Читать книгу John Rawn, Prominent Citizen - Emerson Hough - Страница 6

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I

The youth of John Rawn early began to show that consistency in character which marked him later in his life. From the first, as we have said, he took himself seriously; indeed, regarded himself with a reverence akin almost to solemnity. Plain wonder possessed his soul when any event fell not wholly to his liking. If the hand that rocked his cradle failed from weariness, his reproof was not so much that of anger or expostulation as that of an aggrieved surprise. When first he began to walk he gravely reserved to himself the spotlight of all solar or sewing circles. Ladies visiting the parsonage unconsciously accepted his estimate of himself, even in those days. Familiarities were not for such a child as this. It began to be rumored about that here was one set apart for great things. Most frequently parents are alone in this manner of belief as to their offspring; but the severity of countenance, the grave assuredness of young John Rawn, forced this belief upon the entire community. A calm, serene certainty of himself was written on his brow.

Youth is for the most part irreverent of other youth, that is true, and at times young Mr. Rawn was rudely handled by others of his age. In such cases tears came to his eyes forsooth, but not tears of mere anger or anguish. They were tears of surprise, of regret, of wonder! His protest, when he fled to the comfort of his mother's bosom, was not of unmanly weakness, but of astonishment and incredulous surprise that any should have smitten the Lord's anointed. This surprise for the most part prevented him either from turning the other cheek, or smiting the cheek of the oppressor; one or the other of which courses, it must be admitted, commonly is held admirable among men, and especially among heroes.

In his younger school-days there was a way about young Mr. Rawn. He did not really care for plodding, yet he was aggrieved if not accorded rank among his fellow pupils. His spelling, not of the best in the belief of others, seemed to him quite good enough, because it was his own. When sent to the foot of the class he departed thither with a bearing wholly dignified and calm.

Even in these early days his features were in large mold, even then his abundant hair fell across his brow. His eyes were blue and prominent, his nose distinct, his lower lip prominent, protruding and in times of great emotion semi-pendulous. Even thus early he seemed old, serious, foreordained. To tell a being such as this that he could not spell was mere lèse majesté. He stalked through school, set apart by fate from his fellow-beings, amenable to few rules, superior to such restrictions as commonly hedge in lesser souls orthographically, socially, or otherwise.

Much of this might have been remedied by kindly application of educational or parental rod, but young Mr. Rawn remained largely unchastened. His parents did not care to punish him, and his teacher did not dare to do so. Was he not the minister's son? If his mother had misgivings they were well concealed. She herself only shuddered in her soul when she heard the orotund voice of the master of the house explain, in contemplation of his first born, "How much he is like me!" Yes, he was like. His mother knew how like.

II

At that time and in that part of the country this little western village might have been called almost a little world of itself. Estimates of men and affairs were such only as might grow out of the soil. The great world beyond was a thing but vaguely sensed of any who dwelt here. The town was apart from the nearest railway, in a section where rural simplicity amounted at times almost to frontier savagery. Now and then a lynching broke the quiet of the community. The local vices and virtues came out of a life but recently individual and unrestrained. It seemed only chance that young Rawn did not run wild, like many other of the youth of that town, who, trained by custom in arms and excess, disappeared from time to time, passing on to the frontier, then not remote.

Why did not John Rawn naturally trend toward violence, why did the frontier not call out to him? There was one great reason—he was a coward.

Cowardice is a trait sometimes handed down from father to son, indeed most usually it comes of heredity or ill-health. Sometimes it is fought down by reason, sometimes it is long concealed by artifice. Often it is hidden behind physical stature. Most frequently it is left unsuspected, sheltered behind an air of dignity. Money conceals much of it. Young Rawn was much like his father before him. Perhaps his father never had stopped to think that personal conclusions were matters he had never been called upon to carry to an end with any fellow-man. Peter Cartwright was no saint of his. There was no need, in his belief, to put spiritual or mental questions to the acid and unpleasant test of physical contact. The son, given by nature a considerable stature and gravity for his years, continued in the same fiction, not suspecting that it was fiction. There were larger boys than he, but chivalry restrained these. There were smaller boys than he, but these feared him by reason of the valor which it was supposed he owned. The ranks of life opened before him readily and easily. He stalked forward, with small opposition, accepted at his own estimate of himself; as presently we shall set forth in many valuable instances.

III

It may be supposed that, in a rural community of this sort, living was cut down pretty much to the bone of actual necessities. There was no excess of comfort, and, although there was little lack, luxury was a thing undreamed. Transportation was in that day costly and inefficient, the world not so small then as it is now, so that there was less interchange of the products of distant countries and localities. For instance, there were orange groves within three hundred miles of this little village, yet rarely was an orange to be seen there. Flour, salt, coffee, bacon, Bibles, six-shooters, essential things, were carried thither, not luxuries and trifles. The family was its own world. In large part, it tilled its own fields and ran its own factories. Mrs. Rawn molded the candles which made the bedroom lights and those by which she sewed—though not that by which her husband read and wrote—in a kettle in the backyard at butchering times, when suet came the parson's way. She made her husband's long black coats, building them upon some prehistoric pattern. She made, mended and washed his shirts, hemmed his stocks and darned his socks for him. Using the outworn ministerial cloth in turn, she made also, in due time, the garments of the son and heir, even building for him a cap, with ear-lappets, for winter use. Her own garments might have been seen by the most casual eye to have been the product of her own hands. Yet, this home was not much different from others, where countless things then were done domestically which now are fabricated in factories and purchased through many middlemen. The lockstep of our civilization was not then so fully in force.

Money was a rare commodity in any such community, and any manner of personal indulgence was for but few. If, for instance, there was beef on the parsonage table, it was the parson alone who ate it, not his wife. Once he came home with two lemons, which had been given him, perhaps as a peace-offering, by a generous storekeeper. These he ordered made forthwith into lemonade; the which, forthwith also, he himself drank, offering none to the sharer of his joys; nor did she find anything either unusual or reproach-worthy in this act. You wonder at these things? They happened in another day, among people with whom you could not be expected to be familiar—your fathers and mothers; persons not in the least of our class.

IV

In these circumstances—since we have promised value in some specific instance—a certain interest attaches to a little event which nowhere else, save in some such village, would have been noted or could have been possible. The leading local merchant, in a burst of enterprise, had imported a couple of clusters of bananas from New Orleans, the first ever brought into the town. For a time none of the citizens purchased, and, indeed, it required the grudging gift of a banana or so to establish a local demand. Then—builded on the assurance of a wise and much-traveled citizen who had once eaten a banana at Fort Worth—the rumor of the bananas passed rapidly through the town. Swiftly it became an important thing to announce to a neighbor that one had eaten of this fruit. In time, even children partook thereof.

At this time young Mr. Rawn was six years of age, and by reason of his years and his social position at least as much entitled to bananas as any of his like thereabout. Yet, he had none. The tragedy of this wrung his mother's soul. Was it to be thought that this, her son, should be denied any of the good things of life, that he should have less than equal enjoyment of life's privileges in the company of his fellows? The climax came when young Mr. Rawn himself approached his mother's knee, with wonder and surprise upon his face, inquiring why others had bananas, while he himself, the Lord's anointed, and son of the Lord's anointed, had none. It was at that time that his mother somewhat furtively stole away down the village street. She had a few coppers, saved by such hook and crook as you and I may not know, and these she now proposed to devote to a holy cause.

It was at about this same time, also, that there chanced to pass by, on the sidewalk in front of the parsonage, two boys younger than John Rawn himself. These he regarded intently, for he saw from a distance that each had some suspicious object in his hand. His own suspicions became certainties. Here was visible proof that they, mere common persons, were owners of specimens of that fruit whose excellence was rumored throughout the town. They ate, or were about to eat, while he did not! They had luxuries while he had none! They had not asked his permission, yet they ate! Form this picture well in your mind, oh, gentle reader. It is that of John Rawn and ourselves.

With great gravity and dignity young Mr. Rawn stalked down the brick walk to the front gate of the parsonage yard. Calmly, with no word, but with uplifted hand—nay, merely by his stately dignity—he barred the progress of these two. They paused, uncertain. Then he held out his hand, and, with a growl of command, demanded of these others that which they had regarded as their own. He took it as matter of course that Cæsar should have the things that were Cæsar's; and they who give tribute to our Cæsars now, gave it then.

Having possession of these bananas, which as yet remained unbroken of their owners, young Mr. Rawn showed them that, although these fruits were unfamiliar to their former owners, they made no enigma to a person of his powers. As though he had done nothing else all his life, he broke open the tender skin and removed the soft interior contents. After this he handed back to each of his young friends the disrupted and now empty skins. Yet, with much kindness, he explained to both that at the bottom of each husk or envelope there still remained some portion of edible contents which, with care upon their part, might yet be rescued. They departed, wondering somewhat, but glad they had been shown how this thing was done; even as you and I humbly thank our great men for robbing us to-day.

Young Mr. Rawn, age six, turned now with much dignity back to the gallery from which he had with much dignity come. He seated himself calmly upon the chair and began to eat that which had been given him of fate, that which had been brought to Cæsar as a thing due to Cæsar. He ate until at last, wearied with his labors, he fell asleep.

V

Note now our humble moral in this short and simple detail of our hero's early years. He was at this moment more nearly full of bananas than any other human being in all the village at that time. Yet he had attained that success at no price save that of the exercise of the resources of his mind. That is genius. Let us not smile at young Mr. Rawn.

His mother, stealing home by the back way with yet other bananas concealed in her apron, presently came upon him and discovered that, after all, her solicitude had not been, needful. Her son slept, his lower lip protruding, his features grave, his legs somewhat sprawled apart, his mid-body somewhat distended, his head sunken forward, his hands drooping at his side. In one hand, clutched so tightly as to have become a somewhat worthless pulp, his mother discovered the bulk of several bananas; in short, the full quota which had been assigned to two of his fellow-beings. It was genius!

Even at that time there departed up the village street those which had given tribute to Cæsar. They regarded with a certain curiosity the empty husks which had been returned to them—even as you and I regard the husks accorded us by overgreat men to-day. From time to time each nibbled, with small return, although as per instructions, at the base from which the main fruit had been broken. Witness the difference among men. These had bananas for which something had been paid. John Rawn had many, better and bigger bananas, for which nothing at all had been paid! In return for them he had shown their late owners how to open a banana. For the later opening of that which in our parlance we call the melon, John Rawn was now decently under way. Already he was showing himself to be a captain among men.

His mother looked upon him as he slept sprawled in his repletion and made no attempt to remove the uneaten fruit from his hands; indeed, made no query as to where he had obtained it. She did not disturb his slumbers. "How like his father he is!" she whispered to herself, mindful of certain lemons, certain beefsteaks, certain wedding fees, certain gone and wasted years. She did not say: "How dear he is, how sweet, how manly, how brave, how decent, how chivalrous!" No, with a slight tightening of the lips as she turned back to find her belated sewing, she spoke, as though to herself, and with no peculiar glorying in her voice, "How like he is to his father!" And so took up her burden.