Читать книгу The Mountain Fugitive - Max Brand - Страница 4

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All the rest of that day went as pleasantly as the commencement of it, and in the evening, almost at as late an hour as my father returned from his rounds, the priest came wearily home to the house. He greeted me with a smile and a firm handshake with such strength in it that I wondered at him. For he seemed to have a most athletic hand!

We sat down to supper together, and while we ate he talked with me and asked me little questions about myself and what I intended to do with my life.

"I believe," said the good priest, "that after a boy has reached a certain age, he should be allowed to do as he pleases with his life. In the meantime, I should like to find out what you now please to do with yourself."

I told him, glad to talk of myself, that I intended to grow larger and stronger, and that I then intended to look about me and find a place where one did not have to work too much in the hot sun. Indoor work would suit me.

"You wish to become a student, then?" suggested Father McGuire.

I admitted that books were extremely distasteful to me, and that I did not desire to have any intimate knowledge of them, whatsoever.

There was no more talk on these subjects. Father McGuire turned his attention to other things. He declared that he had heard a great deal about my fights with other boys, and he particularly mentioned a few recent instances. I admitted sullenly that I had fought occasionally, and that I hoped that I would soon get over that bad habit.

"By no means," said Father McGuire, who seemed to have recovered from his languor of weariness. "By no means! Those men whom I most admire in this world are the saints who bless it with their gentleness. But they are very few." Here he sighed.

"I have seen only two or three in all my life. But next to the saints, I love the warriors, of which there are always a fair number—I mean the true hearts of oak who will fight until the ship sinks! Perhaps you are to be one of those, Leon!"

It was a thrilling possibility—when I heard him speak of it in this manner. I began to regard myself as a great man, and when that pleasant evening ended, I went to bed and to sleep without the slightest regret that I was not in the house of my parents. I decided that Father McGuire would never thwart a single one of my wishes.

In the morning, a full three hours before my ordinary time of waking—which was eight—I heard a brisk rap at the door, and the cheerful voice of Father McGuire in the hall, telling me that it was time to get up.

"Get up?" said I, sitting up in the bed and blinking at the dull gray of the sky outside my window, "why, it's the middle of night."

He told me that he had some good news for me; and that brought me out of bed in a twinkling. In an instant I had leaped into my clothes, and I was standing before him in the hall.

"You are to learn to milk," said Father McGuire, who had remained there waiting for me all of this time. "I intend to teach you this morning."

I made a wry face, not too covertly, and went along with him to find the cow. For ten or fifteen minutes, I pretended to attempt to do as he told me. As a matter of fact, I had done a little milking before, and could perform fairly well at it. For the priest, however, I pretended that it was a hopeless task for me; I wished to discourage, in the beginning of our acquaintance—which was bound to last for at least six months—this foolish habit of rousing me before daybreak to do chores about the house.

Suddenly the hand of Father McGuire was laid upon my shoulder. "Will you tell me the truth?" he asked.

"Yes," said I.

"Are you doing your best?"

I declared that I was, and made an apparently savage effort to get the milk from the udder of the cow. But there was not a trickle in answer. I told Father McGuire that it was no good; and that I could not master the knack of the thing. He smiled upon me in the gentlest manner.

"There is no hurry," said he. "In these things, one must use the most infinite patience. It is very true that one often needs time, but time, after all, is often a cheap matter in this world of ours. It may require an hour, or two hours—but it is a long time, as I said—before breakfast. Sit there and do your best. I cannot ask any more."

He folded his arms and leaned against the fence, watching me. I began to perspire with impatience and anger. My back was aching from that infernally cramped position, and in another moment, as by magic, all the difficulties disappeared, and the streams of milk began to descend with a rhythmic chiming into the pail—then with increasing force as I set aside all pretense, and hurried to finish the task.

Father McGuire stood by and admired. He had never seen such an apt pupil, he declared.

"Which teaches one," said he, "that a slow beginning often makes a good ending!"

The cow was milked; I carried the pail sullenly to the house and dropped it on the floor, but Father McGuire was not yet done with me. I was shown how I must strain it into three pans; and how I must take down the pans of yesterday from the little creamery and skim them, and throw the cream into the cream jar, and then empty the skimmed milk into another pail.

After that, I was led forth to the pasture again and told to catch the horse. The horse became exceedingly difficult to capture. It seemed impossible for me to manage the brute, and I told Father McGuire as much.

His answer made me begin to hate him.

"More gently, then," said he. "But always with patience, my dear Leon. The time will come when she will come straight up to your hand. She is a gentle creature, although a very stupid one. See what time accomplished in the matter of learning how to milk! It may do even more in this affair of the catching of the horse."

I saw that I was fairly trapped, and that he intended to let me learn in my own way. So I caught the stupid beast at once and led her into the barn. I was told to curry and brush her, and Father McGuire showed me how to proceed. I snatched the brush and comb when he offered them to me, and began to work in a blind passion.

"Wait! Wait! Wait!" said the gentle voice of the priest. "More haste and less speed! You must not curry against the grain—but so—"

I flung brush and comb upon the floor with a loud clatter. "I'm not a slave!" cried I. "I won't do any more."

He raised his pale hand. "Not that word, my dear Leon," said he. "'Won't' is the one word of all others which I detest in a boy. The point is that I have told you to brush and curry the horse. For stupidity I trust that I have an infinite patience; but for willful obstinacy I desire a sword of fire. Do not provoke me, Leon. Do not let anger take the upper hand with me. Let anger be far from me, always, in my treatment of you!"

He actually raised his eyes as he was saying this, as though it were a manner of prayer. At this, my rage broke through.

"You little runt!" I yelled at him. "I'm gonna leave, and I'm gonna leave right now!"

I started for the door.

"Will you come back, Leon?" said the gentle voice.

"I'll see you go to the devil first," said I.

A light step followed me; a hand of iron gripped my arm and flung me around.

"Go back to your work," said Father McGuire through his teeth. He pointed toward the long-suffering horse.

I was enraged by that grip upon my arm from which my muscles still ached. Though I have never been the type of bully that picks upon younger boys, I now forgot myself. I struck heavily at the head of Father McGuire.

My father or my mother would have fainted with horror to see such a blow leveled at the man of God, but there was no fainting in Father McGuire. His small arms darted out, my wrist landed against a sharp elbow so that I howled with the stabbing pain of it, and the next moment a bony little fist darted up and nestled against the very point of my jaw.

There was an astonishing weight behind that hand. It lifted me from my feet, toppled me backward, and landed me against the wall of the barn with a crash.

There I lay in a stupor, gazing at this man who had worked a miracle.

I should have said that at fifteen, like many others who grow large, I had my full height of an inch above six feet, and I had a hundred and sixty pounds of weight to dress my inches. I had not done hard labor, at that time, and my strength had not been seasoned and hardened upon my shoulders, but still I was a stout youngster.

But here was I, full of consciousness of my hundred and sixty pounds of victorious brawn, laid flat on my back by a blow delivered by the fist of a little withered priest who had not three quarters of my bulk.

I say that I lay flat on my back and glared at him with a chill of dread working in my blood. He, in the meantime, was standing before me with a great emotion in his face. He was flushed, his teeth were set, his feet were braced well apart beneath his robe, and there was a strange glitter in his eyes.

"Let me not lose myself, Lord," said Father McGuire. "Let me not sin in passion. Let me be tender, and turn my other cheek to the smiter! Fill me with humility, Our Father"

Here I leaped to my feet with a roar and rushed at him, and Father McGuire, with a little indrawn breath of pleasure, as of one drinking deep of happiness, met me with what any instructor in boxing would have termed a beautiful straight left.