoky light of the lantern overhead, and beginning, +feelingly: "Boys, let's sing Number Fifty-six: '_Jesus, lover of my +soul, let me to thy bosom fly._' You know the tune, boys; everybody +sing--'_While the nearer waters roll and the tempest still is +high._' All ready, now!" A fight in a church would be a seriously +disturbing commotion; but a fight in a bunk-house--well, that is +commonplace. There is more interest in singing _Jesus, Lover of My +Soul_, than in dwelling upon the affair afterward. And the boys sang +heartily, I am sure, as they always do, the Frenchman quite forgotten. + +Next day Higgins was roused by the selfsame man; and he jumped out of +his bunk in a hurry (says he), like a man called to fire or battle. + +"Well," he thought, as he sighed, "if I am ever to preach in these +camps again, I suppose, this man must be satisfactorily thrashed; +but"--more cheerfully--"he needs a good thrashing, anyhow." + +"Pilot," said the Frenchman, "I'm sorry about last night." + +Higgins shook hands with him. + + + + +XII + +MAKING THE GRADE + + +Fully to describe Higgins's altercations with lumber-jacks and +tin-horn gamblers and the like in pursuit of clean opportunity for +other men would be to pain him. It is a phase of ministry he would +conceal. Perhaps he fears that unknowing folk might mistake him for +a quarrelsome fellow. He is nothing of the sort, however; he is a wise +and efficient minister of the gospel--but fights well, upon good +occasion, notwithstanding his forty-odd years. In the Minnesota woods +fighting is as necessary as praying--just as tender a profession of +Christ. Higgins regrets that he knows little enough of boxing; he +shamefacedly feels that his preparation for the ministry has in this +respect been inadequate. Once, when they examined him before the +Presbytery for ordination, a new-made seminary graduate from the +East, rising, quizzed thus: "Will the candidate not tell us who was +Caesar of Rome when Paul preached?" It stumped Higgins; but--he told +us on the road from Six to Four--"I was confused, you see. The only +Caesar I could think of was Julius, and I knew that _that_ wasn't +right. If he'd only said _Emperor_ of Rome, I could have told him, of +_course!_ Anyhow, it didn't matter much." Boxing, according to the +experience of Higgins, was an imperative preparation for preaching in +his field; a little haziness concerning an Emperor of Rome really +didn't matter so very much. At any rate, the boys wouldn't care. + +Higgins's ministry, however, knows a gentler service than that which a +strong arm can accomplish in a bar-room. When Alex McKenzie lay dying in +the hospital at Bemidji--a screen around his cot in the ward--the Pilot +sat with him, as he sits with all dying lumber-jacks. It was the Pilot +who told him that the end was near. + +"Nearing the landing, Pilot?" + +"Almost there, Alex." + +"I've a heavy load, Pilot--a heavy load!" + +McKenzie was a four-horse teamster, used to hauling logs from the woods +to the landing at the lake--forty thousand pounds of new-cut timber to be +humored over the logging-roads. + +"Pilot," he asked, presently, "do you think I can make the grade?" + +"With help, Alex." + +McKenzie said nothing for a moment. Then he looked up. "You mean," +said he, "that I need another team of leaders?" + +"The Great Leader, Alex." + +"Oh, I know what you mean," said McKenzie: "you mean that I need the +help of Jesus Christ." + +No need to tell what Higgins said then--what he repeated about repentance +and faith and the infinite love of God and the power of Christ for +salvation. Alex McKenzie had heard it all before--long before, being +Scottish born, and a Highlander--and had not utterly forgotten, prodigal +though he was. It was all recalled to him, now, by a man whose life +and love and uplifted heart were well known to him--his minister. + +"Pray for me," said he, like a child. + +McKenzie died that night. He had said never a word in the long interval; +but just before his last breath was drawn--while the Pilot still held +his hand and the Sister of Charity numbered her beads near by--he +whispered in the Pilot's ear: + +"Tell the boys I made the grade!" + + * * * * * + +Pat, the old road-monkey--now come to the end of a long career of furious +living--being about to die, sent for Higgins. He was desperately anxious +concerning the soul that was about to depart from his ill-kept and +degraded body; and he was in pain, and turning very weak. + +Higgins waited. + +"Pilot," Pat whispered, with a knowing little wink, "I want you to +fix it for me." + +"To fix it, Pat?" + +"Sure, you know what I mean, Pilot," Pat replied. "I want you to fix +it for me." + +"Pat," said Higgins, "I _can't_ fix it for you." + +"Then," said the dying man, in amazement, "what the hell did you come +here for?" + +"To show you," Higgins answered, gently, "how _you_ can fix it." + +"_Me_ fix it?" + +Higgins explained, then, the scheme of redemption, according to his +creed--the atonement and salvation by faith. The man listened--and nodded +comprehendingly--and listened, still with amazement--all the time nodding +his understanding. "Uh-_huh!_" he muttered, when the preacher had +done, as one who says, I _see!_ He said no other word before he died. +Just, "Uh-_huh!_"--to express enlightenment. And when, later, it +came time for him to die, he still held tight to Higgins's finger, +muttering, now and again, "Uh-_huh!_ Uh-_huh!_"--like a man to whom +has come some great astounding revelation. + + + + +XIII + +STRAIGHT FROM THE SHOULDER + + +In the bunk-house, after supper, Higgins preaches. It is a solemn +service: no minister of them all so punctilious as Higgins in respect to +reverent conduct. The preacher is in earnest and single of purpose. The +congregation is compelled to reverence. "Boys," says he, in cunning +appeal, "this bunk-house is our church--the only church we've got." +No need to say more! And a queer church: a low, long hut, stifling and +ill-smelling and unclean and infested, a row of double-decker bunks on +either side, a great glowing stove in the middle, socks and Mackinaws +steaming on the racks, boots put out to dry, and all dim-lit with +lanterns. Half-clad, hairy men, and boys with young beards, lounge +everywhere--stretched out on the benches, peering from the shadows of +the bunks, squatted on the fire-wood, cross-legged on the floor near +the preacher. Higgins rolls out a cask for a pulpit and covers it +with a blanket. Then he takes off his coat and mops his brow. + +Presently, hymn-book or Testament in hand, he is sitting on the pulpit. + +"Not much light here," says he, "so I won't read to-night; but I'll +_say_ the First Psalm. Are you all ready?" + +Everybody is ready. + +"All right. '_Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of +the ungodly,_' boys, '_nor standeth in the way of sinners._'" + +The door opens and a man awkwardly enters. + +"Got any room back there for Bill, boys?" the preacher calls. + +There seems to be room. + +"I want to see you after service, Bill. You'll find a seat back there +with the boys. '_For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous; but the +way of the ungodly,_' gentlemen, '_shall perish._'" + +There is a prayer, restrained, in the way of the preacher's church--a +petition terrible with earnestness. One wonders how a feeling God +could turn a deaf ear to the beseeching eloquence of it! And the +boys sing--lustily, too--led by the stentorian preacher. An amazing +incongruity: these seared, blasphemous barbarians bawling, _What a +Friend I Have in Jesus!_ + +Enjoy it? + +"Pilot," said one of them, in open meeting, once, with no irreverence +whatsoever, "that's a damned fine toon! Why the hell don't they have +toons like that in the shows? Let's sing her again!" + +"Sure!" said the preacher, not at all shocked; "let's sing her +again!" + +There is a sermon--composed on the forest roads from camp to camp: for on +those long, white, cold, blustering roads Higgins either whistles his +blithe way (like a boy) or fashions his preaching. It is a searching, +eloquent sermon: none other so exactly suited to environment and +congregation--none other so simple and appealing and comprehensible. +There isn't a word of cant in it; there isn't a suggestion of the +familiar evangelistic rant. Higgins has no time for cant (he says)--nor +any faith in ranting. The sermon is all orthodox and significant and +reasonable; it has tender wisdom, and it is sometimes terrible with naked +truth. The phrasing? It is as homely and brutal as the language of the +woods. It has no affectation of slang. The preacher's message is +addressed with wondrous cunning to men in their own tongue: wherefore +it could not be repeated before a polite congregation. Were the preacher +to ejaculate an oath (which he never would do)--were he to exclaim, "By +God! boys, this is the only way of salvation!"--the solemnity of the +occasion would not be disturbed by a single ripple. + +"And what did the young man do?" he asked, concerning the Prodigal; +"why, he packed his turkey and went off to blow his stake--_just +like you!_" Afterward, when the poor Prodigal was penniless: "What +about him _then_, boys? _You_ know. _I_ don't need to tell you. You +learned all about it at Deer River. It was the husks and the hogs +for him--_just like it is for you!_ It's up the river for you--and +it's back to the woods for you--when they've cleaned you out at Deer +River!" Once he said, in a great passion of pity: "Boys, you're +out here, floundering to your waists, picking diamonds from the snow +of these forests, to glitter, not in pure places, but on the necks of +the saloon-keepers' wives in Deer River!" There is applause when the +Pilot strikes home. "That's damned true!" they shout. And there is +many a tear shed (as I saw) by the young men in the shadows when, +having spoken long and graciously of home, he asks: "When did you +write to your mother last? You, back there--and you! Ah, boys, don't +forget her!" + +There was pause while the preacher leaned earnestly over the blanketed +barrel. + +"Write home to-night," he besought them. +"_She's--waiting--for--that--letter!_" + +They listened. + + + + +XIV + +THE SHOE ON THE OTHER FOOT + + +The Pilot is a fearless preacher--fearless of blame and violence--and +he is the most downright and pugnacious of moral critics. He speaks +in mighty wrath against the sins of the camps and the evil-doers of +the towns--naming the thieves and gamblers by name and violently +characterizing their ways: until it seems he must in the end be done +to death in revenge. "Boys," said he, in a bunk-house denunciation, +"that tin-horn gambler Jim Leach is back in Deer River from the West +with a crooked game--just laying for you. I watched his game, boys, and +I know what I'm talking about; _and you know I know!_" Proceeding: +"You know that saloon-keeper Tom Jenkins? Of _course_ you do! Well, +boys, the wife of Tom Jenkins nodded toward the camps the other day, +and, 'Pshaw!' says she; 'what do I care about expense? My husband has +a thousand men working for him in the woods!' She meant you, boys! A +thousand of you--think of it!--working for the wife of a brute like +Tom Jenkins." Again: "Boys, I'm just out from Deer River. I met ol' +Bill Morgan yesterday. 'Hello, Bill!' says I; 'how's business?' +'Slow, Pilot,' says he; 'but I ain't worryin' none--it'll pick +up when the boys come in with their stake in the spring.' There you +have it! That's what you'll be up against, boys, God help you! when +you go in with your stake--a gang of filthy thieves like Jim Leach and +Tom Jenkins and Bill Morgan!" It takes courage to attack, in this +frank way, the parasites of a lawless community, in which murder may be +accomplished in secret, and perjury is as cheap as a glass of whiskey. + + * * * * * + +It takes courage, too, to denounce the influential parishioner. + +"You grown-up men, here," Higgins complained to his congregation, +"ought to give the young fellows a chance to live decent lives. Shame to +you that you don't! You've lived in filth and blasphemy and whiskey +so long that maybe you don't know any better; but I want to tell +you--every one of you--that these boys don't want that sort of thing. +They remember their mothers and their sisters, and they want what's +_clean!_ Now, you leave 'em alone. Give 'em a show to be decent. And +I'm talking to _you_, Scotch Andrew"--with an angry thump of the +pulpit and a swift belligerent advance--"and to _you_, Gin Thompson, +sneaking back there in your bunk!" + +"Oh, hell!" said Gin Thompson. + +The Pilot was instantly confronting the lazy-lying man. "Gin," said +he, "you'll take that back!" + +Gin laughed. + +"Understand me?" the wrathful preacher shouted. + +Gin Thompson understood. Very wisely--however unwillingly--he apologized. +"That's all right, Pilot," said he; "you know I didn't mean +nothin'." + +"Anyhow," the preacher muttered, returning to his pulpit and his +sermon, "I'd rather preach than fight." + + * * * * * + +Not by any means all Higgins's sermons are of this nature; most are +conventional enough, perhaps--but always vigorous and serviceable--and +present the ancient Christian philosophy in an appealing and deeply +reverent way. I recall, however, another downright and courageous display +of dealing with the facts without gloves. It was especially fearless +because the Pilot must have the permission of the proprietors before he +may preach in the camps. It is related that a drunken logger--the +proprietor of the camp--staggered into Higgins's service and sat +down on the barrel which served for the pulpit. The preacher was +discoursing on the duties of the employed to the employer. It tickled +the drunken logger. + +"Hit 'em again, Pilot!" he applauded. "It'll do 'em good." + +Higgins pointed out the wrong worked the owners by the lumber-jacks' +common custom of "jumping camp." + +"Give 'em hell!" shouted the logger. "It'll do 'em good." + +Higgins proceeded calmly to discuss the several evils of which the +lumber-jacks may be accused in relation to their employers. + +"You're all right, Pilot," the logger agreed, clapping the preacher +on the back. "Hit the ---- rascals again! It'll do 'em good." + +"And now, boys," Higgins continued, gently, "we come to the other +side of the subject. You owe a lot to your employers, and I've told you +frankly what your minister thinks about it. But what can be expected of +you, anyhow? Who sets you a good example of fair dealing and decent +living? Your employers? Look about you and see! What kind of an example +do your employers set? Is it any wonder," he went on, in a breathless +silence, "that you go wrong? Is it any wonder that you fail to consider +those who fail to consider you? Is it any wonder that you are just +exactly what you are, when the men to whom you ought to be able to +look for better things are themselves filthy and drunken loafers?" + +The logger was thunderstruck. + +"And how d'ye like _that_, Mister Woods?" the preacher shouted, +turning on the man, and shaking his fist in his face. "How d'ye like +_that_? Does it do _you_ any good?" + +The logger wouldn't tell. + +"Let us pray!" said the indignant preacher. + +Next morning the Pilot was summoned to the office. "You think it was +rough on you, do you, Mr. Woods?" said he. "But I didn't tell the +boys a thing that they didn't know already. And what's more," he +continued, "I didn't tell them a thing that your own son doesn't +know. You know just as well as I do what road _he's_ travelling; and +you know just as well as I do what you are doing to help that boy along." + +Higgins continued to preach in those camps. + + * * * * * + +One inevitably wonders what would happen if some minister of the +cities denounced from his pulpit in these frank and indignantly +righteous terms the flagrant sinners and hypocrites of his congregation. +What polite catastrophe would befall him?--suppose he were convinced +of the wisdom and necessity of the denunciation and had no family +dependent upon him. The outburst leaves Higgins established in the +hearts of his hearers; and it leaves him utterly exhausted. He mingles +with the boys afterward; he encourages and scolds them, he hears +confession, he prays in some quiet place in the snow with those whose +hearts he has touched, he confers with men who have been seeking to +overcome themselves, he writes letters for the illiterate, he visits +the sick, he renews old acquaintanceship, he makes new friends, he yarns +of the "cut" and the "big timber" and the "homesteading" of other +places, and he distributes the "readin' matter," consisting of old +magazines and tracts which he has carried into camp. + +At last he quits the bunk-house, worn out and discouraged and downcast. + +"I failed to-night," he said, once, at the superintendent's fire. +"It was awfully kind of the boys to listen to me so patiently. Did +you notice how attentive they were? I tell you, the boys are _good_ +to me! Maybe I was a little rough on them to-night. But somehow all +this unnecessary and terrible wickedness enrages me. And nobody else +much seems to care about it. And I'm their minister. And I yearn to +have the souls of these boys awakened. I've just _got_ to stand up +and tell them the truth about themselves and give them the same old +Message that I heard when I was a boy. I don't know, but it's kind +of queer about ministers of the gospel," he went on. "We've got two +Creations now, and three Genesises. But take a minister. It wouldn't +matter to me if a brother minister fell from grace. I'd pick him out of +the mud and never think of it again. It wouldn't cost _me_ much to +forgive him. I know that we're all human and liable to sin. But when an +ordained minister gets up in his pulpit and dodges his duty--when he +gets up and dodges the truth--why, bah! _I've got no time for him!_" + + + + +XV + +CAUSE AND EFFECT + + +This sort of preaching--this genuine and practical ministry consistently +and unremittingly carried on for love of the men, and without prospect +of gain--wins respect and loyal affection. The dogged and courageous +method will be sufficiently illustrated in the tale of the Big Scotchman +of White Pine--to Higgins almost a forgotten incident of fourteen years' +service. The Big Scotchman was discovered drunk and shivering with +apprehension--he was in the first stage of _delirium tremens_--in a low +saloon of White Pine, some remote and God-forsaken settlement off the +railroad, into which the Pilot had chanced on his rounds. The man was +a homesteader, living alone in a log-cabin on his grant of land, some +miles from the village. + +"Well," thought the Pilot, quite familiar with the situation, "first +of all I've got to get him home." + +There was only one way of accomplishing this, and the Pilot employed it; +he carried the Big Scotchman. + +"Well," thought the Pilot, "what next?" + +The next thing was to wrestle with the Big Scotchman, upon whom the +"whiskey sickness" had by that time fallen--to wrestle with him in +the lonely little cabin in the woods, and to get him down, and to hold +him down. There was no congregation to listen to the eloquent sermon +which the Pilot was engaged in preaching; there was no choir, there +was no report in the newspapers. But the sermon went on just the +same. The Pilot got the Big Scotchman down, and kept him down, and +at last got him into his bunk. For two days and nights he sat there +ministering--hearing, all the time, the ravings of a horrible delirium. +There was an interval of relief then, and during this the Pilot gathered +up every shred of the Big Scotchman's clothing and safely hid it. There +was not a garment left in the cabin to cover his nakedness. + +The Big Scotchman presently wanted whiskey. + +"No," said the Pilot; "you stay right here." + +The Big Scotchman got up to dress. + +"Nothing to wear," said the Pilot. + +Then the fight was on again. It was a long fight--merely a physical thing +in the beginning, but a fight of another kind before the day was done. +And the Pilot won. When the Big Scotchman got up from his knees he took +the Pilot's hand and said that, by God's help, he would live better +than he had lived. Moreover, he was as good as his word. Presently White +Pine knew him no more; but news of his continuance in virtue not long ago +came down to the Pilot from the north. It was what the Pilot calls a +real reformation _and_ conversion. It seems that there is a difference. + + * * * * * + +We had gone the rounds of the saloons in Deer River, and had returned +late at night to the hotel. The Pilot was very busy--he is always busy, +from early morning until the last sot drops unconscious to the bar-room +floor, when, often, the real day's work begins; he is one of the +hardest workers in any field of endeavor. And he was now heart-sick +because of what he had seen that night; but he was not idle--he was still +shaking hands with his parishioners in the bar-room, still advising, +still inspiring, still scolding and beseeching, still holding private +conversations in the corners, for all the world like a popular and +energetic politician on primary day. + +A curious individual approached me. + +"Friend of the Pilot's?" said he. + +I nodded. + +"He's a good man." + +I observed that the stranger was timid and slow--a singular fellow, with +a lean face and nervous hands and clear but most unsteady eyes. He was +like an old hulk repainted. + +"He done me a lot of good," he added, in a slow, soft drawl, hardly +above a whisper, at the same time slowly smoothing his chin. + +It was a pleasant thing to hear. + +"They used to call me Brandy Bill," he continued. He pointed to a +group of drunkards lying on the floor. "I used to be like that," +said he, looking up like a child who perceives that he is interesting. +After a pause, he went on: "But once when the snakes broke out on me +I made up my mind to quit. And then I went to the Pilot and he stayed +with me for a while, and told me I had to hang on. I thought I could +do it if the boys would leave me alone. So the Pilot told me what to +do. 'Whenever you come into town,' says he, 'you go on to your +sister's and borrow her little girl.' Her little girl was just four +years old then. 'And,' says the Pilot, 'don't you never come down +street without her.' Well, I done what the Pilot said. I never come +down street without that little girl hanging on to my hand; and when she +was with me not one of the boys ever asked me to take a drink. Yes," he +drawled, glancing at the drunkards again, "I used to be like that. +Pretty near time," he added, like a man displaying an experienced +knowledge, "to put them fellows in the snake-room." + +Such a ministry as the Pilot's springs from a heart of kindness--from +a pure and understanding love of all mankind. "Boys," said he, once, +in the superintendent's office, after the sermon in the bunk-house, +"I'll never forget a porterhouse steak I saw once. It was in Duluth. +I'd been too busy to have my breakfast, and I was hungry. I'm a big +man, you know, and when I get hungry I'm _hungry_. Anyhow, I wasn't +thinking about that when I saw the steak. It didn't occur to me that I +was hungry until I happened to glance into a restaurant window as I +walked along. And there I saw the steak. You know how they fix those +windows up: a chunk of ice and some lettuce and a steak or two and some +chops. Well, boys, all at once I got so hungry that I ached. I could +hardly wait to get in there. + +"But I stopped. + +"'Look here, Higgins,' thought I, 'what if you didn't have a cent +in your pocket?' + +"Well, that was a puzzler. 'What if you were a dead-broke lumber-jack, +and hungry like this?' + +"Boys, it frightened me. I understood just what those poor fellows +suffer. And I couldn't go in the restaurant until I had got square with +them. + +"'Look here, Higgins,' I thought, 'the best thing you can do is to +go and find a hungry lumber-jack somewhere and feed him.' + +"And I did, too; and I tell you, boys, I enjoyed my dinner." + +It is a ministry that wins good friends, and often in unexpected places: +friends like the lumber-jack (once an enemy) who would clear a way for +the Pilot in town, shouting, "I'm road-monkeying for the Pilot!" and +friends like the Blacksmith. + +Higgins came one night to a new camp where an irascible boss was in +complete command. + +"You won't mind, will you," said he, "if I hold a little service for +the boys in the bunk-house to-night?" + +The boss ordered him to clear out. + +"All I want to do," Higgins protested, mildly, "is just to hold a +little service for the boys." + +Again the boss ordered him to clear out: but Higgins had come prepared +with the authority of the proprietor of the camp. + +"I've a pass in my pocket," he suggested. + +"Don't matter," said the boss; "you couldn't preach in this camp +if you had a pass from God Almighty!" + +To thrash or not to thrash? that was the Pilot's problem; and he +determined not to thrash, for he knew very well that if he thrashed the +boss the lumber-jacks would lose respect for the boss and jump the +camp. The Blacksmith, however, had heard--and had heard much more than +is here written. Next morning he involved himself in a quarrel with the +boss; and having thrashed him soundly, and having thrown him into a +snowbank, he departed, but returned, and, addressing himself to that +portion of the foreman which protruded from the snow, kicked it heartily, +saying: "There's one for the Pilot. And there's another--and another. +I'll learn you to talk to the Pilot like a drunken lumber-jack. There's +another for _him_. Take that--and that--for the Pilot." + +Subsequently Higgins preached in those camps. + + + + +XVI + +THE WAGES OF SACRIFICE + + +One asks, Why does Higgins do these things? The answer is simple: +Because he loves his neighbor as himself--because he actually _does_, +without self-seeking or any pious pretence. One asks, What does he +get out of it? I do not know what Higgins gets. If you were to ask +him, he would say, innocently, that once, when he preached at Camp Seven +of the Green River Works, the boys fell in love with the singing. +_Jesus, Lover of My Soul_, was the hymn that engaged them. They sang it +again and again; and when they got up in the morning, they said: "Say, +Pilot, let's sing her once more!" They sang it once more--in the +bunk-house at dawn--and the boss opened the door and was much too amazed +to interrupt. They sang it again. "All out!" cried the boss; and +the boys went slowly off to labor in the woods, singing, _Let me to +Thy bosom fly!_ and, _Oh, receive my soul at last!_--diverging here and +there, axes and saws over shoulder, some to the deeper forest, some +making out upon the frozen lake, some pursuing the white roads--all +passing into the snow and green and great trees and silence of the +undefiled forest which the Pilot loves--all singing as they went, +_Other refuge have I none; hangs my helpless soul on Thee_--until +the voices were like sweet and soft-coming echoes from the wilderness. + +Poor Higgins put his face to the bunk-house door and wept. + +"I tell you, boys," he told us, on the road from Six to Four, "it was +_pay_ for what I've tried to do for the boys." + +Later--when the Sky Pilot sat with his stockinged feet extended to a red +fire in the superintendent's log-cabin of that bitterly cold night--he +betrayed himself to the uttermost. "Do you know, boys," said he, +addressing us, the talk having been of the wide world and travel therein, +"I believe you fellows would spend a dollar for a dinner and never +think twice about it!" + +We laughed. + +"If I spent more than twenty-five cents," said he, accusingly, "I'd +have indigestion." + +Again we laughed. + +"And if I spent fifty cents for a hotel bed," said he, with a grin, +"I'd have the nightmare." + +That is exactly what Higgins gets out of it. + + * * * * * + +Higgins gets more than that out of it: he gets a clean eye and sound +sleep and a living interest in life. He gets even more: he gets the trust +and affection of almost--almost--every lumber-jack in the Minnesota +woods. He wanders over two hundred square miles of forest, and hardly +a man of the woods but would fight for his Christian reputation at a +word. For example, he had pulled Whitey Mooney out of the filth and +nervous strain of the snake-room, and reestablished him, had paid his +board, had got him a job in a near-by town, had paid his fare, had taken +him to his place; but Whitey Mooney had presently thrown up his job +(being a lazy fellow), and had fallen into the depths again, had asked +Higgins for a quarter of a dollar for a drink or two, and had been +denied. Immediately he took to the woods; and in the camp he came to be +complained that Higgins had "turned him down." + +"You're a liar," they told him. "The Pilot never turned a lumber-jack +down. Wait till he comes." + +Higgins came. + +"Pilot," said a solemn jack, rising, when the sermon was over, as he +had been delegated, "do you know Mooney?" + +"Whitey Mooney?" + +"Yes. Do you know Whitey Mooney?" + +"You bet I do, boys!" + +"_Did--you--turn--him--down?_" + +"You bet I did, boys!" + +"_Why?_" + +Higgins informed them. + +"Come out o' there, Whitey!" they yelled; and they took Whitey Mooney +from his bunk, and tossed him in a blanket, and drove him out of camp. + +Higgins is doing a hard thing--correcting and persuading such men as +these; and he could do infinitely better if he had more money to serve +his ends. They are not all drunkards and savage beasts, of course. It +would wrong them to say so. Many are self-respecting, clean-lived, +intelligent, sober; many have wives and children, to whom they return +with clean hands and mouths when the winter is over. They all--without +any large exception (and this includes the saloon-keepers and gamblers +of the towns)--respect the Pilot. It is related of him that he was once +taken sick in the woods. It was a case of exposure--occurring in cold +weather after months of bitter toil, with a pack on his back and in +deep trouble of spirit. There was a storm of snow blowing, at far below +zero, and Higgins was miles from any camp. He managed, however, after +hours of plodding through the snow, to reach the uncut timber, where he +was somewhat sheltered from the wind. He remembers that he was then +intent upon the sermon for the evening; but beyond--even trudging +through these tempered places--he has forgotten what occurred. The +lumber-jacks found him at last, lying in the snow near the cook-house; +and they carried him to the bunk-house, and put him to bed, and +consulted concerning him. "The Pilot's an almighty sick man," said +one. Another prescribed: "Got any whiskey in camp?" There was no +whiskey--there was no doctor within reach--there was no medicine of any +sort. And the Pilot, whom they had taken from the snow, was a very sick +man. They wondered what could be done for him. It seemed that nobody +knew. There was nothing to be done--nothing but keep him covered up and +warm. + +"Boys," a lumber-jack proposed, "how's this for an idea?" + +They listened. + +"We can pray for the man," said he, "who's always praying for us." + +They managed to do it somehow; and when Higgins heard that the boys were +praying for him--_praying_ for him!--he turned his face to the wall, and +covered up his head, and wept like a fevered boy. + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Higgins, by Norman Duncan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIGGINS *** + +***** This file should be named 34194.txt or 34194.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/1/9/34194/ + +Produced by Roger Frank + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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