THE MEASURE 
 
 NORMAN DUNCAN
 
 THE MEASURE 
 of A MAN
 
 Other Books 
 By NORMAN DUNCAN 
 
 Doctor Luke of The Labrador : A Novel. 
 The Cruise of the Shining Light: A Novel. 
 Every Man for Himself: A Collection of 
 
 Short Stories. 
 
 The Mother : A Short Novel. 
 The Suitable Child : A Christmas Story. 
 The Adventures of Billy Topsail : A Story 
 
 for Boys. 
 Billy Topsail and Company : A Story for 
 
 Boys. 
 The Way of the Sea : A Collection of 
 
 Short Stories. 
 
 Dr. Grenfell's Parish: The Deep Sea 
 Fishermen.
 
 VMV. OF CALIF. LWWARY. LOS
 
 'Make of this child, a Man"
 
 THE MEASURE 
 of A MAN 
 
 A Tale of The Big Woods 
 
 By 
 NORMAN DUNCAN 
 
 Author of ''Doctor Luke of 
 the Labrador" etc. 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Re veil Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh
 
 Copyright, 1911, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 123 North Wabash Ave. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 London : 2 1 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
 
 To The 
 L. L. of E. 0. 
 
 2129168
 
 To the Reader 
 
 IT is known that the way back is hard trudg- 
 ing and a long path. No man, it may be, 
 having run the length of his will for run- 
 ning, has got back alone to clean fields of rest 
 and endeavour. Love is much on these harsh 
 trails, they say ; but love is no sure guide and 
 helper. It is maintained that such as have been 
 helped return neither with reasonable tales of 
 their black wanderings nor reasonable descrip- 
 tions of the way. They tell, rather, in a manner 
 incoherent and obscure, of a mystical Hand that 
 helped : but concerning this Hand are various 
 faiths among them ; and among those who listen, 
 bewildered, being themselves apart from the ex- 
 perience, are many surmises, of course. Here 
 in this book is neither faith nor surmise: but 
 only a tale told without any hint of guidance 
 other than the established truths of the narrative 
 may of their own notion convey. 
 
 N. D. 
 
 Indian Pond, Maine, 
 July a, ign.
 
 WHEN some years ago the author pub- 
 lished "Doctor Luke of The Labra- 
 dor," it was mistakenly inferred by 
 many thousands of readers that the tale was a 
 literal description of the life of Dr. Wilfred T. 
 Grenfell ; and a great confusion resulted. It is 
 hoped that the reader will not confuse the hero 
 of " The Measure of a Man " with the Rev. 
 Francis E. Higgins of Minnesota. Mr. Higgins 
 is a missionary of the Presbyterian Board of 
 Home Missions a very real man, doing a real 
 and admirable work for his Church in the woods 
 of the Northwest. Although some of the in- 
 cidents of this story are taken directly from his 
 experience, and many others are founded upon 
 certain passages in his missionary career, it must 
 not be inferred that the man himself bears any 
 invidious resemblance to John Fairmeadow. It 
 must be added that the story is not a tale of the 
 lumbering industry but of a singular man at 
 work among lumber-jacks. 
 
 N. D.
 
 Contents 
 
 I. The Stranger at Swamp's End . . 13 
 
 II. An Engagement with God . . . 18 
 
 III. The Man from Bottle River . . .28 
 
 IV. A Pastoral Call 35 
 
 V. Pick and Shovel .... 45 
 
 VI. Sown in Dishonour .... 52 
 
 VII. Pale Peter's Game . . . .60 
 
 VIII. In Love with a Flower . . 72 
 
 IX. The Wistful Heart .... 82 
 
 X. A Gift Neglected . . . .92 
 
 XI. The Making of a Man ... 96 
 
 XII. Christmas Eve at Swamp's End . . 106 
 
 XIII. Billy the Beast Starts Home . . 113 
 
 XIV. Pale Peter's Donald . . . .126 
 
 XV. Fist Play 141 
 
 XVI. Theological Training . . . 155 
 
 XVII. A Father for the Baby . . .168 
 
 XVIII. Gingerbread 181 
 
 XIX. The Boy He Used to Know . . 189 
 
 XX. A Little About Life . . . .194 
 
 9
 
 io CONTENTS 
 
 XXI. That Measure of Love . 
 
 XXII. On the Grade 
 
 XXIII. What Happened to Tom Hitch 
 
 XXIV. Fairmeadow's Justice 
 
 XXV. The Trial Kiss 
 
 XXVI. Under Fire . 
 
 XXVII. Bound Through . 
 
 XXVIII. Father and Son ... 
 
 XXIX. A Miracle at Pale Peter's 
 
 XXX. The End of the Game . 
 
 XXXI. In His Own Behalf 
 
 XXXII. Love and Labour 
 
 . 203 
 
 . 2IO 
 
 . 221 
 
 . 232 
 
 . 241 
 
 255 
 
 . 271 
 
 . 284 
 
 . 297 
 
 3*3 
 
 330 
 
 348
 
 Illustrations 
 
 " Make of this child, a Man "... Frontispiece 
 
 " It's all very well for you t' warm your 
 shanks an' toast your souls," Rowl 
 growled ..... Facing page 1 8 z 
 
 " I want Tom Hitch, says the Sheriff" . " " 238 
 
 ii
 
 The Measure of a Man 
 
 THE STRANGER AT STAMP'S END 
 
 THAT a dog fight a growling squabble 
 in the early summer dust and sunshine 
 should upset the lumber-woods set- 
 tlement of Swamp's End and divert her most 
 eminent citizens from their accustomed employ- 
 ments was in itself almost sign manifest of the 
 awakening interest of Providence in that be- 
 nighted but fervently joyous community. When 
 it is explained that the dog fight occurred simul- 
 taneously with the appearance of John Fair- 
 meadow in the clearing and after proper reflec- 
 tion upon the remarkable coincidence it will be 
 obvious that nothing more need be said. The 
 absence of an instant and grateful perception 
 of the impending beneficence, however, on the 
 part of Swamp's End, is to be condoned : Provi- 
 dence had never before interfered at Swamp's 
 End. Nor had Swamp's End now deputed any 
 person or persons whomsoever to invite the in- 
 tervention of Providence, or of any other super- 
 cilious Easterner, including John Fairmeadow,
 
 14 The STRANGER at SWAMP'S END 
 
 in her domestic concerns. The domestic con- 
 cerns of Swamp's End, of course, were cherished 
 at Swamp's End as inviolate ; and Swamp's 
 End was not at all conscious of any need of 
 providential assistance in the management of 
 them. 
 
 " You see," Gingerbread Jenkins has since been 
 heard to apologize, " the boys wasn't quite used 
 t' Providence." 
 
 There is a generous concurrence. 
 
 "Somehow, too," Plain Tom Hitch drawls in 
 explanation, " Providence didn't seem t' be very 
 well acquainted with the boys. " 
 
 In those days, Swamp's End was on scantest 
 and, I fear, most suspicious terms of acquaint- 
 ance with Providence. Swamp's End regarded 
 Providence in the light of a sinister stranger, of 
 vastly mysterious and engaging personality, per- 
 haps of some noteworthy fame, to be sure and 
 certainly of accomplishments not to be despised by 
 any cautious individual with whom, however, it 
 would be quite as well to have nothing to do, in 
 any intimate way, until the sensational rumours, 
 affecting the visitor's reputation as a gentleman 
 of those qualities held in highest admiration at 
 Swamp's End, should have been rigidly investi- 
 gated. Moreover, the dog fight was of such an 
 extraordinary aspect a contention so singular 
 and so indecent in issue that Swamp's End was
 
 The STRANGER at STAMP'S END 15 
 
 far too happily engrossed in the progress of the 
 affair to discover the hand of Providence in its 
 inception. Swamp's End was inclined towards 
 excitement of that mild description, and was used 
 to indulging, of course, in entertainment at once 
 much more reprehensible and engaging ; and 
 Swamp's End is not fairly to be condemned for 
 preferring its accustomed diversions above fast- 
 ing and prayer, of which, believe me, it knew 
 nothing at all, as a community, and had never 
 been told. 
 
 According to old John Rowl, the sealer from 
 Kettle Camp of the Cant-hook cutting, who had 
 sardonically cherished the rise of Swamp's End 
 from its obscure beginnings with one shanty 
 saloon to the flourishing prosperity of its thirty- 
 two according to old John Rowl, Gingerbread 
 Jenkins, the Bottle River swamper, subsequently 
 remarked in Pale Peter's bar : 
 
 " Gawd moo-ooves in a mystee-ee-eerious way, 
 His wonders to pre-form," 
 
 and the sentiment was promptly adopted as a 
 succinct expression of the general feeling in respect 
 to the occurrences of the day and the amazing 
 situation which the advent of John Fairmeadow 
 had precipitated upon the startled community. 
 
 The agitated bar agreed, it is reported, and 
 with the only recorded unanimity. 
 
 " That's reason," Charlie the Infidel declared.
 
 1 6 The STRANGER at SWAMP'S END 
 
 Gingerbread Jenkins, it seemed, had dropped 
 a pearl of wisdom from the casket of his mem- 
 ory ; and Gingerbread Jenkins, elated by the im- 
 pression his philosophical quotation had achieved 
 upon the popular bewilderment, would have cast 
 other pearls of the sort, with a free, glad hand, 
 in expectation of increasing the enlightenment, 
 had not Plain Tom Hitch been distracted from 
 his liquor by an illuminating idea. 
 
 " There's a lot o' common sense," said Plain 
 Tom Hitch, " in them old school-books." 
 
 " You take a man's mother," Billy the Beast 
 began, "an* her teachin' " 
 
 " Gimme a match." 
 
 Gingerbread Jenkins was about to give tongue, 
 once more, when Charlie the Infidel, Pale Peter's 
 bartender, interrupted with a suggestion which 
 in the gravest parliamentary fashion was at 
 Swamp's End always and sacredly in order. 
 
 "What'll ye have, boys?" said he; "the 
 drinks is on the house." 
 
 Plain Tom Hitch stroked his beard, in a muse 
 of anxious deliberation, and gently whispered : 
 
 " A liT licker, Charlie fer me." 
 
 The echo ran down the frowzy line : 
 
 " A liT licker fer mine." 
 
 " The same, Charlie, fer me." 
 
 " Mine's a liT licker." 
 
 They had the liquor, man and boy, in hearty 
 drams, and in this convivial way the arrival of
 
 STRANGER at SWAMP'S END 17 
 
 Providence at Swamp's End was accepted and 
 celebrated according to the customs. There- 
 after Almighty God was a familiar inhabitant of 
 Swamp's End and of the logging camps of all 
 His great surrounding woods and might fairly 
 have been enumerated in the census. It is to be 
 noted, however, that John Fairmeadow intro- 
 duced and vouched for Him, as shall presently 
 be told. To the amazement of Swamp's End 
 the Stranger behaved Himself with perfect pro- 
 priety even according to the somewhat difficult 
 standards of the place. Swamp's End was 
 proud of Him. He turned out to be genial, 
 kindly, wise, fair-minded, chivalrous, quite a 
 manly Chap : a worthy, acceptable, winning 
 Fellow, truly ! Swamp's End occasionally dis- 
 agreed with Him, of course. That was inevi- 
 table. Both Swamp's End and the Stranger 
 had positive convictions. But Swamp's End was 
 very fond of Him, nevertheless.
 
 II 
 
 AN ENGAGEMENT WITH GOD 
 
 SWAMP'S END gave no impression of hav- 
 ing taken permanent possession of the 
 clearing in which it was situated. In sug- 
 gestion it was rather a lumber-woods settlement 
 which had not quite made up its mind about 
 settling, being for the moment too much preoc- 
 cupied with a bottle. It seemed, on second 
 thought, merely to have squatted in a mud- 
 puddle in the midst of the woods to rest its 
 inebriated legs. The thirty-two shanty saloons 
 of the high-street had certainly locked arms and 
 gone into a drunken stupor in the cozy shelter 
 of the pines. They leaned one against the other 
 in singular and helpless dependence, necks limp, 
 bodies lax and awry, hats cocked or gone ; and 
 they were quite unashamed of their scandalous 
 condition, because, perhaps, they were in the 
 fashion, and conducted themselves precisely as 
 everybody expected them to behave, and after 
 the approved model of those woods. 
 
 A push, of course a vigorous push by John 
 Fairmeadow might have sent them sprawling ; 
 and Fairmeadow was even then on the trail from 
 Elegant Corners to Big Rapids, momentarily 
 
 18
 
 An ENGAGEMENT WITH GOD 19 
 
 approaching. But Pale Peter's place, the ram- 
 shackle hotel on the corner, might not have 
 yielded so easily. It achieved an impression of 
 sleepy sobriety, and it was at least steady on its 
 legs. What other habitations there were a 
 lesser crew, compounded of logs, turf, pine-board 
 and tar-paper, with a helpful addition of packing 
 boxes squatted near in various attitudes of in- 
 ebriety, now lying, all beggared and listless, in a 
 glowing summer haze and pause. No matter, 
 however : the whole the company of makeshift 
 dwellings no less than the folk who went in 
 and out was peregrinating west by north on the 
 heels of the slow-moving lumber camps ; and 
 what broken bodies and souls might be left with 
 the refuse of the sojourn in the balsamic clearing 
 concerned nobody. 
 
 The aspiring homesteaders would presently 
 raise a city in that place and give it a new name. 
 
 It was an eventful day at Swamp's End the 
 still and mellow Sunday of John Fairmeadow's 
 first professional appearance. The dog fight 
 served importantly to gather the crowd, of 
 course, and to enlist the hurrying Fairmeadow's 
 attention ; but the dog fight was not all. In the 
 early hours oi the morning a warm, flushed 
 dawn a tote-wagon, drawn by two stolid black 
 beasts, and gravely driven by Plain Tom Hitch, 
 had arrived from the Bottle River camps, bear-
 
 20 An ENGAGEMENT WITH GOD 
 
 ing the mortal remains of Gray Billy Batch, 
 who had departed this life, much to the annoy- 
 ance of the foreman of the drive, and doubtless 
 to his own surprise and alarm, in the Rattle 
 Water rapids below Big Bend of Bottle River. 
 He had been a scurrilous dog when the breath 
 of life was in him, a sour and unloved wastrel 
 of his days, morose, unkempt, ill-mouthed, in a 
 rage with all the world, save one young heart, 
 and least kind of all to the body they presently 
 fished from the swirl and foam of the eddy below 
 Rattle Water, and to the misled soul that had 
 sped to the solution of its own mystery. 
 
 It is to be regretted that a division of the 
 Bottle River drive, employed in the neighbour- 
 hood, and thus fortunately vantaged to observe 
 the departure of Gray Billy Batch, experienced a 
 flush of rejoicing at the moment of inevitable 
 farewell. When, however, the dripping corpse 
 lay on the bank, the feet still in the wash of the 
 water, the gray face in the shadow of the birches, 
 the Bottle River drive stood voiceless and quiet 
 in this Presence ; and, perhaps, old terrors awoke, 
 and the strings of memory were touched, and 
 the depths gave tongue. At any rate, in the 
 more charitable mood of that soft afternoon, it 
 was informally resolved, and without Gray Billy 
 Batch's consent or interest in the extraordinary 
 proceeding, that the only surviving relative of 
 the deceased should forthwith be apprized of the
 
 An ENGAGEMENT WHH GOD 21 
 
 lamentable fatality and assured of the deep sense 
 of personal loss under which his associates of 
 the Bottle River camps drooped disconsolate. 
 
 The surviving relative was Patience, Gray 
 Billy Batch's daughter, a sweet, brown mite, 
 with a child's curious outlook upon the world of 
 Swamp's End, though now fast and shyly ap- 
 proaching her eighteenth year. It was Saturday 
 evening, at sunset, with the breeze fallen away 
 to an odorous breath of air, when Gingerbread 
 Jenkins, sufficiently fortified, but still agitated 
 and heavy with his errand, came upon her, wait- 
 ing in the dooryard of the shack, a listless log 
 dwelling which Gray Billy Batch had knocked 
 together at the edge of the clearing in which 
 Swamp's End squatted. " Pattie, my dear," said 
 he, with a soothing hand on the girl's shoulder, 
 " your pop won't be comin' home t' -night." 
 
 The girl looked up in quick alarm. 
 
 " You see," Gingerbread added, " he's de- 
 layed." 
 
 " That's funny," Pattie replied ; " he most al- 
 ways comes home from the Bottle River on 
 Saturday night. I I been waitin'." 
 
 Gingerbread Jenkins sighed. " Not t'-night," 
 said he. " You see, he's hindered." 
 
 "I I I been waitiri " pretty little Pattie 
 Batch complained. 
 
 " He's hindered," Gingerbread blankly re- 
 peated.
 
 22 An ENGAGEMENT WITH GOD 
 
 " Is he comin' t'-morrow?" 
 
 "Well, yes," Gingerbread admitted, more 
 heartily ; " you see, he'll be fetched." 
 
 " What say ? " 
 
 " He'll come home, all right," Gingerbread 
 repeated, " fetched in a sort of a way." 
 
 " Is he drunk ? " 
 
 " Drunk? Oh, my, no ! " Gingerbread Jenkins 
 protested ; "he ain't drunk, my dear." 
 
 "Is he near drunk ? " 
 
 Gingerbread Jenkins, hard put to it for words 
 wherewithal in the presence of a lady, ejaculated : 
 " Good gracious, no ! " 
 
 " That's funny," said Pattie Batch. " Where's 
 he gettin' drunk ? " 
 
 " He ain't gettin' drunk nowheres." 
 
 "Not #&' drunk?" Pattie Batch exclaimed. 
 " That's funny." 
 
 "You see," Gingerbread gently exclaimed 
 "your pop won't be drunk no more." 
 
 " Is he is he dead ? " 
 
 Gingerbread Jenkins was flustered by this 
 abrupt question. It bewildered him, too, to 
 learn, all in a flash of revelation, that Gray Billy 
 Batch had been loved and would be mourned. 
 " Oh, well, now ! " he replied, hurriedly, " I 
 wouldn't go so far as t' say that. I'd say," he 
 explained, lamely, " that he was that he was 
 engaged." 
 
 " Who's his business with ? "
 
 An ENGAGEMENT WITH GOD 23 
 
 Gingerbread Jenkins' bleared eyes were all at 
 once flushed. " Your pop's business, my dear," 
 he answered, softly, driven to the disclosure at 
 last, " is with God." 
 
 " Pop's dead ! " the girl gasped. 
 
 Gingerbread's eyes overflowed. Off came his 
 old cloth cap. He nodded. " Pop's dead," said 
 he. 
 
 " Pop's dead 1 " Pattie repeated, her gray eyes 
 round with wonder, which no pain had yet dis- 
 turbed. " Pop's dead ! " She brooded upon this 
 new thing ; and presently, with a start, her hands 
 fallen upon her agitated bosom, she turned to 
 the shack, wherein, through the open door, she 
 seemed to discover her loneliness, but not yet to 
 be troubled by it. She looked, then, without 
 concern, to the high, darkening sky, and to 
 the flaring sunset clouds, above the black pines, 
 whence her wistful glance fell to the besotted 
 settlement, huddled in the gathering shadows 
 beyond the confines of her familiar place. " He's 
 dead ! " she whispered. " Pop's dead ! " 
 
 " Hush 1 " Gingerbread Jenkins besought her ; 
 "don't cry." 
 
 She was not crying ; she looked up to him with 
 the light of interest lively in her gray eyes, for 
 which, perhaps, the monotony of her days is to 
 be blamed. " When's the fun'l ? " she inquired. 
 
 " Eh ? " Gingerbread Jenkins ejaculated. 
 "When's what?"
 
 24 An ENGAGEMENT WITH GOD 
 
 "When'sthefun'l?" 
 
 "Whose?" 
 
 "Why, pop's!" 
 
 " Oh ! " said Gingerbread, enlightened but not 
 advised, and now taken aback. " I see" 
 
 " Coin' t' be a fun'l, isn't there ? " 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 "Isn't there goin' t' be no fun'l?" 
 
 "Well, you see," said Gingerbread, "he'll be 
 buried" 
 
 "That all?" 
 
 "Well," Gingerbread admitted, "I haven't 
 heard nobody say nothin' about no funeerial." 
 
 " No fun'l ? " Pattie wailed. " No fun'l a-ta// f " 
 
 Gingerbread deliberated. The matter of ob- 
 sequies had not been included in his instructions. 
 But something had to be done to correct this 
 flow of tears. " Didn't hear nobody say nothin' 
 much about no funeerial," he hedged. 
 
 Pattie whimpered. 
 
 " But I'm told," Gingerbread ventured, " that 
 the boys had a little game like that in mind." 
 
 Pattie began to cry outright. 
 
 "You see," Gingerbread hastily proceeded, 
 "there was a deal o' talk about consultin' the 
 only survivin' re-lation about the percession." 
 
 The girl looked up with a wet and glistening 
 smile. 
 
 "An' there'll be a funeerial," Gingerbread 
 Jenkins declared, flushed with tender deter-
 
 An ENGAGEMENT WITH GOD 25 
 
 mination, " or there'll be hell t' pay on Bottle 
 River!" 
 
 And when the uplifted Gingerbread Jenkins 
 went away resolved upon his own concerns to 
 agitate a spectacle, in fact, worthy of easing poor 
 Pattie Batch's grief Pattie Batch did not go 
 into the cabin. She did not so much as look in 
 that ghostly direction ; she turned her back, with 
 a frightened little shudder, and strayed off to the 
 twilit woods. She did not go far, at all : she 
 dared not ; it was darkening fast, and she was 
 afraid as she had never before known fear. But 
 she found at the edge of the clearing a com- 
 panionable patch of wild-flowers, come to their 
 shy and fragrant blooming in the sunny weather 
 of that day ; and she plucked them, while the 
 soft light lasted, and adorned herself, according 
 to her nature God's jewels, flung broadcast in 
 love upon the earth, inspiring no avarice, now 
 peeping from her cloud of dark hair, and clasped 
 around her slender wrists, and wreathing her 
 shoulders, an acceptable garland. It was a 
 pleasant thing to do ; she was distracted by the 
 delights of her fairy occupation and by her 
 thronging fancies, as she had always been, on 
 the edge of the woods at twilight. All the while 
 she sang very softly some sad expression of her 
 mood, in the way she had ; and no brooding- 
 cadence of the wild-throated woods, no amorous
 
 26 An ENGAGEMENT WHH GOD 
 
 serenade of the dusk, no nesting twitter, was 
 sweeter, none more spontaneously swelling, than 
 her clear, melancholy notes. 
 
 It was night : she must go back to her known 
 place. 
 
 " I got t' be a man," thought she. 
 
 It was what Gray Billy Batch used to tell her 
 scurrilous Billy Batch who loved nothing in 
 the world beside her. "You got t' be a little 
 man," he used to say ; and Pattie had altogether 
 mastered the teaching. 
 
 "I got t' be a little man," she determined, 
 again, " like pop used t' say." 
 
 So she gave her fears to the shadows of night, 
 in a long sigh, and set out, with a resolute shake 
 of her little head, which showered the flowers 
 from her hair, and with a step that was not 
 afraid. But she was not to be alone in the cabin, 
 after all, it seemed ; she came, there, into the dis- 
 quieting company of her future. 
 
 " I s'pose I got t' do something," she mused, 
 much troubled. 
 
 It was not clear what that should be. 
 
 " Can't stay here all alone no more," she de- 
 termined. " I just simply can't." 
 
 By and by she busied herself upon a black 
 gown, which had been her mother's, long ago ; 
 and she ripped, and she basted, and she tucked, 
 and she sewed, singing a little, like a child who 
 cannot comprehend a swiftly encompassing sor-
 
 An ENGAGEMENT WITH GOD 27 
 
 row, and sighing a little, too, and now and again 
 overcome by a vision of her desolate state, 
 whereupon she cried bitterly. It was dawn 
 flushing mild and rosy over all the redolent, 
 dewy, lively world before her nimble little fin- 
 gers rested. And she sighed, then, and having 
 recited her prayers lay down to sleep, in poign- 
 ant grief, and sobbed herself far away from all 
 her trouble. Poor little Pattie Batch lying, 
 now, forsaken, in Gray Billy Batch's cabin at the 
 edge of the big, black woods 1 Unknowing little 
 soul, sweet and trustful cast now by Death 
 into the vast confusion of life ! But Pattie Batch 
 was going to be a UT man. Yes, sir, by ginger I 
 Pattie Batch was going to be a li'F man in every 
 fortune.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE MAN FROM BOTTLE RIYER 
 
 IN consequence of all this, the tote-wagon, 
 bearing the mortal remains of Gray Billy 
 Batch, covered from the blithesome new day 
 with a gray blanket, had gravely emerged from 
 the forest in the early hours of the morning, the 
 reins in the knowing hands of Plain Tom Hitch. 
 It was presently drawn up at the Red Elephant, 
 Pale Peter's place, and there expeditiously, but still 
 gravely, abandoned. No unseemly wrangle 
 not so much as an officious whisper disturbed 
 the propriety of the arrival and the sunlit quiet 
 of the time. Whatever uncertainty whatever 
 difference of opinion may have existed in re- 
 spect to the ceremonial progress of the extra- 
 ordinary affair in hand, there was no doubt 
 about what was immediately desirable and 
 proper in the circumstances. The movement of 
 Plain Tom Hitch and Gingerbread Jenkins, and 
 of the prospective mourners, who had sat with 
 the corpse or straggled behind all the way from 
 Bottle River, was silent, simultaneous and in the 
 same direction. They tiptoed into Pale Peter's 
 bar ; the swing shutters closed behind them, 
 
 28
 
 The MAN FROM BOTTLE RIYER 29 
 
 with a subdued and melancholy creaking, and 
 the high-street of Swamp's End was once more 
 deserted, except for the tote-wagon and its in- 
 different occupant. 
 
 " What'll it be?" Plain Tom Hitch and Gin- 
 gerbread Jenkins whispered simultaneously. 
 
 " A liT licker." 
 
 The sigh ran down the solemn line : 
 
 "AliT licker." 
 
 " The same." 
 
 " A liT gin fer me." 
 
 Gray Billy Batch, under the gray blanket out- 
 side, was left to his own devices ; but he was not 
 chagrined, you may be sure, by this exclusion 
 from the amenities of Swamp's End. Nor was 
 his presence beyond the threshold of Pale Peter's 
 bar forgotten. Plain Tom Hitch halted his first 
 glass midway and nothing but the gravest con- 
 cern could have moved Tom Hitch to such 
 amazing restraint Plain Tom Hitch halted his 
 first aromatic glass midway to inquire concern- 
 ing the disposition and entertainment of " the 
 only survivin' re-lation" of the gray blanket; 
 but having been assured by Gingerbread Jen- 
 kins, who had assumed charge of the melancholy 
 affair, that in the event of her failure to appear 
 unaided she would be sought by a deputation 
 and escorted with every courtesy to the tail of 
 the tote-wagon, he paused no longer, but swal- 
 lowed his liquor with funereal satisfaction.
 
 30 The MAN FROM BOTTLE RlfER 
 
 "Jus* as you say, Gingerbread," he assented, 
 dubiously. "It's your funerlal. You got it 
 up." 
 
 " Eh ? " Gingerbread inquired, sensing doubt. 
 "I what?" 
 
 " You got it up," Tom Hitch replied ; " but I 
 wisht I knowed," he added solemnly, " where you 
 was goin' t' put your cant-hooks on them Scrip- 
 tures." 
 
 "What Scriptures?" 
 
 " Holy Scriptures," said Plain Tom Hitch. 
 
 Gingerbread Jenkins created a diversion by 
 inquiring, in a general way, " What'll you have, 
 boys?" 
 
 The response was unanimous : 
 
 " A liT o' the same, Charlie." 
 
 " I don't want t' make no trouble, nor I don't 
 want t' do no buttin' in," Tom Hitch went on, at 
 the conclusion of this grave ceremony ; " but I'm 
 told that they're usually used" 
 
 "What's used?" 
 
 " Holy Scriptures," said Plain Tom Hitch. 
 
 " You jus' leave all that t' me, Tom Hitch," 
 Gingerbread Jenkins replied, with a display of 
 resentment to conceal a second shock of uneasi- 
 ness. "If we got t' have the Holy Scriptures for 
 this here funeerial, we'll have 'em, an' that's all 
 there is to it." 
 
 "Jus' as you say, Gingerbread," Tom Hitch 
 assented, with a doubtful wag ; " but don't you
 
 The MAN FROM BOTTLE RIVER. )i 
 
 go an' forget that you got this thing up your- 
 self." 
 
 " I ain't hedgin' on it, Tom," Gingerbread pro- 
 tested. " I did get it up." 
 
 " Got a parson ? " 
 
 "Well, no, Tom," Gingerbread admitted; 
 " not yet. I ain't picked no parson yet." 
 
 " Got a hearse?" 
 
 "Not yet," said Gingerbread Jenkins; "but 
 I'm allowin' t' have a hearse." 
 
 " Got a coffin ? " 
 
 Gingerbread shook his head. 
 
 " Got a grave ? " 
 
 " I ain't a-te-ded t' all them things," Ginger- 
 bread Jenkins exploded, goaded to impatience. 
 " I ain't got my grave dug. Gimme time, can't 
 you ? I jus' stopped in here for a li'F licker." 
 
 "Jus' as you say, Gingerbread," said Tom 
 Hitch, placidly. " You got it up ; it's your 
 funerlal." 
 
 There was a vast uncertainty in respect to 
 everything connected with the large-looming 
 event, not only in the flustered mind of poor 
 Gingerbread Jenkins, who was presently ap- 
 palled by the magnitude his simple project had 
 begun to assume, but in the expectation of the 
 men whom the Cant-hook and Bottle River tote- 
 roads poured into the clearing, and whom the 
 drowsy street of Swamp's End, immediately, and
 
 32 The MAN FROM BOTTLE RlfER 
 
 without quite waking up, delivered to the thirty- 
 two saloons. Word had gone abroad in the woods 
 word of an occasion of some mysterious de- 
 mand for a celebration. The men of the Cant-hook 
 and Bottle River and a smattering of lusty fel- 
 lows of the Yellow Tail had drawn their wages 
 and come precipitately to town. There was 
 the vaguest information abroad, however, con- 
 cerning the occasion ; and when, in the thirty-two 
 saloons, it was made known that honour was to 
 be done the gray blanket in the Bottle River tote- 
 wagon, in ease of Pattie Batch's grief, the project 
 was riotously approved and so thoroughly ini- 
 tiated that even the thirty-two proprietors found 
 nothing to complain of. The clink of glasses 
 and the silvery rattle of coin answered well 
 enough for the requiem bell well enough, at 
 any rate, to content Gray Billy Batch, lying 
 quietly under the gray blanket in the tote-wagon. 
 
 But 
 
 "Who got it up?" 
 
 44 When's he goin' t' pull it off ? " 
 
 " How's he goin' t' pull it off?" 
 
 How was it to be pulled off ? That, indeed, 
 was the problem, with which Swamp's End, in 
 view of its limitations, must instantly grapple, 
 the issue of that gigantic struggle being in gravest 
 doubt. Swamp's End, you see, had never had a 
 parson, had never known a parson, and wouldn't 
 have recognized one, you may be sure, had the
 
 The MAN FROM BOTTLE RIYER 33 
 
 clouds opened and providentially dropped a par- 
 son excellently competent in respect to public oc- 
 casions of this sort. Swamp's End was com- 
 pletely benighted : Swamp's End had hitherto 
 had no " call " for the ministrations of a parson. 
 Nor had Swamp's End a coffin to mitigate its in- 
 decency, nor a shroud, nor a hearse : the obse- 
 quies which it had hitherto fallen to the lot of 
 Swamp's End to celebrate had been for the most 
 part performed in the woods, without ostenta- 
 tion, green boughs for coffin, the darkness of the 
 grave shroud enough, the wind in the pines a 
 choir unequalled, the solemnity of the great 
 woods a sufficient sermon. Swamp's End, in- 
 deed, had no graveyard : nothing but an avoided 
 slope, near by a shuttered house on the edge of 
 town, where three nameless women were buried, 
 these sunken mounds, with one small cherished 
 grave, asserting jealous ownership of the green 
 and flowery spot. 
 
 " And no grave dug ! " Tom Hitch marvelled 
 at Pale Peter's bar. 
 
 " Not yet" said Gingerbread Jenkins. " I 
 ain't had no time t' dig no grave." 
 
 " Have you chose a cem-a-tary ? " 
 
 " You le' me alone, can't you ? " Gingerbread 
 Jenkins complained. " I'll get my cem-a-tary, all 
 right ! " 
 
 " Jus' as you say, Gingerbread." 
 
 Gingerbread growled.
 
 34 The MAN FROM BOTTLE R1YER 
 
 " You started this here little thing," Tom Hitch 
 went on, as he crooked his ringer for Charlie the 
 Infidel ; " but I want to warn you that there's 
 a hundred men an' eighteen hundred dollars 
 a-comin' t' this here funerlal, an' there didn't 
 ought t' be no hitch t' disappoint the boys." 
 
 With the timely assistance of Charlie the In- 
 fidel, they sought new light upon the situation, 
 but found, unhappily, only a deeper bewilder- 
 ment. And as for John Fairmeadow, while the 
 cloud of concern thickened about Gingerbread 
 Jenkins' head, why John Fairmeadow, on the 
 trail from Elegant Corners, was drawing nearer 
 the cle .ing of Swamp's End, and would pres- 
 ently emerge from the woods.
 
 IV 
 A PASTORAL CALL 
 
 PATTIE BATCH came to the funeral unat- 
 tended. In fact, she was early. A child- 
 like little heart, she was, indeed a tender 
 little flower o' the woods, forever blithesome, in 
 the sun and breezes of the world, until Rattle 
 Water had intervened and she was now all in 
 a confusion of bitterest grief and dread and flut- 
 tering expectation. Except for the tote-wagon 
 and the stolid horses, the street was empty ; 
 there was nobody to observe her shy arrival 
 nobody to be moved by the mourning garment 
 she had accomplished from her dead mother's 
 threadbare black gown and now wore with a 
 modestly appealing little strut. It was a gro- 
 tesque fashion, no doubt : she resembled, per- 
 haps, nothing so nearly as a child masquerading 
 in grown-up array. But she was all innocent 
 of the modes; the limp black skirt trailed the 
 ground for the first time in her experience, and 
 she was conscious of having emerged into the 
 world, upon her own resources, wherein she must 
 bear herself with courage and resolution, playing 
 the part of a little man in every fortune. 
 " I got t' be a little man ! " 
 35
 
 }6 A PASTORAL CALL 
 
 Pattie Batch was instantly aware, of course, of 
 the significance of the tote-wagon and the gray 
 blanket. 
 
 " Hello, pop ! " she whispered. 
 
 Gray Billy Batch was indifferent to the greet- 
 ing. 
 
 " Hello, pop 1 " 
 
 Pattie wept, in an overwhelming agony of 
 grief, as she laid a cluster of wild-flowers on the 
 blanket ; and she wept, too, as she straightened 
 the disordered folds to ease the rest of the form 
 beneath, as she had done many a time, in other 
 circumstances, when Billy Batch had come home 
 from town. 
 
 " Hello, pop 1 " 
 
 No answer. 
 
 "Pop! Oh, pop 1" 
 
 Pattie wept again; and snuffling still and 
 with a sob and a catch of the breath she rear- 
 ranged the flowers, having conceived a more 
 lovely effect, and once more smoothed the 
 blanket, for which she had no thanks, at all : 
 whereupon she moved away. There was a great 
 stir and talk in the barrooms near by. It indi- 
 cated a long waiting. She dried her eyes with 
 a sleeve of the black gown, and sighed a great 
 deal, and blew her little red nose, and choked 
 back her sobs ; and, having long ago learned the 
 part a woman must play at such convivial times, 
 she sat down on the edge of the plank sidewalk
 
 A PASTORAL CALL 37 
 
 in front of Pale Peter's place, her little feet swing- 
 ing, and began patiently to await the conve- 
 nience of the men within. 
 
 " I got t' be a little man, by ginger ! " thought 
 she. 
 
 She would if she could. 
 
 When big, bellicose John Fairmeadow, in a 
 lather of exertion, came striding down the peace- 
 ful street, bound for the Big Rapids trail, she 
 still sat, in a mist of grief, swinging her little 
 feet from Pale Peter's sidewalk. A quaint, ap- 
 pealing, shy little figure, indeed, she was, with 
 downcast gray eyes, but rosy-cheeked, withal, and 
 dimpled, too, notwithstanding the gray blanket, 
 and infinitely wistful in the summer sunshine. 
 She was in sorrow, of course ; not the most per- 
 sistent of dimples, not gray -eyed twinkles of the 
 most stout-hearted description, could conceal her 
 woe, nor mitigate her appearance of desolation. 
 But she did smile : once in a while, looking up 
 from her little toes, she smiled, having with all 
 her might summoned the courage with which to 
 give to her woeful features the twist of a grimace. 
 She was in the way, you see, of patching up her 
 broken heart, after the admonition of Gray Billy 
 Batch to be a little man. And she was in the 
 thick of a desperate effort and was determined 
 to achieve her purpose and had almost man- 
 aged the last contortion of a courageous little
 
 38 A PASTORAL CALL 
 
 grin when John Fairmeadow, striding down, 
 came abreast of the abandoned tote-wagon and 
 caught sight of the queer little figure in black 
 on the sidewalk beyond. It was impossible to 
 proceed : John Fairmeadow involuntarily paused 
 to stare ; and his stare instantly exposed him to 
 a gray-eyed flash, which immensely amused him, 
 it was so frank, so wistful, so sad, so curious, so 
 appealing and so glorious. 
 
 " How d'ye do ? " said John Fairmeadow. 
 
 A gracious inclination failed to encourage him ; 
 and he passed on but with twinkling backward 
 glances towards the mouth of the Big Rapids 
 trail, wherein, in a moment, after a rough stride 
 or two, he would have vanished in the silence 
 and shadows of the forest, forever lost to Swamp's 
 End, had not the providential dog fight sum- 
 moned him back. 
 
 It was the dog fight, too, that intruded upon 
 Pattie Batch's grieving vigil beside the tote- 
 wagon and the gray blanket. It came in a 
 growling, roaring, blaspheming rush from Pale 
 Peter's bar. The blessed calm of day fled in 
 shocked alarm before it. It startled the stolid 
 black horses ; it shook the tote-wagon's unheed- 
 ing passenger. It flooded the sidewalk and 
 overflowed on the dusty street. It drew a hurry- 
 ing, swearing, howling contribution of sportive 
 spectators from each of the thirty-two saloons to
 
 A PASTORAL CALL 39 
 
 complete a brawling circle. It distracted the 
 citizens of Swamp's End and the visitors from the 
 woods from their accustomed employments at the 
 Swamp's End bars ; and eventually it introduced 
 John Fairmeadow and Providence to the excited 
 community. A worthy dog fight. Pale Peter's 
 bulldog was concerned, being the aggrieved 
 party to the dispute ; and the other dog, the ag- 
 gressor, was Billy the Beast from the Cant-hook 
 cutting, a surly lumber-jack, who, being at the 
 same time drunk, savage and hungry, had seized 
 upon the bulldog's bone, in expectation of 
 gnawing it himself. It was a fight to be remem- 
 bered, too: the growls of man and beast, the 
 dusty, yelping scramble in the street, the howls 
 of the spectators, the blood and snapping, and 
 the indecent issue, wherein Billy the Beast from 
 the Cant-hook cutting sent the bulldog yelping 
 to cover with a broken rib, and himself, stagger- 
 ing out of sight, with lacerated hands, gnawed 
 at the bone as he went. 
 
 When the joyous excitement had somewhat 
 subsided, John Fairmeadow, now returned from 
 the Big Rapids trail, laid off his pack. 
 
 " Boys," said he, " I'm looking for the worst 
 town this side of hell. Have I got there ? " 
 
 "You're what!" Gingerbread Jenkins ejacu- 
 lated. 
 
 "I'm looking," John Fairmeadow drawled, 
 " for the worst town this side of hell. Is this it ? "
 
 40 A PASTORAL CALL 
 
 " Swamp's End, my friend," said Gingerbread 
 Jenkins, gravely, " is your station." 
 
 The crowd gave assent. 
 
 " Quite sure ? " John Fairmeadow pleasantly 
 inquired. 
 
 " My friend," Gingerbread Jenkins replied, 
 " I could prove at least that much in favour o' 
 this here town." 
 
 John Fairmeadow nodded approvingly. 
 
 "When I come t' think ca'mly about it," Gin- 
 gerbread Jenkins went on, " I don't know but 
 that this town beats hell. There's many a man 
 has moved from here t' hell with the idea of im- 
 provin' his situation." 
 
 Again John Fairmeadow nodded. 
 
 "An' a damned sight more young women," 
 Gingerbread Jenkins continued, "has packed up in 
 a hurry, lemme tell you, an' done the same thing." 
 
 "That's all right, boys," said John Fair- 
 meadow, heartily. " I like the town." 
 
 It was Gingerbread's turn to nod. 
 
 " I like it," Fairmeadow repeated, grimly. 
 " It's just the kind of town I'm looking for ; and 
 I'm glad I've found it. It'sjtne, boys. I'm de- 
 lighted. It seems to me," he went on, " that a 
 man in my line might thrive in a live little burg like 
 this. If you've no objection, boys, I'll settle." 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " Friend," Gingerbread Jenkins observed, in- 
 imically, " I don't quite place you.'
 
 A PASTORAL CALL 41 
 
 Fairmeadow smiled broadly. "This is my 
 first visit to Swamp's End, sir," said he, bowing 
 politely. 
 
 Gingerbread scratched his head. 
 
 " I hope," Fairmeadow proceeded, glancing 
 about the scowling circle, his eyes alight with 
 amusement, " some day to be better acquainted 
 with all you gentlemen." 
 
 "I can't place you," Gingerbread Jenkins 
 complained, advancing. 
 
 " My name's Fairmeadow." 
 
 "Yes," Gingerbread drawled; "but I can't 
 jus' make out what you're/or." 
 
 Fairmeadow settled himself solidly. 
 
 "You see, friend," Gingerbread Jenkins pa- 
 tiently elucidated, " it ain't quite plain what use 
 you could be put to. You look like a honest an' 
 self-respectin' lady-fingered bartender," he added, 
 gently, " but you might be a horse-thief." 
 
 Fairmeadow bridled a little. " I chance to be 
 neither," said he. 
 
 "No?" 
 
 "Neither." 
 
 " What is your line o' business?" 
 
 " Line ? " Fairmeadow replied, with a broad 
 grin. " Boys, I'm what you might call a parson ! " 
 
 "A a wh-o^a/?" 
 
 " Parson, by Jove ! " 
 
 Gingerbread Jenkins implored, ~ weakly, "Do 
 you want a job ? "
 
 42 A PASTORAL CALL 
 
 Fairmeadow perceived but could not account 
 for a sudden stir and silence. He was not, how- 
 ever, permitted to answer the question. Plain 
 Tom Hitch jerked Gingerbread Jenkins away 
 from further blundering. 
 
 Well, of course, with this disclosure the 
 affair had instantly taken a new aspect. The 
 crowd withdrew a space, leaving John Fair- 
 meadow alone with the little figure in the quaint 
 black dress, by whom, however, he was not ad- 
 dressed. There was a great buzz of accusation, 
 argument and persuasion from the frowzy crew 
 near by ; and John Fairmeadow, there being 
 nothing else to do, awaited the issue of this, 
 mystified but patient enough. What was said 
 to Gingerbread Jenkins, at that crisis, heaven 
 knows ! That he was accused of having made 
 it impossible for any individual of pious inclina- 
 tion to accept employment in that neighbourhood 
 may go without saying. A lady-fingered bar- 
 tender a horse-thief ! Hard enough, too, on 
 poor Gingerbread Jenkins himself desperate for 
 a parson ! Presently, however, the circle formed 
 again about John Fairmeadow ; and Ginger- 
 bread Jenkins advanced, again, now much crest- 
 fallen. 
 
 " I guess I made a mistake, parson, an' I 
 'pologize," said he. "Are you lookin' for a 
 job?"
 
 A PASTORAL CALL 43 
 
 " That's just what I am ! " said Fairmeadow. 
 
 " As a parson ? " 
 
 " That's right, boys ! " 
 
 " Would you mind," Gingerbread pursued, 
 apologetically, " if I was t' ask you how you was 
 on funeerials ? " 
 
 The crowd attended. 
 
 " I bury," Fairmeadow replied, smiling, all 
 unaware of the proximity of the gray blanket, 
 " with neatness and despatch." 
 
 " Do it make any difference t' you," Ginger- 
 bread anxiously inquired, " which landin' a man 
 makes ? " 
 
 " Once the man is dead ? " 
 
 "Yes," Gingerbread drawled ; " once the man's 
 quite dead." 
 
 " Not in the least." 
 
 " An' you're lookin' for a job in this section ? " 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " No objection t' lumber-jacks ? " 
 
 " I confess," Fairmeadow answered, grimly, 
 " to a slight attraction." 
 
 " Got the Holy Scriptures on you ? " 
 
 " I have." 
 
 "Handy?" 
 
 Fairmeadow produced them with satisfaction. 
 
 " Boys," said Gingerbread promptly, " hold up 
 your right hands." 
 
 Aloft went every hand. 
 
 " Now, parson," Gingerbread went on, turning
 
 44 A PASTORAL CALL 
 
 full upon Fairmeadow, and gravely, too, " the 
 truth, the whole truth an' nothin' but the 
 truth " 
 
 The rest, it seemed, had been forgotten. 
 
 "Anyhow," Gingerbread burst out, "so help 
 me God, you're elected / " 
 
 Fairmeadow asked no question whatsoever. 
 The sincerity of his call, indeed, was beyond 
 question. It amazed him ; he could not at all 
 account for it. They felt the need of him, how- 
 ever ; and he promptly took hold on the strange 
 advantage. The situation passed into his con- 
 trol in a way to make the hearts of these simple 
 men jump. He stepped quickly to the centre of 
 the circle a clean, stalwart young fellow, a man, 
 in bearing, of the great proud and powerful 
 world and lifted his hand. 
 
 There was instant silence. 
 
 " Boys," said Fairmeadow, looking slowly 
 roundabout upon the circle of grave and gaping 
 faces, " I thank you for the call. It is gratefully 
 accepted. In so far as God gives me strength 
 and wisdom in so far as He helps me to keep 
 my heart pure, my purpose uplifted, my love 
 undivided I will serve both you and Him in 
 these His woods. So help me Almighty God ! 
 Amen." 
 
 This was the call and installation of the Rev- 
 erend John Fairmeadow.
 
 PICK AND SHOVEL 
 
 PRESENTLY informed of his first minis- 
 terial office, and presented to the object 
 of his consoling services, John Fair- 
 meadow said, " All right, boys ! " and his parish- 
 ioners returned to the saloons with a relieved 
 whoop, in which the concern of Gingerbread 
 Jenkins vanished. The parson, you see, was 
 " on the job," and it was purely a parson's em- 
 ployment ; the mere mourners might indulge 
 grief without any haunting sense of responsibility, 
 and at once began to do so, with the eighteen 
 hundred dollars. John Fairmeadow was pre- 
 cipitately abandoned. There remained the gray 
 blanket there remained Dennie the Hump, 
 Pale Peter's sweeper there remained the quaint, 
 shy little figure in black, now blushing and dry- 
 eyed, who presented her hand, with a grand air 
 of fashion, and remarked that she was " pleased 
 to make" John Fairmeadow's acquaintance. 
 The gray blanket expressed no interest whatso- 
 ever in the affair ; but Dennie the Hump volun- 
 teered to contrive a coffin of the shreds of 
 packing-boxes, which, said he, if unsightly to 
 the finical eye, would yet hold together until it 
 
 45
 
 46 PICK AND SHOYEL 
 
 should repose where no further disturbance could 
 endanger it. This generous assistance John 
 Fairmeadow promptly accepted, promising to 
 look in upon the job, and complete it, and 
 reverently fulfill its purpose, when he had 
 finished with the pick and shovel. The tote- 
 wagon was then driven to Pale Peter's barn ; 
 and there Dennie the Hump began industriously 
 to ply his hammer and saw, in delight with his 
 useful and conspicuous occupation. 
 
 Presently John Fairmeadow had obtained the 
 implements required by this ministerial exigency. 
 " Now, my dear," said he, resolutely, to Pattie 
 Batch, " where shall we go ? " 
 
 Pattie Batch stared horrified at the pick and 
 shovel. 
 
 " You know what I mean, don't you ? " Fair- 
 meadow asked. 
 
 " There isn't no cem-e-tree," Pattie Batch re- 
 plied. 
 
 "Choose, then," said Fairmeadow, "some 
 pleasant place." 
 
 "There's a place for graves," Pattie volun- 
 teered, with interest. 
 
 Fairmeadow shouldered his pick and shovel. 
 " The very spot 1 " said he. 
 
 "There isn't many graves, neither," Pattie 
 went on ; " there's jus' a few." 
 
 Fairmeadow reflected sadly that one would 
 presently be added to the number.
 
 PICK AND SHOYEL 47 
 
 " Jus' some girls," Pattie sighed. 
 
 Fairmeadow was not attending; he heard 
 but, unused to the ways of Swamp's End, did not 
 comprehend. He was engaged in a tenderly 
 sympathetic consideration of the odd little figure 
 trotting beside him with awkwardly lifted skirt. 
 
 " You know," Pattie Batch continued, in the 
 way of the wise to the wise. 
 
 It occurred to Fairmeadow that the child was 
 complaining of the graveyard. 
 
 " No, no ! " Pattie cried. 
 
 Fairmeadow wondered at her vehemence. 
 
 " No, no ! " she repeated, in a passion of de- 
 termination. " I want pop buried there ! " 
 
 "Of course, you do," Fairmeadow soothed 
 her. 
 
 " Near me," she whispered. 
 
 " You mustn't think of that, my dear," Fair- 
 meadow urged. " You're so young to think 
 of that." 
 
 " Oh, no ; not yet, surely." 
 
 " Yes, I have," Pattie replied ; " it's got t' be 
 thought of now that pop's dead. I got t' be a 
 HT man." 
 
 The graveyard lay in sunshine, a little breeze 
 playing softly with the long grass, the whole 
 freshly green and eager, after the warm rains, 
 and brilliantly spread with flowers. It was at
 
 48 PICK AND SHOYEL 
 
 the edge of the clearing ; the forest came close : 
 Fairmeadow could peer into its dim, tangled re- 
 cesses, and could hear the chirp and twitter and 
 rustle of its busy little living things. Gray Billy 
 Batch had been preceded in the eternal occu- 
 pancy of this serene field. There were four 
 graves. Three were unkempt and unloved 
 nameless, forgotten, fallen in, overgrown. But 
 one small mound was newly trimmed ; and 
 wreaths of fresh-plucked wild blooms lay upon 
 it, smiling to the blue sky. 
 
 " That's Mag's HT baby," Pattie explained. 
 
 "Mag's?" Fairmeadow absently asked. 
 
 " Yep," Pattie replied ; " it's been dead a awful 
 long time." 
 
 Fairmeadow wondered where Gray Billy Batch 
 might most comfortably lie. 
 
 " Mag loves it yet," said Pattie ; " an' she says 
 she always will." 
 
 Fairmeadow struck his spade into the ground. 
 
 " She says," Pattie concluded, " that she jus* 
 simply can't help it." 
 
 While Fairmeadow laboured and until the 
 last spading of cool red earth was cast up Pat- 
 tie Batch, squatting cross-legged in the grass, 
 and much pleased with her companion, chattered 
 amiably, between periods of gentle weeping. 
 She seemed to cling to this companionship : 
 there was no one else, you see, and there would 
 presently be no one at all ; and she was enter-
 
 PICK AND SHOYEL 49 
 
 taining, of course as well as one could be 
 whose heart was breaking to enlist sympathy 
 and to prolong the interval of relief from loneli- 
 ness. She would be alone, soon enough alone 
 in the cabin at the edge of the woods quite 
 alone God knew ! though John Fairmeadow 
 was not aware of it. And the little thing, dab- 
 bing occasionally at her misty gray eyes with 
 the sleeve of her mother's gown, chattered away, 
 to chase off her grief and the besieging expecta- 
 tion of being alone. Mag's baby, it seemed, had 
 come long ago, to surprise her; and Mag, it 
 seemed, lived in the shuttered red house at the 
 foot of the slope, and was Pattie Batch's friend. 
 What would Pattie Batch do, now that her 
 father was dead? Pattie Batch didn't know; but 
 Pattie Batch knew what she could do, you bet 1 
 She hadn't made up her mind not yet. She 
 would think it over by and by after the fun'l, 
 maybe. She was not afraid. Oh, my, no ! And, 
 anyhow, Mag was her friend. 
 
 " I know," said she, shrewdly, her great gray 
 eyes wide in innocent regard of John Fair- 
 meadow, " what / can do." 
 
 The grave was dug. 
 
 " Come, child," said Fairmeadow, oppressed ; 
 " there is no more to be done here." 
 
 " I ain't a child," she replied. 
 
 "No?" said he, absently. 
 
 She looked up shyly through her long lashes.
 
 50 PICK AND SHOVEL 
 
 "I'm almost nearly eighteen," said she, with 
 satisfaction. 
 
 Fairmeadow had not attended to the chatter 
 of Pattie Batch. But Fairmeadow is not to be 
 blamed for this. Fairmeadow was not used to 
 the ways of Swamp's End not aware of the 
 teaching of its accepted customs not afraid for 
 its innocents not remotely acquainted with the 
 deadly perils its way of living had created and 
 clothed with an aspect of security and propriety 
 not yet apprised by experience of the nets 
 which avarice had spread for unknowing youth. 
 So Fairmeadow is not harshly to be judged for 
 his stupidity : Fairmeadow had been preoccupied 
 in melancholy musing upon this death. He had 
 brooded sadly, through all Pattie Batch's chatter- 
 ing ; and he had, but in no comprehending way, 
 considered the forsaken little chatterer, whose 
 words, inconsequent to his ear, had yet been 
 great and solemn with the news he did not heed. 
 Desolate little Pattie Batch I Gray-eyed, for- 
 saken, quaint little Pattie Batch ! Something 
 must be done for the child. It would be his 
 first ministerial concern, Fairmeadow determined, 
 to inquire, to consider, to act in her behalf. 
 After the funeral, perhaps : or to-morrow. To- 
 morrow, of course : early to-morrow, so that her 
 desolation in this inimical world might be eased 
 as soon as might be. To-morrow : to-morrow, 
 of course, would do. For Fairmeadow, you see,
 
 PICK AND SHOVEL 51 
 
 was new to Swamp's End, and was not at all 
 aware, as yet, that instant action was necessary 
 in some cases. But he was to learn it. 
 
 " There's jus' one thing," Pattie declared, with 
 emphasis, when they came abreast of the first 
 wretched shack of the town. 
 
 Fairmeadow yielded the attention demanded. 
 
 " Will you promise f " 
 
 " Maybe," Fairmeadow indulged her. 
 
 Fairmeadow nodded. 
 
 " Don't you have Billy the Beast for no pall- 
 bearer," Pattie declared, her little teeth savagely 
 bared ; " he bit pop's ear off." 
 
 " Good Lord ! " John Fairmeadow ejaculated. 
 
 It was a fine town ! It was the worst town 
 this side of hell, all right 1 It was just the lively 
 little burg that John Fairmeadow had been look- 
 ing for !
 
 VI 
 
 SOWN IN DISHONOUR 
 
 IT was a distinguished success the funeral 
 of Gray Billy Batch. Swamp's End forever 
 afterwards regarded it as having been worth 
 eighteen hundred dollars ; and the thirty-two 
 proprietors rubbed their white hands and heartily 
 concurred. There was some delay, in the begin- 
 ning : Swamp's End was taken unaware by John 
 Fairmeadow, who bustled from saloon to saloon, 
 stuck his rosy face into each and shouted, " All 
 ready, boys 1 " After this pardonable and 
 quickly resolved confusion, however, the affair 
 sedately progressed from Pale Peter's curb, with 
 a thick " Get up, there ! " from Plain Tom Hitch, 
 to the accustomed rites, performed according to 
 the forms in the grassy field behind the shuttered 
 red house at the edge of the woods. Little Pat- 
 tie Batch had nothing left to desire in respect to 
 it ; the hundred mourners from Bottle River, 
 the Cant-hook and the Yellow Tail camps, were 
 abundantly content with their grave share in the 
 proceeding, and the eighteen hundred dollars 
 were presently in a fair way of reposing in the 
 cash-boxes of the thirty-two proprietors. 
 
 52
 
 SOWN IN DISHONOUR 53 
 
 It is true that the long procession, going two- 
 and-two behind the lumbering tote-wagon, and 
 immediately preceded by the Reverend John 
 Fairmeadow, with a black-clad little woman on 
 his arm, was preternaturally solemn and indulgent 
 of grief ; it is true that the selfsame procession 
 stumbled in rough places and was forever stag- 
 gering true that it paused, now and again, in 
 twos and threes, to refresh its strength and mood 
 true that after these lapses from the line it 
 found new lines of gravity to wear, other tears to 
 shed, but no larger certainty of poise. Perhaps, 
 in the polite world beyond the woods, its practices 
 upon this occasion may discover condemnation. 
 God knows ! But the world of Swamp's End, 
 accustomed and untutored, knew its own sin- 
 cerity of sympathy with the black-clad little 
 woman at the tail of the tote-wagon, and con- 
 tinued in happy satisfaction with its funereal be- 
 haviour. 
 
 And there was a parson, with an indubitably 
 ministerial air and a veritable copy of the Holy 
 Scriptures and there was a coffin, exalted on 
 the tote-wagon and upon the coffin were masses 
 of wild-flowers, of wondrous fragrance and glory, 
 gathered by Dennie the Hump. It was all, you 
 see, according to the traditions : nothing what- 
 ever was omitted. The lifted voice was heard, 
 the birds twittered, the sky was blue, the wind 
 flowed over the pines, and cloud-shadow and
 
 54 SOWN IN DISHONOUR 
 
 sunshine chased each other over the world, and 
 the long grasses waved and the flowers nodded 
 their heads, all uninterrupted by the passing 
 tragedy, unheeding of it, as though it had no 
 meaning, and grief no substance, just as they 
 always do, in spring time, when the dead are laid 
 away. 
 
 I am the resurrection and the life, saith the 
 Lord : he that believeth in Me, though he were 
 dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and 
 believeth in Me shall never die. . . . We 
 brought nothing into this world, and it is certain 
 we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and 
 the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the name 
 of the Lord. . . . Now is Christ risen from 
 the dead, and become the flrst-fruits of them that 
 slept. For since by man came death, by man came 
 also the resurrection of the dead. . . . It is 
 sown in corruption ; it is raised in incorruption : 
 it is sown in dishonour ; it is raised in glory : it 
 is sown in weakness ; it is raised in power : it is 
 sown a natural body ; it is raised a spiritual 
 body. . . . Man that is born of a woman hath 
 but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He 
 cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower ; he fleeth 
 as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one 
 stay. . . . Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust 
 to dust. I heard a voice from heaven 
 
 saying unto me, Write, From henceforth blessed
 
 SOWN IN DISHONOUR 55 
 
 are the dead who die in the Lord : even so saith 
 the Spirit ; for they rest from their labours. . . . 
 
 Dust to dust, ashes to ashes and once more 
 the scattered earth rattled its last message and 
 decree. It was all according to the forms, you 
 see. Nothing was omitted by John Fairmeadow : 
 nothing was left to desire. And Swamp's End 
 was correspondingly gratified, and inspired, as 
 well, to celebrate the departure of Gray Billy 
 Batch and the advent of its own and established 
 parson, for which event it had a lusty will, a sound 
 constitution, and eighteen hundred dollars. No 
 sooner had the exhausted procession returned 
 to more congenial surroundings than the eight- 
 een hundred dollars began a clinking rush over 
 the thirty-two bars. 
 
 Pattie Batch went home alone to the shack 
 which Gray Billy Batch had knocked together to 
 house his treasure ; but she did not turn her face 
 towards the edge of the woods until she had 
 watched the last man go to his companionable 
 diversion. She idled in the street : she was 
 lonely ; she clung even to the sight of these other 
 folk. It was coming, now, late in the afternoon. 
 The breeze had fallen ; the sun was sinking, 
 wrapped in glorious garments, to its bed in the 
 pines. Pattie Batch, arrived in the dooryard of 
 the shack, wished, but in no complaining way,
 
 56 SOWN IN DISHONOUR 
 
 that she might have continued in the companion- 
 ship of the men who had gone together to the 
 saloons, and were at least not alone. 
 
 But, summoning a smile 
 
 " I got t' be a little man," occurred to her. 
 
 It was lonely at home ; the cabin was isolated, 
 and still, and desolately vacant. Pattie Batch 
 stared hopelessly around. It was hard, after all, 
 to remember to smile. She sighed ; she wished 
 a moment of agonizing dread that she were a 
 man. 
 
 But, compelling a brave smile 
 
 " I got t' be a little man," she remembered. 
 
 Presently, having gathered some clothing into 
 a bundle, and having possessed herself of a few 
 simple keepsakes of her father's love, she took the 
 road for Swamp's End. She did not turn to look 
 upon all that she had left behind ; she fancied, 
 little innocent one ! that she would soon come 
 back again, for a little, not knowing, at all, that 
 there was no returning upon the road her little 
 feet now travelled. 
 
 "I got t' be a little man." 
 
 She went by Pale Peter's place ; she passed the 
 roaring saloons, and came, by and by, to the 
 edge of town. Here she dawdled. The path 
 was sweet with grass and flowers. She plucked 
 an overflowing armful of blossoms ; she sat down 
 by the wayside, like a child, and wove of these 
 fragrant jewels a chaplet for her young brow.
 
 SOWN IN DISHONOUR 57 
 
 She made a wreath for her shoulders, she fash- 
 ioned a pendant of white for her bosom, she en- 
 circled her wrists. 
 
 The dusk fell warm and brooding. 
 
 " I got t' be a little man ! " thought she. 
 
 She sighed a little she sang a little she cried 
 a little. Then all at once she jumped up ; and 
 she wiped her tears away with the sleeve of her 
 dead mother's gown, with resolute little rubs, 
 and composed her wan face, and set her lips, and 
 brushed her little nose into a more presentable 
 condition, and smoothed her skirt. She turned, 
 presently, towards the grim, bedraggled, shame- 
 less red house, her eyes shining innocently in 
 rising expectation of delight ; and she went for- 
 ward with kindling courage, her head high, like 
 one going into the world, in the shining hope of 
 youth, for the first time to taste of life. 
 
 She knocked. 
 
 " My child ! " John Fairmeadow called from the 
 twilight. 
 
 Pattie knocked again. 
 
 " Child ! " 
 
 She turned in doubt. 
 
 " Child ! " Fairmeadow besought her, his 
 voice rising in quick alarm. "Wait a mo- 
 ment ! " 
 
 The door opened. 
 
 " Wait oh, wait ! " 
 
 Nobody appeared in the doorway. There was
 
 58 SOWN IN DISHONOUR 
 
 no voice of invitation. It was all dark within. 
 Pattie advanced a step. She was restrained, 
 then, by John Fairmeadow's hand. 
 
 " Come ! " he entreated. 
 
 She hesitated. 
 
 " Come with me ! " he commanded. 
 
 " I'm so pleased you come, sir," poor little 
 Pattie Batch sobbed. " I was simply so lonely I 
 couldn't stand it." 
 
 The door was softly closed upon the little 
 thing's departure ; and Pattie's friend, Mag, in 
 the shadows within, came as near to sighing 
 " Thank God ! " as she very well dared. 
 
 And when big John Fairmeadow had stowed 
 poor little Pattie Batch away in Gray Billy Batch's 
 abandoned cabin at the edge of the woods and 
 when he had sustained the little thing with 
 promises of good-will and companionship and 
 when he had listened with a heart acquainted with 
 pain and the need of pity to this small story of 
 daughterly love and desolation and when he 
 had learned anew the cruel power of Death and 
 the despair its ancient Mystery unfailingly works 
 in the world and when dear little Pattie Batch 
 had cried a little, and had smiled a little in the 
 dusk, and had courageously dabbed at her wet 
 gray eyes with the sleeve of her mother's black 
 gown, and had vowed, with her little white teeth 
 exposed, to be a little man, whatever hap-
 
 SOWN IN DISHONOUR 59 
 
 pened, and had wiped her little red nose, and 
 snuffled, and ejaculated, " Oh, shoot it, any- 
 how 1 " and when, calling every ounce and inch 
 of all the sweet bravery she possessed, or could 
 by any stretch of the imagination pretend that 
 she possessed, to aid her in this extremity, she 
 had cheered up, in a way to win the astonished 
 admiration of all mankind when all this had 
 come to pass in the tender dusk at the edge of 
 the woods and when John Fairmeadow had 
 promised to come back in the morning and 
 when the downcast young fellow had come to 
 the Bottle River trail to Swamp's End and had 
 distracted his mind from the disconsolate state of 
 Pattie Batch to the grim business lying ahead in 
 Pale Peter's barroom at Swamp's End John 
 Fairmeadow heard his name wanly called. 
 
 " Hey, there I " 
 
 " Hello ! " Fairmeadow responded. 
 
 " What time d' you get up ? ' ' 
 
 " What time d' you f " 
 
 " I'm up at five." 
 
 " Good Heavens 1 " Fairmeadow ejaculated, 
 under his breath ; but he shouted, like a man, 
 "All right, Pattie! I'll be out to breakfast!" 
 and then went his way to man's business in 
 town, determined to work a solution of Pattie 
 Batch's hard problem, if he accomplished noth- 
 ing else at Swamp's End.
 
 VII 
 PALE PETER'S GAME 
 
 WHEN John Fairmeadow got back to 
 Swamp's End from Pattie Batch's 
 lonely cabin at the edge of the woods, 
 the inebriated little town seemed to have gone 
 to bed for the night. It was dark : the long, 
 disjointed, bedraggled street was deserted. But 
 the town had not gone to bed. Not by any 
 means ! The town was still celebrating the 
 obsequies of Gray Billy Batch ; and inasmuch as 
 that singular function had been a gigantic suc- 
 cess, and inasmuch as all sense of responsibility 
 concerning it had vanished with the return from 
 the green field beyond town, and inasmuch as 
 there still remained a goodly portion of the 
 eighteen hundred dollars, the town was heartily 
 enjoying itself. Swamp's End was indoors. 
 The saloons were crowded. Indisputable evi- 
 dence of hilarity emerged from every open door. 
 At Pale Peter's Red Elephant, where John Fair- 
 meadow turned in, Charlie the Infidel was rushed 
 beyond the power even of his quick hands and 
 alert mind to keep up with the demand for his 
 services. There was a roaring crowd at the bar ; 
 but strewn about the floor and now and again 
 
 60
 
 PALE PETER'S GAME 61 
 
 kicked impatiently out of the way there lay a 
 dozen or more lusty fellows whom the celebra- 
 tion had utterly overcome. Fairmeadow was 
 not disgusted. He did not withdraw in horror ; 
 nor did he weep and retire to pray. As a mat- 
 ter of fact it may be hinted John Fairmeadow 
 had long ago become inured to scenes like 
 this. There had been a time, moreover, when 
 but that is for a later telling. Fairmeadow, un- 
 observed in the long, dim-lit room, now went to 
 a shadowy corner, to which snatches of maudlin 
 conversation, chiefly concerning himself, drifted 
 from the noisy crowd. Fairmeadow's arrival, it 
 seemed, had aroused a vast theological discus- 
 sion, to which the potations of the night had 
 contributed as much enlightenment as potations 
 will. 
 
 Upon Gingerbread Jenkins the events of the 
 day had produced a singular effect. He drank 
 deep. Rather, he drank deeper. Gingerbread 
 Jenkins always drank deep. But that was not 
 all. Gingerbread Jenkins had washed his face 
 and combed his hair and beard. Moreover, he 
 had become preternaturally solemn ; and the 
 more often he had sidled up to Pale Peter's bar 
 the more solemn he had grown. His demeanour 
 at the bar did not in the faintest degree suggest 
 frivolity : his voice was fallen to a whisper, he 
 walked on tiptoe, his face did not lose a line of
 
 62 PALE PETER'S GAME 
 
 its heavy gravity. He whispered, " A HT licker, 
 Charlie ! " precisely in the manner of an elder 
 saying, " Let us pray 1 " Earlier in the day 
 some time after the funeral, in fact, when, just at 
 that moment, it had occurred to John Fair- 
 meadow that little Pattie Batch might be in 
 need Gingerbread Jenkins had in an excited 
 whisper suggested a revival to the new minister. 
 " We ought t' wake the boys up," said he, " an' 
 get 'em t' realize their lost condition, an' save 
 'em." And he had been somewhat discon- 
 certed, and more than a little chagrined, to dis- 
 cover that John Fairmeadow would not enthu- 
 siastically fall in with this plan for a spiritual 
 awakening of the community. But Fairmeadow 
 had mollified him, and mightily heartened him, 
 by threatening to make an elder of him yet, and 
 adding, "By Jove, Gingerbread, I'm going to 
 put you in the choir 1 " It was for this reason 
 that Gingerbread had with much labour achieved 
 the air and appearance of piety. 
 
 Gingerbread's first concern was with the 
 moral condition of Pale Peter's young son, 
 Donald, whom he lifted from the end of the bar, 
 where the boy sat cross-legged, and whom he 
 carried to a corner of the barroom, and took on 
 his knee. 
 
 " Donnie," said he, " you ought t' go t' Sun- 
 day-school." 
 
 "What for?"
 
 PALE PETER'S GAME 63 
 
 " We're goin' t' have a Sunday-school here," 
 Gingerbread went on, " where you can go. 
 Donnie, you ought t' go." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 " T' be made into a good little boy." 
 
 " Did you go to Sunday-school? " 
 
 " I did that ! ' 
 
 " Did it make you a good little boy ? " 
 
 Gingerbread started. " Well," he replied, at 
 last, " it did." 
 
 " How long were you good?" 
 
 "Jus' as long as I went t' Sunday-school I " 
 triumphantly. 
 
 "What do they do at Sunday-school?" 
 
 " Oh," Gingerbread drawled, " they learn the 
 Golden Text." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 " It's a verse from Holy Scriptures." 
 
 " Do you know one ? " 
 
 Gingerbread protested with interest that he 
 knew the very shortest verse to be found in the 
 Holy Scriptures from cover to cover. " An' I'll 
 teach it t' you," said he. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " You say it after me," Gingerbread replied. 
 " Are you ready ? " 
 
 Donnie nodded. 
 
 " ' Jesus wept,' " said Gingerbread. 
 
 Donnie struggled from Gingerbread's knee in 
 a rage.
 
 64 PALE PETER'S GAME 
 
 " What's the matter?" Gingerbread demanded. 
 " Why don't you say it? " 
 
 " I'm not allowed to swear." 
 
 " That ain't swearin'," Gingerbread protested. 
 
 " Is, too ! " Donnie returned ; " and I'd get 
 licked if I said it." 
 
 The boy went off, in a flush of shame, and 
 climbed again to the bar, from which more 
 righteous situation he continued to view the 
 scene. As for Gingerbread Jenkins, he mused 
 heavily, for a time, and then looked about him, 
 from the sots on the floor to Charlie the Infidel, 
 who was perspiring in the effort to reduce more 
 sots to the floor. Whereupon Gingerbread 
 Jenkins sighed ; and having sighed again and 
 yet in a more melancholy way for the third time 
 he muttered : 
 
 " Jesus wept, eh ? I sh'uld think so ! " 
 
 It was a genuine expression : Gingerbread 
 Jenkins meant every word of it. 
 
 Fairmeadow felt a hand on his shoulder. It 
 turned out to be Pale Peter's white hand. 
 " Parson," Pale Peter whispered, "let me have a 
 word with you, won't you?" Fairmeadow fol- 
 lowed the saloon-keeper to a little office at the 
 end of the bar a cozy cubby-hole, partitioned 
 and curtained from the great room, opening into 
 the bar, through a red-curtained door, and 
 looking out, through a red-curtained window,
 
 PALE PETER'S GAME 65 
 
 upon the street. Here Pale Peter had a desk, a 
 safe, a little table and two great leather-covered 
 easy chairs. He bestowed John Fairmeadow 
 with much politeness in one of the chairs ; and 
 having himself taken the other, and having 
 snipped the end from a cigar, and having 
 lighted the cigar in a cynical muse, he blew a 
 cloud of smoke towards the ceiling and all at 
 once let his eyes fall penetratingly upon the 
 minister. Fairmeadow had observed in the 
 meantime that he was a well-groomed, easy- 
 mannered man a man of the world, apparently, 
 as much at variance with the environment of 
 that foul, roaring bar as the minister himself. 
 But was he, after all, out of keeping ? He was 
 gray gray-haired and gray-faced. No wonder 
 they called him Pale Peter ! He had no colour 
 at all : even his thin, dry lips, shut tight in a 
 straight line, were colourless ; and his long, 
 light-lashed eyes were pale in tone. His hands 
 were white : slim, long-fingered hands, they 
 were, adorned with one flashing diamond. 
 Fairmeadow observed that he was immaculate 
 as to linen and clad in the fashion a smartly 
 cut tweed, recently brushed and pressed. 
 
 " Parson," Pale Peter asked, abruptly, " what's 
 the game ? " 
 
 It was a soft, agreeable voice, dry and even ; 
 and a gentle smile accompanied it a smile, 
 however, touched with cynicism.
 
 66 PALE PETER'S GAME 
 
 "The game," Fairmeadovv replied, bluntly, 
 " is on the square." 
 
 Pale Peter lifted his eyebrows. 
 
 " It's aboveboard," Fairmeadow repeated. 
 
 " Of course," Pale Peter agreed, with a polite 
 inclination ; " but what is it?" 
 
 "Just what you see," said Fairmeadow, 
 " and nothing else. I propose, in so far as 
 God gives me strength, to be a pastor to the 
 boys." 
 
 Pale Peter looked John Fairmeadow over. 
 " You don't look like a parson," said he. 
 
 " I'm not." 
 
 "No?" in mild surprise. "You said you 
 were, you know ! " 
 
 " I said that I might be called a parson." 
 
 Pale Peter lifted his eyebrows. 
 
 " I'm not yet a really truly minister," Fair- 
 meadow laughed ; " but I hope some day to be 
 one. I'm only a lay preacher, more or less on 
 probation. I have an arrangement with the 
 Church. If I'm very, very good, and if I read 
 up on systematic theology and church history 
 and that sort of thing in my spare hours, and if 
 I can pass a satisfactory examination, they will 
 ordain me, in good time ; and then I'll be a real 
 minister. You see, I had no time to go to a 
 theological seminary. I I wanted to get to 
 work. I had to get to work. A year in the 
 seminary was quite enough for a man like me.
 
 PALE PETER'S GAME 67 
 
 And when they proposed this arrangement I was 
 delighted." 
 
 " Will they give you a square deal ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " 
 
 " Look out for 'em, Jack." 
 
 " Oh," Fairmeadow laughed, " they'll give me 
 a square deal." 
 
 Each man looked the other in the eye. 
 
 " I think," Pale Peter drawled, at last, " that 
 you're on the level." 
 
 Fairmeadow bowed. 
 
 " I'm glad you've come," Pale Peter went on, 
 heartily ; " and I hope you'll stay." 
 
 It was Fairmeadow's turn to inquire : 
 
 "What's the game?" 
 
 "There's no game," Pale Peter answered. 
 " I'm glad you've come," he added, "and I hope 
 you'll stay." 
 
 Fairmeadow laughed. "What's the game?" 
 he asked again. 
 
 " If I can help you in any way," said Pale 
 Peter, ignoring the question, " let me know. I'll 
 do my best." 
 
 " What's the game ? " 
 
 Pale Peter drew the curtain aside and looked 
 the length of the bar. 
 
 " Donnie ! " he called. 
 
 The boy did not hear. 
 
 " Donnie I " 
 
 Donald came, then, in answer to his father's
 
 68 PALE PETER'S GAME 
 
 call. He was a straight, frank-eyed little fellow, 
 not after Pale Peter's fashion, at all, but doubt- 
 less resembling, Fairmeadow fancied, his mother. 
 He entered the little office shyly. For a moment 
 he stood embarrassed. It seemed his father had 
 forgotten him. The man's face was fixed in an 
 affectionate smile ; his eyes were bent upon the 
 lad : but he seemed to be lost in a muse. 
 
 "Father?" the boy inquired. 
 
 "Donnie," said Pale Peter, abruptly, "shake 
 hands with Jack Fairmeadow." 
 
 The boy shyly offered his hand , and Fair- 
 meadow grasped it heartily. 
 
 "This," said Pale Peter, "is my son." 
 
 Fairmeadow began to comprehend. 
 
 " My only son," Pale Peter added. " His 
 mother " 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " She's dead," Donnie put in. 
 
 "I see," said Fairmeadow. "And so" 
 turning to the saloon-keeper " there is a 
 game?" 
 
 " There is a game." 
 
 " I'll play it ! " Fairmeadow ejaculated. " I'll 
 play it for all I'm worth ! " 
 
 Pale Peter smiled. 
 
 " Do you play against me ? " asked Fair- 
 meadow. 
 
 " Not at all ; on the contrary, I'll help you all 
 I can."
 
 PALE PETER'S GAME 69 
 
 "The consequences may be unpleasant for 
 you." 
 
 " I think not." 
 
 " You'll not be warned ? " 
 
 " I'd rather take the consequences." 
 
 Donald, bewildered by this dark exchange, 
 and somewhat bored by it, went again to his 
 seat on the bar. 
 
 Pale Peter said and with some diffidence 
 to John Fairmeadow : 
 
 "Will you shake hands?" 
 
 " First of all, to define my attitude, and to de- 
 fine it exactly," Fairmeadow replied, rising, his 
 face flushing, his eyes flashing, " I should like to 
 express an opinion." 
 
 Pale Peter smiled. " Be as frank as you will," 
 said he. 
 
 " You're a damned rascal ! " Fairmeadow ex- 
 ploded. 
 
 " Now," said Pale Peter, softly, " will you 
 shake hands?" 
 
 " I will." 
 
 They shook hands. 
 
 " I'm glad you've come, Jack," said the saloon- 
 keeper, " and I hope you'll stay. You'll be good 
 to the boy, won't you ? You'll teach him 
 what I can't teach him? You'll teach him 
 what his mother would have taught him had she 
 lived ? You see," Pale Peter added, " he has no 
 mother. You see, he oh, pshaw ! You under-
 
 70 PALE PETER'S GAME 
 
 stand, don't you? The kid hasn't much of a 
 chance here. I've been afraid he'd grow up to 
 be well what he wouldn't naturally be. I 
 reckon you understand. And I'm glad there's 
 another kind of man in camp. You're the first 
 man of that kind the kid ever saw. You see, 
 I I can't do anything in that line. You'll 
 give the kid a show, won't you?" 
 
 "I'll play the game," said Fairmeadow, 
 grimly. 
 
 It was in this way that John Fairmeadow came 
 to take up quarters at the Red Elephant. Pale 
 Peter would not hear of his going elsewhere. 
 " Not at all ! " he exclaimed. " Why, parson, 
 this is just the place to get your lumber-jacks. 
 Be on the ground. You're welcome here. You 
 can have the run of the place." Well and good 1 
 Fairmeadow settled down if at any time of his 
 career in the lumber-woods he may be said to 
 have settled down and was presently at home 
 in his surroundings. No amazement was excited 
 by his residence at the Red Elephant. It did 
 not occur to the new minister's parishioners that 
 there was anything extraordinary about it. It 
 was agreed, in fact, that the arrangement was an 
 admirable one. "Ain't he on the ground?" 
 they said. " Ain't he near the bar ? " The pa- 
 rishioners were quite willing to be taken care of. 
 The parishioners intended to be taken care of.
 
 PALE PETER'S GAME 71 
 
 What was a parson for? And with John Fair- 
 meadow at the Red Elephant with John Fair- 
 meadow always within hail they felt reasonably 
 safe. A great friendship immediately sprang into 
 life between the big parson and Pale Peter's Don- 
 ald a friendship which, in the end, was to aston- 
 ish and concern Pale Peter. And Fairmeadow, 
 going here and there upon the business of his 
 parish, was presently on terms with not only the 
 lumber-jacks of the near-by camps, but with the 
 men from remoter sections, and had established 
 himself at least on terms of trust with all the 
 saloon-keepers of Swamp's End, who gave him, 
 by a tacit understanding, the " run " of their 
 " places." 
 In this way the summer was passed.
 
 VIII 
 
 IN LOVE WITH A FLOWER 
 
 IT was near noon of a hazy Sunday morning 
 in the fall of the year. The summer was 
 gone : John Fairmeadow was now known to 
 the lumber-jacks of all those woods from the 
 Divide and the Logosh Reservation to the driv- 
 ing camps of the Big River. A hazy morning : 
 the earth was yellow and languid and sweet to 
 smell. There was balsam there was tempered 
 sunlight in the air. A forest smoke, the 
 fragrant mist of the season, was opalescent under 
 a flushed sun. A lazy little breeze flowed over 
 the pines and splashed odorously into the clear- 
 ing of Swamp's End. It sportively eddied for a 
 bit an inquisitive little wind, too and with a 
 song and a sigh idled on to the shadowy forest 
 reaches. In Pale Peter's bar the Saturday night 
 sots a frowzy crew of lumber-jacks were stir- 
 ring on the floor. Dennie the Hump, the 
 sweeper, being wise, had not disturbed them, but 
 would return with his broom and dust-pan when 
 these sleeping dogs had carried their aches and 
 their growling ill humour to the healing out-of- 
 doors ; he had left them lie in the litter and slime 
 
 72
 
 In LOYE WITH A FLOWER 73 
 
 of the night where they had fallen. A breath of 
 wind came in at the wide door, thrown open to 
 the morning. It paused appalled beyond the 
 threshold and fluttered back to cleaner places to 
 gather resolution. Presently, however, con- 
 fronted by plain duty, it returned in a dogged 
 little rush : whereupon it swept the bar, and 
 busily nosed the corners clean, and drove all the 
 stale exhalations of debauchery out of the 
 window, escaping disgusted in the wake. And 
 off it whisked, with a sniff and a gasp, to the big 
 odorous forest which encircled the clearing, glad 
 to have this chance business satisfactorily ac- 
 complished. 
 
 Gingerbread Jenkins awoke. 
 
 "What was it I come here for, anyhow?" he 
 wondered. 
 
 For a moment no explanation occurred to him ; 
 but presently he remembered. The business with 
 which he was concerned was Plain Tom Hitch. 
 There had been rumours about Plain Tom Hitch. 
 Gingerbread Jenkins had come in from the Bottle 
 River camps to investigate them ; but he had ar- 
 rived at the Red Elephant in time in the nick of 
 time to participate in certain hilarious proceed- 
 ings of a sort very much to his taste. The in- 
 vestigation had been delayed. But it was now 
 impending. " Seems t' me, Peter," Gingerbread 
 Jenkins remarked to Pale Peter, before he took 
 the trail for Tom Hitch's cabin, "that if Plain
 
 74 In LO^E WITH A FLOWER 
 
 Tom Hitch has got separated and divorced from 
 a bottle o' whiskey, there must be a Livin' Maker 
 o' the World. There's so many dashed queer 
 things goin' on hereabouts these days that I 
 reckon Somebody's behind 'em. It ain't John 
 Fairmeadow, neither. If Plain Tom Hitch has 
 quit treatin* his body an' soul like a poor damned 
 fool, God A' mighty managed it by the Will an' 
 Mercy of Him. Plain Tom Hitch didn't do it ; 
 nor no more did John Fairmeadow. Thinks I, 
 I'll take a small squint at Plain Tom Hitch an' 
 find out for myself. An' so, Peter," Gingerbread 
 concluded, " I'm on the way t' Tom Hitch's 
 t' look the ill-bred fightin' beast over with my 
 own eyes." 
 
 With that Gingerbread set out. 
 
 Plain Tom Hitch lived on a homestead grant 
 a small clearing in the woods two miles out of 
 Swamp's End on the Cant-hook trail. He was 
 employed through the week at the Cant-hook 
 cutting ; but of a Saturday night it was his 
 custom to return to his little grant of land. His 
 wife was dead. Rowl, the old Bottle River 
 sealer, maintained that she had died of the drink 
 that Tom Hitch drank. But Tom Hitch had a 
 daughter left a maid of sweet age and looks 
 she was turning nineteen to keep the cabin for 
 him. Tom Hitch was now at home. Ginger- 
 bread found him sitting in a rocking-chair on the
 
 In LOVE WITH A FLOWER 75 
 
 porch of the cabin, with Jinny, dressed out in her 
 Sunday best, looking off at the sunset over the 
 pines, as though waiting, perhaps, for the image 
 of some shy dream to come dressed in heavenly 
 light to her little feet. It was evening, then : the 
 day was near done, and the last breeze was blow- 
 ing soft and warm. 
 
 "Tom Hitch," Gingerbread ejaculated, when 
 he got hold of Tom Hitch's hand, " what 
 in the livin' thunder have you been doin' t' your- 
 self ? " 
 
 Tom Hitch looked up. 
 
 "Why, Tom," Gingerbread ran on, "they'd 
 lie who called you Plain Tom Hitch this day ! 
 You're borderin' on the handsome." 
 
 "Ain't been doin' nothin' much t' myself," 
 said Plain Tom Hitch ; " jus' washed my face." 
 
 " Get out ! " Gingerbread scorned. 
 
 " Don't remember nothin' more," said Tom 
 Hitch. 
 
 " Soap an' water do that t' your face ? " Ginger- 
 bread inquired. 
 
 " Didn't use nothin' else, Gingerbread." 
 
 " I wouldn't have believed," said Gingerbread 
 Jenkins, " that carbolic acid could accomplish so 
 much on the traces o* sin." 
 
 " No," Tom Hitch agreed ; " me neither." 
 
 " What you got there ? " 
 
 " I got a flower." 
 
 " Thunderation ! " Gingerbread ejaculated.
 
 76 In LOl/E WITH A FLOWER 
 
 " A flower ! What in blitherin' thunder are you 
 doin' with a flower? " 
 
 " I'm usin' it for a book-mark," Tom replied ; 
 " but that ain't what I'm doiri with it." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 " No," said Tom ; " not by no means. I'm 
 really enjoyin' its society." 
 
 " Tom Hitch," Gingerbread demanded, " have 
 you lost your mind ? " 
 
 "No," said Tom; "not by no means. I jus' 
 found out that there is flowers," said he ; " an' 
 I'm s'prised, an' I'm pleased. I like 'em : I'm 
 glad I got t' know 'em." 
 
 " What you readin' ?" Gingerbread inquired. 
 
 "I'm readin' my Bible." 
 
 "What you doin' that for?" 
 
 " I jus' been made acquainted with God." 
 
 " Whew ! " Gingerbread whistled. " Who 
 done that t' you ? " 
 
 "John Fairmeadow kindly introduced me," 
 Tom placidly replied, " in the snake-room o' Pale 
 Peter's place, a fortnight ago come Tuesday, in 
 the evenin'. John Fairmeadow introduced me ; 
 but I struck up the real friendship for myself. 
 I'm glad I done it, too. I like God : I'm glad I 
 got t' know Him. He's a poor reputation for 
 sociability, 'tis true, especially among the young ; 
 but I'm in a position t' say that once you get 
 really well acquainted with Him there's no end 
 t' the sociability He's able for. He's good com-
 
 In LO^E WtfH A FLOWER. 77 
 
 pany. He's grand company. I enjoy His con- 
 versation. I'm glad I know Him. I'm glad I 
 got Him for a friend. I tell you, Gingerbread," 
 says he, " I'm almighty fond o' God ! " 
 
 " What par-tick-a-lar brand o' fool are you, 
 anyhow ? " Gingerbread frankly demanded. 
 
 " I ain't no fool, at all," Plain Tom Hitch pro- 
 tested. "Not by no means! That's jus' what 
 I ain't." 
 
 "Then," said Gingerbread, "what you talkin' 
 like a ioolfor? " 
 
 " I ain't talkin' like a fool." 
 
 " You are, too," Gingerbread insisted. " I 
 never heard a real fool do worse." 
 
 " I'm not talkin' like a fool, at all," Tom Hitch 
 went on, gravely. " You only think so because 
 you ain't been used t' that style o' conversation. 
 Maybe you don't like the words I use ; but if I 
 was you I wouldn't let a little thing like that 
 throw me off the track o' truth. I tell you, 
 Gingerbread, I'm talkin' an almighty big wis- 
 dom that I jus' found out about ! You think I 
 don't mean what I say ? I do mean it. You 
 think I'm a dribblin' fool when I say that I en- 
 joy God's conversation? Why, Gingerbread, 
 that ain't foolishness ; that's Truth. It says jus' 
 'xactly what I mean. It's real. God is my 
 friend. I like Him : I'm wonderful fond of His 
 company. ' Hello, Tom Hitch ! ' says He, last 
 night, when I was comin' out from Swamp's
 
 78 In LOVE WITH A FLOWER 
 
 End in the starlight. ' Coin' home ? That's 
 proper. What you been doin' ? ' says He. 
 4 Lookin' up at all them stars ? I wouldn't do 
 that too much, my boy/ says He. ' Them little 
 stars,' says He, ' is a pretty tough proposition 
 for a man like you. You'd find me there, all 
 right, if that's what you was lookin' for ; but you 
 might be frightened when you saw me. I'll tell 
 you what you do,' says He. ' It looks t' me, 
 jus' now, as if t'-morrow might be a fine sunny 
 mornin' for this time o' the year. You go out 
 in the woods. I'll be waitin' there ; an' you an' 
 me will have a nice quiet time t'gether, lookin' 
 at the flowers I made. I'm proud o' them,' says 
 He. ' They're lovely ; an' I'm glad I have the 
 power an' the heart t' think them into life. 
 You'll enjoy yourself all alone in the woods with 
 me,' says He. ' Anyhow,' says He, ' I'll enjoy 
 myself with you! An' that's how," said Tom 
 Hitch, " I happen t' hold this here little flower 
 in my hand. All day t'-day," he added, " I've 
 had a wonderful good time with the little thing." 
 
 " Ye fool ! " said Gingerbread Jenkins. 
 
 "That's awful funny, Gingerbread," Tom 
 Hitch replied, without resentment. " I look like 
 a fool t' you," he went on, " an' you look like a 
 fool t' me. Funny, ain't it ? But I'm satisfied." 
 
 " What ? " Gingerbread ejaculated. " Satis- 
 fied ? Where's your bottle o' whiskey, Tom 
 Hitch ? '
 
 In LOYE WtfH A FLOWER 79 
 
 " I've put my bottle o 1 whiskey," Tom an- 
 swered, " where it belonged before I got it." 
 
 " Then," said Gingerbread, " it's not far from 
 your gullet." 
 
 " It's jus* as far away from here," Tom Hitch 
 insisted, " as anywhere in the world is." 
 
 " I hope you've chained it," said Gingerbread, 
 doubtfully; "it might get loose an' bite you." 
 
 " It won't be no trouble t' me no more," said 
 Tom Hitch. " Why, Gingerbread," he went on, 
 " my soul is turned towards Light. I've found 
 peace ; an' jus' as long as I can fall asleep like a 
 child at night an' by day walk the open world 
 with neither terror nor shame I think I'll stand 
 pat with the cards I hold, whatever any man 
 may think the hand I got is worth in the game. 
 Bottle o' whiskey ? " said he. " Look ! " 
 
 He held up the little flower for Gingerbread to 
 see. 
 
 " 'Tis the handiwork o' my Friend," said Tom 
 Hitch. " This mornin' He made me the gift of 
 it. I love it. You've simply no idea, Ginger- 
 bread, how common an' ornery a bottle o' 
 whiskey looks when " 
 
 " When what ? " Gingerbread inquired. 
 
 "When you've once fell in love with a 
 flower ! " 
 
 There came a time and the time was not far 
 distant when Tom Hitch staggered out to lit- 
 tle Jinny from Swamp's End. It was rain-
 
 8o In LOyE WHH A FLOWER 
 
 ing, that night. The first big, black drops 
 of a three days' rain had begun to fall. It was 
 a dark- November night black and wet in the 
 woods with a storm of cold wind coming down 
 from the Northwest. Jinny met him took him 
 by the hand at the cross-trails by Swamp's End 
 and led him home by the hand like a child. 
 And three days later John Fairmeadow came in 
 from the Last Chance camps on Ragged Stream, 
 where the news of Tom Hitch had gone. It 
 was a bad day for a man to be abroad in the 
 swamps. It was a worse night to foot the trail 
 from Dead Man's ferry. There was now a rush 
 of rain against the window-panes of Tom 
 Hitch's cabin ; there was now the patter of hail 
 on the roof. And the big wind from the North- 
 west was threshing the forest and crying at the 
 door. John Fairmeadow was wet to the skin. 
 He bled from the wounds of the muskegs : he 
 was splashed to the eyes with the mud and dead 
 leaves of the last trail. It is a matter of thirty 
 miles from the Last Chance camps to Swamp's 
 End. John Fairmeadow had come it that day, 
 God knows how ! by the short cut through 
 Cedar Long Swamp. He had come, however ; 
 and he came just in time to pass judgment on 
 Plain Tom Hitch and to intervene with his more 
 righteous justice all of which shall be told in 
 its place. 
 
 All this, however, was for the future. On the
 
 In LOYE WITH A FLOWER 81 
 
 placid evening when Tom Hitch sat with Gin- 
 gerbread Jenkins on the porch of his little cabin, 
 it was not in prospect. 
 
 " Gingerbread," said Tom Hitch, "you better 
 turn over a new leaf." 
 
 Gingerbread pondered. 
 
 " Eh ? " said Tom Hitch. 
 
 " I reckon," Gingerbread replied, " that I'll 
 get married an' settle down." 
 
 " You'll get married, Gingerbread ? " Tom 
 Hitch drawled. 
 
 " Sure ! " said the confident Gingerbread ; 
 " nothin' like a little matrimony t' straignten a 
 man up." 
 
 Tom Hitch stared. 
 
 "You watch met" Gingerbread Jenkins de- 
 clared.
 
 IX 
 
 THE WISTFUL HEART 
 
 IT was long after noon in the far, big, white 
 Northwest. Day was on the wing. Christ- 
 mas Eve splendidly impended thank God 
 for unspoiled childish faith and joys of children 
 everywhere ! Christmas Eve was fairly within 
 view and welcoming hail, at last, in the thicken- 
 ing eastern shadows. Long Day at its close. 
 Day in a perturbation of blessed unselfishness. 
 Day with its tasks of love not half accomplished. 
 And Day near done ! Bedtime coming round 
 the world on the jump. Nine o'clock leaping 
 from longtitude to longtitude. Night, impatient 
 and determined, chasing all the children of the 
 world in drowsy expectation to sleep making a 
 clean sweep of 'em, every one, with her soft, 
 wide broom of dusk. " Nine o'clock ? Shoo ! 
 Off you go ! To-morrow's on the way. Soon 
 oh, soon ! To-morrow's here when you fall 
 asleep. Said 'em already, have you? Not 
 another word from either of you. Not a whis- 
 per, ye grinning rascals ! Cuddle down, little 
 people of Christ's heart and leading. Snuggle 
 closecloser yet, my children that your arms 
 may grow used to this loving. Another kiss 
 
 82
 
 The WISTFUL HEART 83 
 
 from mother ? Bllssed Ones ! A billion more, 
 for nights and mornings, for all day long of all 
 the years, waiting here on mother's lips. And 
 now to sleep. Christmas is to-morrow. Hush ! 
 To-morrow. Yes ; to-morrow. Go t' sleep ! 
 Go t' sleep ! " And upon the flying heels of 
 Night but still far over seas from the bluster- 
 ing white Northwest where Pattie Batch was 
 waiting at Swamp's End in the woods the new 
 Day, with jolly countenance, broad, rosy and 
 delighted, was somewhere approaching, in a 
 gale of childish laughter, blithely calling in its 
 westward sweep to all Christian children to 
 awaken to their peculiar and eternal joy. 
 
 It was Christmas weather in the big woods : a 
 Christmas temperature like frozen steel thirty 
 below in the clearing of Swamp's End and a 
 rollicking wind, careering over the pines, and 
 the swirling dust of snow in the metallic air. A 
 cold, crisp crackling world ! A Christmas land, 
 too : a vast expanse of Christmas colour, from 
 the Canadian line to the Big River great, grave, 
 green pines, white earth and a blood-red sunset ! 
 The low log-cabins of the lumber camps were 
 smothered in snow ; they were fringed with pend- 
 ant ice at the eaves, and banked high with 
 drifts, and all window-frosted. The trails were 
 thigh deep and drifting. The pines their great 
 fall imminent, now flaunted long, black arms
 
 84 The WISTFUL HEART 
 
 in the gale ; they creaked, they swished, they 
 droned, they crackled with frost. It was coming 
 on dusk. The deeper reaches of the forest 
 were already dark. Horses and teamsters, saw- 
 yers, road-monkeys, axemen, swampers, punk- 
 hunters and all, floundered from the bush, white 
 with dry snow, icicled and frosted like a Christ- 
 mas cake, to the roaring bunk-house fires, to a 
 voracious employment at the cooks' long tables, 
 and to an expanding festival jollity. Town? 
 Sure ! Swamp's End for Christmas the lights 
 and companionship of the bedraggled shanty 
 lumber-town in the clearing of Swamp's End ! 
 Swamp's End for Gingerbread Jenkins 1 Swamp's 
 End for Billy the Beast ! Swamp's End and the 
 roaring hilarity thereof for man and boy, straw- 
 boss and cookee, of the lumber-jacks ! Presently 
 the dim trails from the Cant-hook cutting, from 
 the Bottle River camps, from Snook's landing 
 and the Yellow Tail works, poured the boys into 
 town a lusty, hilarious crew, like loosed school- 
 boys on a lark, giving over, now, to the only 
 distractions, it seemed and John Fairmeadow 
 maintained it which the great world provided 
 in the forests. 
 
 Pattie Batch might have been aware of this 
 the log shack was on the edge of town had not 
 the window-panes been coated thick with Christ- 
 mas frost. She might have heard rough laughter 
 passing by the Bottle River trail ran right past
 
 The WISTFUL HEART 85 
 
 the door had not the big Christmas wind snored 
 in the stove, and fearsomely rattled the door, and 
 shaken the cabin, and swept howling on. But 
 she never in the world would have attended. 
 Not in that emergency ! She would not, for 
 anything, have peeped out of the windows, in 
 perfectly proper curiosity, to watch the Bottle 
 River jacks flounder into town. Not she ! Pat- 
 tie Batch was busy. Pattie Batch was so des- 
 perately employed that her swift little fingers de- 
 manded all the attention that the most alert, the 
 brightest, the very most bewitching gray eyes in 
 the whole wide world could bestow upon any- 
 thing whatsoever. Christmas Eve, you see : 
 Day done. Something of soft fawn-skin en- 
 gaged her, it seemed, with white patches 
 matched and arranged with marvellous exacti- 
 tude : something made for warmth in the wind 
 something of small fashion, but long and in- 
 dubitably capacious something with a hood. 
 A little cloak, possibly : I don't know. But I 
 am sure that it could envelop, that it could boil 
 or roast, that it could fairly smother a baby 1 
 It was lined with golden-brown, crackling silk, 
 which Pattie Batch's mother had left in her 
 trunk, upon her last departure, poor woman ! 
 from the sordid world of Swamp's End to re- 
 gions which were now become in Pattie Batch's 
 loving vision Places of Light. And it was upon 
 this treasured cloth that Pattie Batch's flashing
 
 86 The WISTFUL HEART 
 
 needle was working like mad in the lamplight. 
 A Christmas sacrifice : it was labour of love and 
 the gift of treasure. 
 
 Pattie Batch was lovely. Everybody knew it ; 
 and there's no denying it. Grief had not left 
 her wan and apathetic. She had been " a little 
 man." She had been so much of a little man 
 that she was now much more of a little woman 
 than ever she had been before. In respect to 
 her bewitching endearments, there's no mincing 
 matters, at all. It would shame a man to 'hem 
 and haw and. qualify. She was adorable. 
 Beauty of youth and heart of tenderness : a 
 quaint little womanly child of seventeen 
 gowned, now, in a black dress, long-skirted, to 
 be sure ! of her mother's old-fashioned wearing. 
 Gray eyes, wide, dark-lashed, sun-sparkling and 
 shadowy, and willful dark hair, a sweetly tilted 
 little nose, a boyish, masterful way, coquettish 
 twinkles, dimples in most perilous places, rosy 
 cheeks, a tender little figure, an aristocratic toss 
 to her head : why, indeed the catalogue of her 
 charms has no end to it ! Courage to boot, too 
 as though youth and loveliness were not suf- 
 ficient endowment and uncompromising hon- 
 esty with herself and all the world. She took in 
 washing from the camps : there was nothing else 
 to do, with Gray Billy Batch lost in Rattle Wa- 
 ter, and now decently stowed away by the Rev- 
 erend John Fairmeadow. It was lonely in Gray
 
 The WISTFUL HEART 87 
 
 Billy Batch's cabin, now, of course ; it was some- 
 times almost intolerably so and ghostly, too, 
 with echoes of long-past footsteps and memories 
 of soft motherly words. Pattie Batch, however, 
 a practical little person, knew in her own mind, 
 you must be informed, exactly how to still the 
 haunting echoes and transform the memories into 
 blessed companions of her busy, gentle solitude ; 
 but she had not as yet managed the solution. 
 
 Pattie Batch wanted a baby. Companionship, 
 of course, would be a mere by-product of a 
 baby's presence in the cabin ; the real wealth and 
 advantage would be a glowing satisfaction in the 
 baby. At any rate, Pattie Batch wanted one : 
 she always had and she simply couldn't help it. 
 Babies, however, were not numerous at Swamp's 
 End ; in point of fact, there was only one a per- 
 fectly adorable infant, it must be understood, a 
 suitable child, and worthy, in every respect, of 
 being heartily desired by any woman which 
 unhappily belonged to the bartender who lived 
 with Pale Peter of the Red Elephant saloon. 
 No use asking for that baby ! Not outright. It 
 could be borrowed, however. Pattie Batch had 
 borrowed it ; she had borrowed it frequently, of 
 late, and had mysteriously measured it with a 
 calculating eye, and had estimated, and scowled 
 in doubt, and scratched her head, and pursed 
 her sweet red lips, and had secretly spanned the 
 baby, from chin to toe and across the back, with
 
 88 The WISTFUL HEART 
 
 an industriously inquiring thumb and little finger. 
 But a borrowed baby, it seems, is of no use what- 
 soever ; the satisfaction is said to be temporary 
 nothing more and to leave a sense of vacant 
 arms and a stinging aggravation of envy. So 
 what Pattie Batch wanted was a baby to keep 
 a baby she could call her own and cherish against 
 meddling a baby that should be so rosy and fat 
 and curly, so neat and white, so scrubbed and 
 highly polished from crown to toe-nails, that 
 every mother in the land, beholding, would 
 promptly expire on the spot of amazement, in- 
 credulity and sheer jealousy. 
 
 There were babies at Elegant Corners a 
 frowzy, listless mud-hole of the woods, near by. 
 They were all possessed by one mother, too. 
 The last comer had appeared in the fall of the 
 year ; and Pattie Batch when the great news 
 came down to Swamp's End had instantly 
 taken the trail for Elegant Corners. 
 
 " Got another, eh ? " says she, flatly, to the 
 wretched Mrs. Limp. 
 
 " Uh-huh ! " Mrs. Limp sighed and rolled her 
 eyes, as though, God save us ! the ultimate mis- 
 fortune had fallen upon her. " Number eight," 
 she groaned. 
 
 " Don't you like it ? " Pattie demanded, hope- 
 fully. 
 
 Mrs. Limp was so deeply submerged in tears 
 that she failed to commit herself.
 
 The WISTFUL HEART 89 
 
 " You don' I like it, eh? " Pattie pursued, hope 
 immediately abounding. 
 
 Mrs. Limp sniffed. 
 
 " Well," said Pattie, her little heart all in a 
 flutter she was afflicted, too, with an adorable 
 lisp in excitement " I th'pothe I ought t' be 
 thorry." 
 
 Mrs. Limp seemed dolefully to agree. 
 
 Pattie Batch came then straight to the point. 
 " I been thavin' up," said she. " I been hard at 
 it for more 'n theven monthth." 
 
 Mrs. Limp lifted her blue eyelids. 
 
 " Yep," said Pattie, briskily ; " an' I got thirty- 
 four twenty-three right here in my thkirt. 
 Where 'th that baby ? " 
 
 The baby was fetched and deposited in her 
 arms. 
 
 " Boy or girl ? " Pattie inquired, with business- 
 like precision. 
 
 " Boy," Mrs. Limp sighed, " thank God ! " 
 
 Pattie Batch was vastly disappointed. She had 
 fancied a girl. It was a shock, indeed, to her 
 ardour. It was so much of a shocking disap- 
 pointment that Pattie Batch might easily have 
 wept. A boy a boy ! Oh, shoot 1 But still, 
 she reflected, considering the scarcity, a boy 
 this boy, in fact, cleaned up Pattie Batch was all 
 the time running the mottled infant over with 
 sharply appraising eyes yes, the child had pos- 
 sibilities, unquestionably so, which soap and
 
 90 The WISTFUL HEART 
 
 water might astonishingly improve and, in fine, 
 this little boy might 
 
 " Mithuth Limp," said Pattie, looking that 
 lady straight in the eye, " I'll give you twenty- 
 five dollarth for thith here baby. By George, I 
 will!" 
 
 The astonished mother jumped out of her 
 chair and her lassitude at the same instant. 
 
 " Not another thent ! " Pattie craftily declared. 
 " Here take your baby." 
 
 Mrs. Limp did not quite take the baby. That 
 would be but a pale indication of the speed, 
 directness and outraged determination with 
 which she acted. She snatched the baby away, 
 with the precision of a brisk woodpecker after 
 an escaping worm ; and she hugged it until it 
 howled for mercy and she hushed it and she 
 crooned endearment and she kissed the baby 
 with such fervour and persistency that she saved 
 its puckered face a washing. And then she 
 turned in a rage of indignation in a storm of 
 scorn in a whirlwind of execration upon poor 
 little Pattie Batch. But Pattie Batch was gone. 
 Discreet little Pattie Batch didn't need to be 
 told / Her little feet were already pattering over 
 the trail to Swamp's End ; and she was crying as 
 she ran. 
 
 But Pattie Batch's wish for a baby went back 
 to the very beginnings of things. Ask Ginger-
 
 rhe WISTFUL HEART 91 
 
 bread Jenkins. Gingerbread Jenkins knows. It 
 was Gingerbread Jenkins who had found her, 
 long ago Pattie was little more than a baby 
 herself, then on the Bottle River Trail ; and 
 to Gingerbread Jenkins' astonishment the child 
 was lugging a gun into the woods. 
 
 " Where you goin' ? " says Gingerbread 
 Jenkins. 
 
 "Gunnin'." 
 
 " Gunnin', eh ? What for ? " 
 
 "Jutht gunnin'." 
 
 " But what you gunnin' for ? " 
 
 " None o' your bithneth," says saucy little 
 Pattie Batch. 
 
 " It is my business," Gingerbread Jenkins de- 
 clared ; " an' if you don't tell me what you're 
 gunnin' for I'll have you home in a jiffy." 
 
 "Well," says Pattie, " I'm gunnin'." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 " Storks," says Pattie. 
 
 " Goin' t' kill 'em ? " Gingerbread inquired. 
 
 " No," says Pattie. 
 
 " What's your gun for? " 
 
 " I'm goin' t' wing a couple," says Pattie, " an' 
 tame *em." 
 
 That was Pattie Batch.
 
 A GIFT NEGLECTED 
 
 WELL, well 1 there was only one baby at 
 Swamp's End ; and that baby Pattie 
 Batch had adopted. In her mind, of 
 course : quite on the sly. Nobody could adopt 
 Pale Peter's bartender's baby in any other way. 
 And here was Christmas come again ! Day 
 v gone beyond the last waving pines in a cold 
 flush of red and gold : Christmas Eve here at 
 last. Pattie Batch's soft arms were still want- 
 ing; there were a thousand kisses waiting on 
 her tender lips for giving ; her voice was all at- 
 tuned to crooning sweetest lullabys ; but her 
 heart was empty save for a child of mist and 
 wishes. It was dark, now ; but though the wind 
 was still rollicking down there was no snow 
 blowing, and the shy stars were winking wide- 
 eyed upon the busy world and all the myriad 
 mysteries it exhibited out-of-doors. The gift of 
 silk and fawn-skin was finished. A perfect gift : 
 fashioned and accomplished with all the dex- 
 terity Pattie Batch could employ. " Just as if," 
 she had determined, " it was for my own baby." 
 And Pattie Batch after an agitated glance at 
 the clock quickly shoed and cloaked and 
 
 92
 
 A GIFT NEGLECTED 93 
 
 hooded her sweet and blooming little self ; and 
 she listened to the lusty wind, and she put a 
 most adorable little nose out-of-doors to sense 
 the frosty weather, and she fluttered about the 
 warm room in search of her mittens, and then 
 she turned down the lamp, chucked a log in the 
 stove, put on the dampers like a prudent house- 
 holder, and, having made quite sure that the 
 door was latched, scampered off to town in vast 
 and twittering delight with the nipping frost, 
 with the roistering wind, the fluffy snow, the 
 stars, the whole of God's clean world, and with 
 herself, too, and with the blessed Night of the 
 year. 
 
 She was exceedingly cautious ; and she was 
 not observed not for the smallest flash. The 
 thing was accomplished in mystery. Before she 
 was aware of it before her heart had eased its 
 agitation she was safely out again ; and there, 
 in plain view, on the table, in Pale Peter's liv- 
 ing-room behind the saloon, lay the gift of silk 
 and fawn-skin for Pale Peter's bartender's baby 
 a Christmas mystery for them all to solve as 
 best they could. 
 
 Pattie Batch peeked in at the window. 
 
 "I wonder," she mused, "if they'll ever if 
 they'll ever in the world find out I done it 1 " 
 
 Presently Pale Peter's bartender came in. 
 This was Charlie the Infidel. Pattie Batch rose
 
 94 A GIFT: NEGLECTED 
 
 on her cold little toes the better to observe. 
 The frost exploded like pistol shots under her 
 feet. She started. Really, the little mite began 
 to feel and rather exquisitely like a thief in 
 the night. There was another explosion of frost 
 as she crept nearer her peek-hole in the glowing 
 window. Whew ! How deliciously mysterious 
 it was ! Nothing much, however, happened in 
 Pale Peter's living-room to continue the thrill. 
 Charlie the Infidel, in haste, chanced to brush 
 the fawn-skin cloak off the table. He paused 
 impatiently to pick it up, and to fling it back in 
 a heap : whereupon he pressed on to the bar. 
 That wasn't very thrilling, you may be sure ; 
 but Charlie the Infidel, after all, was only a 
 father, and Pattie Batch, her courage not at all 
 diminished, still waited in the frosty shadow, 
 quite absorbed in expectation. Entered, then, 
 Mrs. Bartender a blonde, bored, novel-reading 
 little lady in splendid array. First of all, as 
 Pattie Batch observed, she yawned ; secondly, 
 she yawned again. And she was about to 
 attempt the extraordinary feat of yawning a 
 third time and doubtless would have achieved 
 it when her washed blue eyes chanced to fall 
 on the fawn-skin coat, with its lining of golden- 
 brown silk shimmering in the lamplight. She 
 picked it up, of course, in a bored sort of way ; 
 and she was positively on the very verge of 
 being interested in it when would you believe
 
 A GIFT NEGLECTED 95 
 
 it ? she attacked the third yawn or the third 
 yawn attacked her and however it was, the 
 yawn was accomplished with such dexterity, 
 such certainty, and with such satisfaction to the 
 lady, that she quite forgot to look at the fawn- 
 skin cloak again. 
 
 " By George, she's tired ! " Pattie Batch ex- 
 claimed to herself. 
 
 Pattie Batch sighed : she sighed twice, in 
 point of fact the second sigh, a great, long 
 one, discovering itself somewhere very deep 
 within and then she went home disconsolate.
 
 XI 
 
 THE MAKING OF A MAN 
 
 SOON after dark, John Fairmeadow, with a 
 pack on his broad back, swung from the 
 Jumping Jimmy trail into the clearing of 
 Swamp's End, ceasing only then his high, vibrant 
 song, and came striding down the huddled street, 
 a big man in rare humour with life, labour and 
 the night. A shadow not John Fairmeadow's 
 shadow was in cautious pursuit ; but of this 
 dark, secret follower John Fairmeadow was not 
 aware. Near the Cafe of Egyptian Delights he 
 stumbled. The pursuing Shadow gasped ; and 
 John Fairmeadow was so mightily exercised for 
 his pack that he ejaculated in a fashion most un- 
 ministerial, but recovered his footing with a jerk, 
 and doubtless near turned pale with apprehen- 
 sion. But the pack was safe the delicate con- 
 tents, whatever they were, quite undisturbed. 
 John Fairmeadow gently adjusted the pack, 
 stamped the snow from his soles, as a precaution- 
 ary measure, wiped the frost from his brows and 
 eyelids, in the same cautious wisdom, and, still 
 followed by the Shadow, strode on, but with 
 infinitely more care. At the Red Elephant 
 Pale Peter's glowing saloon he turned in. The 
 
 96
 
 The MAKING of a MAN 97 
 
 bar, as always, in these days, gave the young 
 apostle to those unrighteous parts a roaring 
 welcome. It was become the fashion : big, bub- 
 bling, rosy John Fairmeadow, with the square 
 jaw, the frank, admonitory tongue, the tender 
 and persuasive heart, the competent, not un- 
 willing fists, was welcome everywhere, from the 
 Bottle River camps and the Cant-hook cutting 
 to the bunk-houses of the Yellow Tail, from be- 
 yond the Divide to the lower waters of the Big 
 River, in every saloon, bunk-house, superintend- 
 ent's office and cook's quarters of his wide green 
 parish welcome to preach and to pray, to bury, 
 marry, gossip and scold, and, upon goodly prov- 
 ocation, to fight, all to the same righteous end. 
 A clean man : a big, broad-shouldered, deep- 
 chested, long-legged body, with a soul to match 
 it a glowing heart and a purpose lifted high. 
 There was no mistaking the man by men. 
 
 John Fairmeadow, clad like a lumber-jack, up- 
 right, now, in the full stature of a man, body 
 and soul, grinned like a delighted schoolboy. 
 His fine head was thrown back, in the pride of 
 clean, sure strength ; his broad face was in a 
 rosy glow ; his great chest still heaved with the 
 labour of a stormy trail ; his gray eyes flashed 
 and twinkled in the soft light of Pale Peter's 
 many lamps. Twinkled ? and with merriment ? 
 in that long, stifling, roaring, smoky, fume- 
 laden room ? For a moment : then closed, a bit
 
 98 The MAKING of a MAN 
 
 worn, and melancholy, too ; but presently, with 
 reviving faith to urge them, opened wide and 
 heartily, and began to twinkle again. The bar 
 was in festive array : Christmas greens, red 
 berries, ribbons, tissue-paper and gleaming tin- 
 foil flash of mirrors, bright colour, branches of 
 pine, cedar and spruce from the big balsamic 
 woods. It was crowded with lumber-jacks great 
 fellows from the forest, big of body and passion, 
 here gathered in celebration of the festival. 
 John Fairmeadow, getting all at once and vigor- 
 ously under way, shouted " Merry Christmas, 
 boys ! " and " Hello, Charlie ! " to the bartender ; 
 and he shook hands with Pale Peter, slapped 
 Billy the Beast on the back, roared a greeting 
 to Gingerbread Jenkins, exclaimed " Merry 
 Christmas ! " with the speed and detonation of a 
 Catling gun, inquired after Butcher Long's brood 
 of kids in the East, and cried " Hello, old man ! " 
 and " What's the good word from Yellow Tail ? " 
 and " How d'ye do ? " and " Glad t' see you ! " 
 and everywhere shook hands and clapped backs 
 carefully preserving, however, his own back 
 from being slapped and devoutly ejaculated 
 " God bless you, men ! A Merry Christmas to 
 you all and every one ! " and eventually dis- 
 appeared in the direction of Pale Peter's living- 
 quarters, leaving an uproar of genial delight 
 behind him. 
 
 John Fairmeadow's Shadow, however, unable
 
 The MAKING of a MAN 99 
 
 to enter the bar of the Red Elephant, waited in 
 seclusion across the windy street. 
 
 Mrs. Bartender was still yawning as John 
 Fairmeadow entered upon her ennui ; but when 
 the big minister, exercising the softest sort of 
 caution, slipped off his gigantic pack, and 
 deposited it with exquisitely delicate care, and a 
 face of deep concern, on the table, she opened 
 her faded eyes with interested curiosity. And 
 as for the contents of the pack, there's no more 
 concealing them 1 The article must now be de- 
 clared and produced. It was a baby. Of 
 course, it was a baby ! The thing has been 
 obvious all along. John Fairmeadow's found- 
 ling: left in a basket at the threshold of his 
 temporary lodging-room at Big Rapids that 
 very morning first to John Fairmeadow's con- 
 sternation, and then to his gleeful delight. As 
 for the baby itself it was presently unswathed 
 it is quite beyond me to describe its excellencies 
 of appearance and conduct. John Fairmeadow 
 himself couldn't make the attempt and escape 
 annihilation. It was a real and regular baby, 
 however. One might suggest, in inadequate 
 description, that it was a plump baby ; one 
 might add that it was a lusty baby. It had hair ; 
 it had a pucker of amazement ; its eyes, two of 
 them, were properly disposed in its head ; its 
 hands were of what are called rose-leaf dimen-
 
 ioo The MAKING of a MAN 
 
 sions ; it had, apparently, a fixed habit of squirm- 
 ing ; it had no teeth. Evidently a healthy baby 
 a baby that any mother might be proud of 
 doubtless a marvel of infantile perfection in every 
 respect. I should not venture to dispute such 
 an assertion ; nor would John Fairmeadow 
 nor any other bold gentleman of Swamp's 
 End and Elegant Corners not in these later 
 days .' 
 
 Mrs. Bartender, of course, lifted her languid 
 white hands in uttermost astonishment. 
 
 " There ! " John Fairmeadow exploded, looking 
 round like a showman. " What d'ye think o' 
 that? Eh?" 
 
 " But, Mr. Fairmeadow," the poor lady stam- 
 mered, " what have you brought it here for? " 
 
 " Why not ? " John Fairmeadow demanded. 
 " Why not, indeed ? It's perfectly polite." 
 
 " What am I to do with it ? " 
 
 " It isn't intoxicated, my good woman," John 
 Fairmeadow ran on, in great wrath ; " and it's 
 never been in jail." 
 
 " But my dear Mr. Fairmeadow, do be sensible ; 
 what am I to do with it ? " 
 
 " Why, ah I should think," John Fairmeadow 
 ventured the baby was still sleeping like a 
 brick "that you might first of all ah resus- 
 citate it. Would a a slight poke in the ribs 
 provoke animation ? " 
 
 But the baby didn't need a poke in the ribs.
 
 The MAKING of a MAN 101 
 
 It didn't need any other sort of resuscitation. 
 Not that baby ! The self-dependent, courageous, 
 perfectly competent and winning little rascal 
 resuscitated itself. Instantly, too and posi- 
 tively and apparently without the least effort 
 in the world. Moreover and with remarkable 
 directness it demanded what it wanted and 
 got it. And having been nourished to its satis- 
 faction from young Master Bartender's silver- 
 mounted bottle (which John Fairmeadow then 
 secretly slipped into his pocket) and having 
 yawned in a fashion so tremendous that Mrs. 
 Bartender herself could never hope to equal that 
 infinite expression of boredom and having 
 smiled, and having wriggled, and having giggled, 
 and cooed, and attempted actually attempted 
 to get its great toe in its mouth without extra- 
 neous assistance of any sort whatsoever even 
 without the slightest suggestion that such a 
 thing would be an amazingly engaging trick in 
 a baby of its age and degree it burst into a 
 gurgle of glee so wondrously genuine and in- 
 fectious that poor, bored Mrs. Bartender herself 
 was quite unable to resist it, and promptly, and 
 publicly, and finally committed herself to the as- 
 sertion that the baby was a dear, wherever it 
 came from. 
 
 John Fairmeadow snatched it from the table, 
 and was about to make off with it, when Mrs. 
 Bartender interposed.
 
 102 The MAKING of a MAN 
 
 " My dear Mr. Fairmeadow," said she, " that 
 child will simply catch its death of cold ! " 
 
 There was something handy, however some- 
 thing of silk and fawn-skin and with this en- 
 veloping the baby John \ airmeadow swung in a 
 roar with it to the bar and held it aloft in all 
 that seething wickedness pure symbol of the 
 blessed Christmas festival. And there was a 
 sensation, of course a sensation beginning in 
 vociferous ejaculations, but presently failing to 
 a buzz of conjecture. There were questions to 
 follow : to which John Fairmeadow answered 
 that he had found the baby that the baby 
 was nobody's baby that the baby was his baby 
 by right of finders keepers that the baby was 
 everybody's baby and that the baby would 
 presently be somebody's much-loved baby, that 
 he'd vouch for ! The baby, now resting content 
 in John Fairmeadow's arms, was diffidently ap- 
 proached and examined. Gingerbread Jenkins 
 poked a finger at it, and said, in a voice of the 
 most inimical description, " Get out ! " without 
 disturbing the baby's serene equanimity in the 
 slightest. Young Billy Lush, charging his soft, 
 boyish voice with all the horrifying intent he 
 could muster, threatened to " catch " the baby, 
 as though bent upon devouring it on the spot ; 
 but the baby only chuckled with delight. Billy 
 the Beast incautiously approached a finger near 
 the baby's stout abdomen ; and the baby with
 
 The MAKING of a MAN 103 
 
 a perfectly fearless glance into the very depths 
 of the Beast's frowzy beard clutched the finger 
 and smiled like an angel. Long Butcher Long 
 attempted to tweak the baby's nose ; but the 
 effort was a ridiculous failure, practiced so 
 clumsily on an object so small, and the only 
 effect was to cause the baby to achieve a tre- 
 mendous wriggle and a loud scream of laughter. 
 These experiments were variously repeated, but 
 all with the same cherubic result ; the baby con- 
 ducted itself with admirable self-possession and 
 courage, as though, indeed, it had been used, 
 every hour of its life, to the company of riotous 
 lumber-jacks in town. 
 
 The inevitable happened, of course : Billy the 
 Beast, whose pocket was smoking with his 
 wages, proposed the baby's health, and there 
 was an uproarious rush for the bar. 
 
 " Just a minute, boys ! " John Fairmeadow 
 drawled. 
 
 It was an awkward moment : but the jacks 
 were by this time used to being bidden by this 
 man who was a man, and the rush was forthwith 
 halted. 
 
 " Just a minute, boys," John Fairmeadow re- 
 peated, " for your minister ! " 
 
 The baby was then held aloft in John Fair- 
 meadow's big, kind, sensitive hands, and from 
 this safe perch softly smiled upon the crowd of 
 flushed and bearded faces all roundabout.
 
 104 The MAKING of a MAN 
 
 " Boys," John Fairmeadow drawled, signifi- 
 cantly, " this is the only sort of church we have 
 in these woods." 
 
 There was a laughing stir and shuffling : but 
 presently a tolerant silence fell, in obedience to 
 the custom John Fairmeadow had established ; 
 and caps came off, and pipes were smothered. 
 
 " A little away from the bar, please," the big 
 preacher suggested. 
 
 Pale Peter nodded to Charlie the Infidel ; and 
 the clink of glasses ceased and the bottles were 
 left in peace and the hands of the bartender 
 rested. 
 
 " Now, boys," said John Fairmeadow, letting 
 the foundling fall softly into his arms, "I'm not 
 going to preach to you to-night, though God 
 knows you need it ! I'm just going to pray for 
 the baby. Dear Father of us wilful Children of 
 the Vale" he began, at once, lifting a placid, be- 
 lieving face above the smiling child in his arms, 
 " we ask Thy guardianship of this child. In us 
 is no perfect counsel for him nor any help whatso- 
 ever that he may surely apprehend. In Thine 
 acceptable wisdom Thou settest Thy little ones in 
 a world where presently only Thou canst teach 
 them: teach Thou then this little one. Thou 
 alone knowest the right path for a little boy's in- 
 quiring feet: lead then this little boy. Thou 
 alone art saving helper to an adventuring lad : 
 help then this lad. Thou alone art all-perceiving
 
 The MAKING of a MAN 105 
 
 and persuasive, alone art Truth Teller to a be- 
 ^vildered youth and Good Example in his wonder- 
 ing sight : be then Good Example and Teller of 
 Truth to this youth. Thou alone art in the fash- 
 ioning ways of Thine own world a Maker of 
 Men : make then of this little child a Man. We 
 ask no easy path for him no unmanly way no 
 indulgent tempering of the winds. We pray for 
 no riches -for no great deeds of his doing -for no 
 ease at all nor any satisfaction. We ask of Thee 
 in his behalf good Manhood. Lead him where 
 true men must go : lead him where they learn the 
 all of life ; lead him where they level down and 
 build again ; lead him where in righteous strength 
 his hands may lift the fallen ; lead him where in 
 anger he may strike ; lead him where his tears 
 may fall ; lead him where his heart may find a 
 pure desire. O Almighty God, Lover of chil- 
 dren, Father of us all alike, make of this child, in 
 the measure of his service and in the stature of 
 his soul, a Man. Amen." 
 Amen, indeed 1
 
 XII 
 
 CHRISTMAS EYE AT SWAMP'S END 
 
 AS for poor little Pattie Batch, all this 
 while, she sat alone, a doleful heart, in 
 the shack at the edge of the big, black 
 woods, quite unaware of the momentous advent 
 of a Christmas baby at Swamp's End. The 
 Christmas wind was still high, still shaking the 
 cabin, still rattling the door, still howling like a 
 wild beast in the night, still roaring in the red 
 stove ; and snow was falling again a dry dust 
 of snow which veiled the wondering stars. It 
 was no longer a jolly, rollicking Christmas wind- 
 The gale, now, it seemed, was become inimical 
 to the lonely child : wild, vaunting, merciless 
 terrible with cold. Pattie Batch, disconsolate, 
 sighed more often than a tender heart could 
 bear to sanction in a child, and found swift 
 visions in the glowing coals, though no enliven- 
 ing tableaux ; but dear brave and human little 
 one 1 she presently ejaculated " Shoot it, any- 
 how ! " and began at once to cheer up. And 
 she was comfortably toasting her shins, in a 
 placid delusion of stormy, mile-wide privacy, her 
 mother's old-fashioned long black skirt drawn 
 up from her dainty toes (of which, of course, the 
 
 106
 
 CHRISTMAS El/E at SWAMP'S END 107 
 
 imminent John Fairmeadow was never permitted 
 to be aware), when, all at once, and clamouring 
 above the old wind's howling, there was a tre- 
 mendous knocking at the door a knocking so 
 loud, and commanding, and prolonged, that 
 Pattie Batch jumped like a fawn in alarm, and 
 stood for a moment with palpitating heart and a 
 mighty inclination to fly to the bedroom and 
 lock herself in. Presently, however, she mus- 
 tered courage to call " Come in ! " in a sufficient 
 tone : whereupon, the door was immediately 
 flung wide, and big John Fairmeadow, with a 
 wild, dusty blast of the gale, strode in with a 
 gigantic basket, and slammed the door behind 
 him, leaving the shivering, tenacious Shadow, 
 which had secretly followed from Swamp's End, 
 to keep cold vigil outside. 
 
 "Hello, there, Pattie Batch!" John Fair- 
 meadow roared. " Merry Christmas ! " 
 
 Pattie Batch stared. 
 
 " Hello, I say ! " John Fairmeadow cried, again. 
 " Merry Christmas, ye rascal I " 
 
 Pattie Batch, gulping her delight, and quite 
 incapable of uttering a word, because of it, flew 
 to the kitchen, instead of to the bedroom, and re- 
 turned with a broom, with which, while the 
 Shadow peeked in at the window, she brushed, 
 and scraped, and slapped John Fairmeadow so 
 vigorously that John Fairmeadow scampered into 
 a corner and stood at bay.
 
 io8 CHRISTMAS K at SWAMP'S END 
 
 " Look out, there, Polly Pry ! " he shouted, in 
 a rage ; " don't you dare look at my basket." 
 
 Pattie Batch had been doing nothing of the 
 sort. 
 
 " Don't you so much as squint at my basket," 
 John Fairmeadovv growled. 
 
 Pattie Batch instantly did, of course and with 
 her eyes wide and sparkling, too. It was really 
 something more than a squint. 
 
 " Keep your eyes off that basket, Miss Pry ! " 
 John Fairmeadow commanded, again. " Huh 1 " 
 he complained, emerging from his refuge and 
 throwing his mackinaw and cap on the floor ; 
 " anybody 'd think there was something in that 
 basket for you." 
 
 "There ith," Pattie Batch gasped, in ecstasy. 
 
 " Is 1 " John Fairmeadow scornfully mocked. 
 " Huh ! " 
 
 Pattie Batch caught John Fairmeadow by the 
 two lapels of his coat and she stood on tiptoe 
 and she wouldn't let John Fairmeadow turn 
 his head away (as if John Fairmeadow cared to 
 evade those round, glowing eyes !) and she 
 looked into his gray eyes with a bewitching con- 
 glomeration of hope, amusement, curiosity and 
 adoring childish affection. " There ith, too," she 
 chuckled, her lisp getting the better of her. " Yeth, 
 there ith. I know you, Mithter Fairmeadow." 
 
 John Fairmeadow ridiculously failed to smother 
 a chuckle in a growl.
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE at SWAMPS END 109 
 
 "Doth it bite?" Pattie Batch inquired, mali- 
 ciously feigning a terrific fright. 
 
 " Nonsense 1 " John Fairmeadow declared ; " it 
 hasn't a tooth in its head." He added, with one 
 eye closed, and palms lifted : " But aha ! just 
 you wait and see." 
 
 " Well," Pattie Batch drawled, " I th'pose it'th 
 a turkey. It'th thertainly tfiomethm' t' eat," she 
 declared. 
 
 " Good enough to eat, I bet you ! " John Fair- 
 meadow agreed, with the air of having concealed 
 in that veritable big basket the sweetest morsel 
 in all the world. 
 
 " Ith it a chicken ? " 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said John Fairmeadow ; " it's 
 fa-a-a-ar more delicious than chicken. Hi, there, 
 Poll Pry ! " he roared, and just in time ; " keep 
 your hands off." 
 
 " Is it anything for the house ? " 
 
 " No, indeed ; the house is for it" 
 
 Pattie Batch scowled in perplexity. 
 
 "The back yard, too," John Fairmeadow 
 added ; " and don't you forget that this whole 
 place and all the world belongs to just what's 
 in that basket." 
 
 " I'm sure," poor Pattie Batch mused, scratch- 
 ing her curls in bewilderment, " I can't guess 
 what it could be." 
 
 Both were now staring at the basket ; and at 
 that very moment the blanket covering stirred f
 
 no CHRISTMAS EYE at SWAMP'S END 
 
 " Ith a dog ! " Pattie Batch exclaimed. 
 
 " Dog ! " the outraged John Fairmeadow 
 roared. " Nothing of the sort ! No ma'am/" 
 
 Pattie Batch clasped her hands. " It ith, too 1 " 
 she cried. " I thaw it move." 
 
 " It is not ! " 
 
 " Ith a kitten, then." 
 
 " It is not a kitten ! " 
 
 Thereupon while the Shadow, by whom John 
 Fairmeadow had been dogged that night, now 
 peered with acute attention through a break in 
 the frost on the window-pane thereupon, with- 
 out any warning save a second slight movement 
 of the blanket, a sound and not by any means a 
 growl the thing was certainly not a dog a 
 sound proceeded from the depths of the basket. 
 
 Pattie Batch jumped away. 
 
 " Well, well ! " cried John Fairmeadow ; 
 " what's the row ? " 
 
 Row, indeed ! Pattie Batch was gone white ; 
 and she swayed a little, and shivered, too, and 
 clenched her little hands to restrain her amazing 
 hope. " Oh," she moaned, at last, far short of 
 breath enough, " tell me quick : ith it ith it a 
 a " 
 
 John Fairmeadow threw back the blanket in a 
 most dramatic fashion ; and there, wrapped in 
 the neglected fawn-skin cloak, all dimpled and 
 smiling, lay 
 
 THE BABY 1
 
 CHRISTMAS E^E at SWAMPS END 1 1 1 
 
 *' By George ! " screamed Pattie Batch ; " it ith 
 a baby ! " 
 
 "Your baby," John Fairmeadow whispered. 
 ** God's Christmas gift to you." 
 
 Pattie Batch adorable young mother ! - 
 reverently approached, and, bending with parted 
 lips, eyes shining, and hands laid upon her 
 trembling heart, for the first time gazed content 
 upon the little face. She lifted, then and with 
 what awe and tenderness ! the tiny mortal from 
 the warm basket, and pressed it, with knowing 
 arms, against her warmer, softer young breast. 
 "My baby!" she crooned, her lips close to its 
 ear ; " my little baby my own little baby ! " 
 
 The Shadow vanished from the window and 
 was never seen again. 
 
 Well, well, well ! that wasn't all, you may be 
 sure. It wasn't anything like all the interesting 
 happenings of that Christmas Eve in the log 
 shack on the edge of Swamp's End. Pattie 
 Batch, for example, talked so much and so fast 
 that her tongue stumbled and her breath posi- 
 tively refused to indulge her with another word 
 without a rest. Girl 1 (says she) ; how in the 
 world could she ever have dreamed that well 
 and to think that she had actually wanted a 
 girl when sakes alive I a girl baby was nothing 
 to a boy baby, once you knew about such things. 
 And as for the lumber-jacks in town, who had
 
 ii2 CHRISTMAS EVE at SWAMPS END 
 
 and just like them, too, by George ! who had 
 stuffed John Fairmeadow's mackinaw pocket 
 with a perfect fortune for the baby they were 
 really dears, every one of them. And as for 
 John Fairmeadow himself well never mind : 
 Pattie Batch didn't say a single adequate word ; 
 but in the mad extravagance of her joy, and in 
 a violent effort to express her gratitude, she did 
 something that John Fairmeadow heartily ap- 
 proved, but never would have permitted, of 
 course, had he not been taken unaware. The 
 big gale laughed, now, and frolicked past the 
 cabin, and tapped softly at the door, as if bound, 
 through sheer importunity, to enter in and share 
 the happiness. The roar was gone out of it : it 
 was savage no longer. It hadn't a growl to its 
 name : it hadn't even a ghostly groan to scare a 
 child with. Who was afraid of the wind, now 
 of the cold of the wild, black night ? Not Pattie 
 Batch. Pattie Batch's baby had tamed that gale 1 
 
 By and by Pattie Batch resolutely returned 
 the baby now sound asleep to the basket. 
 
 " I s'pose," says she, " I better get at Ginger- 
 bread Jenkins' washing." 
 
 "Washing?" cries John Fairmeadow. 
 
 "Yeth, yeth, yeth ! " Pattie Batch declared, 
 impatiently. " I got t' look out for the educa- 
 thion o' my baby, don't I ? " 
 
 As John Fairmeadow says 
 
 " You ought to see that baby now J"
 
 XIII 
 
 BILLY THE BEAST STARTS HOME 
 
 IT will be observed that by this time John 
 Fairmeadow had found himself. He had 
 not only found himself : he had discovered 
 his parish. It was a big parish, as has been 
 indicated ; there were hundreds of square miles 
 of it miles of great woods remote from the re- 
 straints and fashioning influences of civilization. 
 The parishioners numbered thousands tens of 
 thousands, perhaps, if John Fairmeadow could 
 but have reached them. Not all of these men, 
 but most of them, were hilariously in pursuit of 
 their own ruin for lack of something better to do 
 with their leisure in town. In camp particularly 
 in the remoter camps they performed harsh 
 labour and were for the time being clean-lived 
 enough, perhaps ; but in town it was another 
 story, as the little settlements, founded chiefly to 
 purvey evil to the lumber-jacks, took care that 
 it should be. Being men of big strength in 
 every physical way and provided with every 
 opportunity to indulge whatsoever variety of 
 evil propensity they might chance to possess 
 they proceeded to the uttermost of savagery and 
 
 "3
 
 H4 BILLY the BEAST STARTS HOME 
 
 degradation. It was done with shouting and 
 laughter and that large good-humour which is 
 bed-fellow with the bloodiest brawling, and the 
 carousal had, perhaps, for the time, its amiable 
 aspect ; but the merry shouters soon became like 
 Billy the Beast, who, having emerged from Pale 
 Peter's saloon, upon the occasion of Fairmeadow's 
 arrival, robbed the bulldog of his bone and 
 gnawed it himself. Or they turned into men 
 like Damned Soul Jones, who was used to 
 moaning his way into the forest, after the spree 
 in town, conceiving himself condemned to roast 
 forever in hell, without hope, nor even the ease 
 which his mother's prayers might win from a 
 compassionate God. And every roisterer among 
 them was prey prey of the most helpless de- 
 scription prey under the very noses of the 
 authorities for the saloon-keepers and gamblers 
 of the towns. 
 
 " Expensive ? " laughed a saloon-keeper's wife 
 of Swamp's End, flashing a ring on her finger. 
 " What do I care about expense? My husband 
 has a thousand men working for him in the 
 woods ! " 
 
 As for John Fairmeadow 
 
 "That's all right, boys," he used to say. 
 " I'm your minister ; and I'll stand by you as 
 long as I have breath in my body." 
 
 Fairmeadow was " up against it." But Fair- 
 meadow was a man of big body and stout heart.
 
 BILL Y the BEAST: S TAR TS HOME 1 1 5 
 
 And Fairmeadow " stood by." He was the only 
 man in all those woods who did " stand by." 
 
 It was Billy the Beast who drew John Fair- 
 meadow into his first grave altercation. The 
 place was Pale Peter's saloon, the antagonist 
 was Charlie the Infidel, and the manner of the 
 thing I shall relate. Billy the Beast wanted to 
 go home. Billy the Beast always wanted to go 
 home. Never did a pay-day come near but 
 Billy the Beast announced to the boys of the 
 Cant-hook cutting that he was bound home. 
 But Billy the Beast had never yet never once 
 in the ten years he had been trying got farther 
 on the way to the East than Swamp's End. 
 Billy's mother had now sent for him, however, 
 and Billy was bound to go. But Billy's old 
 mother had for many years been sending for 
 him ; and Billy had never yet managed to get 
 beyond Swamp's End. The time had come 
 the time had now come when Billy must go ; 
 and determined at last to depart he sought the 
 aid of John Fairmeadow. What was a parson 
 for ? Would John Fairmeadow help him ? 
 Yes ; the parson would help. Would John 
 Fairmeadow "see him through" Swamp's End? 
 Yes ; the parson would "see him through" 
 Swamp's End. And if Billy the Beast chanced 
 inadvisedly to stray into the Red Elephant with 
 his wages in his pocket, would the parson knock
 
 n6 BILLY the BEAST STARTS HOME 
 
 him down, take his money away, put a ticket in 
 his pocket and throw him in the baggage-car of 
 the midnight train going east ? 
 
 The parson would be delighted ! 
 
 " All right, parson," said Billy the Beast ; 
 
 " y u g J us ' as f ar as y u like." 
 
 "I will!" Fairmeadow returned, delighted. 
 " I'll go the limit, Billy ! " 
 
 " Kin I depend on ye ? " 
 
 "You may, Billy," Fairmeadow answered, 
 solemnly, a twinkle in his eye ; " you may de- 
 pend on me." 
 
 Secure in this guardianship, Billy the Beast 
 bade the boys of the Cant-hook cutting a cere- 
 monious farewell. "Coin' home," said he. 
 " Ye see, boys, mother's sent fer me, an' I'm 
 goin' home." It was the spring of the year, 
 then : the drive was over ; and Billy the Beast, 
 his winter's wages in his pocket, took the trail for 
 Swamp's End in high spirits. " Goin' home, 
 boys," said he, to those whom he met by the 
 way. " Ye see, my mother's sent fer me, an' 
 I'm goin' home." John Fairmeadow was un- 
 fortunately not aware of the precise day of 
 Billy's passage through Swamp's End. Billy 
 had not informed him. Billy had promised to 
 inform him, of course : he had been intimately 
 particular to secure Fairmeadow's presence at 
 Swamp's End " 'long about Toosday." But it 
 had gone no farther : Billy the Beast had
 
 BILLY the BEAST STARTS HOME 1 17 
 
 neglected " neglected " was the word he ap- 
 plied to it afterwards to send the warning of his 
 arrival. Perhaps who knows? the poor fel- 
 low, his lips dry for the diversions of Swamp's 
 End, had already begun to fail in his purpose. 
 However that be, Pale Peter's men whose 
 sources of such information were at that time 
 superior to John Fairmeadow's were apprised 
 of his departure from the Cant-hook cutting long 
 before he approached Swamp's End ; and 
 Knock-knuckle Jimmie, Pale Peter's cleverest 
 " runner " was despatched to " fetch him in." 
 
 Knock-knuckle Jimmie succeeded. 
 
 41 1 wasn't intendin'," said Billy the Beast to 
 Charlie the Infidel, "t' have a drink." 
 
 " It's on the house, Billy." 
 
 " Much 'bliged, Charlie," Billy replied ; " but 
 ye see ye see I been sent fer an' I wasn't 
 intendin' " 
 
 " A HT licker? " Charlie blandly inquired. 
 
 " It would be a HT licker, Charlie," said Billy, 
 " if I was takin' anything. But ye see, I wasn't 
 intendin' " 
 
 Bottle and glass were slapped on the bar. 
 
 " I wasn't intendin'," Billy repeated, his voice 
 weakly trailing off, " t' t' t' take a a " 
 
 " Water with it, Billy ? " 
 
 " When I take it," Billy replied, " I take it 
 neat. But, ye see, Charlie this time I wasn't 
 intendin' t' "
 
 n8 BILLY the BEAST STARTS HOME 
 
 " Fill her up, man 1 " 
 
 " Wel-1-11, jus' one ! " 
 
 That was the end. Billy the Beast tossed the 
 liquor off and wiped his beard. Charlie the 
 Infidel smiled a convivial approval. 
 
 " Seen the parson ?" Billy inquired. 
 
 It was a shamefaced question. 
 
 " Parson's at Bottle River," Charlie replied. 
 " Have another." 
 
 " No more ! " Billy protested. " That'll do fer 
 me. Ye see, I been sent fer, an' I'm on my way 
 well, jus' one more." 
 
 It was the end, indeed. 
 
 It was night before the news of this came to 
 the ears of John Fairmeadow. This was on the 
 trail from the Bottle River. It was Monday. 
 Tuesday had been the day fixed by Billy the 
 Beast. The parson was trudging stolidly towards 
 Swamp's End when he encountered the breath- 
 less Plain Tom Hitch and was informed of the 
 perilous situation of Billy the Beast. An hour 
 later, the big minister broke wrathfully into the 
 bar of the Red Elephant. Billy the Beast was 
 drunk. Billy the Beast was very drunk. And 
 as always at this stage of his carouse he was 
 engaged in a theological controversy, chiefly 
 with himself. "You take Sammy Sink," he was 
 arguing, " an' he was converted. Converted in a 
 minute. Yes, sir. Never wanted another drink.
 
 BILLY the BEAST STARTS HOME 119 
 
 Not Sammy Sink." It was to the case of 
 Sammy Sink whom nobody knew that Billy 
 the Beast invariably referred to clinch his argu- 
 ment. Conversion was Billy the Beast's mania 
 in intoxication. " I want ye t' know, boys," he 
 ran on, "that Almighty God kin convert a man 
 whenever He wants t'. Yes, sir. He don't do 
 it any too dashed often t' suit me ; but He kin 
 do it when He w'ants t'. An' He done it t' 
 Sammy Sink. Why ! " he exclaimed, " Al- 
 mighty God could convert me if He tried." 
 Whether or not Billy had already been robbed 
 of his wages by pickpockets or bartenders, John 
 Fairmeadow could not tell, as he advanced to 
 the bar. If so if the thing had already been 
 accomplished Billy's hope of going home was 
 blasted. There would be nothing for Billy to do 
 but go back to the woods until he had accumu- 
 lated another store. 
 
 . Fairmeadow laid a rough hand on Billy's 
 shoulder. " Where's your money ? " he de- 
 manded. 
 
 "Ah, shucks, parson!" Billy pleaded, "lea' 
 me alone." 
 
 " Where's your money ? " 
 
 " I'm jus' havin' a little fun." 
 
 " Where's your money ? " 
 
 " Ain't got no money." 
 
 It was true. 
 
 " Blowed my stake," said Billy the Beast.
 
 120 BILLY the BEAST STARTS HOME 
 
 Charlie the Infidel himself a little flushed 
 interrupted. " Look here, parson I " said he ; 
 " what you buttin' in here for, anyhow ?" 
 
 " Me? " the parson flashed, in a rage. 
 
 " Yes you ! This ain't no place for a 
 parson." 
 
 Fairmeadow stared. 
 
 " What you want t' butt in here for ? " 
 
 " Charlie," said Fairmeadow, going a little 
 pale, " this is my job ! " 
 
 " Well," the bartender fumed, " we don't need 
 no parson here t'-night." 
 
 " What ! " Fairmeadow roared. 
 
 Charlie the Infidel hesitated not at all. He 
 came over the bar. Fairmeadow leaped away 
 and stood waiting. He smiled a little. The 
 thing was to his taste. Charlie's assault was 
 immediate. He struck at the minister. And he 
 was a big man a bigger man than Fairmeadow. 
 Had the blow been effective, Fairmeadow would 
 not only have measured his length on the floor, 
 but would then and there have closed a useful 
 career at Swamp's End, where nobody had much 
 regard for a beaten man. Of this, Fairmeadow 
 was acutely aware. He saw to it that the bar- 
 tender's blow failed. It was a simple matter. 
 Fairmeadow bobbed his head and the blow 
 passed over. This chanced to be an art in which 
 the minister had in a mild way been trained. He 
 laughed a little. Charlie returned to the assault
 
 BILLY the BEAST STARTS HOME 121 
 
 in a fury. Again Fairmeadow avoided him. 
 And again Fairmeadow seemed to be a little bit 
 amused. The crowd a group of lumber-jacks 
 and their human parasites attended in amaze- 
 ment. What manner of parson was this ? The 
 manner of preacher was known to them ; and 
 the manner of fighting man was presently dis- 
 closed. Charlie the Infidel came at him again. 
 Again Fairmeadow evaded with a smile. He 
 would not strike his antagonist until the watchers 
 had been persuaded that the antagonist could 
 not strike him. But the fight must have an end ; 
 and that end must be decisive, Fairmeadow knew, 
 lest the fight have to be fought all over again. 
 And when Charlie the Infidel came again Fair- 
 meadow tapped him on the chest a tap of such 
 amazing weight, however, that the bartender 
 reeled. 
 
 " Now, boys," said Fairmeadow, looking about, 
 completely in possession of his temper, even his 
 good humour, " I'll have to put him out." 
 
 Charlie the Infidel rushed. Fairmeadow 
 leaped aside stepped forward three swift little 
 steps and struck. Charlie the Infidel went 
 down. It had been necessary. It had not only 
 been necessary, perhaps, but a providential op- 
 portunity, unprovoked, to display all those arts 
 of self- protection of which Fairmeadow was 
 possessed. Perhaps if one were to look into 
 the matter with care it was all as wise and
 
 122 BILLY the BEAST STARTS HOME 
 
 helpful to Fairmeadow's parishioners as a sermon 
 might have been. But John Fairmeadow was 
 distressed when he helped the dazed Infidel to 
 his feet ; and his distress was deep and real. 
 
 "I'm sorry, old man," said he. 
 
 " That's all right, parson," Charlie returned ; 
 " you got me fair enough." 
 
 Fairmeadow was silent. 
 
 " That's all right ! " Charlie repeated. " Don't 
 you worry no more about that." 
 
 " It needn't occur again," said Fairmeadow. 
 
 " No," Charlie returned, positively ; " it 
 wortt!" 
 
 " I'm glad," said Fairmeadow, devoutly. 
 "You see, Charlie," he began, in disgust, 
 "your business here of bartending is such a 
 detestable " 
 
 " Never mind that," Charlie broke in ; " we 
 talked that t' death long ago." 
 
 " But God help you, it is detestable ! " 
 
 " Boys," said the Infidel to the gaping crowd 
 of woodsmen and small gamblers, " what'll ye 
 have ? The drinks is certainly on me." 
 
 Billy the Beast had vanished. 
 
 The Beast had vanished. Nor could Fair- 
 meadow find him again that night. What 
 matter, after all ? Billy the Beast could not 
 have " gone home." They had robbed him of 
 his wages long before John Fairmeadow's arrival
 
 BILLY the BEAST STARTS HOME 123 
 
 in the bar of the Red Elephant. Three days 
 later Fairmeadow found him and Fairmeadow's 
 search had been diligent in the snake-room of 
 the Cafe of Egyptian Delights, where he had been 
 thrown, sick and utterly penniless such was the 
 purpose of the snake-rooms of the lumber-town 
 saloons when there was no more to be got out 
 of him and he could borrow no more. Billy vas 
 in a stupor of intoxication, but presently revived 
 a little, and turned very sick. 
 
 " That you, parson ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes, Billy." 
 
 " A' right." 
 
 " Feel a little better, now?" 
 
 " Uh-huh." 
 
 Fairmeadow eased the man's head on the floor 
 of the foul place. 
 
 " Guess I better not go home," Billy muttered. 
 " Not this time." 
 
 " No," said the parson ; " not this time." 
 
 " Nex' time," said Billy. 
 
 " Yes," said the parson ; " next time next 
 time, surely, God help you 1 " 
 
 Billy the Beast tried again and again to "go 
 home." " So long, boys ! " he continued to say, 
 when he set out for Swamp's End, with his wages 
 in his pocket. " So long, boys ! I'm goin' 
 home. Mother's sent fer me. The ol' lady's 
 pretty well on in years, now. An' I jus' got t' 
 go." Again and again the thing happened ;
 
 124 BILLY the BEAST STARTS HOME 
 
 but there came a last time in the end it came 
 when Billy the Beast set out for Swamp's 
 End, bound home. 
 
 In all this time John Fairmeadow was a busy 
 man. None more industrious : none whose work 
 lay nearer or needed doing more. And there was 
 something added to the most that he could ac- 
 complish. John Fairmeadow was not the " real 
 thing" yet. He was only a lay preacher, after 
 all. The boys believed in him, of course : the 
 boys would listen to no criticism of him. But 
 the boys wanted the "real thing." And with 
 this reasonable wish John Fairmeadow was in 
 sympathy. As Fairmeadow told Pale Peter in 
 the beginning, he had arranged all that with the 
 Superior Body of his Church. Ordination would 
 come in due course. Fairmeadow would be an 
 accredited minister by and by. The Superior 
 Body had required an examination in systematic 
 theology, Old Testament history, how to com- 
 pose a sermon, and the like ; but that was all. 
 Those rare hours which John Fairmeadow had 
 for himself he devoted to the acquirement of this 
 knowledge. It was a much interrupted pursuit 
 of knowledge : there was so much for a parson 
 to do in the barrooms of Swamp's End after 
 night so many sudden calls upon the wisdom 
 and muscle of the minister that there was little 
 enough time for learning of the text-books
 
 BILLY the BEAST START'S HOME 125 
 
 about the origin of sin and the nature of God. 
 But John Fairmeadow persevered. He was not 
 much interested, to be sure, in the origin of sin, 
 as expounded in the big, black text-book ; and 
 he had his own sources of information (not met- 
 aphysical) concerning the nature of God. But 
 he persevered, for the boys' sake, determined to 
 make the best of the very hard job ; and he 
 looked forward to the Superior Body's examina- 
 tion with a trepidation so genuine and extreme 
 that it occasionally made him laugh. 
 
 And 
 
 " If the boys want an ordained minister in 
 these camps," John Fairmeadow determined, 
 " they're going to have one ! "
 
 XIV 
 PALE PETER'S DONALD 
 
 IT was raining : an interminable drizzle, oc- 
 casionally rising, with a rush of wind from 
 the gray sky, to a noisy downpour. Swamp's 
 End a dreary puddle of mud in wet weather 
 was dripping and out of sorts. In Charlie the 
 Infidel's living quarters beyond the bar at the 
 Red Elephant, Mrs. Charlie the Infidel, bored to 
 death by the adventures of the lord and lady's- 
 maid of her paper-backed novel, was out of sorts 
 with all of Swamp's End, and yawned until the 
 poor lady's jaws fairly cracked ; and up-stairs, in 
 Pale Peter's rooms, Pale Peter's Donald, too, 
 was out of sorts, dawdling over the lessons John 
 Fairmeadow had set him, pausing, now and 
 again, to stare vacantly into the rainy weather, 
 and sighing far more than a lad of blithe age 
 and rosy health should have good occasion to 
 sigh. Pale Peter's Bruiser, restless under a chair 
 in the bar, was obviously out of sorts ; and Pale 
 Peter himself, reposing in an easy chair in the 
 little office at the end of the bar, his feet on the 
 desk, a cigar in his listless hand, gazing blankly 
 through the window into the muddy street, was 
 considerably more out of sorts than anybody 
 connected with his thriving establishment. Pale 
 
 126
 
 PALE PETER'S DONALD 127 
 
 Peter was very much out of sorts, indeed : Pale 
 Peter could not recall and while he stared into 
 the rain he had searched his experience Pale 
 Peter could not recall another mood of such foot- 
 less black melancholy. It could not be the bar. 
 There was no trouble in the bar. The Bottle 
 River and Cant-hook wagons had driven up, 
 gathered each its load of stupefied sots, and 
 staggered off again. And it was not the weather. 
 Pale Peter was dry, clean, warm and sheltered. 
 It was surely not the weather. Pale Peter won- 
 dered what Donnie was doing ; and then, with a 
 quick little frown, he wondered what was the 
 matter with the boy, and when he would leave 
 off sighing, and why he sighed at all, and why 
 the deuce he kept ogling his own father with 
 grave and pained regard. Pale Peter was de- 
 cidedly out of sorts. 
 
 The only man who wasn't out of sorts at 
 Swamp's End, it seemed and the only man 
 who was abroad in the rain was John Fair- 
 meadow, who came whistling down the street 
 towards the Red Elephant and was presently 
 smiling broadly from Pale Peter's other easy 
 chair, already booted for the trail. 
 
 "Jack," Pale Peter wanted to know, "what 
 the deuce do you do it for ? " 
 
 "Do what?" 
 
 "Well, for example," Pale Peter asked, 
 "where are you going now?"
 
 128 PALE PETER'S DONALD 
 
 11 Kettle Stream, Peter." 
 
 " Kettle Stream 1 " Pale Peter exclaimed, in 
 amazement. " On a day like this? " 
 
 " You see," Fairmeadow explained, apologet- 
 ically, " I promised the boys I'd be out to-night 
 to preach a little sermon." 
 
 " What in thunder do you do it for ? " 
 
 " Keep my word ? " 
 
 " No, no ! I mean the whole thing. Why 
 is it that you spend your time in this God-for- 
 saken mud-hole mollycoddling the swine of these 
 woods?" 
 
 Fairmeadow laughed. 
 
 " It's dirty work for a man like you," Peter 
 added, in disgust. 
 
 "What do you do it for?" Fairmeadow sharply 
 demanded. 
 
 "Me!" 
 
 " You." 
 
 " Do what ? " 
 
 " Why is it," Fairmeadow accused, " that you 
 spend your time in this God-forsaken mud-hole 
 sending the souls of these poor fellows to dam- 
 nation ? It's dirty work, Peter," he added, " for 
 a man like you." 
 
 Peter laughed. 
 
 " I can't understand," Fairmeadow went on, 
 " why it is that you should turn yourself into the 
 detestable beast that you " 
 
 " Money, Jack."
 
 PALE PETER'S DONALD 129 
 
 Fairmeadow sneered. 
 
 " I have a son, Jack," said Peter, quietly. 
 
 " Yes," Fairmeadow gravely replied ; " you 
 have a son." 
 
 " Jack," Pale Peter confided, there being some 
 quality in the melancholy gray weather to induce 
 confidences, " I love my son. Since his mother 
 died she didn't die here, Jack she knew noth- 
 ing of this, thank God ! since his mother died, 
 I haven't cared much for anything else in the 
 world. And I I want the boy to make good 
 with his life. I tell you, Jack, my heart is set on 
 his making good ! " 
 
 " Poor boy ! " Fairmeadow sighed. 
 
 Pale Peter started. " What do you say that 
 for ? " he asked, bewildered. 
 
 " Poor little fellow ! " Fairmeadow repeated. 
 
 There was a squall of rain in the bleak day be- 
 yond the great window. It came in a rush from 
 the low gray sky and drummed on the panes. 
 
 " For God's sake, Jack," Pale Peter demanded, 
 leaning forward in agitation, " why do you call 
 him that ? " 
 
 " I think," Fairmeadow replied, " that he loves 
 you very much." 
 
 " Yes, yes ; of course 1 But " 
 
 " That's why." 
 
 " I understand, of course, that he loves me," 
 Pale Peter began, still bewildered ; " but, you 
 see, Jack "
 
 130 PALE PETER'S DONALD 
 
 " That's why," Fairmeadow repeated. 
 
 Pale Peter's gray face, fixed and emotionless 
 of habit, was now in a frown of perturbation and 
 concern. The man shifted uneasily in his 
 chair. He puffed noisily at his cigar, for a mo- 
 ment, and then, fallen into a troubled muse, he 
 stared out of the window, seeing nothing of the 
 driving rain, nothing of the drear, darkening 
 sky, closing in upon the Red Elephant, but 
 somehow, in his drawn face, reflecting the deep- 
 ening melancholy of the day. " Jack," said he, 
 presently, " you and I ought to get this thing 
 straight. I want you to understand. You see, 
 old man, I I love my son. Having no son of 
 your own, Jack, you don't know, of course, just 
 what this means. But the plain fact is, Jack, that 
 there isn't anything else in the world that I care 
 very much about. I don't care about myself, 
 Jack. Not a bit not a single bit ! All I care 
 about is Donnie. That may sound almighty 
 queer to you, old man ; but it's true, and if you 
 had a son of your own, you'd understand it. It 
 isn't sentimental, you know : it's just a natural 
 pride and love. If you were a father yourself, 
 Jack why you'd understand." Pale Peter 
 paused. " And now, old man," he went on, 
 "I'm going to tell you a little about myself." 
 Pale Peter gray Pale Peter of the Red Elephant 
 at Swamp's End Pale Peter of the thin gray 
 lips, of the cold gray eyes, the white hands and
 
 PALE PETER'S DONALD 131 
 
 the correctly tailored, smart, brushed and pressed 
 attire Pale Peter looked once into the sympa- 
 thetic eyes of the big minister, and, content with 
 the feeling he found, struck a match, applied it 
 to the end of his cigar, puffed, leaned back in 
 his leather-covered chair, blew a cloud of fragrant 
 smoke towards the red curtains of the door to the 
 bar, and went on. " Jack," said he, " I want my 
 boy to make good. What I want is that he 
 shall make good with his life. What I want 
 and if I were a praying man it is what I should 
 pray for what I want is just that he shall make 
 good with his life." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " That he shall be a man a decent Man." 
 
 " I see." 
 
 " I didn't have a very good time, Jack," Pale 
 Peter went on, " when I was a boy like Donnie. 
 My father was in this business. Not successfully, 
 Jack. And not here. It was in the East a big 
 city and a mean, poverty-stricken quarter of 
 the town. And I tell you, old man, I can't 
 forget it ! It was a harsh life for a little boy 
 to live. It was bitter cruel. And when I got 
 out of school, Jack, and had to make my own 
 way through college, I made up my mind, let 
 the text-books talk as they liked, that if ever I 
 had a little boy of my own to look after, he 
 shouldn't suffer what I had suffered. It seemed 
 to me to be a matter of money. That's all. Just
 
 \^2 PALE PETER'S DONALD 
 
 money. And I think so, now. It's money just 
 money." Pale Peter paused again. Fairmeadow 
 said nothing never a word of protest. " When 
 Donnie came, Jack," Pale Peter went on, " and 
 when Bonnie's mother died, it seemed to me that 
 I could do better by the boy, by doing something 
 like this, than by keeping on in what you might 
 call a self-respecting employment, but what was, 
 in point of fact, a very poorly paid one. I knew 
 this business, Jack, and I knew, because I had 
 heard the talk of it, the opportunity there was 
 out here in the lumber-woods. And so I came 
 out here, when Donnie's mother died, to make 
 good for Donnie ; and I have made good, and 
 I'll be rich, soon, and Donnie and I will go East 
 and forget how the money was made. He's 
 only a little fellow, Jack. He'll forget ; surely, 
 he won't remember. And he won't have to go 
 through what I went through as a boy. He'll 
 have a chance a fair chance to make a man of 
 himself ; and that's all I want, Jack just to pro- 
 vide a fair chance for little Donnie to make a 
 man of himself." 
 
 " I see," said Fairmeadow. 
 
 " What have you been doing, Jack ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " Nothing at all ? " 
 
 " Not much." 
 
 " What have you done ? " 
 
 " Weil, of course," Fairmeadow explained,
 
 PALE PETER'S DONALD 133 
 
 " I'm playing the game with you, as I under- 
 stand what you meant when first we talked to- 
 gether. I'm teaching Donnie, for example, to 
 read ; and I'm " 
 
 " Good ! " Pale Peter broke in. " Of course, 
 I know that. But " 
 
 " Donnie goes with me everywhere he cares 
 to go." 
 
 " That's good ! Of course, I know that. And 
 you display, I know, a fine manhood for him 
 to emulate. I'm glad you've come, Jack, and 
 I'm more than glad you've stayed." 
 
 " I'm teaching him something about God." 
 
 " Good ! That's playing the game, Jack." 
 
 " Yes ; that's playing the game. But, Peter, 
 as far as you are concerned, the game is going 
 to " 
 
 " I'm almighty glad you're teaching him about 
 God." 
 
 " I don't know very much about God, of 
 course," Fairmeadow apologized ; " but what I 
 do know what I have learned from reasonable 
 sources and found out for myself I'm teaching, 
 as best I can, in a very quiet way, to " 
 
 " That's good ! " Pale Peter interrupted. " I'm 
 glad of it ! " 
 
 " There's nothing else, I think." 
 
 " Has he has he said anything about me ? " 
 
 " Nothing." . 
 
 " Nothing " and Pale Peter jerked his gray
 
 134 PALE PETER'S DONALD 
 
 head towards the red-curtained door to the bar 
 "about this?" 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 " That's good," said Pale Peter. " He's too 
 young, yet, to understand." 
 
 " This business of Billy the Beast," said 
 Fairmeadow, at a venture, " is not much to the 
 boy's taste." 
 
 " Oh, well, pshaw ! " Pale Peter ejaculated. 
 " Billy the Beast must be let alone. If Donnie 
 wants him to go home, he can go. I'll attend to 
 that, Jack. I'll see to it that nobody " 
 
 " Not at all ! " Fairmeadow interrupted. 
 
 "No?" 
 
 " Not at all ! If Billy the Beast goes home, 
 he must go of his own notion, and by his own 
 strength, helped out by God Almighty, and by 
 nobody else." 
 
 " That's all right, Jack." 
 
 Fairmeadow looked Pale Peter over in a 
 muse. " Peter ! " said he. 
 
 "Jack?" 
 
 " Notwithstanding all that you have told me, I 
 should like to say something." 
 
 " Go ahead, Jack." 
 
 " I have to say it, Peter." 
 
 " That's all right, Jack. Go right ahead. Say 
 anything you like." 
 
 " You are a damned rascal ! " 
 
 Pale Peter sighed. "That's all right, Jack,"
 
 PALE PETER'S DONALD 135 
 
 he began. " Of course, I know your point of 
 
 view ; but " 
 
 Donnie came in. 
 
 " Hello, Jack 1 " said the boy. " I didn't know 
 you were here." 
 
 " Hello, boy ! " 
 
 " Hello, kid ! " said Pale Peter. 
 
 " Hello, pop ! " 
 
 " What is it, Donnie ? " 
 
 " Nothing, sir. I just came down for a minute 
 to see what you were doing." 
 
 The boy advanced, then, towards John Fair- 
 meadow's chair ; but as though bethinking him- 
 self, all at once, he turned, with a little flush, 
 and moved towards his father, but without at all 
 looking in the man's anxious gray eyes. Indeed, 
 he seemed to avoid his father's glance ; but he 
 settled himself on his father's knee, without any 
 sign of reluctance, and began to play with the 
 rings on his father's long white fingers, listening 
 absently, the while, to the inconsequent chatter 
 which the two men had taken up upon his en- 
 trance. He was not in Pale Peter's image ; he 
 was obviously his mother's son a brown-eyed 
 youngster, of a dreaming way, oversensitive, 
 perhaps, and given to moods. Pale Peter had 
 him dressed out in the late fashion of the East ; 
 he was quite as well tailored, quite as well 
 groomed, quite as good-mannered, quite as
 
 136 PALE PETER'S DONALD 
 
 faultless as to linen, as Pale Peter himself, and 
 his accent was as soft and agreeable. He was 
 restless on his father's knee. It seemed to Fair- 
 meadow, who watched this play of feeling with 
 acute anxiety, that the lad was shamefaced and 
 troubled in his father's company. But Fair- 
 meadow could not make sure ; and he hoped, 
 for Pale Peter's sake, that his doubtful inference 
 was altogether mistaken. The boy did not stay 
 long in the little office ; he sighed, presently, 
 and went away, to proceed with his lessons, said 
 he, so that he might not make himself ashamed 
 when John Fairmeadow should get back from 
 preaching the little sermon to the boys on Kettle 
 Stream. 
 
 When Donald had gone, Pale Peter turned 
 anxiously to Fairmeadow. " He's all right, isn't 
 he? " he asked. " He looks well, doesn't he? " 
 
 " Quite hearty," Fairmeadow laughed. 
 
 " He's been so blue, of late," the saloon-keeper 
 went on, doubtfully, " that I get frightened, 
 sometimes. I'm glad you think he's all right, 
 Jack. I I shouldn't like to lose him. You 
 don't think, do you, Jack, that I'm likely to lose 
 him, out here ? " 
 
 " Not in the way you mean." 
 
 " What do you mean by that, Jack ? " 
 
 " The boy's in good health." 
 
 Pale Peter was relieved. " I'm glad you think 
 so," said he. " I don't want to lose him, Jack.
 
 PALE PETER'S DONALD 137 
 
 He's all I got. My God, I don't want to lose 
 him ! " 
 
 Fairmeadow rose to take the trail for Kettle 
 Stream. 
 
 " Jack," said Pale Peter, returning to the first 
 question, " what do you do it for ? " 
 " I want to." 
 
 " It looks like a mean job to me." 
 " It's a man's job ! And I like it." 
 " Yes ; but but what do you do it for ? " 
 "Once, Peter," Fairmeadow answered, gravely, 
 " I had my own fingers burned." 
 " You ! " 
 
 " I was pretty well scorched, Peter." 
 Pale Peter stared. " You don't look it, Jack," 
 said he, at last. 
 
 "No," Fairmeadow replied; "not now." 
 Peter whistled his amazement. " You ! " he 
 ejaculated. " Well, well ! And that's why ! I 
 understand. I understand now. But you're 
 up against it, Jack. You're up against far 
 more than you can overcome. The liquor men 
 are not going to let you do anything big out 
 here. They're not going to let you interfere 
 very much with business, Jack. You can pick a 
 few river-pigs and filthy lumber-jacks out of the 
 fire, of course ; and you can sober a lot of them 
 up, when they need it, and you can save some 
 of them a little money, and you can teach them
 
 138 PALE PETER'S DONALD 
 
 all to sing hymns. But you're not going to be 
 allowed to do very much more. You're up 
 against it, Jack. You're up against the whole 
 system. You can't put a stop to anything. You 
 can go just so far and no farther. Raw Jack 
 Flack of Big Rapids can put a stop to all the 
 good you're trying to do. The police are with 
 us ; the judges are with us ; the district attorney 
 is with us : so what's the use ? The attorney- 
 general won't listen to you. You can't do any- 
 thing. You know that a lumber-jack hasn't 
 the ghost of a show in the settlements. He can 
 be filled up and robbed just whenever a saloon- 
 keeper wants to fill him up and rob him. Not a 
 magistrate in seven counties will lift a finger to 
 help him. What's the use, Jack? What's the 
 use ? Why don't you go somewhere where your 
 work will count ? What do you waste yourself 
 here for?" 
 
 " My work is counting." 
 
 " Oh, pshaw ! " 
 
 " It is, Peter." 
 
 " One of these days," Pale Peter scoffed, 
 " you'll get Billy the Beast through Swamp's 
 End with his wages in his pocket ; and you'll 
 call that a day's work ! " 
 
 " By Jove ! " Fairmeadow laughed, grimly, 
 " it would be a day's work." 
 
 " What would it matter ? " 
 
 " A good deal to me and to Donnie. And
 
 PALE PETER'S DONALD 139 
 
 a great deal more to Billy the Beast and to his 
 mother." 
 
 Pale Peter sighed. 
 
 " Peter," said Fairmeadow, lifting his pack to 
 his shoulder, " I carry the standard of righteous- 
 ness in these woods. Doubtless I'm a very 
 wretched sort of man to lift a flag like that. But 
 I'm the only man to do it, Peter, and I'm going 
 to keep on. Perhaps I'm nothing more than 
 a protest. But I propose to keep right on inter- 
 posing my life between these poor fellows and 
 their destruction. There are boys in the camps 
 there are hundreds of mother's sons there 
 without a hand to help them or a voice to cry 
 out against their ruination. I interpose, Peter 
 I interpose ! " Fairmeadow squared his shoul- 
 ders and threw back his fine head. " I like it 1 " 
 he cried. " I'm glad I'm alive. I'm glad that 
 I trod the path I did. I'm glad because it has 
 brought me to this place and to this work in the 
 world. I interpose, Peter I interpose ! " 
 
 With that he went out. 
 
 Pale Peter sat brooding in the gray light. His 
 mood had not been relieved by the minister's 
 gallant purpose and way. Rather, it had been 
 deepened. Down came the rain : now in a 
 sweeping, passionate rush from the drear sky, 
 now in a disheartening drizzle. Pale Peter 
 brooded darkly. It was true that he loved his
 
 140 PALE PETER'S DONALD 
 
 son. It was true that his hope lay altogether in 
 the boy. It was true, too, that the design of all 
 his dealings at Swamp's End was to provide a 
 sure and untroubled future for the son he loved. 
 And Donald, he fancied, was yet young ; the 
 boy would not be scarred by what went on about 
 him and he would forget. Why not, at any 
 rate, let him know a little about life ? Why not 
 disclose to him all that he should avoid in life ? 
 the way of the wicked and the wages of sin. 
 The boy was well. Pshaw ! the boy was in 
 rosy health. There was no danger ; neither 
 body nor soul was in peril. John Fairmeadow 
 would look out for his soul. Pale Peter would 
 look out for his body. There was no good 
 cause for alarm not yet. And it would not be 
 long, now, before the boy's future could be 
 made secure. Another year or two ; no more 
 than that. As for the strange mood by which 
 he was now possessed 
 
 Donnie came in again. 
 
 " Hello, kid ! " 
 
 " Hello, pop ! " 
 
 " What's the matter, boy ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " Nothing ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 Pale Peter's frown was anxious when he took 
 the boy on his knee.
 
 XV 
 
 FIST PLAY 
 
 IT will be observed that Fairmeadow had by 
 this time shaken himself into place at 
 Swamp's End. Perhaps the fashioning cir- 
 cumstances of his profession had shaken him into 
 place : at any rate, he was established an ac- 
 cepted institution in a hundred square miles of 
 forest. "I'm here to preach and practice the 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ," said he ; " and I'm on 
 the job!" He liked the job: he liked the 
 preaching less, perhaps, than the vigorous prac- 
 tice of righteousness in which he was accustomed 
 to indulge. He liked the trails he liked the 
 great pines in the reaches of the forest he liked 
 the wind and snow of winter he liked the roar 
 of the bunk-house fires. Moreover, he liked 
 his rough parishioners. The slight attraction to 
 which he had confessed to Gingerbread Jenkins 
 upon the occasion of his arrival at Swamp's End 
 had grown into genuine affection. Lumber- 
 jacks, river-pigs, saloon-keepers, and all : what- 
 ever their sins, John Fairmeadow liked 'em, and 
 was heartily liked in return. But he had no 
 church : he had no fixed habitation, indeed no 
 more than the bare little room over the Mother- 
 
 141
 
 142 FIST PL A Y 
 
 Used-To-Make-It Restaurant at Swamp's End 
 and he had no possessions that he could not 
 carry in the pack on his back. 
 
 It was his custom to go from bunk-house to 
 bunk-house through all his parish to eat in 
 the cook-houses and to sleep where he could. 
 And he tramped the logging-roads upon his 
 business whatever the weather : twenty miles 
 in a blizzard at thirty below did not daunt 
 him. He did much more than preach : he 
 scolded the boys, he besought them, he pleaded 
 with them, he knocked them down and he 
 wrote letters for them and he yarned with them 
 and he looked after them when they fell ill 
 and he buried them when they died serving 
 them, at all times, indeed, like a minister of the 
 old school. Queer places for sermons, perhaps, 
 these long, low, stifling bunk-houses : but suffi- 
 cient to the need of John Fairmeadow and the 
 lusty fellows who listened the lusty fellows who 
 sang, too, " Jesus, Lover of My Soul " with the 
 most hearty gusto in the world, and afterwards 
 most profanely maintained that it was damned 
 good sport. 
 
 " Sing her again 1 " a lumber- jack once shouted 
 from his bunk. 
 
 They sang it again. 
 
 "Why the hell," the delighted lumber-jack 
 demanded, " don't they have nice toons like that 
 in the shows ? "
 
 FIST PLA Y 143 
 
 It had not always been easy sailing. But the 
 big, wise, earnest, kindly man wise with his 
 strength and wise with his comfort and blame- 
 had won his way. Not everywhere, perhaps : 
 not, for example, in the remoter camps of his 
 parish, where only his name was known. He 
 came, once it was falling night of a blustering 
 winter's day to a far camp of the Logosh 
 Reservation. A mean camp, this : a dirty bunk- 
 house and a frowzy crew. 
 
 " Wouldn't mind, would you," said he, to the 
 boss, " if I preached a little sermon to the boys 
 to-night?" 
 
 "If ye done what?" 
 
 " If I preached a little sermon to the boys," 
 Fairmeadow repeated, mildly. 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 "Well," Fairmeadow gently drawled, "that's 
 my business." 
 
 " Hell of a business," the boss observed, " for 
 a big man like you." 
 
 Fairmeadow sighed. 
 
 " You might make a livin'," the boss went on 
 looking Fairmeadow over, "as a fightin' man." 
 
 "I do a little of that, too," said Fairmeadow. 
 
 "You can fight just as much as you've the 
 mind to in this camp," the boss returned ; " but 
 we don't allow no preachin'." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 "Not!"
 
 144 FIST PLA Y 
 
 " It happens, my friend," said Fairmeadow, 
 " that I have a pass in my pocket. It is signed 
 by your employer." 
 
 " You couldn't preach in this camp," said the 
 boss, promptly, "if you had a pass from God 
 Almighty." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 "Not!" 
 
 Fairmeadow sighed. He pondered for a mo- 
 ment. His brow was all wrinkled with inde- 
 cision. He sighed again. All this time the 
 boss watched him in faint amusement. Fair- 
 meadow, however, seemed not to observe the 
 amusement. He was deep, it seemed, in inde- 
 cision. Presently, however, he looked up. He 
 measured the boss with a calculating eye. The 
 boss measured him with a calculating eye, 
 also. Fairmeadow smiled. He laid off his 
 pack, whistling pleasantly the while. The 
 whistling ceased. He began to hum an evan- 
 gelical hymn in a way the most preoccupied 
 very softly and very devoutly as though no 
 disturbance whatsoever impended. It was a 
 gentle hymn, 
 
 " Sweet hour of prayer, 
 Sweet hour of prayer " 
 
 and Fairmeadow seemed to like the rhythm of it. 
 Presently, he addressed himself to some serious 
 intention, and laid off his mackinaw, which he
 
 FIST PL A Y 145 
 
 deposited carefully on his pack. His coat fol- 
 lowed. He rolled up his sleeves. Then and 
 in the way of gentle regret he fell into an 
 attitude so precisely professional the profes- 
 sion being that of a fighting man that the 
 boss started. 
 
 "I think," said Fairmeadow, beginning a 
 cautious advance, " that I'll preach." 
 
 " I reckon you will," said the boss. 
 
 There was no fight. 
 
 After supper, Fairmeadow borrowed an empty 
 barrel from the cook, and gravely rolled it into 
 the bunk-house. This was the pulpit : a barrel 
 was always Fairmeadow's pulpit. And an ex- 
 cellent pulpit it was, you may believe ! It 
 served John Fairmeadow's purpose perfectly. 
 John Fairmeadow had rather have a barrel for a 
 pulpit provided the head did not give way 
 before the fury of his discourse than any other 
 sort of pulpit in the world. Fairmeadow now 
 covered the barrel with a gray blanket, which he 
 had borrowed from a teamster such a blanket 
 as poor Gray Billy Batch had lain under upon 
 the occasion of his obsequies at Swamp's End. 
 The transformation of the bunk-house into a 
 church was now complete. There was nothing 
 left to desire. Fairmeadow distributed the 
 hymn-books, which he had carried in his pack, 
 and advised the congregation to trim the Ian-
 
 146 FIST PL A Y 
 
 terns, which the congregation at once proceeded 
 to do. When he had requested the congre- 
 gation not to smoke in church, Fairmeadow 
 went gravely into the pulpit and took off his 
 coat. He knelt, for a moment, in prayer 
 nobody so punctilious as John Fairmeadow in 
 respect to the forms whereupon he got up, 
 pulled a little copy of the Scriptures from his 
 hip-pocket, loosened the collar of his brown 
 flannel shirt, looked the congregation over, 
 picked up a hymn-book from the gray blanket, 
 turned up the lantern hanging overhead, and 
 announced the hymn. 
 
 " Number sixty-three, boys," said he. 
 
 It was a curious church and a curious congre- 
 gation ; but it was a church Fairmeadow had 
 insisted upon its being a church and it was an 
 interested congregation. It was blowing outside 
 in the forest : the wind went swishing past the 
 log cabin a wind with snow, wildly blowing. 
 But it was hot and stifling within. There was a 
 roaring fire in the big stove in the middle of the 
 long, narrow room. The lumber-jacks were 
 grouped about it, sprawling comfortably on 
 the fire-wood, hymn-books in hand. Others sat 
 on the benches which ran along each side of the 
 room below the bunks. Others, still, lay flat in 
 the bunks, their frowzy heads protruding in curi- 
 osity. There were two rows of bunks, one on 
 each side ; and each row was a " double-decker "
 
 FIST PLA Y 147 
 
 head to the wall and foot towards the middle 
 of the room. Mackinaws, woolen socks and 
 shirts, mittens, great boots, hung from the racks 
 above the beds, steaming in the heat. All this 
 was in the light of many lanterns light and 
 shadow of these dim-burning, flickering lamps. 
 It was a congregation of all ages of men, from 
 fresh, rosy youngsters, with a first beard show- 
 ing, to old gray-heads, of fifty years' standing 
 in the lumber-woods. Not one of them all, per- 
 haps not even the youngest lad among them 
 but knew the saloons of Swamp's End. The 
 debauch was the traditional diversion with them, 
 as it had been when Gingerbread Jenkins was 
 a boy ; it was the theme of all the brave stories 
 to which the youngsters listened when the day's 
 work was done. 
 
 When the hymn was sung and when Fair- 
 meadow had prayed and when they had sung 
 once more Fairmeadow announced his text, ac- 
 cording to his custom. 
 
 " Boys," he began, directly, "this little passage 
 from " 
 
 In the other end of the long room somebody 
 began to grind an axe. 
 
 " Boys," Fairmeadow repeated, " this lit- 
 tle " 
 
 The grinding went on. 
 
 " This little passage " 
 
 There was a titter.
 
 148 FIST PLAY 
 
 " Boys," Fairmeadow began again, " this pas- 
 sage " 
 
 The grinding continued. 
 
 " I say, back there ! " Fairmeadow called, com- 
 ing abruptly out of his sermon, " would you 
 mind grinding that axe at another time ? " 
 
 At once the grinding ceased. 
 
 " This little passage," Fairmeadow began, 
 " from the " 
 
 There was more grinding. 
 
 " Passage from the " 
 
 The congregation tittered. 
 
 " If you boys back there wouldn't mind grind- 
 ing that axe at another time," Fairmeadow called, 
 " we'd all be much obliged." 
 
 At once the grinding ceased. 
 
 " Thank you," said the preacher. 
 
 Fairmeadow was on the point of opening his 
 lips to go on with the preaching when the wheel 
 began to turn and the axe-blade to screech its 
 complaint. " Some of the boys, here," he said, 
 instead, in a very mild way, " want to hear me 
 preach. Isn't that so, boys?" There was in- 
 stant assent. It was evidently so. A good 
 many of the boys almost every one of the boys 
 wanted to hear John Fairmeadow preach ; and 
 they said so. " All right," said Fairmeadow, "I'll 
 preach. But I can't very well preach," he went 
 on, addressing the shadowy rear of the room, " if 
 you boys back there keep on grinding that axe."
 
 FIST PL A Y 149 
 
 There was a mocking whistle from the shadow 
 in the rear. 
 
 " I say," said Fairmeadow, " that I can't preach 
 if anybody grinds an axe." 
 
 At once the grinding was begun. 
 
 " Friend, back there ! " Fairmeadow called, in 
 pathetic protest, " can't you oblige the boys by 
 doing that at another time ? " 
 
 Apparently not. 
 
 " No ? " Fairmeadow grieved. 
 
 Again the mocking whistle. 
 
 " Well," Fairmeadow complained, " I've got 
 to preach ! " Fairmeadow sighed as he walked 
 slowly to the rear of the room. There was a big 
 man the big boss whom Fairmeadow had 
 earlier encountered at work over the grindstone. 
 Fairmeadow laid a hand on his shoulder in a 
 way not easily misunderstood. " My friend," he 
 began, softly, " if you " 
 
 The boss struck at him. 
 
 " Keep back, boys ! " an old Irishman screamed, 
 catching up a peavy-pole. " Give the parson a 
 show ! Keep out o' this or I'll brain ye ! " 
 
 Fairmeadow caught his big opponent about 
 the waist flung him against the door (the 
 preacher was wisely no man for half measures) 
 caught him on the rebound put him head fore- 
 most in a barrel of water and absent-mindedly 
 held him there until the old Irishman asked, 
 softly, " Say, parson, ye ain't goin' t' drown him,
 
 ISO FIST PLAY 
 
 are ye ? " It was all over in a flash. " I beg 
 your pardon ! " said Fairmeadow, contritely, to 
 his antagonist, now lying, dripping and gasping, 
 on the bunk-house floor, while the bunk-house 
 broke into a tumult of jeering. " I beg your 
 pardon 1 " Fairmeadow repeated. " You pro- 
 voked me, you see ; and I I I really must 
 preach. You see," he added, apologetically, 
 " that's my business." Then he went back to 
 his pulpit, not ruffled at all, and proceeded with 
 his sermon, to which the congregation listened 
 with deep attention, and possibly to their profit. 
 At any rate, the altercation forgotten, when Fair- 
 meadow raised a dog-eared little hymn-book to 
 the smoky light of the lantern overhead, and 
 announced, " Boys, let's sing number fifty-six. 
 Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to Thy bosom fly. 
 You know the tune, boys. Everybody sing " 
 they sang heartily enough. 
 
 And the whipped boss was not thereafter Fair- 
 meadow's enemy. Not at all ! To the contrary : 
 the big boss, who might have regarded an aca- 
 demic sermonizer with contempt, had nothing but 
 respect for the parson who could thrash him. 
 That he had been thrashed was beyond reason- 
 able question ; but, as it turned out, he was never 
 content with the verdict, and would beg John 
 Fairmeadow for another chance, which, however, 
 John Fairmeadow never would allow him, good-
 
 FIST PLA Y 151 
 
 humoured though he could be upon occasions. 
 And so John Fairmeadow lived these days in the 
 woods. It was tramp the logging-roads from 
 camp to camp. It was a sermon every night 
 a word straight from his big heart a message 
 straight from an old-fashioned gospel ; and it 
 was three sermons of a Sunday, if three bunk- 
 houses could be reached. His message went to 
 all the men of the woods to loggers and lum- 
 ber-jacks: to road-monkeys, cookees, cooks, 
 punk-hunters, wood-butchers, swampers and the 
 what-nots of the camps. It was a straightfor- 
 ward message directed against evil. It was a 
 big man's message to big men. There was no 
 quibbling. There was no compromise. There 
 were no doubts. John Fairmeadow was a Chris- 
 tian minister of the old school. " I have come to 
 these woods," he used to say, " to preach the 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ. That's all I preach. 
 And, boys," he would add, " you've got to take 
 it straight. There'll be no water in it." It was, 
 indeed, an unwatered gospel. The preaching 
 and practice of it made John Fairmeadow a be- 
 loved minister in every camp of his great parish. 
 
 Pale Peter's Donald often trotted the logging- 
 roads and forest trails at the heels of the big 
 minister. Fairmeadow was frankly glad to have 
 the boy's earnest company. ' But Fairmeadow 
 was not proselyting : as the boy's soul took its
 
 152 FIST PLA Y 
 
 chances in Pale Peter's bar, just so must it take 
 its chances in the bunk-houses when John Fair- 
 meadow stood up to preach. 
 
 " Where you going, Jack ? " 
 
 "Yellow-Tail, kid." 
 
 "May I go along?" 
 
 "Sure ! Come on 1 " 
 
 Pale Peter never objected. The boy was 
 away with the preacher for days together. And 
 he liked it. There was little enough to do at 
 Swamp's End ; and there was always excitement 
 afoot where John Fairmeadow went. Pale 
 Peter's Donald listened to the preaching, ob- 
 served its effect, became acquainted with the 
 men in whom Fairmeadow was particularly in- 
 terested, discussed means with the preacher ; 
 and he was presently in the way of criticizing the 
 sermons with such boyish wisdom as he had, and 
 of offering well-meaning boyish advice. This 
 was inevitable : it was all a game, and Pale 
 Peter's Donald, taking sides with John Fair- 
 meadow, played it with interest with precisely 
 the same sort of interest that he would have fol- 
 lowed the fortunes of a politician had John Fair- 
 meadow been a politician on the stump. When 
 it came to the business of preaching in the bunk- 
 houses, Fairmeadow made no effort to save the 
 lad's feelings. He preached : that was his busi- 
 ness less to expound than to denounce and 
 expose. But Fairmeadow was at other times
 
 FIST PL A Y 153 
 
 infinitely careful to let fall no word of contempt 
 or blame for the boy's father. The matter of 
 Pale Peter's occupation was tacitly ignored by 
 the two. Fairmeadow perceived a tragedy of 
 feeling approaching. A year, at most, he 
 fancied, would bring the issue. Perhaps longer ; 
 but it must inevitably come. 
 
 " How's Donnie coming along ? " Pale Peter 
 would ask. 
 
 " Bonnie's all right." 
 
 " Has he said anything about about the 
 business?" 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 "Is he thinking about it very much, Jack ? " 
 
 " Quite a bit." 
 
 " Getting sore on it, Jack ? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " Getting sore on me, Jack?" 
 
 " Oh, no ! " 
 
 " Well," said Pale Peter, " he's young yet. I 
 can go along for a few years, I guess, before he'll 
 understand." 
 
 Fairmeadow said nothing. 
 
 " Don't you think so, Jack?" 
 
 " It's none of my business, Peter," Fair- 
 meadow replied. 
 
 In these days, too, Fairmeadow continued to 
 fill his spare hours with the hurried pursuit of 
 theological lore. If his parishioners were ever 
 to be content if he were ever completely to
 
 154 FIST PL A Y 
 
 possess their respect if he were ever to win his 
 ordination he must master a larger knowledge 
 of the mechanism of salvation than he could now 
 call his own. And so he patiently delved away. 
 In this labour Pattie Batch was tremendously in- 
 terested. John Fairmeadow had explained it 
 all examination, the laying on of hands, the 
 dignity of the cloth, and the like. And Pattie 
 Batch was presently more determined that John 
 Fairmeadow should be decorated with "The 
 Reverend " than even John Fairmeadow himself. 
 
 "How you gettin' on, Jack ? " says Pattie 
 Batch. 
 
 " Too busy, Pattie," says John Fairmeadow, 
 " to trouble very much about original sin." 
 
 " You better trouble, my boy ! " 
 
 "Why, Pattie?" 
 
 "Because there's nothin' too good for the 
 boys."
 
 XVI 
 
 THEOLOGICAL 'TRAINING 
 
 IT must unhappily be disclosed at this point 
 that John Fairmeadow was not from the 
 beginning the big, bubbling, rosy-cheeked 
 fellow who had with fine faith and purpose up- 
 lifted engaged with Gingerbread Jenkins and 
 God Almighty to minister to the lumber-jacks of 
 Swamp's End and all the woods surrounding. 
 There had been a lapse. If the tale is to be told 
 with truth to justify the telling if Fairmeadow's 
 amazing appearance at Swamp's End is reason- 
 ably to be accounted for if his subsequent ex- 
 traordinary proceedings are to be explained if 
 he is to become in any degree a creature com- 
 prehensible to these latter days there must be 
 frank dealing with the facts in his case. There 
 is no virtue, indeed, in mitigating the facts ; nor 
 would Fairmeadow himself had he a word to 
 say in the matter sanction a course so pale and 
 insignificant. In the first place, then, the Fair- 
 meadow who had taken service at Swamp's End 
 was that selfsame John Fairmeadow you have 
 in mind. He was that veritable Fairmeadow 
 whose jolly, frowzy countenance grinned so 
 frequently from the sporting pages in the fall
 
 156 THEOLOGICAL TRAINING 
 
 of the year : the Fairmeadow, indeed, whose 
 fame in this respect, and whose convivial repu- 
 tation, reckless pranks and sturdy good fellow- 
 ship continue to this day in the traditions of 
 the College, and are talked of, with affectionate 
 indulgence, when good fellows get together at 
 the Club in town. He was the John Fairmeadow, 
 moreover, who vanished, all of a sudden, from 
 the haunts of his kind, and who dropped from 
 sight, without warning or word of his destination, 
 and continued dropping, dropping, dropping, 
 until he struck bottom and could fall no farther. 
 
 Bottom was the Bowery. 
 
 " I'm a little behind the game," Fairmeadow 
 used to yawn, in those days. 
 
 This was from the park benches. 
 
 Seven months before his belligerent appear- 
 ance at Swamp's End, in search of the worst 
 town this side of hell it being then a wet night 
 in the fall of the year Fairmeadow had been 
 ejected from Solomon's Cellar, in the Mulberry 
 Park neighbourhood, because he disgusted the 
 ruined habitues of the place. Ejected is too 
 mild a word with which to describe the operation : 
 Fairmeadow had actually been kicked out. He 
 was then and he had for four years been an 
 inhabitant of the outcast drunkard's world. This 
 was the city's deepest underworld. It was a 
 world lower than vice ; it was the underworld of
 
 THEOLOGICAL TRAINING 157 
 
 vice itself lower than the last depths to which a 
 woman could fall. The common vices had there 
 lost their savour. Wickedness was without salt. 
 Nothing was left to indulge. There remained 
 only a bleared, stupid, indecent thirst for alcohol. 
 Dim, stifling lodging-houses, ill-lit cellar drink- 
 ing-places, thieves' resorts, wet saloon-bars, back 
 alleys, garbage pails, slop-shops, pawn-brokers' 
 wickets, the shadowy arches of the Bridge, de- 
 serted stable yards, a multitude of wrecked men, 
 dirt, rags, blasphemy, darkness : John Fair- 
 meadow'SjWorld had been a fantastic and ghastly 
 confusion of these things. The world was with- 
 out love : it was besotted. Faces vanished : rag- 
 ged forms shuffled out of sight for the last time. 
 Nobody cared, nobody remembered : there 
 was no love. John Fairmeadow had moved an 
 outcast in these rat-holes and devious ways until 
 the last haunt was closed to him. 
 
 " I'm a little behind the game," he used to 
 yawn. " I wonder where I can get a drink." 
 
 It was only drink. 
 
 " Where can I get a drink ? " 
 
 Fairmeadow was in other ways a clean soul. 
 
 There was the day's work of begging for 
 drink ; there was nothing more than that. Food? 
 What does a man want of food ? A crumb or 
 two of free lunch : it is as much, in such cir- 
 cumstances, as a man's stomach will hold. What
 
 158 THEOLOGICAL TRAINING 
 
 a man wants is another drink. John Fair- 
 meadow had pursued another drink for seven 
 years. He had never quite managed to catch up 
 with it. But he had overhauled a good many, of 
 course of all sorts, too : very good ones in the 
 beginning, he says, with a wry smile. The next, 
 however, had kept . . . always . . . just 
 a little bit ahead. Half an hour ahead, I fancy, 
 when he panhandled the Bowery. There was al- 
 ways another beyond a mirage of soul's ease. 
 It is a labour to pursue the next drink forever, it 
 seems. But exhaustion is stupid and numb. 
 John Fairmeadow rested at times : he slept a lit- 
 tle. You will observe that nothing could put an 
 end to the pursuit no sort of restraint, no sort 
 of treatment in sanitariums, no sort of effort of 
 which John Fairmeadow was even in the be- 
 ginning capable. He tried, of course : for a 
 long, long time he kept on trying. But he 
 was helpless ; and eventually he found his level 
 on the Bowery, where many another broken- 
 hearted fellow had gone before him. Fellows 
 like John Fairmeadow, moreover : scores of 
 gentlemen, born and bred, not to be distin- 
 guished, then, however, from the native wretches, 
 born of drunken mothers to inevitable degrada- 
 tion. 
 
 It was this in the end that determined the 
 residence of Almighty God and John Fair- 
 meadow at Swamp's End.
 
 THEOLOGICAL TRAINING 159 
 
 John Fairmeadow was successful on the 
 Bowery successful enough to achieve the dis- 
 tinction of delirium tremens three times. He 
 was a bit clever with a cultivated intelligence 
 and some grit of birth and he had a little bag 
 of appealing tricks. The Recessional, for ex- 
 ample. It never failed him. It stirred the low 
 saloons, somehow, wherever he declaimed it, how- 
 ever low they were. The tumult and the shout- 
 ing dies. . . . There was The Ride of Paul 
 Revere, too. A patriotic bit. It didn't move 
 John Fairmeadow, though : not at the last. He 
 had no occasion for patriotic enthusiasm. John 
 Fairmeadow wanted another drink. . . . 
 And a Barrack Room Ballad or two. By the 
 living God that made you, you 1 re a better man 
 than I am. . . . Kipling fairly kept John 
 Fairmeadow in drink. And John Fairmeadow 
 was systematic. He kept a little pocket-map of 
 the city he had it at Swamp's End and upon 
 this with the stub of a pencil he traced his 
 course from day to day. Beginning here in the 
 morning ; ending here at this corner saloon 
 after midnight You see, John Fairmeadow 
 must not panhandle the same saloon twice in a 
 week ; they might kick him out. As a matter 
 of fact they frequently did kick him out. Un- 
 fortunately, he would be so drunk at night, you 
 see, that he couldn't put a mark on the map ; 
 and in the morning, with only a general idea of
 
 i6o THEOLOGICAL TRAINING 
 
 where he had concluded the previous day's 
 pursuit of another drink, he would spin his yarn 
 ~he had a variety of pathetic stories, of course 
 where he had spun quiie a different one the 
 night before. John Fairmeadow didn't blame 
 them for kicking him out. It was unpleasant, 
 of course (not in the least humiliating) but 
 quite proper. And he couldn't resent it. 
 " A little behind the game." 
 
 Fairmeadow was ejected from Solomon's Cellar 
 near midnight in wet weather of the fall of the 
 year thrust up the stair by Dutch Paddy 
 and brutally kicked into the gutter. Solomon's 
 Cellar was an all-night haunt of drunkards but 
 a step from Mulberry Park. One might sleep 
 on the floor for the price of a glass of beer. 
 Fairmeadow had slept on the floor for six months ; 
 but they had kicked him out, at last and he was 
 penniless, and very drunk. Of all the degraded 
 men 'the cellar sheltered that night he was the 
 most abominable. They would not tolerate John 
 Fairmeadow : they kicked him out into the rain. 
 Solomon's Cellar was the last refuge ; there was 
 no lower place. And Fairmeadow was sick. 
 He was within a day or two, at most, of the al- 
 coholic ward. He had begun to drink in the 
 morning to drink heavily. Of course, Fair- 
 meadow must drink in the morning, always ; he 
 must drink in the morning. He was invariably
 
 THEOLOGICAL TRAINING 161 
 
 awakened, in those days, at five o'clock in the 
 morning, by thirst and horrible dreams. He was 
 invariably penniless ; but he must have a drink. 
 There was no hedging : there was no dodging. 
 Fairmeadow must make haste upon this business. 
 
 He would be shaking from head to foot of this 
 need of liquor. 
 
 " Fer Gawd's sake," it was his custom to 
 whine, " gimme a nickel fer a drink ! " 
 
 He would be so obviously in desperate need 
 that he would get his coin. He would have his 
 drink ; he would eagerly make haste for it lick- 
 ing his dry, blue lips in expectation his shuffle 
 sometimes urged to a staggering run. He would 
 have another drink, obtained in the same way : 
 after which he might wait a bit. . . . But he 
 had now been drinking himself drunk in the morn- 
 ing. It was indiscreet. He had known it. There 
 was only one end. One restrains oneself, you 
 know, until . . . The drunkard of Fair- 
 meadow's low type lives continuously in deadly 
 fear of delirium tremens. He goes to the verge. 
 He withdraws for a time. He is frightened ; 
 he dare go no further. And then, all at once, 
 before he knows it, the poor wretch has stepped 
 beyond, and . . . And John Fairmeadow 
 of the Bowery had three times known the terrors 
 of that delirium. 
 
 Fairmeadow had that morning determined to
 
 162 THEOLOGICAL TRAINING 
 
 have a lodging-house cot for the night. It was 
 a bitter morning wet and cold, the wind blus- 
 tering up from the Battery. Fairmeadow must 
 have a bed, that night, he knew, to keep the life 
 in his shivering body ; but to have the bed he 
 must save fifteen cents. He began at noon to 
 deny himself. But restraint fretted and unnerved 
 him. The objective of his day's beseeching for 
 alms, of course, was stupor at night; how diffi- 
 cult for him, then, to withhold his gain with a 
 broken will ! He panhandled ten cents at noon. 
 A stroke of good luck ! Very good. It was 
 early only noon. He could surely afford an- 
 other drink. And having had it, five cents re- 
 mained. He stowed the coin away this first 
 saving for his bed. The drink inspired him : he 
 was quite sure, now, that he would be able to 
 add ten cents to the five before late night that 
 he would have the strength to beg it and the will 
 to keep it. He must have a bed. It was the 
 fall of the year, you see ; and it was sleeting a 
 wet, killing wind blowing up from the sea. He 
 must surely sleep under cover that night. But 
 luck changed and he wanted another drink. 
 He had it, of course. He fought for an hour 
 he worked himself into a nervous sweat to keep 
 the coin in his pocket. But he could not keep 
 it ; and he had known all along that he could 
 not. 
 
 Here was night coming down : a cold night
 
 THEOLOGICAL 'TRAINING 163 
 
 wet and blowing. And John Fairmeadow must 
 not sleep out ; there must be no deserted truck 
 for a bed no park bench no shelter of the 
 Bridge no draughty cellar no huddled repose 
 in the warm air ascending from some sidewalk 
 grating. He must not sleep out. He must not : 
 he did not dare. It was unseasonable weather. 
 John Fairmeadow was not ready for it : he had 
 no shirt he had nothing, indeed, but coat and 
 trousers and broken shoes. It was no night for 
 a sick man for a man as desperately ill as Fair- 
 meadow to sleep in the bitter air. But nobody 
 heeded him. And here was despair. Still no- 
 body heeded him. He begged in despair. He 
 whined he raged. He was wet, you see : it was 
 late it would presently be too late. 
 
 Too late i 
 
 And 
 
 " M' friend," said a tipsy young fellow, " it's 
 time you were in bed." 
 
 Fairmeadow found a quarter in the palm of 
 his hand. 
 
 Well, here was luck ! This wasn't so bad, to 
 be sure ! All at once Fairmeadow had his bed 
 there in his hand. And he had a surplus. 
 Fifteen from twenty-five is ten. Ten cents is 
 equal to two glasses of cheapest whiskey. Fair- 
 meadow had one glass at once, of course ; and 
 presently he had another and wanted the third.
 
 164 THEOLOGICAL TRAINING 
 
 But he must not have the third : there was no 
 money to be spared for the third. He felt better, 
 however immensely better. He was mistaken, 
 after all, it seemed ; he was not going to be sick. 
 He felt well jolly well. So far as a bed was 
 concerned why he did not need a bed. He 
 could do without it at a pinch. And he did 
 want and need another drink. He had it, of 
 course ; he could not help himself. And now he'd 
 done it ! He had broken his bed money. But 
 having done this, why not have the other two 
 drinks ? What was the use of keeping ten cents 
 over night ? Why shouldn't he fortify himself ? 
 So he had the two drinks : he could not help it. 
 And drunk, bewildered, shivering, he made his 
 way to Solomon's Cellar, from which, when he 
 had slept a little, they kicked him out, because 
 he could not buy a glass of beer, because he was 
 filthy, because he was ill-mouthed, because he was 
 all quivering of nearness to the alcoholic ward. 
 
 Fairmeadow stumbled to a bench in Mulberry 
 Park and there sat down in the rain. 
 " How long ? " he wondered, stupidly, 
 It was a bitter night : a cold, sleety night, and 
 late of it, with a killing wind driving up from the 
 harbour. There was nobody about : a staggerer, 
 only two children bearing burdens beyond their 
 strength a shrewish woman in her cups. It was 
 very late. The tenement hum and shuffle had 
 long ago ceased.
 
 THEOLOGICAL TRAINING 165 
 
 Two men approached. 
 
 " Per Gawd's sake," Fairmeadow besought 
 them it was the last time the whine passed his 
 lips " gimme a nickel fer a drink ! " 
 
 Up-town, the children's prayers had all long 
 ago been said : the cradles and cribs and little 
 beds held each its burden of innocent flesh and 
 sweet untroubled spirit. The polite world was 
 still employed with its diversions with love, 
 laughter and young romance with its aspira- 
 tions and glittering hilarities. Of what hap- 
 pened, then, in Mulberry Park, however, John 
 Fairmeadow has no very distinct recollection. 
 He recalls that he reeled off towards the Bowery 
 that he had no money for a drink that he 
 wanted a bed-ticket that he had been promised 
 a bed-ticket that he must get that bed-ticket or 
 die that he would surely get the bed-ticket if 
 he kept on. 
 
 Jerry McAuley, who first conceived a mission 
 of rescue to the exhausted underworld outcasts 
 it stands to this day in the evening shadow of 
 Brooklyn Bridge in Water Street was once ag- 
 itated by that which thereafter remained to him 
 a mysterious and profoundly amazing experi- 
 ence. It was a vision : he so called it a dream, 
 a trance, a vision. He was then, he used to say, 
 not in the spirit of the Lord's day, as St. John of 
 the Patmos revelation ; he was at work singing
 
 166 THEOLOGICAL 'TRAINING 
 
 at his work. It was broad day. The sun shone. 
 Except within the dreamer's consciousness there 
 was of course no interruption of the sound and 
 movement of the workaday world of which he 
 was a part. Presently, however, he was in some 
 way withdrawn. " My mind," he was used to 
 explaining, bewildered for words, " became ab- 
 sorbed." A house was revealed : not a habita- 
 tion, perhaps a house of singular healing, from 
 which a multitude of outcast men, having en- 
 tered shuffling and ashamed, evil, filthy and in 
 rags, emerged clean and exalted, and went each 
 his way in the proper stature of a man. The 
 vision was so real-appearing, so vivid and com- 
 plete and significant, that McAuley fancied it 
 a direct and divine revelation an objective, 
 at least, towards which his life must there- 
 after by divine direction tend. It could have 
 been no more surely a moving reality of the 
 dreamer's experience had a cloud of witnesses 
 confirmed the fact and substance of it. 
 
 " I seemed to have a house in the Fourth 
 ward," he used to say ; " and there was a bath, 
 and thousands of wretched men came to my 
 house, and as they came in I washed them out- 
 side and the Lord washed them inside." 
 
 It was to this house that John Fairmeadow 
 came. And that night because of what hap- 
 pened in the house of Jerry McAuley's vision 
 Swamp's End became inevitable in John Fair-
 
 THEOLOGICAL 'TRAINING 167 
 
 meadow's life. There was nothing else for it : 
 John Fairmeadow must do precisely what pres- 
 ently he set out to do and eventually accom- 
 plished. The same miracle had been worked 
 many times before in the house of McAuley's 
 vision. It will be worked again many, many 
 times again. It will have the same effect in the 
 lives of the men who have been made clean. It 
 will impel them to go out to go out into the 
 wide world and to work therein to work therein 
 and to find peace in their own labour.
 
 XVII 
 A FATHER FOR THE BABY 
 
 LITTLE Pattie Batch of Swamp's End in 
 the lumber woods had from the very be- 
 ginning intended never to be married ; 
 but with the advent of the baby shortly there- 
 after, to be precise she had changed her mind. 
 It was not often that the positive little creature 
 was disposed to weakness of this description ; but 
 she had all at once gone round about in the mat- 
 ter with something of a jerk, indeed, and in 
 surprise, like a robin turning its head and she 
 had now firily decided. At first, however, when 
 the baby was quite new, conceiving herself then 
 to have been made altogether independent of a 
 Mr. Pattie Batch by this amazing stroke of good 
 luck, her ancient resolve against matrimony had 
 grown all of a sudden fixed and gigantic. 
 " Why," thinks she, in gleeful illumination and 
 as though shaking a defiant little fist in the face 
 of the whole masculine world " I I I don't 
 have t', do I ? " All very well : but presently the 
 baby well, of course, as everybody knows, a 
 baby is everywhere a fashioning power. One 
 never can tell what extraordinary changes a baby 
 
 1 68
 
 A FATHER for The BABY 169 
 
 will work without so much as a word or a wink 
 or a by-your-leave. And this baby Pattie 
 Batch's baby began at once to revolutionize 
 the adoring universe of Pattie Batch's little cabin 
 at the edge of the big woods. 
 
 It was not Pattie Batch's very own baby ; nor, 
 of course, was it John Fairmeadow's baby : it was 
 nobody's baby, at all, indeed in so far as the 
 bedraggled lumber town of Swamp's End was 
 aware. It was a foundling child, the gift of a 
 winter's gale, brought to Pattie Batch, as may be 
 recalled, in ease of her desolation and in advance- 
 ment of its own fortunes, by John Fairmeadow, 
 to whom it had mysteriously been bequeathed by 
 a Shadow, now vanished, and never seen again. 
 A welcome gift, to be sure ! with Gray Billy Batch 
 lost in the Rattle Water rapids in the drive of that 
 year, and his tender daughter, left abandoned by 
 his death, living alone and disconsolate in the log 
 cabin at the edge of the big, black woods. More- 
 over, Pattie Batch had with her whole heart always 
 wanted a baby ; and now that she had a baby 
 a baby to polish, at the appointed intervals, from 
 the crown of its head to the very most cunning 
 of all created toes a suitable and amazing in- 
 fant in every respect she was content with all 
 the gifts of fortune. 
 
 When, next morning after the baby's astonish- 
 ing arrival in the arms of John Fairmeadow,
 
 170 A FATHER for The BABY 
 
 Pattie Batch bent in a glow of motherly adora- 
 tion over the morsel in the basket 
 
 " By ginger ! " thinks she, " I'd jutht like t> 
 thee the Prethident o' the United Thtateth athk 
 me t' marry him." 
 
 The baby, of course, chuckled his approbation : 
 whereupon Pattie Batch ferociously declared 
 
 " Pd thquelch him ! " 
 
 What of the untoward and in what over- 
 whelming measure might instantly have hap- 
 pened to the poor gentleman, in the event of a 
 declaration so presumptuous, heaven knows ! 
 An indication of the sorrowful catastrophe, 
 however, in which a similar temerity would 
 surely have involved the bold gentlemen of 
 Swamp's End and Elegant Corners, was con- 
 veyed in Pattie Batch's mounting flush, in the 
 flash of her scornful gray eyes, in her attitude of 
 indignation, in her rosy little fists, and, most of 
 all, perhaps, in the saucy but infinitely bewitch- 
 ing tilt of her dimpled chin. She would not 
 at that moment have indulged the choicest 
 flower of those parts not with a perfectly 
 satisfactory baby already in her possession. 
 
 Pattie Batch, having declared her loyalty to 
 the baby, kissed his round cheek so softly that 
 it might very well have been the caress of a 
 dewdrop; and then she lifted him from the 
 basket, and let him lie ' on her breast, where, if 
 you will believe it, he just exactly, fitted.
 
 A FATHER for The BABY 171 
 
 And- 
 
 " Huh 1" she snorted, " I reckon Vm not 
 athkin' no odds o' nobody." 
 Kings and emperors included ! 
 
 Subsequently, however, motherly little Pa- 
 tience Batch, forever on the lookout for mena- 
 cing circumstances, had all of a sudden dis- 
 covered a lack in the baby's life. The need, 
 indeed, was a swift and poignant revelation, and 
 bitter, too, to the mother-taste ; and like the 
 untoward it remained thereafter in Pattie 
 Batch's memory fixed in its scene. Pattie Batch 
 recalls to this day that the sun was warmly 
 shining, that a little breeze flowed over the pines 
 and splashed into Gray Billy Batch's lazy clear- 
 ing, where it rippled the fragrant grasses, and 
 that the twitter and amorous call of spring were 
 in the soft wind. It was Sunday : an interval of 
 rest from the wash-wash-washing for the Bottle 
 River camps in behalf of the baby's education. 
 Pattie Batch had polished the baby she had 
 soaked, swabbed, scrubbed and scraped the 
 baby until the delicious morsel shone to a 
 point of radiancy that might fairly have blinded 
 the unaccustomed beholder; and the Blessed 
 One, with that patience with love which dis- 
 tinguished and endeared it, had done noth- 
 ing but smile, in bored toleration of all this 
 motherly foolishness, from the moment of first
 
 172 A FATHER for 'The BABY 
 
 unbuttoning to the happy time of buttoning up 
 again. 
 
 Pattie Batch had the baby, now, in a sunlit 
 patch of wild-flowers at the edge of the woods, 
 which, presently, the lumber-jacks from the 
 Bottle River camps, drifting from the dim forest 
 trail to the clearing of Swamp's End for Sunday 
 diversion, went passing. She heard laughter 
 going by. It was no clean, boyish glee : it was 
 a blasphemous outburst by which, however, 
 bred at Swamp's End, Pattie Batch would not 
 have been greatly disturbed, had not the baby, 
 catching ear of it, too, crowed in response. 
 
 It was the answering call Pattie Batch 
 fancied in a flash of man to man. 
 
 " What you laughin' at ? " she demanded. 
 
 The baby chuckled. 
 
 " Thtop it ! " said Pattie Batch, severely. 
 
 By now the laughter of the men had gone 
 down the trail ; but the baby was still chuckling, 
 with a little ear cocked for the vanishing hilarity. 
 
 "What you laughin' at?" Pattie whispered. 
 
 The baby stared in amused bewilderment. 
 
 " Thtop it ! " Pattie commanded, scowling in a 
 rage of fear. She caught the baby's dimpled 
 hand a rough grasp. " Don't laugh like 
 that!" she pleaded. 
 
 Of course, the baby was infinitely astonished, 
 and puckered his lips, in protest that whatever it 
 was, he couldn't help it ; and he would next
 
 A FATHER for The BABY 173 
 
 instant have surprised the woods his mouth 
 was opening wide had not the motherly little 
 thing snatched him to herself. 
 
 " Never mind ! " she crooned, contritely ; " oh, 
 never mind never mind ! " 
 
 Now, her heart in a flutter, Pattie Batch tried 
 to interpret its agitation in definite terms ; and 
 presently she understood that the baby was a 
 departing guest It was the inevitable revela- 
 tion. For a moment she stood at bay against 
 the law of growth and change, amazed, pale, 
 her rosy little fists clenched, her sweet red lips 
 tight shut, her gray eyes pools of resentful fire. 
 Love is no trifling, nor any free delight : it costs 
 to love, and there is no easing of the obligation ; 
 but there abides in love the seed of its own 
 salvation. Pattie Batch cried a little. It would 
 malign her motherly heart to protest that she 
 did nothing of the sort. But at least she had 
 the decency to turn her face away from the baby 
 who had nothing to do, of course, with the 
 law of growth, and was innocent of blame and 
 to manage a wry and glistening smile when she 
 turned about again. She picked the baby up, 
 then, from his bed and throne of flowers, and 
 hugged him tight, and kissed him until he 
 squirmed : whereupon she set him away, and 
 stood off, regarding him in awe and willful 
 accusation and at once began to cry again, her 
 heart yielding against her will.
 
 174 A FATHER for The BABY 
 
 John Fairmeadow was no longer a Bowery 
 outcast. He was now a strapping, rosy, bub- 
 bling young fellow with a mighty zeal in behalf 
 of a clean world ; and he was in the days of this 
 stressful time engaged with a broom of lusty 
 faith upon the accumulations at Swamp's End 
 and all the shanty towns of his big, green parish. 
 It promised to be, he sometimes fancied, a per- 
 manent employment ; but every morning, with a 
 soul refreshed, he took off his coat, rolled up his 
 sleeves, seized his broom and turned to once 
 more, with a smile and a hearty will, his zeal not 
 in the least discouraged by the magnitude of his 
 task. He was a fine figure of a man, body and 
 soul : he was known to Swamp's End as a man 
 a jolly, pugnacious, sensitive, prayerful fellow, 
 with a pure purpose in the world and a fixed de- 
 termination to achieve it. He had twinkling 
 gray eyes, broad shoulders, a solid jaw, a straight 
 back and a tender voice. It was not, however, 
 with these charms nor with those which have 
 been omitted from this catalogue that he im- 
 pressed a better way upon his remote and rebel- 
 lious parishioners ; it'was rather with a masterful 
 intention, amazing devotion, a pair of dependable 
 and intelligent fists, good fellowship, and gener- 
 osity unfailing and just. A worthy fellow, in- 
 deed, from his soft utterance in prayer to his roar 
 of laughter in the glow of the bunk-house fires ! 
 
 Turning, now, from the Bottle River trail he
 
 A FATHER for The BABY 175 
 
 was bound out to the camps for Sunday preach- 
 ing he came upon Pattie Batch in tears at the 
 edge of the woods. " Why, why, why ! " he ex- 
 claimed aghast ; " what's all this, child ? " 
 
 " Nothin'," said Pattie Batch. 
 
 " Nothing ! " John Fairmeadow protested. 
 
 " Well," Pattie Batch drawled, with a snuffle, 
 4t I'm jutht cryin' a HT bit." 
 
 " I should think you were," said John Fair- 
 meadow. "There's a tear on the tip of your 
 nose. But why 9 " 
 
 " Nothin'," Pattie Batch replied, indifferently. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " John Fairmeadow declared. 
 
 " Nothin' much" said Pattie Batch. 
 
 John Fairmeadow inquiringly lifted Pattie 
 Batch's little brown hand whereupon Pattie 
 Batch looked shyly away without very well 
 knowing why and demanded an explanation. 
 
 " It'th the baby," Pattie Batch admitted. 
 
 " Preposterous 1 " said John Fairmeadow, in 
 disgust ; " the baby isn't old enough to hurt 
 anybody 's feelings." 
 
 " The baby," Pattie Batch sighed, " hath got 
 t' grow up." 
 
 " Glad of it 1 " cried John Fairmeadow. " I'm 
 delighted ! " 
 
 " Ithn't goin' t' be no baby no more \ " 
 
 " Of course not ! " said John Fairmeadow. 
 ' Have you nothing better to do than cry over 
 that?"
 
 176 A FATHER for The BABY 
 
 "Well," Pattie Batch flashed, "I gueth I 
 know my bithneth. I'm a mother," she de- 
 clared, indignantly. 
 
 For the life of him, John Fairmeadow could 
 discover no cause of grief in this fine prospect of 
 growth. " Good heavens ! " said he, " why 
 shouldn't the baby grow up? Hasn't he the 
 right to grow up if he wants to ? " 
 
 Pattie Batch sat up with a jerk and stared at 
 John Fairmeadow. " What say ? " she gasped. 
 
 " Hasn't he the right to grow up ? " 
 
 Pattie Batch pondered this. Presently she 
 sighed and wiped her gray eyes. " Thith here 
 baby dothn't belong t' me at all," she said, 
 slowly, with the resignation inevitable in good 
 mothers when the revelation is complete ; " he 
 belong th to himthelf! " 
 
 A good thing to have over and done with ! 
 
 Pattie Batch, resolute little heart ! was not 
 much given to weeping ; and once having faced 
 the inevitable persuaded, now, too, that a soul 
 is its own possession she dried her tears com- 
 pletely and turned with rising courage to re- 
 fashion her motherly strategy in the light of this 
 new vision. There would be growth and change 
 and going away. The baby would grow up : 
 the baby would presently disappear in the boy, 
 and the boy, like a flying shadow, would vanish 
 in the man. Very well, what then ? A revision
 
 A FATHER for The BABY 177 
 
 of her love in its forms of expression, certainly. 
 Pattie Batch, moreover, must instantly devise a 
 plan. It began to rain, by and by ; the lazy 
 breeze, flowing over the pines, brought at night- 
 fall a cold drizzle : and Pattie Batch, the baby 
 stowed away in rosy sleep, drew up to the fire 
 to think, in her father's way. Then and there, 
 for the baby, she scattered her future to the 
 winds of chance, emptied her heart of its abiding 
 desires and overturned her little world. She sat 
 for a long time, heart and mind washed clean of 
 selfishness, dreaming heavily, in the glow, con- 
 cerning the making of Men. How should one 
 make a Man ? What was demanded ? What 
 cleverness what labour what sacrifice? And 
 the night had not far sped before wise little Pat- 
 tie Batch came gravely to her momentous con- 
 clusion. Only a man, she determined, could 
 make a Man. 
 
 John Fairmeadow tapped at the door, and, 
 heartily bidden, entered for a moment from the 
 rainy wind. " Well, well ! " said he ; " it's high 
 time all little mothers were in bed. Come, come, 
 my good woman ! I just dropped in to pack 
 you off." 
 
 " Thith here little mother," said Pattie Batch, 
 with a saucy toss, " ith almighty bithy." 
 
 " Busy ! " cried John Fairmeadow. 
 
 "Yep," Pattie Batch declared; "but she'th 
 pretty near through."
 
 178 A FATHER for me BABY 
 
 John Fairmeadow demanded to know, of 
 course, what the little mother had been bother- 
 ing her pretty brains with. 
 
 " Nothin'," said Pattie Batch. 
 
 " None o' that ! " John Fairmeadow pro- 
 tested. 
 
 " Anyhow," said Pattie Batch, " nothin' much." 
 
 " Out with it, young woman ! " 
 
 " I th'pothe," Pattie Batch drawled, " that I 
 got t' get married." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " John Fairmeadow ejaculated. 
 
 " By ginger ! " Pattie Batch burst out, with a 
 slap of her knee, " I got t' get thith here baby a 
 father." 
 
 " A what ? " 
 
 " A father for thith here baby.' 
 
 John Fairmeadow jumped. " Patience Batch," 
 said he, promptly, " how would I do ? " 
 
 " Thertainly not ! " said Pattie Batch. 
 
 " Why not ? " John Fairmeadow wanted to 
 know. 
 
 " Becauthe," drawled Pattie Batch. 
 
 " I'd be an excellent parent," John Fairmeadow 
 declared. " I'd be an excellent parent for any 
 baby. Why, I'd " 
 
 " John Fairmeadow ! " Pattie exclaimed. 
 
 " What's the matter with me ? " Fairmeadow 
 demanded. " Why wouldn't I do ? " 
 
 " The idea ! " cried Pattie Batch, her gray eyes 
 popping.
 
 A FATHER for The BABY 179 
 
 John Fairmeadow was forthwith shooed into 
 the night and rainy wind to cool his ardour. 
 
 John Fairmeadow laughed all the way to 
 Swamp's End. Sometimes it was a roar of 
 laughter, with his head thrown back ; sometimes 
 it was a quiet chuckle ; sometimes it was laugh- 
 ter without much mirth in it, at all. But at any 
 rate, he was vastly amused with the situation ; and 
 he continued his doubtful laughter to the door of 
 Pale Peter's saloon at Swamp's End. As for 
 Pattie Batch, the conscientious little thing sat 
 brooding for a long, long time ; and she deter- 
 mined, at last and fin'ly that however much 
 the baby might need a father, John Fairmeadow 
 would never do. Never 1 He would not do at 
 all / Admirable as he was in general good and 
 kind as he was he was not desirable as a parent. 
 Pattie Batch could not explain, possibly, pre- 
 cisely how she had come to this conclusion ; but 
 that she did come to it and that thereupon she 
 resolutely crossed John Fairmeadow off the list of 
 prospective fathers is a matter of history. She 
 must address herself, she fancied, to the task of 
 discovering somebody else ; and having dis- 
 covered a person of promise, she determined she 
 would not let the grass grow under her feet. It 
 would perhaps be a difficult task it would surely 
 be a delicate one to disclose her mind to the 
 victim ; but this must be done, and done with
 
 i8o A FATHER for 'The BABY 
 
 good cheer, for the baby's sake. Singularly 
 enough, when Pattie Batch had put the baby to 
 bed for the night, and when, too, she had put her 
 sweet little self to bed, she began to cry. This 
 narrative, however, must now concern itself, not 
 with the matrimonial adventures of Pattie Batch, 
 but with the matrimonial adventures of no less a 
 person than Gingerbread Jenkins, and the part 
 that big John Fairmeadow played in them. 
 
 It will be recalled that Gingerbread Jenkins, 
 having discovered Plain Tom Hitch agreeably 
 employed with a flower, determined to reform. 
 
 " I reckon I'll get married," said he, " an' settle 
 down." 
 
 John Fairmeadow had a word to say about 
 that ; and what John Fairmeadow said and what 
 he did old John Rowl, of Bottle River, can tell 
 better than anybody else.
 
 XVIII 
 GINGERBREAD 
 
 IT was snowing at Swamp's End. The flakes 
 were shaken to the wind from a thick sky 
 to which the moon gave a narrowing circle 
 of misty light. The gale came from the farther 
 northwest. It ran over the pines, broken free of 
 the mountains, and, careering unaware, tumbled 
 headlong into the little clearing at Kettle camp 
 of the Bottle River cutting, where it swirled be- 
 wildered and angry. Having rattled the win- 
 dows of the bunk-houses in a flush of indigna- 
 tion and having shaken the doors in complaint 
 and having beaten the roofs in a vicious prank 
 of the night and having poked cold and search- 
 ing fingers with impudent curiosity into every 
 smallest crevice of these low log habitations 
 and having howled in the lustiest fashion through 
 all the agitated experience it rushed away to 
 the big woods, whisking off the smoke of the 
 cabin fires and their short-lived sparks. The 
 smoke found good company and an engaging 
 adventure with the roistering wind, it seemed ; 
 but the aspiring little sparks, flashing gladly in 
 the free wind's wake, died of frosty hardship in 
 the first eager flight. It was Sunday night : an 
 
 181
 
 1 8a GINGERBREAD 
 
 idle time with cold weather and a blinding gale 
 to keep men close to encouraging company and 
 to the fires. Rowl, the sealer, weathered to the 
 knot and grain of his tall nature by fifty years of 
 forest labour, and grown vastly sentimental in 
 the same silence and isolation and forming com- 
 panionship, kicked open the door of the superin- 
 tendent's stove and flung in more wood, growl- 
 ing contemptuously in answer to the wind's big 
 roaring, his big face scowling and red in the 
 furnace glow. 
 
 " Married ? " Rowl growled. " Of course, he's 
 married ! " 
 
 The superintendent laughed. 
 
 "Why shouldn't he be married?" Rowl de- 
 manded. 
 
 "Why should he?" the superintendent re- 
 torted. 
 
 "For one reason," Rowl drawled, "be- 
 cause John Fairmeadow was willin' t' tie the 
 knot." 
 
 The superintendent laughed again, " But you 
 see," he began, " Gingerbread Jenkins ' 
 
 " Look here ! " Rowl interrupted, impatiently. 
 "It's all very well for you young lusty bucks t' 
 squat here at this fire on a windy night an' guess 
 about men an' women. It's all very well for you 
 t' warm your shanks, an' toast your souls, an' 
 gab an' declare about men an' women. It's all 
 very well for you t' take a child's chart o' the
 
 "It's all very well for you t' warm your shanks an' toast your 
 souls," Roul growled.
 
 GINGERBREAD 183 
 
 world in your hands an' discover the worth of a 
 man to a woman an' the service she owes him. 
 It's all very well for you, I've no doubt, t' look 
 for God's purposes in the dark an' troubled 
 hearts of us all with a lantern o' half-baked ex- 
 perience an' devil's wishes. It's youth t' guess 
 t' guess, an' t' have no obligations, an' t' pay 
 nothin'. It's youth t' take without thinkin', an' 
 t' complain o' burnt fingers. It's youth t' blame 
 God for its own stupidity. It's youth t' plan a 
 better world than the Ancient of Days Himself 
 could make with His own Almighty Hands out 
 o' the knowledge of His years and all the pain 
 o' them. It's youth to excuse itself, an' t' find 
 fault, an' t' whine of injustice, an' t' curse the 
 law it has stupidly offended. It's age t' laugh 
 at guesses ; it's age t' content itself with wonder 
 t' find wisdom in visions t' know the law to 
 accept an' t' be still. An' as for Gingerbread Jen- 
 kins an' John Fairmeadow an' the woman," he 
 concluded, his emotion breaking in a quiet 
 chuckle, "why " 
 
 " Well ? " said the superintendent. 
 
 " Well," the sealer drawled, " I never could 
 quite figure it out that a sot o' Swamp's End had 
 much t' spare in the same room with the mother 
 of a child." 
 
 "What child?" 
 
 " Why, any child ! " Rowl burst out. " Any- 
 body's child ! Don't you understand ? "
 
 1 84 GINGERBREAD 
 
 Rowl went on with the tale of Gingerbread 
 Jenkins. . . . 
 
 " 'Tis a big and curious world, no doubt," 
 Rowl began, after a little brooding pause, with a 
 chuckle in which was more of melancholy than 
 of laughter, " an' no discredit t' the reputation of 
 its Maker, as I do grant an' believe. I've been a 
 lover o' books, in my time, though no great 
 reader o' the hearts o* livin' men ; but 'tis doubt- 
 less true o' cities, as 'tis the almighty truth o' 
 these woods, that a man's soul gives him small 
 bother 'til he's strangled it. 'Tis right there on 
 the job, mindin' its own business, workin' over- 
 time, with as little fuss as may be an* no thanks 
 at all, t' turn out courage an' hope an' kindness 
 fresh for the day's need. But in all the world 'tis 
 God help a man once he's seen his soul lyin' 
 dead at his feet ! There's always a land left, no 
 doubt, where the law can't find a man, a new 
 place, on the face o' the earth, t' hide from what 
 can't follow ; but there's no new land for the 
 man who's once clapped eyes on his own dead 
 soul. An' that was the trouble with poor Ginger- 
 bread Jenkins. He come blithe from the north 
 coast, by way o' the Maine woods, t' log out 
 here on Bbttle River, a lad as clean as morning, 
 with a taste for stars an' trees an' the habit o' 
 chuckles, an' with the same word for all women 
 as for the mother he'd write to every Sunday
 
 GINGERBREAD 185 
 
 night, by the light of a lantern in his bunk. But 
 'twas no great tale of years, as the years fall 
 upon careful men, before Pale Peter's whiskey 
 an' the lights o' Swamp's End had turned him 
 into the gray-headed, frowzy little grouch that he 
 was before John Fairmeadow got hold of him. 
 
 " ' Good God 1 ' they'd say, that knew him 
 once, ' is that young Gingerbread Jenkins ? ' 
 
 " ' Jus' the leavin's,' says I. ' That used t' be 
 Gingerbread Jenkins. The devil's picked him 
 t' the bones.' 
 
 " ' Quick work,' says they. 
 
 " 'The devil feeds fast on a good man,' says I, 
 1 when not interrupted.' 
 
 " But Gingerbread didn't know. 
 
 " ' Rowl,' Gingerbread whined once, last win- 
 ter, when he come crawlin' back t' camp from 
 Swamp's End, all a-jump from liquor, ' I've had 
 my fling, now, and I'm through. I know when 
 / got enough. 1 
 
 " ' Huh ! ' says I. 
 
 " ' Yes, I am,' says he. ' I'm through. 1 
 
 " ' You're through, all right, 'til you make 
 another stake,' says I, ' an' get the stomach t' 
 hold it just where you'll put it.' 
 
 " ' I'm gettin' too old t' travel with the boys,' 
 says he. ' I'm tired, too, Rowl ; an' I want t' get 
 somebody t' take care o' me.' 
 
 " ' Who might that be ? ' says I.
 
 186 GINGERBREAD 
 
 " ' Well,' says he, ' a woman.' 
 
 " ' It's been done before,' says I. 
 
 " ' Jus' about time I married,' says he, ' an' set- 
 tled down.' 
 
 " ' It's been done before,' says I, ' by men like 
 you.' 
 
 " ' Yes,' says he ; ' that's the way it goes, as a 
 usual thing. You see, Rowl, it's natural. When 
 a man gets t' my age he's pretty much always 
 had his fill ; an' then he just naturally marries 
 an' settles down.' 
 
 " ' What you gettin' married for?'' says I. 
 
 " ' Well,' says he, ' nothin' like a good woman 
 t' steady a man. You take a good woman, 
 Rowl, an' if she's been well fetched up an' care- 
 ful of herself, she'll be clever at that, as well as 
 useful in other ways. That's the business o' 
 women. A good woman, Rowl a sweet little 
 womanly sort o' girl who's lived all her life in 
 her own home an' not seen too much o' the world 
 is jus* the sort o' wife a man who's lived too 
 free will get for himself if he knows what he's 
 about. An' a man who's lived too free isn't the 
 sort t' be fooled in a little matter like that. I 
 know you, Rowl,' says he, ' an' I know you're no 
 hand for matrimony ; but you're makin' a big 
 mistake. There ain't nothin' in the world like a 
 good woman t' take care of a man, an' steady 
 him, when he's had his fill. I been thinkin',' 
 says he, ' that if I went slow, an' picked 'em
 
 GINGERBREAD 187 
 
 over, an' chose with my eyes open, I might get 
 the right sort t' look after me. I'd be a sight 
 better off,' says he, ' with a little homestead out 
 here, an' a wife t' keep it, than I am sleepin' in a 
 bunk-house an' pushin' my stake over the bars 
 o' Swamp's End. An' anyhow,' says he, ' I'm 
 tired o' liquor.' 
 
 " ' You got a little woman handy ? ' says I. 
 
 " ' Not handy,' says he ; ' but back where I 
 come from, Rowl, there's a little girl that used t' 
 be wonderful fond o' me. She's a comfortable 
 little thing, too, Rowl, an' might answer very 
 well, if I give her a fair show in the beginning. 
 A man ought t' give a little girl like that a 
 chance t' get the hang o' things before he passes 
 judgment on whether she's goin' t' do or not. 
 There's many a man that doesn't ; but as for me, 
 I'm not o' that kind I got feelin's. I been 
 thinkin' o' the little thing back home,' says he, 
 ' but I haven't quite made up my mind.' 
 
 " ' How long is it since you've saw her ? ' says I. 
 
 " ' She's not overly old yet,' says he. 
 
 " ' What I meant t' say,' says I, ' is how long is 
 it since she's saw you f ' 
 
 '"A man,' says he, 'don't change much in 
 fifteen year.' 
 
 " ' That's all right,' says I ; 'but the thing for 
 you t' do, jus' now, Gingerbread, is t' report t' 
 the office an' go swampin' the new road t' the 
 landin' on Round Island Lake.'
 
 1 88 GINGERBREAD 
 
 " ' Swampin' ! ' says he. ' Me swampin' 
 again ! You jus' wait 'til I get married, Rowl, 
 an' I'll show you what a man like me can do.' 
 
 " ' Nothin' like a little swampin',' says I, ' t' 
 show a man jus' what he really can do.' " 
 
 Rowl paused in the tale. 
 
 And that was Gingerbread Jenkins : that was 
 the Gingerbread Jenkins of the old days and of 
 the days not long past. Rowl's listeners were 
 well aware of it. But there was a new Ginger- 
 bread Jenkins ; and it was concerning the new 
 man that the listeners were curious. They knew 
 that John Rowl knew and would enlighten them-; 
 and they drew a little closer to the fire and to the 
 old woodsman who was telling the tale.
 
 XIX 
 
 THE BOY HE USED TO KNOW 
 
 "IT "IT TELL," Rowl went on, " as you know, 
 
 \/\/ an' as everybody knows, Ginger- 
 ^ bread Jenkins went home, after the 
 drive o' that year, t' fetch a wife t' keep the 
 homestead he was bound t' have. 
 
 " ' I'll be back in the fall, Rowl,' says he, ' with a 
 tidy little wife t' make home attractive an' keep 
 me straight.' 
 
 " ' Ay,' says I. 
 
 " ' I've had my fill,' says he, ' an' I'm goin' t' 
 settle down. Pm wise,' says he, ' t' what's good 
 for me.' 
 
 " ' God help him ! ' thinks I ; ' he's a hard lesson 
 t' learn at the hand o' the Almighty's law, an' 
 may take unkindly t' the teachinV 
 
 " What the little girl that used t' love the 
 young eyes an' soul of him said, God knows ! 
 but I'm thinkin' she blushed ashamed, when the 
 leavin's o' young Gingerbread Jenkins croaked 
 o' love, an' that she was frightened, too, an' sick 
 at heart, an' that she prayed with tears, that night, 
 in her white little bed, because the Almighty had 
 given her new an' sadder knowledge o' the mys- 
 tery o' men. Anyhow, there was never a word 
 
 189
 
 190 The BOY HE USED to KNOW 
 
 of her from Gingerbread Jenkins when he turned 
 up alone in the fall o' the year ; nor has there 
 been since. She's back there, now, I'm thinkin', 
 with the grief an' loneliness that come t' women 
 who love an' are ill-taught about love by the men 
 they glorify. As for Gingerbread Jenkins, he'd 
 been back home, not only t' old places, but t' 
 other years ; an' memory had taught him the 
 change in his own soul, an' he was broken when 
 he come again t' the woods. 
 
 " ' I been back home, Rowl,' says he ; ' but I 
 didn't stay overlong.' 
 
 " 'You stopped at Swamp's End,' says I, 'on 
 the way back.' 
 
 " 'Jus' for a little liquor,' says he. 'You see, 
 Rowl, liquor's like medicine to a man like me.' 
 
 " ' Yes ? ' says I. 
 
 " ' I don't care nothin' about it no more/ says 
 he. ' It ain't a beverage ; it's jus' medicine for 
 a man like me.' 
 
 " ' Tis a poor cure,' says I, ' for a man's soul.' 
 
 " ' Well, Rowl,' says he, ' I got a good deal t' 
 forget.' 
 
 " ' See the folks ? ' says I. 
 
 " ' Spent most o' my time,' says he, ' with a lit- 
 tle boy.' 
 
 " ' That's queer,' says I. 
 
 " ' No,' says he ; 'it ain't queer at all.' 
 
 " ' Never knew,' says I, ' that you was much of 
 a hand for children.'
 
 The BOY HE USED to KNOW 191 
 
 " ' Well,' says he, ' I used t' know this little 
 feller real well.' 
 
 " ' Your nephew ? ' says I. 
 
 " ' No,' says he ; ' not my nephew. But I used 
 t' know him,' says he, ' real well.' 
 
 " ' 'Tis a wonder he knew you,' says I. 
 
 " ' Well,' says he, ' he had some doubts.' 
 
 " ' He must be growed up by this time,' says I. 
 
 " ' Well, no/ says he ; 'he wasn't growed at 
 all. Somehow or other,' says he, ' he was jus' 
 the same jolly little feller I used t' know real 
 well.' 
 
 " ' That's queer,' says I. 
 
 " ' You see, Rowl,' says he, ' all my folks is 
 dead, an' the folks that used t' know Jimmie 
 Jenkins, an* t' be real fond of him, too, has been 
 so busy, the last fifteen years, that they couldn't 
 quite take t' Gingerbread Jenkins. After I made 
 a little call on on well, on an old friend o' mine 
 I passed a good deal o' time alone; an' one 
 day where I was passin' the candy-shop I found 
 this little feller lookin' in the window. The little 
 monkey ! There he was, Rowl, lookin' in the 
 window o' the candy-shop, an' pickin' an' choos- 
 in' like mad. The little tyke ! I used t' know 
 him real well. A nice little feller, Rowl jus' a 
 real nice little boy I used t' know with blue 
 eyes an' freckles an' a little grin, Rowl, an' a 
 little laugh, an' a little head full o' the nicest kind 
 o' mischief. He didn't know no wickedness,
 
 192 The BOY HE USED to KNOW 
 
 Rowl ; an' he didn't know no trouble, an' every- 
 body loved him, too, you bet ! So after that me 
 an' him passed a good deal o' time together. 
 We went t' the woods, Rowl, an' t' Sunday- 
 school, an' t' the circus lot, an' down the river, 
 an' up t' the school-yard when the boys was in, 
 an' jus' everywhere else where the boys used t' 
 go when I was a boy like him. An' then, Rowl, 
 it struck me that he was a bit too young an' nice 
 t' be hangin' around with a man like me. Seemed 
 t' me, somehow, that I might spoil him. I 
 wanted to keep him friendly an' good ; an' so I 
 thought I'd better come back t' the woods where 
 Gingerbread Jenkins was born.' 
 
 " ' Seems t' me,' says I, ' that I, too, used t' 
 know that little feller.' 
 
 " ' You did,' says he ; ' but he was a bit older, 
 then.' 
 
 " ' He was a nice clean boy,' says I, ' when I 
 first knowed him.' 
 
 " ' Was he ? ' says he. ' Really mean it, Rowl?' 
 
 " 'A good boy,' says I. 
 
 " ' Rowl,' says he, all at once, ' I've lost my 
 soul ! ' 
 
 " ' It may be lyin' around somewhere handy,' 
 says I. ' I wouldn't worry.' 
 
 " ' I've lost it ! ' says he. 
 
 " ' Well,' says I, ' when a man once misses his 
 soul, an* wants it back again, he can usually find 
 it, if he takes the trouble t' look for it right away.'
 
 The BOY HE USED to KNOW 193 
 
 " ' I'll never find mine, 1 says he. 
 
 " ' Not,' says I, ' if you carry your candle in a 
 bottle.' 
 
 " ' I'm not goin' t' carry my candle in a bottle,' 
 says he. 
 
 " ' No ? ' says I. 
 
 " ' No, sir,' says he ; ' never no more, John 
 Rowl!' 
 
 " ' I've heard talk like that before, Ginger- 
 bread,' says I. 
 
 " ' Yes,' says he ; ' but I mean it' " 
 
 Rowl paused to sigh.
 
 XX 
 
 A LITTLE ABOUT LIFE 
 
 " f I A HEY care no more for a man's soul in 
 the shanty saloons of a Western 
 -*- lumber-town," the sealer continued, 
 presently, " than for a sour tin can. They toss 
 'em into the garbage-pail, or throw 'em into the 
 back yard, with the same wish t' keep their 
 barrooms clear o' litter. In Pale Peter's place at 
 Swamp's End, an' in every other ramshackle, 
 squattin', packin'-box-an' -tar-paper dive o' the 
 town, from the Cafe of Egyptian Delights t' the 
 Lumber-jacks' Rest, they never gave Ginger- 
 bread Jenkins a show. When Swamp's End 
 goes west-by-north on the trail o' the lumber 
 camps, I'm thinkin', there'll be a marvellous 
 heap o' castaway souls left with the tin cans an' 
 ol' shoes on the site of it. Gingerbread Jenkins 
 worked on Bottle River, last winter, an' wasted 
 in the saloons o' Swamp's End. 'You see, 
 Rowl,' says he, 'I got a good deal t' forget' 
 'Twas a week's harsh labour to his middle in 
 snow for a night's waste lined up at Pale Peter's 
 bar with a drove o' squealin' swine. ' You see, 
 Rowl, I've lost my soul,' says he, ' an' I jus' got 
 t' forget it.' A wonderful fuss he made about 
 
 194
 
 A LITTLE ABOUT LIFE 195 
 
 that soul when well gone in liquor. You know 
 the way he went on. There was never a man 
 so drunk none so foul that he wouldn't but- 
 tonhole an' bore him with a whimperin' tale of 
 his state an' condition an' what he used t' be. 
 But that was Gingerbread Jenkins. 'Twas spree 
 in town t' forget the shivers in camp. That was 
 Gingerbread Jenkins before John Fairmeadow 
 followed him out t' the middle o' No Man's Lake 
 an' opened his bottle in a blizzard o' wind an' 
 snow. 
 
 " I mind I encountered Gingerbread Jenkins, 
 shakin' with the liquor o' three days gone, an' 
 drunk with the day's drinks, leanin' over Pale 
 Peter's bar, that night. A mad night, too with 
 the crews from Kettle an' Big Bend paid off an' 
 spendin', an' an Irish outfit from the Yellow 
 Tree works t' help raise hell. 
 
 " ' Come out o' this ! ' says I. 
 
 " ' No time,' says he. 
 
 " ' No time, ye fool ! ' says I. ' You've no 
 time ? ' 
 
 " ' You see, Rowl,' says he, ' I'm busy.' 
 
 " ' 'Tis no strange occupation,' says I. ' You've 
 worked hard at it heretofore an' might rest.' 
 
 " ' All the same,' says he, ' I'm busy.' 
 
 " ' Gingerbread,' says I, 'what's this new job?' 
 
 '"Well, Rowl,' says he, 'I'm insultin' the 
 devil.' 
 
 "'Why?' says I.
 
 196 A LITTLE ABOUT LIFE 
 
 " ' I don't like him,' says he. ' He irritates 
 me. An' anyhow,' says he, ' I got my idea.' 
 
 " ' 'Tis a thankless profession,' says I. 
 
 "'You see,' says he, 'I'm. doin' jus' as much 
 damage as I can in the time I got left.' 
 
 " ' You'll never get even,' says I. 
 
 " ' Not if I waste my time like this,' says he. 
 ' I ain't got much time,' says he ; ' but by God ! 
 Rowl, I'll make the OF Man squirm while I can. 
 I'll sauce him ! I'm fightin' mad, Rowl. Never 
 was so mad before. I want t' get even, God 
 knows ! ' says he. ' I want t' get as near even 
 as I can with the devil that misled me. I ain't 
 got much time left, neither, t' do it in ; but I'm 
 usin' my time t' the best advantage.' With that 
 he turned t' the bar. 'What's t' become o' all 
 you boys, anyhow?' says he, lookin' the length 
 of it. ' Eh ? ' says he. ' Is you boys got t' 
 thinkin' you can dodge the lightnin' o' the Lord 
 God A' mighty? All hands at this here bar,' 
 says he, ' is a-goin' t' hell. That's what ! You're 
 hell bent, you poor damn' fools an' sots an' pigs. 
 Haven't I warned you ? Eh ? Haven't I been 
 hangin' over this here bar for the last half hour 
 a-tellin' you you're goin' t' hell? You can't 
 blame me for it.' He called the bartender, 
 then. ' Charlie, boy,' says he, in a whisper, 
 hardly able t' talk on account of his cold, ' pass 
 the bottle. I'm athirst an' parched for rum. 
 Look here, boys,' says he, when he'd swallowed
 
 A LITTLE ABOUT LIFE 197 
 
 his whiskey. ' There'll be some o' you get t' 
 hell before I do if the rum holds out an' the 
 signs read true. An' when you come face t' 
 face with OP Nick an' when the choir o' wee 
 black imps waves their little red-hot pitchforks 
 an' strikes up the hymn o' welcome an' when 
 Ol' Nick takes you by the hand you may do 
 me a favour, boys, if you've the mind. 
 
 " ' " Hist, Your Honour ! " says you ; " there's 
 a hand back there at Swamp's End that isn't no 
 friend o' yourn." 
 
 ju never believe it," says he. 
 
 < You'd best beware," says you ; " he's in- 
 sultin' you daily, an' he'd knife you in the back 
 if he got the chance." 
 
 '""At Swamp's End?" says he. "An' no 
 friend o' mine?" 
 
 " ' " The same," says you. 
 
 '"" Huh!" says he. "Well, well! Much 
 'bliged. I'll have t' look into this. My men is 
 doin' poorly in the lumber-woods these times." 
 
 " ' " Gingerbread Jenkins he's called," says 
 you. 
 
 " ' " I've many friends o' the name," says he. 
 
 " ' " He's doubtless down on the books," says 
 you, " as James Alfred Jenkins o' Argyle Harbour 
 on the North Coast. Don't you make no mistake 
 about the Jenkins," says you, " or you'll rue it. 
 An* don't you let him in here. You let Ginger- 
 bread Jenkins go Aloft in peace. Otherwise,
 
 198 A LITTLE ABOUT LIFE 
 
 Your Honour," says you, " there'll be a mutiny 
 in hell before you got time t' clap Gingerbread 
 Jenkins in irons." 
 
 " ' I reckon,' says Pale Peter's wee little boy, 
 who was sittin' on the bar at my elbow, ' that 
 Gingerbread Jenkins would never get in if /kep' 
 hell.' 
 
 " Well, well 1 " Rowl laughed, in a large and 
 hearty way, "the boys howled with delight an' 
 bought Gingerbread Jenkins another drink." He 
 sighed. " God help him I " said he. " I left him, 
 then, preachin' hell an' damnation, between 
 coughs, in that roarin' barroom, t' get even with 
 the devil, while time was left. He'd struck 
 bottom, all right an' struck hard, too : the little 
 Jimmie Jenkins that Gingerbread Jenkins used t' 
 know an' still loved. 
 
 " It was snowin' too hard for me t' take the 
 Bottle River trail that night. There was a big 
 gale blowin' down a thick nor' wester at thirty 
 below. Lord ! but 'twas a nasty cold night in 
 the open. I'd small stomach for the tote-load 
 from Grass Land in' through the Blasted Cedar 
 Muskeg : I'd none at all for the frost an' the sweep 
 o' the wind on No Man's Lake. So I sat in the 
 window o' Pale Peter's place I'm no hand with a 
 bottle an' watched the snow drive through the 
 light that fell warm an' yellow from the office. I 
 thought a deal about Gingerbread Jenkins per-
 
 A LITTLE ABOUT LIFE 199 
 
 haps overmuch an' softly for the harsh kind o' 
 man I am. I remembered the day that he come 
 t' the Bottle River camp : I remembered the 
 clean, live, young look of him, an' the hope he 
 had, an' the morning song on his lips, an' the 
 love o' life in his heart, an' the unspoiled soul 
 that was his. Well, well I he was a good boy, 
 was Gingerbread Jenkins a boy with a straight 
 back, an' free shoulders, an' a head held up, an' 
 eyes that never shifted, an' a laugh that wasn't 
 afraid of itself in company. I'm older than him ; 
 an' I used t' think, I remember, that t' Bottle 
 River at last had come a boy they couldn't spoil 
 of his youth an' his wages. I was young, then, 
 after all. I was only a poor damned fool. I didn't 
 know, as I know now, that never a boy was born 
 they wouldn't ruin on Bottle River. Ruin? 
 Ay ; never a boy they wouldn't ruin for the sheer 
 sport ! An' I kep' right on believin' in young 
 Gingerbread Jenkins, until, one Saturday night, 
 he went out t' Swamp's End, with ol' Bum Lush 
 an' Billy the Beast, t' learn about life. 
 
 " ' T' learn jus' a little,' says he, ' about life.' 
 
 " ' Don't you go, Jimmie,' says I. 
 
 " ' Jus' this once,' says he. ' I want to.' 
 
 " ' Don't you do it,' says I. 
 
 " ' Jus' once,' says he, ' won't do no harm.' 
 
 " ' Don't you go,' says I. 
 
 " ' Jus' this once,' says he. ' I'll only look on.' 
 
 " ' No, no ! ' says I.
 
 200 A LITTLE ABOUT LIFE 
 
 " ' Jus' this once,' says he. 
 
 " ' God help you, Jimmie ! ' says I. 
 
 " ' Jus' once,' says he. 
 
 " They fetched him back on Monday mornin'," 
 Rowl sighed, " pretty well informed. After that," 
 he added, repeating the sigh, " he was what you 
 might call a fairly inquirin' student. An' that's 
 the way it goes," he declared, scowling, "with 
 all the boys that come loggin' t' these woods." 
 
 It was still blowing high. The fire in the su- 
 perintendent's office had burned to expiring coals. 
 No comfortable glow of light no red warmth 
 no genial sparkle and crackling proceeded from 
 it. The room was cold. And now the frosty 
 gale intruded. It was blowing a blizzard out- 
 side ; all the world of the woods was bitter with 
 cold and wind and driven snow inimical with 
 night. The superintendent coaxed the fire to a 
 blaze and heaped it with dry wood ; and while 
 it sputtered and roared with the lusty intention 
 of recovering itself, they waited for the senti- 
 mental old sealer to resume the tale of Ginger- 
 bread Jenkins. 
 
 "John Fairmeadow," he went on, "tracked 
 Gingerbread Jenkins from Pale Peter's place t' 
 the middle o' No Man's Lake, the night I was 
 tellin' you about, an' fetched him home on his 
 back ; an' within five days from that time, Ginger- 
 bread Jenkins was converted."
 
 A LITTLE ABOUT LIFE 201 
 
 " Was what ? " said the superintendent. 
 
 " Converted ; 'tis the only word I know for the 
 thing." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Gingerbread Jenkins, I'm tellin' you ! " 
 
 The superintendent laughed. 
 
 " You may call it what you like," Rowl replied, 
 in a growl, " an' you may laugh to suit the 
 word ; but you don't prove nothin' t' me. I 
 know that John Fairmeadow tracked Ginger- 
 bread Jenkins t' the middle o' No Man's Lake, 
 that night, in a gale that chased me indoors, an' 
 you wouldn't face t' save life, an' that John F*air- 
 meadow found him there, broken out with the 
 snakes, tryin' t' open a bottle o' whiskey with 
 frozen hands, an' that he carried him home on 
 his own back, God knows how ! What John 
 Fairmeadow done to Gingerbread Jenkins, when 
 he got him home, I don't know, no more'n you 
 do; but I do know that he kep' Gingerbread 
 Jenkins in his own room over One Eyed Mag's 
 for five days, an' that at the end o' that time 
 Gingerbread Jenkins was converted, for John 
 Fairmeadow toF me so, an' Gingerbread Jenkins 
 didn't deny it. An' I know, too," Rowl went on, 
 his voice rising, "that Gingerbread Jenkins 
 wouldn't stir out-o* -doors without havin' Mag's 
 little Angel by the hand, an' that not a man o' 
 Swamp's End would ask Gingerbread Jenkins t' 
 take a drink when little Angel was along. An*
 
 202 A LITTLE ABOUT LIFE 
 
 I know, moreover," he concluded, " that in four 
 weeks Gingerbread Jenkins was himself again 
 that he came back t' the Big Chance Camp 
 that in three months he was rosy, an' clean, an' 
 strong, an' happy, an' no more afraid that he 
 was a boss on the Big River drive o' that spring 
 an' that in the fall o' the year he was offered a 
 superintendent's job by Ol' Rat Wallweather o' 
 the Yellow Forks Lumber Company." 
 
 " That's a good deal t' know," said the super- 
 intendent. 
 
 " No, it ain't," snapped Rowl. 
 
 " It's a good deal t' know." 
 
 " It's the kind o' thing that any fool can find 
 out an' know that wants to." 
 
 "Well," drawled the superintendent, "I ain't 
 much up on miracles." 
 
 " It's nothin' t' know at alf " said Rowl ; " but 
 it's a devil of a lot to explain '
 
 XXI 
 
 THAT MEASURE OF LOVE 
 
 ""W T'OU can bet your life," Rowl resumed, 
 j( " that they're all aware in hell that John 
 -- Fairmeadow is on the job in this sec- 
 tion. John Fairmeadow's on the job from the 
 Big River to the camps o' the Logosh Reserva- 
 tion. There isn't a barroom in four hundred 
 square miles where he can't call the bartender 
 Johnnie, nor a bunk-house where he isn't at 
 home ; an' you boys know it. He's a big man. 
 I mean it : he's a great big man a man of our 
 kind, and big by our scale. It took a man big 
 in body an' heart an' faith a bigger man than 
 me in the ways that we know as bigness t' put 
 Gingerbread Jenkins on his back in the middle 
 o' No Man's Lake an' fetch him t' Swamp's End 
 through the wind an' snow an' frost o' that night ; 
 an* it takes a bigger man than any other big man 
 I ever knew t' operate in a religious fashion, 
 without cant an' all manner o' foolishness, in the 
 bunk-houses an' bars an' dives o' these woods. 
 I'm no judge o' Christians, havin' handled none 
 in my business ; an' I've heard ill tales o' their 
 state in these days ; but I know that an ounce o' 
 John Fairmeadow t' the gallon o' this genera- 
 
 203
 
 204 that MEASURE of LOYE 
 
 tion's Christianity would cure the wrongs o' the 
 world in a day an' I draw my own conclusions. 
 'Tis said by the boys from the East that men 
 don't go t' church no more. I don't know : 
 maybe not. I don't care. Anyhow, John Fair- 
 meadow's a minister for men ; he's no little sister 
 o' the rich. 
 
 " At this time he hast headquarters with One 
 Eyed Mag, which keeps the Mother-Used-t'- 
 Make-It Restaurant, near the depot at Swamp's 
 End, a large an' flabby lady, not open t' sus- 
 picion, a perfectly respectable person, poor soul ! 
 on account o' one eye an' various other varieties 
 o' looks. These same headquarters was a home- 
 made institution o' one room with a barred win- 
 dow for the confinement an' cure o' the snakes. 
 There was a bit of a mystery at Mag's, too, with 
 which the parson had nothin' t' do. 'Twas in 
 the shape of a wee small girl a pretty little 
 rogue called Angel which Mag foster-mothered 
 like a lonely hen ; an' 'twas this child that had 
 led Gingerbread Jenkins around by the hand at 
 Swamp's End while the wish for liquor was yet 
 on him. 'Twas a mystery that couldn't be ac- 
 counted for by no guessin' the boys o' Swamp's 
 End was able for. 'Twas said that a lady from 
 Big Rapids come t' see the child when nobody 
 was lookin' a real lady o' fashion with reasons 
 of her own an' I'm able t' say, as it turned out,
 
 That MEASURE of LOl/E 203 
 
 that a lady from nearer than Big Rapids would 
 often slip in at the kitchen door of a dark night 
 t' see little Angel put t' bed ; but it wasn't no 
 lady o' fashion. 
 
 " ' I'm a converted man, parson,' says Ginger- 
 bread Jenkins, one day in the fall, ' but I'm jus' 
 as much ashamed o' myself as I used t' be. 
 Seems t' me,' says he, ' that a converted man 
 ought t' be doiri somethin'.' 
 
 " ' You're workin', Gingerbread,' says the par- 
 son. 
 
 " ' Oh, shucks ! ' says Gingerbread ; any fool 
 can work. I mean something big an' real.' 
 
 " ' For example, what ? ' says the parson. 
 
 " ' Well,' says Gingerbread Jenkins, ' takin' 
 care o' somebody.' 
 
 " ' For example, who ? ' says the parson. 
 
 " ' Well,' says Gingerbread, ' somebody, any- 
 how.' 
 
 " ' But who ? ' 
 
 " ' Well,' says Gingerbread, ' a woman.' 
 
 " The parson looked Gingerbread in the eye 
 for a long time. ' So ? ' says he. 
 
 " ' Yes,' says Gingerbread ; ' seems t' me that 
 every decent man ought t' be takin' care of a 
 woman, whether he's a converted Christian man 
 or not. What's a man/or f ' says he. ' An' who 
 else is goin' t' take care o' them? They can't 
 take care o' themselves, from what / know o' 
 them. An' so I'm fixed an' determined in this,'
 
 206 That MEASURE of LOl/E 
 
 says he, ' that a decent man ought t' get married, 
 an' settle down, an' take care o' somebody, an' 
 be somebody.' 
 
 " ' Are you able t' take care of anybody ?' says 
 the parson. 
 
 " ' I'm able,' says Gingerbread, ' if I'm fit.' 
 
 " ' Say that again,' says the parson. 
 
 " ' I'm able,' says Gingerbread, ' if I'm fit. But 
 that's what's botherin' me. I've lived free, in my 
 time,' says he, ' an' as I figure it out there isn't 
 much comin' t' the man that's lived free. So I'm 
 not askin' much in the way of a woman. The 
 more she'd need takin' care of,' says he, ' the 
 better I'd like it. You see,' says he, ' that's a 
 man's business? 
 
 " 'Say that again,' says the parson. 
 
 " ' What's the matter with you, anyhow ? ' says 
 Gingerbread Jenkins. ' You're hard o' hearin', 
 ain't you ? ' 
 
 " ' No,' says the parson ; 'but I'm s' prised.' 
 
 " ' I says,' says Gingerbread Jenkins, ' that the 
 more she'd need takin' care of, the better I'd like it.' 
 
 "The parson jumped up an' put his hands on 
 Gingerbread's shoulders. 'Do you mean it?' 
 says he. ' Do you mean it or are you talkin' ? ' 
 
 " ' Talkin' be hanged ! ' says Gingerbread 
 Jenkins. 'I'm not give t' talkin'. O' course, I 
 mean it ! ' 
 
 " ' You're a big man, Gingerbread,' says the 
 parson. ' I wonder how big.'
 
 That MEASURE of LOYE 207 
 
 " ' I don't know,' says Gingerbread. 
 
 " ' How big ? ' says the parson. 
 
 " ' Well/ says Gingerbread, ' you better meas- 
 ure an' see.' 
 
 " The parson walked the floor in a deal o' 
 trouble. By an' by he come up t' Gingerbread 
 Jenkins again an' looked him right in the eye. 
 Itwas then towards the evenin', John Fairmeadow 
 says. An' John Fairmeadow turned Gingerbread 
 Jenkins' face t' the window, an' looked into 'his 
 eyes, an' tried t' search the last places of hisjsotial 
 Gingerbread Jenkins says that he couldnTi Stand 
 it no longer, by an' by, an' that he looked! away 
 from John Fairmeadow's eyes t' the sunsBt<tlouds 
 beyond the pines, an* that he was afretiH; 'but 
 didn't quite know why. ' Jimmie r 'tv^a^sfc^Qhd 
 Fairmeadow, 'listen t' me well icjftntjfjgiblii' t' 
 measure you, now. I believe you. '.fcfeelieueein. 
 your humility an' in your love 6^ tJteiwxyfld' for 
 Love's sake. I don't misunderstands! d/khbw. 
 Love healed you, whether yoi\ fcsewiitpritibt in 
 these words; an' now 'tis in. yiae: heart tkfo&fe; 
 that some other one may ifea hea&d byfLscvei 
 also. I believe that you want a woman t''.take 
 care of t' guard an' cheris&cf^oia/fefae ilt&'b' life 
 because you believe it t' be the dnt^J oforMncd 
 care for women. ListeB-/t^anenBE5| Jiknmfe' Jen- 
 kins: I'm goin' t' meaaures^Diirtne^riYoaliriaiy 
 do, if you will, what no other Christian rhanril 
 know or ever knewte^ote^dmostaDfiallpiGolJ h'elp
 
 208 That MEASURE oj LOYE 
 
 me ! not I would do for Love's sake. Stand 
 up, Jimmie Jenkins/ says he, ' an' be measured by 
 the measure o' Love ! ' 
 
 " Gingerbread Jenkins was frightened. ' What's 
 all this, parson ? ' says he. ' What you mean ? ' 
 
 " ' I know a woman.' 
 
 " ' What woman ? ' 
 
 " ' A needy woman with a heart turned towards 
 a love just like this.' 
 
 " ' Then,' says Gingerbread Jenkins, ' fetch 
 her out. If I'm fit, I'm willinV 
 
 " ' There's little Angel,' says the parson. 
 
 " ' I love her,' says Gingerbread Jenkins. 
 
 " ' She has a mother.' 
 
 " ' The mother o' little Angel ! ' says Ginger- 
 bread Jenkins. ' I'm not fit. She's a lady.' 
 
 " ' The mother o' little Angel,' says the parson, 
 ' is no lady.' 
 
 " ' No lady ? ' 
 
 '"No lady.' 
 
 " Gingerbread Jenkins jumped away from him. 
 ' What you sayin' ? ' says he. ' I can't do that ! 
 I can't ! Man, I tell you I can't ! I'm jus' not 
 able.' 
 
 " ' No,' says John Fairmeadow ; ' no man 
 could do that.' 
 
 " ' Speak plain/ says Gingerbread Jenkins. 
 ' Little Angel's mother no lady ? What is she 
 then?' 
 
 " ' What have you been, James Jenkins ? '
 
 That MEASURE of LOYE 209 
 
 " ' I'm not what I was,' says Gingerbread 
 Jenkins. 
 
 " ' Nor is she,' says the parson. 
 
 " ' Parson,' says Gingerbread Jenkins, ' I guess 
 it's jus' about time for you t' lead in prayer. I'm 
 tired,' says he. ' I'm all tired out. My heart's 
 fixed on doin' right,' says he ; ' but I don't know 
 what is right.' 
 
 " ' Nor do I,' says the parson. 
 
 " Gingerbread Jenkins says that at that very 
 minute a flood o' sunshine broke loose from the 
 clouds an' made the whole world light." 
 
 "And so," said the superintendent, "they was 
 married." 
 
 " They was in due course o' time." 
 
 " Risky," the superintendent observed. 
 
 "The mother o' little Angel," Rowl replied, 
 " was as sweet, an' pretty, an' modest as ever a 
 bride could be, an' shy in the presence o' so 
 much joy. An' they're all away, now an' 
 they'll be up in Saskatchewan in the spring. 
 You'll never see Gingerbread Jenkins in these 
 parts no more. I've noticed that a man o' good 
 courage," Rowl concluded, " will usually unravel 
 a good endin' from the tangle of his life."
 
 XXII 
 
 ON THE GRADE 
 
 FAIRMEADOW'S ministry to these great 
 woods had a gentler aspect than that of 
 denunciatory preaching and altercation. 
 There were times, indeed, when, in ease of de- 
 parting souls, he became a man of exquisite ten- 
 derness. When, for example, it came time for 
 Mike Finnerty, the Cant-hook road-monkey, to 
 die in a little room above Pale Peter's saloon at 
 Swamp's End, whither he had been taken from 
 the barroom floor, far gone in pneumonia, noth- 
 ing would do the old Irishman but he must have 
 John Fairmeadow come to shrive him. Fair- 
 meadow was not at Swamp's End. Fairmeadow 
 was off on the trails. Where ? Beyond Cedar 
 Long Swamp, they said, and bound north to the 
 Snake Stream camps. A message to the Red 
 Company's cutting might intercept him. It did : 
 it caught John Fairmeadow in the nick of time 
 his feet were fairly on the white trail to the north 
 and Fairmeadow made for Swamp's End on a 
 dog-trot which never let up until late at night 
 the lights of Pale Peter's were visible in the 
 wintry darkness. Mike Finnerty had come to
 
 ON THE GRADE 211 
 
 the end of a long career of furious living. In 
 the last years of it he had been a shrivelled little 
 road-monkey in the meanest camps of the state 
 a gray, wrinkled, morose little man, given to 
 silence in camp and to garrulous ill-temper in 
 his cups in town. It was all over, now, how- 
 ever ; and it may be that he was frightened by 
 the prospect of this sudden change to that which, 
 except for priestly teaching, had been a mystery 
 to him all his days. 
 
 " Is that you, parson ? " he whispered. 
 
 Fairmeadow took his hand. 
 
 " I'm glad ye've come," said Mike. " I got t' 
 die, they're tellin' me." 
 
 It was evident that he had to die. 
 
 " Ye'll answer," said Mike. 
 
 Fairmeadow pressed the old man's hand. 
 
 "Ye'll do," Mike repeated. " Ye're priest 
 enough for me." 
 
 He was anxious, it seemed, for the soul that 
 was about to depart from his ill-kept and de- 
 graded body ; and he was in pain, and turning 
 very weak. 
 
 " Parson," said he, presently, with a know- 
 ing little wink, " I want ye t' fix it for me." 
 
 " Fix it, Mike ? " 
 
 " Sure, ye know what I mean," Mike replied. 
 " I want ye t' fix it." 
 
 " Fix it, Mike ? " 
 
 " Fix it for me."
 
 212 OAT THE GRADE 
 
 " Mike," said Fairmeadow, " I can't fix it for 
 you.' 
 
 " Can't fix it? " said the dying man, in amaze- 
 ment. "Then what the hell did ye come for?" 
 
 " To show you," Fairmeadow answered 
 gently, "how you can fix it." 
 
 "Me fix it?" 
 
 "You." 
 
 "Me!" 
 
 Fairmeadow explained, then, the scheme of 
 redemption, according to his creed the atone- 
 ment and salvation by faith. Mike listened. 
 Presently he nodded comprehendingly. He 
 continued to listen absorbed and still with 
 amazement all the time nodding his under- 
 standing. " \3\\-huh ! " he muttered, when Fair- 
 meadow had done, as one who says, "I see/" 
 He said no other word before he died. Just, 
 "Uh-^w^/" to express enlightenment. And 
 when, later, it came time for him to die, he still 
 held tight to Fairmeadow's finger, muttering, 
 now and again, "\J\\-huhf \J\i-huh!" like a 
 man to whom has come some great, astounding 
 revelation. 
 
 When Long Jock McKenzie lay dying in the 
 hospital at Big Rapids a screen about his cot 
 in the hospital ward it was John Fairmeadow 
 who sat with him, as he was used to sitting, in 
 those days, with all dying lumber-jacks.
 
 ON THE GRADE 213 
 
 It was Fairmeadow who told Long Jock that 
 the end was near. 
 
 "Nearing the landing, parson?" Long Jock 
 asked, with a smile. 
 
 Fairmeadow nodded. 
 
 " Nearing the last landing," the lumber-jack 
 repeated. 
 
 "Almost there, Jock." 
 
 The lumber-jack pondered. " I've a heavy 
 load, parson," said he, presently. " I've a heavy 
 load," he sighed. 
 
 Long Jock was a four-horse teamster, used to 
 hauling logs from the woods to the landing at 
 the lake. For years he had humoured these great 
 loads over the logging-roads easing them on 
 the down grades, calling to his horses on the up 
 grades. And it seemed, now, that he fancied the 
 last grade to be an insuperable one. 
 
 "Parson," he asked, "do you think I can 
 make the grade ? " 
 
 " With help, Jock." 
 
 McKenzie said nothing for a moment. Then 
 he looked up. " You mean," said he, " that I 
 need another team of leaders ? " 
 
 Fairmeadow nodded. 
 
 " Another team of leaders," the lumber-jack 
 repeated. 
 
 "The Great Leader, Jock." 
 
 " Oh, I know what you mean," said McKenzie. 
 " You mean that I need the help of Jesus Christ."
 
 214 ON THE GRADE 
 
 Again Fairmeadow nodded. 
 
 " To make this grade," McKenzie added. 
 
 No need to tell what Fairmeadow said then to 
 the Scotch teamster in his last extremity what 
 he repeated, according to his faith, about repent- 
 ance and belief and the infinite love of God. 
 Long Jock McKenzie had heard it all before 
 long before, at home, being Scottish born and 
 had not utterly forgotten, prodigal though he 
 was. It was all recalled to him, now, by a man 
 whose life and love and uplifted heart were well 
 known to him by John Fairmeadow, a minister 
 of the old school. 
 
 "Pray for me," said he, like a child. 
 
 Long Jock McKenzie died that night. It was 
 a gentle passing. He had said never a word in 
 the long interval ; but just before his last breath 
 was drawn while Fairmeadow still held his 
 hand he opened his eyes, looked up, and signed 
 for the minister to bend near. 
 
 Fairmeadow leaned close. 
 
 McKenzie whispered : 
 
 " Tell the boys I made the grade ! " 
 
 Forthwith he departed. 
 
 Fairmeadow's ministry was to men to twenty 
 thousand prodigals. It concerned women, too, 
 perhaps : not many women only the women 
 whom the pale men of the towns found necessary 
 to their gain and no good women, at all. It
 
 ON THE GRADE 215 
 
 was Fairmeadow who held the consumptive hand 
 of little Liz of the shuttered red house near by 
 Swamp's End while she lay dying alone in her 
 tousled bed. It was a black night in the spring. 
 Swamp's End was deep in mud. The trails were 
 black and soggy. The wind came rushing from 
 east a black, wet wind, moaning about the 
 shuttered red house and shaking the flimsy 
 structure to its foundations. 
 
 The doctor from Big Rapids had gone. 
 
 " Am I dyin', parson ? " little Liz asked. 
 
 " Yes, my girl." 
 
 "Dyin'?" 
 
 " Yes, my girl." 
 
 "Now ? " little Liz exclaimed. " Dyin' now f " 
 
 "Presently, child." 
 
 " Mother ! " little Liz moaned. " Oh, mother ! " 
 
 Little Liz was frightened. She was dreadfully 
 frightened. Dying? And now? The poor 
 little thing began to sob for her mother with all 
 her heart Mag? No; she didn't want Mag. 
 She wanted her mother. But nobody came. 
 Perhaps it was just as well. John Fairmeadow 
 was there big, kind, clean John Fairmeadow. 
 I conceive with what tenderness he comforted 
 the little Magdalen how that his big hand was 
 soft and warm enough to serve in that extremity 
 into which no mother could enter now. I fancy 
 that little Liz of the shuttered red house near by 
 Swamp's End died more easily more hopefully
 
 216 ON THE GRADE 
 
 because of the proximity of John Fairmeadow's 
 clear, uplifted soul. And I know that when the 
 exhausted little body was laid away in the field 
 at the edge of the woods I know that when 
 Pattie Batch and old Tom Hitch and Tom 
 Hitch's little Jinny stood beside the grave which 
 John Fairmeadow had dug I know that the 
 spring sunshine was warm then I know that 
 not a flower of that green place drooped its head 
 in shame. I know, too, that John Fairmeadow 
 read the service prescribed that he read it in 
 certain faith that its prayers and promises were 
 for such even as little Liz. So also is the resur- 
 rection of the dead. It is sown in corruption ; it 
 is raised in incorruption : it is sown in dishonour ; 
 it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness ; it is 
 rasied in power. 
 Amen! 
 
 Fairmeadow came once to White Pine a 
 God-forsaken little ramshackle settlement in 
 touch with the remotest lumbering operations 
 of the woods. It was off the railroad : it was no 
 more than a collection of frowzy, out-at-elbows, 
 blear-eyed shacks on the bank of Black River. 
 The shacks, of course, were for the most part sa- 
 loons designed to purvey hilarity to the lumber- 
 jacks of the neighbourhood and a scattering of 
 hardy homesteaders. The Big Scotchman, with 
 whom Fairmeadow presently fell in, was drunk
 
 ON THE GRADE 217 
 
 and shivering with apprehension of delirium 
 tremens, at Smith's Cafe. The man was a home- 
 steader, living alone on his grant of land, a mile 
 or more from the settlement. 
 
 " First of all," Fairmeadow sighed, quite 
 familiar with the situation, " I must get him 
 home." 
 
 But how ? 
 
 " I can't get home," the Scotchman com- 
 plained. 
 
 " All right," said Fairmeadow, promptly ; 
 " then I'll carry you." 
 
 Presently when this had been accomplished 
 the necessity of keeping the Big Scotchman 
 where he had got him devolved upon John Fair- 
 meadow. The " whiskey sickness " had fallen. 
 The Big Scotchman was " took with the snakes." 
 There was a long wrestle in the lonely little cabin 
 in the woods. John Fairmeadow got the Big 
 Scotchman down, at last, and held him down. It 
 was a variety of John Fairmeadow's preaching. 
 There was no choir, to be sure, the congregation 
 was small, and there was no report in the news- 
 papers ; but the sermon went on just the same. 
 John Fairmeadow got the congregation into his 
 bunk ; and for two days and nights thereafter he 
 sat ministering hearing, all the time, the ravings 
 of delirium. There was an interval of relief, then, 
 and during this John Fairmeadow gathered up 
 every shred of the Big Scotchman's clothing and
 
 218 ON THE GRADE 
 
 hid it. There was not a garment left in the cabin 
 to cover the man's nakedness. 
 
 The Big Scotchman presently wanted whiskey. 
 
 " No," said Fairmeadow ; " you stay right 
 here." 
 
 The Big Scotchman got up to dress. 
 
 " My friend," said Fairmeadow, " there's noth- 
 ing to wear." 
 
 Then the fight was on again. It was a long 
 fight merely a physical thing in the beginning, 
 but a fight of another kind before the day was 
 done. And John Fairmeadow won. When, at 
 last, the Big Scotchman got up from his knees, 
 he took John Fairmeadow's hand, and said that, 
 by God's help, he would live better than he had 
 lived. Moreover, he was as good as his word. 
 
 A rough lot, perhaps, these lumber-jacks ; but 
 they were still sentimental, upon occasions, and 
 they were devoted to John Fairmeadow. And 
 how lustily they sang John Fairmeadow's hymns 
 in the bunk-houses ! Not, perhaps, in apprecia- 
 tion of the sentiment, but for the sheer joy of sing- 
 ing. And at the Bottle River camps " Jesus Lover 
 of My Soul " engaged them. They sang it again 
 and again ; and when they got up in the morn- 
 ing, they said : " Say, parson, let's sing her once 
 more ! " They sang it once more in the bunk- 
 house at dawn and the boss opened the door 
 and was much too amazed to interrupt They
 
 ON THE GRADE 219 
 
 sang it again. " All out ! " cried the boss ; and 
 the boys went slowly off to labour in the woods, 
 singing, Let me to Thy bosom fly ! and, Oh, re- 
 ceive my soul at last ! diverging here and there, 
 axes and saws over shoulder, some to the deeper 
 forest, some making out upon the frozen lake, 
 some pursuing the white roads all passing into 
 the snow and green and great trees and silence 
 of the undefiled forest which John Fairmeadow 
 loved all singing as they went, Other refuge 
 have I none ; hangs my helpless soul on 7^hee 
 until the voices were like sweet and soft-coming 
 echoes from the wilderness. 
 
 Fairmeadow was once taken ill in the woods. 
 It was a matter of exposure occurring in cold 
 weather, after months of harsh toil, with a pack 
 on his back. There was a storm of snow blow- 
 ing, at far below zero, and Fairmeadow was 
 miles from any camp. He managed, however, 
 after hours of plodding through the snow, to 
 reach the uncut timber, where he was somewhat 
 sheltered from the wind. He was then intent 
 upon the sermon for the evening ; but beyond 
 that even trudging through these tempered 
 places he has forgotten what occurred. The 
 lumber-jacks of the Cant-hook cutting found him 
 at last, lying in the snow near the cook-house ; 
 and they carried him to the bunk-house, and put 
 him to bed, and consulted concerning him.
 
 220 ON THE GRADE 
 
 " The parson's an almighty sick man," said one. 
 
 Another prescribed : " Got any whiskey in 
 camp ? " 
 
 There was no whiskey there was no doctor 
 within reach there was no medicine of any sort. 
 And the parson, whom they had taken from the 
 snow, was a very sick man. They wondered 
 what could be done for him. It seemed that 
 nobody knew. There was nothing to be done 
 nothing but keep him covered up and warm. 
 
 " Boys," a lumber-jack proposed, " how's this 
 for an idea ? " 
 
 They listened. 
 
 " We can pray for the man," said he, " who's 
 always praying for us." 
 
 They managed to do it somehow ; and when 
 Fairmeadow heard that the boys were praying 
 for him praying for him ! he turned his face to 
 the wall, and covered up his head, and wept like 
 a fevered boy.
 
 XXIII 
 
 WHAT: HAPPENED ro TOM HITCH 
 
 WHAT happened to Plain Tom Hitch, 
 who had fallen in love with a flower, 
 was told to the new superintendent of 
 the Bottle River camps, at Swamp's End, long 
 after, of course, its occurrence. When Rowl, the 
 sentimental old sealer, observed, with a twinkling 
 pretense of indifference, that the big stranger, 
 amiably engaged with Pale Peter at the swing- 
 shuttered door of the Red Tiger, was none other 
 than John Fairmeadow, the superintendent at- 
 tended intimately and with lively interest on the 
 extraordinary fellow's appearance and behaviour. 
 Fairmeadow turned out, in the new superintend- 
 ent's eyes, to be a big man. The superintendent 
 had known, of course, that he was a big man : he 
 must needs be, indeed, to sanction the large tales 
 that were told of him in those woods. But the 
 superintendent had not conceived the clean 
 strength of him. The superintendent had fash- 
 ioned a hero of raw and hairy bulk, a low- 
 browed, big-jawed power, recklessly driven to 
 good ends, rather than a young, rosy, bubbling 
 giant with a sharp zest for righteousness. Fair- 
 meadow was clad like a lumber-jack, boots, 
 
 221
 
 222 What HAPPENED to TOM HITCH 
 
 mackinaw (thrown wide in the warm wind), and 
 cloth cap, with a woodsman's pack waiting at his 
 feet : a man ready for the trail. The superin- 
 tendent observed that he had a singular habit of 
 snapping his teeth in talk of drawing taut the 
 cords of his neck, of shooting out his head in a 
 defiant fashion, of glaring from beneath fallen 
 brows all as though he might be used to being 
 in busy and difficult opposition. With this, when 
 he spread his feet and squared his shoulders, he 
 took on an appearance of savage truculence, 
 which, however, a gray twinkle and a wry twitch 
 of the lips could mitigate even when his aspect of 
 countenance was the fiercest. He was not a sour 
 and fearsome prophet : he was a jolly parson. 
 His pugnacious exploits (the superintendent 
 fancied) must be ascribed to the quest of effi- 
 ciency in his profession of preaching the Gospel. 
 
 " John Fairmeadow," observed Rowl, " is mas- 
 ter in the house of his own soul." 
 
 It needed elucidation. 
 
 " A perfectly well-meanin' but industrious 
 conscience," Rowl explained, " plays the devil 
 with many a good man : John Fairmeadow is no 
 servant of his, but master. I'm glad / ain't got 
 none t' live an' quarrel with. I always pity the 
 man," he added, " whose conscience wears the 
 trousers." 
 
 John Fairmeadow put his pack on his back 
 and shook it into place.
 
 What HAPPENED to TOM HITCH 223 
 
 " So long, Jack 1 " said Pale Peter. 
 
 " So long, Peter, old man ! " Fairmeadow 
 heartily responded. 
 
 Pale Peter offered his hand for shaking. For 
 a moment John Fairmeadow regarded the white 
 fingers of the friendly saloon-keeper with a 
 twinkle of disdainful amusement. He ignored 
 the hand then, the wry twitch of his lips express- 
 ing a sneer, in which, however, neither malice 
 nor contempt resided, but a nauseated pity, 
 rather ; and all at once he looked up, frank as a 
 boy, and laughed in Pale Peter's face, who was 
 not at all chagrined by this, but let his hand 
 fall with an assenting and agreeable smile. 
 Presently thereafter John Fairmeadow was strid- 
 ing down towards the tote-road to the Bottle 
 River camps, which were now fitting out for 
 the winter. There was with him, by this time, a 
 close-cropped, gray, grave man, in health and self- 
 respect, of good stature, well and confidently car- 
 ried : a lumber-jack or homesteader, it seemed, 
 whose appearance in pious company impelled 
 John Rowl to a philosophical utterance. 
 
 " I can't make out," Rowl observed," jus' how 
 a man would go about the savin' of his soul." 
 
 The superintendent could not help him. 
 
 " Anyhow," Rowl declared, " give a man a 
 good resolution an' a bad memory an' he stands 
 a fair show o' pullin' through. Plain Tom 
 Hitch pulled through, with the help of John
 
 224 What HAPPENED to TOM HITCH 
 
 Fairmeadow, and hung to the dry side of his 
 log, too, until Raw Jack Flack, of Big Rapids, 
 pushed him off. It happened three years ago. 
 But the tale of what Tom Hitch did and the 
 tale of what John Fairmeadow did was kept 
 close until the trial was over and almost for- 
 gotten. 
 
 " It's a mean poor pastime for an old woods- 
 man like me," Rowl went on, with a wry face, 
 "t' sit here in God's clean sunlight an' tell of 
 Raw Jack Flack o' Big Rapids. The very name 
 tastes ill in the mouth of a man : faugh ! my 
 tongue itches. He was a big man, too, an' good 
 t' look upon : well-kept, straight-backed, pink- 
 an'-white, sober, genial in the open, clever as 
 Satan. In them days he kep' a flashy saloon at 
 Big Rapids, the county-seat an' kep' more than 
 that for the use of the boys o' these woods. 
 With a horde o' pink-eyed little runts, runners, 
 pickpockets, an' tin-horn gamblers t' father 
 business, he got rich ; an' bein' rich, with a 
 spider's lust for politics, he growed almighty 
 powerful in the county, backed by the big fellers 
 at the capital. I never could quite make out 
 which was in the saddle hereabouts, the devil or 
 Raw Jack Flack. Almighty God? well, Al- 
 mighty God had few acquaintances at Big Rap- 
 ids those times, an' them not votin' Jack Flack's 
 ticket. Police, judge, magistrates, mayor, juries,
 
 What HAPPENED to TOM HITCH 225 
 
 janitors, an' scavengers : Raw Jack Flack picked 
 'em, paid for 'em, an' possessed 'em ; an' the 
 only law that was law in this county was the 
 wink an' nod of this same Jack Flack,, He'd 
 have no enemy alive in the county. Not him ! 
 'Twas quit or git for them. Consequently, Raw 
 Jack Flack had friends. 
 
 "I've no will t' talk about the late Jack Flack ; 
 but I will say, speakin' in a mild an' indulgent 
 way o' the dead, that the devil was hard put to 
 it t' keep up with Jack Flack's inventions. 
 
 " ' Good Lord, Jack Flack ! ' says he ; ' how'd 
 you come t' think o' that ? ' 
 
 " ' Think o' what ? ' says Jack Flack. 
 
 " ' The dirty trick you just done. It never oc- 
 curred t' me.' 
 
 " ' That's nothin',' says Jack Flack. ' Watch 
 me for a minute an' I'll show you what I can do.' 
 
 " ' Whew ! ' says Old Nick ; ' that s a good 
 one!' 
 
 " ' That's nothin',' says Jack. ' I bet I could 
 beat that if I tried.' 
 
 " ' You make me ashamed o' myself,' says OF 
 Nick. ' When you get down here t' look after 
 things, Jack/ says he, ' I guess I better take a 
 vacation an' study abroad.' " 
 
 Rowl laughed without mirth. 
 
 "Anyhow," he resumed, all at once growing 
 grave, "Plain Tom Hitch jus' would hunt the 
 saloons o' Swamp's End for good deeds t' do.
 
 226 What HAPPENED to TOM HITCH 
 
 There was no stoppin' him at all ; he'd be there 
 by night, when John Fairmeadow was away 
 preachin', t' ease the boys in the snake-room, an' 
 t' straighten 'em out on the floor, an' t' drag 'em 
 where they wouldn't be kicked an' trampled on, 
 an' t' send the sick t' the Sisters' Hospital at Big 
 Rapids, jus' as John Fairmeadow done. An' 
 one night at the Cafe of Egyptian De-lights, 
 when Raw Jack Flack was at Swamp's End with 
 the sheriff o' the county understand me ? one 
 night Raw Jack Flack an' some o' the boys from 
 the Bottle River camps the boys are a little bit 
 rough when in liquor one night Raw Jack 
 Flack had 'em flatten out Tom Hitch on the bar, 
 pry his teeth apart with a cold-chisel, an' pour 
 liquor down his throat until poor Tom Hitch was 
 able t' sit up an' help himself. Understand? 
 Raw Jack made him drunk against his will. Tom 
 Hitch didn't thank the boys for it : Tom Hitch 
 thanked Raw Jack Flack, when he got up, an' 
 said that he seen the fun o' the thing now, all right, 
 an' that he felt a sight better than he had for a 
 long time. After that it was Tom Hitch's own 
 hand that tipped the bottle Tom Hitch's hand 
 that lifted the glass Tom Hitch's lips that ut- 
 tered the old abominations Tom Hitch's heart 
 that broke Tom Hitch's soul that dropped back 
 from the places of light to which it had attained. 
 Raw Jack Flack an' the sheriff o' Saw-log 
 County done the laughin'.
 
 What HAPPENED to TOM HITCH 227 
 
 " Four nights later poor Tom Hitch come a 
 little to his senses in the snake-room of the Cafe 
 of Egyptian De-lights. Poor Tom Hitch ! they'd 
 throwed him there t' get him out o' the way, 
 when he give signs o' the jumps. He wasn't 
 sober yet ; an' he stumbled all befuddled into the 
 bar, where Raw Jack Flack was electioneerin'. 
 
 "The boys say he was cryin'. Butcher Long 
 o' the Cant-hook crew says that, so help him 
 God ! he seen tears as big as rain-drops streamin* 
 from Plain Tom Hitch's eyes. 
 
 " Anyhow, Tom Hitch said : 
 
 " ' Jack Flack, you robbed me ! ' 
 
 " ' You lyin' hound ! ' says Flack. 
 
 " ' What you want t' go an' rob me for ? ' says 
 Tom Hitch. ' It didn't do you no good.' 
 
 "Flack caught him by the beard, then, an' 
 struck him in the face. ' Don't you say that 
 about me, you pup ! ' says he. 
 
 " ' Man,' poor Tom Hitch whimpered, ' you 
 robbed me of all I ever had ! ' 
 
 "The boys crowded near t' see what Jack 
 Flack would do. They say that fifty men ay, 
 a full fifty heard him pass the threat. An' the 
 sheriff o' Saw-log County was one ; an' later, the 
 sheriff remembered. 
 
 " ' Get t' perdition out o' this county ! ' says 
 Flack. ' You hear me f ' 
 
 " ' I got a nice little homestead here,' says 
 Tom Hitch.
 
 228 What HAPPENED to TOM HITCH 
 
 " Thank God, he didn't say that he'd a sweet 
 little daughter, too 1 
 
 " ' It don't make no difference t' me what you 
 got/ says Jack Flack. ' You'll be out o' my 
 county in three days, you lyin'-mouthed dog, or 
 I'll kill you on sight 1 ' 
 
 " Nobody knowed whether he meant it or not. 
 Not me : I wasn't there. But the sheriff o' Saw- 
 log County was there an' the sheriff heard what 
 was said an' the sheriff couldn't deny it when 
 he come t' the point-blank question. 
 
 " It begun t' rain that night. It was rainin' 
 then the first big black drops o' that three- 
 days' gale. Plain Tom Hitch went home in the 
 rain. A dark November night black an' wet in 
 the woods with a storm o' cold wind comin' down 
 from the nor' west. Jinny met him took him 
 by the hand at the cross-trails by Swamp's End 
 an' led him home by the hand like a child. 
 Little Jinny o' the staunch an' tender heart, God 
 bless her ! An' God will : for God knows, well 
 enough, her sorrows of that night her waiting 
 an' her fear. Three days later in the sweep 
 an' pour o' rain a flooded, wind-blown world 
 I come f Swamp's End from the Bottle River 
 camps. Lord ! what a night I mind it well : 
 the wind the rain the black forest the soggy 
 trail from Swamp's End t' Plain Tom Hitch's lit- 
 tle homestead in the woods.
 
 What HAPPENED to TOM HITCH 229 
 
 " Tom Hitch wouldn't lift his face from his 
 hands. ' Rowl,' he sobbed, in his hand, ' Raw 
 Jack Flack went an' robbed me of my soul.' 
 
 " ' No such nonsense ! ' says I. 
 
 " ' He robbed me he robbed me of my 
 soul.' 
 
 "'No such nonsense 1 ' says I. 'Raw Jack 
 Flack ain't collectin' souls.' 
 
 " ' I had something precious in my heart,' 
 says Tom Hitch ; ' an' Jack Flack took it away 
 from me.' 
 
 " ' Don't you be a cry-baby no more,' says I. 
 
 " ' It come t' me after fifty years o' sinful life,' 
 says he. ' It was real it was real t' me/ 
 
 " ' Ah, father,' says little Jinny, ' you're jus' as 
 good as ever ! ' 
 
 " ' Little robin ! ' says Tom Hitch, lookin' up. 
 ' The Lord's always been near you. You don't 
 know what it means t' have Him turn His face 
 away.' 
 
 " ' No, no ! ' says Jinny. ' He'd never turn His 
 face away from you.' 
 
 " ' He's no friend o' mine no more.' 
 
 " ' Let Him do what He likes,' says Jinny, as 
 she hugged Tom Hitch close to her heart. ' We 
 won't care. Father father you're just as dear 
 as ever t' me ! ' 
 
 " By an* by Tom Hitch stopped cry in' an' 
 got up. He didn't say nothin' for a long 
 time : he jus' walked up an' down thinkin' al-
 
 230 What HAPPENED to TOM HITCH 
 
 mighty hard with as gray an' harsh a cast o' 
 face as ever I saw. 
 
 " It was gettin' late, then. 
 
 " ' Rowl,' says he, ' I guess I might as well go 
 out t' town.' 
 
 " ' Hark t' the rain ! ' says Jinny. 
 
 "There was a great noise o' wind an' rain 
 in the world. ' I wouldn't,' says I ; ' not t'- 
 night.' 
 
 " ' Little robin,' says he, pattin' Jinny's head, 
 ' I'll drink nothin' t'-night.' 
 
 " 'I'm not afraid,' says she. 
 
 " ' I got a little business in town, Rowl,' says 
 he. 'You'll stay with Jinny, will you not? 'til 
 I get back. It's jus' a little business that's heavy 
 on my conscience ; an' I guess I might jus' as 
 well go out an' do it. It won't take long, an' it 
 won't be hard ; an' after I get it done I'll be 
 easier in my mind.' 
 
 " By this time he had on his mackinaw an' cap 
 an' big boots. 
 
 " He turned at the door ; an' for a little bit 
 he stood scratchin' his beard thinkin' almighty 
 hard. 
 
 " ' Have you forgot something ? ' says Jinny. 
 
 " Tom Hitch looked at the gun on the wall. 
 ' Oh, no, I guess not,' says he. He let his eyes 
 fall away from the gun ; an' he sighed twice. 
 ' No, little robin,' says he. ' I guess I ain't forgot 
 nothin'.' He stared at his hands, then turned
 
 What HAPPENED to TOM HITCH 231 
 
 'em back an' pa'm, an' worked the fingers, an' 
 looked at 'em for a long time. ' I guess,' says 
 he, ' I got everything I need.' 
 
 " 'Good luck, father I' said Jinny, when she'd 
 kissed him. 
 
 " ' Little robin ! ' says he. 
 
 " I might have known what that errand was. 
 I ought to have known. And I might have kept 
 Tom Hitch indoors that night. I wish I had. 
 But I was a fool ; and I let him go without so 
 much as a suspicion of the business the man had 
 in hand. I wish I hadn't I wish I hadn't ! "
 
 XXIV 
 FAIR.MEADOWS JUSTICE 
 
 " TT US' before Plain Tom Hitch got back from 
 the little business in town," Rowl went on, 
 *J " John Fairmeadow came in from the Lost 
 Chance camps on Ragged Stream, where the 
 news of Tom Hitch had gone. It's a matter of 
 thirty mile from the Lost Chance camps t* 
 Swamp's End : John Fairmeadow had come it 
 that day, God knows how I by. the short cut 
 through Cedar Long Swamp. A bad day for a 
 man t' be abroad in the swamps : a worse night 
 t' foot the trail from Dead Man's Ferry. There 
 was now a rush of rain against the window- 
 panes ; there was now the patter of hail on the 
 roof. And the big wind from the nor' west was 
 threshing the forest an' cryin' at the^door. I 
 caught ear, once, of a rumble of thunder : I was 
 troubled by it a growl an' bark of unseasonable 
 thunder. John Fairmeadow was wet t' the skin : 
 he bled from the wounds o' the muskegs ; he 
 was splashed t' the eyes with the black mud an' 
 dead leaves o' the last trail. 
 
 " Plain Tom Hitch broke in weak an' white 
 an' drippin' with Raw Jack Flack's pistol in his 
 hand. John Fairmeadow jumped from his chair, 
 little Jinny cried out, a draught o' wet wind 
 
 232
 
 FAIRMEADOWS JUSTICE 253 
 
 flared the lamps, the door was slammed, an' 
 there all of a sudden stood Plain Tom Hitch, 
 blinkin' in the light, an' lurched back against the 
 door, a hand on the bolt. 
 
 " ' Well,' says he, ' I done it ! ' 
 
 " No need t' tell what he'd done : 'twas writ 
 plain enough upon him. 
 
 " ' I killed him,' says he, gone hoarse an' breath- 
 less. ' I killed him with his own gun.' 
 
 " ' Who seen you ? ' says I. 
 
 " ' He was alone in the street,' says he. ' I 
 waited ; an' I slew him there. I I had t' 
 kill him.' 
 
 " ' God forgive you ! ' says John Fairmeadow. 
 
 " Little Jinny ran straight t' Tom Hitch ; an' 
 she put her arms around his neck, an* she cried 
 an' cried on his breast. 
 
 " ' Sheriff's comin',' says Tom Hitch. ' They 
 seen me run away from what I done.' 
 
 " ' You better take t' the woods, Tom/ says I. 
 ' Quick, man ! I'll go with you.' 
 
 " Jinny hugged him closer. 
 
 " ' No,' says he ; ' none o' that for me, Rowl. 
 I killed him. I slew him in the street. I meant t' 
 kill him. I wanted t' kill him ; an' I want t' pay.' 
 
 "'Take t' the woods,' says I; 'they won't 
 give you a show if they get you.' 
 
 " ' I don't want no show,' says he. ' I want t' 
 pay.' 
 
 Rowl paused.
 
 234 FAIRMEADOWS JUSTICE 
 
 " I remember, once," said the sealer, presently, 
 " sittin' with Jinny an' Plain Tom Hitch on Tom 
 Hitch's porch a summer's evenin', it was. An' 
 there came a low whistle from the trail. It was 
 Jimmie the Gentleman, one o' Pale Peter's bar- 
 tenders, callin' little Jinny. 
 
 " ' It's Jimmie,' says little Jinny. ' That's 
 Jimmie's call for me ! ' 
 
 " ' For you, Jinny ? ' says Tom Hitch. ' Is he 
 callin' you, my dear ? ' 
 
 " ' Why, yes, father ! Of course. That's Jim- 
 mie callin' me.' 
 
 " ' I wouldn't go far, my dear,' says Tom 
 Hitch, ' with Jimmie the Gentleman.' 
 
 " ' Oh, no ! ' 
 
 " ' You see/ says Tom Hitch, ' you might get 
 lost. You might get lost, somehow, an' have t' 
 wander, for a long, long time, if you was t' go so 
 very far away with Jimmie.' 
 
 " Little Jinny laughed then, an' kissed Tom 
 Hitch on the tip o' the nose. ' Jimmie/ says she, 
 ' would bring me back.' 
 
 " ' He mightn't be able/ says Plain Tom Hitch. 
 
 " ' Then/ says she, 'you'd find me.' 
 
 " 'I'd try with all my might/ says he ; ' but 
 still I mightn't be able.' 
 
 " ' Pooh ! ' says she, 
 
 " * There's no man/ says he, ' that's sure of the 
 way in the night.' 
 
 " ' Pooh ! ' says she.
 
 FAIRMEADOWS JUSTICE 235 
 
 " ' God knows I'd try ! ' says he. ' I'm wantin' 
 t' live for that if need comes.' 
 
 " ' Pooh 1 ' says she. ' But since you're fright- 
 ened,' says she, ' I'll go but t' the trail. I'm 
 sure,' says she, ' that thafs not far from home.' 
 
 "'No,' says he; 'there's a trail near every 
 home.' 
 
 "Jimmie whistled. 
 
 " ' Hark ! ' says Jinny. ' That's Jimmie again 
 callin me ! ' 
 
 " ' It's Jimmie,' says Plain Tom Hitch, ' callin' 
 you t' the Big River Trail.' 
 
 " ' Father,' says Jinny, ' I'll go but t' the big 
 stump at the edge o' the woods.' 
 
 " ' Do, my dear ! ' says he. ' That's kind ! An' 
 the moon's showin' over the trees already. An' 
 the little stars is out. So you'll not be all alone 
 with Jimmie, after all. An' I'll be able t' see you 
 from here, too. I'll like it,' says he, ' t' sit here 
 on the porch, in the dusk with ol' John Rowl, an' 
 watch my little girl employed with courtin' at 
 the edge o' the woods. Fly away ! ' says he. 
 ' Little robin I Little robin ! It's spring time ( 
 Little robin, fly away ! ' 
 
 " Little Jinny fluttered off t 1 the edge o' the 
 woods. 
 
 " An' now," the sealer resumed, " when I 
 thought o' Jimmie the Gentleman an' little Jinny, 
 I knew what t' say t' Plain Tom Hitch, when he'd
 
 236 FAIRMEADOW'S JUSTICE 
 
 killed Jack Flack an' wouldn't take t' the woods 
 t' save his life. 
 
 " ' With you out o' the way, Tom Hitch/ says 
 I, ' 'twill be easy pickin' for Jimmie the Gentle- 
 man.' 
 
 "Jinny pulled him down an' kissed him. 
 
 " ' I guess I better live, Rowl,' says he, after a 
 bit, 'jus' as long as I can. I'll go.' 
 
 " Jinny kep' on kissin' his cheek. 
 
 " ' Little robin ! ' says Tom Hitch. ' Poor little 
 robin ! ' 
 
 " ' Give me that gun,' says John Fairmeadow. 
 'There's no clean justice here. My law's as 
 good as theirs. I'll pass judgment in this case. 
 Give me that gun. . . . One chamber empty. 
 Good. The new circumstances call for two 
 shots. The thing will adjust itself. . . . Are 
 there lanterns coming up the trail? Not yet? 
 Thank God, there's time ! . . . A wet night. 
 The trail's flooded. There'd be no trace of blood 
 in that event. God Almighty's in this thing. 
 No man could swear to a shot on a night like this. 
 The gun ? It can be found in the mud to-mor- 
 row. Rowl must attend to that. . . . Are 
 there lanterns on the trail ? Not yet ? . . . 
 Blood on the door-sill. Blood-drips on the floor. 
 These will occur without arrangement. , . . 
 Jinny, child bandages an* water ! And keep 
 away from the door. . . . Are there lights 
 on the trail ? Not yet ? God Almighty's surely
 
 FA1RMEADOWS JUSTICE 237 
 
 in this thing. . . . And he said he'd kill him 
 on sight. They heard him. Fifty men heard 
 him. . . . The wind's in the northwest. 
 Good ! That brings the lee to the back of the 
 cabin. The lamp will serve. It won't flicker. 
 Jinny, child, keep away from the door. Rowl, 
 you'll have to hold the lamp. . . . Stand up, 
 Tom Hitch. Follow me.' 
 
 11 We took Tom Hitch outside. 
 
 " ' I can make a clean job of it at three paces, 
 I suppose,' says John Fairmeadow. ' That's not 
 too near for safety.' 
 
 " I held the lamp high. 
 
 " ' What you goin' t' do ? ' says Tom Hitch. 
 
 " Fairmeadow paced off three paces. 
 
 "'What you goin' t' do with me?' says Tom 
 Hitch. 
 
 "'Stand back against the cabin,' says Fair- 
 meadow. ' There. Throw off your coat. That 
 '11 do. Straighten up now. Let your arms fall. 
 So. Don't move. Steady with that lamp, 
 Rowl.' 
 
 " I steadied the lamp. 
 
 " ' What you goin' t' do ?' Tom Hitch whim- 
 pered. 
 
 '"Stand still, ye fool!' 
 
 " ' For God's sake, Jack, don't shoot ! ' 
 
 " ' John,' says I, ' what fool's work is this ? ' 
 
 " Fairmeadow lowered Jack Flack's gun. 
 4 Rowl,' says he, ' there's only one way to save
 
 238 FAIRMEADOW'S JUSTICE 
 
 this man. Just one, Rowl just one. And he'll 
 hang if we're not quick about it. There's only 
 one way, I tell you ; and that's by manufactur- 
 ing evidence of self-defense. The only way to 
 manufacture evidence of self-defense is by hurt- 
 ing Tom Hitch. I don't propose to stand by 
 and see this man hanged. Consequently I pro- 
 pose to hurt him. A gun ? It's a risk. But the 
 thing has to be done with a gun. . . . You 
 know those men back there. Will they give 
 Tom Hitch a show ? Not they ! Take to the 
 woods? Nonsense! He'd never get out alive. 
 But there isn't a jury in this county would con- 
 vict the devil himself of murder in a fair fight. 
 . . . I know what I'm doing. This is no new 
 business for me. I've I've handled these 
 things before/ 
 
 " ' Tom,' says I, ' stand back against the 
 cabin.' 
 
 " Tom Hitch braced himself and looked John 
 Fairmeadow in the eye. 
 
 " ' Draw your shirt tight, Tom,' says Fair- 
 meadow. ' I want the outline of your right 
 shoulder.' 
 
 " I held the lamp close. 
 
 " ' Ready,' says Tom Hitch. 
 
 " Fairmeadow hit him in the right shoulder 
 a clean puncture above the lung, as it turned out 
 when we got the doctor from Big Rapids an' 
 Plain Tom Hitch crumpled up without a sound.
 
 "I want Tom Hitch, says the Sheriff"
 
 FAIRMEADOW'S JUSTICE 259 
 
 " ' Quick with him ! ' says I. ' There's lan- 
 terns on the trail 1 ' 
 
 " Fairmeadovv was fumblin' under Tom Hitch's 
 shirt. ' Just a minute, Rowl,' says he. ' Thank 
 God ! I got him clean ! ' 
 
 " ' God's sake, man ! ' says I. I put the lamp 
 in the cabin. 'Make haste; they're comin' up 
 the hill.' 
 
 " He jumped up. ' There's enough evidence 
 of self-defense in that wound,' says he, ' to per- 
 suade any jury they can pick.' 
 
 " ' Take him by the legs,' says I. ' Make 
 haste.' 
 
 " ' All right, Rowl,' says he ; 'no hurry.' 
 
 " We had Tom Hitch laid out an' stripped t' 
 the waist an' the hole stopped up before the 
 sheriff o' Saw-log County hammered on the 
 door. 
 
 " Fairmeadow faced him. 
 
 " ' Well,' says the sheriff, ' I want Tom Hitch.' 
 
 " ' Keep that crowd out,' says John Fair- 
 meadow. 
 
 "The sheriff shut the door on the boys. 
 4 Now,' says he, ' where's my man ? ' 
 
 " ' Not so loud ! ' says Fairmeadow. 
 
 " ' Be damned t' you, parson ! ' says the sheriff. 
 ' This ain't no Sunday-school picnic. I want the 
 man that killed Jack Flack.' 
 
 " ' He's hurt.' 
 
 " The sheriff looked at the blood on Tom
 
 240 FA1RMEADOWS, JUSTICE 
 
 Hitch's breast. He tiptoed close. ' Who done 
 that ? ' says he. 
 
 " ' The man who dealt that wound,' says John 
 Fairmeadow, ' will answer for the act in due time 
 to Almighty God.' 
 
 " ' The man's dead who dealt it,' says the 
 sheriff. 
 
 " John Fairmeadow answered nothin'. 
 
 "'Good-night,' says the sheriff. 'You'll re- 
 member that Tom Hitch is my man.' 
 
 " We turned in once more," John Rowl con- 
 cluded, " t' patch up Plain Tom Hitch." 
 
 " Did they convict Tom Hitch ? " the superin- 
 tendent asked. 
 
 " No," Rowl drawled ; " they didn't convict 
 him. They wanted to ; but you see," he added, 
 " the evidence o' self-defense was almighty plain 
 an' convincin'." 
 
 " And Tom Hitch ? " said the superintendent. 
 
 " It wouldn't be too much t' say," he replied, 
 " that Almighty God blesses these woods daily 
 by means of His friend Tom Hitch." 
 
 " And the little robin ? " 
 
 " Gentleman Jimmie didn't get her, thank 
 God ! " Rowl burst out. " Not with Plain Tom 
 Hitch on the job ! "
 
 XXV 
 
 THE TRIAL KISS 
 
 IN these busy days and busy days they 
 were, indeed John Fairmeadow's thoughts 
 occasionally ran with strange perversity 
 and with aggravatingly increasing frequency 
 to little Pattie Batch of Swamp's End and to 
 her extraordinary quest for a suitable father for 
 the baby. Pattie Batch must be looked after, of 
 course : Pattie Batch must have the most per- 
 spicacious guardianship in the world in this 
 respect she must have the most profoundly 
 wise advice and the interests of the baby, to 
 be sure, must properly be regarded. John Fair- 
 meadow might have picked a father for the 
 baby from the boys of Bottle River, he fancied, 
 with whom the baby would have been quite 
 content, captious as the baby now seemed to 
 have become in respect to the company he kept. 
 There were some fine fellows on Bottle River. 
 There were young fellows from the East big, 
 hearty young fellows, merry, efficient and self- 
 respecting any one of whom might have 
 sufficed to guarantee a reasonably secure future 
 for the baby ; and the baby, whose predilection 
 for lumber-jacks was well known, would have 
 
 241
 
 242 THE TRIAL KISS 
 
 been no doubt eminently satisfied. But a re- 
 lationship of this sort implied a relationship of 
 quite another sort; and it was with the relation- 
 ship of the second description that John Fair- 
 meadow was chiefly concerned. When it came 
 to choosing a Mr. Pattie Batch from the boys of 
 Bottle River when it came to choosing a Mr. 
 Pattie Batch from the boys of the Cant-hook and 
 the Yellow Tail when it came to choosing a Mr. 
 Pattie Batch from the boys of Swamp's End and 
 Elegant Corners the good minister was alto- 
 gether at a loss. There was only one young 
 fellow, indeed, of them all, from Swamp's End to 
 Lost Chance, whom John Fairmeadow could 
 with any degree of equanimity consider ; and 
 when it came bluntly to the consideration of that 
 individual, John Fairmeadow could only sigh 
 and turn from these romantic musings to the 
 grave problems of his ministry at Swamp's End. 
 
 "Thou fool 1 " he was used to saying. 
 
 It may be that having looked back upon the 
 career of this particular candidate he lay awake 
 under his blanket in the Bottle River stables : it 
 may be that he suffered such pangs as remorse 
 may excite to trouble a man ; but when he 
 chanced to encounter little Pattie Batch on the 
 trails there was no shadow of melancholy upon 
 him. 
 
 " Hello, Pattie Batch ! " says he, with a broad, 
 rosy grin.
 
 THE TRIAL KISS 243 
 
 " Hello, there, John Fairmeadow 1 " 
 
 " Found that father yet? " 
 
 " Nope." 
 
 " Looked 'em all over?" 
 
 " Nope." 
 
 " Got your eye on anybody in particular? " 
 
 " Nope." 
 
 " Near the end of the list ? " 
 
 " Nope." 
 
 " Anyhow," says Fairmeadow, chagrined, " if 
 you're not perfectly suited when you do get to 
 the end of the list, be sure to begin all over 
 again ; and don't you forget, young woman, that 
 I'm at the head of that list, and the very first 
 young man to come up for reconsideration. 
 You're going to give me another chance, aren't 
 you?" 
 
 " Nope." 
 
 " What ! " 
 
 " Nope." 
 
 " Crossed me off ? " 
 
 " Nope. Yep I mean." 
 
 " Well, well ! " cries John Fairmeadow. "That's 
 flat enough, I'm sure 1 And now, young woman," 
 says he, in a fine pretense of indignation and 
 despair, " will you be good enough to tell me 
 what a love-lorn young man like me is to 
 do f " 
 
 Pattie Batch found this banter delicious ; and 
 the more John Fairmeadow indulged in it, the
 
 244 THE TRIAL KISS 
 
 more she chuckled and the more bewitchingly 
 she grinned. 
 
 There was a large earnestness beneath this 
 jesting guise. John Fairmeadow was persuaded, 
 in his big, tender heart, that the suitable young 
 fellow he had in mind would not only devote 
 himself to the welfare of Pattie Batch's remark- 
 able baby, but would with great love, perfect and 
 abounding, chastened in adversity, cherish little 
 Pattie Batch herself, would Pattie Batch but al- 
 low it ; but there was at all times present with 
 him in his melancholy brooding this prohibition : 
 that the young fellow had himself in other days 
 created the problem of his own unworthiness. 
 Fanciful ? Perhaps : John Fairmeadow's young 
 man had been save in one respect not altogether 
 unworthy in his ways ; and it may be that in the 
 uplifting labour of these days he had won back 
 from the past all the rights of honour. As for 
 Pattie Batch, in these jesting times, the conscien- 
 tious little thing was sorely troubled, indeed ; and 
 many a night many a night when the rain was 
 on the roof and the black wind came howling 
 from the forest she cried herself to sleep. She 
 could discover no father for the baby. There 
 was not a suitable father to be had in Swamp's 
 End ; nor was there a promising candidate at 
 Elegant Corners nor in all that wide section, 
 even to the Big River and the northernmost lim-
 
 THE TRIAL KISS 245 
 
 its of the Logosh Reservation. That is to say, 
 there was only one ; but that one was out of the 
 question quite out of the question and must 
 be dismissed from mind, at once and forever, 
 however much weeping might be required to ac- 
 complish the result. As a father for the baby, of 
 course, the young man in question was perfect in 
 every respect ; but the foster-fatherhood of the 
 baby, as Pattie Batch very well knew, implied a 
 relationship which must not must not MUST 
 not be permitted to encumber the young man's 
 life with a silly, worthless, ill-born, ill-bred, dull, 
 poverty-stricken, perfectly ugly bit of baggage 
 like Pattie Batch, who never had been any good, 
 never could be any good, and never would be 
 any good, even to the baby, bless his little heart ! 
 
 " No, sir 1 " says Pattie Batch, to the baby, who 
 cared not a snap. " By ginger, it wouldn't do ! " 
 
 With this the baby indifferently agreed. 
 
 "It wouldn't do, at all!" poor little Pattie 
 Batch repeated, quite resolved that, at all hazard 
 to herself, and at all hazard even to the baby, 
 the glorious young man must be protected 
 against himself. 
 
 " Yes, sir, by ginger ! " declared this heroic lit- 
 tle person, between sobs. 
 
 At this crisis, Jimmie the Gentleman, a bar- 
 tender at Pale Peter's Red Elephant, came 
 a-courting. What was in his mind, Heaven 
 knows ! I should not like to enter and discover.
 
 246 THE TRIAL KISS 
 
 At any rate, he was of a dashing way a curly- 
 headed, blue-eyed, be-jewelled young sprig of 
 the near East, devoted to fashion (as it was to be 
 found at Big Rapids), and possessing a twinkle, a 
 laugh, a saucy charm, a bold arm and the con- 
 science of a lively pirate. Jimmie the Gentleman 
 came up the trail from Swamp's End of a soft 
 June night. It was not his first appearance at 
 Pattie Batch's cabin at the edge of the woods. 
 There had been others in John Fairmeadow's 
 absence from Swamp's End, of course. And 
 there had previously been certain flirtatious pas- 
 sages in the streets of town, of which Pattie 
 Batch, ingenuous little one ! being then on the 
 lookout for a father for the baby, was in duty 
 bound to take notice, since, as she was quite well 
 aware, affairs of the heart commonly began in 
 that way, proceeding from these small begin- 
 nings to the great event desired. It had for 
 some time been evident that Jimmie the Gentle- 
 man was in love. There was no question about 
 it, at all. The Gentleman's ardent blue eyes 
 his deferential politeness his soft voice his swift 
 and tender little touches in the dusk his signifi- 
 cant phrases at parting could mean but one 
 thing ; and that thing, Pattie Batch was quite 
 sure, signified, in the issue of it, the employment 
 of a parson. Pattie Batch had come imminently 
 face to face, it seemed, with a declaration and a 
 proposal ; and she had already determined
 
 THE TRIAL KISS 247 
 
 being a precise and orderly little person 
 her attitude in respect to the impending 
 situation. 
 
 June dusk fell. 
 
 " Gimme a kiss ! " Jimmie whispered. 
 
 Pattie deliberated. 
 
 "Aw, come on! "Jimmie pleaded. "Gimme 
 a kiss, won't you?" 
 
 It was a tender night : it was soft and 
 still and sweet-smelling at the edge of the 
 great woods ; and far above the little clear- 
 ing the little stars shone clear, making the 
 best of their opportunity to flash their serene 
 messages to the world of hearts before the 
 opulent moon should rise to dim their 
 teaching. 
 
 " Just one ! " Jimmie the Gentleman be- 
 sought. 
 
 They were now at the trail to town. " Well," 
 Pattie Batch drawled, in doubt, " I I 
 been " 
 
 Jimmie slipped an arm around her. 
 
 " I I I been thinkin'," Pattie began, shyly, 
 sure now that the great moment had indeed ar- 
 rived, " a little bit about " 
 
 " Come on ! " 
 
 " I been thinkin' a little bit," Pattie went on, 
 quite steadily, now, " about gettin' married." 
 
 Jimmie stepped away. " Have you ? " said he, 
 blankly.
 
 248 THE TRIAL KISS 
 
 " Maybe," Pattie continued, " you better had 
 kiss me." 
 
 The Gentleman came closer. 
 
 "I'll try it," said little Pattie, resolutely, "an' 
 see how I like it." 
 
 Jimmie kissed her in his accustomed way. 
 
 " I don't like it 1 " Pattie cried, freeing herself, 
 in a passion of humiliation and terror. " I don't 
 like it ! Oh, I don't like it ! " 
 
 " What's the matter with you ? " Jimmie de- 
 manded. 
 
 " I d-d-don't know," Pattie sobbed. 
 
 "Want another?" 
 
 "N-no!" 
 
 " Might as well have another." 
 
 " I I I'm awful th-th-thorry, Jimmie," Pattie 
 wept ; " but I I I d-d-don't think you' II d-d-do ! " 
 
 The Gentleman laughed a little. 
 
 " You won't mind, will you? " Pattie asked, in 
 a flush of compassion. 
 
 " Don't you worry about me" said the Gentle- 
 man. 
 
 Little Pattie whispered softly earnestly 
 
 " I'm so glad you don't mind ! " 
 
 The moon had risen. Jimmie the Gentleman 
 looked deep into Pattie Batch's glistening and 
 compassionate gray eyes. What was in his 
 mind, God knows ! What he said and this in 
 a whisper not meant for the ears of Pattie Batch 
 was :
 
 THE TRIAL KISS 249 
 
 " No ; you don't want me. I I wouldn't 
 do!" 
 
 " Good-night, Jimmie 1 " 
 
 " Good-bye." 
 
 Jimmie the Gentleman paused in the shadows 
 of the trail beyond Gray Billy Batch's clearing. 
 He was still in a daze ; but presently he laughed 
 and went his way towards the lights of Swamp's 
 End, whistling cheerfully along. Pattie Batch 
 went into the cabin in shame such as she had 
 never known before burning, red shame, flaring 
 in her heart and flushing her face. 
 
 Next day was the baby's birthday. Nobody 
 knew the baby's birthday, of course ; but next 
 day was the baby's birthday, nevertheless. That 
 is to say, it was Pop's birthday the birthday of 
 Gray Billy Batch, lost in Rattle Water, and 
 decently stowed away in the green field near by 
 town three years ago by young John Fairmeadow. 
 The baby must have a birthday, to be sure. 
 Why not Pop's birthday ? The memory of Gray 
 Billy Batch would in this be honoured ; and the 
 baby would be decently outfitted with an anni- 
 versary such as every other baby in the world 
 surely possessed. John Fairmeadow was coming 
 to tea. Nobody else was coming. There was 
 nobody else, in fact, quite good enough not 
 quite good enough to participate in the celebra- 
 tion of a festival so distinguished. And John
 
 THE TRIAL KISS 
 
 Fairmeadow came came just when the shadows 
 of the great pines at the edge of the clearing had 
 crept near and the flushed sun was dropping into 
 a glowing bed of cloud. John Fairmeadow was 
 in rare spirits. He was quite irresistible with his 
 banter. Pattie Batch, troubled little heart ! and 
 strangely detached from all this bubbling hap- 
 piness, almost said yes, in sheer absent-minded- 
 ness, when he demanded to know whether or not 
 she had made up her mind at last to take him 
 for better and for worse. John Fairmeadow 
 laughed John Fairmeadow joked in his gigantic 
 way John Fairmeadow tossed and tickled the 
 baby until that knowing prodigy (being now on 
 the edge of speech) almost commanded him to 
 behave himself and John Fairmeadow ate and 
 drank everything in sight when tea was spread 
 on a little table outside in the sunset light. 
 
 When the stars were out and the baby had 
 been stowed away when the mild pine breeze 
 had failed and the mystery of its silence lay again 
 upon the woods and clearing when the great 
 moon had risen round and bright above the pines 
 Pattie Batch walked with John Fairmeadow to 
 the trail to town ; and there, at this old parting 
 place, she stood downcast and disquieted. 
 
 " I have been wicked," she whispered. 
 
 " Wicked ! " Fairmeadow ejaculated, in quick 
 alarm. 
 
 " I have been very wicked."
 
 THE "TRIAL KISS 251 
 
 There was silence. 
 
 " I got t' tell you ! " said Pattie Batch. 
 
 " Tell me," said Fairmeadow, his alarm now 
 grown beyond him, " just what a friend may 
 know." 
 
 Pattie looked away. 
 
 " Tell me nothing," Fairmeadow warned. 
 
 "I got t'." 
 
 Fairmeadow waited. 
 
 "Jimmie the Gentleman he " 
 
 "Well?" Fairmeadow demanded harshly. 
 
 " You thee, thir," Pattie gasped, " Jimmie the 
 Gentleman he kithed me." 
 
 Fairmeadow started ; but presently he pos- 
 sessed himself again, and continued silent, un- 
 able, for pain and rage, to utter a word. 
 
 " He he kithed me." 
 
 " That," said Fairmeadow, quietly, " is a mat- 
 ter easily remedied. Jimmie the Gentleman," he 
 added, distinctly, " will not salute you again 
 against your will. I will see to it that Jimmie the 
 Gentleman does not offend again." 
 
 " I athked him to." 
 
 " You asked him to do that? " 
 
 " Yeth, thir." 
 
 Fairmeadow sighed. 
 
 " I I athked him," Pattie went on, " becauthe 
 I I been lookin' for a father for the baby, an' 
 I I thought I'd have him d-do it," she stam- 
 mered, " t' thee t' thee how I l-liked it."
 
 252 THE TRIAL KISS 
 
 " Was it very nice ? " 
 
 " No, thir." 
 
 " Was it nice, at all ? " 
 
 " No, thir." 
 
 " Would you like him " 
 
 "No, thir," very promptly. 
 
 There was another silence. Pattie had no 
 courage to lift her eyes from the moss. Fair- 
 meadow stood in amazed contemplation of the 
 downcast little figure. The stars looked down 
 winking their perfect understanding of the situa- 
 tion. The big moon peeped over the trees as 
 though bound not to miss a moment of the 
 comedy. And presently Fairmeadow laughed. 
 It was no dubious chuckle. It was a roar of 
 laughter hearty and prolonged. And the stars 
 winked as fast as they very well could ; and the 
 man in the moon grinned his broadest in sym- 
 pathy. Indeed, the face of the whole sky was 
 wrinkled and twitching with amusement, and 
 kept grinning and winking away until John Fair- 
 meadow for the moment a daring fellow took 
 Pattie Batch's little hand in his, and tipped up 
 her little face with his forefinger, and found her 
 gray eyes with his own, and looked deep down 
 therein, but not in the way of Jimmie the Gentle- 
 man. Whereupon of sheer interest the little 
 stars stopped winking, and the big round moon, 
 intensely agitated, peered with shameless curi- 
 osity into the clearing, and the whole world of
 
 THE 'TRIAL KISS 2?) 
 
 sky and forest bent near, determined to hear, in 
 this silence of the June night, every word that 
 young John Fairmeadow should say to the little 
 culprit whom he held ever so gently by the 
 hand. 
 
 " Pattie Batch," said John Fairmeadow, se- 
 verely, " don't you dare to do it again ! " 
 
 Pattie flashed him a shy smile. 
 
 "Young woman," Fairmeadow continued, 
 more severely still, "if ever you feel that a 
 similar operation, performed with perfect pro- 
 priety, would conduce to your peace in the 
 world, just glance over your list of eligibles, 
 and consider the name of the first applicant 
 thereon set down, and then instantly come " 
 
 Pattie Batch fled chuckling up the path. 
 
 With Jimmie the Gentleman, at Swamp's End, 
 that night, John Fairmeadow procured the favour 
 of a word or two. The words were not many ; 
 and they were quiet-spoken and they were 
 uttered in private. Moreover, they impressed 
 Jimmie the Gentleman. They were so impress- 
 ive, indeed, that Jimmie the Gentleman might 
 have repeated them, every one of them, word for 
 word, had he been required to do so. The con- 
 clusion which is quite sufficient to repeat was 
 this : "Jimmie, my boy, you have had a narrow, 
 a very narrow, escape." To which Jimmie the 
 Gentleman, having not yet quite recovered his
 
 254 THE TRIAL KISS 
 
 colour, stuttered, in reply : " I I guess that's 
 right, Mr. Fairmeadow." 
 
 " It is! " said John Fairmeadow. 
 
 Jimmie nodded. 
 
 " You bet your life it is ! " John Fairmeadow 
 exploded, slapping his fist into the palm of his 
 hand. 
 
 " Yes," said Jimmie. 
 
 " You'll remember ? " 
 
 And Jimmie remembered.
 
 XXVI 
 
 UNDER FIRE 
 
 NOW, at last, the great day had come. 
 John Fairmeadow was to be examined 
 for ordination. If all went well and 
 John Fairmeadow devoutly hoped that by some 
 extraordinary chance all might go well if all 
 went well, John Fairmeadow would presently 
 become a "real" minister. That was what the 
 boys wanted ; that was what they had with 
 many flattering apologies suggested. The boys 
 naturally wanted the "real thing." The boys 
 ought to have the "real thing." Nothing was 
 too good for the boys. John Fairmeadow was 
 bound to give them the " real thing" if he could. 
 Consequently, John Fairmeadow had for weeks 
 for many months, indeed concerned himself 
 in his leisure moments (which were few) with the 
 sources of Christian theology, with the nature of 
 God, with an intimate examination of the claims 
 of the Trinity to existence in fact, with the 
 origin of sin, and with exegesis, apologetics, 
 church history, and the like ; but he was not at 
 all sure, with all his labour, that his information 
 in respect to these abstruse affairs was either 
 
 2 55
 
 256 UNDER FIRE 
 
 accurate or anything like complete. But John 
 Fairmeadow must do the best he could. The 
 examining committee would presently arrive ; the 
 committee would be ushered into One Eyed 
 Mag's little parlour below and would there pro- 
 ceed with an embarrassing inquisition into John 
 Fairmeadow 's qualifications for preaching the 
 Gospel. John Fairmeadow thought little enough 
 of those selfsame qualifications, if theological 
 learning were to constitute them ; and doubtless 
 the examining committee would think much less 
 of them. But John Fairmeadow, industrious to 
 the end, conned his great text-book of systematic 
 theology, determined to acquit himself like a man, 
 if for nothing else than to honour the boys. 
 
 Billy the Beast, who had lain since midnight 
 trussed up on John Fairmeadow's bed, opened 
 his eyes. 
 
 "Parson," said he, in amazement, "what the 
 hell are you doin' ?" 
 
 Fairmeadow proceeded with his reading : 
 " 'God dwells in the universe, and is active in 
 the whole of it, but is not to be conceived as 
 wholly occupied by it, or exhausting His pos- 
 sibilities in conducting its processes.' " 
 
 " Readiri f" Billy the Beast demanded. 
 
 " ' By the immanence of God,' " Fairmeadow 
 read on, " ' is meant that He is everywhere and 
 always present in the universe, nowhere absent 
 from it, never separated ' "
 
 UNDER FIRE 257 
 
 " Gimme a drink," said Billy the Beast. 
 
 " No, Billy ; you can't have a drink. ' The 
 ideas of immanence and transcendence ' " 
 
 " Gimme a drink ! " 
 
 " You don't need a drink, Billy," Fairmeadow 
 protested, without looking up; "you'll pull 
 through without a drink." He went on with his 
 reading : " ' The ideas of immanence and tran- 
 scendence are sometimes set in ' " 
 
 " For God's sake ! " the Beast wailed, " gimme 
 a drink." 
 
 Fairmeadow scowled. '"The ideas of imma- 
 nence and transcendence,' " he read on, with a 
 sigh, " ' are sometimes set in opposition to each 
 other, and each has even had its advocate ; but 
 this is needless and wrong. Each conception 
 needs the other. Transcendence without im- 
 manence * " 
 
 A flow of soft profanity issued from the 
 Beast's dry lips. 
 
 " Quit it ! " Fairmeadow commanded. " You 
 bother me." 
 
 Billy sighed. 
 
 " ' Transcendence without immanence,' " Fair- 
 meadow read, scratching his bewildered head, 
 " ' would give us Deism, cold and barren ; im- 
 manence without transcendence would give us 
 Pantheism, fatalistic and paralyzing. The two 
 coexist in God ' " 
 
 "Sayl"
 
 258 UNDER FIRE 
 
 " ' His omnipresent energy is His immanence ; 
 but so great is that ' ' 
 
 "Say!" 
 
 " ' So great is that omnipresent energy that 
 instead of being ' ' 
 
 " Say ! " Billy the Beast roared ; " am I goin' 
 t' get that drink or not ? " 
 
 Fairmeadow touched the Beast's pulse. 
 " You are not" said he. " ' Instead of being 
 the fully- worked slave of the universe that He 
 inhabits and maintains ' " 
 
 "Say!" 
 
 " ' God is its master.' " 
 
 " Say ! " 
 
 Fairmeadow closed the book. " Look here, 
 Billy ! " said he. " You don't need a drink ; you 
 can pull through, this time, without a drink, and 
 you're not going to get a drink. Be quiet. Go 
 to sleep. Don't you see that you're bothering 
 me? Leave me alone. I've enough on my 
 hands to trouble me as it is. If in half an hour 
 I don't know a good deal more about God than 
 I seem to know at this minute," he added, im- 
 pressively, " I'll flunk." 
 
 "Ye'll what?" 
 
 " Flunk, I tell you ! " 
 
 "That's awful!" said the Beast. "Is it 
 deadly?" 
 
 " Not necessarily," Fairmeadow replied ; " but 
 it's a very unpleasant experience."
 
 UNDER FIRE 259 
 
 When Billy the Beast had been completely in- 
 formed when he understood the nature and 
 probable event of the impending examination 
 when he knew that examining committee was 
 about to arrive with certain grave questions 
 touching the nature of God he fell quiet. " You 
 go right ahead with your readin', parson," said 
 he. " Ye'll need to. Don't ye mind me. An', 
 say, parson ! " said he ; " if them sky -pilots says 
 you don't know more about God than they do, 
 you come up an' loose me. That's all you got t' 
 do, parson. You jus' come up an' turn me loose ! 
 I'll fix it fer ye." Fairmeadow was then per- 
 mitted to reopen his text-book, and to proceed to 
 discover a great deal about God's spiritual pur- 
 pose in the universe, and about His right of control 
 throughout the universe, which the young fellow 
 had not known before, at least in positive terms. 
 
 It was unfortunate, of course, that, the night 
 before, John Fairmeadow had gone into the Cafe 
 of Egyptian Delights ; it was more unfortunate 
 still that he had been moved to glance over the 
 collection of stupefied sots in the snake-room. 
 The collection had been large and varied : it was 
 Sunday night. And however unfortunate it was 
 that John Fairmeadow had been led to glance it 
 over, it was more unfortunate still that he had 
 found Billy the Beast a conspicuous member of 
 that snoring gathering Billy the Beast evidently
 
 260 UNDER FIRE 
 
 come close to the drunkard's most terrible pass. 
 John Fairmeadow forgot the text- book of system- 
 atic theology to which he had been hurrying ; 
 he forgot, even, that the committee was coming, 
 that his ordination hung in the balance, that the 
 boys wanted the " real thing " and that he had 
 determined to give the boys the " real thing " if 
 he could manage it. There was only one thing 
 to do only one business with which a lay- 
 preacher could then properly occupy himself. 
 Fairmeadow went for his wheelbarrow ; and, 
 having come again, shouldered the Beast, car- 
 ried him through the barroom, flung him into 
 the barrow, trundled him home, shouldered him 
 up-stairs and put him to bed. Fairmeadow had 
 thereupon spent the night with the erudite re- 
 search into the origin of sin and the nature of 
 God. It was not until past dawn not until Billy 
 the Beast had begun to stir and moan in his 
 sleep that Fairmeadow trussed him up with a 
 length of stout rope which he kept in his little 
 room above the Mother-Used-To-Make-It for that 
 very purpose. 
 
 " That's not too tight," he thought, when he 
 had accomplished this admirable precaution ; 
 " that won't hurt him." 
 
 Billy muttered restlessly. 
 
 " I wonder," Fairmeadow thought, " if God 
 will ever save this poor fellow from his wretched- 
 ness. I'll pray again," he determined.
 
 UNDER FIRE 261 
 
 The which he did. 
 
 When the committee arrived, Fairmeadow 
 bade the shivering Beast behave himself, urged 
 him to make no disturbing noise, implored him 
 in particular to make no effort to escape, eased 
 his bonds a little, denied his plea for a dram of 
 liquor, peeped for the last time into the nature of 
 God as disclosed in the ponderous text-book of 
 theology, and went anxiously below to One Eyed 
 Mag's parlour, where a committee of two genially 
 awaited him. They were fine fellows. John 
 Fairmeadow was instantly persuaded of it. 
 One glance was sufficient. " Glad to see you, 
 boys 1 " he exclaimed, heartily ; "it's awfully 
 good in you to come 'way out here to the 
 backwoods and bother your heads with a stupid 
 layman." And to this warm outburst and to a 
 hearty shake of the hand and to a friendly clap 
 on the back the examining committee responded 
 with smiles equally warm. They were both 
 young ; and they were true to the type, in some 
 respects curiously alike : they were smartly 
 dressed in well-cut black, they were straight and 
 virile, they displayed no marks of care, their eyes 
 were frank, clear, intelligent. Fine fellows, both 
 young fellows of high ideals and easy con- 
 sciences. Fairmeadow liked them. He was 
 himself palpably inferior ; he was big, and 
 brown, and abrupt, and belligerent, and alert,
 
 262 UNDER FIRE 
 
 and energetic, of course, but he lacked the re- 
 finement of his inquisitors the small graces they 
 so easily displayed and his eyes, though frank 
 and eager, were a bit bleared by his night's oc- 
 cupation, and his hair was tousled, and the legs 
 of his trousers were tucked away in his boot- 
 tops, and his attire was that of a lumber-jack, 
 and his face was seamed with weather and trouble. 
 However, it seemed not to matter at all. The 
 examining committee had evidently taken a 
 fancy to John Fairmeadow. 
 
 " Boys," Fairmeadow apologized, " I'm afraid 
 I'm going to make a fool of myself. You see, 
 I've been awfully busy. Out here, you see, 
 it's the hardest thing in the world to get a 
 minute " 
 
 There was a thump on the floor overhead. 
 
 " The hardest thing in the world," Fairmeadow 
 repeated, frowning, his ear cocked for sounds 
 from above, " to get a minute ' 
 
 The thump was repeated. 
 
 " Yes," Fairmeadow went on, awkwardly ; 
 " you see, boys, out here in the woods " 
 
 The floor creaked overhead. 
 
 " I'm sure, Mr. Fairmeadow," one of the young 
 ministers put in, to ease John Fairmeadow's em- 
 barrassment, " that you'll do very well. Now, let 
 us not waste time. Let us " 
 
 " Of course ! " Fairmeadow agreed. " The 
 sooner this thing is over," he added, with mani-
 
 UNDER FIRE 263 
 
 fest anxiety to have it over and done with, the 
 while listening, " the better I'll be pleased." 
 "Very well! Well, now, Mr. Fairmeadow " 
 
 The examination of John Fairmeadow for or- 
 dination proceeded. It was not a great success. 
 In the first place, the candidate seemed for some 
 strange reason to have no realizing sense of the 
 importance of the questions he was required to 
 answer. Instead of heeding his examiners as a 
 diligent student for the honour of ordination 
 might very well be expected to do, he displayed 
 an odd and completely unaccountable distrac- 
 tion : so that he frequently ejaculated, " I beg 
 your pardon, boys ! What was that last ques- 
 tion?" Moreover, it was observed that his re- 
 plies were confused, not altogether, it appeared, 
 because of dense ignorance, but because, in part, 
 at least, of a lack of interest in the proceed- 
 ings (from which his attention continuously 
 wandered), and because of an acute and alert 
 interest in respect to some mysterious hap- 
 penings in a room above, these being quite 
 foreign to the matter in hand. The commit- 
 tee was unfavourably impressed. Had the 
 committee not been above indulging unkind 
 suspicion, the committee might without doing 
 violence to its cpmmon sense have suspected 
 John Fairmeadow of labouring under a guilty 
 conscience : John Fairmeadow displayed every
 
 264 UNDER FIRE 
 
 symptom of the thing ; and had it been at all 
 possible for him to cheat the committee, under 
 the committee's two noses, the candidate, such 
 was his uneasiness and flushed condition and 
 nervous demeanour, might fairly have been sus- 
 pected of that disreputable business. In addi- 
 tion to this, the candidate displayed no impress- 
 ive acquaintance with the origin of sin, could 
 barely scrape through an apology for the Trinity, 
 was decidedly weak in respect to origin of the 
 Book of Genesis, was of doubtful acquaintance 
 with the Church in mediaeval times, and would be 
 hanged (said he) if he could tell who was Caesar 
 of Rome when Paul preached in Athens ! 
 
 The examination was eventually interrupted 
 by a crash of glass proceeding from a room up- 
 stairs. 
 
 "Boys," said Fairmeadow, "you'll have to ex- 
 cuse me. I'm busy." 
 
 "Certainly," said the committee, politely. 
 " And at your conven " 
 
 " I'm awfully sorry it has turned out this way," 
 Fairmeadow apologized. "I've an unexpected 
 little job on my hands. Nothing much," he 
 added, hastily ; " but it may take a little time." 
 
 The committee bowed sympathetically. " How 
 long will it be before " 
 
 " Not to-day, boys," Fairmeadow replied, 
 hastily. " I've a little job on hand that will keep 
 me all day. The fact is "
 
 UNDER FIRE 265 
 
 At that moment the door was softly opened 
 and a frowzy head was intruded into the exam- 
 ination chamber. 
 
 " I found yer bottle, parson," a hoarse voice 
 whispered. 
 
 Fairmeadow flashed about in horror. 
 
 44 Parson," Billy the Beast whispered, fixing 
 the committee with a baleful glance, "is them 
 there little dude sky-pilots givin' ye a square 
 deal? If they hain't, parson I'm loose!" 
 
 Fairmeadow was far too genuine a man to 
 trouble about what the examining young min- 
 isters might suspect in respect to the bottle 
 which Billy the Beast had discovered in his 
 room. The bottle troubled him, nevertheless ; 
 it troubled him chiefly because Billy the Beast 
 had all too evidently absorbed its contents, and 
 was now, beyond question, not only in a mood 
 to indulge all the devilish propensities and per- 
 versities which were accustomed to possess him 
 when in liquor, but was helplessly bound towards 
 the renewal of his debauch. Moreover, in that 
 particular stage of intoxication, he was a danger- 
 ous man : he craved fight a gigantic, savage, 
 unkempt, flaring-eyed barbarian, spoiling for 
 fight, in which he would not scruple to use his 
 feet and his teeth, as well as his fists, if he 
 could successfully employ them. And he 
 cavorted into the room, forthwith, in the manner
 
 266 UNDER FIRE 
 
 of a fighting-man, advancing and retreating 
 with quick little steps, and feinting with his fists. 
 He advanced, in this threatening manner, upon 
 the smart little ministers, who promptly rose, 
 and in some agitation, to meet him ; and he 
 demanded, with every evidence of the intention of 
 knocking their heads together, of wringing their 
 neatly-collared, slender necks, and of eating 'em 
 up for dinner he demanded whether or not it 
 was their purpose to flunk the parson : adding, 
 before John Fairmeadow could interrupt, that by 
 the Eternal he would instantly put them through 
 a sausage-grinder if they should display the 
 least idea of " trying it on." It was an awkward 
 moment for the young ministers : their intimate 
 and authoritative acquaintance with the origin 
 of sin, of course, could not, as they were well 
 aware, preserve them from the sinful conduct 
 presently to be manifested ; but they were cour- 
 ageous young fellows, notwithstanding, and 
 stood bravely to their guns, drawn up with 
 dignity and flushed with resentment. 
 
 " Easy, Billy ! " Fairmeadow put in, harshly. 
 " Take care ! " 
 
 Billy leaned close to the younger young 
 minister. 
 
 "I want t' pull your nose," said he, softly. 
 
 The younger young minister would not by 
 any means permit the indignity. 
 
 " It needs pullm'," Billy urged.
 
 UNDER FIRE 267 
 
 "Standoff!" 
 
 "An' I feel jus' like pullin' it," Billy added. 
 
 " Stand off 1 " 
 
 " Now, young feller," the Beast went on, rolling 
 up his sleeve, " I ain't goin' t' hurt ye. Stand 
 still, an' it'll be over in a minute." 
 
 Fairmeadow's hand fell heavily on the Beast's 
 shoulder. " That'll do ! " said he. "No more 
 of it ! " 
 
 " But, parson " 
 
 " No more of it, I say ! " 
 
 Billy the Beast felt Fairmeadow's hand slip 
 cautiously to his wrist. At the same moment he 
 looked into Fairmeadow's eyes and discovered 
 Fairmeadow's purpose. And he was not caught 
 napping. He wrenched his hand free, leaped 
 away, with an oath, and stood on guard, eyeing 
 big John Fairmeadow alertly. Fairmeadow 
 slipped out of his jacket, muttered, " Excuse 
 me for a minute, boys I " to the young min- 
 isters, with much politeness, and advanced 
 cautiously to the attack. It was a memorable 
 engagement ; at least, it was never forgotten by 
 the young ministers who had come to determine 
 John Fairmeadow's qualifications for preaching 
 the Gospel to the lumber-jacks of that section. 
 But it was not a long engagement. John Fair- 
 meadow was not used to long engagements of 
 that nature ; they were altogether opposed to his 
 religion and ethical policy. He went swiftly to
 
 268 UNDER FIRE 
 
 close quarters with the Beast, dodged a terrific 
 swing, and struck once before he leaped away. 
 But he had not struck hard enough. " Pshaw 1 " 
 he grunted, disgusted and distressed. "I'll have 
 to hit him again." He went in for the second 
 time with a grim and cruel intention. It was 
 with the purpose of hitting the Beast so hard 
 and at a point so vital that the gigantic lumber- 
 jack would crumple up and lie still until he 
 could be put to bed again. The affair must 
 issue that way or John Fairmeadow's discourse 
 would utterly fail of edifying Billy the Beast in 
 any degree whatsoever. The Beast must not be 
 permitted to escape to the saloons. 
 
 Fairmeadow advanced. 
 
 " D-d-don't hurt him ! " the younger young 
 minister feelingly stuttered. 
 
 Fairmeadow did not hurt the Beast. In fact 
 and greatly to his distress Fairmeadow missed 
 the Beast entirely. Whereupon, the Beast, with 
 a whoop of triumph, laid John Fairmeadow flat, 
 leaped for the door, vanished from the room, and 
 scampered off towards the Cafe of Egyptian De- 
 lights. And Fairmeadow jumped up, ejacu- 
 lated, " Excuse me, boys ; we'll have to postpone 
 this examination. I must save that man ! " and 
 took after the lumber-jack. It was night before 
 he returned ; and he was worn out, then, and in- 
 finitely depressed, and hopeless concerning him- 
 self, his ministry, and all the sinful sons of men ;
 
 UNDER FIRE 209 
 
 J3Ut he had Billy the Beast in the wheelbarrow, 
 and he carried the man up-stairs, and put him to 
 bed, determined to watch with more devotion 
 until the sot had recovered his sobriety and 
 could control himself on the way to the camps of 
 the Cant-hook cutting. In the meantime, the 
 examining committee, having grown discouraged, 
 had departed on the evening train, leaving 
 word, in the form of a communication, couched 
 in terms of distinguished politeness, that their 
 findings, in respect to John Fairmeadow's quali- 
 fications for ordination, would in due time be re- 
 ported to the Body by which they had been 
 commissioned, and would, no doubt, eventually 
 be communicated to John Fairmeadow himself. 
 With this John Fairmeadow must be content. 
 But the issue was not in doubt in his mind. 
 They would not ordain him. How could they ? 
 Why should they ? John Fairmeadow was far 
 better aware than the examining committee of 
 his own wretched ignorance in all things con- 
 cerning the origin of sin, the authorship of 
 Genesis, the Church in the mediaeval ages, and 
 the government of Rome in the days of the 
 Apostle Paul. " Hang it all ! " he ejaculated, 
 while he sat with Billy the Beast, now and again 
 feeling the wretched fellow's pulse, now and 
 again wiping the sweat from his brow, " I've no 
 time to cram up those things ! " And having 
 changed the subject of his thought, he came
 
 270 UNDER. FIRE 
 
 back, with admirable resolution, to the old ques- 
 tion. " I wonder," he thought, " if Almighty 
 God will ever save this man from his wretched- 
 ness. Anyhow," he determined, " I'm going to 
 pray once more." 
 The which he did.
 
 XXVII 
 
 BOUND THROUGH 
 
 IT turned out as Fairmeadow had foreseen. 
 In the first place, Billy the Beast survived 
 his debauch, expressed his contrition, re- 
 newed his conviction that he would " get home " 
 next time, and returned sober, if a bit white and 
 tremulous, to the camps of the Cant-hook cutting ; 
 and in the second place, the Superior Body 
 would not sanction the ordination of John Fair- 
 meadow. The communication to this effect was 
 polite : it was exquisitely delicate, indeed a very 
 masterpiece of literary delicacy. It conveyed 
 praise to John Fairmeadow, it congratulated him 
 upon the work he was doing " in the Master's 
 vineyard," it expressed the hope that he might 
 live long to continue it, it furnished him with a 
 benediction ; but in terms which could not be 
 misunderstood it at the same time assured John 
 Fairmeadow that he would be no less serviceable 
 to his Master and the Church that his reward 
 would be quite as sure and large if he should 
 continue to labour as a lay preacher and should 
 forthwith and for all time abandon his ambition 
 to enter the rough field of the woods as a regu- 
 larly ordained minister of the Gospel. The 
 
 271
 
 272 BOUND THROUGH 
 
 communication left out a good deal. It left out, 
 for example, the terms of the brief and rather 
 humorous discussion of the case, which had 
 taken place at a session of the Superior Body 
 when the younger young minister of the exami- 
 ning committee had made his rather facetious 
 report (he was a distinguished wag) of the oc- 
 currences in the little parlour of One Eyed Mag's 
 Mother-Used-To-Make-It Restaurant. It omit- 
 ted, too, all reference to an exchange of opinions 
 aboard train, in the evening of that unfortunate 
 day, when the examining committee, with a re- 
 vived sense of personal safety, was making all 
 haste from the proximity of Billy the Beast and 
 his like. 
 
 " What do you think, Jim? " the younger young 
 minister inquired. 
 
 The other laughed. 
 
 " Come, now 1 " the younger insisted. " Be 
 frank." 
 
 " He's a rough diamond." 
 
 " He is a diamond, though. That's sure. I 
 like him." 
 
 " An admirable fellow ! A splendid fellow ! " 
 
 " Admirable ! " the younger agreed. 
 
 " Splendid ! " the other repeated " I took a 
 great fancy to him. But " 
 
 " That's it ! " the younger interrupted, hastily. 
 " That's the point ! But " 
 
 " There's the dignity of "
 
 BOUND THROUGH 273 
 
 " Of course 1 There's the dignity of the cloth 
 to be considered." 
 
 " And " 
 
 " Exactly ! " 
 
 " I rather think he will do just as good work 
 as a lay preacher." 
 
 " I agree with you," said the younger, emphat- 
 ically. " Let us report in that way. He's pretty 
 rough. A diamond, of course but pretty 
 rough ! There's no reason in the world why he 
 should be ordained. And I really think that the 
 ministry should be protected against the invasion 
 of ignorant and uncultivated men. I do, hon- 
 estly ! " 
 
 Of all this, of course, John Fairmeadow knew 
 nothing. His rejection from this body of ac- 
 cepted ministers ministers in law and fact cast 
 him down, a little, but did not discourage him ; 
 and it did not enter his head either to accuse the 
 young committee of unfairness or to abandon the 
 work in disgust. Nothing of the sort ! It was 
 not long, indeed, before he began to laugh at 
 himself. " To think," he thought, in amusement 
 with his ambition, "that a busy man like me 
 could cram up all that stuff in the time I gave 
 myself 1 What nonsense ! And I never shall be 
 able to cram it up. I'm too busy. But I must 
 be ordained. If I'm to be as useful here as I 
 might be, I must be ordained. I must have the 
 sanction of my Church. I must have the back-
 
 274 BOUND THROUGH 
 
 ing of my Church. If I am to organize my work 
 and I must organize my work I must be 
 equal in standing with the other ministers of my 
 Church. But I've no time no time at all to 
 cram that systematic theology. They must or- 
 dain me without it. They must ! And by Jove ! 
 I'll tell 'em so I " It was with this object in view 
 that John Fairmeadow replied to the communi- 
 cation of the Superior Body, genuinely congratu- 
 lating the brethren upon the wisdom of their 
 decision in his case, but requesting, as a 
 peculiar indulgence, that he might have the 
 honour of addressing the brethren, in his own be- 
 half, at a future meeting. And in this John 
 Fairmeadow displayed not only his wisdom but 
 his goodness of heart. It was quite impossible 
 for the Superior Body, with this limited knowl- 
 edge of the applicant, to ordain John Fair- 
 meadow ; and John Fairmeadow had the good 
 sense to know it. 
 
 The Superior Body was not behind in the dis- 
 play of good sense and kindness. John Fair- 
 meadow was informed that he would in due 
 course be notified of the time at which he would 
 be expected to address the brethren. There was 
 a long delay, to be sure ; but in the meantime 
 Fairmeadow was busy, and minded the months 
 of delay not at all. 
 
 It was the custom of Pale Peter's Donald,
 
 BOUND THROUGH 275 
 
 upon occasion, to go preaching with John Fair- 
 meadow ; and Fairmeadow maintained and 
 Pale Peter assented with a laugh that it did the 
 boy no harm whatsoever, though it might make 
 a preacher of him in the end. "Jack," Pale 
 Peter was used to saying to the minister, with 
 a grin, " if the lad turns out a better rascal than 
 I, I'll be content ; and if the good deeds you 
 waste like water on the swine of these woods 
 make him a better saint than yourself, I'll not be 
 disappointed." It came about in this way that 
 when Fairmeadow fell in with Billy the Beast 
 for the last time at Camp Three of the Cant-hook 
 cutting, young Donald was at his elbow. It 
 was midwinter, then, and perishing cold in the 
 world. There was a still, dry, scorching frost. 
 It crackled brittlely underfoot hard and sharp 
 as breaking glass. It broke in the shadows and 
 black branches of the pines ; it seemed to echo 
 in some uncanny way far off in the wintry forest 
 silence. There was no wind stirring ; the trees 
 were black and heavily still, and no frosty dust 
 was lifted from the snow to obscure the limpid 
 blue air. The night bit like frozen iron. It was 
 forty-two below in the woods twelve miles from 
 Swamp's End : Donald proved it when they 
 came to the superintendent's log office in the 
 clearing. 
 
 It was late, too, when Fairmeadow and the 
 boy came to the first chips of the Cant-hook
 
 276 BOUND THROUGH 
 
 works ; but a full moon, risen above the pines, 
 illuminated the logging-road they tramped and 
 gave even some doubtful radiance to the muskegs 
 and deeper forest reaches. 
 
 "Ha!" John Fairmeadow ejaculated, catching 
 breath enough at a gulp to burst the lungs of 
 many a man ; " it's a clean world." 
 
 Donald laughed. 
 
 Fairmeadow blew out a vast white cloud. It 
 enveloped him : his face was like a purple moon 
 in a mist. 
 
 " I like it," said he, fetching the lad a clap on 
 the back. " I like it very much. It's a clean 
 world, Donald, and I'm very, very fond of it." 
 
 "As clean," the boy grumbled, "as a chunk 
 of ice." 
 
 " Breathe deep," Fairmeadow chuckled ; " the 
 night's clean in the mouth of a man." 
 
 Donnie tasted the metallic air. 
 
 " God's own clean world 1 " said John Fair- 
 meadow. 
 
 " There's no God here," said Donnie. 
 
 Fairmeadow caught a great breath again and 
 beat on his big chest with both hands. 
 
 " No, sir ! " Donnie protested. 
 
 "You can't tell me that," said Fairmeadow. 
 He smacked his lips the night sweet in his 
 mouth. "You'll have to take that," said he, 
 "to another shop. I know what I know, 
 Donald. I know what I know."
 
 BOUND THROUGH 277 
 
 Donnie shook his head. 
 
 " No God here, eh ? " the parson cried, in 
 mock severity. " I'll fix you, when I get you 
 back to Swamp's End. Know what you want? 
 You need spectacles, sir, for the young soul of 
 you 1 " 
 
 " There's no God out-of-doors this night," the 
 boy declared, with a wink he must crack ice to 
 achieve. " He'd freeze to the heart in no time." 
 
 Fairmeadow laughed a little. " Where's He 
 gone ? " he demanded. 
 
 " I'm hoping," Donald answered, with a grin, 
 " that we'll find Him in the bunk-house." 
 
 " Bunk-house ! " cried Fairmeadow. " Shall 
 we find Him in the bunk-house ? " 
 
 Donald thought so. 
 
 Fairmeadow turned grave all at once, and his 
 voice fell soft and musing. " So do I," said he. 
 " I think so, too, Donald. I think He's in the 
 bunk-house alive and watchful and wistful in 
 all those hearts." 
 
 Donald was once more persuaded that the 
 parson was a very kind man. 
 
 " Some day," Fairmeadow added, " God will 
 answer with power when I entreat Him. God 
 not here, eh ? " he went on. " Not in these big, 
 clean, holy woods ? Not in this great temple ? 
 Maybe not maybe not. After all, He does not 
 dwell in places, but only in hearts." He stopped 
 to stare at a starlit ribbon of sky far beyond the
 
 278 BOUND THROUGH 
 
 black pines. " I had rather search for God in a 
 barroom," said he, "than look for Him in a 
 star. I think," he added, presently, still regard- 
 ing the far heavens, " that God had rather lurk 
 in the heart of some poor woman of Swamp's 
 End that He had rather lurk there, waiting, in 
 some forgotten corner than have the run of the 
 whole wide Milky Way." 
 
 " Ah, come on ! " Donnie grumbled ; " my 
 nose is froze." 
 
 " It'll thaw," said Fairmeadow, softly. 
 
 They laughed together and went on. The 
 boy thought only of the peeping lights of the 
 bunk-house, which he saw through frosted eye- 
 lashes. They gave a wide-spread welcome 
 searching all the pines to fellowship and a red 
 fire. 
 
 To warn the bunk-house of his coming to 
 enliven, too, perhaps, their lagging feet (there 
 were twelve cold miles and a set sun behind 
 them) Fairmeadow broke out singing. Tramp, 
 tramp ! Their feet fell with new life in them. 
 It was a stirring song. It was an old song of 
 the road, 
 
 " Onward Christian soldiers, 
 
 Marching as to war, 
 With the cross of Jesus, 
 Going on before " 
 
 and it was sung with large heartiness by big"
 
 BOUND THROUGH 279 
 
 John Fairmeadow of Swamp's End. No other 
 voice, perhaps, ever before so nearly matched 
 the great woods themselves in the clear, uplift- 
 ing beauty and significance of their own music. 
 
 " Christ the royal master, 
 Leads against the foe ; 
 Forward into battle 
 See His banners " 
 
 There was an exasperated interruption : 
 
 " I reckon you're deaf, ain't you ? " 
 
 The voice had come whimpering in complaint 
 from the shadow of the blacksmith's shop. 
 
 "Hello, brother!" cried Fairmeadow, heartily. 
 "Who a.reyou?" 
 
 " Been a-howlin' on ye," the man in the 
 shadow snarled, " 'til I got my tongue near 
 froze ! " 
 
 Fairmeadow laughed. " Come out, my son," 
 said he, " and let me look at you." 
 
 Billy the Beast stepped into the moonlight. 
 
 " You ! " 
 
 " Yes, me ! " the Beast growled. 
 
 The parson spread his legs and stared. He 
 began to whistle, with much feeling : 
 
 " At the sign of triumph 
 
 Satan's host doth flee : 
 On, then, Christian soldiers, 
 On to " 
 
 " I want ye," said Billy the Beast.
 
 280 BOUND -THROUGH 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 The Beast grinned like an ingratiating culprit 
 child. 
 
 "What do you want of me?" Fairmeadow 
 abruptly demanded. " Do you want to make 
 arrangements to be hauled out of Pale Peter's 
 snake-room ? " 
 
 Billy kicked at the snow. 
 
 "Well?" said the parson. 
 
 " I want t' go home." 
 
 " Home I " 
 
 " I I want t' go home." 
 
 Fairmeadow regarded him gravely. 
 
 "Ye see, parson," the Beast went on, "I I 
 jus' got t' go home." 
 
 " Home 1 " the parson ejaculated. " You go 
 home ! To what?" 
 
 Once more Billy the Beast kicked at the snow. 
 " My mother wants me," he explained. He 
 sighed then. 
 
 The parson stared at him. 
 
 " Ye see, parson," said Billy the Beast, simply, 
 like a boy who may excuse everything in this 
 way, " my mother wants me an' I got t' go." 
 He was almost triumphant in his reason. 
 
 The parson shook his head in bewilderment. 
 
 "I'll be out Wednesday night," said Billy, 
 with much interest in his own doings. He whis- 
 pered, slyly, " I'll be out Wednesday night." He 
 peered cautiously into all the shadows round-
 
 BOUND THROUGH 281 
 
 about. "The tote-road," he whispered, "close 
 on nine. I reckon you'll take care o' me, won't 
 ye, parson ? " He sighed. " I'll have my stake 
 in my pocket," he went on. " It'll be over two 
 hundred. An' you'll take care o' me, won't ye, 
 parson ? You'll help me past Pale Peter's place, 
 won't ye? If ye let me have one drink," said 
 the Beast, "I'll never get home." 
 
 It was true. 
 
 " Ye see," Billy the Beast drawled, " mother 
 sent for me an' I got t' go home." 
 
 " Man," the parson flared, " are you fit to go 
 home to your mother?" 
 
 " I reckon," Billy replied, " that she won't care 
 much about that." 
 
 "Not care?" 
 
 " Not once she gets me home." 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 "Ye see, parson," said the Beast, in anxious 
 explanation, " mother wants me, an' I got t' 
 go." 
 
 "She's wanted you before." 
 
 " She's sick," Billy added, simply. 
 
 The parson would not speak. 
 
 " I want t' go home," Billy repeated. " That's 
 all. I jus' want t' go home. Won't ye help me 
 past Pale Peter's place?" 
 
 Donald turned away. 
 
 " I'll never get past Pale Peter's place alone." 
 
 Donald walked off.
 
 282 BOUND THROUGH 
 
 " I tell you what I'll do, Billy," said the par- 
 son, heartily : " I'll pray for you." 
 
 " Pray fer me ! " 
 
 " I'll pray for you." 
 
 The Beast laughed. " Is that the best ye can 
 do?" he sneered. 
 
 Fairmeadow answered, in a flash : 
 
 " Pray for yourself." 
 
 " Hell ! " Billy laughed. " Me ? " 
 
 " What you need," said Fairmeadow, " is the 
 grace of God in your heart. Get down on your 
 knees and pray for yourself. Keep on praying. 
 If you do that, you'll get through ; if you don't, 
 you won't get through." 
 
 " I reckon," Billy replied, " that prayer won't 
 keep my throat moist when I come t* Pale Peter's 
 door." He licked his lips. "Not moist," he 
 added. " Are you goin' t' help me, parson," he 
 went on, "or not?" 
 
 " It's no use, Billy." 
 
 " My mother's sick, I tell ye, an' I got t' go 
 home ! " 
 
 " It's no use, Billy." 
 
 " God help me ! " the Beast wailed. 
 
 " There you are ! " Fairmeadow ejaculated, 
 delighted. " That's the thing ! Keep on ! " 
 
 " Will ye help me if I do?" 
 
 "I will!" 
 
 " Will ye put me aboard train ? " 
 
 " I will ! "
 
 BOUND THROUGH 283 
 
 Billy the Beast collapsed to his knees ; and he 
 began an incoherent, abject petition. Presently 
 apparently overcome he fell forward sprawl- 
 ing, his prayer spent. 
 
 "That's all right, Billy," said Fairmeadow. 
 " You're going through, this time, old man, or 
 we'll know the reason why. That bunch of saloon- 
 keepers at Swamp's End carit lick God and me 
 and you ! "
 
 XXVIII 
 
 FATHER AND SON 
 
 PALE PETER, in the little sanctuary at the 
 end of the bar in the red-curtained, easy- 
 chaired seclusion from the bestial con- 
 fusion beyond in the cozy little harbour from 
 all the coarse aggravations of money-making 
 for his son's sake Pale Peter stared out into the 
 thick, whirling, darkening storm of snow. It 
 was cold weather : it was cold weather it was 
 white, tumultuous weather, in which no lad 
 should be abroad. Pale Pater wondered where 
 the lad was. Where was he, anyhow? With 
 John Fairmeadow, of course with the quixotic 
 preacher of righteousness to the swine of the 
 woods. But and the saloon-keeper had often 
 admitted it the boy was in the company of the 
 only man of all those parts who could teach him 
 a manly way. Pale Peter was glad ; but Pale 
 Peter wondered and wondered in fatherly 
 anxiety whether or not Donnie was on the 
 trails whether or not, in that freezing gale, the 
 boy was fed and sheltered whether or not he 
 followed, in that white, frosty weather, on the 
 heels of a man enthusiastic beyond his strength, 
 
 284
 
 FATHER AND SON 285 
 
 a man, indeed, given to the pursuit of his busi- 
 ness beyond the strength of any lad to keep up 
 with. Pale Peter brooded in the warmth and 
 easy seclusion of his place beyond the bar. 
 What would it all come to, anyhow ? It was 
 all for the boy the robbery, the ruinous in- 
 vitation, the watchful cultivation of every evil 
 propensity in the camps, the damnation of souls 
 old and young. In what would it end ? What 
 would the boy win from the opportunity his 
 father's devotion would provide ? Would he be 
 a man, when they should go East into a polite 
 world, with a fortune to ease and advance him ? 
 Or would he, helplessly corrupted by these 
 scenes, seek only, and at any cost to the hearts 
 of other men, his own way of indulgence and 
 happiness ? 
 
 " Donnie," Pale Peter thought, having 
 imagined the boy in his presence, " how's it 
 going to end ? " 
 
 Peter fancied that Donnie replied : 
 
 " When I grow up, father, I'm going to be 
 a man." 
 
 " A decent man ? " 
 
 " A decent man, father." 
 
 " That's good, boy ! I want you to be a decent 
 man, God knows 1 " 
 
 At this point in Pale Peter's imaginary conver- 
 sation with his son, Donald put his arms around 
 his father. It was wretchedly sentimental, of
 
 286 FATHER AND SON 
 
 course, that such a thing should enter Pale 
 Peter's mind ; but it did, nevertheless, and 
 Pale Peter, indulging the purely imaginary 
 caress, submitted with the best grace he could 
 summon, which was grace enough, to be sure, 
 to sanction the display. Pale Peter rather liked 
 it : he liked the sense of fatherhood it gave 
 him ; he liked the childishness of the act liked 
 to deceive himself with this : that the boy was 
 yet only a child, unknowing, affectionate, not 
 able to be spoiled by the sins of lusty men, upon 
 which he might look, but which he could not, 
 being only a little fellow, understand, and never 
 could imitate. Not Donnie ! not the little 
 fellow whom Pale Peter could still take on his 
 knee. 
 
 Pale Peter looked out of the great window 
 into the storm. It was winter weather. Lord, 
 how cold it was ! And the wind was blowing ; 
 and the wind, coming mercilessly down from the 
 northwest upon the pines and clearings of that 
 section, was bitter to feel and fearsome to re- 
 gard. It blew high a wind with strength and 
 frost and with the blinding terror of snow. Pale 
 Peter was distracted from his musing a musing 
 he could manage and fashion untroubled by the 
 realities by the sight of a black, stooped, 
 struggling little figure, far off on the Bottle River 
 trail. The town the situation of the Red
 
 FATHER. AND SON 287 
 
 Elephant the sweep of white, wind-swept, 
 snow-burdened street admitted of this view. 
 It was Donnie that black, yielding little figure. 
 It was Donnie, sure enough ! Pale Peter fancied, 
 in a flash of alarm, that something must have 
 gone wrong ; but when the boy at last entered 
 the cozy little office at the end of the bar when 
 he had brushed himself clean of snow when he 
 stood rosy and breathless and sparkling and 
 straight before Pale Peter Pale Peter was not 
 afraid. Donnie was surely well. There was no 
 doubt about that ! 
 
 " Hello, kid ! " 
 
 "Hello, pop!" 
 
 " What's the matter, boy ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " What brought you home ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing." 
 
 Pale Peter watched the boy throw off his little 
 pack watched him ease his sturdy legs of the 
 strain of the laces of his big boots heard him 
 sigh and observed that the lad would not look 
 him in the eyes: wherefore he was again 
 alarmed. 
 
 " What's the matter, kid ? " he repeated. 
 
 "Nothing's the matter, pop." 
 
 "Where's Jack?" 
 
 " Gone to Kettle Camp." 
 
 " Without you ! " 
 
 " I thought I'd come home, pop, while I could
 
 288 FATHER AND SON 
 
 get out of the woods," Donnie began. "It's bad 
 weather, pop, and I didn't want to get snowed 
 in. You see," he ran on, with lively interest, 
 " Billy the Beast's coming out from the Cant- 
 hook on Wednesday. He's going home " 
 
 "Again?" Peter laughed. 
 
 "Yes," said Donnie ; "and he's bound through, 
 this time. Jack swears it. Jack says that Billy's 
 going through this time or he'll know the reason 
 why. I think Jack'll win. And I wanted to be 
 here, pop, to see him on the job." 
 
 " Good ! " Peter ejaculated. 
 
 " Jack'll win, all right," Donnie repeated. 
 
 " Glad of it ! " said Peter. " Nothing I'd like 
 better," he added, " than to see Billy the Beast 
 go home." 
 
 "It would mean a good deal, pop, around 
 here." 
 
 "To whom?" 
 
 "To Jack and me, anyhow. Jack says it 
 would help our work " 
 
 " Your work ! " 
 
 " Well, Jack's work, I mean.' 
 
 " All right, old man ! " Pale Peter declared. 
 " I'll see to it that Billy the Beast does go home. 
 I tell you, Donnie, Billy the Beast, when I get 
 through with him, won't find a bar at Swamp's 
 End where he can spend a penny. If you want 
 him to go home, old man, he'll go home. That's 
 all right. Whatever you say will^-0. Billy the
 
 FATHER AND SON 289 
 
 Beast can't spend a cent of his wages at 
 Swamp's End if you say the word." 
 
 " Hold on, pop ! " 
 
 " What's the matter ? " 
 
 "That's no good, pop. You see " 
 
 " But I want to help you." 
 
 "You can't, pop. You're on the other side." 
 
 " Oh, look here, now, old fellow ! What side 
 am I on ? " 
 
 " The other, pop. And the best thing you can 
 do is to play the game. We want to get Billy 
 through, all right, and Jack is going to ; but we 
 want to see Billy help himself. That's what Jack 
 says. All you have to do, pop, is to give Billy 
 a decent show. You can't get his money, this 
 time. Billy's bound to go through, pop. And 
 if he gets through without any help " 
 
 " Donnie, boy ! 
 
 "Yes, father?" 
 
 " Has it come to this between you and me : 
 that you're on one side and I'm on the other?" 
 
 "Why, father " 
 
 " Has it come to this?" 
 
 " Why, of course, father ! " Donnie replied, in 
 pain. " You see " 
 
 "That's all, boy." 
 
 "Father " 
 
 "No, no! That's all right, boy. And look 
 here, old man : I'll play fair, but I'll play hard. 
 Watch out for me ! "
 
 290 FATHER AND SON 
 
 "All right, father," Donnie replied, con- 
 fidently ; " but we'll lick the life out of you." 
 
 Pale Peter sighed. 
 
 "Yes, sir!" the boy reiterated. 
 
 " Donnie," said Pale Peter, gravely, " you 
 don't seem to care very much about your father 
 any more." 
 
 " Father ! " Donnie cried, in horror. 
 
 " Not much, boy." 
 
 Donald threw himself into his father's arms. 
 
 When the boy had gone, Pale Peter had no 
 relief from his mood. No ease at all, indeed 1 
 Pale Peter was not a fool. He understood 
 precisely what change had occurred within his 
 young son. He had, moreover, observed it 
 coming, observed its gradual appearance and 
 growth : there had been reproachful glances 
 enough, God knew ! in these last months to 
 make the thing plain to the veriest dullard. 
 Donnie' s attitude towards the business had 
 changed ; whereas, sitting cross-legged on 
 Charlie the Infidel's bar, he had once watched 
 with amusement the knavery practiced there, he 
 now turned in resentment from every trick of 
 the trade. Pale Peter was perfectly cognizant of 
 this ; but he had not fancied that the change had 
 gone so far that it was a fixed and growing 
 thing that the boy had already taken sides 
 against him. Sides against him ? Sides against
 
 FATHER AND SON 291 
 
 his own father ? It was incredible ! But it was 
 true ; and Pale Peter was neither fool enough 
 to deny it, nor fool enough to be bewildered in 
 respect to what had caused the change in the 
 boy. John Fairmeadow was the source of it all. 
 John Fairmeadow John Fairmeadow's preach- 
 ing and practice in the world of the woods 
 John Fairmeadow's manly way and uplifted 
 soul. Whatever Pale Peter might think of the 
 value of these kindly services to the lumber- 
 jacks to whose interests they were devoted, he 
 was not fool enough to discover in John Fair- 
 meadow a misguided, an ignorant, a selfish or a 
 visionary man. Not by any means ! Pale Peter 
 was no fool. 
 
 But 
 
 " Damn Jack, anyhow ! " he grumbled. " I 
 wish to God he'd never come here ! " 
 
 But did Pale Peter wish that John Fairmeadow 
 had never chanced upon Swamp's End? Not 
 at all ! Pale Peter was sensible of the advantage 
 he had gained for his son in John Fairmeadow's 
 presence. And Fairmeadow had played fair in 
 the game he had undertaken in the game 
 which, indeed, he had been challenged to under- 
 take. Pale Peter was perfectly well aware of it. 
 Pale Peter had taken pains to discover John Fair- 
 meadow's methods; and he had learned that 
 however much John Fairmeadow might have 
 desired to fashion the boy's attitude towards evil
 
 292 FATHER AND SON 
 
 in the world, he had not sought to lay violent 
 hands on the boy's love for his father. But there 
 had been a change in that affection. If not John 
 Fairmeadow's fault, whose fault was it ? Not the 
 boy's, to be sure ; the boy was loyal to the core, 
 and was not aware, as yet, that his filial regard 
 for his father was endangered. It was the fault 
 of the business, Pale Peter determined. The boy 
 had grown faster than his father had known 
 had been too apt at acquiring the ideals John 
 Fairmeadow had continuously exposed to his 
 view. Pale Peter had been caught napping. 
 But Pale Peter would wake up ; he would nap 
 no longer he would act, and that without un- 
 due delay, to preserve for himself what measure of 
 his son's respect he could manage to keep. He 
 had fortune enough for them both, at any rate ; 
 they could go East in comfort, and Pale Peter, 
 at ease, could watch the growth of his son in all 
 manly qualities, and he would not fail to thank 
 John Fairmeadow, in the meantime, for the fine 
 progress his son had made. The boy would for- 
 get Swamp's End, of course ; the boy was only a 
 child, and 
 
 But 
 
 " I wonder," Pale Peter mused, " if he arc// for- 
 get I" 
 
 Donald must forget ; and being only a child, 
 of course, he 
 
 But
 
 FATHER AND SON 293 
 
 " I wonder 1 " Pale Peter mused. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fine visions he summoned 
 from the future to comfort him, there remained 
 with Pale Peter of the Red Elephant an aching 
 sense of separation from his son. 
 
 It was yet early when the boy entered the 
 easy-chaired little office at the end of the bar to 
 say good-night to his father. 
 
 " Good-night, pop," said he, with lack interest. 
 
 " What ! " his father ejaculated. " As early as 
 this ? " 
 
 " I'm tired." 
 
 " Why, kid, it's only " 
 
 " I know, pop, but I'm awful tired, and I want 
 to go to bed." 
 
 > Pale Peter took the boy on his knee. " Look 
 here, son," said he; "what's the matter with 
 you?" 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " Nothing at all ? " 
 
 " I'm a little bit tired, pop ; that's all." 
 
 Pale Peter mused for a little, looking, the 
 while, into the black, windy street, and upon the 
 lights of the rival Cafe of Egyptian Delights, 
 blazing across the way. 
 
 " Donnie ! " said he. 
 
 "Yes, father?" 
 
 "Somehow, boy," Pale Peter went on, " you're 
 not very happy any more. Be frank with your
 
 294 FATHER AND SON 
 
 father, boy. Tell him what's the matter. He'll 
 fix it, boy ; whatever it is, he'll fix it." 
 
 Donnie made no answer. 
 
 " Come, son ! " 
 
 " Why, pop," Donnie exclaimed, sitting up, his 
 eyes looking straight into his father's, and with 
 the light of accusation blazing in them, "you 
 see " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Oh, I can't tell you!" 
 
 " What's the matter, boy ? " 
 
 " Nothing 1 There's nothing the matter! 
 Nothing! Nothing! I'm tired. That's all, 
 pop." 
 
 " What do you want me to do ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 There was silence, then, for a time, between 
 the two. The gale waxed in strength. It was 
 deep night deep and terrible with darkness 
 with deeper night impending. Pale Peter, look- 
 ing out from his easy chair into the cold swirl of 
 the world, was troubled ; and being troubled 
 being apprehensive of that which he could not 
 see he slipped a fatherly arm about his child, 
 than whom, in all the world, there was nobody 
 else to cling to and protect. Deep night outside, 
 indeed, cruel with frost and wind and darkness 1 
 Deeper night impending ! 
 
 " Donnie ! " Pale Peter whispered. 
 
 "Yes, father?"
 
 FATHER AND SON 295 
 
 " I know what's the matter, boy ; and I'm go- 
 ing to fix it, too." 
 
 "Fix what?" Donnie dully asked. 
 
 " Never mind, boy 1 But I'm going to fix it. 
 And you'll be glad when I've done what you 
 want me to do. I'll not tell you, Donnie. I'll 
 show you ! And you'll be glad." 
 
 " That's good." 
 
 Donnie began feverishly to move in his father's 
 arms. Pale Peter could not quiet him. The boy 
 was hot and restless and ill at ease. The trail 
 from the Cant-hook had evidently been too much 
 for him. A rest would do him good a long, sound 
 sleep. And a long, sound sleep he should have ! 
 
 Ay, indeed ! 
 
 "Time for bed, Donnie," said Pale Peter. 
 
 Donnie yawned. 
 
 " Off you go, boy ! " 
 
 "Yep." 
 
 " You're tired, kid," Pale Peter laughed. 
 
 "Yep, pop," said Donnie, returning the laugh. 
 " I'm awful tired. Good-night, pop." 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 The boy moved away but halted and turned 
 and came again. 
 
 " We're all right, aren't we, boy ? " Pale Peter 
 rallied him, smiling. 
 
 " You bet we are ! " 
 
 " We're going to be on the same side, after 
 this, aren't we?"
 
 296 FATHER. AND SON 
 
 "You bet we are, pop I" 
 
 " You bet we are 1 " 
 
 Donnie stood undecided. 
 
 "Well?" his father asked. 
 
 "Anybody looking, pop?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 Donnie brushed his lips against his father's 
 cheek. "Just like it used to be," said he, hap- 
 pily, " when I was only a kid." 
 
 " Just like it used to be," said Pale Peter, with 
 feeling, " thank God ! " 
 
 "Good-night, pop." 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 " I'm awful tired," Donnie yawned. 
 
 It occurred to Pale Peter, all at once this was 
 late in the night that the boy was ill. " Good 
 God!" thought he; "what if I should lose him?" 
 The boy was flushed but sleeping peacefully. 
 Pale Peter made haste to find out. " Oh, he's 
 all right," Pale Peter thought. " I I I guess 
 I'm a little bit out of sorts myself." He went 
 back to the bar ; but he could not rid himself of 
 the fear that haunted him nor could he be rid 
 of the insistent question 
 
 " Good God ! What if I should lose him ? "
 
 XXIX 
 
 A MIRACLE AT PALE PETER'S 
 
 IT blew high and ghastly cold on Wednes- 
 day. Pale Peter's Donald was within doors 
 all that day. He was somewhat recovered, 
 now, it seemed, from the feverish state of his ar- 
 rival from the Cant-hook cutting. The wind 
 was in the northwest wildly blowing and corn- 
 passionless. It came swishing over the pines 
 and raised a whirling dust of frosty snow in the 
 clearing of Swamp's End. It rattled the win- 
 dows of Pale Peter's place ; it fairly took the 
 ramshackle long building in both hands and by 
 the throat and shook the teeth of it where it 
 stood. There was a hazy moon after the early 
 night. Snow came presently : a cloud of hard 
 flakes, pointed like a hundred needles. They 
 had a roaring fire in the bar. The lamps were 
 all trimmed, too, and turned high. It was light 
 and warm. Warm, yellow light filled the big 
 room, and, where the red curtains were drawn 
 apart, fell invitingly through the frosted windows 
 into the storm. The bar was crowded and up- 
 roarious. A roistering fellowship ! Colton's 
 crew was in from the Kettle Camps paid off 
 
 297
 
 298 A MIRACLE at PALE PETER'S 
 
 and spending. Pale Peter said that no man 
 must be turned out-of-doors that night not so 
 much as a penniless man. 
 
 " Let 'em sleep where they fall," said he, in 
 the generous way for which he was praised in 
 the woods. " Put 'em in the snake-room. Full? 
 Well, if they get in the way haul 'em back from 
 the bar. Anyhow," said he, " nobody's going 
 to be turned out of my place on a night like 
 this." 
 
 Off went Pale Peter not in the best of hu- 
 mour, it seemed to his little office at the end of 
 the bar, there to read and smoke. 
 
 When John Fairmeadow entered the office, 
 fresh from the trail, he threw off his pack and 
 greatcoat with the air of a man who had come 
 a long road in haste and anxiety. 
 
 " I'm tired," said he. 
 
 " Come far, Jack? " the saloon-keeper asked. 
 
 41 No, Peter," the parson sighed ; " only from 
 Three Forks. I preached there after supper." 
 
 "From where f" Pale Peter ejaculated. 
 
 "Three Forks, Peter." 
 
 Pale Peter, his brows fallen in a pitying frown, 
 stared at the ash of his cigar. " Jack," said he, 
 looking up reproachfully, " what did you do a 
 fool thing like that for on a night like this ? " 
 
 " I'm on the job, Peter." 
 
 "On a night like this 1"
 
 A MIRACLE at PALE PETER'S 299 
 
 " I'm on the job, Peter." 
 
 "Is Billy the Beast the man you're after, 
 Jack?" 
 
 The parson laughed a little. " Billy the 
 Beast," he sighed, "is the man. He's coming 
 out from the Cant-hook to-night. Nine o'clock, 
 he said. I'm to meet him here. He's going 
 home to-night, Peter. He's going home going 
 home, Peter, on the late east-bound." 
 
 " Going home ?" Pale Peter scoffed. 
 
 " Going home," said the parson. 
 
 " Tsch, tsch, tsch ! " went Pale Peter, his face 
 all screwed with pain and pity in the parson's 
 behalf. " Don't you know any better than that, 
 Jack?" 
 
 " He's going home," John Fairmeadow reso- 
 lutely repeated. 
 
 Donald came in. 
 
 " Hello, boy ! " Fairmeadow greeted the lad. 
 
 "'Lo, Jack," said the boy. "No sign of him 
 yet. I've been watching." 
 
 " He'll come, all right, Donnie." 
 
 " Tsch, tsch, tsch ! " went Pale Peter. 
 
 "I'm tired out," said the parson, sighing 
 again. " I'm all tired out." 
 
 He began to hum : 
 
 " The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want. 
 
 He makes me down to lie 
 In pastures green. He leadeth me 
 The quiet waters by."
 
 A MIRACLE at PALE PETER'S 
 
 There was a clap of ugly laughter from the 
 bar. 
 
 "The Horse Doctor's in from Bottle River, 
 eh ? " Fairmeadow commented. 
 
 Charlie the Infidel came running down the 
 bar. 
 
 " What's yourn, gents?" they heard him say, 
 on the other side of the red curtain. 
 
 Down came bottle and glasses. 
 
 Fairmeadow softly hummed accompanied by 
 a rush of the gale 
 
 " My soul He doth restore again ; 
 
 And me to walk doth make 
 Within the paths of righteousness, 
 Ev'n for His own Name's sake." 
 
 Three men were mouthing ribaldry beyond 
 the curtain. 
 
 Donald moved away. 
 
 " Too much for you, Donnie ? " the parson in- 
 quired, looking up. 
 
 The boy flushed. 
 
 " Decent little cuss ! " Pale Peter muttered, 
 fondly, his eyes glistening with affection. 
 
 " Peter," the parson began, angrily, " if you 
 weren't " 
 
 " Go ahead, Jack." 
 
 " If you weren't such a detestable beast," 
 Fairmeadow exploded, " you might be
 
 A MIRACLE at PALE PETER'S 301 
 
 But, pshaw ! " he broke off ; " we've gone over 
 all that before." 
 
 Pale Peter smiled. 
 
 The parson went to humming again : 
 
 " Yea, though I walk in Death's dark vale, 
 
 Yet will I fear none ill : 
 For Thou art with me ; and Thy rod 
 And staff me comfort still." 
 
 " Billy the Beast 1 " Pale Peter muttered. " All 
 damned foolishness ! " 
 
 " And due now," said Fairmeadow. 
 
 " Small hope for the brute ! " Peter growled. 
 
 " Peter," said Fairmeadow, presendy, " I'm 
 going to pray." 
 
 Pale Peter jumped out of his chair. 
 
 "You won't mind, will you?" Fairmeadow 
 apologized. " It won't do any harm." 
 
 " Pray 1 " Pale Peter gasped. " Here ?" 
 
 There was the beginning of a brawl in the 
 bar : a blow had been struck. 
 
 " I won't be a minute," said Fairmeadow. 
 
 "What!" the outraged saloon-keeper ejacu- 
 lated. 
 
 "Just a minute or two," Fairmeadow ex- 
 plained. "I can't very well go away, Peter," 
 he added ; " and I want to ask God once more 
 just once more to let Billy the Beast go home 
 clean. I think He'll do it, Peter. I think He's
 
 302 A MIRACLE at PALE PETER'S 
 
 going to do it this time. Billy the Beast, you 
 see, has been praying, too." 
 
 There was a howl of execration from the bar. 
 The brawl was on in earnest. The howl had fol- 
 lowed the sound of a brutal blow. 
 
 Charlie the Infidel roared for order. 
 
 " For God's sake, Jack," Pale Peter implored, 
 " don't do that thing here ! " 
 
 Fairmeadow knelt. 
 
 " Get up, you fool ! " Pale Peter cried, in a 
 passion. 
 
 There was an outburst of laughter in the bar. 
 It was all mixed with wild oaths and cries for 
 room. 
 
 "Jack!" 
 
 Fairmeadow prayed on his gentle face lifted. 
 He was much troubled in spirit, it seemed. 
 
 " Don't, Jack ! " Pale Peter pleaded. " Don't 
 do that here. I can't stand it. Go outside and 
 do it." 
 
 Pale Peter shook the oblivious parson by the 
 shoulder. 
 
 The sounds from beyond the red curtain indi- 
 cated that Charlie the Infidel had bounded over 
 the bar and was striking out in the thick of the 
 scuffle. 
 
 " Get up ! " Pale Peter begged. 
 
 The bar roared in anger for fair play 
 
 " Somebody'll see you, you fool ! " Pale Peter 
 raged.
 
 A MIRACLE at PALE PETER'S 303 
 
 Fairmeadow rose. 
 
 " What did you want to do a thing like that 
 for ? " Peter demanded. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " the dumbfounded Fair- 
 meadow replied. 
 
 " Matter ? " Pale Peter scolded. " Have you 
 lost your sense of decency ? Doing a thing like 
 that here / " 
 
 "Why not, Peter?" 
 
 " For shame ! " 
 
 " It's a good place, Peter. Why not do it 
 here ? And I feel better " 
 
 Donald, who had been peeking in upon the 
 barroom affray, suddenly withdrew from the red 
 curtain, and whispered : 
 
 " Here's your man, Jack ! " 
 
 " God help him ! " said the parson. 
 
 Pale Peter made haste to the bar to put an end 
 to the brawl. 
 
 Pale Peter's bar was then no mild and churchly 
 place no tender refuge from the snowy night 
 for a man in trouble of his soul. It was filled 
 with smoke and sweaty steam, and with the hot, 
 nauseating breath of liquor. It was foully hot 
 the air all stale and evil. There was blasphe- 
 mous tumult, too oaths and maudlin sobs, 
 growling imprecations, the coughing and spit- 
 ting of the hurt, roars for whiskey, ribald songs, 
 and the loud, vacant laughter of men gone far
 
 304 A MIRACLE at PALE PETERS 
 
 in drink. The drunken sleepers, helpless among 
 the moving feet, were mercilessly trampled in 
 the confusion. Their faces were stepped on and 
 spurned. The fight had fallen to the floor. Red 
 McDonald and Cookee Charlie from the Kettle 
 Camps at each other's throats like dogs were 
 kicked and trampled and forgotten, sprawling in 
 the thick of the struggling crowd above. A man 
 came spinning from the crowd and began to 
 cough and to spit out his teeth. Another was 
 flinging the blood from his nose and beard. Both 
 laughed a gleeful bellow. Little Tommy Bagg, 
 a boy of Colton's crew, who had been thrown 
 against the red stove, nursed a sizzling wound 
 in a corner : the pain had sobered the child ; he 
 was crying bitterly. And into the press went 
 Pale Peter. He struck with the bartender hard 
 and promiscuously. Both roared, of course, all 
 the time. And presently (as these affairs will) 
 the fighting abated, halted, dissolved in laughter 
 and a drunken mutual admiration ; and there 
 "was a loud lining-up at the bar. The long, 
 sweating, bloody, open-mouthed, hairy line, 
 staggering and pushing, beat on the bar like a 
 pack of larking schoolboys, yelling for liquor in 
 rhythm with the drumming. 
 
 Billy the Beast came in all snow and icicles. 
 It had come to Swamp's End from the Cant- 
 hook cutting that he was gone mad : he had
 
 A MIRACLE at PALE PETER'S 305 
 
 been caught praying (they said) ; but he was 
 chiefly engaged in blaspheming God from the 
 new-made stumps of the works, and was bound 
 out to Swamp's End on Wednesday night with 
 two hundred dollars in his pocket to raise hell. 
 Camp Three had awaited a heavenly visitation 
 of calamity in castigation of the Beast's sins. It 
 seemed, now, however, that Billy the Beast must 
 be desperately ill : he licked his dry lips like the 
 sick, and his eyes, all fevered and red, had gone 
 far back in his head. He was ghastly to look 
 upon : gone white and lean and shaking. From 
 the noise and pawing of his welcome he seemed 
 to be detached. As he went elbowing towards 
 the bar he was like a soul drawn unwillingly 
 apart from the merry license of the place and 
 standing all alone. An ague shook him ; he 
 stumbled, his great hulk reeled. He coughed 
 and shivered with disgust. This spent, he went 
 on again, with a sheepish sort of grin and a 
 sheepish wipe of his icy beard. When he was 
 got a little beyond the hanging-lamp a re- 
 flector threw down a shower of yellow light his 
 eyes, uneasy and glittering, seemed to be with- 
 drawn to their deepest places. They were like 
 flashes of fire in a pool of shadows. One 
 could not forget his eyes the blood-red col- 
 our, the dry sparkle, the uneasy shifting of 
 them. And he was licking his lips all the 
 time. A dry tongue was forever slipping into
 
 306 A MIRACLE at PALE PETER'S 
 
 his thawing moustache to gather moisture for 
 dry lips. 
 
 Billy the Beast came to the bar when the press 
 had drunk and in some part withdrawn. 
 
 " What's yourn, Billy?" 
 
 " Mine, Charlie ? " Billy drawled. He sighed 
 sharply and then absently wiped his mouth. 
 
 Charlie leaned over, alert and hurried. 
 
 Billy picked an icicle from his beard. "I 
 don't know as I just quite know, Charlie," said 
 he, in a gentle contemplation of the problem. 
 He thoughtfully dropped the icicle. " Ye see," 
 he sighed, " I haven't made up my mind yet just 
 quite what I will begin on." 
 
 By the end of this Charlie was elsewhere. 
 
 " I reckon," Billy drawled, when Charlie had 
 bounded back for his order, "that it might 's 
 well as not be gin." He sighed again. " Gin, I 
 reckon," he repeated, softly, " t' begin on." 
 
 Down went the white bottle on the bar. 
 
 " Well, no," said Billy, in some mild agitation 
 of doubt ; " no, Charlie. A whiskey," he recon- 
 sidered. " A ver-ree sma-a-a-al glass o' whiskey." 
 
 "Whiskey, Billy?" 
 
 "Well, I reckon," Billy drawled. "A lee-ee- 
 eetle drop o' whiskey." 
 
 The Infidel reached for the bottle. 
 
 " Stand back there, boys ! " John Fairmeadow 
 shouted from the threshold. He came bustling 
 in. And he was in no trance of prayer and
 
 A MIRACLE at PALE PETER'S 307 
 
 adoration, now, you may believe, but in palpi- 
 tating indignation, and with a living and bellig- 
 erent intention. " Stand back ! " he roared. 
 " Stand back from the bar ! Back to the wall, 
 boys! Give this man a show, won't you?" 
 They gave John Fairmeadow himself a roaring 
 welcome, of course. It was the custom. But he 
 would have none of it. " Stand back ! " he kept 
 crying, at the top of his big voice. " Get back 
 to the wall I Give this man a show 1 God 
 knows, he'll need it ! " The good-natured, 
 roistering crowd, nosing a fight of some mys- 
 terious description, fell away from the bar in 
 boisterous excitement. It was the custom, now- 
 adays, at any rate, to be obedient to John Fair- 
 meadow's whims. Presently there was a wide 
 semicircle, within which lay four snoring sots 
 from the Kettle Camps, but was no other man, 
 except one man. In the focus, Billy the Beast 
 leaned nervously against the bar, with Charlie 
 the Infidel broadly expectant behind. The par- 
 son, a thorough showman, it seemed now in a 
 sweating flush of anxiety still beat the crowd to 
 the wall. " If you can't see, boys," he shouted, 
 " stand on the chairs. Everybody '11 be able to 
 see if you just keep back. Now, for God's sake, 
 boys," he concluded, " give us a show ! Stay 
 right where you are and keep quiet" 
 
 The parson lifted his hand. Silence obedi- 
 ently came.
 
 ,308 A MIRACLE at PALE PETER'S 
 
 " How h-h-how ye been, parson ? " Billy the 
 Beast stuttered. His voice rang conspicuous. 
 It alarmed him. He fidgeted and grinned in 
 stage-fright. " Ye been ye been sort o' perky, 
 eh?" 
 
 The parson slapped a silver dollar on the bar. 
 
 " What's yourn ? " said Charlie, with a vastly 
 humorous wink. 
 
 A general laugh was stifled. 
 
 " Charlie," said the parson, gravely, indicating 
 Billy the Beast in a contemptuous wave and 
 with a contemptuous jerk of the head, " give this 
 man a drink of whiskey." 
 
 The bartender expostulated. 
 
 "That's all right, Charlie," Fairmeadow re- 
 plied. " Give this man a drink of whiskey." 
 
 There was a murmur of expostulation from the 
 crowd of lumber-jacks against the wall. Here, 
 surely, was no proper employment for a minis- 
 ter! 
 
 " That's all right, boys," Fairmeadow insisted. 
 
 Billy the Beast began to stutter expostulation. 
 
 " Give this man a drink of whiskey ! " Fair- 
 meadow roared. 
 
 Charlie put down bottle and glass. 
 
 " Now," said the parson, looking directly into 
 the red eyes of the Beast, "drink it if you're 
 able. And may God Almighty have mercy on 
 your soul ! " 
 
 The room was breathless.
 
 A MIRACLE at PALE PETER'S 309 
 
 Billy the Beast thoughtfully poured out the red 
 liquor. 
 
 " You can't drink it ! " said the desperate par- 
 son. 
 
 Billy lifted the glass. 
 
 "You're not able 1" the parson taunted. 
 
 Billy stepped away from the bar with the 
 liquor in his hand. He smelled of it smacked 
 his lips in pretense of delight held it high and 
 triumphantly spoke a blasphemous toast, every 
 evil syllable of which was loud as thunder in that, 
 quiet room. Nobody smiled. Jie whistled a 
 jaunty bar or two. He did a step a careless 
 little shuffle with a coquettish flirt of the foot for 
 period. But nobody laughed. It was disquiet- 
 ing. He began to sing ; it was a low ribaldry, 
 mixed with black profanity, for which he was 
 famous. Nobody encouraged him. He sang a 
 bit, shuffled a bit, stared about, grinning, and 
 put the glass to his nose. Meantime he had 
 gone pale and weak. He fell back to the bar, in 
 a moment, and put down the glass, but held it 
 tight, all the time, in his right hand. Once he 
 raised it. His hand halted in mid-air ; and he 
 laughed vacantly and once more put down the 
 glass. It rang on the bar as if his arm had 
 fallen. Liquor splashed out ; but Billy held the 
 glass in a close grip. And he glanced, then, like 
 a beaten dog, towards John Fairmeadow. It 
 was a terrified entreaty for mercy.
 
 )io A MIRACLE at PALE PETER'S 
 
 " Boys," Fairmeadow exclaimed, triumphantly, 
 " he can't drink it ! " 
 Nor could he. 
 
 " My God, boys ! " Billy the Beast whimpered, 
 breaking in upon the silence, " I can't lift my 
 arm." He was staring horrified at his right 
 hand. " I can't lift it ! " he moaned. " My God, 
 boys, I carit lift my own arm ! " 
 
 There was an uproar of profane ejaculation. 
 
 "What's the matter with me, boys?" Billy 
 whimpered. "Why can't I lift my own arm?" 
 
 The room was still. 
 
 " Ain't nobody goin' t' help me ? " Billy com- 
 plained. 
 
 Nobody moved. 
 
 "Ain't I got no friends here?" Billy the 
 Beast lifted up his face. It may be he fancied 
 that the ceiling opened to his appealing gaze. He 
 raised his left hand beseechingly. " God, be mer- 
 ciful to me, a sinner ! " he whispered. He waited. 
 " God, be merciful to me, a sinner 1 " he repeated. 
 
 Then in Pale Peter's barroom a miracle was 
 worked. 
 
 Pale Peter slipped an arm around his son. 
 Donald caught his hand. "Look, lookl" said 
 Peter. The boy saw it. They all saw it. The 
 change was not instantaneous. There was a 
 momentary interval through which it progressed.
 
 A MIRACLE at PALE PETER'S 311 
 
 A hand might have gone over the man from 
 head to foot. Of course they saw no miraculous 
 fingers touch him : they had no vision at all nor 
 any feeling of a strange spiritual Presence. But 
 what was bestial vanished from the Beast's 
 countenance. They beheld a new face. They 
 had not been more amazed to see the rags he 
 wore lying in a heap with the shrivelled horror 
 of his old personality on Pale Peter's barroom 
 floor. He remained a moment in a daze of be- 
 wilderment. " Boys," he muttered, " something's 
 happened to me. What's the matter?" He 
 laughed then; and the laugh was so charged 
 with youth and joy so like a boy's clean glee 
 that he laughed again, as though to delight in 
 the exercise. " I'm saved, boys," said he. " Yes, 
 I am, boys. Why, boys, I'm I'm I'm saved. 
 That's what's the matter with me. I've been 
 I've been born again. I'm clean. This is what 
 I've wanted t' be. This is what I've prayed for 
 all this winter. I'm clean, I tell ye I'm clean I " 
 He suffered, now, some agitation some hysteria 
 of joy, perhaps. Presently his eye fell on the 
 glass of liquor in his hand. He stared at it in 
 comical amazement (which, however, did not 
 move any one to laughter). "Why," he ex- 
 claimed, heartily, " I don't want this ! " and 
 pushed it away with a light laugh. 
 
 They observed that he had forgotten the 
 paralysis of his arm.
 
 A MIRACLE at PALE PETER'S 
 
 " I'm just as hungry as I can be," said he. " I 
 say, old man " to the parson " what time is 
 it?" 
 
 Fairmeadow warned him. 
 
 "Pshaw!" said Billy, boyishly. "Wish I 
 could have a snack. I never was so hungry. 
 But come on, old man," he went on, anxiously, 
 " or we'll lose that train. So long, boys ! " he 
 called to the gaping crowd. " I'm sorry I can't 
 stay. But, ye see, I'm goin' home. Good-bye, 
 boys. I'll see ye again soon. Good-bye. God 
 bless ye, every one ! " He paused on the 
 threshold to wave his hand. " Ye see," said he, 
 his face shining, "there's a dear little woman 
 there, an' she's sent for me, an' an' I jus' got 
 t' go!" 
 
 Fairmeadow and the Beast went out together. 
 
 " Boys," said Pale Peter, breaking the dumb- 
 founded silence, " the drinks are on the house ! " 
 
 There was a rush for the bar.
 
 XXX 
 
 THE END OF THE GAME 
 
 WHEN Billy the Beast, in the keeping 
 of John Fairmeadow, vanished forever 
 from the bar of the Red Elephant in 
 this extraordinary fashion, Pale Peter, followed 
 by Donald, passed astounded into the easy- 
 chaired little office, and there, having drawn 
 the red curtains, comfortably disposed his well- 
 groomed person and fell to brooding. 
 
 " You lose, pop," the boy laughed. 
 
 Pale Peter looked up with a start. " Lose, 
 Donnie ? " he asked. 
 
 " Sure, you lose ! " 
 
 " Lose what ? " 
 
 " We licked you, pop, didn't we ? " 
 
 " Oh, I see ! " Pale Peter returned, relieved. 
 " Yes, of course ; you licked me, didn't you ? " 
 He snipped the end from his cigar and absently 
 struck a match. " I was thinking about some- 
 thing else," he added. " I was thinking about 
 losing something else. You're pleased, aren't 
 you, son ? Eh ? Pleased, aren't you ? " and 
 here a note of melancholy crept into Pale Peter's 
 voice " to lick your old dad." 
 
 The boy nodded delightedly. 
 313
 
 3M THE END OF THE GAME 
 
 " Is it so pleasant," Pale Peter asked, hurt 
 to the quick by Donald's elation, " to whip your 
 father?" 
 
 " Oh, no ; not that ! " 
 
 " Not that ? " Pale Peter asked, with a troubled 
 smile. 
 
 " No, pop ; but I'm glad that Billy the Beast 
 has gone home." 
 
 Pale Peter looked away. " You're happy, 
 aren't you?" said he, gently. "I'm glad," he 
 sighed. 
 
 "You don't mind, do you?" Donald asked, 
 quickly. " You don't mind, do you, pop ? v 
 
 " Not at all." 
 
 " You're not put out, are you, because I 
 crowed ? " 
 
 " Not at all." 
 
 "You couldn't be, could you, pop?" Donald 
 went on, still unconvinced of his father's appro- 
 bation. 
 
 " Not at all, Donnie." 
 
 " Oh, you couldn't be ! " said Donnie, in dis- 
 tress. 
 
 " Not at all." 
 
 Donald fixed his eyes on his father in grave 
 and troubled doubt. He, too, sighed. The 
 victory of Billy the Beast, after all, had a bitter 
 taste to the boy. It savoured too strongly of his 
 father's defeat. 
 
 " Not at all," Pale Peter repeated.
 
 THE END OF THE GAME 315 
 
 It was still blowing high ; and at this moment 
 a blast of the big gale brought down from the 
 Swamp's End station the whistle of the depart- 
 ing east-bound. 
 
 " There he goes 1 " said Donnie. 
 
 " That's good," said Pale Peter. " I'm glad 
 of it, son if you are." 
 
 Donnie caught at one of John Fairmeadow's 
 ejaculations. 
 
 " Thank God, he's gone ! " said he. 
 
 " I reckon," Pale Peter gravely observed, 
 " that Almighty God had a good deal to do 
 with it." 
 
 Silence fell between the two. Donald rest- 
 lessly felt that he had in some way incurred his 
 father's displeasure. But why ? why ? Did his 
 father's business call so implacably for the de- 
 struction of men ? The boy wearily dismissed 
 this old, clamouring question, which had troubled 
 him enough, God knows ! in these last years. 
 He shook his head in dismissal of the puzzle 
 and sighed heavily. And as for Pale Peter 
 Pale Peter was deeply disturbed. Pale Peter 
 was not troubled, to be sure, by the uproar in 
 the bar; nor did the departure of Billy the 
 Beast concern him very much. He was glad, 
 indeed, that Billy the Beast had gone : for a 
 point of difference between himself and his son 
 had gone with that erring lumber-jack ; and Pale
 
 316 THE END OF THE GAME 
 
 Peter was wise enough to know that a point of 
 such sharp difference would speedily have multi- 
 plied itself. What disturbed Pale Peter was the 
 insistent, haunting question : My God, what if I 
 should lose him ? The question had asked itself 
 again and again since Bonnie had gone to bed 
 the night before. It was forever demanding an 
 answer of Pale Peter's unwilling heart. What if 
 I should lose him ? What if I should lose him ? 
 And now, while Pale Peter narrowly watched 
 his son, he observed much to give him grave 
 concern. The boy was flushed and restless : he 
 flung himself about in his chair, wretchedly un- 
 easy ; his eyes were dry and dull, he laughed 
 and sighed in the same breath, and his tongue 
 began to wag with the rapidity and incoherency 
 of fever. But the boy was only overwrought, 
 Pale Peter fancied : the boy was only a little 
 overwrought, and would be better in the morn- 
 ing. Again : What if I should lose him ? What 
 if I should lose him ? Pale Peter, detached from 
 the conversation by his anxiety answering in 
 monosyllables the boy's excited chatter watch- 
 ing, watching, all the time brooding, accusing 
 himself, deliberating Pale Peter made up his 
 mind to be gone with the lad from Swamp's End 
 without delay. They would be gone together. 
 Swamp's End would know them no more. It 
 would presently be as though Swamp's End and 
 the bar of the Red Elephant had never been at
 
 THE END OF THE GAME 317 
 
 all ; and life, then, would surely be happier for 
 them both. 
 
 But 
 
 What if I should lose him ? 
 
 " Donnie," said Pale Peter, abruptly, " would 
 you like to go away ? " 
 
 " With you ? " 
 
 Pale Peter's wound was eased by the eager 
 question. " Yes," said he, smiling ; " with me, 
 of course." 
 
 " For good ? " 
 
 Pale Peter was hurt again. The question had 
 come instantly. For good ? It had come in a 
 rush of eager hope. The man frowned. Donald 
 had betrayed too much. " You're tired of this, 
 aren't you?" Pale Peter asked. He laughed a 
 little. He sighed, then and sighed again. 
 "Awfully tired of this aren't you, old man?" 
 
 " Of what, father ? " 
 
 " Oh," Pale Peter replied, wearily, with a ges- 
 ture to include the whole of Swamp's End, from 
 the tumultuous bar to the white edge of the 
 woods, " of all this : of the whole thing. You're 
 pretty sick of it, aren't you ? " 
 
 "Of the Red Elephant?" 
 
 Again Pale Peter was wounded. The question 
 smacked of too large an eagerness to be rid of 
 it all. " Yes, boy," he answered. " Aren't you 
 tired of the bar and the bottles and the bestiality 
 of the whole bally business?"
 
 THE END OF THE GAME 
 
 Donald's eyes sparkled. 
 
 " Aren't you tired of it all, son ? " 
 
 " I am, pop," Donald answered, gravely re- 
 garding- his father, " if you are." 
 
 " I'm tired of it," Pale Peter sighed. " You've 
 made me tired of it," he went on. " You see, I 
 want to be on the same side with you, Donnie. 
 Don't you see ? I don't want to lose you. I I 
 don't want to lose you in any way at all. I 
 want to be with you not against you. You're 
 tired of this, aren't you? I can see that, old 
 man. You're awfully tired of it. I didn't know 
 before how tired of it you were. Well, so 
 am I, then. Let's get out of it. We'll get rid of 
 it, Donnie, and go away. We're all alone in the 
 world, son. There's just you and me left since 
 your mama died. Just you and me, Donnie 
 just you and me. Let's hang together. What's 
 the use of having differences? You and I 
 shouldn't have differences. And we'll have them 
 sure if we stay here. I thought I'd stay a little 
 longer thought I'd stay here until I made a 
 little more thought I'd keep on, Donnie, just as 
 
 long as well, boy, until you " Pale Peter's 
 
 words failed. He stopped. The truth of it was 
 in his mind : that he had hoped to continue with 
 the Red Elephant until Donald had grown old 
 enough to suspect merely to suspect the real 
 character of the business conducted over the bar 
 of the Red Elephant ; but it was evident, now,
 
 THE END OF THE GAME 319 
 
 that the boy was older than Pale Peter had 
 thought, and the man stopped, ashamed and 
 alarmed. 
 
 Donald said nothing. 
 
 "Of course," Pale Peter went on, pitifully, 
 "the business is all right. It's all right, of 
 course ; but if you're tired of it, Donnie " 
 
 " Pop," Donald interrupted, " you're not fool- 
 ing me." 
 
 Pale Peter started. " No ? " said he. 
 
 " No, pop." 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " I I haven't fooled you, Donnie?" 
 
 "You haven't fooled me, pop," Donald went 
 on, earnestly, " for a long time." 
 
 " What do you mean, son ? " 
 
 " You haven't fooled me about the business 
 being all right." 
 
 Pale Peter flushed. " How long," he asked, 
 quietly, " have you have you felt this way?" 
 
 " A long, long time." 
 
 " I see," said Pale Peter, his flush of shame 
 mounting higher. " Since Jack came ? " 
 
 " Jack didn't tell me, father. I knew it before 
 he came." 
 
 Pale Peter laughed sadly " You might have 
 told me, Donald," said he. " It would have 
 been better had you told me. You see, you've 
 you've let me lie a good deal to you." 
 
 " Oh, no, father ! "
 
 320 THE END OF THE GAME 
 
 " A good deal, son a good deal." 
 
 For a long time Pale Peter sat musing in his 
 easy chair. The gale blew high : it came 
 sweeping down the street, it clamoured at the 
 black window, it shook the Red Elephant to its 
 foundations. Pale Peter did not hear. The man 
 brooded upon his shame, and was broken by it. 
 Presently he looked up. 
 
 " You're ashamed of me, aren't you ? " he 
 asked, with a wan smile. 
 
 " Why ? " Donald cried. " Why should I be 
 ashamed of you ? " 
 
 " The business, Donnie and the lies." 
 
 " I'm not ashamed ! " 
 
 " No ? Not ashamed ? You've not lost all 
 respect for me ? " 
 
 " No, no ! " 
 
 "Why not, Donald?" 
 
 " I don't know what you mean," Donald 
 sobbed ; " but I haven't lost respect for you oh, 
 no I haven't ! " 
 
 " You're a good son, Donnie," said Pale Peter, 
 his eyes glistening. " You're a loyal little fellow. 
 We'll begin all over again you and me to- 
 gether. We'll not trouble about this any more 
 at all. We'll forget. We'll forget the business 
 and and the lies. The business isrit all right. 
 No, no ! You know it, Donnie. And so we'll 
 quit it and go away together. We'll go 
 away from Swamp's End. And some day, son,
 
 THE END OF THE GAME 321 
 
 you will respect your father, I am sure, once 
 again." 
 
 " I respect you now" the boy protested, sob- 
 bing. " I've always respected you ! " 
 
 Pale Peter sighed. 
 
 Near midnight, Pale Peter, in anxious concern, 
 tiptoed into the boy's bedroom, to make sure 
 that he was comfortably stowed away for the 
 night. Donald was not asleep. " That you, 
 pop ? " he muttered. "I'm so glad you've come. 
 You won't go away, will you ? I'm sick some- 
 how, I'm just sick all over. My head aches 
 and I want a drink of water and I can't lie still 
 and I'm sick." Pale Peter bade the lad be 
 comforted. What if I should lose him? The 
 man's heart began to ache. It was all too ob- 
 vious that Donald was gravely ill. " I'll sit with 
 you, son, until you go to sleep," said he ; " and 
 I'll send for Jack, too, right away, old man, and 
 we'll sit with you together, Jack Fairmeadow and I 
 until you go to sleep. Don't you be afraid, old 
 man. Jack Fairmeadow and I will take care of 
 you" Pale Peter was become all at once and 
 strangely so most tender in his ministrations. 
 And not awkwardly so. He 'smoothed the pil- 
 lows, he straightened the coverlets, he eased the 
 lad's lying and softened a cooler place for his 
 head, he ran on with his talk in a crooning, com- 
 forting way, as though he had been used to it all
 
 322 THE END OF THE GAME 
 
 his life. " That's all right," said he. " We' 
 you. We'll have the doctor here in the morning 
 to attend to you. And we'll go away, too, old 
 man we'll get out of here just as soon as 
 you're well. You 1 II be all right, boy. Easier 
 now, aren't you ? Lie still, kid. Can't you 
 won't you just lie still, old fellow ? " 
 
 " I can't, pop." 
 
 " Can't lie still ? " 
 
 " No, pop. I can't lie still. I would if I 
 could ; but but I'm so sick that I just can't. 
 What time is it, pop ? Near time to get up ? " 
 
 " Not yet, old man." 
 
 " Hang it ! I want to get up." 
 
 " Lie still, boy." 
 
 " I can't I can't lie still." 
 
 Pale Peter did the work all over again. He 
 straightened the coverlets, he smoothed the 
 pillows, he eased the lad's lying, and made a 
 cool, smooth place for his head. " There ! " said 
 he. " That's better, old fellow ! Would you 
 mind, old man, if I went away, just for a 
 minute ? " 
 
 " Don't go away, pop," Donnie pleaded. 
 
 " Just for a minute." 
 
 " I don't want to be left alone." 
 
 " Just for a minute, boy." 
 
 " What's that noise, pop ? " 
 
 " Just the gale, old fellow. It's blowing high 
 to-night."
 
 THE END OF THE GAME 323 
 
 14 You're not fooling me, pop." 
 
 Pale Peter paused in trouble. 
 
 " They're fighting in the bar," Donnie sighed. 
 
 " Son," said Pale Peter, moving towards the 
 door, " I'll be back in a moment." 
 
 " Don't go." 
 
 " Just a moment, Donnie ! " 
 
 41 Please don't go 1 " 
 
 " I want to close the bar, Donnie," Peter 
 pleaded. " I've got to close the bar ! " 
 
 Donnie sat bolt upright in bed. " I'll lie still," 
 he promised. " I'll lie still until you come 
 back." 
 
 It did not take long to close the bar. A sharp 
 word to Charlie the Infidel put an end to the 
 thriving trade ; and a word or two to the big- 
 hearted lumber-jacks sent them tiptoeing out of 
 the Red Elephant and across the street to con- 
 tinue the conviviality at the Cafe of Egyptian 
 Delights. Half a dozen or more remained to 
 help Charlie and Dennie the Hump carry off to 
 the same shelter all the stupefied fellows on the 
 floor and in the snake-room. The Red Elephant 
 was presently deserted and for the first time in 
 its history. In the meantime Pale Peter had sum- 
 moned John Fairmeadow and by telephone spoken 
 hurriedly with Dr. Ralston of Big Rapids. Donnie 
 was sick. Some sort of a fever, apparently, was 
 the matter with him. Had he been at Big Rapids
 
 324 THE END OF THE GAME 
 
 recently? Yes: Pale Peter had taken him to 
 the Saloon-keepers' Convention at Big Rapids. 
 But why the question ? Typhoid was epidemic 
 at Big Rapids; and typhoid was doubtless the 
 matter with Donnie. Dr. Ralston would be over 
 on the morning train. No, no ! Dr. Ralston 
 must come at once. The slow freight had just 
 gone by Swamp's End. He must halt the slow 
 freight ; he must make immediate arrangements 
 by telegraph for the engine. There must be no 
 regard for expense. Never mind expense. Dr. 
 Ralston must come at once. And Dr. Ralston 
 must bring two nurses from the Sisters' Hospital ; 
 and Dr. Ralston must wire Appleworthy of the 
 Capital to meet him at Swamp's End for con- 
 sultation; and Dr. Ralston must arrange the 
 immediate departure for Swamp's End of the 
 most eminent Chicago specialist in children's 
 diseases. Pale Peter would hold Dr. Ralston to 
 account. There must be no failure ; and there 
 must be no delay. 
 
 Whereupon Pale Peter went quickly to the 
 bar. " Put out the lights," said he. 
 
 Out went the lights. 
 
 " It's over," said Peter ; " it's all over. Lock 
 the door. Where's the key ? " 
 
 The bolt was shot with a snap. 
 
 " That's the end," said Pale Peter. 
 
 Up-stairs Donnie was still restless. " I can't
 
 THE END OF THE GAME 325 
 
 lie still," he complained, when his father entered. 
 " I tried but I can't." 
 
 " The bar's closed, boy."" 
 
 " Is it locked, pop ?. " 
 
 " For good, Donnie." 
 
 " Where's the key ? " 
 
 Pale Peter gave the key to the boy ; and 
 Donnie slipped it under his pillow. He seemed, 
 then, to lie easier, for a time ; but when Fair- 
 meadow presently arrived he was again restlessly 
 stirring. 
 
 " I can't lie still, Jack," he explained, with a 
 wry smile. 
 
 " Going to be sick, Donnie ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! " said Donnie, quickly. " I'm not 
 the least bit sick ; but I somehow can't lie still." 
 
 Fairmeadow felt the fever in the boy's fore- 
 head. 
 
 " Hang it all ! "" Donnie exclaimed. " I wish 
 I could keep my legs still ! " 
 
 This was addressed to Fairmeadow ; but pres- 
 ently after that Donnie seemed no longer to 
 realize the presence of his father and the minister 
 in the room. He talked with shadows babbled 
 to the Past and the Future. In this growing de- 
 lirium he spoke often of going away from 
 Swamp's End. " We're going away," he said. 
 " I tell you we're going to stop this. We're not 
 going to do this any longer. We're sick and 
 red of it, I tell you, and we're going to quit."
 
 326 THE END OF THE GAME 
 
 There was much of this. It ran on through the 
 night. And the boy often ran a hand weakly 
 under his pillow to touch the key. " I got it," 
 said he. " The bar's locked and I got the 
 key." It seemed to Fairmeadow who sat lis- 
 tening with Pale Peter in the dim-lit room 
 that the boy fancied himself in the midst of an 
 accusing throng. " I tell you," Donnie pro- 
 tested, "we're not going to do it any longer. 
 We're going to quit. We're going away. 
 Don't you believe me? I tell you, we're not go- 
 ing to do this any longer." 
 
 " John ! " Pale Peter whispered. 
 
 Fairmeadow started. 
 
 " What does he mean ? " said Pale Peter. 
 " Why does he always say ' We ' ? " 
 
 Fairmeadow shook his head. 
 
 " I don't like it," Pale Peter went on. " I can't 
 stand it. He hadn't anything to do with the 
 business. It hasn't been his fault. HJs inno- 
 cent enough. Do you think he feels that he 
 was in it, too ? " 
 
 " It is the way of a boy," Fairmeadow an- 
 swered. 
 
 "Do you think, Jack," Peter stammered, 
 " that he feels the guilt of it ? " 
 
 Fairmeadow shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Good God ! " exclaimed Pale Peter, starting 
 up. " All these years ! " 
 
 " All these years ! " Fairmeadow echoed
 
 THE END OF THE GAME 327 
 
 " Tell me, Jack is it true ? " 
 
 Fairmeadow would not answer. 
 
 "It's true!" Pale Peter groaned. "It's 
 true ! It's true ! Poor little kid ! " 
 
 Donnie started up in bed. He seemed once 
 more, Fairmeadow fancied, to be facing an accus- 
 ing throng. " My pop's a good man ! " he de- 
 clared. " I tell you, I'm proud of my pop ! " 
 
 Nothing availed : the end came soon. Neither 
 Dr. Ralston of Big Rapids nor the great Apple- 
 worthy and the eminent Chicago specialist could 
 alter the natural decree. No expense was 
 spared, you may be sure ; but Pale Peter's 
 money, amassed for him by the labour of a thou- 
 sand men in the woods, betrayed its accustomed 
 powerlessness. Within the week Gray Billy 
 Batch and Mag's little baby had other company 
 in the secluded field at the edge of the woods. 
 The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, 
 read John Fairmeadow ; blessed be the name of 
 the Lord. And, I heard a voice from heaven say- 
 ing unto me, Write, From henceforth blessed are 
 the dead who die in the Lord : even so saith the 
 Spirit ; for they rest from their labours. What 
 comfort Pale Peter drew from these consoling 
 words, I do not know. Not much, I fancy. 
 He said nothing : he gave no sign. What he 
 suffered on that wintry day he kept to himself. 
 He uttered no word of sorrow ; he asked for no
 
 328 THE END OF THE GAME 
 
 relief. But when he and John Fairmeadow came 
 once more to the Red Elephant, he drew the big 
 minister in. It was cold in the little office : there 
 was no fire in the deserted bar. It was dim, 
 too : the curtains were drawn. For a long time 
 the two men sat silent together. Pale Peter 
 smoked heavily. Except for this he did not 
 move. No sound came from the shuttered bar : 
 no clink of glass, no rattle of coin, no convivial 
 voice. It was very still and desolate in the little 
 office. It was lonely. There had come an end. 
 It was lonely there it was lonely everywhere. 
 
 " Jack ! " said Pale Peter, looking up. 
 
 "Yes, Peter?" 
 
 " Do you want this place ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " You may have it." 
 
 "Thank you, Peter. Thank you, old man. 
 I'll be glad to have the place." 
 
 " Don't thank me, Jack. Thank him." 
 
 " I thank him." 
 
 Pale Peter gripped the arms of his chair. 
 Fairmeadow looked away. Pale Peter was com- 
 posed when the minister's wet glance returned. 
 
 " Jack," said he, " what you going to do with 
 it?" 
 
 " It shall be the Donald Memorial Institute." 
 
 "Yes," said Peter; "that's right, Jack. I 
 thought of pleasing him that way. You'll 
 need an endowment, too, J-ack. You shall have
 
 THE END OF THE GAME 329 
 
 it. I've made money, Jack. You shall have it 
 all. And Jack 1 " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " I'm going to ask you a foolish question, Jack. 
 Do you think that this will square him where 
 he's gone ? No, no ! I don't mean that. But 
 won't it ease him, Jack? For God's sake, tell 
 me ! Won't it ease that sense of guilt he had ? 
 Poor little kid ! Poor little kid 1 " 
 
 Pale Peter had broken down.
 
 XXXI 
 
 IN HIS OWN BEHALF 
 
 SWAMP'S END was amazed, of course, 
 when it all came out ; but not for long : 
 for it seemed to Swamp's End, after all 
 and to Bottle River, to the Cant-hook, and to 
 the boys of the Yellow Tail, too that Pale 
 Peter's course had been reasonable enough. 
 Swamp's End observed with solicitous interest 
 the swift conversion of the Red Elephant into 
 the Donald Memorial: nor was Swamp's End 
 cynical in respect to the outcome, but, rather, 
 watched the progress of the affair in curious and 
 hopeful expectancy. Swamp's End regretted, 
 to be sure, and conceived it a sinful waste, when 
 news of a certain deed in the night went abroad. 
 It was held that to broach casks of good liquor 
 to shatter bottles to spill the last drop in the 
 cellar was quite unnecessary to the accomplish- 
 ment of Pale Peter's admirable purpose : that 
 though good liquor had no proper place within 
 the four walls of the Donald Memorial there 
 were other ways of disposing of it. Why 
 waste? Why not rather celebrate? Why not 
 call the boys from the woods and initiate the 
 undertaking in the traditional way? Wouldn't 
 
 33
 
 IN HIS OWN BEHALF 351 
 
 the boys come? To be sure, the boys would 
 come! Gladly, generously, too; and John Fair- 
 meadow might pray as much as he liked. A 
 little conviviality need not interfere with the 
 religious exercises. It never had before. In 
 these strange circumstances, moreover, it might 
 help : the boys would feel more at home in the 
 new surroundings. Aside from this small criti- 
 cism, however, the project met with the ap- 
 proval of the woods; and when the paper- 
 hangers had returned to Big Rapids, and when 
 a car-load of new furniture from the East had 
 been installed, and when the lamps were lighted 
 once more in the transformed bar, and when the 
 warm glow fell again from the red-curtained 
 windows into the night, Swamp's End met the 
 new proprietor at the threshold, and warmly 
 shook his hand, and grinned, and having 
 inspected the comfortable place heartily " reck- 
 oned " that " she'd do." 
 
 By this time, however, Pale Peter was gone. 
 There had come a blustering night. The late 
 east-bound, plastered with driven snow, puffed 
 into the station, and stood still, breathing 
 heavily. 
 
 " Good-bye, Jack ! " said Pale Peter. 
 
 "Peter," John Fairmeadow earnestly returned, 
 " won't you stay ? " 
 
 " No need of me, old man. Everything's 
 fixed. You're in full and legally determined
 
 332 IN HIS OWN BEHALF 
 
 possession of the old place. That's all I care 
 about. Good-bye ! " 
 
 "Peter " 
 
 " Good-bye 1 " 
 
 "Won't you stay, old man, and help?" 
 
 " No, no, Jack ! I reckon you don't need a 
 man like me. And you know, Jack, you have a 
 little partner remaining. You'll stand by, I 
 know. You'll stand by him." 
 
 " I'll stand by, Peter." 
 
 " Good-bye ! " 
 
 " Good-bye, old man ! God bless you ! " 
 
 So passed Pale Peter from Swamp's End : nor 
 was he ever heard of again. But the little 
 partner remained : the little partner remained in 
 the spirit to bless the woods and to inspire the 
 shepherd of its erring souls. 
 
 There came presently to John Fairmeadow, 
 busy and distracted, a politely phrased and 
 cautious invitation to address the Superior Body 
 briefly to address the Superior Body in rela- 
 tion to his ministerial activities in the lumber 
 woods. John Fairmeadow was assured that the 
 Superior Body was " back " of him in his " labour 
 for the Lord " that the Superior Body not only 
 respected but prayed for him that the brethren 
 would be delighted to receive him to listen to 
 him briefly, of course and that the brethren 
 would doubtless be pleased to carry to their
 
 /N HIS OWN BEHALF 333 
 
 congregations news of his most interesting and 
 peculiar work, to the end that some small sums 
 might be raised to assist it. Wherefore John 
 Fairmeadow was urged to make an " impres- 
 sion " to " hit the bull's-eye," now that he had 
 the chance to " strike while the iron was hot." 
 He was indulgently warned, moreover, that the 
 brethren were busy men ; and he was " tipped 
 off " in this connection that brevity would be a 
 telling point in his favour. It was an earnest, 
 interested, wholly agreeable letter, and John Fair- 
 meadow was delighted with it. " Now," thought 
 he, "that's mighty kind in the boys. It isn't 
 what I expected to speak to them about ; but I'll 
 do my best." It will be observed that John 
 Fairmeadow was flattered flattered to be 
 brought into an accepted relationship with the 
 ordained of his profession. And doubtless John 
 Fairmeadow, having applied his large energy 
 and devotion to the task, would have composed 
 a capital address would both have "hit the 
 bull's-eye " and " struck while the iron was hot " 
 had not Long Butcher Long, one of his 
 parishioners, developed delirium tremens, at 
 that inopportune moment, and needed the 
 closest sort of attention. Worse than that, John 
 Fairmeadow was late : the Superior Body was 
 already in session. 
 
 When Fairmeadow arrived in the anteroom of 
 the church at the Capital where the Superior
 
 H4 IN HIS OWN BEHALF 
 
 Body was deliberating, his big hand was shaken 
 by a diffident, white-era vated, frock-coated, pale- 
 fingered, spectacled little man, the author of the 
 politely-phrased letter, and welcomed with 
 caution. " We're mighty glad to have you with 
 us, Mr. Fairmeadow,'' said the little gentleman, 
 his manner conveying a due sense of the honour 
 the Superior Body had conferred upon John 
 Fairmeadow. 
 
 "That's all right, old man'" Fairmeadow re- 
 sponded. " I'm glad, too." 
 
 The little gentleman peered at John Fair- 
 meadow over his spectacles. "The Superior 
 Body is sorry, of course," said he, " that the 
 outcome of your examination was unfortu- 
 nate." 
 
 Fairmeadow laughed. " That's all right, old 
 man," he replied. " I'm sorry, too. So are the 
 boys. That's why I am." 
 
 " You see, Mr. Fairmeadow," the little gentle- 
 man began to stammer, in apology, " we we 
 have to " 
 
 " Don't mention it," said Fairmeadow. 
 
 The little gentleman was ill at ease. "If I 
 were you, Mr. Fairmeadow," he said, at last, " I 
 shouldn't refer to the matter in my address to 
 the brethren." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Well, you see, nothing would be accom- 
 plished."
 
 IN HIS OWN BEHALF 335 
 
 " No ? " Fairmeadow inquired, amused. 
 
 " Nothing whatsoever. The Superior Body 
 has made up its mind. In certain cases, of 
 course, ordination is conferred upon men of 
 well of limited theological education ; but these 
 are extraordinary cases, and the Superior Body, 
 in discussing your case, has determined, Mr. 
 Fairmeadow, that your usefulness would not be 
 increased by " 
 
 "Just so!" Fairmeadow interrupted; "but 
 the Superior Body knows nothing about it. In 
 point of fact, my usefulness would be increased. 
 My parishioners want an ordained minister. 
 They're quite right, too. And for that reason I 
 have sought " 
 
 " My dear fellow ! " 
 
 "Now," Fairmeadow went on, "I'd like to tell 
 the boys in there " 
 
 " My dear fellow ! Don't think of such a 
 thing. Take my advice. Let the matter drop. 
 The Superior Body has had a full and free dis- 
 cussion of the standard of theological training 
 it should demand of all applicants for ordina- 
 tion " 
 
 " Theological training ? " Fairmeadow laughed. 
 
 " Yes, of course," the little gentleman replied ; 
 11 and in your case " 
 
 " I'll tell 'em about mine." 
 
 " Theological training ? You've had none ! " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I have, old man ! " said Fairmeadow,
 
 IN HIS OWN BEHALF 
 
 confidently. " And I'm going to tell the boys in 
 there all about it." 
 
 " My dear fellow ! " 
 
 " That's all right, old man," said Fairmeadow, 
 positively ; " but by Jove, I will! " 
 
 When the chairman's attention was at last 
 distracted from the discussion under way for 
 John Fairmeadow's introduction, he managed 
 to shake hands in a quick, soft way, and to 
 whisper, " Glad you've come. Very busy, just 
 now. Be seated somewhere. I'll call on you in 
 due course." Then he returned on tiptoe to his 
 little table and once more smilingly faced the 
 busy meeting of the black-coated brethren. John 
 Fairmeadow sat down to wait to look and to 
 listen and to marvel. The debate was prolonged 
 and somewhat acrimonious. I have forgotten 
 what it concerned. It was a point of order, per- 
 haps ; or it may have been the congregational 
 squabble at Brown's Corners. I have forgotten. 
 Perhaps it was the progress of missions among 
 the Mohammedans of Southern Arabia. This 
 does not matter, however : it was prolonged, at 
 any rate, and it was slightly acrimonious, so that 
 the chairman must keep a tight rein on the 
 brethren, who were used, at such times, being 
 one family, to loose themselves somewhat from 
 restraint. There were retort and rejoinder in 
 plenty, some of it keen-edged ; and there was a
 
 IN HIS OWN BEHALF 337 
 
 good deal of laughter, too. John Fairmeadow 
 fidgeted in his pew. Time was passing; his 
 train was due to leave within the hour ; and Long 
 Butcher Long, now reposing in the care of Plain 
 Tom Hitch in the glorified snake-room of the 
 Donald Memorial at Swamp's End, would need 
 John Fairmeadow's more knowing and more 
 powerful attentions that night. So Fairmeadow 
 stared and listened impatiently and fidgeted in 
 his pew and wondered how much time a gather- 
 ing of ordained ministers might waste with an 
 easy conscience and speculated upon the con- 
 dition of all the parishioners who went lacking a 
 shepherd in the meantime and heartily wished 
 "they'd get through." At last, they did, of 
 course ; and the bewildered Fairmeadow won- 
 dered what the outcome of the discussion had 
 been. It was not surprising : for the matter had 
 " gone over." 
 
 In the midst of his effort to solve the rid- 
 dle, Fairmeadow heard the smiling chairman 
 say 
 
 " A few words from Brother Fairmeadow, re- 
 ports of whose work among the degraded lumber- 
 jacks of our state have interested us so much, 
 and who will briefly address us." 
 
 Fairmeadow rose, looked composedly around, 
 put his hands in his pockets, squared his shoul- 
 ders, and audibly sighed. Nobody knows why 
 he sighed : I fancy that Fairmeadow him-
 
 338 IN HIS OWN BEHALF 
 
 self had no idea at the time. But the sigh was 
 so deep and frank, you may believe, that it was 
 quite sufficient to procure attention and a curi- 
 ous silence in the church. There had been a 
 good deal of talk about Fairmeadow. From 
 many sources the brethren had learned a good 
 deal about him. There had been a good deal of 
 laughter, too. The examining committee had 
 not failed to tell picturesque tales in the most 
 humorous fashion in the world about the experi- 
 ence with Billy the Beast at Swamp's End. The 
 Superior Body had laughed heartily in the leisure 
 moments of the last session ; and the congrega- 
 tions beyond for the story was far too good to 
 keep, embellished, as it had been, by the inge- 
 nuity of the examining committee had echoed 
 the laughter of the brethren. And Fairmeadow, 
 now standing gravely before them all, clad in the 
 lumber-woods way, still in mackinaw and heavy 
 boots, was a figure good to look upon, if only on 
 account of the admirable contrast he presented. 
 A clean, true man, at work, hard at work, in the 
 world : a big, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, 
 long-legged body, evidently with a soul to match 
 its excellencies, and with a glowing heart and a 
 * purpose lifted high. No wonder the brethren 
 attended. It was an occurrence out of the or- 
 dinary quite out of the ordinary, believe me. 
 And while the big man in the mackinaw looked 
 gravely roundabout upon them all, seeming to
 
 /N HIS OWN BEHALF 339 
 
 pause to look into the eyes of each, the brethren 
 settled themselves to listen, stirred by an agree- 
 able little thrill of impending excitement. 
 
 The chairman repeated, absently 
 
 " Will briefly a-dress-ss us-s." 
 
 " Boys," Fairmeadow began, genially, in his 
 big, warm way, " I'm almighty sorry I can't stay 
 very long with you." 
 
 A little laughter was provoked. 
 
 "You see, boys," Fairmeadow went on, in- 
 genuously, " I'm a busy man, and I've got to get 
 back on the job by the 6 : 43. Otherwise I'd be 
 glad to talk to you all night." 
 
 Somebody called 
 
 " Talk as long as you like 1 " 
 
 " Thanks, old man," Fairmeadow replied. " I'd 
 like to. Really, I would. But " 
 
 " Go on 1 Go on ! " 
 
 Fairmeadow nodded and smiled his acknowl- 
 edgment of this genuine interest. "What I 
 want to talk to you about," he began, " is some- 
 thing you've been a good deal bothered about, 
 and that's my ordination " 
 
 "The brother," said the chairman, promptly, 
 " is out of order." 
 
 "That's all right, old man," Fairmeadow be* 
 gan, smiling; "but you see " 
 
 There were loud cries of 
 
 " Let him go on ! Go on, brother 1 " 
 
 The chairman bowed acquiescence : the wish
 
 340 IN HIS OWN BEHALF 
 
 of the brethren was evidently unanimous and far 
 too fervent to be opposed. 
 
 "Thanks, boys," Fairmeadow responded, qui- 
 etly. " That's just what I mean to do." 
 
 There was a round of applause. 
 
 Fairmeadow began at the beginning. " Boys," 
 said he, so gravely that his deep voice thrilled the 
 hearts of every man among them, " I am a re- 
 deemed drunkard : in this is my call and educa- 
 tion and therein resides my right to ordination." 
 After that the silence was not once broken. The 
 good brethren, sitting in the presence of a man 
 who had suffered the fires of unrighteousness, lis- 
 tened, enthralled, to the story of those other days. 
 There was not a whisper not a movement. 
 It was all frankly told : the tale of the Bowery 
 saloon, of the park benches, of begging and filth 
 and shivering nights, of hopelessness and of 
 helpless, uttermost degradation. " And at last, 
 boys," Fairmeadow proceeded, " I was kicked 
 out of Solomon's Cellar, and had no place to go. 
 And I got up from a bench in Mulberry Park, 
 boys, and was advised, by two friendly fellows, 
 to go down to Jerry McAuley's mission in Water 
 Street. ' Go down there,' they said, ' and God 
 will help you.' It was raining. It was a cold, 
 wet night in the fall of the year. I was sick, and 
 cold, and on the verge of delirium tremens / and 
 I needed a drink I desperately needed a drink.
 
 IN HIS OWN BEHALF 341 
 
 They told me the way, I suppose I have for- 
 gotten. And I forget all that happened until I 
 found myself at the door of the mission in Water 
 Street with the definite idea that I had come for 
 a bed-ticket. I had not come for religious con- 
 solation, you may be sure not for spiritual 
 grace. I had come for what I could get out of 
 it for what a sick drunkard needed a bed- 
 ticket 
 
 "They were singing. It chanced that they 
 were singing a hymn my mother used to sing 
 when I was a boy at home. I sat down ob- 
 scurely. I was drunk. It may be that I had 
 had a drink on the way to Water Street per- 
 haps two I do not know. But I was drunk ; 
 and I reasoned benighted reason ! that if I 
 were to get my ticket I must behave my- 
 self before all these pious folk. They were 
 singing, 
 
 Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in Thee 
 
 and it seemed to me that I could hear my moth- 
 er's voice, that I could see her face, that she was 
 living again, that I was at home again, a boy. 
 . . . You understand ? You know the vision 
 that might come to such a man as I then? 
 . . . Presently they sang again. It chanced 
 shall I say chanced ? that my mother used to
 
 342 IN HIS OWN BEHALF 
 
 sing that simple hymn, too, when I was a boy at 
 home. It was, 
 
 " ' Jesus, lover of my soul, 
 
 Let me to Thy bosom fly . . . ' 
 
 and I was overcome. I had loved my mother. 
 I had wronged her, of course ; but I had never 
 ceased to love her never failed, in all those de- 
 graded years, to cherish her memory. I had 
 loved her! I drank her to death, God knows 
 it ! But I had loved her, God knows loved her 
 every hour ! " 
 
 Fairmeadow paused. 
 
 "While they sang these simple hymns," he 
 went on, presently resuming, " memory of my 
 mother stirred within me memory of her, of 
 home, of trees and lawn, of the touch of her 
 hand, her prayers, her kisses, of myself as a lad, 
 of the old aspirations, of baseball, of my bed- 
 room the little things of home and childhood 
 and of a man's mother her voice and hands 
 and eyes. 
 
 " You know, don't you ? . . . Every man, 
 surely, understands. . . ." 
 
 The brethren understood. 
 
 " I had not thought much of such things for a 
 long time, perhaps," Fairmeadow continued. 
 " I had been concerned with the pursuit of 
 another drink. Perhaps the old hymns these 
 awakened memories exhibited my degradation
 
 IN HIS OWN BEHALF 343 
 
 with conviction to my own soul. I don't 
 know. . . . But when one of the brothers 
 testified I listened. I believed him. It seemed 
 to me that he was telling the story of my life 
 and wretchedness not of another's not of his 
 life any more than of mine. I believed him. 
 It was true. I knew that every word was true. 
 I knew knew intimately the back room of the 
 Bowery saloon from which he had been ejected. 
 Others testified to redemption through Jesus 
 Christ to salvation from themselves and every 
 power of evil. And I knew that they did not 
 lie. . . . Some gave thanks for a day's 
 preservation some for the ease of a week 
 some for years of joyous, useful life. What they 
 had been was what I was. I knew it. What 
 they had become I could see with my own eyes. 
 They were clean ; they were not in rags they 
 had no thirst. They were men of joy to them- 
 selves of value to the world. . . . And they 
 had no consciousness of guilt. They had 
 peace. . . . And I I was still a drunken 
 outcast a sinner in rags, dirty, drunk, shirtless, 
 ill. . . . But they had been what I was. 
 They had not lied when they said so. There 
 was hope, then, for me. You see, these men 
 were the living evidence of that hope. And I 
 learned ' the way of salvation.' " 
 
 Again a pause : the chairman leaned forward 
 a little all the brethren leaned forward as the
 
 344 IN HIS OWN BEHALF 
 
 climax of this indubitable experience of the soul 
 approached. 
 
 " Somebody asked me if I would not give 
 God a chance in my life a clean, strong, kindly 
 man . . . who had been what I was, and 
 whom I knew to have been what I was. . . . 
 Did I not care to give God a chance to restore 
 me ? Would I not try it ? Would I not be prayed 
 for ? Would I not pray for myself ? . . . I 
 was drunk still drunk but I was resolved. I 
 was down and out. I had nothing left. And I 
 went forward to get what these men had what 
 my soul desired redemption. It was a logical 
 determination. The evidence of God's activity 
 in the world of His power and wish to regen- 
 erate had been so convincingly exhibited that 
 no rational intelligence could endure to doubt 
 it. And I was in a position to know the depths 
 from which these men had been lifted . . . 
 and I knew that only the power and love of 
 Almighty God could so lift them up. . . . 
 
 " And I got up from my knees a new man 
 ' A new creature in Christ Jesus.' I had been 
 ' born again.' It is not a cant phrase ; I used to 
 think so ; but now I know I know it isn't. 
 There are no other words so accurately to de- 
 scribe the change which had occurred within me 
 no other words to describe the completeness
 
 IN HIS OWN BEHALF 345 
 
 of it, the newness of the life into which I had 
 come, a child in righteous ways. I was re- 
 generated : I had been ' born again.' I was 
 sober. And from that moment I have never 
 wanted alcohol. ... A miracle as truly a 
 miracle as any healing ever was ! And in every 
 essential a miracle. ... I have not wanted 
 a drink. Do you apprehend the stupendous 
 change which had occurred within me ? / have 
 not wanted a drink since that time / . . . I 
 did want a bath. Instantly. But I was too dirty 
 to be given one without precautions. And I 
 wanted a clean shirt. I loathed my rags my 
 dirty person. I wanted to be clean. How I 
 craved a bath 1 And pride at once revived the 
 good pride of manhood. One of the brothers 
 we redeemed drunkards are all brothers offered 
 me five cents. I rejected it and with hurt pride. 
 I was no beggar ! I was a man again a gentle- 
 man ! What did I want of charity ? What did 
 I want of a nickel I hadn't earned ? I wanted 
 work. First I wanted sleep I desperately needed 
 a bed and then I wanted a bath and a job. I 
 had my bath in the morning. What a gracious 
 gift it was ! And I got my job, too and I got 
 my clean shirt." 
 
 The crisis was past : there was a ripple of 
 nervous laughter among the brethren, which was 
 Instantly stilled as Fairmeadow proceeded. 
 
 u But I lay that night in a Bowery lodging-
 
 346 JN HIS OWN BEHALF 
 
 house," he went on. " It was a heaven of rest 
 and ease and quiet and seclusion after Solomon's 
 Cellar. I was too dirty to be put in the long 
 room with the decent Bowery rowdies and drunks. 
 I was given a bunk in a section reserved for 
 the worst of us. . . . I was very low, you 
 see. . . . But I was too weak to crawl into 
 bed ; they must lift me in. I did not sleep. I 
 lay awake all that night in tears and prayer and 
 joyous aspiration. My tears were of contrition 
 my prayers were of rejoicing, of incoherent, un- 
 utterable gratitude ; my aspiration was towards 
 work, and service, and self-respect, and the love 
 of all men. A wonderful night! a night in 
 which those things which I had once cherished, 
 but had long abandoned, were restored to me : 
 hope, truth, love, pure ambition. The things of 
 St. Paul : ' Whatsoever things are true, whatso- 
 ever things are honest, whatsoever things are 
 just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever 
 things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good 
 report : if there be any virtue, and if there be any 
 praise. . . .' It seems to me now that in 
 that night I travelled back over the long way I 
 had come that I was once more in the company 
 of the pure things of my boyhood. I was a new 
 creature, you see, in Christ Jesus. . . . And 
 in the morning I stumbled rejoicing to the labour 
 of a new day in a new life. . . . And I was 
 sober and I was not at all afraid. ."
 
 IN HIS OWN BEHALF 347 
 
 It was the end. 
 
 " Now, boys," Fairmeadow gravely added, 
 " you know why I am here. You know the 
 meaning of such a life as mine know its signifi- 
 cance in a world of men. You know what my 
 work is, too, and whether or not I am called of 
 God to do it, and whether or not I am an instru- 
 ment well chosen to serve God's purposes in these 
 woods." 
 
 He sat down. 
 
 " Brethren," said the chairman, reverently, 
 " let us pray ! " 
 
 After that they ordained John Fairmeadow on 
 the spot ; and Fairmeadow, when he got back to 
 Swamp's End, had much ado to keep the boys 
 from celebrating the event according to the cus- 
 toms established.
 
 XXXII 
 
 LOVE AND LABOUR 
 
 IT was spring again at Swamp's End. The 
 snow was gone : the trails were dry and 
 greening. Balmy winds came over the il- 
 limitable forest from the west. All the busy little 
 persons of the woods began to chirp and twitter 
 in vast excitement. There was the flutter of 
 little wings in the underbrush ; and there was a 
 noisy chatter in the branches of the big pines, 
 changing to crooning, sweeter calls at dusk. 
 Once more, of a Sunday afternoon, Pattie Batch 
 had the baby gray-eyed, dimpled little Pattie 
 Batch once more dear little Pattie Batch had 
 the baby at the companionable patch of wild- 
 flowers on the edge of the woods. A toddler, 
 now that adorable Little One 1 And quite able, 
 too, if you will believe it, to utter, with perfect 
 distinctness, the sweetest word in all the world. 
 An accomplishment, indeed, hard to be matched 
 in babies of that tender age ! It was a gentle 
 day : a blue sky, with ships of white cloud sail- 
 ing past, high above the forest, bound heaven 
 knew where ! but to some joyous event, and hur- 
 rying thereto. A soft, redolent breeze flowed 
 into the clearing, where it paused to play with 
 
 348
 
 LOVE AND LABOUR 349 
 
 the flowers and sweet grasses ; and then off it 
 whisked, in shadow and sunshine, to that self- 
 same joyous, distant place to which the great 
 white clouds were going. It was a day for 
 dreaming such was the day : the sunshine of it, 
 the tender wind, the new, sweet green, the amo- 
 rous twitter. And little Pattie Batch was dream- 
 ing ; she plucked flowers for the baby she gave 
 him a garland, she crowned him, she put a 
 sceptre in his dimpled hand and she was dream- 
 ing all the while. Sadly? Not at all! The 
 mist in her gray eyes which presently gathered 
 and fell in two little tears had no part with 
 melancholy. Not at all 1 Not a bit of it ! 
 Pattie Batch was very, very happy. She would 
 have admitted it had you asked her. 
 
 John Fairmeadow struck in from the Bottle 
 River Trail and came smiling broadly to the 
 patch of wild-flowers on the edge of the woods. 
 
 " Hello, there, Pattie Batch ! " he shouted. 
 
 " 'Lo, Jack ! " 
 
 "Where's my tea?" John Fairmeadow de- 
 manded, scowling tremendously. 
 
 Pattie Batch pursed her lips. 
 
 " Eh ? " 
 
 "It isn't ready." 
 
 " Not ready ! " John Fairmeadow complained, 
 with a great air of indignation. " Well, well I I 
 like your independence ! " 
 
 " When it is time for your tea, John Fair-
 
 350 LOYE AND LABOUR 
 
 meadow," said little Pattie Batch, in firm reproof, 
 " you will get your tea and not a minute be- 
 fore." 
 
 " Wh-wh-zfe^a/ / " John Fairmeadow stam- 
 mered. 
 
 Pattie Batch smiled. It was delicious, indeed, 
 to treat big John Fairmeadow in this masterful 
 way. The chagrin and astonishment which he 
 was quick to feign were really quite irresistible. 
 Pattie Batch smiled : she couldn't help it ; and 
 then she giggled, and then she chuckled, and 
 then she broke into a ripple of laughter. John 
 Fairmeadow laughed, too a great roar of 
 laughter. And the baby, of course, displaying 
 an amazing perception of the joke, chuckled like 
 a cherub : than which, as everybody knows, there 
 is no sweeter chuckle in the heavens above 
 or on the earth beneath. What with John Fair- 
 meadow's resonant, deep bass roar, and the 
 baby's heavenly cachination, and Pattie Batch's 
 rippling, tintinnabulous cadenza, you may be 
 sure that a fine chord of glee was struck on that 
 mellow Sunday afternoon in Gray Billy Batch's 
 clearing on the Bottle River trail beyond Swamp's 
 End. 
 
 Presently the afternoon was spent : the shadows 
 were grown long in the clearing, the twitter in 
 the woods had begun to fail, the west was 
 flushing.
 
 LOVE AND LABOUR 351 
 
 " Pattie ! " said John Fairmeadow. 
 
 Pattie Batch started : the ardent quality of 
 John Fairmeadow's voice was such that 
 
 " Patience 1 " Fairmeadow repeated. 
 
 One glance was sufficient for Pattie Batch : 
 one glance into John Fairmeadow's eyes was 
 enough to startle the little thing quite out of her 
 wits. 
 
 " It'th time for tea," said she, hastily, her lisp 
 overcoming her. 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 " Yeth, yeth ! " 
 
 " Not yet," Fairmeadow repeated ; " not until 
 
 " Yeth, yeth ! " Pattie gasped. 
 
 Big John Fairmeadow had a sense of helpless- 
 ness to which he was not at all used ; and still 
 continuing in this strange paralysis, he watched 
 and listened, without lifting a finger to help him- 
 self, while Pattie Batch snatched the baby from 
 his bed of flowers, protesting all the time that it 
 was time for tea, that it was long past time for 
 tea, indeed, that there wouldn't be any tea at all, 
 if she didn't look out watched and listened, con- 
 founded, while Pattie Batch fluttered off to the 
 cabin, calling back that she would call John 
 Fairmeadow when tea was ready, and that he 
 
 mustn't come a minute before. 
 
 * 
 
 Here's a pretty pass for a tale to come to
 
 352 LOVE AND LABOUR 
 
 which should have a happy ending ! John 
 Fairmeadow brooding in the failing light at the 
 edge of the woods : John Fairmeadow downcast 
 and self-accusing. " Poor little thing ! " thinks 
 he ; " she's frightened a mere hint of the thing 
 has frightened her ! " John Fairmeadow, pacing 
 the patch of wild-flowers, in grave trouble, called 
 himself hard names. Had he not frightened and 
 distressed the little soul that he loved so much ? 
 Why shouldn't he call himself hard names ? 
 And what right had John Fairmeadow, some- 
 time Bowery drunkard and outcast, to lift his 
 eyes to this sweet-blooming flower o' the woods ? 
 Regeneration was all very well in its way ; but 
 regeneration and new service could not wash a 
 man's past away so that no stain remained upon 
 his honour. John Fairmeadow had asked his 
 God all about it, of course, being a man of that 
 sort, and his God had seemed to approve ; but 
 Fairmeadow was convinced, now that Pattie 
 Batch had fled, that he had mistaken the quiet 
 voice in his own heart and Fairmeadow was 
 ashamed of himself. He would say no more : 
 he would teach Pattie Batch to forget that he 
 had said anything at all ; and in this resolve he 
 waited, downcast, brooding and ashamed, for 
 Pattie's call from the cabin. And as for little 
 Pattie, in the meantime, she was having much 
 ado to get tea at all : for the mist in her gray 
 eyes blinded her, and her hands would never do
 
 LOVE AND LABOUR 351 
 
 the thing" she told them to, and she could find 
 nothing at all in its place, and the tears just 
 would fall on the toast, and everything, positively 
 everything, was at sixes and sevens in her heart 
 no less than in her kitchen. 
 
 Pattie Batch, you see, who had long ago ob- 
 served the crisis approaching, had resolved and 
 determined not to spoil John Fairmeadow's life 
 not even if the baby never had a father. 
 " No, by ginger ! " thinks she. " I won't ! " 
 Nothing but the dusk and starlight of spring 
 could solve such a tangle as this. A deuce of a 
 job, too, of course ! 
 
 Dusk and starlight came together dusk and 
 starlight of spring at the edge oi the woods. 
 This was long after tea long after John Fair- 
 meadow, in the merriest fashion in the world, 
 had partaken of toast and tears. Long after the 
 baby had been put to bed, too : at a time, in- 
 deed, when the mystical powers of dusk and 
 starlight had waxed large and mischievous. 
 John Fairmeadow and Pattie Batch sat on Gray 
 Billy Batch's porch together. The still, sweet 
 dusk had fallen. They looked out over the little 
 clearing to the black pines and to the high star- 
 lit sky. Presently John Fairmeadow began to 
 tell Pattie Batch of those other days days 
 terrible in memory. And Pattie Batch came 
 closer closer yet as the tale of many sorrows
 
 354 LOVE AND LABOUR 
 
 was unfolded. Her motherly little heart ached : 
 it was in her heart, perhaps, but to give comfort ; 
 but however that may be and I arn not informed 
 she was presently drawn comfortingly close to 
 John Fairmeadow without knowing it at all. She 
 sighed, sometimes ; she sobbed a little, too : and 
 always, while the tale went on, she gave a loving 
 sympathy to the teller. John Fairmeadow was 
 unaware : only the dusk and the starlight knew 
 and the little stars winked happily at the sight 
 of it all. Nothing was held back by John Fair- 
 meadow : no bitterness of degradation no depth 
 of sin was concealed. And at the end of the 
 wretched recital so had dusk and starlight and 
 love worked upon them both little Pattie Batch 
 was snuggled close to John Fairmeadow was 
 held close, too, so that John Fairmeadow had no 
 difficulty whatsoever in softly kissing her up- 
 turned, tear-stained face. 
 
 "I love you, dear," said he. 
 
 " I'm glad," she whispered. " Oh, I'm so 
 glad ! " 
 
 They looked away to the pines and stars. 
 Beyond far beyond Fairmeadow saw himself 
 walking upright and at work in a world of men, 
 but not now going the path alone ; and it may 
 be that Pattie Batch, too, visioned, in the far 
 sky, the glory of her future. 
 
 " You and I, dear ! " said Fairmeadow. 
 
 " You and I, Jack ! "
 
 LOVE AND LABOUR 355 
 
 "Always, dear?" 
 
 41 Always." 
 
 They sat in this way for a long, long time, 
 both dreaming, both with eyes lifted to the stars, 
 each with a heart of joy; but presently little 
 Pattie Batch jumped up, as though bethinking 
 herself of a forgotten duty. 
 
 "Jack," she gasped, "I forgot to tell the 
 baby." 
 
 Roused from sound sleep, the baby wailed 
 dolorously. It was a stout complaint. 
 
 "Well?" Fairmeadow asked, when Pattie 
 Batch got back, 
 
 " He's glad, too," replied little Pattie Batch. 
 
 Well, well, well ! all said and done, the thing 
 being told, at last, they go along very well at 
 Swamp's End love and labour. As love and 
 labour will, unfailingly, being genuinely joined 
 together. There is no doubting it at all : they 
 are placid companions of the soul givers of 
 hope and wise counsellors. They are true : they 
 do not fail. They go along very well, indeed, 
 at Swamp's End ; but there is no Mister Pattie 
 Batch at Swamp's End, notwithstanding all that 
 occurred in the dusk at Gray Billy Batch's lazy 
 clearing on the edge of the big woods. There is 
 no Mister Pattie Batch, believe me: there is 
 nothing but a Mrs. John Fairmeadow. A rosy, 
 dimpled, twinkling-eyed, shy, appealing, ador-
 
 356 LO^E AND LABOUR 
 
 able little woman, of astonishing capacity : but 
 only a little Mrs. John, after all which, indeed, 
 if the truth were known, she had rather be than 
 anything else in all the wide world. There is 
 John Fairmeadow at Swamp's End, as well as 
 Mrs. John Fairmeadow : big, beloved John Fair- 
 meadow, who still scolds and beseeches, and 
 marries and buries, the boys, and who still right 
 lustily wields his broom of righteousness in 
 those woods big John Fairmeadow : in the 
 measure of his service and in the stature of his 
 soul a Man. There is the little partner, too 
 lying at ease in the green field near by town : 
 still tenderly loved, you may be sure, and still 
 inspiring. And there is the baby. Of course 
 there is the baby ! There is the Adorable One, 
 satisfactorily fathered, at last : still with an un- 
 conquered and inexplicable predilection for 
 lumber-jacks, as when on the Christmas Eve of 
 his advent at Swamp's End, Billy the Beast 
 poked a finger at his stout abdomen and excited 
 nothing but a loud peal of laughter. 
 
 And there's something more than that at 
 Swamp's End. There are 
 
 Two babies ! 
 
 THE END