Hempfield Part 7

"Jeru (whack) salem (whack) the gold (whack) en (whack, whack),

"With milk (whack) and hon (whack) ey blest (whack, whack, whack)."

And what wouldn't I give to clap my eyes newly on old Mr. Kenton, standing there in front of his office, his florid face shaded by the porch roof, but the rotundity of his white waistcoat gleaming in the suns.h.i.+ne, his cane hooked over his arm, and himself looking benignly out upon the world of Hempfield as it flows by, ready to discuss with any one either the origin or the destiny of his neighbours.

At the corner above the post office Nort stopped and leaned against the fence, and looked up the street and down the street. His spirits were extremely low. He felt wholly miserable. He had not a notion in the world what he was going to do, did not at that time even know the name of the town he was in. It was indeed pure chance that had led him to Hempfield. If he had had a few cents more in his pocket it might have been Acton, or if a few cents less it might have been Roseburg. His only instinct, blurred at the moment, I am sorry to say, had been to get as far away from New York as possible--and Hempfield happened to be just about the limit of his means.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _He pictured himself sitting in the quiet study of the minister, looking sad, sad_]

He was already of two minds as to whether he should give it all up and get back to New York as quickly as possible. He thought of dropping in on the most important man in town, say the banker, or the Congregational minister, and introducing himself in the role of contrite spendthrift or of remorseful prodigal, as the case might be--trust Nort for knowing how to do it--and by hook or crook raise enough money to take him back. He pictured himself sitting in the quiet study of the minister, looking sad, sad, and his mind lighted up with the wonderful things he could say to prove that of all the sheep that had bleated and gone astray since ever the world began, he was, without any doubt, the darkest of hue. He sketched in the details with a sure touch. He could almost _see_ the good old man's face, the look of commiseration gradually melting to one of pitying helpfulness. It would require only a very few dollars to get him back to New York.

He was on the point of carrying this interesting scheme into operation when the scenes and incidents of his recent life in New York swept over him, a mighty and inundating wave of black discouragement. Everything had been wrong with him from the beginning, it seemed to him that morning. He had not had the right parents, nor the right education, nor enough will power, nor any true friends, nor the proper kind of ambition.

When Satan first led Nort up on a high hill and offered him all the kingdoms of the earth, Nort had responded eagerly:

"Why, sure! I'll take em. Got any more where those come from?"

Nort's was an eager, curious, ardent, insatiable nature, which should have been held back rather than stimulated. No sooner had he stepped out into life than he wanted it all--everything that he could see, or hear, or smell, or taste, or touch--and all at once. I do not mean by this that Nort was a vicious or abandoned character beyond the pale of his humankind. He had, indeed, done things that were wrong, that he knew were wrong, but thus far they had been tentative, experimental, springing not from any deeply vicious instincts but expressing, rather, his ardent curiosity about life.

I think sometimes that our common definition of dissipation is far too narrow. We confine it to crude excesses in the use of intoxicating liquor or the crude gratification of the pa.s.sions; but often these are only the outward symbols of a more subtle inward disorder. The things of the world--a thousand clamouring interests, desires, possessions--have got the better of us. Men become drunken with the inordinate desire for owning things, and dissolute with ambition for political office. I knew a man once, a farmer, esteemed an upright man in our community, who debauched himself upon land; fed his appet.i.te upon the happiness of his home, cheated his children of education, and himself went shabby, bookless, joyless, comfortless, that he might buy more land. I call that dissipation, too!

And in youth, when all the earth is very beautiful, when our powers seem as limitless as our desires (I know, I know!), we stand like Samson, and for the sheer joy of testing our strength pull down the pillars of the temple of the world.

In Nort's case a supply of unearned money had enormously increased his power of seeing, hearing, feeling, doing; everything opened wide to the magic touch of the wand of youth, enthusiasm, money. He could neither live fast enough nor enjoy too much.

He had, indeed, had periods of sharp reaction. This was not the first time that the kingdoms of the earth, too easily possessed, had palled upon him, and he had resolved to escape. But he had never yet been quite strong enough; he had never gone quite low enough. The lure of that which was exciting or amusing or beautiful, above all, that which was or pretended to be friendly or companionable, had always proved too strong for him.

As time pa.s.sed, and his naturally vigorous mind expanded--his body was never very robust--the reactions from the diversions with which his life was surrounded grew blacker and more desperate. In his moments of reflection he saw clearly where his path was leading him. There was much in him, though never yet called out, of the native force of his stern old grandfather who had begun life a wage labourer, and in his moments of revolt, as men who dissipate crave that which is cold or bitter or sour, Nort had moments of intense longing for something hard, knotty, difficult, for hunger, cold, privation. Without knowing it, he was groping for reality.

And here he was in Hempfield, leaning against the fence of Mrs. Barrow's garden, desperately low in his spirits, at one moment wondering why he had come away, at the next feeling wretchedly that somehow this was his last chance. Fool! fool! His whole being loathed the discomfort of his pampered body, and yet he felt that if he gave up now he might never again have the courage to revolt.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _What a thing is youth! That sunny morning in Hempfield Nort thought that he was drinking the uttermost dregs of life--they were pretty bitter--and yet, somehow he was able to stand a little aside and enjoy it all_]

What a thing is youth! That sunny morning in Hempfield Nort thought that he was drinking the uttermost dregs of life--they _were_ pretty bitter--and yet, somehow, he was able to stand a little aside and enjoy it all. Black as it was, it had yet the mystical quality of a new adventure, new possibilities. At one moment Nort was hating himself, hating his whole life, hating the town in which fate had dropped him, with all the pa.s.sion of a naturally robust nature; and at the next he was peeping around the corner of the next adventure to see what he might see. The suffering of youth with honey in its mouth!

Oh, to be twenty-four! To feel that one has sounded all the chords of life, known every bitterness, to have become entirely disillusioned, wholly cynical, utterly reckless--and not to know that life and illusion have only just begun!

The hard, bristling, painful thing in his insides which Nort couldn't identify, wrongly attributing it to certain things he had been eating and drinking now for several days past, was in fact his soul.

How I love to think of Nort at that moment, that wonderful, fertile, despondent, hopeful, pa.s.sionate moment. How I love to think of him, who is now so dear a friend, quite miserable, but with a half smile on his lips, his vigorous nature full of every conceivable possibility of good or evil, of success or failure, every capability of great love or great bitterness----Nort, arm in arm with Life, tugged at by both G.o.d and Satan, standing there, aimless, in the sunny street of Hempfield.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VI

A MAN TO HELP FERGUS

It was really a moment of vast potentialities when Nort turned _down_ the street toward the town instead of _up_ toward the railroad station and the open road. For down the street was the way to the printing-office and the old Captain and Anthy and Fergus and me, and all the things, big and little, I am about to relate. I tremble sometimes when I think how narrowly this story escaped not coming into existence at all.

It was upon this brief but historic journey that Ed Smith met Nort, and like any true newspaper man with a "nose for news," stopped to pa.s.s the time of day with the singular stranger. It took him not quite two seconds to "size up" Nort. It was easy for Ed to "size up" people, for he had just two cla.s.sifications: those people whom he could use, and those who could use him. His problem of life thus became quite simple: it consisted in s.h.i.+fting as many as possible of those of the second cla.s.sification into the first.

"If you would not be done by a man, do him first," was one of Ed's treasured Ben Franklinisms.

Nort was rather mistily in search of "something to do." Well, what could he do? It took some groping in his mind to discover any accomplishment whatever that was convertible into money, especially in a small town like Hempfield. Finally he said he knew "something about machinery"--he did not specify automobiles--and by some wild chance mentioned the fact that he had once worked in a newspaper office (two months--and was dreadfully tired of it).

Now, Ed Smith was as sharp as any lightning known in our part of the world, and there being nothing he loved better than a "bold stroke" in which he could "close a deal" and do it "on the spot," it took him not above five minutes to offer Nort a trial in the office of the _Star_ at wages which approximated nothing at all. If he could "make good," etc., etc., why, there were great opportunities, etc., etc. It was not the first time that Ed had dealt with tramp printers! And Nort, still low in his mind and quite prepared for anything, agreed to come.

Your sharp, shrewd man can deal profitably with the ninety-nine men who walk or run or burrow or climb, especially if they happen to look seedy, but he is never quite prepared for the hundredth man who can fly. That is, it sometimes happens that a man who has been comfortably ensconced in the pigeonhole labelled, "To Be Done," is suddenly--and by some hocus-pocus which your sharp one can never quite comprehend, and considers unfair--is suddenly discovered to have disappeared, evaporated, to have escaped cla.s.sification. I throw in this observation at this point for what it may be worth, and not because I have anything against Ed Smith. We may think a woodp.e.c.k.e.r's bill to be entirely too long for beauty, but it is fine for the woodp.e.c.k.e.r. Moreover, I cannot forget that without Ed Smith the Hempfield _Star_ would never have seen Nort.

How well I remember my first sight of the "man to help Fergus!" It was about two days, I think, after his arrival, and at a time when the _Star_ was twinkling in the most extraordinary and energetic fas.h.i.+on.

You could almost _hear_ it twinkle. As I came into the office Anthy and Fergus were busy at their cases, the old Captain at his desk, Ed Smith in s.h.i.+rtsleeves was making up a new advertis.e.m.e.nt, and d.i.c.k, the canary, swinging in the window. But what was that strange object in the corner on the floor?

Why, Nort, sprawled full length, with his head almost touching the gasoline engine! He had parts of it pretty well distributed around him on the floor, and as nearly as I could make out, was trying to get his nose into the boiler, or barrel, or whatever the insides of a gasoline engine are called. Also he was whistling, as he loved to do, in a low monotone, apparently enjoying himself. Presently he glanced up at me.

"Ever study the anatomy of a gasoline engine?" he asked.

"Never," said I.

"Interesting study," said he.

"I know something about the anatomy of cows and pigs and hens," I said, "but I suppose a gasoline engine is somewhat different."

"Somewhat," said he.

He tinkered away industriously for a moment, and when I continued to stand there watching him, he inquired solemnly:

"A hen has no spark coil, has it?"

"No," I said, just as solemnly, "but neither can a gasoline engine cackle."

I shall never forget the sight of Nort as he slowly rose to a sitting position and looked me over--especially the smile of him and the gleam in his eyes. There was a dab of oil on his nose and smudges on his chin, but he took me in.

So this was the person who had appeared without a hat on our highly respectable streets, and got his shame heralded in the paper! I felt like saying to him:

"Well, you're a cheerful reprobate, I must say!"

You see, we are nearly all of us shocked by the cheerfulness of the wicked. We feel that those whom we have set aside as reprobates, or sinful spectacles, should by good right draw long faces and be appropriately miserable; and we never become quite accustomed to our own surprise at finding them happy or contented.

In short, I began to be interested in that reprobate, in spite of myself. I had come to town intending to have a talk with Anthy and the old Captain (who was at this moment at work at his desk), but instead I squatted down on the floor near Nort, and while he tinkered and puttered and whistled, we kept up a running conversation which we both found highly diverting.

If there is one thing I enjoy more than another it is to crack open a hard fellow-mortal, take him apart, as Nort was taking apart his engine, and see what it is that makes him go round. But in Nort, that morning, I found more than a match. We parried and fenced, advanced and retreated, but beyond a firm conclusion on my part that he was no ordinary tramp printer and, indeed, no ordinary human being, he kept me completely mystified, and, as I could plainly see, enjoyed doing it, too. He told me, long afterward, that he thought me that morning an "odd one."

I deny, however, that I was carried away on the spot; I was interested, but I was now too deeply concerned for my friends on the _Star_ to accept him entirely. Even after he brought in his first contribution to our columns, especially the one that began, "There is a man in this town who quarrels regularly with his wife," I was still doubtful about him--but I must not get ahead of my story.