The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories Part 30

The old man nodded, keeping his hungry eyes on the other's face.

"Well, here's His message to you: 'The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.'"

"To me? To me?" said the old man eagerly.

"Listen; this, too, is His word: 'Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out.' That's for you, for here you are, coming."

"You don't know me, Mr. Craig. I left my baby fifteen years ago because----"

"Stop!" said the minister. "Don't tell me, at least not to-night; perhaps never. Tell Him who knows it all now and who never betrays a secret. Have it out with Him. Don't be afraid to trust Him."

Nelson looked at him, with his face quivering, and said in a husky voice:

"If this is no good, it's h.e.l.l for me."

"If it is no good," replied Craig almost sternly, "it's h.e.l.l for all of us."

The old man straightened himself up, looked up at the stars, then back at Mr. Craig, then at me, and drawing a deep breath said:

"I'll try Him." As he was turning away the minister touched him on the arm and said quietly:

"Keep an eye on Sandy to-morrow."

Nelson nodded and we went on; but before we took the next turn I looked back and saw what brought a lump into my throat. It was old man Nelson on his knees in the snow, with his hands spread upward to the stars, and I wondered if there was any One above the stars and nearer than the stars who could see. And then the trees hid him from my sight.

FOOTNOTE:

[11] From _Black Rock_. Reprinted by special permission of publisher, The Fleming H. Revell Company.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XII.--The Story That the Keg Told Me

_By Adirondack (W. H. H.) Murray_

_The author is "Adirondack Murray" because he, more than any other man, rediscovered for the past and present generation the wonderful Adirondack Woods. We are grateful to Mr. Archibald Rutledge for having shortened the story, and to Mr.

Murray's publishers, De Wolfe and Fiske Company, for permission to print it in the abbreviated form._--THE EDITOR.

IT was near the close of a sultry day in midsummer, which I had spent in exploring a part of the sh.o.r.e line of the lake where I was camping, and wearied with the trip I had made, I was returning toward the camp.

The lake was a very secluded sheet of water hidden away between the mountains, not marked on the map, whose very existence was unsuspected by me until I had a few days before accidentally stumbled upon it.

Indeed, in all the world there is hardly another sheet of water so likely to escape the eye, not only of the tourist and the sportsman, but also of the hunter and the trapper. Day by day as I paddled over the lake or explored its sh.o.r.es the conviction grew upon me that the place had never before been visited by any human being. The more I examined and explored, the more this belief grew upon me. The thought was ever with me. But on this afternoon as I was paddling leisurely along, my paddle struck some curious object in the water. I reached down and lifted it into the boat. It was a Keg!

Amazed, I sat looking at this proof that my lake was not so unknown as I had supposed it to be. Where had it come from? How did it get here? Who brought it, and for what purpose? These and similar questions I put to myself as I paddled onward toward my camp.

After having built my camp fire I seated myself with my back against a pine; it was then that my gaze again fell on the Keg, which I had brought up from the boat and had set on the ground across the fire from me. I sat wondering where it had come from, and what had become of him who must once have handled it. . . . It may be that I was awake; it may be that I was asleep; but as I was thus looking steadily and curiously at the Keg, it seemed to change its appearance. It was no longer a Keg: it was a man! A queer little man he was, with strange little legs, and the funniest little body, and the tiniest little face! Then, standing bold upright, and looking at me with eyes that glistened like black beads, the miraculous Keg-Man opened his mouth and began to talk!

"I desire to tell you my story," it said; "the story of the man who brought me here; why he did it, and what became of him; how he lived and died.

"The earliest remembrance I have of myself is of the cooper's shop where I was made. Although I look worn now, I can recall the time when all my staves were smooth and clean, so that the oak-grain showed clearly from the top to the bottom of me, and my steel hoops were strong and bright.

The cooper made me on his honor and took a deal of honest pride in putting me together, as every workman should in doing his work. I remember that when I was finished and the cooper had sanded me off and oiled me, he set me up on a bench and said to his apprentice boy: 'There, that Keg will last till the Judgment Day, and well on toward night at that.' I wondered at that.

"One day a few weeks later a man came into the shop and said, 'Have you a good strong keg for sale?'

"He put the question in such a half-spiteful, half-suspicious way that I eyed him curiously. And a very peculiar man I saw. He was not more than forty years old, of good height and strongly built. He was a gentleman, evidently, although his face was darkly tanned and his clothes were old and threadbare. His mouth was small. His lips were thin, and had a look of being drawn tightly over his teeth. His chin was long, his jaws large and strong. His hair was thin and brown. But the remarkable feature of his face was his eyes. They were blue-gray in color, small, and deeply set under his arching eye-brows. How hard and steel-like they were, and restless as a rat's! And what an intense look of suspicion there was in them; a half-scared, defiant look, as if their owner felt every one to be his enemy. Ah, what eyes they were! I came to know them well afterward, and to know what the wild, strange light in them meant; but of that by and by.

"'Have you a good strong keg for sale?' he shouted to my master, who turned round and looked squarely at the questioner.

"'Yes, I have, Mr. Roberts. Do you want one?'

"'Yes!' returned the other; 'but I want a strong one--_strong_, do you hear?'

"'Here's a keg,' said my master, tapping me with his mallet, 'that I made with my own hands from the very best stuff. It will last as long as steel and white oak staves will last.'

"The price was paid with a muttered protest and Roberts hoisted me under his arm and bore me from the shop.

"As we hurried along, I noticed that my new master spoke to no one, and that people looked at him coldly or wonderingly. At last we came to a common-looking house set back from the road, with a very high fence built around it and a heavy padlock on the front gate. There were great strong wooden shutters at every window. My master entered the house and set me down on the floor, then went to the door and locked it, drawing two large iron bars across it. He went to every window to see if it was fastened.

Carrying a candle in one hand and a great bludgeon in the other, he examined every room, every closet, the attic, and the cellar. After this he came back to me, set me on a table, started one of my hoops, and took out one of my heads. From a cupboard he got a large sheepskin, and with a pair of shears fitted me with a lining of it. I must say that he did it with cleverness, and he seemed well pleased with his work.

"When he had done all this, he brought his bludgeon and laid it on the table beside me; also he laid there a large knife. Then he went to the chimney and brought the ash-pail, which was full of ashes; from the cupboard he brought an earthen jar; from under the bed he fetched a bag; from the cellar he returned with a sack, all damp and moldy. When he had all these side by side near the table, he sat down. Then out of the ash-pail he took a small pot, and having carefully blown the ashes off, he turned it bottom-upward on the table. And what do you think was in it?

"Gold coins! Some red and some yellow, but all gold!

"He emptied each of the other receptacles, and out there flowed heaps of gold coins almost without number! How they gleamed and glistened! How they clinked and jingled! And how the deep and narrow eyes of my master glittered, but how the lips drew apart in a wild smile!

"It was a fearful sight to see him playing with the gold and to hear him laugh over his treasure. It was dreadful to think that a human soul could love money so. And he did love it--madly, with all the strength of his nature.

"He would take up a coin and look at it as a father might look upon the face of a favorite child. Ah, me, 'twas dreadful! He would take up a piece and say to it, 'Thou art better to me than a wife'; and to another, 'Thou art dearer than father or mother!' Ah, such blasphemy as I heard that night! How the sweet and blessed things of human life were derided, and the things that are divine and holy sneered at!

"At length he fell to counting his gold; and for a long, long time he counted, until his hands shook, and his eyes gleamed as if he were mad.

When he had counted all, he jumped from his seat, shouting like a maniac, 'Sixteen thousand, six hundred and sixty-six dollars!' Again and again he shouted this in wild triumph.

"After a while he sobered down, and inside of me he began to pack away his treasures--carefully, caressingly, as a mother might lay her children to sleep. When I was full to the brim with s.h.i.+ning gold, he put my head on, fitted the upper hoop on snugly, and then put me in the bed.

The great knife he slipped under the pillow. Then, blowing out the light, he lay down beside me with one arm thrown about me. So the miser, clasping me to his heart, fell asleep.

"Day after day, night after night, this selfsame performance was repeated. My master did little work; indeed, he did not seem eager to increase his store, but merely to hold it safely. But about this he was so anxious that he was in a fever of excitement all the time. For days he would not leave the house. Never was he free from the fear of losing his money. And this suspicion had poisoned his whole life, had made him hate his kind and lose all belief in the love and the goodness of G.o.d, that he had once professed.

"One day in summer he left the front door open. I was drowsing, when suddenly I heard him give a frightened yell. In the doorway stood a man and a woman. The man was the village pastor, and the woman, I soon learned, was my master's wife. For a moment my master stood looking angrily at them. Then he said abruptly, 'Why did you come here?'

"'John,' said the woman, 'your child Mary is dying; and I thought that you, her father, would want to see her before she pa.s.sed away.' Her voice choked, and her breast heaved with sobs.