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diff --git a/3791.txt b/3791.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3aaf521 --- /dev/null +++ b/3791.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7438 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Reign of Law, by James Lane Allen + +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 Reign of Law + A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields + +Author: James Lane Allen + +Posting Date: May 19, 2009 [EBook #3791] +Release Date: February, 2003 +First Posted: September 12, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE REIGN OF LAW *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + + +THE REIGN OF LAW + +A TALE OF THE KENTUCKY HEMP FIELDS + + +BY + +JAMES LANE ALLEN + + + + + DEDICATION + + TO THE MEMORY OF A FATHER AND MOTHER WHOSE SELF-SACRIFICE, HIGH + SYMPATHY, AND DEVOTION THE WRITING OF THIS STORY HAS CAUSED TO LIVE + AFRESH IN THE EVER-GROWING, NEVER-AGING, GRATITUDE OF THEIR SON + + +JTABLE 5 23 1 + +THE REIGN OF LAW + + +HEMP + + +The Anglo-Saxon farmers had scarce conquered foothold, stronghold, +freehold in the Western wilderness before they became sowers of +hemp--with remembrance of Virginia, with remembrance of dear ancestral +Britain. Away back in the days when they lived with wife, child, flock +in frontier wooden fortresses and hardly ventured forth for water, +salt, game, tillage--in the very summer of that wild daylight ride of +Tomlinson and Bell, by comparison with which, my children, the midnight +ride of Paul Revere, was as tame as the pitching of a rocking-horse in +a boy's nursery--on that history-making twelfth of August, of the year +1782, when these two backwoods riflemen, during that same Revolution +the Kentuckians then fighting a branch of that same British army, +rushed out of Bryan's Station for the rousing of the settlements and +the saving of the West--hemp was growing tall and thick near the walls +of the fort. + +Hemp in Kentucky in 1782--early landmark in the history of the soil, of +the people. Cultivated first for the needs of cabin and clearing +solely; for twine and rope, towel and table, sheet and shirt. By and by +not for cabin and clearing only; not for tow-homespun, fur-clad +Kentucky alone. To the north had begun the building of ships, American +ships for American commerce, for American arms, for a nation which +Nature had herself created and had distinguished as a sea-faring race. +To the south had begun the raising of cotton. As the great period of +shipbuilding went on--greatest during the twenty years or more ending +in 1860; as the great period of cotton-raising and cotton-baling went +on--never so great before as that in that same year--the two parts of +the nation looked equally to the one border plateau lying between them, +to several counties of Kentucky, for most of the nation's hemp. It was +in those days of the North that the CONSTITUTION was rigged with +Russian hemp on one side, with American hemp on the other, for a +patriotic test of the superiority of home-grown, home-prepared fibre; +and thanks to the latter, before those days ended with the outbreak of +the Civil War, the country had become second to Great Britain alone in +her ocean craft, and but little behind that mistress of the seas. So +that in response to this double demand for hemp on the American ship +and hemp on the southern plantation, at the close of that period of +national history on land and sea, from those few counties of Kentucky, +in the year 1859, were taken well-nigh forty thousand tons of the +well-cleaned bast. + +What history it wrought in those years, directly for the republic, +indirectly for the world! What ineffaceable marks it left on Kentucky +itself, land, land-owners! To make way for it, a forest the like of +which no human eye will ever see again was felled; and with the forest +went its pastures, its waters. The roads of Kentucky, those long +limestone turnpikes connecting the towns and villages with the +farms--they were early made necessary by the hauling of the hemp. For +the sake of it slaves were perpetually being trained, hired, bartered; +lands perpetually rented and sold; fortunes made or lost. The advancing +price of farms, the westward movement of poor families and consequent +dispersion of the Kentuckians over cheaper territory, whither they +carried the same passion for the cultivation of the same plant,--thus +making Missouri the second hemp-producing state in the Union,--the +regulation of the hours in the Kentucky cabin, in the house, at the +rope-walk, in the factory,--what phase of life went unaffected by the +pursuit and fascination of it. Thought, care, hope of the farmer +oftentimes throughout the entire year! Upon it depending, it may be, +the college of his son, the accomplishments of his daughter, the +luxuries of his wife, the house he would build, the stock he could own. +His own pleasures also: his deer hunting in the South, his fox hunting +at home, his fishing on the great lakes, his excursions on the old +floating palaces of the Mississippi down to New Orleans--all these +depending in large measure upon his hemp, that thickest gold-dust of +his golden acres. + +With the Civil War began the long decline, lasting still. The record +stands that throughout the one hundred and twenty-five odd years +elapsing from the entrance of the Anglo-Saxon farmers into the +wilderness down to the present time, a few counties of Kentucky have +furnished army and navy, the entire country, with all but a small part +of the native hemp consumed. Little comparatively is cultivated in +Kentucky now. The traveller may still see it here and there, crowning +those ever-renewing, self-renewing inexhaustible fields. But the time +cannot be far distant when the industry there will have become extinct. +Its place in the nation's markets will be still further taken by +metals, by other fibres, by finer varieties of the same fibre, by the +same variety cultivated in soils less valuable. The history of it in +Kentucky will be ended, and, being ended, lost. + +Some morning when the roar of March winds is no more heard in the +tossing woods, but along still brown boughs a faint, veil-like +greenness runs; when every spring, welling out of the soaked earth, +trickles through banks of sod unbarred by ice; before a bee is abroad +under the calling sky; before the red of apple-buds becomes a sign in +the low orchards, or the high song of the thrush is pouring forth far +away at wet pale-green sunsets, the sower, the earliest sower of the +hemp, goes forth into the fields. + +Warm they must be, soft and warm, those fields, its chosen birthplace. +Up-turned by the plough, crossed and recrossed by the harrow, clodless, +levelled, deep, fine, fertile--some extinct river-bottom, some valley +threaded by streams, some table-land of mild rays, moist airs, alluvial +or limestone soils--such is the favorite cradle of the hemp in Nature. +Back and forth with measured tread, with measured distance, broadcast +the sower sows, scattering with plenteous hand those small oval-shaped +fruits, gray-green, black-striped, heavily packed with living marrow. + +Lightly covered over by drag or harrow, under the rolled earth now they +lie, those mighty, those inert seeds. Down into the darkness about them +the sun rays penetrate day by day, stroking them with the brushes of +light, prodding them with spears of flame. Drops of nightly dews, drops +from the coursing clouds, trickle down to them, moistening the dryness, +closing up the little hollows of the ground, drawing the particles of +maternal earth more closely. Suddenly--as an insect that has been +feigning death cautiously unrolls itself and starts into action--in +each seed the great miracle of life begins. Each awakens as from a +sleep, as from pretended death. It starts, it moves, it bursts its +ashen woody shell, it takes two opposite courses, the white, +fibril-tapered root hurrying away from the sun; the tiny stem, bearing +its lance-like leaves, ascending graceful, brave like a palm. + +Some morning, not many days later, the farmer, walking out into his +barn lot and casting a look in the direction of his field, sees--or +does he not see?--the surface of it less dark. What is that uncertain +flush low on the ground, that irresistible rush of multitudinous green? +A fortnight, and the field is brown no longer. Overflowing it, burying +it out of sight, is the shallow tidal sea of the hemp, ever rippling. +Green are the woods now with their varied greenness. Green are the +pastures. Green here and there are the fields: with the bluish green of +young oats and wheat; with the gray green of young barley and rye: with +orderly dots of dull dark green in vast array--the hills of Indian +maize. But as the eye sweeps the whole landscape undulating far and +near, from the hues of tree, pasture, and corn of every kind, it turns +to the color of the hemp. With that in view, all other shades in nature +seem dead and count for nothing. Far reflected, conspicuous, brilliant, +strange; masses of living emerald, saturated with blazing sunlight. + +Darker, always darker turns the hemp as it rushes upward: scarce darker +as to the stemless stalks which are hidden now; but darker in the tops. +Yet here two shades of greenness: the male plants paler, smaller, +maturing earlier, dying first; the females darker, taller, living +longer, more luxuriant of foliage and flowering heads. + +A hundred days from the sowing, and those flowering heads have come +forth with their mass of leaves and bloom and earliest fruits, elastic, +swaying six, ten, twelve feet from the ground and ripe for cutting. A +hundred days reckoning from the last of March or the last of April, so +that it is July, it is August. And now, borne far through the steaming +air floats an odor, balsamic, startling: the odor of those plumes and +stalks and blossoms from which is exuding freely the narcotic resin of +the great nettle. The nostril expands quickly, the lungs swell out +deeply to draw it in: fragrance once known in childhood, ever in the +memory afterward and able to bring back to the wanderer homesick +thoughts of midsummer days in the shadowy, many-toned woods, over into +which is blown the smell of the hemp-fields. + +Who apparently could number the acres of these in the days gone by? A +land of hemp, ready for the cutting! The oats heavy-headed, rustling, +have turned to gold and been stacked in the stubble or stored in the +lofts of white, bursting barns. The heavy-headed, rustling wheat has +turned to gold and been stacked in the stubble or sent through the +whirling thresher. The barley and the rye are garnered and gone, the +landscape has many bare and open spaces. But separating these +everywhere, rise the fields of Indian corn now in blade and tassel; +and--more valuable than all else that has been sown and harvested or +remains to be--everywhere the impenetrable thickets of the hemp. + +Impenetrable! For close together stand the stalks, making common cause +for soil and light, each but one of many, the fibre being better when +so grown--as is also the fibre of men. Impenetrable and therefore +weedless; for no plant life can flourish there, nor animal nor bird. +Scarce a beetle runs bewilderingly through those forbidding colossal +solitudes. The field-sparrow will flutter away from pollen-bearing to +pollen-receiving top, trying to beguile you from its nest hidden near +the edge. The crow and the blackbird will seem to love it, having a +keen eye for the cutworm, its only enemy. The quail does love it, not +for itself, but for its protection, leading her brood into its +labyrinths out of the dusty road when danger draws near. Best of all +winged creatures it is loved by the iris-eyed, burnish-breasted, +murmuring doves, already beginning to gather in the deadened tree-tops +with crops eager for the seed. Well remembered also by the long-flight +passenger pigeon, coming into the land for the mast. Best of all wild +things whose safety lies not in the wing but in the foot, it is loved +by the hare for its young, for refuge. Those lithe, velvety, +summer-thin bodies! Observe carefully the tops of the still hemp: are +they slightly shaken? Among the bases of those stalks a cotton-tail is +threading its way inward beyond reach of its pursuer. Are they shaken +violently, parted clean and wide to right and left? It is the path of +the dog following the hot scent--ever baffled. + +A hundred days to lift out of those tiny seed these powerful stalks, +hollow, hairy, covered with their tough fibre,--that strength of cables +when the big ships are tugged at by the joined fury of wind and ocean. +And now some morning at the corner of the field stand the black men +with hooks and whetstones. The hook, a keen, straight blade, bent at +right angles to the handle two feet from the hand. Let these men be the +strongest; no weakling can handle the hemp from seed to seed again. A +heart, the doors and walls of which are in perfect order, through which +flows freely the full stream of a healthy man's red blood; lungs deep, +clear, easily filled, easily emptied; a body that can bend and twist +and be straightened again in ceaseless rhythmical movement; limbs +tireless; the very spirit of primeval man conquering primeval +nature--all these go into the cutting of the hemp. The leader strides +to the edge, and throwing forward his left arm, along which the muscles +play, he grasps as much as it will embrace, bends the stalks over, and +with his right hand draws the blade through them an inch or more from +the ground. When he has gathered his armful, he turns and flings it +down behind him, so that it lies spread out, covering when fallen the +same space it filled while standing. And so he crosses the broad acres, +and so each of the big black followers, stepping one by one to a place +behind him, until the long, wavering, whitish green swaths of the +prostrate hemp lie shimmering across the fields. Strongest now is the +smell of it, impregnating the clothing of the men, spreading far +throughout the air. + +So it lies a week or more drying, dying, till the sap is out of the +stalks, till leaves and blossoms and earliest ripened or un-ripened +fruits wither and drop off, giving back to the soil the nourishment +they have drawn from it; the whole top being thus otherwise +wasted--that part of the hemp which every year the dreamy millions of +the Orient still consume in quantities beyond human computation, and +for the love of which the very history of this plant is lost in the +antiquity of India and Persia, its home--land of narcotics and desires +and dreams. + +Then the rakers with enormous wooden rakes; they draw the stalks into +bundles, tying each with the hemp itself. Following the binders, move +the wagon-beds or slides, gathering the bundles and carrying them to +where, huge, flat, and round, the stacks begin to rise. At last these +are well built; the gates of the field are closed or the bars put up; +wagons and laborers are gone; the brown fields stand deserted. + +One day something is gone from earth and sky: Autumn has come, season +of scales and balances, when the Earth, brought to judgment for its +fruits, says, "I have done what I could--now let me rest!" + +Fall!--and everywhere the sights and sounds of falling. In the woods, +through the cool silvery air, the leaves, so indispensable once, so +useless now. Bright day after bright day, dripping night after dripping +night, the never-ending filtering or gusty fall of leaves. The fall of +walnuts, dropping from bare boughs with muffled boom into the deep +grass. The fall of the hickory-nut, rattling noisily down through the +scaly limbs and scattering its hulls among the stones of the brook +below. + +The fall of buckeyes, rolling like balls of mahogany into the little +dust paths made by sheep in the hot months when they had sought those +roofs of leaves. The fall of acorns, leaping out of their matted, green +cups as they strike the rooty earth. The fall of red haw, persimmon, +and pawpaw, and the odorous wild plum in its valley thickets. The fall +of all seeds whatsoever of the forest, now made ripe in their high +places and sent back to the ground, there to be folded in against the +time when they shall arise again as the living generations; the homing, +downward flight of the seeds in the many-colored woods all over the +quiet land. + +In the fields, too, the sights and sounds of falling, the fall of the +standing fatness. The silent fall of the tobacco, to be hung head +downward in fragrant sheds and barns. The felling whack of the +corn-knife and the rustling of the blades, as the workman gathers +within his arm the top-heavy stalks and presses them into the bulging +shock. The fall of pumpkins into the slow-drawn wagons, the shaded side +of them still white with the morning rime. In the orchards, the fall of +apples shaken thunderously down, and the piling of these in sprawling +heaps near the cider mills. In the vineyards the fall of sugaring +grapes into the baskets and the bearing of them to the winepress in the +cool sunshine, where there is the late droning of bees about the sweet +pomace. + +But of all that the earth has yielded with or without the farmer's +help, of all that he can call his own within the limits of his land, +nothing pleases him better than those still, brown fields where the +shapely stacks stand amid the deadened trees. Two months have passed, +the workmen are at it again. The stacks are torn down, the bundles +scattered, the hemp spread out as once before. There to lie till it +shall be dew-retted or rotted; there to suffer freeze and thaw, chill +rains, locking frosts and loosening snows--all the action of the +elements--until the gums holding together the filaments of the fibre +rot out and dissolve, until the bast be separated from the woody +portion of the stalk, and the stalk itself be decayed and easily broken. + +Some day you walk across the spread hemp, your foot goes through at +each step, you stoop and taking several stalks, snap them readily in +your fingers. The ends stick out clean apart; and lo! hanging between +them, there it is at last--a festoon of wet, coarse, dark gray riband, +wealth of the hemp, sail of the wild Scythian centuries before Horace +ever sang of him, sail of the Roman, dress of the Saxon and Celt, dress +of the Kentucky pioneer. + +The rakers reappear at intervals of dry weather, and draw the hemp into +armfuls and set it up in shocks of convenient size, wide flared at the +bottom, well pressed in and bound at the top, so that the slanting +sides may catch the drying sun and the sturdy base resist the strong +winds. And now the fields are as the dark brown camps of armies--each +shock a soldier's tent. Yet not dark always; at times snow-covered; and +then the white tents gleam for miles in the winter sunshine--the +snow-white tents of the camping hemp. + +Throughout the winter and on into early spring, as days may be warm or +the hemp dry, the breaking continues. At each nightfall, cleaned and +baled, it is hauled on wagon-beds or slides to the barns or the +hemphouses, where it is weighed for the work and wages of the day. + +Last of all, the brakes having been taken from the field, some +night--dear sport for the lads!--takes place the burning of the +"hempherds," thus returning their elements to the soil. To kindle a +handful of tow and fling it as a firebrand into one of those masses of +tinder; to see the flames spread and the sparks rush like swarms of red +bees skyward through the smoke into the awful abysses of the night; to +run from gray heap to gray heap, igniting the long line of signal +fires, until the whole earth seems a conflagration and the heavens are +as rosy as at morn; to look far away and descry on the horizon an array +of answering lights; not in one direction only, but leagues away, to +see the fainter ever fainter glow of burning hempherds--this, too, is +one of the experiences, one of the memories. + +And now along the turnpikes the great loaded creaking wagons pass +slowly to the towns, bearing the hemp to the factories, thence to be +scattered over land and sea. Some day, when the winds of March are +dying down, the sower enters the field and begins where he began twelve +months before. + +A round year of the earth's changes enters into the creation of the +hemp. The planet has described its vast orbit ere it be grown and +finished. All seasons are its servitors; all contradictions and +extremes of nature meet in its making. The vernal patience of the +warming soil; the long, fierce arrows of the summer heat, the long, +silvery arrows of the summer rain; autumn's dead skies and sobbing +winds; winter's sternest, all-tightening frosts. Of none but strong +virtues is it the sum. Sickness or infirmity it knows not. It will have +a mother young and vigorous, or none; an old or weak or exhausted soil +cannot produce it. It will endure no roof of shade, basking only in the +eye of the fatherly sun, and demanding the whole sky for the walls of +its nursery. + +Ah! type, too, of our life, which also is earth-sown, earth-rooted; +which must struggle upward, be cut down, rotted and broken, ere the +separation take place between our dross and our worth--poor perishable +shard and immortal fibre. Oh, the mystery, the mystery of that growth +from the casting of the soul as a seed into the dark earth, until the +time when, led through all natural changes and cleansed of weakness, it +is borne from the fields of its nativity for the long service. + + + + +I + + +The century just past had not begun the race of its many-footed years +when a neighborhood of Kentucky pioneers, settled throughout the green +valleys of the silvery Elkhorn, built a church in the wilderness, and +constituted themselves a worshipping association. For some time peace +of one sort prevailed among them, if no peace of any other sort was +procurable around. But by and by there arose sectarian quarrels with +other backwoods folk who also wished to worship God in Kentucky, and +hot personal disputes among the members--as is the eternal law. So that +the church grew as grow infusorians and certain worms,--by fissure, by +periodical splittings and breakings to pieces, each spontaneous +division becoming a new organism. The first church, however, for all +that it split off and cast off, seemed to lose nothing of its vitality +or fighting qualities spiritual and physical (the strenuous life in +those days!); and there came a time when it took offence at one +particular man in its membership on account of the liberality of his +religious opinions. This settler, an old Indian fighter whose vast +estate lay about halfway between the church and the nearest village, +had built himself a good brick house in the Virginian style; and it was +his pleasure and his custom to ask travelling preachers to rest under +his roof as they rode hither and thither throughout the +wilderness--Zion's weather-beaten, solitary scouts. + +While giving entertainment to man and beast, if a Sunday came round, he +would further invite his guest, no matter what kind of faith the vessel +held, if it only held any faith, to ride with him through the woods and +preach to his brethren. This was the front of his offending. For since +he seemed brother to men of every creed, they charged that he was no +longer of THEIR faith (the only true one). They considered his case, +and notified him that it was their duty under God to expel him. + +After the sermon one Sunday morning of summer the scene took place. +They had asked what he had to say, and silence had followed. Not far +from the church doors the bright Elkhorn (now nearly dry) swept past in +its stately shimmering flood. The rush of the water over the stopped +mill-wheel, that earliest woodland music of civilization, sounded loud +amid the suspense and the stillness. + +He rose slowly from his seat on the bench in front of the pulpit--for +he was a deacon--and turned squarely at them; speechless just then, for +he was choking with rage. + +"My brethren," he said at length slowly, for he would not speak until +he had himself under control, "I think we all remember what it is to be +persecuted for religion's sake. Long before we came together in +Spottsylvania County, Virginia, and organized ourselves into a church +and travelled as a church over the mountains into this wilderness, +worshipping by the way, we knew what it was to be persecuted. Some of +us were sent to jail for preaching the Gospel and kept there; we +preached to the people through the bars of our dungeons. Mobs were +collected outside to drown our voices; we preached the louder and some +jeered, but some felt sorry and began to serve God. They burned matches +and pods of red pepper to choke us; they hired strolls to beat drums +that we might not be heard for the din. Some of us knew what it was to +have live snakes thrown into our assemblages while at worship; or nests +of live hornets. Or to have a crowd rush into the church with farming +tools and whips and clubs. Or to see a gun levelled at one of us in the +pulpit, and to be dispersed with firearms. Harder than any of these +things to stand, we have known what it is to be slandered. But no +single man of us, thank God, ever stopped for these things or for +anything. Thirty years and more this lasted, until we and all such as +we found a friend in Patrick Henry. Now, we hear that by statute all +religious believers in Virginia have been made equal as respects the +rights and favors of the law. + +"But you know it was partly to escape intolerable tyranny that we left +our mother country and travelled a path paved with suffering and lined +with death into this wilderness. For in this virgin land we thought we +should be free to worship God according to our consciences." + +"Since we arrived you know what our life has been,--how we have fought +and toiled and suffered all things together. You recall how lately it +was that when we met in the woods for worship,--having no church and no +seats,--we men listened and sang and prayed with our rifles on our +shoulders." + +He paused, for the memories hurt him cruelly. + +"And now you notify me that you intend to expel me from this church as +a man no longer fit to worship my Maker in your company. Do you bring +any charge against my life, my conduct? None. Nothing but that, as a +believer in the living God--whom honestly I try to serve according to +my erring light--I can no longer have a seat among you--not believing +as you believe. But this is the same tyranny that you found unendurable +in Spottsylvania. You have begun it in Kentucky. You have been at it +already how long? Well, my brethren, I'll soon end your tyranny over +me. You need not TURN me out. And I need not change my religious +opinions. I will GO out. But--" + +He wheeled round to the rough pulpit on which lay the copy of the Bible +that they had brought with them from Virginia, their Ark of the +Covenant on the way, seized it, and faced them again. He strode toward +the congregation as far as the benches would allow--not seeing clearly, +for he was sightless with his tears. + +"But," he roared, and as he spoke he struck the Bible repeatedly with +his clenched fist, "by the Almighty, I will build a church of my own to +Him! To Him! do you hear? not to your opinions of Him nor mine nor any +man's! I will cut off a parcel of my farm and make a perpetual deed of +it in the courts, to be held in trust forever. And while the earth +stands, it shall stand, free to all Christian believers. I will build a +school-house and a meeting-house, where any child may be free to learn +and any man or woman free to worship." + +He put the Bible back with shaking arms and turned on them again. + +"As for you, my brethren," he said, his face purple and distorted with +passion, "you may be saved in your crooked, narrow way, if the mercy of +God is able to do it. But you are close to the jaws of Hell this day!" + +He went over into a corner for his hat, took his wife by the hand and +held it tightly, gathered the flock of his children before him, and +drove them out of the church. He mounted his horse, lifted his wife to +her seat behind him, saw his children loaded on two other horses, and, +leading the way across the creek, disappeared in the wilderness. + + + + +II + + +Some sixty-five years later, one hot day of midsummer in 1865--one +Saturday afternoon--a lad was cutting weeds in a woodland pasture; a +big, raw-boned, demure boy of near eighteen. + +He had on heavy shoes, the toes green with grass stain; the leather so +seasoned by morning dews as to be like wood for hardness. These were to +keep his feet protected from briers or from the bees scattered upon the +wild white clover or from the terrible hidden thorns of the +honey-locust. No socks. A pair of scant homespun trousers, long +outgrown. A coarse clean shirt. His big shock-head thatched with yellow +straw, a dilapidated sun-and-rain shed. + +The lanky young giant cut and cut and cut: great purple-bodied poke, +strung with crimson-juiced seed; great burdock, its green burrs a +plague; great milkweed, its creamy sap gushing at every gash; great +thistles, thousand-nettled; great ironweed, plumed with royal purple; +now and then a straggling bramble prone with velvety berries--the +outpost of a patch behind him; now and then--more carefully, lest he +notch his blade--low sprouts of wild cane, survivals of the +impenetrable brakes of pioneer days. All these and more, the rank, +mighty measure of the soil's fertility--low down. + +Measure of its fertility aloft, the tops of the trees, from which the +call of the red-headed woodpecker sounded as faint as the memory of a +sound and the bark of the squirrels was elfin-thin. A hot crowded land, +crammed with undergrowth and overgrowth wherever a woodland stood; and +around every woodland dense cornfields; or, denser still, the leagues +of swaying hemp. The smell of this now lay heavy on the air, seeming to +be dragged hither and thither like a slow scum on the breeze, like a +moss on a sluggish pond. A deep robust land; and among its growths +he--this lad, in his way a self-unconscious human weed, the seed of his +kind borne in from far some generations back, but springing out of the +soil naturally now, sap of its sap, strength of its strength. + +He paused by and by and passed his forefinger across his forehead, +brushing the sweat away from above his quiet eyes. He moistened the tip +of his thumb and slid it along the blade of his hemp hook--he was using +that for lack of a scythe. Turning, he walked back to the edge of the +brier thicket, sat down in the shade of a black walnut, threw off his +tattered head-gear, and, reaching for his bucket of water covered with +poke leaves, lifted it to his lips and drank deeply, gratefully. Then +he drew a whetstone from his pocket, spat on it, and fell to sharpening +his blade. + +The heat of his work, the stifling air, the many-toned woods, the sense +of the vast summering land--these things were not in his thoughts. Some +days before, despatched from homestead to homestead, rumors had reached +him away off here at work on his father's farm, of a great university +to be opened the following autumn at Lexington. The like of it with its +many colleges Kentucky, the South, the Mississippi valley had never +seen. It had been the talk among the farming people in their harvest +fields, at the cross-roads, on their porches--the one deep sensation +among them since the war. + +For solemn, heart-stirring as such tidings would have been at any other +time, more so at this. Here, on the tableland of this unique border +state, Kentucky--between the halves of the nation lately at +strife--scene of their advancing and retreating armies--pit of a +frenzied commonwealth--here was to arise this calm university, pledge +of the new times, plea for the peace and amity of learning, fresh +chance for study of the revelation of the Lord of Hosts and God of +battles. The animosities were over, the humanities re-begun. + +Can you remember your youth well enough to be able to recall the time +when the great things happened for which you seemed to be waiting? The +boy who is to be a soldier--one day he hears a distant bugle: at once +HE knows. A second glimpses a bellying sail: straightway the ocean path +beckons to him. A third discovers a college, and toward its kindly +lamps of learning turns young eyes that have been kindled and will stay +kindled to the end. + +For some years this particular lad, this obscure item in Nature's plan +which always passes understanding, had been growing more unhappy in his +place in creation. By temperament he was of a type the most joyous and +self-reliant--those sure signs of health; and discontent now was due to +the fact that he had outgrown his place. Parentage--a farm and its +tasks--a country neighborhood and its narrowness--what more are these +sometimes than a starting-point for a young life; as a flowerpot might +serve to sprout an oak, and as the oak would inevitably reach the hour +when it would either die or burst out, root and branch, into the whole +heavens and the earth; as the shell and yolk of an egg are the +starting-point for the wing and eye of the eagle. One thing only he had +not outgrown, in one thing only he was not unhappy: his religious +nature. This had always been in him as breath was in him, as blood was +in him: it was his life. Dissatisfied now with his position in the +world, it was this alone that kept him contented in himself. Often the +religious are the weary; and perhaps nowhere else does a perpetual +vision of Heaven so disclose itself to the weary as above lonely +toiling fields. The lad had long been lifting his inner eye to this +vision. + +When, therefore, the tidings of the university with its Bible College +reached him, whose outward mould was hardship, whose inner bliss was +piety, at once they fitted his ear as the right sound, as the gladness +of long awaited intelligence. It was bugle to the soldier, sail to the +sailor, lamp of learning to the innate student At once he knew that he +was going to the university--sometime, somehow--and from that moment +felt no more discontent, void, restlessness, nor longing. + +It was of this university, then, that he was happily day-dreaming as he +whetted his hemp hook in the depths of the woods that Saturday +afternoon. Sitting low amid heat and weeds and thorns, he was already +as one who had climbed above the earth's eternal snow-line and sees +only white peaks and pinnacles--the last sublimities. + +He felt impatient for to-morrow. One of the professors of the +university, of the faculty of the Bible College, had been travelling +over the state during the summer, pleading its cause before the people. +He had come into that neighborhood to preach and to plead. The lad +would be there to hear. + +The church in which the professor was to plead for learning and +religion was the one first set up in the Kentucky wilderness as a house +of religious liberty; and the lad was a great-grandchild of the founder +of that church, here emerging mysteriously from the deeps of life four +generations down the line. + + + + +III + + +The church which David's grim old Indian-fighting great-grandfather had +dedicated to freedom of belief in the wilderness, cutting off a parcel +of his lands as he had hotly sworn and building on it a schoolhouse +also, stood some miles distant across the country. The vast estate of +the pioneer had been cut to pieces for his many sons. With the next +generation the law of partible inheritance had further subdivided each +of these; so that in David's time a single small farm was all that had +fallen to his father; and his father had never increased it. The church +was situated on what had been the opposite boundary of the original +grant. But he with most of the other boys in the neighborhood had +received his simple education in that school; and he had always gone to +worship under that broad-minded roof, whatsoever the doctrines and +dogmas haply preached. + +These doctrines and dogmas of a truth were varied and conflicting +enough; for the different flocks and herds of Protestant believers with +their parti-colored guides had for over fifty years found the place a +very convenient strip of spiritual pasture: one congregation now +grazing there jealously and exclusively; afterwards another. + +On this quiet bright Sunday morning in the summer of 1865, the building +(a better than the original one, which had long before been destroyed +by accidental burning) was overcrowded with farming folk, husbands and +wives, of all denominations in the neighborhood, eager to hear the new +plea, the new pleader. David's father and mother, intense sectarians +and dully pious souls, sat among them. He himself, on a rearmost bench, +was wedged fast between two other lads of about his own age--they dumb +with dread lest they should be sent away to this university. The +minister soon turned the course of his sermon to the one topic that was +uppermost and bottommost in the minds of all. + +He bade them understand now, if they had never realized it before, that +from the entrance of educated men and women into the western +wilderness, those real founders and builders of the great commonwealth, +the dream of the Kentuckians had been the establishment of a broad, +free institution of learning for their sons. He gave the history of the +efforts and the failures to found such an institution, from the year +1780 to the beginning of the Civil War; next he showed how, during +those few awful years, the slow precious accumulations of that +preceding time had been scattered; books lost, apparatus ruined, the +furniture of lecture rooms destroyed, one college building burned, +another seized and held as a hospital by the federal government; and he +concluded with painting for them a vision of the real university which +was now to arise at last, oldest, best passion of the people, measure +of the height and breadth of the better times: knowing no North, no +South, no latitude, creed, bias, or political end. In speaking of its +magnificent new endowments, he dwelt upon the share contributed by the +liberal-minded farmers of the state, to some of whom he was speaking: +showing how, forgetful of the disappointments and failures of their +fathers, they had poured out money by the thousands and tens of +thousands, as soon as the idea was presented to them again--the rearing +of a great institution by the people and for the people in their own +land for the training of their sons, that they might not be sent away +to New England or to Europe. + +His closing words were solemn indeed; they related to the college of +the Bible, where his own labors were to be performed. For this, he +declared, he pleaded not in the name of the new State, the new nation, +but in the name of the Father. The work of this college was to be the +preparation of young men for the Christian ministry, that they might go +into all the world and preach the Gospel. One truth he bade them bear +in mind: that this training was to be given without sectarian theology; +that his brethren themselves represented a revolution among believers, +having cast aside the dogmas of modern teachers, and taken, as the one +infallible guide of their faith and practice, the Bible simply; so +making it their sole work to bring all modern believers together into +one church, and that one church the church of the apostles. + +For this university, for this college of the Bible especially, he +asked, then, the gift and consecration of their sons. + +Toward dusk that day David's father and mother were sitting side by +side on the steps of their front porch. Some neighbors who had spent +the afternoon with them were just gone. The two were talking over in +low, confidential tones certain subjects discussed less frankly with +their guests. These related to the sermon of the morning, to the +university, to what boys in the neighborhood would probably be entered +as students. Their neighbors had asked whether David would go. The +father and mother had exchanged quick glances and made no reply. +Something in the father's mind now lay like worm-wood on the lips. + +He sat leaning his head on his hand, his eyes on the ground, brooding, +embittered. + +"If I had only had a son to have been proud of!" he muttered. "It's of +no use; he wouldn't go. It isn't in him to take an education." + +"No," said the mother, comforting him resignedly, after a pause in +which she seemed to be surveying the boy's whole life; "it's of no use; +there never was much in David." + +"Then he shall work!" cried the father, striking his knee with clenched +fist. "I'll see that he is kept at work." + +Just then the lad came round from behind the house, walking rapidly. +Since dinner he had been off somewhere, alone, having it out with +himself, perhaps shrinking, most of all, from this first exposure to +his parents. Such an ordeal is it for us to reveal what we really are +to those who have known us longest and have never discovered us. + +He walked quickly around and stood before them, pallid and shaking from +head to foot. + +"Father!"-- + +There was filial dutifulness in the voice, but what they had never +heard from those lips--authority. + +"I am going to the university, to the Bible College. It will be hard +for you to spare me, I know, and I don't expect to go at once. But I +shall begin my preparations, and as soon as it is possible I am going. +I have felt that you and mother ought to know my decision at once." + +As he stood before them in the dusk and saw on their countenances an +incredible change of expression, he naturally mistook it, and spoke +again with more authority. + +"Don't say anything to me now, father! And don't oppose me when the +time comes; it would be useless. Try to learn while I am getting ready +to give your consent and to obtain mother's. That is all I have to say." + +He turned quickly away and passed out of the yard gate toward the barn, +for the evening feeding. + +The father and mother followed his figure with their eyes, forgetting +each other, as long as it remained in sight. If the flesh of their son +had parted and dissolved away into nothingness, disclosing a hidden +light within him like the evening star, shining close to their faces, +they could scarce have been struck more speechless. But after a few +moments they had adjusted themselves to this lofty annunciation. The +mother, unmindful of what she had just said, began to recall little +incidents of the lad's life to show that this was what he was always +meant to be. She loosened from her throat the breast-pin containing the +hair of the three heads braided together, and drew her husband's +attention to it with a smile. He, too, disregarding his disparagement +of the few minutes previous, now began to admit with warmth how good a +mind David had always had. He prophesied that at college he would +outstrip the other boys from that neighborhood. This, in its way, was +also fresh happiness to him; for, smarting under his poverty among rich +neighbors, and fallen from the social rank to which he was actually +entitled, he now welcomed the secondary joy which originates in the +revenge men take upon each other through the superiority of their +children. + +One thing both agreed in: that this explained their son. He had +certainly always needed an explanation. But no wonder; he was to be a +minister. And who had a right to understand a minister? He was entitled +to be peculiar. + +When David came in to supper that night and took his seat, shame-faced, +frowning and blinking at the candle-light, his father began to talk to +him as he had never believed possible; and his mother, placing his +coffee before him, let her hand rest on his shoulder. + +He, long ahungered for their affection and finding it now when least +expected, filled to the brim, choked at every morsel, got away as soon +as he could into the sacred joy of the night Ah, those thrilling hours +when the young disciple, having for the first time confessed openly his +love of the Divine, feels that the Divine returns his love and accepts +his service! + + + + +IV + + +Autumn came, the university opened wide its harmonious doors, welcoming +Youth and Peace. + +All that day a lad, alone at his field work away off on the edge of the +bluegrass lands, toiled as one listening to a sublime sound in the +distance--the tramping, tramping, tramping of the students as they +assembled from the farms of the state and from other states. Some boys +out of his own neighborhood had started that morning, old +schoolfellows. He had gone to say good-by; had sat on the bed and +watched them pack their fine new trunks--cramming these with fond +maternal gifts and the thoughtless affluence of necessary and +unnecessary things; had heard all the wonderful talk about classes and +professors and societies; had wrung their hands at last with eyes +turned away, that none might see the look in them--the immortal hunger. + +How empty now the whole land without those two or three boys! Not far +away across the fields, soft-white in the clear sunshine, stood the +home of one of them--the green shutters of a single upper room tightly +closed. His heart-strings were twisted tight and wrung sore this day; +and more than once he stopped short in his work (the cutting of briers +along a fence), arrested by the temptation to throw down his hook and +go. The sacred arguments were on his side. Without choice or search of +his they clamored and battered at his inner ear--those commands of the +Gospels, the long reverberations of that absolute Voice, bidding +irresolute workaday disciples leave the plough in the furrow, leave +whatsoever task was impending or duty uppermost to the living or the +dead, and follow,--"Follow Me!" + +Arguments, verily, had he in plenty; but raiment--no; nor scrip. And +knew he ever so little of the world, sure he felt of this: that for +young Elijahs at the university there were no ravens; nor wild honey +for St. John; nor Galilean basketfuls left over by hungry fisherfolk, +fishers of men. + +So back to his briers. And back to the autumn soil, days of hard +drudging, days of hard thinking. The chief problem for the nigh future +being, how soonest to provide the raiment, fill the scrip; and so with +time enough to find out what, on its first appearance, is so terrible a +discovery to the young, straining against restraint: that just the lack +of a coarse garment or two--of a little money for a little plain +food--of a few candles and a few coverlets for light and warmth with a +book or two thrown in--that a need so poor, paltry as this, may keep +mind and heart back for years. Ah, happy ye! with whom this last not +too long--or for always! + +Yet happy ye, whether the waiting be for short time or long time, if +only it bring on meanwhile, as it brought on with him, the struggle! +One sure reward ye have, then, as he had, though there may be none +other--just the struggle: the marshalling to the front of rightful +forces--will, effort, endurance, devotion; the putting resolutely back +of forces wrongful; the hardening of all that is soft within, the +softening of all that is hard: until out of the hardening and the +softening results the better tempering of the soul's metal, and higher +development of those two qualities which are best in man and best in +his ideal of his Maker--strength and kindness, power and mercy. With an +added reward also, if the struggle lead you to perceive (what he did +not perceive), as the light of your darkness, the sweet of bitter, that +real struggling is itself real living, and that no ennobling thing of +this earth is ever to be had by man on any other terms: so teaching +him, none too soon, that any divine end is to be reached but through +divine means, that a great work requires a great preparation. + +Of the lad's desperate experience henceforth in mere outward matters +the recital may be suppressed: the struggle of the earth's poor has +grown too common to make fresh reading. He toiled direfully, economized +direfully, to get to his college, but in this showed only the heroism +too ordinary among American boys to be marvelled at more. One fact may +be set down, as limning some true figure of him on the landscape of +those years in that peculiar country. + +The war had just closed. The farmers, recollecting the fortunes made in +hemp before, had hurried to the fields. All the more as the long +interruption of agriculture in the South had resulted in scarcity of +cotton; so that the earnest cry came to Kentucky for hemp at once to +take many of its places. But meantime the slaves had been set free: +where before ordered, they must now be hired. A difficult agreement to +effect at all times, because will and word and bond were of no account. +Most difficult when the breaking of hemp was to be bargained for; since +the laborer is kept all day in the winter fields, away from the +fireside, and must toil solitary at his brake, cut off from the talk +and laughter which lighten work among that race. So that wages rose +steadily, and the cost of hemp with them. + +The lad saw in this demand for the lowest work at the highest prices +his golden opportunity--and seized it. When the hemp-breaking season +opened that winter, he made his appearance on the farm of a rich farmer +near by, taking his place with the negroes. + +There is little art in breaking hemp. He soon had the knack of that: +his muscles were toughened already. He learned what it was sometimes to +eat his dinner in the fields, warming it, maybe, on the coals of a +stump set on fire near his brake; to bale his hemp at nightfall and +follow the slide or wagon to the barn; there to wait with the negroes +till it was weighed on the steelyards; and at last, with muscles stiff +and sore, throat husky with dust, to stride away rapidly over the +bitter darkening land to other work awaiting him at home. + +Had there been call to do this before the war, it might not have been +done. But now men young and old, who had never known what work was, +were replacing their former slaves. The preexisting order had indeed +rolled away like a scroll; and there was the strange fresh universal +stir of humanity over the land like the stir of nature in a boundless +wood under a new spring firmament He was one of a multitude of new +toilers; but the first in his neighborhood, and alone in his grim +choice of work. + +So dragged that winter through. When spring returned, he did better. +With his father's approval, he put in some acres for himself--sowed it, +watched it, prayed for it; in summer cut it; with hired help stacked it +in autumn; broke it himself the winter following; sold it the next +spring; and so found in his pocket the sorely coveted money. + +This was increased that summer from the sale of cord wood, through +driblets saved by his father and mother; and when, autumn once more +advanced with her days of shadow and thoughtfulness--two years having +now passed--he was in possession of his meagre fortune, wrung out of +earth, out of sweat and strength and devotion. + +Only a few days remained now before his leaving for the +university--very solemn tender days about the house with his father and +mother. + +And now for the lad's own sake, as for the clearer guidance of those +who may care to understand what so incredibly befell him afterward, an +attempt must be made to reveal somewhat of his spiritual life during +those two years. It was this, not hard work, that writ his history. + +As soon as he had made up his mind to study for the ministry, he had +begun to read his Bible absorbingly, sweeping through that primitive +dawn of life among the Hebrews and that second, brilliant one of the +Christian era. He had few other books, none important; he knew nothing +of modern theology or modern science. Thus he was brought wholly under +the influence of that view of Man's place in Nature which was held by +the earliest Biblical writers, has imposed itself upon countless +millions of minds since then, and will continue to impose itself--how +much longer? + +As regarded, then, his place in Nature, this boy became a contemporary +of the Psalmist; looked out upon the physical universe with the eye of +Job; placed himself back beside that simple, audacious, sublime +child--Man but awakening from his cradle of faith in the morning of +civilization. The meaning of all which to him was this: that the most +important among the worlds swung in space was the Earth, on account of +a single inhabitant--Man. Its shape had been moulded, its surface +fitted up, as the dwelling-place of Man. Land, ocean, mountain-range, +desert, valley--these were designed alike for Man. The sun--it was for +him; and the moon; and the stars, hung about the earth as its +lights--guides to the mariner, reminders to the landsman of the Eye +that never slumbered. The clouds--shade and shower--they were +mercifully for Man. Nothing had meaning, possessed value, save as it +derived meaning and value from him. The great laws of Nature--they, +too, were ordered for Man's service, like the ox and the ass; and as he +drove his ox and his ass whither he would, caused them to move forward +or to stop at the word of command, so Man had only to speak properly +(in prayer) and these laws would move faster or less fast, stop still, +turn to the right or the left side of the road that he desired to +travel. Always Man, Man, Man, nothing but Man! To himself measure of +the universe as to himself a little boy is sole reason for the food and +furnishings of his nursery. + +This conception of Man's place in Nature has perhaps furnished a very +large part of the history of the world. Even at this close of the +nineteenth century, it is still, in all probability, the most important +fact in the faith and conduct of the race, running with endless +applications throughout the spheres of practical life and vibrating +away to the extremities of the imagination. In the case of this poor, +devout, high-minded Kentucky boy, at work on a farm in the years 1866 +and 1867, saving his earnings and reading his Bible as the twofold +preparation for his entrance into the Christian ministry, this belief +took on one of its purest shapes and wrought out in him some of its +loftiest results. + +Let it be remembered that he lived in a temperate, beautiful, bountiful +country; that his work was done mostly in the fields, with the aspects +of land and sky ever before him; that he was much alone; that his +thinking was nearly always of his Bible and his Bible college. Let it +be remembered that he had an eye which was not merely an opening and +closing but a seeing eye--full of health and of enjoyment of the +pageantry of things; and that behind this eye, looking through it as +through its window, stood the dim soul of the lad, itself in a temple +of perpetual worship: these are some of the conditions which yielded +him during these two years the intense, exalted realities of his inner +life. + +When of morning he stepped out of the plain farm-house with its rotting +doors and leaking roof and started off joyously to his day's work, at +the sight of the great sun just rising above the low dew-wet hills, his +soul would go soaring away to heaven's gate. Sometimes he would be +abroad late at night, summoning the doctor for his father or returning +from a visit to another neighborhood. In every farmhouse that he passed +on the country road the people were asleep--over all the shadowy land +they were asleep. And everywhere, guardian in the darkness, watched the +moon, pouring its searching beams upon every roof, around every +entrance, on kennel and fold, sty and barn--with light not enough to +awaken but enough to protect: how he worshipped toward that lamp tended +by the Sleepless! There were summer noons when he would be lying under +a solitary tree in a field--in the edge of its shade, resting; his face +turned toward the sky. This would be one over-bending vault of serenest +blue, save for a distant flight of snow-white clouds, making him think +of some earthward-wandering company of angels. He would lie motionless, +scarce breathing, in that peace of the earth, that smile of the Father. +Or if this same vault remained serene too long; if the soil of the +fields became dusty to his boots and his young grain began to wither, +when at last, in response to his prayer, the clouds were brought +directly over them and emptied down, as he stepped forth into the +cooled, dripping, soaking green, how his heart blessed the Power that +reigned above and did all things well! + +It was always praise, gratitude, thanks-giving, whatever happened. If +he prayed for rain for his crops and none was sent, then he thought his +prayer lacked faith or was unwise, he knew not how; if too much rain +fell, so that his grain rotted, this again was from some fault of his +or for his good; or perhaps it was the evil work of the prince of the +powers of the air--by permission of the Omnipotent. In the case of one +crop all the labor of nearly a year went for nothing: he explained this +as a reminder that he must be chastened. + +Come good, come ill, then, crops or no crops, increase or decrease, it +was all the same to him: he traced the cause of all plenty as of all +disappointment and disaster reaching him through the laws of nature to +some benevolent purpose of the Ruler. And ever before his eyes also he +kept that spotless Figure which once walked among men on earth--that +Saviour of the world whose service he was soon to enter, whose words of +everlasting life he was to preach: his father's farm became as the +vineyard of the parables in the Gospels, he a laborer in it. + +Thus this lad was nearer the first century and yet earlier ages than +the nineteenth. He knew more of prophets and apostles than modern +doctors of divinity. When the long-looked-for day arrived for him to +throw his arms around his father and mother and bid them good-by, he +should have mounted a camel, like a youth of the Holy Land of old, and +taken his solemn, tender way across the country toward Jerusalem. + + + + +V + + +One crisp, autumn morning, then, of that year 1867, a big, raw-boned, +bashful lad, having passed at the turnstile into the twenty-acre +campus, stood reverently still before the majestical front of Morrison +College. Browned by heat and wind, rain and sun; straight of spine, +fine of nerve, tough of muscle. In one hand he carried an enormous, +faded valise, made of Brussels carpet copiously sprinkled with small, +pink roses; in the other, held like a horizontal javelin, a family +umbrella. A broken rib escaped his fingers. + +It was no time and place for observation or emotion. The turnstile +behind him was kept in a whirl by students pushing through and hurrying +toward the college a few hundred yards distant; others, who had just +left it, came tramping toward him and passing out. In a retired part of +the campus, he could see several pacing slowly to and fro in the grass, +holding text-books before their faces. Some were grouped at the bases +of the big Doric columns, at work together. From behind the college on +the right, two or three appeared running and disappeared through a +basement entrance. Out of the grass somewhere came the sound of a +whistle as clear and happy as of a quail in the wheat; from another +direction, the shouts and wrangling of a playground. Once, barely +audible, through the air surged and died away the last bars of a +glorious hymn, sung by a chorus of fresh male voices. The whole scene +was one of bustle, work, sport, worship. + +A few moments the lad remained where he had halted, drinking through +every thirsting pore; but most of all with his eyes satisfied by the +sight of that venerable building which, morning and night, for over two +years had shaped itself to his imagination--that seat of the +university--that entrance into his future. + +Three students came strolling along the path toward him on their way +down town. One was slapping his book against his thigh; one was blowing +a ditty through his nose, like music on a comb; one, in the middle, had +his arms thrown over the shoulders of the others, and was at intervals +using them as crutches. As they were about to pass the lad, who had +stepped a few feet to one side of the path, they wheeled and laughed at +him. + +"Hello, preachy!" cried one. His face was round, red, and soft, like +the full moon; the disk was now broken up by smiling creases. + +"Can you tell me," inquired the lad, coloring and wondering how it was +already known that he was to be a preacher, "Can you tell me just the +way to the Bible College?" + +The one of the three on the right turned to the middle man and repeated +the question gravely:-- + +"Can you tell me just the way to the Bible College?" + +The middle man turned and repeated it gravely to the one on the left:-- + +"Can you tell me just the way to the Bible College?" + +The one on the left seized a passing student:-- + +"Can you tell us all just the way to the Bible College?" + +"Ministers of grace!" he said, "without the angels!" Then turning to +the lad, he continued: "You see this path? Take it! Those steps? Go +straight up those steps. Those doors? Enter! Then, if you don't see the +Bible College, maybe you'll see the janitor--if he is there. But don't +you fear! You may get lost, but you'll never get away!" + +The lad knew he was being guyed, but he didn't mind: what hurt him was +that his Bible College should be treated with such levity. + +"Thank you," he said pleasantly but proudly. + +"Have you matriculated?" one of the three called after him as he +started forward. + +David had never heard that word; but he entertained such a respect for +knowledge that he hated to appear unnecessarily ignorant. + +"I don't think--I have," he observed vaguely. + +The small eyes of the full moon disappeared altogether this time. + +"Well, you've got to matriculate, you know," he said. "You'd better do +that sometime. But don't speak of it to your professors, or to anybody +connected with the college. It must be kept secret." + +"Will I be too late for the first recitations?" + +The eager question was on the lad's lips but never uttered. The trio +had wheeled carelessly away. + +There passed them, coming toward David, a tall, gaunt, rough-whiskered +man, wearing a paper collar without a cravat, and a shiny, long-tailed, +black cloth coat. He held a Bible opened at Genesis. + +"Good morning, brother," he said frankly, speaking in the simple +kindness which comes from being a husband and father. "You are going to +enter the Bible College, I see." + +"Yes, sir," replied the lad. "Are you one of the professors?" + +The middle-aged man laughed painfully. + +"I am one of the students." + +David felt that he had inflicted a wound. "How many students are here?" +he asked quickly. + +"About a thousand." + +The two walked side by side toward the college. + +"Have you matriculated?" inquired the lad's companion. There was that +awful word again! + +"I don't know HOW to matriculate. How DO you matriculate? What is +matriculating?" + +"I'LL go with you. I'LL show you," said the simple fatherly guide. + +"Thank you, if you will," breathed the lad, gratefully. + +After a brief silence his companion spoke again. + +"I'm late in life in entering college. I've got a son half as big as +you and a baby; and my wife's here. But, you see, I've had a hard time. +I've preached for years. But I wasn't satisfied. I wanted to understand +the Bible better. And this is the place to do that." Now that he had +explained himself, he looked relieved. + +"Well," said David, fervently, entering at once into a brotherhood with +this kindly soul, "that's what I've come for, too. I want to understand +the Bible better--and if I am ever worthy--I want to preach it. And you +have baptized people already?" + +"Hundreds of them. Here we are," said his companion, as they passed +under a low doorway, on one side of the pillared steps. + +"Here I am at last," repeated the lad to himself with solemn joy, "And +now God be with me!" + +By the end of that week he had the run of things; had met his +professors, one of whom had preached that sermon two summers before, +and now, on being told who the lad was, welcomed him as a sheaf out of +that sowing; had been assigned to his classes; had gone down town to +the little packed and crowded book-store and bought the needful +student's supplies--so making the first draught on his money; been +assigned to a poor room in the austere dormitory behind the college; +made his first failures in recitations, standing before his professor +with no more articulate voice and no more courage than a sheep; and had +awakened to a new sense--the brotherhood of young souls about him, the +men of his college. + +A revelation they were! Nearly all poor like himself; nearly all having +worked their way to the university: some from farms, some by teaching +distant country or mountain schools; some by the peddling of books--out +of unknown byways, from the hedges and ditches of life, they had +assembled: Calvary's regulars. + +One scene in his new life struck upon the lad's imagination like a +vision out of the New Testament,--his first supper in the bare dining +room of that dormitory: the single long, rough table; the coarse, +frugal food; the shadows of the evening hour; at every chair a form +reverently standing; the saying of the brief grace--ah, that first +supper with the disciples! + +Among the things he had to describe in his letter to his father and +mother, this scene came last; and his final words to them were a +blessing that they had made him one of this company of young men. + + + + +VI + + +The lad could not study eternally. The change from a toiling body and +idle mind to an idle body and toiling mind requires time to make the +latter condition unirksome. Happily there was small need to delve at +learning. His brain was like that of a healthy wild animal freshly +captured from nature. And as such an animal learns to snap at flung +bits of food, springing to meet them and sinking back on his haunches +keen-eyed for more; so mentally he caught at the lessons prepared for +him by his professors: every faculty asked only to be fed--and remained +hungry after the feeding. + +Of afternoons, therefore, when recitations were over and his muscles +ached for exercise, he donned his old farm hat and went, stepping in +his high, awkward, investigating way around the town--unaware of +himself, unaware of the light-minded who often turned to smile at that +great gawk in grotesque garments, with his face full of beatitudes and +his pockets full of apples. For apples were beginning to come in from +the frosty orchards; and the fruit dealers along the streets piled them +into pyramids of temptation. It seemed a hardship to him to have to +spend priceless money for a thing like apples, which had always been as +cheap and plentiful as spring water. But those evening suppers in the +dormitory with the disciples! Even when he was filled (which was not +often) he was never comforted; and one day happening upon one of those +pomological pyramids, he paused, yearned, and bought the apex. It was +harder not to buy than to buy. After that he fell into this fruitful +vice almost diurnally; and with mortifying worldly-mindedness he would +sometimes find his thoughts straying apple-wards while his professors +were personally conducting him through Canaan or leading him dry-shod +across the Red Sea. The little dealer soon learned to anticipate his +approach; and as he drew up would have the requisite number ready and +slide them into his pockets without a word--and without the chance of +inspection. A man's candy famine attacked him also. He usually bought +some intractable, resisting medium: it left him rather tired of +pleasure. + +So during those crude days he went strolling solemnly about the town, +eating, exploring, filling with sweetmeats and filled with wonder. It +was the first city he had ever seen, the chief interior city of the +state. From childhood he had longed to visit it. The thronged streets, +the curious stores, the splendid residences, the flashing +equipages--what a new world it was to him! But the first place he +inquired his way to was the factory where he had sold his hemp. Awhile +he watched the men at work, wondering whether they might not then be +handling some that he had broken. + +At an early date also he went to look up his dear old neighborhood +schoolfellows who two years before had left him, to enter another +college of the University. By inquiry he found out where they lived--in +a big, handsome boarding-house on a fashionable street. He thought he +had never even dreamed of anything so fine as was this house--nor had +he. As he sat in the rich parlors, waiting to learn whether his friends +were at home, he glanced uneasily at his shoes to see whether they +might not be soiling the carpet; and he vigorously dusted himself with +his breath and hands--thus depositing on the furniture whatever dust +there was to transfer. + +Having been invited to come up to his friends' room, he mounted and +found one of them waiting at the head of the stairs in his shirt +sleeves, smoking. His greeting was hearty in its way yet betokened some +surprise, a little uneasiness, condescension. David followed his host +into a magnificent room with enormous windows, now raised and opening +upon a veranda. Below was a garden full of old vines black with grapes +and pear trees bent down with pears and beds bright with cool autumn +flowers. (The lad made a note of how much money he would save on apples +if he could only live in reach of those pear trees.) There was a big +rumpled bed in the room; and stretched across this bed on his stomach +lay a student studying and waving his heels slowly in the air. A table +stood in the middle of the room: the books and papers had been scraped +off to the floor; four students were seated at it playing cards and +smoking. Among them his other friend, who rose and gave him a hearty +grip and resuming his seat asked what was trumps. A voice he had heard +before called out to him from the table:-- + +"Hello, preachy! Did you find your way to the Bible College?" + +Whereupon the student on the bed rolled heavily over, sat up +dejectedly, and ogled him with red eyes and a sagging jaw. + +"Have you matriculated?" he asked. + +David did not think of the cards, and he liked the greeting of the two +strangers who guyed him better than the welcome of his old friends. +That hurt: he had never supposed there was anything just like it in the +nature of man. But during the years since he had seen them, old times +were gone, old manners changed. And was it not in the hemp fields of +the father of one of them that he had meantime worked with the negroes? +And is there any other country in the world where the clean laborer is +so theoretically honored and so practically despised as by the American +snob of each sex? + +One afternoon he went over to the courthouse and got the county clerk +to show him the entry where his great-grandfather had had the deed to +his church recorded. There it all was!--all written down to hold good +while the world lasted: that perpetual grant of part and parcel of his +land, for the use of a free school and a free church. The lad went +reverently over the plain, rough speech of the mighty old pioneer, as +he spoke out his purpose. + +During those early days also he sought out the different churches, +scrutinizing respectfully their exteriors. How many they were, and how +grand nearly all! Beyond anything he had imagined. He reasoned that if +the buildings were so fine, how fine must be the singing and the +sermons! The unconscious assumption, the false logic here, was +creditable to his heart at least--to that green trust of the young in +things as they should be which becomes in time the best seasoned staff +of age. He hunted out especially the Catholic Church. His +great-grandfather had founded his as free for Catholics as Protestants, +but he recalled the fact that no priest had ever preached there. He +felt very curious to see a priest. A synagogue in the town he could not +find. He was sorry. He had a great desire to lay eyes on a +synagogue--temple of that ancient faith which had flowed on its deep +way across the centuries without a ripple of disturbance from the +Christ. He had made up his mind that when he began to preach he would +often preach especially to the Jews: the time perhaps had come when the +Father, their Father, would reveal his Son to them also. Thus he +promptly fixed in mind the sites of all the churches, because he +intended in time to go to them all. + +Meantime he attended his own, the size and elegance of which were a +marvel; and in it especially the red velvet pulpit and the vast +chandelier (he had never seen a chandelier before), blazing with stars +(he had never seen illuminating gas). It was under this chandelier that +he himself soon found a seat. All the Bible students sat there who +could get there, that being the choir of male voices; and before a +month passed he had been taken into this choir: for a storm-like bass +rolled out of him as easily as thunder out of a June cloud. Thus +uneventful flowed the tenor of his student life during those several +initiatory weeks: then something occurred that began to make grave +history for him. + +The pastor announced at service one morning that he would that day +begin a series of sermons on errors in the faith and practice of the +different Protestant sects; though he would also consider in time the +cases of the Catholics and Jews: it would scarcely be necessary to +speak of the Mohammedans and such others. He was driven to do this, he +declared, and was anxious to do it, as part of the work of his brethren +all over the country; which was the restoration of Apostolic +Christianity to the world. He asked the especial attention of the Bible +students of the University to these sermons: the first of which he then +proceeded to preach. + +That night the lad was absent from his place: he was seated in the +church which had been riddled with logic in the morning. Just why it +would be hard to say. Perhaps his motive resembled that which prompts +us to visit a battle-field and count the slain. Only, not a soul of +those people seemed even to have been wounded. They sang, prayed, +preached, demeaned themselves generally as those who believed that THEY +were the express chosen of the Lord, and greatly enjoyed the notorious +fact. + +The series of sermons went on: every night the lad was missing from his +place--gone to see for himself and to learn more about those worldly +churches which had departed from the faith once delivered to the +saints, and if saved at all, then by the mercy of God and much of it. + +In the history of any human soul it is impossible to grasp the first +event that starts up a revolution. But perhaps the troubles of the lad +began here. His absences from Sunday night service of course attracted +notice under the chandelier. His bass was missed. Another student was +glad to take his place. His roommate and the several other dormitory +students who had become his acquaintances, discussed with him the +impropriety of these absences: they agreed that he would better stick +to his own church. He gave reasons why he should follow up the pastor's +demonstrations with actual visits to the others: he contended that the +pastor established the fact of the errors; but that the best way to +understand any error was to study the erring. This was all new to him, +however. He had not supposed that in educating himself to preach the +simple Gospel, to the end that the world might believe in Christ, he +must also preach against those who believed in Christ already. Besides, +no one seemed to be convinced by the pastor but those who agreed with +him in advance: the other churches flourished quite the same. + +He cited a sermon he had heard in one, which, to the satisfaction of +all present, had riddled his own church, every word of the proof being +based on Scripture: so there you were! + +A little cloud came that instant between David and the students to whom +he expressed these views. Some rejoined hotly at once; some maintained +the cold silence which intends to speak in its own time. The next thing +the lad knew was that a professor requested him to remain after class +one day; and speaking with grave kindness, advised him to go regularly +to his own church thereafter. The lad entered ardently into the reasons +why he had gone to the others. The professor heard him through and +without comment repeated his grave, kind advice. + +Thereafter the lad was regularly in his own seat there--but with a +certain mysterious, beautiful feeling gone. He could not have said what +this feeling was, did not himself know. Only, a slight film seemed to +pass before his eyes when he looked at his professor, so that he saw +him less clearly and as more remote. + +One morning there was a sermon on the Catholics. David went dutifully +to his professor. He said he had never been to a Catholic Church and +would like to go. His professor assented cordially, evincing his +pleasure in the lad's frankness. But the next Sunday morning he was in +the Catholic Church again, thus for the first time missing the +communion in his own. Of all the congregations of Christian believers +that the lad had now visited, the Catholic impressed him as being the +most solemn, reverent, and best mannered. In his own church the place +did not seem to become the house of God till services began; and one +morning in particular, two old farmers in the pew behind him talked in +smothered tones of stock and crops, till it fairly made him homesick. +The sermon of the priest, too, filled him with amazement. It weighed +the claims of various Protestant sects to be reckoned as parts of the +one true historic church of God. In passing, he barely referred to the +most modern of these self-constituted Protestant bodies--David's own +church--and dismissed it with one blast of scorn, which seemed to +strike the lad's face like a hot wind: it left it burning. But to the +Episcopal Church the priest dispensed the most vitriolic criticism. And +that night, carried away by the old impulse, which had grown now almost +into a habit, David went to the Episcopal Church: went to number the +slain. The Bishop of the diocese, as it happened, was preaching that +night--preaching on the union of Christian believers. He showed how +ready the Episcopal Church was for such a union if the rest would only +consent: but no other church, he averred, must expect the Episcopal +Church ever to surrender one article of its creed, namely: that it +alone was descended not by historical continuity simply, but by Divine +succession from the Apostles themselves. The lad walked slowly back to +the dormitory that night with knit brows and a heavy heart. + +A great change was coming over him. His old religious peace had been +unexpectedly disturbed. He found himself in the thick of the wars of +dogmatic theology. At that time and in that part of the United States +these were impassioned and rancorous to a degree which even now, less +than half a century later, can scarce be understood; so rapidly has +developed meantime that modern spirit which is for us the tolerant +transition to a yet broader future. Had Kentucky been peopled by her +same people several generations earlier, the land would have run red +with the blood of religious persecutions, as never were England and +Scotland at their worst. So that this lad, brought in from his solemn, +cloistered fields and introduced to wrangling, sarcastic, envious +creeds, had already begun to feel doubtful and distressed, not knowing +what to believe nor whom to follow. He had commenced by being so +plastic a medium for faith, that he had tried to believe them all. Now +he was in the intermediate state of trying to ascertain which. From +that state there are two and two only final ones to emerge: "I shall +among them believe this one only;" or, "I shall among them +believe--none." The constant discussion of some dogma and disproof of +some dogma inevitably begets in a certain order of mind the temper to +discuss and distrust ALL dogma. + +Not over their theologies alone were the churches wrangling before the +lad's distracted thoughts. If the theologies were rending religion, +politics was rending the theologies. The war just ended had not +brought, as the summer sermon of the Bible College professor had +stated, breadth of mind for narrowness, calm for passion. Not while men +are fighting their wars of conscience do they hate most, but after they +have fought; and Southern and Union now hated to the bottom and nowhere +else as at their prayers. David found a Presbyterian Church on one +street called "Southern" and one a few blocks away called "Northern": +how those brethren dwelt together. The Methodists were similarly +divided. Of Baptists, the lad ascertained there had been so many kinds +and parts of kinds since the settlement of Kentucky, that apparently +any large-sized family anywhere could reasonably have constituted +itself a church, if the parents and children had only been fortunate +enough to agree. + +Where politics did not cleave, other issues did. The Episcopal Church +was cleft into a reform movement (and one unreformable). In his own +denomination internal discord raged over such questions as diabolic +pleasures and Apostolic music. He saw young people haled before the +pulpit as before a tribunal of exact statutes and expelled for moving +their feet in certain ways. If in dancing they whirled like a top +instead of being shot straight back and forth like a bobbin in a +weaver's shuttle, their moral conduct was aggravated. A church organ +was ridiculed as a sort of musical Behemoth--as a dark chamber of +howling, roaring Belial. + +These controversies overflowed from the congregation to the Bible +College. The lad in his room at the dormitory one Sunday afternoon +heard a debate on whether a tuning fork is a violation of the word of +God. The debaters turned to him excited and angry:-- + +"What do you think?" they asked. + +"I don't think it is worth talking about," he replied quietly. + +They soon became reconciled to each other; they never forgave him. + +Meantime as for his Biblical studies, they enlarged enormously his +knowledge of the Bible; but they added enormously to the questions that +may be asked about the Bible--questions he had never thought of before. +And in adding to the questions that may be asked, they multiplied those +that cannot be answered. The lad began to ask these questions, began to +get no answers. The ground of his interest in the great Book shifted. +Out on the farm alone with it for two years, reading it never with a +critical but always with a worshipping mind, it had been to him simply +the summons to a great and good life, earthly and immortal. As he sat +in the lecture rooms, studying it book by book, paragraph by paragraph, +writing chalk notes about it on the blackboard, hearing the students +recite it as they recited arithmetic or rhetoric, a little homesickness +overcame him for the hours when he had read it at the end of a furrow +in the fields, or by his candle the last thing at night before he +kneeled to say his prayers, or of Sunday afternoons off by himself in +the sacred leafy woods. The mysterious untouched Christ-feeling was in +him so strong, that he shrank from these critical analyses as he would +from dissecting the body of the crucified Redeemer. + +A significant occurrence took place one afternoon some seven months +after he had entered the University. + +On that day, recitations over, the lad left the college alone and with +a most thoughtful air crossed the campus and took his course into the +city. Reaching a great central street, he turned to the left and +proceeded until he stood opposite a large brick church. Passing along +the outside of this, he descended a few steps, traversed an alley, +knocked timidly at a door, and by a voice within was bidden to enter. +He did so, and stood in his pastor's study. He had told his pastor that +he would like to have a little talk with him, and the pastor was there +to have the little talk. + +During those seven months the lad had been attracting notice more and +more. The Bible students had cast up his reckoning unfavorably: he was +not of their kind--they moved through their studies as one flock of +sheep through a valley, drinking the same water, nipping the same +grass, and finding it what they wanted. His professors had singled him +out as a case needing peculiar guidance. Not in his decorum as a +student: he was the very soul of discipline. Not in slackness of study: +his mind consumed knowledge as a flame tinder. Not in any +irregularities of private life: his morals were as snow for whiteness. +Yet none other caused such concern. + +All this the pastor knew; he had himself long had his eye on this lad. +During his sermons, among the rows of heads and brows and eyes upturned +to him, oftenest he felt himself looking at that big shock-head, at +those grave brows, into those eager, troubled eyes. His persistent +demonstrations that he and his brethren alone were right and all other +churches Scripturally wrong--they always seemed to take the light out +of that countenance. There was silence in the study now as the lad +modestly seated himself in a chair which the pastor had pointed out. + +After fidgeting a few moments, he addressed the logician with a +stupefying premise:-- + +"My great-grandfather," he said, "once built a church simply to God, +not to any man's opinions of Him." + +He broke off abruptly. + +"So did Voltaire," remarked the pastor dryly, coming to the rescue. +"Voltaire built a church to God: 'Erexit deo Voltaire' Your +great-grandfather and Voltaire must have been kin to each other." + +The lad had never heard of Voltaire. The information was rather +prepossessing. + +"I think I should admire Voltaire," he observed reflectively. + +"So did the Devil," remarked the pastor. Then he added pleasantly, for +he had a Scotch relish for a theological jest:-- + +"You may meet Voltaire some day." + +"I should like to. Is he coming here?" asked the lad. + +"Not immediately. He is in hell--or will be after the Resurrection of +the Dead." + +The silence in the study grew intense. + +"I understand you now," said the lad, speaking composedly all at once. +"You think that perhaps I will go to the Devil also." + +"Oh, no!" exclaimed the pastor, hiding his smile and stroking his beard +with syllogistic self-respect. "My dear young brother, did you want to +see me on any--BUSINESS?" + +"I did. I was trying to tell you. My great-grandfather--" + +"Couldn't you begin with more modern times?" + +"The story begins back there," insisted the lad, firmly. "The part of +it, at least, that affects me. My great-grandfather founded a church +free to all Christian believers. It stands in our neighborhood. I have +always gone there. I joined the church there. All the different +denominations in our part of the country have held services there. +Sometimes they have all had services together. I grew up to think they +were all equally good Christians in their different ways." + +"Did you?" inquired the pastor. "You and your grandfather and Voltaire +must ALL be kin to each other." + +His visage was not pleasant. + +"My trouble since coming to College," said the lad, pressing across the +interruption, "has been to know which IS the right church--" + +"Are you a member of THIS church?" inquired the pastor sharply, calling +a halt to this folly. + +"I am." + +"Then don't you know that it is the only right one?" + +"I do not. All the others declare it a wrong one. They stand ready to +prove this by the Scriptures and do prove it to their satisfaction. +They declare that if I become a preacher of what my church believes, I +shall become a false teacher of men and be responsible to God for the +souls I may lead astray. They honestly believe this." + +"Don't you know that when Satan has entered into a man, he can make him +honestly believe anything?" + +"And you think it is Satan that keeps the other churches from seeing +this is the only right one?" + +"I do! And beware, young man, that Satan does not get into YOU!" + +"He must be in me already." There was silence again, then the lad +continued. + +"All this is becoming a great trouble to me. It interferes with my +studies--takes my interest out of my future. I come to you then. You +are my pastor. Where is the truth--the reason--the proof--the +authority? Where is the guiding LAW in all this? I must find THE LAW +and that quickly." + +There was no gainsaying his trouble: it expressed itself in his eyes, +voice, entire demeanor. The pastor was not seeing any of these things. +Here was a plain, ignorant country lad who had rejected his logic and +who apparently had not tact enough at this moment to appreciate his own +effrontery. In the whole sensitiveness of man there is no spot so +touchy as the theological. + +"Have you a copy of the New Testament?" + +It was the tone in which the school-master of old times said, "Bring me +that switch." + +"I have," + +"You can read it?" + +"I can." + +"You find in it the inspired account of the faith of the original +church--the earliest history of Apostolic Christianity?" + +"I do." + +"Then, can you not compare the teachings of the Apostles, THEIR faith +and THEIR practice, with the teachings of this church? ITS faith and +ITS practice?" + +"I have tried to do that." + +"Then there is the truth. And the reason. And the proof. And the +authority. And the LAW. We have no creed but the creed of the Apostolic +churches; no practice but their practice; no teaching but their +teaching in letter and in spirit." + +"That is what was told me before I came to college. It was told me that +young men were to be prepared to preach the simple Gospel of Christ to +all the world. There was to be no sectarian theology." + +"Well? Has any one taught you sectarian theology?" + +"Not consciously, not intentionally. Inevitably--perhaps. That is my +trouble now--ONE of my troubles." + +"Well?" + +"May I ask you some questions?" + +"You may ask me some questions if they are not silly questions. You +don't seem to have any creed, but you DO seem to have a catechism! +Well, on with the catechism! I hope it will be better than those I have +read." + +So bidden, the lad began;-- + +"Is it Apostolic Christianity to declare that infants should not be +baptized?" + +"It is!" The reply came like a flash of lightning. + +"And those who teach to the contrary violate the word of God?" + +"They do!" + +"Is it Apostolic Christianity to affirm that only immersion is +Christian baptism?" + +"It is!" + +"And those who use any other form violate the word of God?" + +"They do!" + +"Is it Apostolic Christianity to celebrate the Lord's Supper once every +seven days?" + +"It is!" + +"And all who observe a different custom violate the word of God?" + +"They do!" + +"Is it Apostolic Christianity to have no such officer in the church as +an Episcopal bishop?" + +"It is!" + +"The office of Bishop, then, is a violation of Apostolic Christianity?" + +"It is!" + +"Is it Apostolic Christianity to make every congregation, no matter how +small or influenced by passion, an absolute court of trial and +punishment of his members?" + +"It is!" + +"To give every such body control over the religious standing of its +members, so it may turn them out into the world, banish them from the +church of Christ forever, if it sees fit?" + +"It is!" + +"And those who frame any other system of church government violate +the--" + +"They do!" + +"Is it Apostolic Christianity to teach that faith precedes repentance?" + +"It is!" + +"Those who teach that sorrow for sin is itself the great reason why we +believe in Christ--do they violate--?" + +"They do!" + +"Is it Apostolic Christianity to turn people out of the church for +dancing?" + +"It is!" + +"The use of an organ in worship--is that a violation of Apostolic--?" + +"It is!" + +"Is it Apostolic Christianity to require that the believer in it shall +likewise believe everything in the old Bible?" + +"It is." + +"Did Christ and the Apostles themselves teach that everything contained +in what we call the old Bible must be believed?" + +"They did!" + +The pastor was grasping the arms of his chair, his body bent toward the +lad, his head thrown back, his face livid with sacred rage. He was a +good man, tried and true: God-fearing, God-serving. No fault lay in him +unless it may be imputed for unrighteousness that he was a stanch, +trenchant sectary in his place and generation. As he sat there in the +basement study of his church, his pulpit of authority and his baptismal +pool of regeneration directly over his head, all round him in the city +the solid hundreds of his followers, he forgot himself as a man and a +minister and remembered only that as a servant of the Most High he was +being interrogated and dishonored. His soul shook and thundered within +him to repel these attacks upon his Lord and Master. As those +unexpected random questions had poured in upon him thick and fast, all +emerging, as it seemed to him, like disembodied evil spirits from the +black pit of Satan and the damned, it was joy to him to deal to each +that same straight, God-directed spear-thrust of a reply--killing them +as they rose. His soul exulted in that blessed carnage. + +But the questions ceased. They had hurried out as though there were a +myriad pressing behind--a few issuing bees of an aroused swarm. But +they ceased. The pastor leaned back in his chair and drew a quivering +breath through his white lips. + +"Ask some more!" + +On his side, the lad had lost divine passion as the pastor had gained +it. His interest waned while the pastor's waxed. His last questions +were put so falteringly, almost so inaudibly, that the pastor might +well believe his questioner beaten, brought back to modesty and +silence. To a deeper-seeing eye, however, the truth would have been +plain that the lad was not seeing his pastor at all, but seeing THROUGH +him into his own future: into his life, his great chosen life-work. His +young feet had come in their travels nigh to the limits of his Promised +Land: he was looking over into it. + +"Ask some more! The last of them! Out with them ALL! Make an end of +this now and here!" + +The lad reached for his hat, which he had laid on the floor, and stood +up. He was as pale as the dead. + +"I shall never be able to preach Apostolic Christianity," he said, and +turned to the door. + +But reaching it, he wheeled and came back. + +"I am in trouble!" he cried, sitting down again. "I don't know what to +believe. I don't know what I do believe. My God!" he cried again, +burying his face in his hands. "I believe I am beginning to doubt the +Bible. Great God, what am I coming to! what is my life coming to! ME +doubt the Bible!". . . + +The interview of that day was one of the signs of two storms which were +approaching: one appointed to reach the University, one to reach the +lad. + +The storm now gathering in many quarters and destined in a few years to +burst upon the University was like its other storms that had gone +before: only, this last one left it a ruin which will stay a ruin. + +That oldest, best passion of the Kentucky people for the establishment +in their own land of a broad institution of learning for their own +sons, though revived in David's time on a greater scale than ever +before, was not to be realized. The new University, bearing the name of +the commonwealth and opening at the close of the Civil War as a sign of +the new peace of the new nation, having begun so fairly and risen in a +few years to fourth or fifth place in patronage among all those in the +land, was already entering upon its decline. The reasons of this were +the same that had successively ruined each of its predecessors: the +same old sectarian quarrels, enmities, revenges; the same old political +oppositions and hatreds; the same personal ambitions, jealousies, +strifes. + +Away back in 1780, while every man, woman, and child in the western +wilderness ness was in dire struggle for life itself, those far-seeing +people had induced the General Assembly of Virginia to confiscate and +sell in Kentucky the lands of British Tories, to found a public +seminary for Kentucky boys--not a sectarian school. These same +broad-minded pioneers had later persuaded her to give twenty thousand +acres of her land to the same cause and to exempt officers and students +of the institution from military service. Still later, intent upon this +great work, they had induced Virginia to take from her own beloved +William and Mary one-sixth of all surveyors' fees in the district and +contribute them. The early Kentuckians, for their part, planned and +sold out a lottery--to help along the incorruptible work. For such an +institution Washington and Adams and Aaron Burr and Thomas Marshall and +many another opened their purses. For it thousands and thousands of +dollars were raised among friends scattered throughout the Atlantic +states, these responding to a petition addressed to all religious +sects, to all political parties. A library and philosophical apparatus +were wagoned over the Alleghanies. A committee was sent to England to +choose further equipments. When Kentucky came to have a legislature of +its own, it decreed that each of the counties in the state should +receive six thousand acres of land wherewith to start a seminary; and +that all these county seminaries were to train students for this +long-dreamed-of central institution. That they might not be sent +away--to the North or to Europe. When, at the end of the Civil War, a +fresh attempt (and the last) was made to found in reality and in +perpetuity a home institution to be as good as the best in the +republic, the people rallied as though they had never known defeat. The +idea resounded like a great trumpet throughout the land. Individual, +legislative, congressional aid--all were poured out lavishly for that +one devoted cause. + +Sad chapter in the history of the Kentuckians! Perhaps the saddest +among the many sad ones. + +For such an institution must in time have taught what all its +court-houses and all its pulpits--laws human and divine--have not been +able to teach: it must have taught the noble commonwealth to cease +murdering. Standing there in the heart of the people's land, it must +have grown to stand in the heart of their affections: and so standing, +to stand for peace. For true learning always stands for peace. Letters +always stand for peace. And it is the scholar of the world who has ever +come into it as Christ came: to teach that human life is worth saving +and must be saved. + + + + +VII + + +The storm approaching David was vaster and came faster. + +Several days had passed since his anxious and abruptly terminated +interview with his pastor. During the interval he had addressed no +further inquiries to any man touching his religious doubts. A serious +sign: for when we cease to carry such burdens to those who wait near by +as our recognized counsellors and appointed guides, the inference is +that succor for our peculiar need has there been sought in vain. This +succor, if existent at all, will be found elsewhere in one of two +places: either farther away from home in greater minds whose teaching +has not yet reached us; or still nearer home in what remains as the +last court of inquiry and decision: in the mind itself. With greater +intellects more remote the lad had not yet been put in touch; he had +therefore grown reflective, and for nearly a week had been spending the +best powers of his unaided thought in self-examination. + +He was sitting one morning at his student's table with his Bible and +note-book opened before him, wrestling with his problems still. The +dormitory was very quiet. A few students remained indoors at work, but +most were absent: some gone into the country to preach trial sermons to +trying congregations; some down in the town; some at the college, +practising hymns, or rehearsing for society exhibitions; some scattered +over the campus, preparing Monday lessons on a spring morning when +animal sap stirs intelligently at its sources and sends up its mingled +currents of new energy and new lassitude. + +David had thrown his window wide open, to let in the fine air; his eyes +strayed outward. A few yards away stood a stunted transplanted +locust--one of those uncomplaining asses of the vegetable kingdom whose +mission in life is to carry whatever man imposes. Year after year this +particular tree had remained patiently backed up behind the dormitory, +for the bearing of garments to be dusted or dried. More than once +during the winter, the lad had gazed out of his snow-crusted panes at +this dwarfed donkey of the woods, its feet buried deep in ashes, its +body covered with kitchen wash-rags and Bible students' frozen +underwear. He had reasoned that such soil and such servitude had killed +it. + +But as he looked out of his window now, his eyes caught sight of the +early faltering green in which this exile of the forest was still +struggling to clothe itself--its own life vestments. Its enforced and +artificial function as a human clothes-horse had indeed nearly +destroyed it; but wherever a bud survived, there its true office in +nature was asserted, its ancient kind declared, its growth stubbornly +resumed. + +The moment for the lad may have been one of those in the development of +the young when they suddenly behold familiar objects as with eyes more +clearly opened; when the neutral becomes the decisive; when the sermon +is found in the stone. As he now took curious cognizance of the budding +wood which he, seeing it only in winter, had supposed could not bud +again, he fell to marvelling how constant each separate thing in nature +is to its own life and how sole is its obligation to live that life +only. All that a locust had to do in the world was to be a locust; and +be a locust it would though it perished in the attempt. It drew back +with no hesitation, was racked with no doubt, puzzled with no necessity +of preference. It knew absolutely the law of its own being and knew +absolutely nothing else; found under that law its liberty, found under +that liberty its life. + +"But I," he reflected, "am that which was never sown and never grown +before. All the ages of time, all the generations of men, have not +fixed any type of life for me. What I am to become I must myself each +instant choose; and having chosen, I can never know that I have chosen +best. Often I do know that what I have selected I must discard. And yet +no one choice can ever be replaced by its rejected fellow; the better +chance lost once, is lost eternally. Within the limits of a locust, how +little may the individual wander; within the limits of the wide and +erring human, what may not a man become! What now am I becoming? What +shall I now choose--as my second choice?" + +A certain homely parallel between the tree and himself began to shape +itself before his thought: how he, too, had been dug up far away--had, +in a sense, voluntarily dug himself up--and been transplanted in the +college campus; how, ever since being placed there, the different +sectarian churches of the town had, without exception, begun to pin on +the branches of his mind the many-shaped garments of their dogmas, +until by this time he appeared to himself as completely draped as the +little locust after a heavy dormitory washing. There was this terrible +difference, however: that the garments hung on the tree were anon +removed; but these doctrines and dogmas were fastened to his mind to +stay--as the very foliage of his thought--as the living leaves of +Divine Truth. He was forbidden to strip off one of those sacred leaves. +He was told to live and to breathe his religious life through them, and +to grow only where they hung. + +The lad declared finally to himself this morning, that realize his +religious life through those dogmas he never could; that it was useless +any longer to try. Little by little they would as certainly kill him in +growth and spirit as the rags had killed the locust in sap and bud. +Whatever they might be to others--and he judged no man--for him with +his peculiar nature they could never be life-vestments; they would +become his spiritual grave-clothes. + +The parallel went a little way further: that scant faltering green! +that unconquerable effort of the tree to assert despite all deadening +experiences its old wildwood state! Could he do the like, could he go +back to his? Yearning, sad, immeasurable filled him as he now recalled +the simple faith of what had already seemed to him his childhood. +Through the mist blinding his vision, through the doubts blinding his +brain, still could he see it lying there clear in the near distance! +"No," he cried, "into whatsoever future I may be driven to enter, +closed against me is the peace of my past. Return thither my eyes ever +will, my feet never!" + +"But as I was true to myself then, let me be true now. If I cannot +believe what I formerly believed, let me determine quickly what I CAN +believe. The Truth, the Law--I must find these and quickly!" + +From all of which, though thus obscurely set forth, it will be divined +that the lad had now reached, indeed for some days had stood halting, +at one of the great partings of the ways: when the whole of Life's road +can be walked in by us no longer; when we must elect the half we shall +henceforth follow, and having taken it, ever afterward perhaps look +yearningly back upon the other as a lost trail of the mind. + +The parting of the ways where he had thus faltered, summing up his +bewilderment, and crying aloud for fresh directions, was one +immemorially old in the history of man: the splitting of Life's single +road into the by-paths of Doubt and Faith. Until within less than a +year, his entire youth had been passed in the possession of what he +esteemed true religion. Brought from the country into the town, where +each of the many churches was proclaiming itself the sole incarnation +of this and all others the embodiment of something false, he had, after +months of distracted wandering among their contradictory clamors, +passed as so many have passed before him into that state of mind which +rejects them all and asks whether such a thing as true religion +anywhere exists. + +The parting of Life's road at Doubt and Faith! How many pilgrim feet +throughout the ages, toiling devoutly thus far, have shrunk back before +that unexpected and appalling sign! Disciples of the living Lord, +saints, philosophers, scholars, priests, knights, statesmen--what a +throng! What thoughts there born, prayers there ended, vows there +broken, light there breaking, hearts there torn in twain! Mighty +mountain rock! rising full in the road of journeying humanity. Around +its base the tides of the generations dividing as part the long racing +billows of the sea about some awful cliff. + +The lad closed his note-book, and taking his chair to the window, +folded his arms on the sill and looked out. Soon he noticed what had +escaped him before. Beyond the tree, at the foot of the ash-heap, a +single dandelion had opened. It burned like a steadfast yellow lamp, +low in the edge of the young grass. These two simple things--the locust +leaves, touched by the sun, shaken by the south wind; the dandelion +shining in the grass--awoke in him the whole vision of the spring now +rising anew out of the Earth, all over the land: great Nature! And the +vision of this caused him to think of something else. + +On the Sunday following his talk with the lad, the pastor had preached +the most arousing sermon that the lad had heard: it had grown out of +that interview: it was on modern infidelity--the new infidelity as +contrasted with the old. + +In this sermon he had arraigned certain books as largely responsible. +He called them by their titles. He warned his people against them. Here +recommenced the old story: the lad was at once seized with a desire to +read those books, thus exhibiting again the identical trait that had +already caused him so much trouble. But this trait was perhaps +himself--his core; the demand of his nature to hear both sides, to +judge evidence, test things by his own reason, get at the deepest root +of a matter: to see Truth, and to see Truth whole. + +Curiously enough, these books, and some others, had been much heard of +by the lad since coming to college: once; then several times; then +apparently everywhere and all the time. For, intellectually, they had +become atmospheric: they had to be breathed, as a newly introduced +vital element of the air, whether liked or not liked by the breathers. +They were the early works of the great Darwin, together with some of +that related illustrious group of scientific investigators and +thinkers, who, emerging like promontories, islands, entire new +countries, above the level of the world's knowledge, sent their waves +of influence rushing away to every shore. It was in those years that +they were flowing over the United States, over Kentucky. And as some +volcanic upheaval under mid-ocean will in time rock the tiny boat of a +sailor boy in some little sheltered bay on the other side of the +planet, so the sublime disturbance in the thought of the civilized +world in the second half of the nineteenth century had reached David. + +Sitting at his window, looking out blindly for help and helpers amid +his doubts, seeing the young green of the locust, the yellow of the +dandelion, he recalled the names of those anathematized books, which +were described as dealing so strangely with nature and with man's place +in it. The idea dominated him at last to go immediately and get those +books. + +A little later he might have been seen quitting the dormitory and +taking his way with a dubious step across the campus into the town. + +Saturday forenoons of spring were busy times for the town in those +days. Farmers were in, streets were crowded with their horses and +buggies and rockaways, with live stock, with wagons hauling cord-wood, +oats, hay, and hemp. Once, at a crossing, David waited while a wagon +loaded with soft, creamy, gray hemp creaked past toward a factory. He +sniffed with relish the tar of the mud-packed wheels; he put out a hand +and stroked the heads drawn close in familiar bales. + +Crowded, too, of Saturdays was the book-shop to which the students +usually resorted for their supplies. Besides town customers and country +customers, the pastor of the church often dropped in and sat near the +stove, discoursing, perhaps, to some of his elders, or to reverent +Bible students, or old acquaintances. A small, tight, hot, +metal-smelling stove--why is it so enjoyable by a dogmatist? + +As David made his way to the rear of the long bookshelves, which +extended back toward the stove, the pastor rose and held out his hand +with hearty warmth--and a glance of secret solicitude. The lad looked +sheepish with embarrassment; not until accosted had he himself realized +what a stray he had become from his pastor's flock and fold. And he +felt that he ought instantly to tell the pastor this was the case. But +the pastor had reseated himself and regripped his masterful monologue. +The lad was more than embarrassed; he felt conscious of a new +remorseful tenderness for this grim, righteous man, now that he had +emancipated mind and conscience from his teaching: so true it often is +that affection is possible only where obedience is not demanded. He +turned off sorrowfully to the counter, and a few moments later, getting +the attention of the clerk, asked in a low conscience-stricken tone for +"The Origin of Species" and "The Descent of Man"; conscience-stricken +at the sight of the money in his palm to pay for them. + +"What are you going to do with these?" inquired a Bible student who had +joined him at the counter and fingered the books. + +"Read them," said the lad, joyously, "and understand them if I can." + +He pinned them against his heart with his elbow and all but ran back to +the dormitory. Having reached there, he altered his purpose and instead +of mounting to his room, went away off to a quiet spot on the campus +and, lying down in the grass under the wide open sky, opened his wide +Darwin. + +It was the first time in his life that he had ever encountered outside +of the Bible a mind of the highest order, or listened to it, as it +delivered over to mankind the astounding treasures of its knowledge and +wisdom in accents of appealing, almost plaintive modesty. + +That day the lad changed his teachers. + +Of the session more than two months yet remained. Every few days he +might have been seen at the store, examining books, drawing money +reluctantly from his pocket, hurrying away with another volume. +Sometimes he would deliver to the clerk the title of a work written on +a slip of paper: an unheard-of book; to be ordered--perhaps from the +Old World. For one great book inevitably leads to another. They have +their parentage, kinship, generations. They are watch-towers in sight +of each other on the same human highway. They are strands in a single +cable belting the globe. Link by link David's investigating hands were +slipping eagerly along a mighty chain of truths, forged separately by +the giants of his time and now welded together in the glowing thought +of the world. + +Not all of these were scientific works. Some were works which followed +in the wake of the new science, with rapid applications of its methods +and results to other subjects, scarce conterminous or not even germane. +For in the light of the great central idea of Evolution, all +departments of human knowledge had to be reviewed, reconsidered, +reconceived, rearranged, rewritten. Every foremost scholar of the +world, kindling his own personal lamp at that central sunlike radiance, +retired straightway into his laboratory of whatsoever kind and found it +truly illuminated for the first time. His lamp seemed to be of two +flames enwrapped as one; a baleful and a benign. Whenever it shone upon +anything that was true, it made this stand out the more clear, +valuable, resplendent. But wherever it uncovered the false, it darted +thereat a swift tongue of flame, consuming without mercy the ancient +rubbish of the mind. Vast purification of the world by the fire of +truth! There have been such purifications before; but never perhaps in +the history of the race was so much burned out of the intellectual path +of man as during the latter half of the nineteenth century. + +There is a sort of land which receives in autumn, year by year, the +deposit of its own dead leaves and weeds and grasses without either the +winds and waters to clear these away or the soil to reabsorb and +reconvert them into the materials of reproduction. Thus year by year +the land tends farther toward sterility by the very accumulation of +what was once its life. But send a forest fire across those smothering +strata of vegetable decay; give once more a chance for every root below +to meet the sun above; for every seed above to reach the ground below; +soon again the barren will be the fertile, the desert blossom as the +rose. It is so with the human mind. It is ever putting forth a thousand +things which are the expression of its life for a brief season. These +myriads of things mature, ripen, bear their fruit, fall back dead upon +the soil of the mind itself. That mind may be the mind of an +individual; it may be the mind of a century, a race, a civilization. To +the individual, then, to a race, a civilization, a century, arrives the +hour when it must either consume its own dead or surrender its own +life. These hours are the moral, the intellectual revolutions of +history. + +The new science must not only clear the stagnant ground for the growth +of new ideas, it must go deeper. Not enough that rubbish should be +burned: old structures of knowledge and faith, dangerous, tottering, +unfit to be inhabited longer, must be shaken to their foundations. It +brought on therefore a period of intellectual upheaval and of drift, +such as was once passed through by the planet itself. What had long +stood locked and immovable began to move; what had been high sank out +of sight; what had been low was lifted. The mental hearing, listening +as an ear placed amid still mountains, could gather into itself from +afar the slip and fall of avalanches. Whole systems of belief which had +chilled the soul for centuries, dropped off like icebergs into the +warming sea and drifted away, melting into nothingness. + +The minds of many men, witnessing this double ruin by flame and +earthquake, are at such times filled with consternation: to them it +seems that nothing will survive, that beyond these cataclysms there +will never again be stability and peace--a new and better age, safer +footing, wider horizons, clearer skies. + +It was so now. The literature of the New Science was followed by a +literature of new Doubt and Despair. But both of these were followed by +yet another literature which rejected alike the New Science and the New +Doubt, and stood by all that was included under the old beliefs. The +voices of these three literatures filled the world: they were the +characteristic notes of that half-century, heard sounding together: the +Old Faith, the New Science, the New Doubt. And they met at a single +point; they met at man's place in Nature, at the idea of God, and in +that system of thought and creed which is Christianity. + +It was at this sublime meeting-place of the Great Three that this +untrained and simple lad soon arrived--searching for the truth. Here he +began to listen to them, one after another: reading a little in science +(he was not prepared for that), a little in the old faith, but most in +the new doubt. For this he was ready; toward this he had been driven. + +Its earliest effects were soon exhibited in him as a student. He +performed all required work, slighted no class, shirked no rule, +transgressed no restriction. But he asked no questions of any man now, +no longer roved distractedly among the sects, took no share in the +discussions rife in his own church. There were changes more +significant: he ceased to attend the Bible students' prayer-meeting at +the college or the prayer-meeting of the congregation in the town; he +would not say grace at those evening suppers of the Disciples; he +declined the Lord's Supper; his voice was not heard in the choir. He +was, singularly enough, in regular attendance at morning and night +services of the church; but he entered timidly, apologetically, sat as +near as possible to the door, and slipped out a little before the +people were dismissed: his eyes had been fixed respectfully on his +pastor throughout the sermon, but his thoughts were in other temples. + + + + +VIII + + +The session reached its close. The students were scattered far among +the villages, farms, cities of many states. Some never to return, +having passed from the life of a school into the school of life; some, +before vacation ended, gone with their laughter and vigor into the +silence of the better Teacher. + +Over at the dormitory the annual breaking-up of the little band of +Bible students had, as always, been affecting. Calm, cool, bright day +of June! when the entire poor tenement house was fragrant with flowers +brought from commencement; when a south wind sent ripples over the +campus grass; and outside the campus, across the street, the yards were +glowing with roses. Oh, the roses of those young days, how sweet, how +sweet they were! How much sweeter now after the long, cruel, evil +suffering years which have passed and gone since they faded! + +The students were dispersed, and David sat at his table by his open +window, writing to his father and mother. + +After telling them he had stood well in his classes, and giving some +descriptions of the closing days and ceremonies of the college, for he +knew how interested they would be in reading about these things, he +announced that he was not coming home. He enclosed a part of the funds +still on hand, and requested his father to hire a man in his place to +work on the farm during the summer. He said nothing of his doubts and +troubles, but gave as the reason of his remaining away what indeed the +reason was: that he wished to study during the vacation; it was the +best chance he had ever had, perhaps would ever have; and it was of the +utmost importance to him to settle a great many questions before the +next session of the Bible College opened. His expenses would be small. +He had made arrangements with the wife of the janitor to take charge of +his room and his washing and to give him his meals: his room itself +would not cost him anything, and he did not need any more clothes. + +It was hard to stay away from them. Not until separated, had he +realized how dear they were to him. He could not bear even to write +about all that. And he was homesick for the sight of the farm,--the +horses and cows and sheep,--for the sight of Captain. But he must +remain where he was; what he had to do must be done quickly--a great +duty was involved. And they must write to him oftener because he would +need their letters, their love, more than ever now. And so God keep +them in health and bless them. And he was their grateful son, who too +often had been a care to them, who could never forget the sacrifices +they had made to send him to college, and whose only wish was that he +might not cause them any disappointment in the future. + +This letter drew a quick reply from his father. He returned the money, +saying that he had done better on the farm than he had expected and did +not need it, and that he had a man employed, his former slave. Sorry as +they were not to see him that summer, still they were glad of his +desire to study through vacation. His own life had not been very +successful; he had tried hard, but had failed. For a longtime now he +had been accepting the failure as best he could. But compensation for +all this were the new interests, hopes, ambitions, which centred in the +life of his son. To see him a minister, a religious leader among +men--that would be happiness enough for him. His family had always been +a religious people. One thing he was already looking forward to: he +wanted his son to preach his first sermon in the neighborhood church +founded by the lad's great-grandfather--that would be the proudest hour +of his life and in the lad's mother's. There were times in the past +when perhaps he had been hard on him, not understanding him; this only +made his wish the greater to aid him now in every way, at any cost. +When they were not talking of him at home, they were thinking of him. +And they blessed God that He had given them such a son. Let him not be +troubled about the future; they knew that he would never disappoint +them. + +David sat long immovable before that letter. + +One other Bible student remained. On the campus, not far from the +dormitory, stood a building of a single story, of several rooms. In one +of these rooms there lived, with his family, that tall, gaunt, shaggy, +middle-aged man, in his shiny black coat and paper collars, without any +cravats, who had been the lad's gentle monitor on the morning of his +entering college. He, too, was to spend the summer there, having no +means of getting away with his wife and children. Though he sometimes +went off himself, to hold meetings where he could and for what might be +paid him; now preaching and baptizing in the mountains; now back again, +laboring in his shirt-sleeves at the Pentateuch and the elementary +structure of the English language. Such troubles as David's were not +for him; nor science nor doubt. His own age contained him as a green +field might hold a rock. Not that this kind, faithful, helpful soul was +a lifeless stone; but that he was as unresponsive to the movements of +his time as a boulder is to the energies of a field. Alive in his own +sublime way he was, and inextricably rooted in one ever-living book +alone--the Bible. + +This middle-aged, childlike man, settled near David as his neighbor, +was forever a reminder to him of the faith he once had had--the faith +of his earliest youth, the faith of his father and mother. Sometimes +when the day's work was done and the sober, still twilights came on, +this reverent soul, sitting with his family gathered about him near the +threshold of his single homeless room,--his oldest boy standing beside +his chair, his wife holding in her lap the sleeping babe she had just +nursed,--would begin to sing. The son's voice joined the father's; the +wife's followed the son's, in their usual hymn:-- + + "How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, + Is laid for your faith in His excellent word." + +Up in his room, a few hundred yards away, the lad that moment might be +trimming his lamp for a little more reading. More than once he waited, +listening in the darkness, to the reliant music of the stalwart, stern +old poem. How devotedly he too had been used to sing it! + +That summer through, then, he kept on at the work of trying to settle +things before college reopened--things which involved a great duty. +Where the new thought of the age attacked dogma, Revelation, +Christianity most, there most he read. He was not the only reader. He +was one of a multitude which no man could know or number; for many read +in secret. Ministers of the Gospel read in secret in their libraries, +and locked the books away when their church officers called +unexpectedly. On Sunday, mounting their pulpits, they preached +impassioned sermons concerning faith--addressed to the doubts, ravaging +their own convictions and consciences. + +Elders and deacons read and kept the matter hid from their pastors. +Physicians and lawyers read and spoke not a word to their wives and +children. In the church, from highest ecclesiastic and layman, wherever +in the professions a religious, scientific, scholarly mind, there was +felt the central intellectual commotion of those years--the Battle of +the Great Three. + +And now summer was gone, the students flocking in, the session +beginning. David reentered his classes. Inwardly he drew back from this +step; yet take any other, throw up the whole matter,--that he could not +do. With all his lifelong religious sense he held on to the former +realities, even while his grasp was loosening. + +But this could not endure. University life as a Bible student and +candidate for the ministry, every day and many times every day, +required of him duties which he could not longer conscientiously +discharge; they forced from him expressions regarding his faith which +made it only too plain both to himself and to others how much out of +place he now was. + +So the crisis came, as come it must. + +Autumn had given place to winter, to the first snows, thawing during +the day, freezing at night. The roofs of the town were partly brown, +partly white; icicles hung lengthening from the eaves. It was the date +on which the university closed for the Christmas holidays--Friday +afternoon preceding. All day through the college corridors, or along +the snow-paths leading to the town, there had been the glad noises of +that wild riotous time: whistle and song and shout and hurrying feet, +gripping hands, good wishes, and good-bys. One by one the sounds had +grown fewer, fainter, and had ceased; the college was left in emptiness +and silence, except in a single lecture room in one corner of the +building, from the windows of which you looked out across the town and +toward the west; there the scene took place. + +It was at the door of this room that the lad, having paused a moment +outside to draw a deep, quivering breath, knocked, and being told to +come in, entered, closed the door behind him, and sat down white and +trembling in the nearest chair. About the middle of the room were +seated the professors of the Bible College and his pastor. They rose, +and calling him forward shook hands with him kindly, sorrowfully, and +pointed to a seat before them, resuming their own. + +Before them, then, sat the lad, facing the wintry light; and there was +a long silence. Every one knew beforehand what the result would be. It +was the best part of a year since that first interview in the pastor's +study; there had been other interviews--with the pastor, with the +professors. They had done what they could to check him, to bring him +back. They had long been counsellors; now in duty they were +authorities, sitting to hear him finally to the end, that they might +pronounce sentence: that would be the severance of his connection with +the university and his expulsion from the church. + +Old, old scene in the history of Man--the trial of his Doubt by his +Faith: strange day of judgment, when one half of the human spirit +arraigns and condemns the other half. Only five persons sat in that +room--four men and a boy. The room was of four bare walls and a +blackboard, with perhaps a map or two of Palestine, Egypt, and the +Roman Empire in the time of Paul. The era was the winter of the year +1868, the place was an old town of the Anglo-Saxon backwoodsmen, on the +blue-grass highlands of Kentucky. But in how many other places has that +scene been enacted, before what other audiences of the accusing and the +accused, under what laws of trial, with what degrees and rigors of +judgment! Behind David, sitting solitary there in the flesh, the +imagination beheld a throng so countless as to have been summoned and +controlled by the deep arraigning eye of Dante alone. Unawares, he +stood at the head of an invisible host, which stretched backward +through time till it could be traced no farther. Witnesses all to that +sublime, indispensable part of man which is his Doubt--Doubt respecting +his origin, his meaning, his Maker, and his destiny. That perpetual +half-night of his planet-mind--that shadowed side of his +orbit-life--forever attracted and held in place by the force of Deity, +but destined never to receive its light. Yet from that chill, bleak +side what things have not reached round and caught the sun! And as of +the earth's plants, some grow best and are sweetest in darkness, what +strange blossoms of faith open and are fragrant in that eternal umbra! +Sacred, sacred Doubt of Man. His agony, his searching! which has led +him always onward from more ignorance to less ignorance, from less +truth to more truth; which is the inspiration of his mind, the sorrow +of his heart; which has spoken everywhere in his science, philosophy, +literature, art--in his religion itself; which keeps him humble not +vain, changing not immutable, charitable not bigoted; which attempts to +solve the universe and knows that it does not solve it, but ever seeks +to trace law, to clarify reason, and so to find whatever truth it can. + +As David sat before his professors and his pastor, it was one of the +moments that sum up civilization. + +Across the room, behind them also, what a throng! Over on that side was +Faith, that radiant part of the soul which directly basks in the light +of God, the sun. There, visible to the eye of imagination, were those +of all times, places, and races, who have sat in judgment on doubters, +actual or suspected. In whatsoever else differing, united in this: that +they have always held themselves to be divinely appointed agents of the +Judge of all the earth: His creatures chosen to punish His creatures. +And so behind those professors, away back in history, were ranged +Catholic popes and Protestant archbishops, and kings and queens, +Protestant and Catholic, and great mediaeval jurists, and mailed +knights and palm-bearing soldiers of the cross, and holy inquisitors +drowning poor old bewildered women, tearing living flesh from flesh as +paper, crushing bones like glass, burning the shrieking human body to +cinders: this in the name of a Christ whose Gospel was mercy, and by +the authority of a God whose law was love. They were all there, tier +after tier, row above row, a vast shadowy colosseum of intent judicial +faces--Defenders of the Faith. + +But no inquisitor was in this room now, nor punitive intention, nor +unkind thought. Slowly throughout the emerging life of man this +identical trial has gained steadily in charity and mildness. Looking +backward over his long pathway through bordering mysteries, man himself +has been brought to see, time and again, that what was his doubt was +his ignorance; what was his faith was his error; that things rejected +have become believed, and that things believed have become rejected; +that both his doubt and his faith are the temporary condition of his +knowledge, which is ever growing; and that rend him faith and doubt +ever will, but destroy him, never. + +No Smithfield fire, then, no Jesuitical rack, no cup of hemlock, no +thumb-screw, no torture of any kind for David. Still, here was a duty +to be done, an awful responsibility to be discharged in sorrow and with +prayer; and grave good men they were. Blameless was this lad in all +their eyes save in his doubt. But to doubt--was not that the greatest +of sins? + +The lad soon grew composed. These judges were still his friends, not +his masters. His masters were the writers of the books in which he +believed, and he spoke for them, for what he believed to be the truth, +so far as man had learned it. The conference lasted through that short +winter afternoon. In all that he said the lad showed that he was full +of many confusing voices: the voices of the new science, the voices of +the new doubt. One voice only had fallen silent in him: the voice of +the old faith. + +It had grown late. Twilight was descending on the white campus, on the +snow-capped town. Away in the west, beyond the clustered house-tops, +there had formed itself the solemn picture of a red winter sunset. The +light entered the windows and fell on the lad's face. One last question +had just been asked him by the most venerable and beloved of his +professors--in tones awe-stricken, and tremulous with his own humility, +and with compassion for the erring boy before him,-- + +"Do you not even believe in God?" + +Ah, that question! which shuts the gates of consciousness upon us when +we enter sleep, and sits close outside our eyelids as we waken; which +was framed in us ere we were born, which comes fullest to life in us as +life itself ebbs fastest. That question which exacts of the finite to +affirm whether it apprehends the Infinite, that prodding of the evening +midge for its opinion of the polar star. + +"Do you not even believe in God?" + +The lad stood up, he whose life until these months had been a prayer, +whose very slumbers had been worship. He stood up, from some +impulse--perhaps the respectful habit of rising when addressed in class +by this professor. At first he made no reply, but remained looking over +the still heads of his elders into that low red sunset sky. How often +had he beheld it, when feeding the stock at frozen twilights. One +vision rose before him now of his boyhood life at home--his hopes of +the ministry--the hemp fields where he had toiled--his father and +mother waiting before the embers this moment, mindful of him. He +recalled how often, in the last year, he had sat upon his bedside at +midnight when all were asleep, asking himself that question:-- + +"Do I believe in God?" + +And now he was required to lay bare what his young soul had been able +to do with that eternal mystery. + +He thrust his big coarse hand into his breast-pocket and drew out a +little red morocco Testament which had been given him when he was +received into the congregation. He opened it at a place where it seemed +used to lie apart. He held it before his face, but could not read. At +last, controlling himself, he said to them with dignity, and with the +common honesty which was the life of him:-- + +"I read you a line which is the best answer I can give just now to your +last question." + +And so he read:-- + +"Lord, I believe; help Thou my unbelief!" + +A few moments later he turned to another page and said to them:-- + +"These lines also I desire to read to you who believe in Christ and +believe that Christ and God are one. I may not understand them, but I +have thought of them a great deal:--" + +"'And if any man hear my words and believe not, I judge him not: for I +came not to judge the world but to save the world.'" + +"'He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my words, hath one that +judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in +the last day.'" + +He shut his Testament and put it back into his pocket and looked at his +judges. + +"I understand this declaration of Christ to mean," he said, "that +whether I believe in Him or do not believe in Him, I am not to be +judged till God's Day of Judgment." + + + + +IX + + +A few days later David was walking across the fields on his way home: +it was past the middle of the afternoon. + +At early candle-light that morning, the huge red stage-coach, leaving +town for his distant part of the country, had rolled, creaking and +rattling, to the dormitory entrance, the same stage that had conveyed +him thither. Throwing up his window he had looked out at the curling +white breath of the horses and at the driver, who, buried in coats and +rugs, and holding the lash of his whip in his mittened fist, peered up +and called out with no uncertain temper. + +The lad was ready. He hastily carried down the family umbrella and the +Brussels carpet valise with its copious pink roses, looking strangely +out of season amid all that hoar frost. Then he leaped back upstairs +for something which had been added to his worldly goods since he +entered college--a small, cheap trunk, containing a few garments and +the priceless books. These things the driver stored in the boot of the +stage, bespattered with mud now frozen. Then, running back once more, +the lad seized his coat and hat, cast one troubled glance around the +meaningless room which had been the theatre of such a drama in his +life, went over to the little table, and blew out his Bible Student's +lamp forever; and hurrying down with a cordial "all ready," climbed to +the seat beside the driver and was whirled away. + +He turned as he passed from the campus to take a last look at Morrison +College, standing back there on the hill, venerable, majestical, +tight-closed, its fires put out. As he crossed the city (for there were +passengers to be picked up and the mail-bag to be gotten), he took +unspoken leave of many other places: of the bookstore where he had +bought the masterpieces of his masters; of the little Italian +apple-man--who would never again have so simple a customer for his +slightly damaged fruit; of several tall, proud, well-frosted church +spires now turning rosy in the sunrise; of a big, handsome house +standing in a fashionable street, with black coal smoke pouring out of +the chimneys. There the friends of his boyhood "boarded"; there they +were now, asleep in luxurious beds, or gone away for the holidays, he +knew not which: all he did know was that they were gone far away from +him along life's other pathways. + +Soon the shops on each side were succeeded by homesteads; gradually +these stood farther apart as farm-houses set back from the highroad; +the street had become a turnpike, they were in open country and the lad +was on his way to his father and mother. + +In the afternoon, at one of the stops for watering horses, he had his +traps and trappings put out. From this place a mud road wound across +the country to his neighborhood; and at a point some two miles distant, +a pair of bars tapped it as an outlet and inlet for the travel on his +father's land. + +Leaving his things at the roadside farmhouse with the promise that he +would return for them, the lad struck out--not by the lane, but +straight across country. + +It was a mild winter day without wind, without character--one of the +days on which Nature seems to take no interest in herself and creates +no interest in others. The sky was overcrowded with low, ragged clouds, +without discernible order or direction. Nowhere a yellow sunbeam +glinting on any object, but vast jets of misty radiance shot downward +in far-diverging lines toward the world: as though above the clouds +were piled the waters of light and this were scant escaping spray. + +He walked on, climbing the fences, coming on the familiar sights of +winter woods and fields. Having been away from them for the first time +and that during more than a year, with what feelings he now beheld them! + +Crows about the corn shocks, flying leisurely to the stake-and-ridered +fence: there alighting with their tails pointing toward him and their +heads turned sideways over one shoulder; but soon presenting their +breasts seeing he did not hunt. The solitary caw of one of them--that +thin, indifferent comment of their sentinel, perched on the silver-gray +twig of a sycamore. In another field the startled flutter of field +larks from pale-yellow bushes of ground-apple. Some boys out +rabbit-hunting in the holidays, with red cheeks and gay woollen +comforters around their hot necks and jeans jackets full of Spanish +needles: one shouldering a gun, one carrying a game-bag, one eating an +apple: a pack of dogs and no rabbit. The winter brooks, trickling +through banks of frozen grass and broken reeds; their clear brown water +sometimes open, sometimes covered with figured ice. + +Red cattle in one distant wood, moving tender-footed around the edge of +a pond. The fall of a forest tree sounding distinct amid the reigning +stillness--felled for cord wood. And in one field--right there before +him!--the chopping sound of busy hemp brakes and the sight of negroes, +one singing a hymn. Oh, the memories, the memories! + +By and by he reached the edge of his father's land, climbed to the +topmost rail of the boundary fence and sat there, his eyes glued to the +whole scene. It lay outspread before him, the entirety of that farm. He +had never realized before how little there was of it, how little! He +could see all around it, except where the woods hid the division fence +on one side. And the house, standing in the still air of the winter +afternoon, with its rotting roof and low red chimneys partly obscured +by scraggy cedars--how small it had become! How poor, how wretched +everything--the woodpile, the cabin, the hen-house, the ice-house, the +barn! Was this any part of the great world? It was one picture of +desolation, the creeping paralysis of a house and farm. Did anything +even move? + +Something did move. A column of blue smoke moved straight and thin from +the chimney of his father's and mother's room. In a far corner of the +stable lot, pawing and nozzling some remnants of fodder, were the old +horses. By the hay-rick he discovered one of the sheep, the rest being +on the farther side. The cows by and by filed slowly around from behind +the barn and entered the doorless milking stalls. Suddenly his dog +emerged from one of those stalls, trotting cautiously, then with a +playful burst of speed went in a streak across the lot toward the +kitchen. A negro man issued from the cabin, picked out a log, knocked +the ashes out of his pipe in the palm of his hand, and began to cut the +firewood for the night. + +All this did not occur at once: he had been sitting there a long +time--heart-sick with the thought of the tragedy he was bringing home. +How could he ever meet them, ever tell them? How would they ever +understand? If he could only say to his father: "I have sinned and I +have broken your heart: but forgive me." But he could not say this: he +did not believe that he had done wrong. Yet all that he would now have +to show in their eyes would be the year of his wasted life, and a trunk +full of the books that had ruined him. + +Ah, those two years before he had started to college, during which they +had lived happily together! Their pride in him! their self-denial, +affection--all because he was to be a scholar and a minister! + +He fancied he could see them as they sat in the house this moment, not +dreaming he was anywhere near. One on each side of the fireplace; his +mother wearing her black dress and purple shawl: a ball of yarn and +perhaps a tea-cake in her lap; some knitting on her needles; she knit, +she never mended. But his father would be mending--leather perhaps, and +sewing, as he liked to sew, with hog bristles--the beeswax and the awls +lying in the bottom of a chair drawn to his side. There would be no +noises in the room otherwise: he could hear the stewing of the sap in +the end of a fagot, the ticking of one clock, the fainter ticking of +another in the adjoining room, like a disordered echo. They would not +be talking; they would be thinking of him. He shut his eyes, compressed +his lips, shook his head resolutely, and leaped down. + +He had gone about twenty yards, when he heard a quick, incredulous bark +down by the house and his dog appeared in full view, looking up that +way, motionless. Then he came on running and barking resentfully, and a +short distance off stopped again. + +"Captain," he called with a quivering voice. + +With ears laid back and one cry of joy the dog was on him. The lad +stooped and drew him close. Neither at that moment had any articulate +speech nor needed it. As soon as he was released, the dog, after +several leaps toward his face, was off in despair either of expressing +or of containing his joy, to tell the news at the house. David +laggingly followed. + +As he stepped upon the porch, piled against the wall beside the door +were fagots as he used to see them. When he reached the door itself, he +stopped, gazing foolishly at those fagots, at the little gray lichens +on them: he could not knock, he could not turn the knob without +knocking. But his step had been heard. His mother opened the door and +peered curiously out. + +"Why, it's Davy!" she cried. "Davy! Davy!" + +She dropped her knitting and threw her arms around him. + +"David! David!" exclaimed his father, with a glad proud voice inside. +"Why, my son, my son!" + +"Ah, he's sick--he's come home sick!" cried the mother, holding him a +little way off to look at his face. "Ah! the poor fellow's sick! Come +in, come in. And this is why we had no letter! And to think yesterday +was Christmas Day! And we had the pies and the turkey!" + +"My son, are you unwell--have you been unwell? Sit here, lie here." + +The lad's face was overspread with ghastly pallor; he had lost control +of himself. + +"I have not been sick. I am perfectly well," he said at length, looking +from one to the other with forlorn, remorseful affection. They had +drawn a chair close, one on each side of him. "How are you, mother? How +are you, father?" + +The change in HIM!--that was all they saw. As soon as he spoke, they +knew he was in good health. Then the trouble was something else, more +terrible. The mother took refuge in silence as a woman instinctively +does at such times; the father sought relief in speech. + +"What is the matter? What happened?" + +After a moment of horrible silence, David spoke:-- + +"Ah, father! How can I ever tell you!" + +"How can you ever tell me?" + +The rising anger mingled with distrust and fear in those words! How +many a father knows! + +"Oh, what is it!" cried his mother, wringing her hands, and bursting +into tears. She rose and went to her seat under the mantelpiece. + +"What have you done?" said his father, also rising and going back to +his seat. + +There was a new sternness in his voice; but the look which returned +suddenly to his eyes was the old life-long look. + +The lad sat watching his father, dazed by the tragedy he was facing. + +"It is my duty to tell you as soon as possible--I suppose I ought to +tell you now." + +"Then speak--why do you sit there--" + +The words choked him. + +"Oh! oh!--" + +"Mother, don't!--" + +"What is it?" + +"Father, I have been put out of college and expelled from the church." + +How loud sounded the minute noises of the fire--the clocks--the blows +of an axe at the woodpile--the lowing of a cow at the barn. + +"FOR WHAT?" + +The question was put at length in a voice flat and dead. It summed up a +lifetime of failure and admitted it. After an interval it was put +again:-- + +"FOR WHAT?" + +"I do not believe the Bible any longer. I do not believe in +Christianity." + +"Oh, don't do THAT!" + +The cry proceeded from David's mother, who crossed quickly and sat +beside her husband, holding his hand, perhaps not knowing her own +motive. + +This, then, was the end of hope and pride, the reward of years of +self-denial, the insult to all this poverty. For the time, even the +awful nature of his avowal made no impression. + +After a long silence, the father asked feebly:-- + +"WHY HAVE YOU COME BACK HERE?" + +Suddenly he rose, and striding across to his son, struck him one blow +with his mind:-- + +"OH, I ALWAYS KNEW THERE WAS NOTHING IN YOU!" + +It was a kick of the foot. + + + + +X + + +More than two months had passed. Twilight of closing February was +falling over the frozen fields. The last crow had flapped low and +straight toward the black wood beyond the southern horizon. No sunset +radiance streamed across the wide land, for all day a solitude of cloud +had stretched around the earth, bringing on the darkness now before its +time. + +In a small hemp field on an edge of the vast Kentucky table-land, a +solitary breaker kept on at his work. The splintered shards were piled +high against his brake: he had not paused to clear them out of his way +except around his bootlegs. Near by, the remnant of the shock had +fallen over, clods of mingled frost and soil still sticking to the +level butt-ends. Several yards to windward, where the dust and refuse +might not settle on it, lay the pile of gray-tailed hemp,--the coarsest +of man's work, but finished as conscientiously as an art. From the +warming depths of this, rose the head and neck of a common shepherd +dog, his face turned uneasily but patiently toward the worker. Whatever +that master should do, whether understood or not, was right to him; he +did not ask to understand, but to love and to serve. Farther away in +another direction leaned the charred rind of a rotting stump. At +intervals the rising wind blew the ashes away, exposing live +coals--that fireside of the laborer, wandering with him from spot to +spot over the bitter lonely spaces. + +The hemp breaker had just gone to the shock and torn away another +armful, dragging the rest down. Exhausting to the picked and powerful, +the work seemed easy to him; for he was a young man of the greatest +size and strength, moulded in the proportions which Nature often +chooses for her children of the soil among that people. Striding +rapidly back to his brake, the clumsy five-slatted device of the +pioneer Kentuckians, he raised the handle and threw the armful of +stalks crosswise between the upper and the lower blades. Then swinging +the handle high, with his body wrenched violently forward and the +strength of his good right arm put forth, he brought it down. The +CRASH, CRASH, CRASH could have been heard far through the still air; +for it is the office of those dull blades to hack their way as through +a bundle of dead rods. + +A little later he stopped abruptly, with silent inquiry turning his +face to the sky: a raindrop had fallen on his hand. Two or three drops +struck his face as he waited. It had been very cold that morning, too +cold for him to come out to work. Though by noon it had moderated, it +was cold still; but out of the warmer currents of the upper atmosphere, +which was now the noiseless theatre of great changes going forward +unshared as yet by the strata below, sank these icy globules of the +winter rain. Their usual law is to freeze during descent into the +crystals of snow; rarely they harden after they fall, covering the +earth with sleet. + +David, by a few quick circular motions of the wrist, freed his left +hand from the half-broken hemp, leaving the bundle trailing across the +brake. Then he hurried to the heap of well-cleaned fibre: that must not +be allowed to get wet. The dog leaped out and stood to one side, +welcoming the end of the afternoon labor and the idea of returning +home. Not many minutes were required for the hasty baling, and David +soon rested a moment beside his hemp, ready to lift it to his +shoulders. But he felt disappointed. There lay the remnant of the +shock. He had worked hard to finish it before sunset Would there not +still be time? + +The field occupied one of the swelling knolls of the landscape; his +brake was set this day on the very crown of a hill. As he asked himself +that question, he lifted his eyes and far away through the twilight, +lower down, he saw the flash of a candle already being carried about in +the kitchen. At the opposite end of the house the glow of firelight +fell on the window panes of his father's and mother's room. Even while +he observed this, it was intercepted: his mother thus early was closing +the shutters for the night. + +Too late! He gave up the thought of finishing his shock, recollecting +other duties. But he remained in his attitude a few moments; for the +workman has a curious unconscious habit of taking a final survey of the +scene of his labor before quitting it. David now glanced first up at +the sky, with dubious forethought of to-morrow's weather. The raindrops +had ceased to fall, but he was too good a countryman not to foresee +unsettled conditions. The dog standing before him and watching his +face, uttered an uneasy whine as he noted that question addressed to +the clouds: at intervals during the afternoon he had been asking his +question also. Then those live coals in the rind of the stump and the +danger of sparks blown to the hemp herds or brake, or fence farther +away: David walked over and stamped them out. As he returned, he +fondled the dog's head in his big, roughened hand. + +"Captain," he said, "are you hungry?" + +All at once he was attracted by a spectacle and forgot everything else. +For as he stood there beside his bale of hemp in the dead fields, his +throat and eyes filled with dust, the dust all over him, low on the +dark red horizon there had formed itself the solemn picture of a winter +sunset. Amid the gathering darkness the workman remained gazing toward +that great light--into the stillness of it--the loneliness--the eternal +peace. On his rugged face an answering light was kindled, the glory of +a spiritual passion, the flame of immortal things alive in his soul. +More akin to him seemed that beacon fire of the sky--more nearly his +real pathway home appeared that distant road and gateway to the +Infinite--than the flickering, near house-taper in the valley below. +Once before, on the most memorable day of his life, David had beheld a +winter sunset like that; but then across the roofs of a town--roofs +half white, half brown with melting snow, and with lengthening icicles +dripping in the twilight. + +Suddenly, as if to shut out troubled thoughts, he stooped and, throwing +his big, long arms about the hemp, lifted it to his shoulder. "Come, +Captain," he called to his companion, and stalked heavily away. As he +went, he began to hum an ancient, sturdy hymn:-- + + "How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, + Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word. + The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design + Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine." + +He had once been used to love those words and to feel the rocklike +basis of them as fixed unshakably beneath the rolling sea of the music; +now he sang the melody only. A little later, as though he had no right +to indulge himself even in this, it died on the air; and only the noise +of his thick, stiffened boots could have been heard crushing the frozen +stubble, as he went staggering under his load toward the barn. + + + + +XI + + +When he reached the worm fence of the hemp field, he threw his load +from his shoulder upon the topmost rail, and, holding it there with one +hand, climbed over. He had now to cross the stable lot. Midway of this, +he passed a rick of hay. Huddled under the sheltered side were the +sheep of the farm, several in number and of the common sort. At the +sight of him, they always bleated familiarly, but this evening their +long, quavering, gray notes were more penetrating, more insistent than +usual. These sensitive, gentle creatures, whose instincts represent the +accumulating and inherited experiences of age upon age of direct +contact with nature, run far ahead of us in our forecasting wisdom; and +many a time they utter their disquietude and warning in language that +is understood only by themselves. The scant flock now fell into the +wake of David, their voices blending in a chorus of meek elegiacs, +their fore feet crowding close upon his heels. The dog, yielding his +place, fell into their wake, as though covering the rear; and so this +little procession of friends moved in a close body toward the barn. + +David put his hemp in the saddle-house; a separate hemp-house they were +not rich enough to own. He had chosen this particular part of the barn +because it was dryest in roof and floor. Several bales of hemp were +already piled against the logs on one side; and besides these, the room +contained the harness, the cart and the wagon gear, the box of tar, his +maul and wedges, his saddle and bridle, and sundry implements used in +the garden or on the farm. It was almost dark in there now, and he +groped his way. + +The small estate of his father, comprising only some fifty or sixty +acres, supported little live stock: the sheep just mentioned, a few +horses, several head of cattle, a sow and pigs. Every soul of these +inside or outside the barn that evening had been waiting for David. +They had begun to think of him and call for him long before he had quit +work in the field. Now, although it was not much later than usual, the +heavy cloud made it appear so; and all these creatures, like ourselves, +are deceived by appearances and suffer greatly from imagination. They +now believed that it was far past the customary time for him to appear, +that they were nearing the verge of starvation; and so they were +bewailing in a dejected way his unaccountable absence and their +miserable lot--with no one to listen. + +Scarcely had the rattling of the iron latch of the saddle-house +apprised them of his arrival before every dumb brute--dumb, as dumb men +say--experienced a cheerful change of mind, and began to pour into his +ears the eager, earnest, gratifying tale of its rights and its wrongs. +What honest voices as compared with the human--sometimes. No question +of sincerity could have been raised by any one who heard THEM speak. It +may not have been music; but every note of it was God's truth. + +The man laughed heartily as he paused a moment and listened to that +rejoicing uproar. But he was touched, also. To them he was the answerer +of prayer. Not one believed that he ever refused to succor in time of +need, or turned a deaf ear to supplication. If he made poor provision +for them sometimes, though they might not feel satisfied, they never +turned against him. The barn was very old. The chemical action of the +elements had first rotted away the shingles at the points where the +nails pinned them to the roof; and, thus loosened, the winds of many +years had dislodged and scattered them. Through these holes, rain could +penetrate to the stalls of the horses, so that often they would get up +mired and stiff and shivering; but they never reproached him. On the +northern side of the barn the weather-boarding was quite gone in +places, and the wind blew freely in. Of winter mornings the backs of +the cows would sometimes be flecked with snow, or this being stubbornly +melted by their own heat, their hides would be hung with dew-drops: +they never attributed that fact to him as a cruelty. In the whole +stable there was not one critic of his providence: all were of the +household of faith: the members being in good standing and full +fellowship. + +Remembrance of this lay much in his mind whenever, as often, he +contrasted his association with his poor animals, and the troublous +problem of faith in his own soul. It weighed with especial heaviness +upon his heart, this nightfall in the barn, over which hung that +threatening sky. Do what he could for their comfort, it must be +insufficient in a rotting, windswept shelter like that. And here came +the pinch of conscience, the wrench of remorse: the small sums of money +which his father and mother had saved up at such a sacrifice on the +farm,--the money which he had spent lavishly on himself in preparation, +as he had supposed, for his high calling in life,--if but a small part +of that had been applied to the roof and weather-boarding of the +stable, the stock this night might have been housed in warmth and +safety. + +The feeding and bedding attended to, with a basket of cobs in his hand +for his mother, he hurried away to the woodpile. This was in the yard +near the negro cabin and a hundred yards or more from the house. There +he began to cut and split the wood for the fires that night and for +next morning. Three lengths of this: first, for the grate in his +father's and mother's room--the best to be found among the logs of the +woodpile: good dry hickory for its ready blaze and rousing heat; to be +mixed with seasoned oak, lest it burn out too quickly--an expensive +wood; and perhaps also with some white ash from a tree he had felled in +the autumn. Then sundry back-logs and knots of black walnut for the +cabin of the two negro women (there being no sense of the value of this +wood in the land in those days, nearly all of it going to the cabins, +to the kitchens, to cord-wood, or to the fences of the farm; while the +stumps were often grubbed up and burned on the spot). Then fuel of this +same sort for the kitchen stove. Next, two or three big armfuls of very +short sticks for the small grate in his own small room above stairs--a +little more than usual, with the idea that he might wish to sit up late. + +There was scarce light enough to go by. He picked his logs from the +general pile by the feel of the bark; and having set his foot on each, +to hold it in place while he chopped, he struck rather by habit than by +sight. Loud and rapid the strokes resounded; for he went at it with a +youthful will, and with hunger gnawing him; and though his arms were +stiff and tired, the axe to him was always a plaything--a plaything +that he loved. At last, from under the henhouse near by he drew out and +split some pieces of kindling, and then stored his axe in that dry +place with fresh concern about soft weather: for more raindrops were +falling and the wind was rising. + +Stooping down now, he piled the fagots in the hollow of his arm, till +the wood rose cold and damp against his hot neck, against his ear, and +carried first some to the kitchen; and then some to the side porch of +the house, where he arranged it carefully against the wall, close to +the door, and conveniently for a hand reaching outward from within. As +he was heaping up the last of it, having taken three turns to the +woodpile, the door was opened slowly, and a slight, slender woman +peered around at him. + +"What makes you so late?" + +Her tone betrayed minute curiosity rather than any large concern. + +"I wanted to finish a shock, mother. But it isn't much later than +usual; it's the clouds. Here's some good kindling for you in the +morning and a basket of cobs," he added tenderly. + +She received in silence the feed basket he held out to her, and watched +him as he kneeled, busily piling up the last of the fagots. + +"I hope you haven't cut any more of that green oak; your father +couldn't keep warm." + +"This is hickory, dead hickory, with some seasoned oak. Father'll have +to take his coat off and you'll have to get a fan." + +There was a moment of silence. + +"Supper's over," she said simply. + +She held in one hand a partly eaten biscuit. + +"I'll be in soon now. I've nothing to do but kindle my fire." + +After another short interval she asked: + +"Is it going, to snow?" + +"It's going to do something." + +She stepped slowly back into the warm room and closed the door. + +David hurried to the woodpile and carried the sticks for his own grate +upstairs, making two trips of it. The stairway was dark; his room dark +and damp, and filled with the smell of farm boots and working clothes +left wet in the closets. Groping his way to the mantelpiece, he struck +a sulphur match, lighted a half-burned candle, and kneeling down, began +to kindle his fire. + +As it started and spread, little by little it brought out of the +cheerless darkness all the features of the rough, homely, kind face, +bent over and watching it so impatiently and yet half absently. It gave +definition to the shapeless black hat, around the brim of which still +hung filaments of tow, in the folds of which lay white splinters of +hemp stalk. There was the dust of field and barn on the edges of the +thick hair about the ears; dust around the eyes and the nostrils. He +was resting on one knee; over the other his hands were +crossed--enormous, powerful, coarsened hands, the skin so frayed and +chapped that around the finger-nails and along the cracks here and +there a little blood had oozed out and dried. + + + + +XII + + +When David came down to his supper, all traces of the day's labor that +were removable had disappeared. He was clean; and his working clothes +had been laid aside for the cheap black-cloth suit, which he had been +used to wear on Sundays while he was a student. Grave, gentle, looking +tired but looking happy, with his big shock head of hair and a face +rugged and majestical like a youthful Beethoven. A kind mouth, most of +all, and an eye of wonderfully deep intelligence. + +The narrow, uncarpeted stairway down which he had noisily twisted his +enormous figure, with some amusement, as always, had brought him to the +dining room. This was situated between the kitchen and his father's and +mother's bedroom. The door of each of these stood ajar, and some of the +warmth of the stove on one side and of the grate on the other dried and +tempered the atmosphere. + +His mother sat in her place at the head of the table, quietly waiting +for him, and still holding in one hand the partially eaten biscuit As +he took his seat, she rose, and, walking listlessly to the kitchen +door, made a listless request of one of the two negro women. When the +coffee had been brought in, standing, she poured out a cup, sweetened, +stirred, and tasted it, and putting the spoon into it, placed it before +him. Then she resumed her seat (and the biscuit) and looked on, +occasionally scrutinizing his face, with an expression perhaps the most +tragic that can ever be worn by maternal eyes: the expression of a +lowly mother who has given birth to a lofty son, and who has neither +the power to understand him, nor the grace to realize her own +inferiority. + +She wore, as usual, a dress of plain mourning, although she had not the +slightest occasion to mourn--at least, from the matter of death. In the +throat of this was caught a large, thin, oval-shaped breastpin, +containing a plait of her own and her husband's hair, braided together; +and through these there ran a silky strand cut from David's head when +an infant, and long before the parents discovered how unlike their +child was to themselves. This breastpin, with the hair of the three +heads of the house intertwined, was the only symbol in all the world of +their harmony or union. + +Around her shoulders she had thrown, according to her wont, a home-knit +crewel shawl of black and purple. Her hair, thick and straight and +pasted down over the temples of her small head, looked like a long-used +wig. Her contracted face seemed to have accumulated the wrinkles of the +most drawn-out, careworn life. Yet she was not old; and these were not +the lines of care; for her years had been singularly uneventful +and--for her--happy. The markings were, perhaps, inherited from the +generations of her weather-beaten, toiling, plain ancestors--with the +added creases of her own personal habits. For she lived in her house +with the regularity and contentment of an insect in a dead log. And few +causes age the body faster than such wilful indolence and monotony of +mind as hers--the mind, that very principle of physical youthfulness. +Save only that it can also kill the body ere it age it; either by too +great rankness breaking down at once the framework on which it has been +reared, or afterward causing this to give way slowly under the fruitage +of thoughts, too heavy any longer to be borne. + +That from so dark a receptacle as this mother there should have emerged +such a child of light, was one of those mysteries that are the +perpetual delight of Nature and the despair of Science. This did not +seem one of those instances--also a secret of the great Creatress--in +which she produces upon the stem of a common rose a bud of alien +splendor. It was as if potter's clay had conceived marble. The +explanation of David did not lie in the fact that such a mother had +produced him. + +One of the truest marks of her small, cold mind was the rigid tyranny +exercised over it by its own worthless ideas. Had she not sat beside +her son while he ate, had she not denied herself the comfort of the +fireside in the adjoining room, in order that she might pour out for +him the coffee that was unfit to be drunk, she would have charged +herself with being an unfaithful, undutiful mother. But this done, she +saw no further, beheld nothing of the neglect, the carelessness, the +cruelty, of all the rest, part of which this very moment was outspread +beneath her eyes. + +For at the foot of the table, where David's father had sat, were two +partly eaten dishes: one of spare-rib, one of sausage. The gravy in +each had begun to whiten into lard. Plates heaped with cornbread and +with biscuit, poorly baked and now cold, were placed on each side. In +front of him had been set a pitcher of milk; this rattled, as he poured +it, with its own bluish ice. On all that homely, neglected board one +thing only put everything else to shame. A single candle, in a low, +brass candlestick in the middle of the table, scarce threw enough light +to reveal the scene; but its flame shot deep into the golden, +crystalline depths of a jar of honey standing close beside it--honey +from the bees in the garden--a scathing but unnoticed rebuke from the +food and housekeeping of the bee to the food and housekeeping of the +woman. + +Work in the hemp fields leaves a man's body calling in every tissue for +restoration of its waste. David had hardly taken his seat before his +eye swept the prospect before him with savage hope. In him was the +hunger, not of toil alone, but of youth still growing to manhood, of +absolute health. Whether he felt any mortification at his mother's +indifference is doubtful. Assuredly life-long experience had taught him +that nothing better was to be expected from her. How far he had +unconsciously grown callous to things as they were at home, there is no +telling. Ordinarily we become in such matters what we must; but it is +likewise true that the first and last proof of high personal +superiority is the native, irrepressible power of the mind to create +standards which rise above all experience and surroundings; to carry +everywhere with itself, whether it will or not, a blazing, scorching +censorship of the facts that offend it. Regarding the household +management of his mother, David at least never murmured; what he +secretly felt he alone knew, perhaps not even he, since he was no +self-examiner. As to those shortcomings of hers which he could not fail +to see, for them he unconsciously showed tenderest compassion. + +She had indulged so long her sloth even in the operation of thinking, +that few ideas now rose from the inner void to disturb the apathetic +surface; and she did not hesitate to recur to any one of these any +number of times in a conversation with the same person. + +"What makes you so late?" + +"I wanted to finish a shock. Then there was the feeding, and the wood +to cut. And I had to warm my room up a little before I could wash." + +"Is it going to snow?" + +"It's hard to say. The weather looks very unsettled and threatening. +That's one reason why I wanted to finish my shock." + +There was silence for a while. David was too ravenous to talk; and his +mother's habit was to utter one sentence at a time. + +"I got three fresh eggs to-day; one had dropped from the roost and +frozen; it was cracked, but it will do for the coffee in the morning." + +"Winter must be nearly over if the hens are beginning to lay: THEY +know. They must have some fresh nests." + +"The cook wants to kill one of the old ones for soup to-morrow." + +"What an evil-minded cook!" + +It was with his mother only that David showed the new cheerfulness that +had begun to manifest itself in him since his return from college. She, +however, did not understand the reasons of this and viewed it +unfavorably. + +"We opened a hole in the last hill of turnips to-day." + +She spoke with uneasiness. + +"There'll be enough to last, I reckon, mother." + +"You needn't pack any more chips to the smoke-house: the last meat's +smoked enough." + +"Very well, then. You shall have every basketful of them for your own +fire." + +"If you can keep them from the negroes: negroes love chips." + +"I'll save them while I chop. You shall have them, if I have to catch +them as they fly." + +His hunger had been satisfied: his spirits began to rise. + +"Mother, are you going to eat that piece of biscuit? If not, just hand +it over to me, please." + +She looked dryly down at the bread in her fingers: humor was denied +her--that playfulness of purest reason. + +David had commenced to collect a plateful of scraps--the most +appetizing of the morsels that he himself had not devoured. He rose and +went out into the porch to the dog. + +"Now, mother," he said, reentering; and with quiet dignity he preceded +her into the room adjoining. + +His father sat on one side of the fireplace, watching the open door for +the entrance of his son. He appeared slightly bent over in his chair. +Plainly the days of rough farm-work and exposure were over for him, +prematurely aged and housed. There was about him--about the shape and +carriage of the head--in the expression of the eye most of all, +perhaps,--the not wholly obliterated markings of a thoughtful and +powerful breed of men. His appearance suggested that some explanation +of David might be traceable in this quarter. For while we know nothing +of these deep things, nor ever shall, in the sense that we can supply +the proofs of what we conjecture; while Nature goes ever about her +ancient work, and we cannot declare that we have ever watched the +operations of her fingers, think on we will, and reason we must, amid +her otherwise intolerable mysteries. Though we accomplish no more in +our philosophy than the poor insect, which momentarily illumines its +wandering through the illimitable night by a flash from its own body. + +Lost in obscurity, then, as was David's relation to his mother, there +seemed some gleams of light discernible in that between father and son. +For there are men whom nature seems to make use of to connect their own +offspring not with themselves but with earlier sires. They are like +sluggish canals running between far-separated oceans--from the deeps of +life to the deeps of life, allowing the freighted ships to pass. And no +more does the stream understand what moves across its surface than do +such commonplace agents comprehend the sons who have sprung from their +own loins. Here, too, is one of Nature's greatest cruelties to the +parent. + +As David's father would not have recognized his remote ancestors if +brought face to face, so he did not discover in David the image of +them--the reappearance in the world, under different conditions, of +certain elements of character found of old in the stock and line. He +could not have understood how it was possible for him to transmit to +the boy a nature which he himself did not actively possess. And, +therefore, instead of beholding here one of Nature's mysterious +returns, after a long period of quiescence, to her suspended activities +and the perpetuation of an interrupted type, so that his son was but +another strong link of descent joined to himself, a weak one; instead +of this, he saw only with constant secret resentment that David was at +once unlike him and his superior. + +These two had worked side by side year after year on the farm; such +comradeship in labor usually brings into consciousness again the +primeval bond of Man against Nature--the brotherhood, at least, of the +merely human. But while they had mingled their toil, sweat, hopes, and +disappointments, their minds had never met. The father had never felt +at home with his son; David, without knowing why--and many a sorrowful +hour it had cost him--had never accepted as father the man who had +brought him into the world. Each soon perceived that a distance +separated them which neither could cross, though vainly both should +try, and often both did try, to cross it. + +As he sat in the chimney-corner to-night, his very look as he watched +the door made it clear that he dreaded the entrance of his son; and to +this feeling had lately been added deeper estrangement. + +When David walked in, he took a seat in front of the fire. His mother +followed, bringing the sugar-bowl and the honey, which she locked in a +closet in the wall: the iron in her blood was parsimony. Then she +seated herself under the mantelpiece on the opposite side and looked +silently across at the face of her husband. (She was his second wife. +His offspring by his first wife had died young. David was the only +child of mature parents.) She looked across at him with the complacent +expression of the wife who feels that she and her husband are one, even +though their offspring may not be of them. The father looked at David; +David looked into the fire. There was embarrassment all round. + +"How are you feeling to-night, father?" he asked affectionately, a +moment later, without lifting his eyes. + +"I've been suffering a good deal. I think it's the weather." + +"I'm sorry." + +"Do you think it's going to snow?" + +The husband had lived so long and closely with his wife, that the +mechanism of their minds moved much like the two wall-clocks in +adjoining rooms of the house; which ticked and struck, year after year, +never quite together and never far apart. When David was first with one +and then with another, he was often obliged to answer the same +questions twice--sometimes thrice, since his mother alone required two +identical responses. He replied now with his invariable and patient +courtesy--yet scarcely patient, inasmuch as this did not try him. + +"What made you so late?" + +David explained again. + +"How much hemp did you break?" + +"I didn't weigh it, father. Fifty or sixty pounds, perhaps." + +"How many more shocks are there in the field?" + +"Twelve or fifteen. I wish there were a hundred." + +"I wish so, too," said David's mother, smiling plaintively at her +husband. + +"John Bailey was here after dinner," remarked David's father. "He has +sold his crop of twenty-seven acres for four thousand dollars. Ten +dollars a hundred." + +"That's fine," said David with enthusiasm, thinking regretfully of +their two or three acres. + +"Good hemp lands are going to rent for twenty or twenty-five dollars an +acre in the spring," continued his father, watching the effect of his +words. + +David got up, and going to the door, reached around against the wall +for two or three sticks of the wood he had piled there. He replenished +the fire, which was going down, and resumed his seat. + +For a while father and son discussed in a reserved way matters +pertaining to the farm: the amount of feed in the barn and the chances +of its lasting; crops to be sown in the spring, and in what fields; the +help they should hire--a new trouble at that time. For the negroes, +recently emancipated, were wandering hither and thither over the farms, +or flocking to the towns, unused to freedom, unused to the very wages +they now demanded, and nearly everywhere seeking employment from any +one in preference to their former masters as part of the proof that +they were no longer in slavery. David's father had owned but a single +small family of slaves: the women remained, the man had sought work on +one of the far richer estates in the neighborhood. + +They threshed over once more the straw of these familiar topics and +then fell into embarrassed silence. The father broke this with an +abrupt, energetic exclamation and a sharp glance:-- + +"If hemp keeps up to what it is now, I am going to put in more." + +"Where?" asked the son, quietly. "I don't see that we have any ground +to spare." + +"I'll take the woods." + +"FATHER!" cried David, wheeling on him. + +"I'll take the woods!" repeated his father, with a flash of anger, of +bitterness. "And if I'm not able to hire the hands to clear it, then +I'll rent it. Bailey wants it. He offered twenty-five dollars an acre. +Or I'll sell it," he continued with more anger, more bitterness. "He'd +rather buy it than rent." + +"How could we do without the woods?" inquired the son, looking like one +dazed,--"without the timber and the grazing?" + +"What will we do without the woods?" cried his father, catching up the +words excitedly. "What will we do without the FARM?" + +"What do you mean by all this, father? What is back of it?" cried +David, suddenly aroused by vague fears. + +"I mean," exclaimed the father, with a species of satisfaction in his +now plain words, "I mean that Bailey wants to buy the farm. I mean that +he urges me to sell out for my own good! tells me I must sell out! must +move! leave Kentucky! go to Missouri--like other men when they fail." + +"Go to Missouri," echoed the wife with dismal resignation, smiling at +her husband. + +"Have you sold it?" asked David, with flushed, angry face. + +"No." + +"Nor promised?" + +"No!" + +"Then, father, don't! Bailey is trying again to get the farm away from +you. You and mother shall never sell your home and move to Missouri on +my account." + +The son sat looking into the fire, controlling his feelings. The father +sat looking at the son, making a greater effort to control his. Both of +them realized the poverty of the place and the need of money. + +The hour was already past the father's early bed-time. He straightened +himself up now, and turning his back, took off his coat, hung it on the +back of his chair, and began to unbutton his waistcoat, and rub his +arms. The mother rose, and going to the high-posted bed in a corner of +the room, arranged the pillows, turned down the covers, and returning, +sat provisionally on the edge of her chair and released her breastpin. +David started up. + +"Mother, give me a candle, will you?" + +He went over with her to the closet, waited while she unlocked it and, +thrusting her arm deep into its disordered depths, searched till she +drew out a candle. No good-night was spoken; and David, with a look at +his father and mother which neither of them saw, opened and closed the +door of their warm room, and found himself in the darkness outside at +the foot of the cold staircase. + + + + +XIII + + +A bed of crimson coals in the bottom of the grate was all that survived +of his own fire. + +He sat down before it, not seeing it, his candle unlighted in his hand, +a tragedy in his eyes. + +A comfortless room. Rag carpeting on the floor. No rug softening the +hearth-stones. The sashes of the windows loose in the frames and shaken +to-night by twisty gusts. A pane of glass in one had been broken and +the opening pasted over with a sheet of letter paper. This had been +burst by an indolent hand, thrust through to close the shutters +outside; and a current of cold air now swept across the small room. The +man felt it, shook himself free of depressing thoughts, rose +resolutely. He took from a closet one of his most worthless coats, and +rolling it into a wad, stopped the hole. Going back to the grate, he +piled on the wood, watching the blaze as it rushed up over the logs, +devouring the dried lichens on the bark; then sinking back to the +bottom rounds, where it must slowly rise again, reducing the wood to +ashes. Beside him as he sat in his rush-bottomed chair stood a small +square table and on this a low brass candlestick, the companion of the +one in the dining room. A half-burnt candle rose out of the socket. As +David now lighted it and laid the long fresh candle alongside the +snuffers, he measured with his eye the length of his luminaries and the +amount of his wood--two friends. The little grate had commenced to roar +at him bravely, affectionately; and the candle sputtered to him and +threw sparks into the air--the rockets of its welcoming flame. + +It was not yet ten o'clock: two hours of the long winter evening +remained. He turned to his treasury. + +This was a trunk in a corner, the trunk he had bought while at college, +small and cheap in itself, not in what it held. For here were David's +books--the great grave books which had been the making of him, or the +undoing of him, according as one may have enough of God's wisdom and +mercy to decide whether it were the one or the other. + +As the man now moved his chair over, lifted the lid, and sat gazing +down at the backs of them, arranged in a beautiful order of his own, +there was in the lofty, solemn look of him some further evidence of +their power over him. The coarse toil of the day was forgotten; his +loved dependent animals in the wind-swept barn forgotten; the evening +with his father and mother, the unalterable emptiness of it, the +unkindness, the threatening tragedy, forgotten. Not that desolate room +with firelight and candle; not the poor farmhouse; not the meagre farm, +nor the whole broad Kentucky plateau of fields and woods, heavy with +winter wealth, heavy with comfortable homesteads--any longer held him +as domicile, or native region: he was gone far away into the company of +his high-minded masters, the writers of those books. Choosing one, he +closed the lid of the trunk reluctantly over the rest, and with the +book in one hand and the chair in the other, went back to the fire. + +An hour passed, during which, one elbow on the table, the shaded side +of his face supported in the palm of his hand, he read, scarce moving +except to snuff the wick or to lay on a fresh fagot. At the end of this +time other laws than those which the writer was tracing began to assert +their supremacy over David--the laws of strength and health, warmth and +weariness. Sleep was descending on him, relaxing his limbs, spreading a +quiet mist through his brain, caressing his eyelids. He closed the +pages and turned to his dying fire. The book caused him to wrestle; he +wanted rest. + +And now, floating to him through that mist in his brain, as softly as a +nearing melody, as radiantly as dawning light, came the image of +Gabriella: after David had pursued Knowledge awhile he was ready for +Love. But knowledge, truth, wisdom before every other earthly +passion--that was the very soul of him. His heart yearned for her now +in this closing hour, when everything else out of his way, field-work, +stable-work, wood-cutting, filial duties, study, he was alone with the +thought of her, the newest influence in his life, taking heed of her +solely, hearkening only to his heart's need of her. In all his rude +existence she was the only being he had ever known who seemed to him +worthy of a place in the company of his great books. Had the summons +come to pack his effects to-morrow and, saying good-by to everything +else, start on a journey to the congenial places where his mighty +masters lived and wrought, he would have wished her alone to go with +him, sharer of life's loftiness. Her companionship wherever he might +be--to have just that; to feel that she was always with him, and always +one with him; to be able to turn his eyes to hers before some vanishing +firelight at an hour like this, with deep rest near them side by side! + +He lingered over the first time he had ever seen her; that memorable +twilight in the town, the roofs and chimneys of the houses, half-white, +half-brown with melting snow, outlined against the low red sunset sky. +He had not long before left the room in the university where his trial +had taken place, and where he had learned that it was all over with +him. He was passing along one of the narrow cross streets, when at a +certain point his course was barred by a heap of fresh cedar boughs, +just thrown out of a wagon. Some children were gay and busy, carrying +them through the side doors, the sexton aiding. Other children inside +the lighted church were practising a carol to organ music; the choir of +their voices swelled out through the open doors, and some of the little +ones, tugging at the cedar, took up the strain. + +She was standing on the low steps of the church, in charge of the +children. In one hand she held an unfinished wreath, and she was +binding the dark, shining leaves with the other. A swarm of snowflakes, +scarce more than glittering crystals, danced merrily about her head and +flecked her black fur on one shoulder. As David, not very mindful just +then of whither he was going, stepped forward across the light and +paused before the pile of cedar boughs, she glanced at him with a +smile, seeing how his path was barred. Then she said to them:-- + +"Hurry, children! The night comes when we cannot work!" + +It was an hour of such good-will on earth to men that no one could seem +a stranger to her. He instantly became a human brother, next of kin to +her--that was all; she was wholly under the influence of the innocence +and purity within and without. + +As he made no reply and for a moment did not move, she glanced quickly +at him, regretting the smile. When she saw his face, he saw the joy go +down out of hers; and he felt, as he turned off, that she went with him +along the black street: alone, he seemed not alone any more. + +Though he had been with her many times since, no later impression had +effaced one line of that first picture. There she stood ever to him, +and would stand: on the step of the church, smiling in her mourning, +binding her wreath, the jets of the chandelier streaming out on her +snow-sprinkled shoulder, the children carolling among the fragrant +cedar boughs scattered at her feet; she there, decorating the church, +happy to be of pious service. Ah, to have her there in the room with +him now; to be able to turn his eyes to hers in the vanishing +firelight, near sleep awaiting them, side by side. + +There was the sound of a scratching on David's window shutters, as +though a stiff brush were being moved up and down across the slats. He +became aware that this sound had reached him at intervals several times +already, but as often happens, had been disregarded by him owing to his +preoccupation. Now it was so loud as to force itself positively upon +his attention. + +He listened, puzzled, wondering. His window stood high from the ground +and clear of any object. In a few moments, the sound made itself +audible again. He sprang up, wide awake now, and raising the sash, +pushed open the shutters--one of them easily; against the other there +was resistance from outside. This yielded before his pressure; and as +the shutter was forced wide open and David peered out, there swung +heavily against his cheek what felt like an enormous brush of thorns, +covered with ice. It was the end of one of the limbs of the cedar tree +which stood several feet from his window on one side, and close to the +wall of the house. Before David was born, it had been growing there, a +little higher, more far-reaching laterally, every year, until several +topmost boughs had long since risen above the level of the eaves and +dropped their dry needles on the rotting shingles. Now one of the +limbs, bent over sidewise under its ice-freighted berries and twigs, +hung as low as his window, and the wind was tossing it. + +Sleet! This, then, was the nature of the threatening storm, which all +day had made man and beast foreboding and distressed. David held out +his hand: rain was falling steadily, each drop freezing on whatsoever +it fell, adding ice to ice. The moon rode high by this time; and its +radiance pouring from above on the roof of riftless cloud, diffused +enough light below to render large objects near at hand visible in bulk +and outline. A row of old cedars stretched across the yard. Their +shapes, so familiar to him, were already disordered. The sleet must +have been falling for hours to have weighed them down this way and +that. A peculiarity of the night was the wind, which increased +constantly, but with fitful violence, giving no warning of its high +swoop, seizure, and wrench. + +Sleet! Scarce a winter but he had seen some little: once, in his +childhood, a great one. He had often heard his father talk of others +which HE remembered--with comment on the destruction they had wrought +far and wide, on the suffering of all stock and of the wild creatures. +The ravage had been more terrible in the forests, his father had +thought, than what the cyclones cause when they rush upon the trees, +heavy in their full summer-leaves, and sweep them down as easily as +umbrellas set up on the ground. So much of the finest forests of +Kentucky had been lost through its annual summer tempests and its rarer +but more awful wintry sleets. + +No work for him in the hemp fields to-morrow, nor for days. No school +for Gabriella; the more distant children would be unable to ride; the +nearest unable to foot it through the mirrored woods; unless the +weather should moderate before morning and melt the ice away as quickly +as it had formed--as sometimes was the case. A good sign of this, he +took it, was the ever rising wind: for a rising wind and a falling +temperature seldom appeared together. As he bent his ear listening, he +could hear the wild roar of the surges of air breaking through the +forest, the edge of which was not fifty yards away. + +David sprang from his chair; there was a loud crack, and the great limb +of the cedar swept rattling down across his shutters, twisted, snapped +off at the trunk, rolled over in the air, and striking the ground on +its back, lay like a huge animal knocked lifeless. + +He forgot bed and sleep and replenished his fire. His ear, trained to +catch and to distinguish sounds of country life, was now becoming alive +to the commencement of one of those vast appalling catastrophes in +Nature, for which man sees no reason and can detect the furtherance of +no plan--law being turned with seeming blindness, and in the spirit of +sheer wastage, upon what it has itself achieved, and spending its +sublime forces in a work of self-desolation. + +Of the two windows in his room, one opened upon the back yard, one upon +the front. Both back yard and front contained, according to the custom +of the country, much shrubbery, with aged fruit trees, mostly cherry +and peach. There were locusts also at the rear of the house, the +old-time yard favorite of the people; other forest trees stood around. +Through both his windows there began to reach him a succession of +fragile sounds; the snapping of rotten, weakest, most overburdened +twigs. On fruit tree and forest tree these went down first--as is also +the law of storm and trial of strength among men. The ground was now as +one flooring of glass; and as some of these small branches dropped from +the tree-tops, they were broken into fragments, like icicles, and slid +rattling away into the nearest depressions of the ground. Starting far +up in the air sometimes, they struck sheer upon other lower branches, +bringing them along also; this gathering weight in turn descended upon +others lower yet, until, so augmented, the entire mass swept downward +and fell, shivered against crystal flooring. + +But soon these more trivial facts held his attention no longer: they +were the mere reconnaissance of the elements--the first light attack of +Nature upon her own weakness. By and by from the surging, roaring +depths of the woods, there suddenly reverberated to him a deep boom as +of a cannon: one of the great trees--two-forked at the mighty summit +and already burdened in each half by its tons of timber, split in twain +at the fork as though cleft by lightning; and now only the pointed +trunk stood like a funeral shaft above its own ruins. For hours this +went on: the light incessant rattling, closest around; the creaking, +straining, tearing apart as of suffering flesh, less near; the sad, +sublime booming of the forest. + +Now the man would walk the floor; now drop into his chair before the +fire. His last bit of candle flickered blue, deep in the socket, and +sent up its smoke. His wood was soon burnt out: only red coals in the +bottom of the grate then, and these fast whitening. More than once he +strode across and stood over his trunk in the shadowy corner--looking +down at his books--those books that had guided him thus far, or +misguided him, who can say? + +When his candle gave out and later his fire, he jerked off his clothes +and getting into bed, rolled himself in the bedclothes and lay +listening to the mournful sublimity of the storm. + +Toward three o'clock the weather grew colder, the wind died down, the +booming ceased; and David, turning wearily, over, with an impulse to +prayer, but with no prayer, went to sleep. + + + + +XIV + + +When David awoke late and drowsily the next morning after the storm, he +lay awhile, listening. No rending, crashing, booming in the woods now, +nor rattling of his window-frames. No contemplative twitter of winter +birds about the cedars in the yard, nor caw of crow, crossing the house +chimneys toward the corn shocks. All things hushed, silent, immovable. + +Following so quickly upon the sublime roar and ravage of the night +before, the stillness was disturbing. He sprang up and dressed +quickly--admonished by the coldness of his room--before hurrying to his +window to look out. When he tried the sash, it could not be raised. He +thrust his hand through the broken pane and tugged at the shutters; +they could not be shaken. Running downstairs to the kitchen and +returning with hot water, he melted away the ice embedding the bolts +and hinges. + +A marvel of nature, terrible, beautiful, met his eyes: ice-rain and a +great frost Cloud, heavy still, but thinner than on the day before, +enwrapped the earth. The sun, descending through this translucent roof +of gray, filled the air beneath with a radiance as of molten pearl; and +in this under-atmosphere of pearl all earthly things were tipped and +hung in silver. Tree, bush, and shrub in the yard below, the rose +clambering the pillars of the porch under his window, the scant ivy +lower down on the house wall, the stiff little junipers, every blade of +grass--all encased in silver. The ruined cedars trailed from sparlike +tops their sweeping sails of incrusted emerald and silver. Along the +eaves, like a row of inverted spears of unequal lengths, hung the +argent icicles. No; not spun silver all this, but glass; all things +buried, not under a tide of liquid silver, but of flowing and then +cooling glass: Nature for once turned into a glass house, fixed in a +brittle mass, nowhere bending or swaying; but if handled roughly, sure +to be shivered. + +The ground under every tree in the yard was strewn with boughs; what +must be the ruin of the woods whence the noises had reached him in the +night? Looking out of his window now, he could see enough to let him +understand the havoc, the wreckage. + +He went at once to the stable for the feeding and found everything +strangely quiet--the stilling influence of a great frost on animal +life. There had been excitement and uneasiness enough during the night; +now ensued the reaction, for man is but one of the many animals with +nerves and moods. A catastrophe like this which covers with ice the +earth--grass, winter edible twig and leaf, roots and nuts for the brute +kind that turns the soil with the nose, such putting of all food +whatsoever out of reach of mouth or hoof or snout--brings these +creatures face to face with the possibility of starving: they know it +and are silent with apprehension of their peril; know it perhaps by the +survival of prehistoric memories reverberating as instinct still. And +there is another possible prong of truth to this repression of their +characteristic cries at such times of frost: then it was in ages past +that the species which preyed on them grew most ravenous and far +ranging. The silence of the modern stable in a way takes the place of +that primeval silence which was a law of safety in the bleak +fastnesses, hunted over by flesh eating prowlers. It is the prudent +noiselessness of many a species to-day, as the deer and the moose. + +The sheep, having enjoyed little shelter beside the hayrick, had +encountered the worst of the storm. When David appeared in the stable +lot, they beheld him at once; for their faces were bunched expectantly +toward the yard gate through which he must emerge. But they spoke not a +word to one another or to him as they hurried slipping forward. The man +looked them over pityingly, yet with humor; for they wore many +undesirable pendants of glass and silver dangling under their bellies +and down their tails. + +"You shall come into the barn this night," he vowed within himself. +"I'll make a place for you this day." + +Little did he foresee what awful significance to him lay wrapped in +those simple words. Breakfast was ready when, carrying his customary +basket of cobs for his mother, he returned to the house. One good +result at least the storm had wrought for the time: it drew the members +of the household more closely together, as any unusual event--danger, +disaster--generally does. So that his father, despite his outburst of +anger the night previous, forgot this morning his wrongs and +disappointments and relaxed his severity. During the meal he had much +to recount of other sleets and their consequences. He inferred similar +consequences now if snow should follow, or a cold snap set in: no work +in the fields, therefore no hemp-breaking, and therefore delay in +selling the crop; the difficulty of feeding and watering the stock; no +hauling along the mud roads, and little travel of any sort between +country and town; the making of much cord wood out of the fallen +timber, with plenty of stuff for woodpiles; the stopping of mill wheels +on the frozen creeks, and scarcity of flour and meal. + +"The meal is nearly out now," said David's mother. "The negroes waste +it." + +"We might shell some corn to-day," suggested David's father, +hesitatingly. It was the first time since his son's return from college +that he had ever proposed their working together. + +"I'll take a look at the woods first," said David; "and then I want to +make a place in the stable for the sheep, father. They must come under +shelter to-night I'll fix new stalls for the horses inside where we +used to have the corn crib. The cows can go where the horses have been, +and the sheep can have the shed of the cows: it's better than nothing. +I've been wanting to do this ever since I came home from college." + +A thoughtless, unfortunate remark, as connected with that shabby, +desperate idea of finding shelter for the stock--fresh reminder of the +creeping, spreading poverty. His father made no rejoinder; and having +finished his breakfast in silence, left the table. + +His mother, looking across her coffeecup and biscuit at David, without +change of expression inquired,-- + +"Will you get that hen?" + +"WHAT hen, mother?" + +"I told you last night the cook wanted one of the old hens for soup +to-day. Will you get it?" + +"No, mother; I will not get the hen for the cook; the cook will +probably get the hen for me." + +"She doesn't know the right one." + +"But neither do I." + +"I want the blue dorking." + +"I have a bad eye for color; I might catch something gray." + +"I want the dorking; she's stopped laying." + +"Is that your motive for taking her life? It would be a terrible +principle to apply indiscriminately!" + +"The cook wants to know how she is to get the vegetables out of the +holes in the garden to-day--under all this ice." + +"How would she get the vegetables out of the garden under all this ice +if there were no one on the place but herself? I warrant you she'd have +every variety." + +"It's a pity we are not able to hire a man. If we could hire a man to +help her, I wouldn't ask you. It's hard on the cook, to make her suffer +for our poverty." + +"A little suffering in that way will do her a world of good," said +David, cheerily. + +His mother did not hesitate, provocation or no provocation, to sting +and reproach him in this way. + +She had never thought very highly of her son; her disappointment, +therefore, over his failure at college had not been keen. Besides, +tragical suffering is the sublime privilege of deep natures: she +escaped by smallness. Nothing would have made her very miserable but +hunger and bodily pains. Against hunger she exercised ceaseless +precautions; bodily pains she had none. The one other thing that could +have agitated her profoundly was the idea that she would be compelled +to leave Kentucky. It was hard for her to move about her house, much +less move to Missouri. Not in months perhaps did she even go upstairs +to bestow care upon, the closets, the bed, the comforts of her son. As +might be expected, she considered herself the superior person of the +family; and as often happens, she imposed this estimate of herself upon +her husband. The terrifying vanity and self-sufficiency of the +little-minded! Nature must set great store upon this type of human +being, since it is regularly allowed to rule its betters. + +But his father! David had been at home two months now, for this was the +last of February, and not once during that long ordeal of daily living +together had his father opened his lips either to reproach or question +him. + +Letters had been received from the faculty, from the pastor; of that +David was aware; but any conversation as to these or as to the events +of which they were the sad consummation, his father would not have. The +gulf between them had been wide before; now it was fathomless. + +Yet David well foreknew that the hour of reckoning had to come, when +all that was being held back would be uttered. He realized that both +were silently making preparations for that crisis, and that each day +brought it palpably nearer. Sometimes he could even see it threatening +in his father's eye, hear it in his voice. It had reached the verge of +explosion the night previous, with that prediction of coming +bankruptcy, the selling of the farm of his Kentucky ancestors, the +removal to Missouri in his enfeebled health. Not until his return had +David realized how literally his father had begun to build life anew on +the hopes of him. And now feel with him in his disappointment as deeply +as he might, sympathy he could not openly offer, explanation he could +not possibly give. His life-problem was not his father's problem; his +father was simply not in a position to understand. Doubt anything in +the Bible--doubt so-called orthodox Christianity--be expelled from the +church and from college for such a reason--where could his father find +patience or mercy for wilful folly and impiety like that? + +Meantime he had gone to work; on the very day after his return he had +gone to work. Two sentences of his father's, on the afternoon of his +coming home, had rung in David's ears loud and ceaselessly ever since: +"WHY HAVE YOU COME BACK HERE?" And "I ALWAYS KNEW THERE WAS NOTHING IN +YOU?" The first assured him of the new footing on which he stood: he +was no longer desired under that roof. The second summed up the +life-long estimate which had been formed of his character before he had +gone away. + +Therefore he had worked as never even in the old preparatory days. So +long as he remained there, he must at least earn daily bread. More than +that, he must make good, as soon as possible, the money spent at +college. So he sent away the hired negro man; he undertook the work +done by him and more: the care of the stock, the wood cutting, +everything that a man can be required to do on a farm in winter. Of +bright days he broke hemp. Nothing had touched David so deeply as the +discovery in one corner of the farm of that field of hemp: his father +had secretly raised it to be a surprise to him, to help him through his +ministerial studies. This David had learned from his mother; his father +had avoided mention of it: it might rot in the field! In equal silence +David had set about breaking it; and sometimes at night his father +would show enough interest merely to ask some questions regarding the +day's work. + +Yet, notwithstanding this impending tragedy with his father, and +distress at their reduced circumstances caused by his expenses at +college, David, during these two months, had entered into much new +happiness. + +The doubts which had racked him for many months were ended. He had +reached a decision not to enter the ministry; had stripped his mind +clean and clear of dogmas. The theologies of his day, vast, tangled +thickets of thorns overspreading the simple footpath of the pious +pilgrim mind, interfered with him no more. It was not now necessary for +him to think or preach that any particular church with which he might +identify himself was right, the rest of the human race wrong. He did +not now have to believe that any soul was in danger of eternal +damnation for disagreeing with him. Release from these things left his +religious spirit more lofty and alive than ever. + +For, moreover, David had set his feet a brief space on the wide plains +of living-knowledge; he had encountered through their works many of the +great minds of his century, been reached by the sublime +thought-movements of his time, heard the deep roar of the spirit's +ocean. Amid coarse, daily labor once more, amid the penury and discord +in that ruined farmhouse, one true secret of happiness with David was +the recollection of all the noble things of human life which he had +discovered, and to which he meant to work his way again as soon as +possible. And what so helps one to believe in God as knowledge of the +greatness of man? + +Meantime, also, his mind was kept freshly and powerfully exercised. He +had discarded his old way of looking at Nature and man's place in it; +and of this fundamental change in him, no better proof could be given +than the way in which he regarded the storm, as he left the +breakfast-table this morning and went to the woods. + +The damage was unreckonable. The trees had not been prepared against an +event like that. For centuries some of them had developed strength in +root and trunk and branch to resist the winds of the region when clad +in all their leaves; or to carry the load of these leaves weighted with +raindrops; or to bear the winter snows. Wise self-physicians of the +forest! Removing a weak or useless limb, healing their own wounds and +fractures! But to be buried under ice and then wrenched and twisted by +the blast--for this they had received no training: and thus, like so +many of the great prudent ones who look hourly to their well-being, +they had been stricken down at last by the unexpected. + +"Once," said David reverently to himself, beholding it all, "once I +should have seen in this storm some direct intention of the Creator +toward man, even toward me. It would have been a reminder of His power; +perhaps been a chastisement for some good end which I must believe in, +but could not discover. Men certainly once interpreted storms as +communications from the Almighty, as they did pestilence and famine. +There still may be in this neighborhood people who will derive some +such lesson from this. My father may in his heart believe it a judgment +sent on us and on our neighbors for my impiety. Have not cities been +afflicted on account of the presence of one sinner? Thankful I am not +to think in this way now of physical law--not so to misconceive man's +place in Nature. I know that this sleet, so important to us, is but one +small incident in the long history of the planet's atmosphere and +changing surface. It is the action of natural laws, operating without +regard to man, though man himself may have had a share in producing it. +It will bring death to many a creature; indirectly, it may bring death +to me; but that would be among the results, not in the intention." + +He set his face to cross the wood--sliding, skating, steadying himself +against the trunks, driving his heels through the ice crust The +exercise was heating; his breath rose as a steam before his face. +Beyond the woods he crossed a field; then a forest of many acres and +magnificent timber, on the far edge of which, under the forest trees +and fronting a country lane, stood the schoolhouse of the district. +David looked anxiously, as he drew near, for any signs of injury that +the storm might have done. One enormous tree-top had fallen on the +fence. A limb had dropped sheer on the steps. The entire yard was +little better than a brush heap. He soon turned away home relieved: he +would be able to tell Gabriella to-night that none of the windows had +been broken nor the roof; only a new woods scholar, with little feet +and a big hard head and a bunch of mistletoe in one hand, was standing +on the steps, waiting for her to open the door. + +David's college experience had effected the first great change in him +as he passed from youth to manhood; Gabriella had wrought the second. +The former was a fragment of the drama of man's soul with God; the +latter was the drama of his heart with woman. + +It had begun the day the former ended--in the gloom of that winter +twilight day, when he had quit the college after his final interview +with the faculty, and had wandered forlorn and dazed into the happy +town, just commencing to celebrate its season of peace on earth and +good will to man. He had found her given up heart and soul to the work +of decorating the church of her faith, the church of her fathers. + +When David met her the second time, it was a few days after his return +home. He was at work in the smoke-house. The meat had been salted down +long enough after the killing: it must be hung, and he was engaged in +hanging it. Several pieces lay piled inside the door suitably for the +hand. He stood with his back to these beside the meat bench, scraping +the saltpetre off a large middling and rubbing it with red pepper. +Suddenly the light of the small doorway failed; and turning he beheld +his mother, and a few feet behind her--David said that he did not +believe in miracles--but a few feet behind his mother there now stood a +divine presence. Believe it or not, there she was, the miracle! All the +bashfulness of his lifetime--it had often made existence well-nigh +insupportable--came crowding into that one moment. The feeblest little +bleat of a spring lamb too weak to stand up for the first time would +have been a deafening roar in comparison with the silence which now +penetrated to the marrow of his bones. He faced the two women at bay, +with one hand resting on the middling. + +"This is my son," said his mother neutrally, turning to the young lady. +This information did not help David at all. He knew who HE was. He took +it for granted that every one present knew. The visitor at once +relieved the situation. + +"This is the school-teacher," she said, coloring and smiling. "I have +been teaching here ever since you went away. And I am now an old +resident of this neighborhood." + +Not a thing moved about David except a little smoke in the chimney of +his throat. But the young lady did not wait for more silence to render +things more tense. She stepped forward into the doorway beside his +mother and peered curiously in, looking up at the smoke-blackened +joists, at the black cross sticks on which the links of sausages were +hung, at the little heap of gray ashes in the ground underneath with a +ring of half-burnt chips around them, at the huge meat bench piled with +salted joints. + +"And this is the way you make middlings?" she inquired, smiling at him +encouragingly. + +The idea of that archangel knowing anything about middlings! David's +mind executed a rudimentary movement, and his tongue and lips responded +feebly:-- + +"This is the way." + +"And this is the way you make hams, sugar-cured hams?" + +"This is the way." + +"And this is the way you make--shoulders?" + +"This is the way." + +David had found an answer, and he was going to abide by it while +strength and daylight lasted. + +The young lady seemed to perceive that this was his intention. + +"Let me see you HANG one," she said desperately. "I have never seen +bacon hanged--or hung. I suppose as I teach grammar, I must use both +participles." + +David caught up the huge middling by the string and swung it around in +front of him, whereupon it slipped out of his nerveless fingers and +fell over in the ashes. It did not break the middling, but it broke the +ice. + +"Can I help you?" + +Those torturing, blistering words! David's face got as red as though it +had been rubbed with red pepper and saltpetre both. The flame of it +seemed to kindle some faint spark of spirit in him. He picked up the +middling, and as he looked her squarely in the eye, with a humorous +light in his, he nodded at the pieces of bacon by the entrance. + +"Hang one of those," he said, "if you've a mind." + +As he lifted the middling high, Gabriella noticed above his big red +hands a pair of arms like marble for lustre and whiteness (for he had +his sleeves rolled far back)--as massive a pair of man's arms as ever +were formed by life-long health and a life-long labor and life-long +right living. + +"Thank you," she said, retreating through the door. "It's all very +interesting. I have never lived in the country before. Your mother told +me you were working here, and I asked her to let me come and look on. +While I have been living in your neighborhood, you have been living in +my town. I hope you will come to see me, and tell me a great deal." + +As she said this, David perceived that she, standing behind his mother, +looked at him with the veiled intention of saying far more. He had such +an instinct for truth himself, that truth in others was bare to him. +Those gentle, sympathetic eyes seemed to declare: "I know about your +troubles. I am the person for whom, without knowing it, you have been +looking. With me you can break silence about the great things. We can +meet far above the level of such poor scenes as this. I have sought you +to tell you this. Come." + +"Mother," said David that evening, after his father had left the table, +dropping his knife and fork and forgetting to eat, "who was that?" + +He drew out all that could be drawn: that she had come to take charge +of the school the autumn he had gone away; that she was liked as a +teacher, liked by the old people. She had taken great interest in HIM, +his mother said reproachfully, and the idea of his studying for the +ministry. She had often visited the house, had been good to his father +and to her. This was her first visit since she had gotten back; she had +been in town spending the holidays. + +David had begun to go to see Gabriella within a week. At first he went +once a week--on Saturday nights. Soon he went twice a week--Wednesdays +and Saturdays invariably. On that last day at college, when he had +spoken out for himself, he had ended the student and the youth; when he +met her, it was the beginning of the man: and the new reason of the +man's happiness. + +As he now returned home across the mile or more of country, having +satisfied himself as to the uninjured condition of the schoolhouse, +which had a great deal to do with Gabriella's remaining in that +neighborhood, he renewed his resolve to go to see her to-night, though +it was only Friday. Had not the storm upset all regular laws and +customs? + +Happily, then, on reaching the stable, he fell to work upon his plan of +providing a shelter for the sheep. + +David felt much more at home in the barn than at the house. For the +stock saw no change in him. Believer or unbeliever, rationalist, +evolutionist, he was still the same to them. Upon them, in reality, +fell the ill consequences of his misspent or well-spent college life; +for the money which might have gone for shingles and joists and more +provender, had in part been spent on books describing the fauna of the +earth and the distribution of species on its surface. Some had gone for +treatises on animals under domestication, while his own animals under +domestication were allowed to go poorly fed and worse housed. He had +had the theory; they had had the practice. But they apprehended nothing +of all this. How many tragedies of evil passion brutes escape by not +understanding their owners! We of the human species so often regret +that individuals read each other's natures so dimly: let us be +thankful! David was glad, then, that this little aggregation of +dependent creatures, his congregation of the faithful, neither +perceived the change in him, nor were kept in suspense by the tragedy +growing at the house. + +They had been glad to see him on his return. Captain, who had met him +first, was gladdest, perhaps. Then the horses, the same old ones. One +of them, he fancied, had backed up to him, offering a ride. And the +cows were friendly. They were the same; their calves were different. +The sheep about maintained their number, their increase by nature +nearly balancing their decrease by table use. + +One member of the flock David looked for in vain: the boldest, +gentlest--there usually is one such. Later on he found it represented +by a saddle blanket. After his departure for college, his mother had +conceived of this fine young wether in terms of sweetbreads, tallow for +chapped noses, and a soft seat for the spine of her husband. Even the +larded dame of the snow-white sucklings had remembered him well, and +had touched her snout against his boots; so that hardly had he in the +old way begun to stroke her bristles, before she spoke comfortably of +her joy, and rolled heavily over in what looked like a grateful swoon. + +No: his animals had not changed in their feelings toward him; but how +altered he in his understanding of them! He had formerly believed that +these creatures were created for the use of man--that old conceited +notion that the entire earth was a planet of provisions for human +consumption. It had never even occurred to him to think that the horses +were made but to ride and to work. Cows of course gave milk for the +sake of the dairy; cream rose on milk for ease in skimming; when +churned, it turned sour, that the family might have fresh buttermilk. +Hides were for shoes. The skin on sheep, it was put there for Man's +woollens. + +Now David declared that these beings were no more made for Man than Man +was made for them. Man might capture them, keep them in captivity, +break, train, use, devour them, occasionally exterminate them by +benevolent assimilation. But this was not the reason of their being +created: what that reason was in the Creator's mind, no one knew or +would ever know. + +"Man seizes and uses you," said David, working that day in his barn; +"but you are no more his than he is yours. He calls you dependent +creatures: who has made you dependent? In a state of wild nature, there +is not one of you that Man would dare meet: not the wild stallion, not +the wild bull, not the wild boar, not even an angry ram. The argument +that Man's whole physical constitution--structure and function-shows +that he was intended to live on beef and mutton, is no better than the +argument that the tiger finds man perfectly adapted to his system as a +food, and desires none better. Every man-eating creature thinks the +same: the wolf believes Man to be his prey; the crocodile believes him +to be his; an old lion is probably sure that a man's young wife is +designed for his maw alone. So she is, if he manages to catch her." + +As David said this rather unexpectedly to himself, he fell into a novel +revery, forgetting philosophy and brute kind. It was late when David +finished his work that day. Toward nightfall the cloud had parted in +the west; the sun had gone down with dark curtains closing heavily over +it. Later, the cloud had parted in the east, and the moon had arisen +amid white fleeces and floated above banks of pearl. Shining upon all +splendid things else, it illumined one poor scene which must not be +forgotten: the rear of an old barn, a sagging roof of rotting shingles; +a few common sheep passing in, driven by a shepherd dog; and a big +thoughtful boy holding the door open. + +He had shifted the stock to make way for these additional pensioners, +putting the horses into the new stalls, the cows where the horses had +been, and the sheep under the shed of the cows. (It is the horse that +always gets the best of everything in a stable.) He reproached himself +that he did least for the creatures that demanded least. + +"That's the nature of man," he said disapprovingly, "topmost of all +brutes." + +When he stepped out of doors after supper that night, the clouds had +hidden the moon. But there was light enough for him to see his way +across the ice fields to Gabriella. The Star of Love shone about his +feet. + + + + +XV + + +When Gabriella awoke on that same morning after the storm, she too +ascertained that her shutters could not be opened. But Gabriella did +not go down into the kitchen for hot water to melt the ice from the +bolts and hinges. She fled back across the cold matting to the +high-posted big bed and cuddled down solitary into its warmth again, +tucking the counterpane under her chin and looking out from the pillows +with eyes as fresh as flowers. Flowers in truth Gabriella's eyes +were--the closing and disclosing blossoms of a sweet nature. Somehow +they made you think of earliest spring, of young leaves, of the +flutings of birds deep within a glade sifted with golden light, +fragrant with white fragrance. They had their other seasons: their +summer hours of angry flash and swift downpour; their autumn days of +still depths and soberness, and autumn nights of long, quiet rainfalls +when no one knew. One season they lacked: Gabriella's eyes had no +winter. + +Brave spirit! Had nature not inclined her to spring rather than autumn, +had she not inherited joyousness and the temperamental gayety of the +well-born, she must long ago have failed, broken down. Behind her were +generations of fathers and mothers who had laughed heartily all their +days. The simple gift of wholesome laughter, often the best as often +the only remedy for so many discomforts and absurdities in life--this +was perhaps to be accounted among her best psychological heirlooms. + +Her first thought on awaking late this morning (for she too had been +kept awake by the storm) was that there could be no school. And this +was only Friday, with Saturday and Sunday to follow--three whole +consecutive days of holiday! Gabriella's spirits invariably rose in a +storm; her darkest days were her brightest. The weather that tried her +soul was the weather which was disagreeable, but not disagreeable +enough to break up school. When she taught, she taught with all her +powers and did it well; when not teaching, she hated it with every +faculty and capacity of her being. And to discharge patiently and +thoroughly a daily hated work--that takes noble blood. + +Nothing in the household stirred below. The members of the family had +remained up far into the night. As for the negroes, they understand how +to get a certain profit for themselves out of all disturbances of the +weather. Gabriella was glad of the chance to wait for the house-girl to +come up and kindle her fire--grateful for the luxury of lying in bed on +Friday morning, instead of getting up to a farmer's early breakfast, +when sometimes there were candles on the table to reveal the localities +of the food! How she hated those candles, flaring in her eyes so early! +How she loved the mellow flicker of them at night, and how she hated +them in the morning--those early-breakfast candles! + +In high spirits, then, with the certainty of a late breakfast and no +school, she now lay on the pillows, looking across with sparkling eyes +at last night's little gray ridge of ashes under the bars of her small +grate. Those hearthstones!--when her bare soles accidentally touched +one on winter mornings, Gabriella was of the opinion that they were the +coldest bricks that ever came from a fiery furnace. There was one thing +in the room still colder: the little cherrywood washstand away over on +the other side of the big room between the windows,--placed there at +the greatest possible distance from the fire! Sometimes when she peeped +down into her wash-pitcher of mornings, the ice bulged up at her like a +white cannon-ball that had gotten lodged on the way out. She jabbed at +it with the handle of her toothbrush; or, if her temper got the best of +her (or the worst), with the poker. Often her last act at night was to +dry her toothbrush over the embers so that the hair in it would not be +frozen in the morning. + +Gabriella raised her head from the pillows and peeped over at the +counterpane covering her. It consisted of stripes of different colors, +starting from a point at the middle of the structure and widening +toward the four sides. Her feet were tucked away under a bank of plum +color sprinkled with salt; up her back ran a sort of comet's tail of +puddled green. Over her shoulder and descending toward her chin, flowed +a broadening delta of well-beaten egg. + +She was thankful for these colors. The favorite hue of the farmer's +wife was lead. Those hearthstones--lead! The strip of oilcloth covering +the washstand--lead! The closet in the wall containing her +things--lead! The stair-steps outside--lead! The porches down +below--lead! Gabriella sometimes wondered whether this woman might not +have had lead-colored ancestors. + +A pair of recalcitrant feet were now heard mounting the stair: the +flowers on the pillow closed their petals. When the negro girl knelt +down before the grate, with her back to the bed and the soles of her +shoes set up straight side by side like two gray bricks, the eyes were +softly opened again, Gabriella had never seen a head like this negro +girl's, that is, never until the autumn before last, when she had come +out into this neighborhood of plain farming people to teach a district +school. Whenever she was awake early enough to see this curiosity, she +never failed to renew her study of it with unflagging zest. It was such +a mysterious, careful arrangement of knots, and pine cones, and the +strangest-looking little black sticks wrapped with white packing +thread, and the whole system of coils seemingly connected with a +central mental battery, or idea, or plan, within. She studied it now, +as the fire was being kindled, and the kindler, with inflammatory blows +of the poker on the bars of the grate, told her troubles over audibly +to herself: "Set free, and still making fires of winter mornings; how +was THAT? Where was any freedom in THAT? Her wages? Didn't she work for +her wages? Didn't she EARN her wages? Then where did freedom come in?" + +One must look low for high truth sometimes, as we gather necessary +fruit on nethermost boughs and dig the dirt for treasure. The +Anglo-Saxon girl lying in the bed and the young African girl kindling +her fire--these two, the highest and the humblest types of womanhood in +the American republic--were inseparably connected in that room that +morning as children of the same Revolution. It had cost the war of the +Union, to enable this African girl to cast away the cloth enveloping +her head--that detested sign of her slavery--and to arrange her hair +with ancestral taste, the true African beauty sense. As long as she had +been a slave, she had been compelled by her Anglo-Saxon mistress to +wear her head-handkerchief; as soon as she was set free, she, with all +the women of her race in the South, tore the head-handkerchief +indignantly off. In the same way, it cost the war of the Union to +enable Gabriella to teach school. She had been set free also, and the +bandage removed from her liberties. The negress had been empowered to +demand wages for her toil; the Anglo-Saxon girl had been empowered to +accept without reproach the wages for hers. + +Gabriella's memoirs might be writ large in four parts that would really +be the history of the United States, just as a slender seam of gold can +only be explained through the geology of the earth. But they can also +be writ so small that each volume may be dropped, like certain +minute-books of bygone fashions, into a waistcoat pocket, or even read, +as through a magnifying glass, entire on a single page. + +The first volume was the childhood book, covering the period from +Gabriella's birth to the beginning of the Civil War, by which time she +was fourteen years old: it was fairy tale. These earliest recollections +went back to herself as a very tiny child living with her mother and +grandmother in a big white house with green window-shutters, in +Lexington--so big that she knew only the two or three rooms in one ell. +Her mother wore mourning for her father, and was always drawing her to +her bosom and leaving tears on her face or lilylike hands. One day--she +could not remember very well--but the house had been darkened and the +servants never for a moment ceased amusing her--one day the house was +all opened again and Gabriella could not find her mother; and her +grandmother, everybody else, was kinder to her than ever. She did not +think what kindness was then, but years afterward she learned perfectly. + +Very slowly Gabriella's knowledge began to extend over the house and +outside it. There were enormous, high-ceiled halls and parlors, and +bedrooms and bedrooms and bedrooms. There were verandas front and back, +so long that it took her breath away to run the length of one and +return. Upstairs, front and back, verandas again, balustraded so that +little girls could not forget themselves and fall off. The pillars of +these verandas at the rear of the house were connected by a network of +wires, and trained up the pillars and branching over the wires were +coiling twisting vines of wisteria as large as Gabriella's neck. This +was the sunny southern side; and when the wisteria was blooming, +Gabriella moved her establishment of playthings out behind those sunlit +cascades of purple and green, musical sometimes with goldfinches. + +The front of the house faced a yard of stately evergreens and great +tubs of flowers, oleander, crepe myrtle, and pomegranate. Beyond the +yard, a gravelled carriage drive wound out of sight behind cedars, +catalpa, and forest trees, shadowing a turfy lawn. At the end of the +lawn was the great entrance gate and the street of the town, Gabriella +long knew this approach only by her drives with her grandmother. At the +rear of the house was enough for her: a large yard, green grazing lots +for the stable of horses, and best of all a high-fenced garden +containing everything the heart could desire: vegetables, and flowers; +summer-houses, and arbors with seats; pumps of cold water, and +hot-houses of plants and grapes, and fruit trees, and a swing, and +gooseberry bushes--everything. + +In one corner, the ground was too shaded by an old apple tree to be of +use: they gave this to Gabriella for her garden. She had attached +particularly to her person a little negress of about the same age--her +Milly, the color of a ripe gourd. So when in spring the gardener began +to make his garden, with her grandmother sometimes standing over him, +directing, Gabriella, taking her little chair to the apple tree,--with +some pretended needle-work and a real switch,--would set Milly to work +making hers. Nothing that they put into the earth ever was heard of +again, though they would sometimes make the same garden over every day +for a week. So that more than once, forsaking seed, they pulled off the +tops of green things near by, planted these, and so had a perfect +garden in an hour. + +Then Gabriella, seated under the apple tree, would order Milly to water +the flowers from the pump; and taking her switch and calling Milly +close, she would give her a sharp rap or two around the bare legs (for +that was expected), and tell her that if she didn't stop being so +trifling, she would sell her South to the plantations. Whereupon Milly, +injured more in heart than legs, and dropping the watering-pot, would +begin to bore her dirty fists into her eyes. Then Gabriella would say +repentantly:-- + +"No, I won't, Milly! And you needn't work any more to-day. And you can +have part of my garden if you want it." + +Milly, smiling across the mud on her cheeks, would murmur:-- + +"You ain' goin' sell yo' Milly down South, is you, Miss Gabriella?" + +"_I_ won't. But I'm not so sure about grandmother, Milly. You know she +WILL do it sometimes. Our cotton's got to be picked by SOMEBODY, and +who's to do it but you lazy negroes?" + +In those days the apple tree would be blooming, and the petals would +sift down on Gabriella. Looking up at the marriage bell of blossoms, +and speaking in the language of her grandmother, she would say:-- + +"Milly, when I grow up and get married, I am going to be married out of +doors in spring under an apple tree." + +"I don' know whah _I_ gwine be married," Milly would say with a hoarse, +careless cackle. "I 'spec' in a brier-patch." + +Gabriella's first discovery of what meanness human nature can exhibit +was connected with this garden. So long as everything was sour and +green, she could play there by the hour; but as soon as anything got +ripe and delicious, the gate with the high latch was shut and she could +never enter it unguarded. What tears she shed outside the fence as she +peeped through! When they did take her in, they always held her by the +hand. + +"DON'T hold my hand, Sam," pleadingly to the negro gardener. "It's so +HOT!" + +"You fall down and hurt yourself." + +"How absurd, Sam! The idea of my falling down when I am walking along +slowly!" + +"You get lost." + +"How can you say anything so amusing as that, Sam! Did I ever get lost +in here?" + +"Snakes bite you." + +"Why do you think they'd bite ME, Sam? They have never been known to +bite anybody else." + +"You scratch yourself." + +"How can I scratch myself, Sam, when I'm not doing anything?" + +"Caterpillars crawl on you." + +"They crawl on me when I'm not in the garden, Sam. So why do you harp +on THAT?" + +Slowly they walked on--past the temptations of Eden. + +"Please, let me try just once, Sam!" + +"Try what, Miss Gabriella?" + +"To see whether the snakes will bite me." + +"I couldn't!" + +"Then take me to see the grapes," she would say wearily. + +There they were, hanging under the glass: bunches of black and of +purple Hamburgs, and of translucent Malagas, big enough to have been an +armful! + +"Just one, Sam, please." + +"Make you sick." + +"They never make me sick when I eat them in the house. They are good +for me! One COULDN'T make me sick. I'm sick because you DON'T give it +to me. Don't I LOOK sick, Sam?" + +The time came when Gabriella began to extend her knowledge to the +country, as she drove out beside her grandmother in the balmy spring +and early summer afternoons. + +"What is that, grandmother?" she would say, pointing with her small +forefinger to a field by the turnpike. + +"That is corn." + +"And what is that?" + +"That is wheat." + +"And what is that?" + +"Oats, Gabriella." + +"Oh, grandmother, what is THAT?" + +"Tut, tut, child! Don't you know what that is? That's hemp. That is +what bales all our cotton." + +"Oh, grandmother, smell it!" + +After this sometimes Gabriella would order the driver to turn off into +some green lane about sunset and press on till they found a field by +the way. As soon as they began to pass it, over into their faces would +be wafted the clean, cooling, velvet-soft, balsam breath of the hemp. +The carriage would stop, and Gabriella, standing up and facing the +field, would fill her lungs again and again, smiling at her grandmother +for approval. Then she would take her seat and say quietly:-- + +"Turn round, Tom, and drive back. I have smelt it enough." + +These drives alone with her grandmother were for spring and early +summer only. Full summer brought up from their plantations in +Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi, her uncles and the wives and +children of some of them. All the bedrooms in the big house were +filled, and Gabriella was nearly lost in the multitude, she being the +only child of the only daughter of her grandmother. And now what happy +times there were. The silks, and satins, and laces! The plate, the +gold, the cut glass! The dinners, the music, the laughter, the wines! + +Later, some of her uncles' families might travel on with their servants +to watering places farther north. But in September all were back again +under the one broad Kentucky roof, stopping for the beautiful Lexington +fair, then celebrated all over the land; and for the races--those days +of the thoroughbred only; and until frost fall should make it safe to +return to the swamps and bayous, loved by the yellow fever. + +When all were departed, sometimes her grandmother, closing the house +for the winter, would follow one of her sons to his plantation; thence +later proceeding to New Orleans, at that time the most brilliant of +American capitals; and so Gabriella would see the Father of Waters, and +the things that happened in the floating palaces of the Mississippi; +see the social life of the ancient French and Spanish city. + +All that could be most luxurious and splendid in Kentucky during those +last deep, rich years of the old social order, was Gabriella's: the +extravagance, the gayety, the pride, the lovely manners, the +selfishness and cruelty in its terrible, unconscious, and narrow way, +the false ideals, the aristocratic virtues. Then it was that, +overspreading land and people, lay the full autumn of that sowing, +which had moved silently on its way toward its fateful fruits for over +fifty years. Everything was ripe, sweet, mellow, dropping, turning +rotten. + +O ye who have young children, if possible give them happy memories! +Fill their earliest years with bright pictures! A great historian many +centuries ago wrote it down that the first thing conquered in battle +are the eyes: the soldier flees from what he sees before him. But so +often in the world's fight we are defeated by what we look back upon; +we are whipped in the end by the things we saw in the beginning of +life. The time arrived for Gabriella when the gorgeous fairy tale of +her childhood was all that she had to sustain her: when it meant +consolation, courage, fortitude, victory. + +A war volume, black, fiery, furious, awful--this comprised the second +part of her history: it contained the overthrow of half the American +people, and the downfall of the child princess Gabriella. An idea--how +negative, nerveless, it looks printed! A little group of four +ideas--how should they have power of life and death over millions of +human beings! But say that one is the idea of the right of +self-government--much loved and fought for all round the earth by the +Anglo-Saxon race. Say that a second is the idea that with his own +property a man has a right to do as he pleases: another notion that has +been warred over, world without end. Let these two ideas run in the +blood and passions of the Southern people. Say that a third idea is +that of national greatness (the preservation of the Union), another +idol of this nation-building race. Say that the fourth idea is that of +evolving humanity, or, at least, that slave-holding societies must be +made non-slave-holding--if not peaceably, then by force of arms. Let +these two ideas be running in the blood and passions of the Northern +people. Bring the first set of ideas and the second set together in a +struggle for supremacy. By all mankind it is now known what the result +was for the nation. What these ideas did for one little girl, living in +Lexington, Kentucky, was part of that same sad, sublime history. + +They ordered the grandmother across the lines, as a wealthy sympathizer +and political agent of the Southern cause; they seized her house, +confiscated it, used it as officers' headquarters: in the end they +killed her with grief and care; they sent her sons, every man of them, +into the Southern armies, ravaged their plantations, liberated their +slaves, left them dead on the fields of battle, or wrecked in health, +hope, fortune. Gabriella, placed in a boarding-school in Lexington at +that last hurried parting with her grandmother, stayed there a year. +Then the funds left to her account in bank were gone; she went to live +with near relatives; and during the remaining years of the war was +first in one household, then another, of kindred or friends all of whom +contended for the privilege of finding her a home. But at the close of +the war, Gabriella, issuing from the temporary shelters given her +during the storm, might have been seen as a snow-white pigeon flying +lost and bewildered across a black cloud covering half the sky. + +The third volume--the Peace Book in which there was no Peace: this was +the beginning of Gabriella, child of the Revolution. She did not now +own a human being except herself; could give orders to none but +herself; could train for this work, whip up to that duty, only herself; +and if, she was still minded to play the mistress--firm, kind, +efficient, capable--must be such a mistress solely to Gabriella. + +By that social evolution of the race which in one country after another +had wrought the overthrow of slavery, she had now been placed with a +generation unique in history: a generation of young Southern girls, of +gentle birth and breeding, of the most delicate nature, who, heiresses +in slaves and lands at the beginning of the war, were penniless and +unrecognized wards of the federal government at its close, their slaves +having been made citizens and their plantations laid waste. On these +unprepared and innocent girls thus fell most heavily not only the +mistakes and misdeeds of their own fathers and mothers but the common +guilt of the whole nation, and particularly of New England, as respects +the original traffic in human souls. The change in the lives of these +girls was as sudden and terrible as if one had entered a brilliant +ballroom and in the voice of an overseer ordered the dancers to go as +they were to the factories. + +To the factories many of them went, in a sense: to hard work of some +sort--to wage-earning and wage-taking: sometimes becoming the mainstay +of aged or infirm parents, the dependence of younger brothers and +sisters. If the history of it all is ever written, it will make +pitiful, heroic, noble reading. + +The last volume of Gabriella's memoirs showed her in this field of +struggle--of new growth to suit the newer day. It was so unlike the +first volume as to seem no continuation of her own life. It began one +summer morning about two years after the close of the war--an interval +which she had spent in various efforts at self-help, at self-training. + +On that morning, pale and trembling, but resolute, her face heavily +veiled, she might have been seen on her way to Water Street in +Lexington--a street she had heard of all her life and had been careful +never to enter except to take or to alight from a train at the station. +Passing quickly along until she reached a certain ill-smelling little +stairway which opened on the foul sidewalk, she mounted it, knocked at +a low black-painted plank door, and entered a room which was a +curiosity shop. There she was greeted by an elderly gentleman, who +united in himself the offices of superintendent of schools, +experimental astronomer, and manufacturer of a high grade of mustard. +She had presented herself to be examined for a teacher's certificate. + +Fortunately for Gabriella this kindly old sage remembered well her +grandmother and her uncles: they had been connoisseurs; they had for +years bought liberally of his mustard. Her uncles had used it first on +their dinner tables as a condiment and afterward on their foreheads and +stomachs as a plaster. They had never failed to praise it to his +face--both for its power to draw an appetite and for its power to +withdraw an ache. In turn he now praised them and asked the easiest +questions. Gabriella, whose knowledge of arithmetic was as a grain of +mustard seed, and who spoke beautiful English, but could not have +parsed, "John, come here!"--received a first-class certificate for the +sake of the future and a box of mustard in memory of the past. + +Early in that autumn she climbed, one morning, into an old yellow-red, +ever muddied stage-coach (the same that David had ridden in) and set +out to a remote neighborhood, where, after many failures otherwise, she +had secured a position to teach a small country school. She was glad +that it was distant; she had a feeling that the farther away it was +from Lexington, the easier it would be to teach. + +Nearly all that interminable day, the mechanism of the stage and the +condition of the pike (much fresh-cracked limestone on it) administered +to Gabriella's body such a massage as is not now known to medical +science. But even this was as nothing in comparison to the rack on +which she stretched every muscle of her mind. What did she know about +teaching? What kind of people would they be? + +Late that mild September afternoon she began to find out The stage +stopped at the mouth of a lane; and looking out with deathly faintness, +Gabriella saw, standing beside a narrow, no-top buggy, a big, hearty, +sunburned farmer with his waist-coat half unbuttoned, wearing a suit of +butternut jeans and a yellow straw hat with the wide brim turned up +like a cow's horns. + +"Have you got my school-teacher in there?" he called out in a voice +that carried like a heavy, sweet-sounding bell. "And did you bring me +them things I told you to get?" + +"Which is she?" he asked as he came over to the stage window and peered +in at the several travellers. + +"How do you do, Miss Gabriella?" he said, taking his hat clear off his +big, honest, hairy, brown head and putting in a hand that would have +held several of Gabriella's. "I'm glad to see you; and the children +have been crying for you. Now, if you will just let me help you to a +seat in the buggy, and hold the lines for a minute while I get some +things Joe's brought me, we'll jog along home. I'm glad to see you. I +been hearing a heap about you from the superintendent." + +Gabriella already loved him! When they were seated in the buggy, he +took up six-sevenths of the space. She was so close to him that it +scared her--so close that when he turned his head on his short, thick +neck to look at her, he could hardly see her. + +"He has a little slip of a wife," explained Gabriella to herself. "I'm +in her seat: that's why he's used to it." + +So SHE got used to it; and soon felt a frank comfort in being able to +nestle freely against him--to cling to him like a bat to a warm wall. +For cling sometimes she must. He was driving a sorrel fresh from +pasture, with long, ragged hoofs, burrs in mane and tail, and a wild +desire to get home to her foal; so that she fled across the +country--bridges, ditches, everything, frantic with maternal passion. +One circumstance made for Gabriella's security: the buggy tilted over +toward him so low, that she could not conveniently roll out: instead +she felt as though she were being whirled around a steep hillside. + +Meantime, how he talked to her! Told her the school was all made up: +what families were going to send, and how many children from each. They +had all heard from the superintendent what a fine teacher she was (not +for nothing is it said that things are handed along kindly in Kentucky)! + +"Oh," murmured Gabriella to herself, "if the family are only like HIM!" +The mere way in which he called her by her first name, as though she +were an old friend--a sort of old sweetheart of his whom for some +reason he had failed to marry--filled her with perfect trust. + +"That's my house!" he said at last, pointing with extended arm and whip +(which latter he had no occasion to use) across the open country. + +Gabriella followed his gesture with apprehensive eyes and beheld away +off a big comfortable-looking two-story brick dwelling with +white-washed fences around it and all sorts of white-washed houses on +one side or the other--a plain, sweet, country, Kentucky home, God +bless it! The whiteness won Gabriella at once; and with the whiteness +went other things just as good: the assurance everywhere of thrift, +comfort. Not a weed in sight, but September bluegrass, deep flowing, or +fresh-ploughed fields or clean stubble. Every rail in its place on +every fence; every gate well swung. Everything in sight in the way of +live stock seemed to Gabriella either young or just old enough. The +very stumps they passed looked healthy. + +Her conjecture had been correct: the slender slip of a woman met her at +the side porch a little diffidently, with a modest smile; then kissed +her on the mouth and invited her in. The supper table was already set +in the middle of the room; and over in one corner was a big white +bed--with a trundle bed (not visible) under it. Gabriella "took off her +things" and laid them on the snowy counterpane; and the housewife told +her she would let the children entertain her for a few minutes while +she saw about supper. + +The children accepted the agreement. They swarmed about her as about a +new cake. Two or three of the youngest began to climb over her as they +climbed over the ice-house, to sit on her as they sat on the stiles. +The oldest produced their geographies and arithmetics and showed her +how far they had gone. (They had gone a great deal farther than +Gabriella!) No one paid the least attention to any one else, or stood +in awe of anything or anybody: Fear had never come to that Jungle! + +But trouble must enter into the affairs of this world, and it entered +that night into Gabriella. + +At supper the farmer, having picked out for her the best piece of the +breast of the fried chicken, inquired in a voice which implied how +cordially superfluous the question was:-- + +"Miss Gabriella, will you have cream gravy?" + +"No, thank you." + +The shock to that family! Not take cream gravy! What kind of a teacher +was that, now? Every small hand, old enough to use a knife or fork, +held it suspended. At the foot of the table, the farmer, dropping his +head a little, helped the children, calling their names one by one, +more softly and in a tone meant to restore cheerfulness if possible. +The little wife at the head of the table had just put sugar into +Gabriella's cup and was in the act of pouring the coffee. She hastily +emptied the sugar back into the sugar-dish and asked with look of +dismay:-- + +"Will you have sugar in your coffee?" + +The situation grew worse at breakfast. In a voice to which confidence +had been mysteriously restored during the night--a voice that seemed to +issue from a honey-comb and to drip sweetness all the way across the +table, that big fellow at the foot again inquired:-- + +"Miss Gabriella, will you have cream gravy--THIS MORNING?" + +"No, thank you!" + +The oldest boy cocked his eye sideways at his mother, openly announcing +that he had won a secret wager. The mother hastily remarked:-- + +"I thought you might like a little for your breakfast." + +The baby, noticing the stillness and trouble everywhere, and feeling +itself deeply wounded because perfectly innocent, burst into frantic +crying. + +Gabriella could have outcried the baby! She resolved that if they had +it for dinner, she would take it though it were the dessert. A moment +later she did better. Lifting her plate in both hands, she held it out, +knife, fork, and all. + +"I believe I'll change my mind. It looks SO tempting." + +"I think you'll find it nice," remarked the housewife, conciliated, but +resentful. But every child now determined to watch and see what else +she didn't take. They watched in vain: she took everything. So that in +a few days they recovered their faith in her and resumed their +crawling. Gabriella had never herself realized how many different +routes and stations she had in her own body until it had been thus +travelled over: feet and ankles; knees; upper joints; trunk line; +eastern and western divisions; head terminal. + +There was never any more trouble for her in that household. They made +only two demands: that she eat whatever was put on the table and love +them. Whatever was put on the table was good; and they were all +lovable. They were one live, disorderly menagerie of nothing but love. +But love is not the only essential of life; and its phenomena can be +trying. + +Here, then, in this remote neighborhood of plain farmers, in a little +district school situated on a mud road, Gabriella began alone and +without training her new life,--attempt of the Southern girl to make +herself self-supporting in some one of the professions,--sign of a vast +national movement among the women of her people. In her surroundings +and ensuing struggles she had much use for that saving sense of humor +which had been poured into her veins out of the deep clear wells of her +ancestors; need also of that radiant, bountiful light which still fell +upon her from the skies of the past; but more than these as staff to +her young hands, cup to her lips, lamp to her feet, oil to her daily +bruises, rest to her weary pillow, was reliance on Higher Help. For the +years--and they seemed to her many and wide--had already driven +Gabriella, as they have driven countless others of her sex, out of the +cold, windy world into the church: she had become a Protestant devotee. +Had she been a Romanist, she would long ere this have been a nun. She +was now fitted for any of those merciful and heroic services which keep +fresh on earth the records of devoted women. The inner supporting stem +of her nature had never been snapped; but it had been bruised enough to +give off life-fragrance. Adversity had ennobled her. In truth, she had +so weathered the years of a Revolution which had left her as destitute +as it had left her free, that she was like Perdita's rosemary: a flower +which keeps seeming and savor all the winter long. The North Wind had +bolted about her in vain his whitest snows; and now the woods were +turning green. + +It was merely in keeping with Gabriella's nature, therefore, that as +she grew to know the people among whom she had come to stay, their +homes, their family histories, one household and one story should have +engaged her deep interest: David's parents and David's career. As she +drove about the country, visiting with the farmer's wife, there had +been pointed out a melancholy remnant of a farm, desperately resisting +absorption by some one of three growing estates touching it on three +sides. She had been taken to call on the father and mother; had seen +the poverty within doors, the half-ruined condition of the outhouses; +had heard of their son, now away at the university; of how they had +saved and he had struggled. A proud father it was who now told of his +son's magnificent progress already at college. + +"Ah," she exclaimed, thinking it over in her room that night, "this is +something worth hearing! Here is the hero in life! Among these +easy-going people this solitary struggler. I, too, am one now; I can +understand him." + +During the first year of her teaching, there had developed in her a +noble desire to see David; but one long to be disappointed. He did not +return home during his vacation; she went away during hers. The autumn +following he was back in college; she at her school. Then the Christmas +holidays and his astounding, terrible home-coming, put out of college +and church. As soon as she heard of that awful downfall, Gabriella felt +a desire to go straight to him. She did not reason or hesitate: she +went. + +And now for two months they had been seeing each other every few days. + +Thus by the working out of vast forces, the lives of Gabriella and +David had been jostled violently together. They were the children of +two revolutions, separate yet having a common end: she produced by the +social revolution of the New World, which overthrew mediaeval slavery; +he by the intellectual revolution of the Old World, which began to put +forth scientific law, but in doing this brought on one of the greatest +ages of religious doubt. So that both were early vestiges of the same +immeasurable race evolution, proceeding along converging lines. She, +living on the artificial summits of a decaying social order, had +farthest to fall, in its collapse, ere she reached the natural earth; +he, toiling at the bottom, had farthest to rise before he could look +out upon the plains of widening modern thought and man's evolving +destiny. Through her fall and his rise, they had been brought to a +common level. But on that level all that had befallen her had driven +her as out of a blinding storm into the church, the seat and asylum of +religion; all that had befallen him had driven him out of the churches +as the fortifications of theology. She had been drawn to that part of +worship which lasts and is divine; he had been repelled by the part +that passes and is human. + + + + +XVI + + +Although Gabriella had joyously greeted the day, as bringing exemption +from stifling hours in school, her spirits had drooped ere evening with +monotony. There were no books in use among the members of that lovable +household except school-books; they were too busy with the primary joys +of life to notice the secondary resources of literature. She had no +pleasant sewing. To escape the noise of the pent-up children, she must +restrict herself to that part of the house which comprised her room. A +walk out of doors was impracticable, although she ventured once into +the yard to study more closely the marvels of the ice-work; and to the +edge of the orchard, to ascertain how the apple trees were bearing up +under those avalanches of frozen silver slipped from the clouds. + +So there were empty hours for her that day; and always the emptiest are +the heaviest--those unfilled baskets of time which strangely become +lightest only after we have heaped them with the best we have to give. +Gabriella filled the hour-baskets this day with thoughts of David, +whose field work she knew would be interrupted by the storm, and whose +movements about the house she vainly tried to follow in imagination. + +Two months of close association with him in that dull country +neighborhood had wrought great changes in the simple feeling with which +she had sought him at first. He had then been to her only a Prodigal +who had squandered his substance, tried to feed his soul on the swinish +husks of Doubt, and returning to his father's house unrepentant, had +been admitted yet remained rejected: a Prodigal not of the flesh and +the world but of the spirit and the Lord. But what has ever interested +the heart of woman as a prodigal of some kind? + +At other times he was figured by her sympathies as a young Samaritan +gone travelling into a Divine country but fallen among spiritual +thieves, who had stripped him of his seamless robe of Faith and left +him bruised by Life's wayside: a maltreated Christ-neighbor whom it was +her duty to succor if she could. But a woman's nursing of a man's +wound--how often it becomes the nursing of the wounded! Moreover, +Gabriella had now long been aware of what she had become to her +prodigal, her Samaritan; she saw the truth and watched it growing from +day to day; for he was incapable of disguises. But often what effect +has such watching upon the watcher, a watcher who is alone in the +world? So that while she fathomed with many feminine soundings all that +she was to David, Gabriella did not dream what David had become to her. + +Shortly after nightfall, when she heard his heavy tread on the porch +below, the tedium of the day instantly vanished. Happiness rose in her +like a clear fountain set suddenly playing--rose to her eyes--bathed +her in refreshing vital emotions. + +"I am so glad you came," she said as she entered the parlor, gave him +her hand, and stood looking up into his softened rugged face, at his +majestical head, which overawed her a little always. Large as was the +mould in which nature had cast his body, this seemed to her dwarfed by +the inner largeness of the man, whose development she could note as now +going forward almost visibly from day to day: he had risen so far +already and was still so young. + +He did not reply to her greeting except with a look. In matters which +involved his feeling for her, he was habitually hampered and ill at +ease; only on general subjects did she ever see him master of his +resources. Gabriella had fallen into the habit of looking into his eyes +for the best answers: there he always spoke not only with ideas but +emotions: a double speech much cared for by woman. + +They seated themselves on opposite sides of the wide deep fire-place: a +grate for soft coal had not yet destroyed that. + +"Your schoolhouse is safe," he announced briefly. + +"Oh, I've been wanting to know all day but had no one to send! How do +YOU know?" she inquired quickly. + +"It's safe. The yard will have to be cleared of brush: that's all." + +She looked at him gratefully. "You are always so kind!" + +"Well," observed David, with a great forward stride, "aren't you?" + +Gabriella, being a woman, did not particularly prize this remark: it +suggested his being kind because she had been kind; and a woman likes +nothing as reward, everything as tribute. + +"And now if the apple trees are only not killed!" she exclaimed +joyously, changing the subject. + +"Why the apple trees?" + +"If you had been here last spring, you would have understood. When they +bloom, they are mine, I take possession." After a moment she added: +"They bring back the recollection of such happy times--springs long +ago. Some time I'll tell you." + +"When you were a little girl?" + +"Yes." + +"I wish I had known you when you were a little girl," said David, in an +undertone, looking into the fire. + +Gabriella reflected how impossible this would have been: the thought +caused her sharp pain. + +Some time later, David, who had appeared more and more involved in some +inward struggle, suddenly asked a relieving question:-- + +"Do you know the first time I ever saw you?" + +She did not answer at once. + +"In the smoke-house," she said with a ripple of laughter. Gabriella, +when she was merry, made one, think of some lovely green April hill, +snow-capped. + +David shook his head slowly. His eyes grew soft and mysterious. + +"It was the first time _I_ ever saw YOU," she protested. + +He continued to shake his head, and she looked puzzled. + +"You saw me once before that, and smiled at me." + +Gabriella seemed incredulous and not well pleased. + +After a little while David began in the manner of one who sets out to +tell a story he is secretly fond of. + +"Do you remember standing on the steps of a church the Friday evening +before Christmas--a little after dark?" + +Gabriella's eyes began to express remembrance. "A wagon-load of cedar +had just been thrown out on the sidewalk, the sexton was carrying it +into the church, some children were helping, you were making a wreath: +do you remember?" + +She knew every word of this. + +"A young man--a Bible student--passed, or tried to pass. You smiled at +his difficulty. Not unkindly," he added, smiling not unkindly himself. + +"And that was you? This explains why I have always believed I had seen +you before. But it was only for a moment, your face was in the dark; +how should I remember?" + +After she said this, she looked grave: his face that night had been far +from a happy one. + +"That day," continued David, quickly grave also, "that day I saw my +professors and pastor for the last time; it ended me as a Bible +student. I had left the University and the scene of my trial only a +little while before." + +He rose as he concluded and took a turn across the room. Then he faced +her, smiling a little sadly. + +"Once I might have thought all that Providential. I mean, seeing the +faces of my professors--my judges--last, as the end of my old life; +then seeing your face next--the beginning of the new." + +He had long used frankness like this, making no secret of himself, of +her influence over him. It was embarrassing; it declared so much, +assumed so much, that had never been declared or assumed in any other +way. But her stripped and beaten young Samaritan was no labyrinthine +courtier, bescented and bedraped and bedyed with worldliness and +conventions: he came ever in her presence naked of soul. It was this +that empowered her to take the measure of his feeling for her: it had +its effect. + +David returned to his chair and looked across with a mixture of +hesitancy and determination. + +"I have never spoken to you about my expulsion--my unbelief." + +After a painful pause she answered. + +"You must be aware that I have noticed your silence. Perhaps you do not +realize how much I have regretted it." + +"You know why I have not?" + +She did not answer. + +"I have been afraid. It's the only thing in the world I've ever been +afraid of." + +"Why should you have been?" + +"I dreaded to know how you might feel. It has caused a difficulty with +every one so far. It separated me from my friends among the Bible +students. It separated me from my professors, my pastor. It has +alienated my father and mother. I did not know how you would regard it." + +"Have I not known it all the time? Has it made any difference?" + +"Ah! but that might be only your toleration! Meantime it has become a +question with me how far your toleration will go--what is back of your +toleration! We tolerate so much in people who are merely +acquaintances--people that we do not care particularly for and that we +are never to have anything to do with in life. But if the tie begins to +be closer, then the things we tolerated at a distance--what becomes of +them then?" + +He was looking at her steadily, and she dropped her eyes. This was +another one of the Prodigal's assumptions--but never before put so +pointedly. + +"So I have feared that when I myself told you what I believe and what I +do not believe, it might be the end of me. And when you learned my +feelings toward what YOU believe--that might be more troublesome still. +But the time has come when I must know." + +He turned his face away from her, and rising, walked several times +across the room. + +At last also the moment had arrived for which she had been waiting. +Freely as they had spoken to each other of their pasts--she giving him +glimpses of the world in which she had been reared, he taking her into +his world which was equally unfamiliar--on this subject silence between +them had never been broken. She had often sought to pass the guard he +placed around this tragical episode but had always been turned away. +The only original ground of her interest in him, therefore, still +remained a background, obscure and unexplored. She regretted this for +many reasons. Her belief was that he was merely passing through a phase +of religious life not uncommon with those who were born to go far in +mental travels before they settled in their Holy Land. She believed it +would be over the sooner if he had the chance to live it out in +discussion; and she herself offered the only possibility of this. +Gabriella was in a position to know by experience what it means in +hours of trouble to need the relief of companionship. Ideas, she had +learned, long shut up in the mind tend to germinate and take root. +There had been discords which had ceased sounding in her own ear as +soon as they were poured into another. + +"I have always hoped," she repeated, as he seated himself, "that you +would talk with me about these things." And then to divert the +conversation into less difficult channels, she added:-- + +"As to what you may think of my beliefs, I have no fear; they need not +be discussed and they cannot be attacked." + +"You are an Episcopalian," he suggested hesitatingly. "I do not wish to +be rude, but--your church has its dogmas." + +"There is not a dogma of my church that I have ever thought of for a +moment: or of any other church," she replied instantly and clearly. + +In those simple words she had uttered unaware a long historic truth: +that religion, not theology, forms the spiritual life of women. In the +whole history of the world's opinions, no dogma of any weight has ever +originated with a woman; wherein, as in many other ways, she shows +points of superiority in her intellect. It is a man who tries to +apprehend God through his logic and psychology; a woman understands Him +better through emotions and deeds. It is the men who are concerned +about the cubits, the cedar wood, the Urim and Thummim of the +Tabernacle; woman walks straight into the Holy of Holies. Men +constructed the Cross; women wept for the Crucified. It was a man--a +Jew defending his faith in his own supernatural revelation--who tried +to ram a sponge of vinegar into the mouth of Christ, dying; it was +women who gathered at the sepulchre of Resurrection. If Christ could +have had a few women among his Apostles, there might have been more of +His religion in the world and fewer creeds barnacled on the World's +Ship of Souls. + +"How can you remain in your church without either believing or +disbelieving its dogmas?" asked David, squarely. + +"My church is the altar of Christ and the house of God," replied +Gabriella, simply. "And so is any other church." That was all the logic +she had and all the faith she needed; beyond that limit she did not +even think. + +"And you believe in THEM ALL?" he asked with wondering admiration. + +"I believe in them all." + +"Once I did also," observed David, reverently and with new reverence +for her. + +"What I regret is that you should have thrown away your religion on +account of your difficulties with theology. Nothing more awful could +have befallen you than that." + +"It was the churches that made the difficulties," said David, "I did +not. But there is more than theology in it. You do not know what I +think about religions--revelations--inspirations--man's place in +nature." + +"What DO you think?" she asked eagerly. "I suppose now I shall hear +something about those great books." + +She put herself at ease in her chair like one who prepares to listen +quietly. + +"Shall I tell you how the whole argument runs as I have arranged it? I +shall have to begin far away and come down to the subject by degrees." +He looked apologetic. + +"Tell me everything; I have been waiting a long time." + +David reflected a few moments and then began:-- + +"The first of my books as I have arranged them, considers what we call +the physical universe as a whole--our heavens--the stars--and discusses +the little that man knows about it. I used to think the earth was the +centre of this universe, the most important world in it, on account of +Man. That is what the ancient Hebrews thought. In this room float +millions of dust-particles too small to be seen by us. To say that the +universe is made for the sake of the earth would be something like +saying that the earth was created for the sake of one of these +particles of its own dust." + +He paused to see how she received this. + +"That ought to be a great book," she said approvingly. "I should like +to study it." + +"The second takes up that small part of the universe which we call our +solar system and sums up the little we have learned regarding it. I +used to think the earth the most important part of the solar system, on +account of Man. So the earliest natural philosophers believed. That is +like believing that the American continent was created for the sake, +say, of my father's farm." + +He awaited her comment. + +"That should be a great book," she said simply. "Some day let me see +THAT." + +"The third detaches for study one small planet of that system--our +earth--and reviews our latest knowledge of that: as to how it has been +evolved into its present stage of existence through other stages +requiring unknown millions and millions and millions of years. Once I +thought it was created in six days. So it is written. Do you believe +that?" + +There was silence. + +"What is the next book?" she asked. + +"The fourth," said David, with a twinkle in his eye at her refusal to +answer his question, "takes up the history of the earth's surface--its +crust--the layers of this--as one might study the skin of an apple as +large as the globe. In the course of an almost infinite time, as we +measure things, it discovers the appearance of Life on this crust, and +then tries to follow the progress of Life from the lowest forms upward, +always upward, to Man: another time infinitely vast, according to our +standards." + +He looked over for some comment but she made none, and he continued, +his interest deepening, his face kindling:-- + +"The fifth takes up the subject of Man, as a single one of the myriads +of forms of Life that have grown on the earth's crust, and gives the +best of what we know of him viewed as a species of animal. Does this +tire you?" + +Gabriella made the only gesture of displeasure he had ever seen. + +"Now," said David, straightening himself up, "I draw near to the root +of the matter. A sixth book takes up what we call the civilization of +this animal species, Man. It subdivides his civilization into different +civilizations. It analyzes these civilizations, where it is possible, +into their arts, governments, literatures, religions, and other +elements. And the seventh," he resumed after a grave pause, +scrutinizing her face most eagerly, "the seventh takes up just one part +of his civilizations--the religions of the globe--and gives an account +of these. It describes how they have grown and flourished, how some +have passed as absolutely away as the civilizations that produced them. +It teaches that those religions were as natural a part of those +civilizations as their civil laws, their games, their wars, their +philosophy; that the religious books of these races, which they +themselves often thought inspired revelations, were no more inspired +and no more revelations than their secular books; that Buddha's faith +or Brahma's were no more direct from God than Buddhistic or Brahman +temples were from God; that the Koran is no more inspired than Moorish +architecture is inspired; that the ancient religion of the Jewish race +stands on the same footing as the other great religions of the +globe--as to being Supernatural; that the second religion of the +Hebrews, starting out of them, but rejected by them, the Christian +religion, the greatest of all to us, takes its place with the others as +a perfectly natural expression of the same human desire and effort to +find God and to worship Him through all the best that we know in +ourselves and of the universe outside us." + +"Ah," said Gabriella, suddenly leaning forward in her chair, "that is +the book that has done all the harm." + +"One moment! All these books," continued David, for he was aroused now +and did not pause to consider her passionate protest, "have this in +common: that they try to discover and to trace Law. The universe--it is +the expression of Law. Our solar system--it has been formed by Law, The +sun--the driving force of Law has made it. Our earth--Law has shaped +that; brought Life out of it; evolved Life on it from the lowest to the +highest; lifted primeval Man to modern Man; out of barbarism developed +civilization; out of prehistoric religions, historic religions. And +this one order--method--purpose--ever running and unfolding through the +universe, is all that we know of Him whom we call Creator, God, our +Father. So that His reign is the Reign of Law. He, Himself, is the +author of the Law that we should seek Him. We obey, and our seekings +are our religions." + +"If you ask me whether I believe in the God of the Hebrews, I say +'Yes'; just as I believe in the God of the Babylonians, of the +Egyptians, of the Greeks, of the Romans, of all men. But if you ask +whether I believe what the Hebrews wrote of God, or what any other age +or people thought of God, I say 'No.' I believe what the best thought +of my own age thinks of Him in the light of man's whole past and of our +greater present knowledge of the Laws of His universe," said David, +stoutly, speaking for his masters. + +"As for the theologies," he resumed hastily, as if not wishing to be +interrupted, "I know of no book that has undertaken to number them. +They, too, are part of Man's nature and civilization, of his never +ceasing search. But they are merely what he thinks of God--never +anything more. They often contain the highest thought of which he is +capable in his time and place; but the awful mistake and cruelty of +them is that they have regularly been put forth as the voice of God +Himself, authoritative, inviolable, and unchanging. An assemblage of +men have a perfect right to turn a man out of their church on +theological grounds; but they have no right to do it in the name of +God. With as much propriety a man might be expelled from a political +party in the name of God. In the long life of any one of the great +religions of the globe, how many brief theologies have grown up under +it like annual plants under a tree! How many has the Christian religion +itself sprouted, nourished, and trampled down as dead weeds! What do we +think now of the Christian theology of the tenth century? of the +twelfth? of the fifteenth? In the nineteenth century alone, how many +systems of theology have there been? In the Protestantism of the United +States, how many are there to-day? Think of the names they bear--older +and newer! According to founders, and places, and sources, and +contents, and methods: Arminian--Augustinian--Calvinistic--Lutheran-- +Gallican--Genevan--Mercersburg--New England--Oxford--national-- +revealed--Catholic--evangelical--fundamental--historical-- +homiletical--moral--mystical--pastoral--practical--dogmatic-- +exegetical--polemic--rational--systematic. That sounds a little +like Polonius," said David, stopping suddenly, "but there is no +humor in it! One great lesson in the history of them all is not to be +neglected: that through them also runs the great Law of Evolution, of +the widening thoughts of men; so that now, in civilized countries at +least, the churches persecute to the death no longer. You know what the +Egyptian Priesthood would have done with me at my trial. What the +Mediaeval hierarchy would have done. What the Protestant or the +Catholic theology of two centuries ago might have done. Now mankind is +developing better ideas of these little arrangements of human +psychology on the subject of God, though the churches still try to +enforce them in His name. But the time is coming when the churches will +be deserted by all thinking men, unless they cease trying to uphold, as +the teachings of God, mere creeds of their ecclesiastical founders. +Very few men reject all belief in God; and it is no man's right to +inquire in what any man's belief consists; men do reject and have a +right to reject what some man writes out as the eternal truth of the +matter." + +"And now," he said, turning to her sorrowfully, "that is the best or +the worst of what I believe--according as one may like it or not like +it. I see all things as a growth, a sublime unfolding by the Laws of +God. The race ever rises toward Him. The old things which were its best +once die off from it as no longer good. Its charity grows, its justice +grows. All the nobler, finer elements of its spirit come forth more and +more--a continuous advance along the paths of Law. And the better the +world, the larger its knowledge, the easier its faith in Him who made +it and who leads it on. The development of Man is itself the great +Revelation of Him! But I have studied these things ignorantly, only a +little while. I am at the beginning of my life, and hope to grow. Still +I stand where I have placed myself. And now, are you like the others: +do you give me up?" + +He faced her with the manner in which he had sat before his professors, +conceiving himself as on trial a second time. He had in him the stuff +of martyrs and was prepared to stand by his faith at the cost of all +things. + +The silence in the room lasted. Her feeling for him was so much deeper +than all this--so centred, not in what his faith was to her but in what +HE was to her, that she did not trust herself to speak. He was not on +trial in these matters in the least: without his knowing it, he had +been on trial in many other ways for a long time. + +He misunderstood her silence, read wrongly her expression which was +obeying with some severity the need she felt to conceal what she had no +right to show. + +"Ah, well! Ah, well!" he cried piteously, rising slowly. + +When she saw his face a moment later across the room as he turned, it +was the face she had first seen in the dark street. It had stopped her +singing then; it drew an immediate response from her now. She crossed +over to him and took one of his hands in both of hers. Her cheeks were +flushed, her voice trembled. + +"I am not your judge," she said, "and in all this there is only one +thing that is too sad, too awful, for me to accept. I am sorry you +should have been misled into believing that the Christian religion is +nothing more than one of the religions of the world, and Christ merely +one of its religious teachers. I wish with all my strength you believed +as you once believed, that the Bible is a direct Revelation from God, +making known to us, beyond all doubt, the Resurrection of the dead, the +Immortality of the Soul, in a better world than this, and the presence +with us of a Father who knows our wants, pities our weakness, and +answers our prayers. But I believe you will one day regain your faith: +you will come back to the Church." + +He shook his head. + +"Don't be deceived," he said. + +"Men, great men, have said that before and they have come back. I am a +woman, and these questions never trouble us; but is it not a common +occurrence that men who think deeply on such mysteries pass through +their period of doubt?" + +"But suppose I never pass through mine! You have not answered my +question," he said determinedly. "Does this make no difference in your +feeling for me? Would it make none?" + +"Will you bring me that book on the religions of the world?" + +"Ah," he said, "you have not answered." + +"I have told you that I am not your judge." + +"Ah, but that tells nothing: a woman is never a judge. She is either +with one or against him." + +"Which do I look like?"--she laughed evasively--"Mercy or Vengeance? +And have you forgotten that it is late--too late to ask questions?" + +He stood, comprehending her doubtfully, with immeasurable joy, and then +went out to get his overcoat. + +"Bring your things in here," she said, "it is cold in the hall. And +wrap up warmly! That is more important than all the Genevan and the +homiletical!" + +He bade her good night, subdued with happiness that seemed to blot out +the troublous past, to be the beginning of new life. New happiness +brought new awkwardness:-- + +"This was not my regular night," he said threateningly. "I came +to-night instead of to-morrow night." + +Gabriella could answer a remark like that quickly enough. + +"Certainly: it is hard to wait even for a slight pleasure, and it is +best to be through with suffering." + +He looked as if cold water and hot water had been thrown on him at the +same time: he received shocks of different kinds and was doubtful as to +the result. He shook his head questioningly. + +"I may do very well with science, but I am not so sure about women." + +"Aren't women science?" + +"They are a branch of theology," he said; "they are what a man thinks +about when he begins to probe his Destiny!" + + + + +XVII + + +David slept peacefully that night, like a man who has reached the end +of long suspense. When he threw his shutters open late, he found that +the storm had finished its work and gone and that the weather had +settled stinging cold. The heavens were hyacinth, the ground white with +snow; and the sun, day-lamp of that vast ceiling of blue, made the +earth radiant as for the bridal morn of Winter. So HIS thoughts ran. + +"Gabriella! Gabriella!" he cried, as he beheld the beauty, the purity, +the breadth, the clearness. "It is you--except the coldness, the +cruelty." + +All day then those three: the hyacinthine sky, the flashing lamp, the +white earth, with not one crystal thawing. + +It being Saturday, there was double work for him. He knocked up the +wood for that day and for Sunday also, packed and stored it; cut double +the quantity of oats; threw over twice the usual amount of fodder. The +shocks were buried. He had hard kicking to do before he reached the +rich brown fragrant stalks. Afterwards he made paths through the snow +about the house for his mother; to the dairy, to the hen-house. In the +wooden monotony of her life an interruption in these customary visits +would have been to her a great loss. The snow being over the cook's +shoe-tops, he took a basket and dug the vegetables out of the holes in +the garden. + +In the afternoon he had gone to the pond in the woods to cut a drinking +place for the cattle. As he was returning with his axe on his shoulder, +the water on it having instantly frozen, he saw riding away across the +stable lot, the one of their neighbors who was causing him so much +trouble about the buying of the farm. He stopped hot with anger and +watched him. + +In those years a westward movement was taking place among the +Kentuckians--a sad exodus. Many families rendered insolvent or bankrupt +by the war and the loss of their slaves, while others interspersed +among them had grown richer by Government contracts, were now being +bought out, forced out, by debt or mortgage, and were seeking new homes +where lay cheaper lands and escape from the suffering of living on, +ruined, amid old prosperous acquaintances. It was a profound historic +disturbance of population, destined later on to affect profoundly many +younger commonwealths. This was the situation now bearing heavily on +David's father, on three sides of whose fragmentary estate lay rich +neighbors, one of whom especially desired it. + +The young man threw his axe over his shoulder again and took a line +straight toward the house. + +"He shall not take advantage of my father's weakness again," he said, +"nor shall he use to further his purposes what I have done to reduce +him to this want." + +He felt sure that this pressure upon his father lay in part back of the +feeling of his parents toward him. His expulsion from college and their +belief that he was a failure; the fact that for three years repairs had +been neglected and improvements allowed to wait, in order that all +possible revenues might be collected for him; even these caused them +less acute distress than the fear that as a consequence they should now +be forced so late in life to make that mournful pilgrimage into strange +regions. David was saddened to think that ever at his father's side sat +his mother, irritating him by dropping all day into his ear the half +idle, half intentional words which are the water that wears out the +rock. + +The young man walked in a straight line toward the house, determined to +ascertain the reason of this last visit, and to have out the +long-awaited talk with his father. He reached the yard gate, then +paused and wheeled abruptly toward the barn. + +"Not to-day," he said, thinking of Gabriella and of his coming visit to +her now but a few hours off. "To-morrow! Day after to-morrow! Any time +after this! But no quarrels to-day!" and his face softened. + +Before the barn door, where the snow had been tramped down by the stock +and seeds of grain lay scattered, he flushed a flock of little birds, +nearly all strangers to each other. Some from the trees about the yard; +some from the thickets, fences, and fields farther away. As he threw +open the barn doors, a few more, shyer still, darted swiftly into +hiding. He heard the quick heavy flap of wings on the joists of the +oats loft overhead, and a hawk swooped out the back door and sailed low +away. + +The barn had become a battle-field of hunger and life. This was the +second day of famine--all seeds being buried first under ice and now +under snow; swift hunger sending the littler ones to this granary, the +larger following to prey on them. To-night there would be owls and in +the darkness tragedies. In the morning, perhaps, he would find a +feather which had floated from a breast. A hundred years ago, he +reflected, the wolves would have gathered here also and the cougar and +the wildcat for bigger game. + +It was sunset as he left the stable, his work done. Beside the yard +gate there stood a locust tree, and on a bough of this, midway up, for +he never goes to the tree-tops at this season, David saw a cardinal. He +was sitting with his breast toward the clear crimson sky; every twig +around him silver filigree; the whole tree glittering with a million +gems of rose and white, gold and green; and wherever a fork, there a +hanging of snow. The bird's crest was shot up. He had come forth to +look abroad upon this strange wreck of nature and peril to his kind. +David had scarcely stopped before him when with a quick shy movement he +dived down into one of his ruined winter fortresses-a cedar dismembered +and flattened out, never to rise again. + +The supper that evening was a very quiet one. David felt that his +father's eyes were often on him reproachfully; and that his mother's +were approvingly on his father's. Time and again during the meal the +impulse well-nigh overcame him to speak to his father then and there; +but he knew it would be a cruel, angry scene; and each time the face of +Gabriella restrained him. It was for peace; and his heart shut out all +discord from around that new tenderer figure of her which had come +forth within him this day. + +Soon even the trouble at home was forgotten; he was on his way through +the deep snow toward her. + + + + +XVIII + + +Gabriella had brought with her into this neighborhood of good-natured, +non-reading people the recollections of literature. These became her +library of the mind; and deep joy she drew from its invisible volumes. +She had transported a fine collection of the heroes and heroines of +good fiction (Gabriella, according to the usage of her class and time, +had never read any but standard works). These, when the earlier years +of adversity came on, had been her second refuge from the world: +religion was the first. Now they were the means by which she returned +to the world in imagination. The failure to gather together so durable +a company of friends leaves every mind the more destitute--especially a +woman's, which has greater need to live upon ideals, and cannot always +find these in actual life. Then there were short poems and parts of +long poems, which were as texts out of a high and beautiful Gospel of +Nature. One of these was on the snowstorm; and this same morning her +memory long was busy, fitting the poem within her mind to the scenery +around the farmhouse, as she passed joyously from window to window, +looking out far and near. + +There it all was as the great New England poet had described it: that +masonry out of an unseen quarry, that frolic architecture of the snow, +nightwork of the North Wind, fierce artificer. In a few hours he had +mimicked with wild and savage fancy the structures which human art can +scarce rear, stone by stone, in an age: white bastions curved with +projected roof round every windward stake or tree or door; the gateway +overtopped with tapering turrets; coop and kennel hung mockingly with +Parian wreaths; a swanlike form investing the hidden thorn. + +From one upper window under the blue sky in the distance she could see +what the poet had never beheld: a field of hemp shocks looking like a +winter camp, dazzlingly white. The scene brought to her mind some +verses written by a minor Kentucky writer on his own soil and people. + + SONG OF THE HEMP + + Ah, gentle are the days when the Year is young + And rolling fields with rippling hemp are green + And from old orchards pipes the thrush at morn. + No land, no land like this is yet unsung + Where man and maid at twilight meet unseen + And Love is born. + + Oh, mighty summer days and god of flaming tress + When in the fields full-headed bends the stalk, + And blossoms what was sown! + No land, no land like this for tenderness + When man and maid as one together walk + And Love is grown. + + Oh, dim, dim autumn days of sobbing rain + When on the fields the ripened hemp is spread + And woods are brown. + No land, no land like this for mortal pain + When Love stands weeping by the sweet, sweet bed + For Love cut down. + + Ah, dark, unfathomably dark, white winter days + When falls the sun from out the crystal deep + On muffled farms. + No land, no land like this for God's sad ways + When near the tented fields Love's Soldier lies asleep + With empty arms. + +The verses were too sorrowful for this day, with its new, half-awakened +happiness. Had Gabriella been some strong-minded, uncompromising New +England woman, she might have ended her association with David the +night before--taking her place triumphantly beside an Accusing Judge. +Or she might all the more fiercely have set on him an acrid conscience, +and begun battling with him through the evidences of Christianity, that +she might save his soul. But this was a Southern girl of strong, warm, +deep nature, who felt David's life in its simple entirety, and had no +thought of rejecting the whole on account of some peculiarity in one of +its parts; the white flock was more to her than one dark member. +Inexpressibly dear and sacred as was her own church, her own faith, she +had never been taught to estimate a man primarily with reference to +his. What was his family, how he stood in his profession, his honorable +character, his manners, his manhood--these were what Gabriella had +always been taught to look for first in a man. + +In many other ways than in his faith and doubt David was a new type of +man to her. He was the most religious, the only religious, one she had +ever known--a new spiritual growth arising out of his people as a young +oak out of the soil. Had she been familiar with the Greek idea, she +might have called him a Kentucky autochthon. It was the first time also +that she had ever encountered in a Kentuckian the type of student +mind--that fitness and taste for scholarship which sometimes moves so +unobtrusively and rises so high among that people, but is usually +unobserved unless discovered pre-eminent and commanding far from the +confines of the state. + +Touching his scepticism she looked upon him still as she had thought of +him at first,--as an example of a sincere soul led astray for a time +only. Strange as were his views (and far stranger they seemed in those +years than now), she felt no doubt that when the clouds marshalled +across his clear vision from the minds of others had been withdrawn, he +would once more behold the Sun of Righteousness as she did. Gabriella +as by intuition reasoned that a good life most often leads to a belief +in the Divine Goodness; that as we understand in others only what we +are in ourselves, so it is the highest elements of humanity that must +be relied upon to believe in the Most High: and of David's lofty nature +she possessed the whole history of his life as evidence. + +Her last act, then, the night before had been, in her nightgown, on her +knees, to offer up a prayer that he might be saved from the influences +of false teachers and guided back to the only Great One. But when a +girl, with all the feelings which belong to her at that hour, seeks +this pure audience and sends upward the name of a man on her spotless +prayers, he is already a sacred happiness to her as well as a care. + +On this day she was radiant with tender happiness. The snow of itself +was exhilarating. It spread around her an enchanted land. It buried out +of sight in the yard and stable lots all mire, all ugly things. This +ennoblement of eternal objects reacted with comic effect on the +interior of the house itself; outside it was a marble palace, +surrounded by statuary; within--alas! It provoked her humor, that +innocent fun-making which many a time had rendered her environment the +more tolerable. + +When she went down into the parlor early that evening to await David's +coming, this gayety, this laughter of the generations of men and women +who made up her past, possessed her still. She made a fresh +investigation of the parlor, took a new estimate of its peculiar +furnishings. The hearthstones--lead color. The mohair furniture--cold +at all temperatures of the room and slippery in every position of the +body. The little marble-top table on which rested a glass case holding +a stuffed blue jay clutching a varnished limb: tail and eyes stretched +beyond the reach of muscles. Near the door an enormous shell which, on +summer days, the cook blew as a dinner horn for the hands in the field. +A collection of ambrotypes which, no matter how held, always caused the +sitter to look as though the sun was shining in his eyes. The violence +of the Brussels carpet. But the cheap family portraits in thin wooden +frames--these were Gabriella's delight in a mood like this. + +The first time she saw these portraits, she turned and walked rapidly +out of the parlor. She had enough troubles of her own without bearing +the troubles of all these faces. Later on she could confront them with +equanimity--that company of the pallid, the desperately sick, the +unaccountably uncomfortable. All looked, not as though there had been a +death in the family, but a death in the collection: only the same grief +could have so united them as mourners. And whatever else they lacked, +each showed two hands, the full number, placed where they were sure to +be counted. + +She was in the midst of this psychological reversion to ancestral +gayety when David arrived. Each looked quickly at the other with +unconscious fear. Within a night and a day each had drawn nearer to the +other; and each secretly inquired whether the other now discovered this +nearness. Gabriella saw at least that he, too, was excited with +happiness. + +He appeared to her for the first time handsome. He WAS better looking. +When one approaches the confines of love, one nears the borders of +beauty. Nature sets going a certain work of decoration, of +transformation. Had David about this time been a grouse, he would +probably have displayed a prodigious ruff. Had he been a bulbul and +continued to feel as he did, he would have poured into the ear of night +such roundelays as had never been conceived of by that disciplined +singer. Had he been a master violinist, he would have been unable to +play a note from a wild desire to flourish the bow. He had long stood +rooted passively in the soil of being like a century plant when it is +merely keeping itself in existence. But latterly, feeling in advance +the approach of the Great Blossoming Hour, he had begun to shoot up +rapidly into a lofty life-stalk; there were inches of the rankest +growth on him within the last twenty-four hours. To-night he was not +even serious in his conversation; and therefore he was the more +awkward. His emotions were unmanageable; much more his talk. But she +who witnesses this awkwardness and understands--does she ever fail to +pardon? + +"Last night," he said with a droll twinkle, after the evening was about +half spent, "there was one subject I did not speak to you about--Man's +place in Nature. Have you ever thought about that?" + +"I've been too busy thinking about my place in the school!" said +Gabriella, laughing--Gabriella who at all times was simplicity and +clearness. + +"You see Nature does nothing for Man except what she enables him to do +for himself. In this way she has made a man of him; she has given him +his resources and then thrown him upon them. Beyond that she cares +nothing, does nothing, provides, arranges nothing. I used to think, for +instance, that the greenness of the earth was intended for his +eyes--all the loveliness of spring. On the contrary, she merely gave +him an eye which has adapted itself to get pleasure out of the +greenness. The beauty of spring would have been the same, year after +year, century after century, had he never existed. And the blue of the +sky--I used to think it was hung about the earth for his sake; and the +colors of the clouds, the great sunsets. But the blueness of the sky is +nothing but the dust of the planet floating deep around it, too light +to sink through the atmosphere, but reflecting the rays of the sun. +These rays fall on the clouds and color them. It would all have been +so, had Man never been born. The earth's springs of drinking water, +refreshing showers, the rainbow on the cloud,--they would have been the +same, had no human being ever stood on this planet to claim them for +ages as the signs of providence and of covenant." + +Gabriella had her own faith as to the rainbow. + +"So, none of the other animals was made for Man," resumed David, who +seemed to have some ulterior purpose in all this. "I used to think the +structure and nature of the ass were given him that he might be adapted +to bear Man's burdens; they were given him that he might bear his own +burdens. Horses were not made for cavalry. And a camel--I never doubted +that he was a wonderful contrivance to enable man to cross the desert; +he is a wonderful contrivance in order that the contrivance itself may +cross the desert." + +"I hope I may never have to use one," said Gabriella, "when I commence +to ride again. I prefer horses and carriages--though I suppose you +would say that only the carriage was designed for me and that I had no +right to be drawn in that way." + +"Some day a horse may be designed for you, just as the carriage is. We +do not use horses on railroads now; we did use them at first in +Kentucky. Sometime you may not use horses in your carriage. You may +have a horse that was designed for you." + +"I think," said Gabriella, "I should prefer a horse that was designed +for itself." + +"And so," resumed David, moving straight on toward his concealed +climax, "if I were a poet, I'd never write poems about flowers and +clouds and lakes and mountains and moonbeams and all that; those things +are not for a man. If I were a novelist, I'd never write stories about +a grizzly bear, or a dog, or a red bird. If I were a sculptor, I'd not +carve a lynx or a lion. If I were a painter, I'd never paint sheep. In +all this universe there is only one thing that Nature ever created for +a man. I'd write poems about that one thing! I'd write novels about it! +I'd paint it! I'd carve it! I'd compose music to it!" + +"Why, what is that?" said Gabriella, led sadly astray. + +"A woman!" said David solemnly, turning red. + +Gabriella fled into the uttermost caves of silence. + +"And there was only one thing ever made for woman." + +"I understand perfectly." + +David felt rebuffed. He hardly knew why. But after a moment or two of +silence he went on, still advancing with rough paces toward his goal:-- + +"Sometimes," he said mournfully, "it's harder for a man to get the only +thing in the world that was ever made for him than anything else! This +difficulty, however, appertains exclusively to the human species." + +Gabriella touched her handkerchief quickly to her lips and held it +there. + +"But then, many curious things are true of our species," he continued, +with his eyes on the fire and in the manner of a soliloquy, "that never +occur elsewhere. A man, for instance, is the only animal that will +settle comfortably down for the rest of its days to live on the +exertions of the female." + +"It shows how a woman likes to be depended on," said Gabriella, with +her deep womanliness. + +"Tom-cats of the fireside," said David, "who are proud of what fat mice +their wives feed them on. It may show what you say in the nature of the +woman. But what does it show in the nature of the man?" + +"That depends." + +"I don't think it depends," replied David. "I think it is either one of +the results of Christianity or a survival of barbarism. As one of the +results of Christianity, it demonstrates what women will endure when +they are imposed upon. As a relic of barbarism--when it happens in our +country--why not regard it as derived from the North American Indians? +The chiefs lounged around the house and smoked the best tobacco and +sent the squaws out to work for them. Occasionally they broke silence +by briefly declaring that they thought themselves immortal." + +Gabriella tried to draw the conversation into other channels, but David +was not to be diverted. + +"It has been a great fact in the history of your sex," he said, looking +across at her, with a shake of his head, as though she did not +appreciate the subject, "that idea that everything in the universe was +made for Man." + +"Why?" inquired Gabriella, resigning herself to the perilous and the +irresistible. + +"Well, in old times it led men to think that since everything else +belonged to them, so did woman: therefore when they wanted her they did +not ask for her; they took her." + +"It is much better arranged at present, whatever the reason." + +"Now a man cannot always get one, even when he asks for her," and David +turned red again and knotted his hands. + +"I am so glad the schoolhouse was not damaged by the storm," observed +Gabriella, reflecting. + +David fell into a revery but presently awoke. + +"There are more men than women in the world. On an average, that is +only a fraction of a woman to every man. Still the men cannot take care +of them. But it ought to be a real pleasure to every man to take care +of an entire woman." + +"Did you ever notice the hands in that portrait?" + +David glanced at the portrait without noticing it, and went his way. + +"Since a man knows nothing else was created for him, he feels his +loneliness without her so much more deeply. They ought to be very good +and true to each other--a man and a woman--since they two are alone in +the universe." + +He gulped down his words and stood up, trembling. + +"I must be going," he said, without even looking at Gabriella, and went +out into the hall for his coat. + +"Bring it in here." she called. "It is cold out there." She watched how +careless he was about making himself snug for his benumbing walk. He +had a woollen comforter which he left loosely tied about his neck. + +"Tie it closer," she commanded. "You had a cold last night, and it is +worse tonight. Tuck it in close about your neck." + +David made the attempt. He was not thinking. + +"This way!" And Gabriella showed him by using her fingers around her +own neck and collar. + +He tried again and failed, standing before her with a mingling of +embarrassment and stubborn determination. + +"That will never do!" she cried with genuine concern. She took hold of +the comforter by the ends and drew the knot up close to his throat, he +lifting his head to receive it as it came. Then David with his eyes on +the ceiling felt his coat collar turned up and her soft warm fingers +tucking the comforter in around his neck. When he looked down, she was +standing over by the fireplace. + +"Good night," she said positively, with a quick gesture of dismissal as +she saw the look in his eyes. + +Each of the million million men who made up the past of David, that +moment reached a hand out of the distance and pushed him forward. But +of them all there was none so helpless with modesty,--so in need of +hiding from every eye,--even his own,--the sacred annals of that moment. + +He was standing by the table on which burned the candles. He bent down +quickly and blew them out and went over to her by the dim firelight. + + + + +XIX + + +All high happiness has in it some element of love; all love contains a +desire for peace. One immediate effect of new happiness, new love, is +to make us turn toward the past with a wish to straighten out its +difficulties, heal its breaches, forgive its wrongs. We think most +hopefully of distressing things which may still be remedied, most +regretfully of others that have passed beyond our reach and will. + +It was between ten and eleven o'clock of the next day--Sunday. David's +cold had become worse. He had turned over necessary work to the negro +man and stayed quietly in his room since the silent breakfast Two or +three books chosen carelessly out of the trunk lay on his table before +the fire: interest had gone out of them this day. With his face red and +swollen, he was sitting beside this table with one hand loosely +covering the forgotten books, his eyes turned to the window, but +looking upon distant inward scenes. + +Sunday morning between ten and eleven o'clock! the church-going hour of +his Bible-student life. In imagination he could hear across these wide +leagues of winter land the faint, faint peals of the church bells which +were now ringing. He was back in the town again--up at the college--in +his room at the dormitory; and it was in the days before the times of +his trouble. The students were getting ready for church, with freshly +shaved faces, boots well blacked, best suits on, not always good ones. +He could hear their talk in the rooms around his, hear fragments of +hymns, the opening and shutting of doors along the hallways, and the +running of feet down the stairs. By ones and twos and larger groups +they passed down and out with their hymnals, Testaments, sometimes +blank books for notes on the sermon. Several thrust bright, cordial +faces in at the door, as they passed, to see whether he and his +roommate had started. + +The scene changed. He was in the church, which was crowded from pulpit +to walls. He was sitting under the chandelier in the choir, the number +of the first hymn had just been whispered along, and he began to sing, +with hundreds of others, the music which then released the pinions of +his love and faith as the air releases the wings of a bird. The hymn +ceased; he could see the pastor rise from behind the pulpit, advance, +and with a gesture gather that sea of heads to prayer. He could follow +the sermon, most of all the exhortation; around him was such stillness +in the church that his own heart-beats were audible. Then the Supper +and then home to the dormitory again--with a pain of happiness filling +him, the rest and the unrest of consecration. + +Many other scenes he lived through in memory this morning--once lived +in reality amid that brotherhood of souls. His tenderest thoughts +perhaps dwelt on the young men's prayer-meetings of Sunday afternoons +at the college. There they drew nearest to the Eternal Strength which +was behind their weakness, and closest to each other as student after +student lifted a faltering, stumbling petition for a common blessing on +their work. The Immortal seemed to be in that bare room, filling their +hearts with holy flame, drawing around them the isolation of a devoted +band. They were one in One. Then had followed the change in him which +produced the change in them: no fellowship, no friendship, with an +unbeliever; and he was left without a comrade. + +His heart was yearning and sick this day to be reconciled to them all. +How did they think of him, speak of him, now? Who slept in his bed? Who +sat a little while, after the studies of the night were over, talking +to his room-mate? Who knelt down across the room at his prayers when +the lights were put out? And his professors--what bulwarks of knowledge +and rectitude and kindness they were!--all with him at first, all +against him at last, as in duty bound. + +To one man alone among those hundreds could David look back as having +begun to take interest in him toward the close of his college days. +During that vacation which he had spent in reading and study, he had +often refreshed himself by taking his book out to the woodland park +near the city, which in those days was the grounds of one of the +colleges of the University. There he found the green wild country +again, a forest like his pioneer ancestor's. Regularly here he observed +at out-of-door work the professor of Physical Science, who also was +pressing his investigations forward during the leisure of those summer +months. An authority from the north, from a New England university, who +had resigned his chair to come to Kentucky, attracted by the fair +prospects of the new institution. A great gray-bearded, eagle-faced, +square-shouldered, big-footed man: reserved, absorbed, asking to be let +alone, one of the silent masters. But David, desperate with +intellectual loneliness himself, and knowing this man to be a student +of the new science, one day had introduced himself and made inquiry +about entering certain classes in his course the following session. + +The professor shook his head. He was going back to New England himself +the next year; and he moved away under the big trees, resuming his work. + +As troubles had thickened about David, his case became discussed in +University circles; and he was stopped on the street one day by this +frigid professor and greeted with a man's grasp and a look of fresh +beautiful affection. His apostasy from dogmatism had made him a friend +of that lone thinker whose worship of God was the worship of Him +through the laws of His universe and not through the dogmas of men. + +This professor--and Gabriella: they alone, though from different +motives, had been drawn to him by what had repelled all others. It was +his new relation to her beyond anything else that filled David this day +with his deep desire for peace with his past. She had such peace in +herself, such charity of feeling, such simple steadfast faith: she cast +the music of these upon the chords of his own soul. To the influence of +her religion she was now adding the influence of her love; it filled +him, subdued, overwhelmed him. And this morning, also out of his own +happiness he remembered with most poignant suffering the unhappiness of +his father. His own life was unfolding into fulness of affection and +knowledge and strength; his father's was closing amid the weakness and +troubles that had gathered about him; and he, David, had contributed +his share to these. To be reconciled to his father this day--that was +his sole thought. + +It was about four o'clock. The house held that quiet which reigns of a +Sunday afternoon when the servants have left the kitchen for the cabin, +when all work is done, and the feeling of Sunday rest takes possession +of our minds. The winter sunshine on the fields seems full of rest; the +brutes rest--even those that are not beasts of burden. The birds appear +to know the day, and to make note of it in quieter twitter and slower +flight. + +David rose resolutely and started downstairs. As he entered his +father's room, his mother was passing out She looked at her son with +apprehension, as she closed the door. His father was sitting by a +window, reading, as was his Sunday wont, the Bible. He had once written +to David that his had always been a religious people; it was true. A +grave, stern man--sternest, gravest on Sunday. When it was not possible +to go to church, the greater to him the reason that the house itself +should become churchlike in solemnity, out of respect to the day and +the duty of self-examination. A man of many failings, but on this +subject strong. + +David sat down and waited for him to reach the end of the page or +chapter. But his father read on with a slow perceptible movement of his +lips. + +"Father." + +The gray head was turned slowly toward him in silent resentment of the +interruption. + +"I thought it would be better to come down and talk with you." + +The eyes resought the page, the lips resumed their movements. + +"I am sorry to interrupt you." + +The eye still followed the inspired words, from left to right, left to +right, left to right. + +"Father, things ought not to go on in this way between us. I have been +at home now for two months. I have waited, hoping that you would give +me the chance to talk about it all. You have declined, and meantime I +have simply been at work, as I used to be. But this must not be put off +longer for several reasons. There are other things in my life now that +I have to think of and care for." The tone in which David spoke these +last words was unusual and significant. + +The eyes stopped at a point on the page. The lips were pressed tightly +together. + +David rose and walked quietly out of the room. After he had closed the +door behind him and put his foot on the stairs, he stopped and with +fresh determination reopened the door. His father had shut the Bible, +laid it on the floor at the side of his chair, and was standing in the +middle of the room with his eyes on the door through which David had +passed. He pointed to his son to be seated, and resumed his chair. He +drew his penknife from his pocket and slowly trimmed the ravellings +from his shirt-cuffs, blowing them off his wrists. David saw that his +hands were trembling violently. The tragedy in the poor action cut him +to the heart and he threw himself remorsefully into the midst of things. + +"Father, I know I have disappointed you! Know it as well as you do; but +I could not have done differently." + +"YOU not believe in Christianity! YOU not believe the Bible!" + +The suppressed enraged voice summed up again the old contemptuous +opinion. + +The young man felt that there was another than himself whom it wounded. + +"Sir, you must not speak to me with that feeling! Try to see that I am +as sincere as you are. As to the goodness of my mind, I did not derive +it from myself and am not to blame. I have only made an earnest and an +honest use of what mind was given me. But I have not relied upon it +alone. There are great men, some of the greatest minds of the world, +who have been my teachers and determined my belief." + +"All your life you had the word of God as your teacher and you believed +it. Now these men tell you not to believe it and you believe them. And +then you complain that I do not think more highly of you." + +"Father," cried David, "there is one man whose name is very dear to us +both. The blood of that man is in me as it is in you. Sir, it is your +grandfather. Do you remember what the church of his day did with him? +Do you forget that, standing across the fields yonder, is the church he +himself built to freedom of opinion in religious matters? I grew up, +not under the shadow of that church, for it casts none, but in the +light of it. I have seen many churches worship there. I have had before +me, from the time I could remember, my great-grandfather's words: they +seemed to me the voice of God by whom all men were created, and the +spirit of Christ by whom, as you believe, men are to be saved." + +The younger man stopped and waited in vain for the older one to reply. +But his father also waited, and David went on:-- + +"I do not expect you to stand against the church in what it has done +with me: that HAD to be done. If you had been an elder of that church, +I know you, too, would have voted to expel me. What I do ask of you is +that you think me as sincere in my belief as I think you in yours. I do +ask for your toleration, your charity. Everything else between us will +be easy, if you can see that I have done only what I could. The faith +of the world grows, changes. Sons cannot always agree with their +fathers; otherwise the world would stand still. You do not believe many +things your own grandfather believed--the man of whose memory you are +so proud. The faith you hold did not even exist among men in his day. I +can no longer agree with you: I do not think the less of you because I +believe differently; do not think the less of me!" + +The young man could not enter into any argument with the old one. He +would not have disturbed if he could his father's faith: it was too +late in life for that. Neither could he defend his own views without +attacking his father's: that also would have been cruelty in itself and +would have been accepted as insulting. Still David could not leave his +case without witnesses. + +"There are things in the old Bible that no scholar now believes." + +"The Almighty declares they are true; you say they are not: I prefer to +believe the Almighty. Perhaps He knows better than you and the +scholars." + +David fell into sorrowful silence. "There are some other matters about +which I should like to speak with you, father," he said, changing the +subject. "I recall one thing you said to me the day I came home. You +asked me why I had come back here: do you still feel that way?" + +"I do. This is a Christian house. This is a Christian community. You +are out of place under this roof and in this neighborhood. Life was +hard enough for your mother and me before. But we did for you what we +could; you were pleased to make us this return. It will be better for +you to go." + +Every word seemed to have been hammered out of iron, once melted in the +forge, but now cold and unchangeably shaped to its heavy purpose. The +young man writhed under the hopelessness of the situation:-- + +"Sir, is it all on one side? Have I done nothing for you in all these +years? Until I was nearly a man's age, did I not work? For my years of +labor did I receive more than a bare living? Did you ever know a slave +as faithful? Were you ever a harsh master to this slave? Do you owe me +nothing for all those years?--I do not mean money,--I mean kindness, +justice!" + +"How many years before you began to work for us did your mother and I +work for you? Did you owe us nothing for all that?" + +"I did! I do! I always shall! But do you count it against me that +Nature brought me forth helpless and kept me helpless for so many years +afterwards? If my being born was a fault, whose was it? Is the +dependence of an infant on its parent a debt? Father! father! Be just! +be just! that you may be more kind to me." + +"Kind to YOU! Just to YOU!" Hitherto his father had spoken with a +quietude which was terrible, on account of the passion raging beneath. +But now he sprang to his feet, strode across, and, pulling a ragged +shirt-cuff down from under his coat-sleeve, shook it in his son's +eyes--poverty. He went to one of the rotting doors and jerking it open +without turning the knob, rattled it on its loose hinges--poverty. He +turned to the window, and with one gesture depicted ruined outhouses +and ruined barn, now hidden under the snow, and beautiful in the Sunday +evening light--poverty. He turned and faced his son, majestic in +mingled grief and care. + +"Kind! just! you who have trifled with your advantages, you who are +sending your mother out of her home--" + +David sprang toward him in an agony of trouble and remorse. + +"It is not true, it is not necessary! Father, you have been too much +influenced by my mother's fears. This is Bailey's doing. It is about +this I have wanted to talk to you. I shall see Bailey to-morrow." + +"I forbid you to see him or to interfere." + +"I must see him, whether you wish it or not," and David, to save other +hard words that were coming, turned quickly and left the room. + +He did not go down to supper. Toward bedtime, as he sat before his +fire, he heard a slow, unfamiliar step mounting the stair. Not often in +a year did he have the chance to recognize that step. His mother +entered, holding a small iron stewpan, from under the cover of which +steamed a sweet, spicy odor. + +"This will do your cold good," she said, tasting the stew out of a +spoon which she brought in her other hand, and setting it down on the +hot hearth. Then she stood looking a little fearfully at her son, who +had not moved. Ah, that is woman's way! She incites men to a +difficulty, and then appears innocently on the battle-field with +bandages for the belligerents. How many of the quarrels of this world +has she caused--and how few ever witnessed! + +David was sick in heart and body and kept his chair and made no reply. +His mother suddenly turned, feeling a cold draft on her back, and +observed the broken window-pane and the flapping sheet of paper. + +"There's putty and glass in the store-room: why don't you put that pane +of glass in?" + +"I will sometime," said David, absently. She went over to his bed and +beat up the bolster and made everything ready for him. + +"You ought to have clean sheets and pillow-cases," she remarked +confidently; "the negroes are worthless. Good night," she said, with +her hand on the door, looking back at him timidly. + +He sprang up and went over to her. "Oh, mother! mother! mother!" he +cried, and then he checked the useless words that came rushing in a +flood. + +"Good night! and thank you for coming. Good night! Be careful, I'll +bring the candle, the stairway is dark. Good night!" + +"Oh, Gabriella! Gabriella!" he murmured as he went back to his table. +He buried his head on his arms a moment, then, starting up, threw off +his clothes, drank the mixture, and got into bed. + + + + +XX + + +At dead of night out in a lonely country, what sound freezes the blood +like the quick cry of an animal seized and being killed? The fright, +the pain, the despair: whosoever has heard these notes has listened to +the wild death-music of Nature, ages old. + +On the still frozen air near two or three o'clock of next morning, such +a cry rang out from inside the barn. There were the short rushes to and +fro, round and round; then violent leapings against the door, the +troughs, and sides of the stable; then mad plunging, struggling, +panting; then a long, terrified, weakened wail, which told everything +beyond the clearness of words. + +Up in his room, perfectly dark, for the coals in the grate were now +sparkless, David was lying on his back, sleeping heavily and bathed in +perspiration. Overheated, he had pushed the bed covers off from his +throat; he had hollowed the pillow away from his face. So deep was the +stillness of the house and of the night air outside, that almost the +first sounds had reached his ear and sunk down into his brain: he +stirred slightly. As the tumult grew louder, he tossed his head from +side to side uneasily, and muttered a question in his broken dreams. +And now the barn was in an uproar; and the dog, chained at his kennel +behind the house, was howling, roaring to get loose. Would he never +waken? Would the tragedy which he himself had unwittingly planned and +staged be played to its end without his hearing a word? (So often it is +that way in life.) At last, as one who has long tugged at his own +sleep, striving to rend it as a smothering blanket and burst through +into free air, he sat up in bed, confused, listening. + +"Dogs!" he exclaimed, grinding his teeth. + +He was out of bed in an instant, groping for his clothes. It seemed he +would never find them. As he dressed, he muttered remorsefully to +himself:--"I simply put them into a trap." + +When he had drawn on socks, boots, and trousers, he slipped into his +overcoat, felt for his hat, and hurried down. He released the dog, +which instantly was off in a noiseless run, and followed, buttoning the +coat about him as he went: the air was like ice against his bare, hot +throat. Another moment and he could hear the dogs fighting. When he +reached the door of the shed and threw it open, the flock of sheep +bounded out past him in a wild rush for the open. He stepped inside, +searching around with his foot as he groped. Presently it struck +against something large and soft close to the wall in a corner. He +reached down and taking it by the legs, pulled the sheep out into the +moonlight, several yards across the snow: a red track followed, as +though made with a broad dripping brush. + +David stood looking down at it and kicked it two or three times. + +"Did it make any difference to you whether your life were taken by dog +or man? The dog killing you from instinct and famine; a man killing you +as a luxury and with a fine calculation? And who is to blame now for +your death, if blame there be? I who went to college instead of +building a stable? Or the storm which deprived these prowlers of nearer +food and started them on a far hunt, desperate with hunger? Or man who +took you from wild Nature and made you more defenceless under his +keeping? Or Nature herself who edged the tooth and the mind of the +dog-wolf in the beginning that he might lengthen his life by shortening +yours? Where and with what purpose began on this planet the taking of +life that there might be life? Poor questions that never troubled you, +poor sheep! But that follow, as his shadow, pondering Man, who no more +knows the reason of it all than you did." + +The fighting of the dogs had for the first few moments sounded farther +and farther away, retreating through the barn and thence into the lot; +and by and by the shepherd ran around and stood before David, awaiting +orders. David seized the sheep by the feet and dragged it into the +saddle-house; sent the dog to watch the rest of the flock; and ran back +to the house, drawing his overcoat more tightly about him. As quickly +as possible he got into bed and covered up warmly. Something caused him +to recollect just then the case of one of the Bible students. + +"Now I am in for it," he said. + +And this made him think of his great masters and of Gabriella; and he +lay there very anxious in the night. + + + + +XXI + + +Twilight had three times descended on the drear land. Three times +Gabriella, standing at her windows and looking out upon the snow and +ice, had seen everything disappear. How softly white were the +snow-covered trees; how soft the black that thickened about them till +they were effaced. Gabriella thought of them as still perfectly white +out there in the darkness. Three evenings with her face against the +pane she had watched for a familiar figure to stalk towering up the +yard path, and no familiar figure had come. Three evenings she had +returned to her firelight, and sat before it with an ear on guard for +the sound of a familiar step on the porch below; but no step had been +heard. + +On the first night she had all but hoped that he would not seek her; +the avowal of their love for each other had well-nigh left it an +unendurable joy. But the second night she had begun to expect him +confidently; and when the hour had passed and he had not come, +Gabriella sat long before her fire with a new wound--she who had felt +so many. By the third day she had reviewed all that she had ever heard +of him or known of him: gathered it all afresh as a beautiful thing for +receiving him with when he should come to her that night. Going early +to her room she had taken her chair to the window and with her face +close to the pane had watched again--watched that white yard; and again +nothing moved in that white yard but the darkness. + +She sprang up and began to walk to and fro. + +"If he does not come to-night, something has happened. I know, I know, +I know! Something is wrong. My heart is not mistaken. Oh, if anything +were to happen to HIM! I must not think of it! I have borne many +things; but THAT! I must not think of it!" + +She sank into her chair with her ear strained toward the porch below. +For a long time there was no sound. Then she heard the noise of heavy +boots--a tapping of the toes against the pillars, to knock off the +snow, and then the slow creaking of soles across the frozen boards. She +started up. "It is some one else," she cried, wringing her hands. +"Something has happened to him." + +She stopped still in the middle of the room, her arms dropped at her +sides, her eyes stretched wide. + +The house girl's steps were heard running upstairs. Gabriella jerked +the door open in her face. + +"What is the matter?" she cried. + +A negro man had come with a message for her. The girl looked frightened. + +Gabriella ran past her down into the hall. "What is the matter?" she +asked. + +His Marse David had sent for her and wanted her to come at once. He had +brought a horse for her. + +"Is he ill--seriously ill?" He had had a bad cold and was worse. + +"The doctor--has he sent for the doctor?" + +The negro said that he was to take her back first and then go for the +doctor. + +"Go at once." + +It was very dark, he urged, and slippery. + +"Go on for the doctor! Where have you left the horse?" + +The horse was at the stiles. The negro insisted that it would be better +for him to go back with her. + +"Don't lose time," she said, "and don't keep me waiting. Go! as quickly +as you can!" + +The negro cautioned her to dismount at the frozen creek. + +When Gabriella, perhaps an hour later, knocked at the side door of +David's home,--his father's and mother's room,--there was no summons to +enter. She turned the knob and walked in. The room was empty; the fire +had burned low; a cat lay on the hearthstones. It raised its head +halfway and looked at her through the narrow slits of its yellow eyes +and curled the tip of its tail--the cat which is never inconvenienced, +which shares all comforts and no troubles. She sat down in a chair, +overcome with excitement and hesitating what to do. In a moment she +noticed that the door opening on the foot of the staircase stood ajar. +It led to his room. Not a sound reached her from above. She summoned +all her self-control, mounted the stairway, and entered. + +The two negro women were standing inside with their backs to the door. +On one side of the bed sat David's mother, on the other his father. +Both were looking at David. He lay in the middle of the bed, his eyes +fixed restlessly on the door. As soon as he saw her, he lifted himself +with an effort and stretched out his arms and shook them at her with +hoarse little cries. "Oh! oh! oh! oh!" + +The next moment he locked his arms about her. + +"Oh, it has been so long!" he said, drawing her close, "so long!" + +"Ah, why did you not send for me? I have waited and waited." + +He released her and fell back upon the pillows; then with a slight +gesture he said to his father and mother:-- + +"Will you leave us alone?" + +When they had gone out, he took one of her hands and pressed it against +his cheek and lay looking at her piteously. + +Gabriella saw the change in him: his anxious expression, his cheeks +flushed with a red spot, his restlessness, his hand burning. She could +feel the big veins throbbing too fast, too crowded. But a woman smiles +while her heart breaks. + +He propped himself a little higher on the pillows and turned on his +side, clutching at his lung. + +"Don't be frightened," he said, searching her face, "I've got something +to tell you. Promise." + +"I promise." + +"I am going to have pneumonia, or I have it now. You are not +frightened?" + +Her eyes answered for her. + +"I had a cold. I had taken something to throw me into a sweat--that was +the night after I saw you." + +At the thought of their last interview, he took her hand again and +pressed it to his lips, looking tenderly at it. + +"The dogs were killing the sheep, and I got up and went out while I was +in a perspiration. I know it's pneumonia. I have had a long, hard +chill. My head feels like it would burst, and there are other symptoms. +This lung! It's pneumonia. One of the Bible college students had it. I +helped to nurse him. Oh, he got well," he said, shaking his head at her +with a smile, "and so will I!" + +"I know it," she murmured, "I'm sure of it." + +"What I want to ask is, Will you stay with me?" + +"Ah, nothing could take me from you." + +"I don't want you to leave me. I want to feel that you are right here +by me through it all. I have to tell you something else: I may be +delirious and not know what is going on. I have sent for the doctor. +But there is a better one in Lexington. You try to get him to come. I +know that he goes wherever he is called and stays till the danger is +past or--or--till it is settled. Don't spare anything that can be done +for me. I am in danger, and I must live. I must not lose all the +greatness of life and lose you." + +"Ah," she implored, seeing how ill he was. "Everything that can be done +shall be done. Now oughtn't you to be quiet and let me make you +comfortable till the doctor comes?" + +"I must say something else while I can, and am sure. I might not get +over this--" + +"Ah--" + +"Let me say this: I MIGHT not! If I should not, have no fear about the +future; I have none; it will all be well with ME in Eternity." + +He lay quiet a moment, his face turned off. She had buried hers on the +bed. The flood of tears would come. He turned over, and seeing it laid +his hand on it very lightly. + +"If it be so, Gabriella, I hope all the rest of your life you will be +happy. I hope no more trouble will ever come to you." + +Suddenly he sat up, lifted her head, and threw his arms around her +again. "Oh, Gabriella!" he cried, "you have been all there is to me." + +"Some day," he continued a moment later, "if it turns out that way, +come over here to see my father and mother. And tell them I left word +that perhaps they had never quite understood me and so had never been +able to do me justice. Now, will you call my mother?" + +"Mother," he said, taking her by the hand and placing it in +Gabriella's, "this is my wife, as I hope she will be, and your +daughter; and I have asked her to stay and help you to nurse me through +this cold." + +Three twilights more and there was a scene in the little upper room of +the farmhouse: David drawn up on the bed; at one side of it, the poor +distracted mother, rocking herself and loudly weeping; for though +mothers may not greatly have loved their grown sons, when the big men +lie stricken and the mothers once more take their hands to wash them, +bathe their faces with a cloth, put a spoon to their lips, memory +brings back the days when those huge erring bodies lay across their +breasts. They weep for the infant, now an infant again and perhaps +falling into a long sleep. + +On the other side of the bed sat David's father, bending over toward, +trying now, as he had so often tried, to reach his son; thinking at +swift turns of the different will he would have to make and of who +would write it; of his own harshness; and also not free from the awful +dread that this was the summons to his son to enter Eternity with his +soul unprepared. At the foot of the bed were the two doctors, watchful, +whispering to each other, one of whom led the mother out of the room; +over by the door the two negro women and the negro man. Gabriella was +not there. + +Gabriella had gone once more to where she had been many times: gone to +pour out in secret the prayer of her church, and of her own soul for +the sick--with faith that her prayer would be answered. + +A dark hour: a dog howling on the porch below; at the stable the cries +of hungry, neglected animals; the winter hush settling over the great +evening land. + + + + +XXII + + +When one sets out to walk daily across a wood or field in a fresh +direction, starting always at the same point and arriving always at the +same, without intention one makes a path; it may be long first, but in +time the path will come. It commences at the home gate or bars and +reaches forward by degrees; it commences at the opposite goal and +lengthens backward thence: some day the ends meet and we discover with +surprise how slightly we have deviated in all those crossings and +recrossings. The mind has unconsciously marked a path long before the +feet have traced it. + +When Gabriella had begun teaching, she passed daily out of the yard +into an apple orchard and thence across a large woodland pasture, in +the remote corner of which the schoolhouse was situated. Through this +woods the children had made their path: the straight instinctive path +of childhood. But Gabriella, leaving this at the woods-gate, had begun +to make one for herself. She followed her will from day to day; now led +in this direction by some better vista; now drawn aside toward a group +of finer trees; or seeing, farther on, some little nooklike place. In +time, she had out of short disjointed threads sown a continuous path; +it was made up of her loves, and she loved it. Of mornings a brisk walk +along this braced her mind for the day; in the evening it quieted +jangled nerves and revived a worn-out spirit: shedding her toil at the +schoolhouse door as a heavy suffocating garment, she stepped gratefully +out into its largeness, its woodland odors, and twilight peace. + +On the night of the sleet tons of timber altogether had descended +across this by-way. When the snow fell the next night, it brought down +more. But the snow melted, leaving the ice; the ice melted, leaving the +dripping boughs and bark. In time these were warmed and dried by sun +and wind. New edges of greenness appeared running along the path. The +tree-tops above were tossing and roaring in the wild gales of March, +Under loose autumn leaves the earliest violets were dim with blue. But +Gabriella had never once been there to realize how her path had been +ruined, or to note the birth of spring. + +It was perhaps a month afterward that one morning at the usual school +hour her tall lithe figure, clad in gray hood and cloak, appeared at +last walking along this path, stepping over or passing around the +fallen boughs. She was pale and thin, but the sweet warm womanliness of +her, if possible, lovelier. There was a look of religious gratitude in +the eyes, but about her mouth new happiness. + +Her duties were done earlier than usual that afternoon, for not much +could be accomplished on this first day of reassembling the children. +They were gone; and she stood on the steps of the school-house, facing +toward a gray field on a distant hillside, which caught the faint +sunshine. It drew her irresistibly in heart and foot, and she set out +toward it. + +The day was one of those on which the seasons meet. Strips of snow +ermined the field; but on the stumps, wandering and warbling before +Gabriella as she advanced, were bluebirds, those wings of the sky, +those breasts of earth. She reached the spot she was seeking, and +paused. There it was--the whole pitiful scene! His hemp brake; the +charred rind of a stump where he had kindled a fire to warm his hands; +the remnant of the shock fallen over and left unfinished that last +afternoon; trailing across his brake a handful of hemp partly broken +out. + +She surveyed it all with wistful tenderness. Then she looked away to +the house. She could see the window of his room at which she had sat +how many days, gazing out toward this field! On his bed in that room he +was now stretched weak and white, but struggling back into health. + +She came closer and gazed down at his frozen boot prints. How near his +feet had drawn to that long colder path which would have carried him +away from her. How nearly had his young life been left, like the hand +of hemp he last had handled--half broken out, not yet ready for strong +use and good service. At that moment one scene rose before her memory: +a day at Bethlehem nigh Jerusalem; a young Hebrew girl issuing from her +stricken house and hastening to meet Him who was the Resurrection and +the Life; then in her despair uttering her one cry:--"Lord, if Thou +hadst been here, my brother had not died." + +The mist of tears blinded Gabriella, whose love and faith were as +Martha's. She knelt down and laid her cheek against the coarse hemp +where it had been wrapped about his wrist. + +"Lord," she said, "hadst Thou not been here, hadst Thou not heard my +prayer for him, he would have died!" + + + + +XXIII + + +Spring, who breaks all promises in the beginning to keep them in the +end, had ceased from chilling caprice and withdrawals: the whole land +was now the frank revelation of her loveliness. Autumn--the hours of +falling and of departing; spring--season of rise and of return. The +rise of sap from root to summit; the rise of plant from soil to sun; +the rise of bud from bark to bloom; the rise of song from heart to +hearing: vital days. And days when things that went away come back, +when woods, fields, thickets, and streams are full of returns. + +Gabriella was not disappointed. Those provident old tree-mothers on the +orchard slope, whose red-cheeked children are autumn apples, had not +let themselves be fatally surprised by the great February frost: their +bark-cradled bud-infants had only been wrapped away the more warmly +till danger was over. For many days now the hillside had been a grove +of pink and white domes under each of which hung faint fragrance: the +great silent marriage-bells of the trees. + +After the early family supper, Gabriella, if there had been no shower, +would take her shawl to sit on and some bit of work for companionship. +She would go out to the edge of this orchard away from the tumult of +the house. The hill sloped down into a wide green valley winding away +toward the forest below. Through this valley a stream of white spring +water, drunk by the stock, ran within banks of mint and over a bed of +rocks and moss. On the hillside opposite was a field of young hemp +stretching westward--soon to be a low sea of rippling green. Beyond +this field was the sunset; over it flashed the evening star; and for +the past few days beside the star had hung the inconstant, the +constant, crescent of ages. + +She liked to spread her shawl on the edge of the orchard overlooking +the valley--a deep carpet of grass sprinkled with wind-blown petals; to +watch the sky kindle and burn out; see the recluse Evening come forth +before the Night and walk softly down the valley toward the woods; feel +as an elixir about her the air, sweet from the trees, sweet with earth +odors, sweet with all the lingering history of the day. Nearer, ever +nearer would swing the stars into her view. The moon, late a bow of +thinnest, mistiest silver, now of broadening, brightening gold, would +begin to drive the darkness downward from the white domes of the trees +till it lay as a faint shadow beneath them. These were hours fraught +with peace and rest to her tired mind and tired body. + +One day she was sitting thus, absently knitting herself some bleaching +gloves, (Gabriella's hands were as if stained by all the mixed petals +of the boughs.) The sun was going down beyond the low hills, In the +orchard behind her she could hear the flutter of wings and the last +calls of quieting birds. + +She had dropped the threads of her handiwork into her lap, and with +folded hands was knitting memories. + +At twilights such as this in years gone by, she, a little girl, had +been used to drive out into the country with her grandmother--often +choosing the routes herself and ordering the carriage to be stopped on +the road as her fancy pleased. For in those aristocratic days, Southern +children, like those of royal families, were encouraged early in life +to learn how to give orders and to exact obedience and to rule: when +they grew up they would have many under them: and not to reign was to +be ruined. So that the infantile autocrat Gabriella was being +instructed in this way and in that way by the powerful, strong-minded, +efficient grandmother as a tender old lioness might train a cub for the +mastering of its dangerous world. She recalled these twilight drives +when the fields along the turnpikes were turning green with the young +grain; the homeward return through the lamp-lit town to the big iron +entrance-gate, the parklike lawn; the brilliant supper in the great +house, the noiseless movements, the perfect manners of the many +servants; later in the evening the music, the dancing, the wild +joy--fairyland once more. But how far, far away now! And how the forces +of life had tossed things since then like straws on the eddies of a +tempest: her grandmother killed, thousands of miles away, with sorrow; +her uncles with their oldest sons, mere boys, fighting and falling +together; tears, poverty, ruin everywhere: and she, after years of +struggle, cast completely out of the only world she had ever known into +another that she had never imagined. + +Gabriella felt this evening what often came to her at times: a deep +yearning for her own people of the past, for their voices, their ways +of looking at life; for the gentleness and courtesy, and the thousand +unconscious moods and acts that rendered them distinguished and +delightful. She would have liked to slip back into the old elegance, to +have been surrounded by the old rich and beautiful things. The +child-princess who was once her sole self was destined to live within +Gabriella always. + +But she knew that the society in which she had moved was lost to her +finally. Not alone through the vicissitudes of the war; for after the +war, despite the overthrow, the almost complete disappearance, of many +families, it had come together, it had reconstituted itself, it +flourished still. It was lost to her because she had become penniless +and because she had gone to work. When it transpired that she had +declined all aid, thrown off all disguises, and taken her future into +her own hands, to work and to receive wages for her work, in the social +world where she was known and where the generations of her family had +been leaders, there were kind offers of aid, secret condolences, +whispered regrets, visible distress: her resolve was a new thing for a +girl in those years. She could, indeed, in a way, have kept her place; +but she could not have endured the sympathy, the change, with which she +would have been welcomed--and discarded. She made trial of this a few +times and was convinced: up to the day of the cruel discovery of that, +Gabriella had never dreamed what her social world could be to one who +had dropped out of it. + +Her church and the new life--these two had been left her. She no longer +had a pew, but she had her faith and this was enough; for it always +gave her, wherever she was, some secret place in which to kneel and +from which to rise strengthened and comforted. As for the fearful +fields of work into which she had come, a strange and solitary learner, +these had turned into the abiding, the living landscapes of life now. +Here she had found independence--sweet, wholesome crust; found another +self within herself; and here found her mission for the future--David. +So that looking upon the disordered and planless years, during which it +had often seemed that she was struggling unwatched, Gabriella now +believed that through them she had most been guided, When many hands +had let hers go, One had taken it; when old pathways were closed, a new +one was opened; and she had been led along it--home. + +David's illness had deepened beyond any other experience her faith in +an overruling Providence. His return to health was to her a return from +death: it was an answer to her prayers: it was a resurrection. +Henceforth his life was a gift for the second time to himself, to her, +to the world for which he must work with all his powers and work +aright. And her pledge, her compact with the Divine, was to help him, +to guide him back into the faith from which he had wandered. Outside of +prayer, days and nights at his bedside had made him hers: vigils, +nursing, suffering, helplessness, dependence--all these had been as +purest oil to that alabaster lamp of love which burned within her +chaste soul. + +The sun had gone down. The hush of twilight was descending from the +clear sky, in the depths of which the brightest stars began to appear +as points of silvery flame. The air had the balm of early summer, the +ground was dry and warm. + +Gabriella began to watch. The last time she had gone to see him, as he +walked part of the way back with her, he had said:-- + +"I am well now; the next time _I_ am coming to see YOU." + +Soon, along the edge of the orchard from the direction of the house, +she saw him walking slowly toward her, thin, gaunt; he was leaning on a +rough, stout hickory, as long as himself, in the manner of an old man. + +She rose quickly and hastened to him. "Did you walk?" + +"I rode. But I am walking now--barely. This young tree is escorting me." + +They went back to her shawl, which she opened and spread, making a +place for him. She moved it back a little, for safety, so that it was +under the boughs of one of the trees. + +How quiet the land was, how beautiful the evening light, how sweet the +air! + +Now and then a petal from some finished blossom sifted down on +Gabriella. + +They were at such peace: their talk was interrupted by the long +silences which are peace. + +"Gabriella, you saved my life." + +"It is not I who have power over life and death." + +"It was your nursing." + +"It was my prayers," murmured Gabriella. + +"And you gave me the will to get well: that also was a great help: +without you I should not have had that same will to live." + +"It was a higher Will than yours or mine." + +"And the doctor from town who stayed with me." + +"And a Greater Physician who stayed also." + +He made no reply for a while, but then asked, turning his face toward +her uneasily:-- + +"Our different ways of looking at things--will they never make any +difference with you?" + +"Some day there will be no difference." + +"You will agree with me?" he exclaimed joyfully. + +"You will agree with me." + +"Do not expect that! Do not expect that I shall ever again believe in +the old things." + +"I expect you to believe in God, in the New Testament, in the +Resurrection, in the answer to prayer." + +"If I do not?" + +"Then you will in the Life to come." + +"But will this separate us?" + +"You will need me all the more." + +The light was fading: they could no longer see the green of the valley. +A late bird fluttered into the boughs overhead and more petals came +down. + +"It is a nest," said David, softly, "a good thing to go home to, a +night like this." + +"And now," he continued, "there are matters about which I must consult +you. You will be glad to know that things are pleasanter at home. Since +my illness my father and mother have changed toward me. Sickness, +nearness to death, is a great reconciler. Your being in the house had +much to do with this--especially your influence over my mother. My +father was talked to by the doctor from town. During the days and +nights he stayed with me, he got into my trunk of books, for he is a +great reader; and--as he told me before leaving--a believer in the New +Science, an evolutionist. He knew of my expulsion, of course, and of +the reasons. I think he explained a great deal to my father, who said +to me one day simply that the doctor had talked to him." + +"He talked to me, also," said Gabriella. "And did not persuade you?" + +"He said I almost persuaded him!" + +"And then, too, my father and I have arranged the money trouble. It is +not the best, but the best possible. When I came home from college, I +brought with me almost half the money I had accumulated. I turned this +over to my father, of course. It will go toward making necessary +repairs. But it was not enough, and the woods has had to go. The farm +shall not be sold, but the woods is rented for a term of years as hemp +land, the trees must be deadened and cut down. I am sorry; it is the +last of the forest of my great-grandfather. But with the proceeds, the +place can be put into fairly good condition, and this is the greatest +relief to my father and mother--and to me." + +"It is a good arrangement." + +After a pause, he continued in a changed tone:-- + +"And now while everything is pleasant at home, it is the time for me to +go away. My father was right: this is no place for me. I must be where +people think as I do--must live where I shall not be alone. There will +soon be plenty of companions everywhere. The whole world will believe +in Evolution before I am an old man." + +"I think you are right," she said quietly. "It is best for you to go +and to go at once." + +When he spoke again, plainly he was inspired with fresh confidence by +her support of his plans. + +"And now, Gabriella, I must tell you what I have determined to do in +life: I want your approval of that, and then I am perfectly happy." + +"Ah," she said quickly, "that is what I have been wanting to know. It +is very important. Your whole future depends on a wise choice." + +"I am going to some college--to some northern university, as soon as +possible. I shall have to work my way through, sometimes by teaching, +in whatever way I can. I want to study physical science. I want to +teach some branch of it. It draws me, draws all that is in me. That is +to be my life-work. And now?" + +He waited for her answer: it did not come at once. + +"You have chosen wisely. I am so glad!" + +"Oh, Gabriella!" he cried, "if you had failed me in that, I do not know +what I should have done! Science! Science! There is the fresh path for +the faith of the race! For the race henceforth must get its idea of +God, and build its religion to Him, from its knowledge of the laws of +His universe. A million years from now! Where will our dark theological +dogmas be in that radiant time? The Creator of all life, in all life He +must be studied! And in the study of science there is least wrangling, +least tyranny, least bigotry, no persecution. It teaches charity, it +teaches a well-ordered life, it teaches the world to be more kind. It +is the great new path of knowledge into the future. All things must +follow whither it leads. Our religion will more and more be what our +science is, and some day they will be the same." + +She had no controversy to raise with him about this. She was too +intently thinking of troublous problems nearer heart and home. + +And these rose before him also: he fell into silence. + +"But, oh, Gabriella! how long, how long the years will be that separate +me from you!" + +"No!" she exclaimed, her whole nature starting up, terrified. "What do +you mean? No!" + +"I mean while I am going through college; while I am preparing a place +for you." + +"Preparing a place FOR ME! You have prepared a place for me and I have +taken it. My place is with you." + +"Gabriella, do you know I have not a dollar in the world?" + +"_I_ have!" + +"But--" + +"Ah, don't! don't! That would be the first time you had ever wounded +me!" + +"How can I--" + +"How can you go away and leave me +here--here--anywhere--alone--struggling in the world alone? And you +somewhere else alone? Lose those years of being together? Can you even +bear the thought of it? Ah, I did not think this!" + +"It was only because--" + +"But it shall never be! I will not be separated from you!" + +David remembered a middle-aged man at the University, working his way +through college with his wife beside him. His heart melted in joy and +tenderness--before the possibility of life with her so near. He could +not speak. + +"I will never be separated from you!" + +And then, feeling her victory won, she added joyously: "And what I have +shall never be separated from me! We three--I, thou, it--go together. +My two years' salary--do you think I love it so little as to leave it +behind when I go away with you?" + +"Oh, Gabriella!"-- + +The domes of the trees were white with blossoms now and with moonlight. +How warm and sweet the air! How sacred the words and the silences! Two +children of vast and distant revolutions guided together into one +life--a young pair facing toward a future of wider, better things for +mankind. + +"Gabriella, when a man has heard the great things calling to him, how +they call and call, day and night, day and night!" + +"When a woman hears them once, it is enough." + +Even in this hour Gabriella was receiving the wound which is so often +the pathos and the happiness of a woman's love. For even in these +moments he could not forget Truth for her. And so, she said to herself +with a hidden tear, it would be always. She would give him her all, she +could never be all to him. Her life would be enfolded completely in +his; but he would hold out his arms also toward a cold Spirit who would +forever elude him--Wisdom. + +The golden crescent dropped behind the dark green hills of the silent +land. Where were they? Gone? or still under the trees? + +"Ah, Gabriella, it is love that makes a man believe in a God of Love!" + +"David! David!"-- + +The south wind, warm with the first thrill of summer, blew from across +the valley, from across the mighty rushing sea of the young hemp. + +O Mystery Immortal! which is in the hemp and in our souls, in its bloom +and in our passions; by which our poor brief lives are led upward out +of the earth for a season, then cut down, rotted and broken--for Thy +long service! + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Reign of Law, by James Lane Allen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE REIGN OF LAW *** + +***** This file should be named 3791.txt or 3791.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/9/3791/ + +Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. 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