Читать книгу The Measure of a Man. A Tale of the Big Woods - Duncan Norman - Страница 10

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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 success, 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 evidence of hilarity emerged from every open door. At Pale Peter's Red Elephant, where John Fairmeadow 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 kicked impatiently out of the way—there lay a dozen or more lusty fellows whom the celebration had utterly overcome. Fairmeadow was not disgusted. He did not withdraw in horror; nor did he weep and retire to pray. As a matter 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, unobserved 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 discussion, 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 its heavy gravity. He whispered, "A li'l' licker, Charlie!" precisely in the manner of an elder saying, "Let us pray!" Earlier in the day—some time after the funeral, in fact, when, just at that moment, it had occurred to John Fairmeadow 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 disconcerted, and more than a little chagrined, to discover that John Fairmeadow would not enthusiastically 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!" 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' Sunday-school."

"What for?"

"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!" 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.

"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 followed 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, 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.

"The game," Fairmeadow 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," Fairmeadow 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. 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!"

Donald came, then, in answer to his father's call. He was a straight, frank-eyed little fellow, not after Pale Peter's fashion, at all, but doubtless 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 Fairmeadow 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 Fairmeadow.

"Not at all; on the contrary, I'll help you all I can."

"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 define 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 exploded.

"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 understand, 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! 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 parishioners were quite willing to be taken care of. The parishioners intended to be taken care of. What was a parson for? And with John Fairmeadow at the Red Elephant—with John Fairmeadow always within hail—they felt reasonably safe. A great friendship immediately sprang into life between the big parson and Pale Peter's Donald—a friendship which, in the end, was to astonish 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.