Читать книгу The Measure of a Man. A Tale of the Big Woods - Duncan Norman - Страница 8
ОглавлениеSOWN 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 beginning: 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!" 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 Pattie 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.
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 staggering—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 sincerity of sympathy with the black-clad little woman at the tail of the tote-wagon, and continued in happy satisfaction with its funereal behaviour.
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 whatever was omitted. The lifted voice was heard, the birds twittered, the sky was blue, the wind flowed over the pines, and cloud-shadow and 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 first-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 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 eighteen 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, that she might have continued in the companionship 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. She made a wreath for her shoulders, she fashioned a pendant of white for her bosom, she encircled 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, shameless red house, her eyes shining innocently in rising expectation of delight; and she went forward 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 moment!"
The door opened.
"Wait—oh, wait!"
Nobody appeared in the doorway. There was 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 happened, and had wiped her little red nose, and snuffled, and ejaculated, "Oh, shoot it, anyhow!"—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!"
"Hello!" Fairmeadow responded.
"What—time—d' you—get—up?"
"What—time—d' you?"
"I'm—up—at—five."
"Good Heavens!" 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 nothing else at Swamp's End.
