The Cassowary Part 2

There was a sequel, long in coming. Late in the following spring, when the looming drifts of the pa.s.s had melted, the mortal part of the Storekeeper was found some distance from the track, where he had stumbled blindly in his wanderings. But of his fate there could, of course, at this time, be no certain knowledge. There was even a chance, some thought, that he might accomplish the seemingly impossible. The men muttered to each other, and that was all. Why the Storekeeper, apparently one possessed of shrewdness at least, should have taken such awful risk no one could say--but it made swift tragedy.

Communication had been maintained with Belden. A path to the telegraph pole utilized by Stafford on the night of the stoppage had been laboriously dug by the trainmen and Stafford had again made the connection and learned the condition of affairs with the rescuing party already started. The report was not altogether encouraging. The vast fall of snow in the canyon, drifted, in some places, higher than the top of the smokestack of the locomotive--for this was the greatest blockade in the history of the road--had proved more than baffling, even with the snow-plow. Scores of men were at work ahead of it with shovels, in the work of bringing the clearance within the range of its capability. The relief train was yet many miles from the one entirely helpless. Still the snow would not be so deep at points ahead, where the canyon widened, and the belief of the rescuers was that the half-entombed would be reached at some hour of the fourth day of their detention. The news was not received with any degree of exultation.

It was at this crisis that Moses appeared to lead those in the Ca.s.sowary and their visitors out of the gloom oppressing them.

When men and women of intelligence and brightness and modern perception are cast together in an emergency, there ever appears among them some one who brings the group close together. He may not be the greatest of the group, but he has some dominant instinct in him involving a regard for the comfort of others. Such a man was Colonel Livingston.

The Colonel was a man of thought, and he wanted his own sort of people around him. He had raised a regiment once, when fierce things were going on in the "60's," and he knew how to gather men. He had ranged through the train, like some good-naturedly overbearing Lord High Commissioner selecting those whose appearance most appealed to him and, because of his keen ac.u.men and genial approachment, had captured easily and brought into the Ca.s.sowary those whom he thought would swing best into being a healthful and merry part of the fraction of humanity enduring temporary distress. He had an idea.

The occupants of the Ca.s.sowary included a number of the more than ordinarily intelligent and cultivated--as would naturally be the case in such a car and on such an extended trip--and all had, by this time, become more or less acquainted, though all had not, like the Colonel, acquired the fancy of addressing others by the t.i.tle of their occupation. It was to such a group as this that the Colonel, standing at one end of the car, addressed himself:

"I'm afraid that we are flunking a little. I know--I feel it in my bones--that we are going to escape from this cold dilemma without any serious consequence, but we shall not be a credit to ourselves if we falter in the interval. Let us avoid depression. Let us enliven the situation as much as possible. To such end I have a suggestion to make in this connection which, I hope, may be well received. Last night I was much interested in a story told by the buoyant and blithesome young gentleman occupying the end seat on the left side there"--and he indicated the "Gallus Youth"--"and it has come to my mind since that we may greatly relieve the monotony of our case by doing what we do in the smoking compartment, that is, by telling stories. If you consent, I will modestly offer myself as a sort of master of ceremonies. Does the idea meet with any degree of approval?"

There was no dissent, but, instead, a hearty agreement to the proposition, the Colonel's cheery manner having its effect on everybody.

For a time, though, the story-telling did not begin.

There was need, certainly, for any and all suggestions as to means for ameliorating in any degree a situation the grimness of which was beginning to force itself upon even the most optimistic of the company.

The wind, even when it lowered its tone for a moment, growled ominously.

"It is awful," moaned the woman with the baby. "I wonder how G.o.d can let such things happen. I wonder if praying would help?"

Then followed--it could hardly be otherwise with such a company--reverent but earnest discussion of the question of whether or not Providence ever really intervened in special cases, as a result of special supplication. Varying opinions were expressed, the majority, even the most seemingly devout, inclining to the belief that the answer to the question was beyond the knowledge accorded to humanity. It was the Colonel's opportunity. He appealed to the Minister, who had listened to the discussion with a thoughtful smile upon his kindly face, but who had not given an opinion.

"Do you believe in special providences, sir?" he asked. "Can you relate a single instance in your experience, or one of which you have heard, from a reliable source, where there has been the manifestation of what we call 'a special providence,' in direct answer to prayer?"

"I cannot answer your question," was the Minister's reply. "I cannot answer the first part of the query, because I am undecided, and I cannot answer the second because the same reasoning would, in a way, apply, since I am not entirely a.s.sured of certain earthly facts. But," and there was a twinkle in the reverend gentleman's eyes, "I heard a curious story once, for the exact truth of which I will by no means vouch, which I will tell in the narrator's own words, and which, supposing it to be true, might be looked upon as either for or against the doctrine of

A SPECIAL PROVIDENCE

Just who are the "salt of the earth" is a disputable question. The t.i.tle belongs traditionally to a group of that splendid race--the Jews. But it is claimed, also, and on seemingly excellent grounds, by other groups, including a large number of the people of Iowa. Appearances are in their favor, for Iowa was settled by a fine lot of men and women, and their children have not deteriorated.

They were excellent pioneers who came to cross the great river and make a new State, to cut away the forest where it was too dense, to plant trees where the prairie-planted farm-houses and barns needed shelter from wintry blasts, to import cattle, and horses, and sheep, and hogs with blood in them, and to repeat the old exploit of the dominating race in making, somewhere, the desert blossom as the rose. About what is Maxonville alighted one of the groups of men and women, settling down like wild geese upon an area of fertile and well-watered land.

Maxonville was not much in evidence when they came, these strong men and women, for only "Old Man" Maxon was living at the forks where the big creek found the little river; but they all settled about, and there were built new homes close to Maxon's, and there came, as the years pa.s.sed, a church, and a schoolhouse, and a grocery and dry goods store, and, in time, the prosperous town. The farmers round about prospered, for they had thrift and intelligence and something of the old Covenanters'

spirit.

The church Maxonville built, offhand and ready for all its uses before they had a preacher, was a pride to the st.u.r.dy men and believing women, and when the preacher came to them from the East they were more satisfied than ever.

There may be something in lonely farm work making one a grim adherent of straight creed. Down behind horses and plow all day long, with only the great blue sky of G.o.d above, and only a view of the same sky meeting a green horizon far away and all around; inclosed in this great vault of blue and green, and left alone with one's thoughts, it may be that the eternal problem becomes more earnestly considered, more a part of all the thought and life of a human being than it is to the man of the city, who has his attention distracted every moment from the great, overwhelming presence and pressure. Such effects crystallize. The people of Maxonville and its vicinity were sternly devout--that is, most of them--and their new minister was a fit exponent of their creed.

The minister was tall, dark-haired, clean-shaven, and with brown eyes which were keen, chiefly, in looking into himself. He had a stern, well-defined mission in religious teaching--as earnest as Ignatius Loyola, stubborn as Oliver Cromwell. He had been through college, and then through one of the strictest of theological schools. He was fit to preach, he felt, as far as mere acquirement of having learned the ways of other preachers; but he knew that the ideas of the world were changing, and that if the world were changing G.o.d must be doing it, and so he was at times perplexed. But he came to his little land of prairie flowers, and steer-raising, and honest obstinacy, a fit man for the place. And they said they had a preacher!

It is doubtful if any village of three hundred people in the United States, from Montpelier to San Diego, from Portland to St. John, has not one pretty girl or more. Maxonville had a number of pretty girls, and one of them was more than pretty; she was beautiful.

Deacon Conant was the leading man of the church of the new town. He was a man who had succeeded, because of brains and energy, in managing his two or three farms, but he does not figure in this account save that he was the father of Jane Conant. His blood had gone into her, and it was pretty good blood, too. The preacher had fallen in love with her and she with him. Preachers and girls would not be good for much if they did not do that sort of thing occasionally.

Here was an ideal relation of things, or what should have been an ideal one. What could have been finer than that there should have come into a growing town in a growing region a stalwart, almost fanatical builder-up of faith, who should find a fitting partner in the daughter of the chief man of the locality, and that from the union so b.u.t.tressed all around should come great results? There was but one obstacle in the way of this perfect combination, and the obstacle was in the woman. It is astonis.h.i.+ng how women will nibble at apples and learn things, from Eve down! This particular young woman had graduated from one of the most cleverly conducted of Eastern colleges for girls, and she had views. Not only did she have views, but she had views in the face of her religious teacher, of the man whom she respected for his earnestness and loved for himself. They were intensely happy for a while after their engagement--as becomes strong souls getting close together in such relations.h.i.+p--but with nearer relations.h.i.+p came necessarily more vehement and unguarded interchange of thought, and--sad the day!--they differed seriously, upon a matter of belief.

A part of the belief of John Elwell, the preacher, was an implicit confidence in the manifestation at times of what we call a "special providence." One of the ideas of the young woman, deeply religious though she was, was an utter disbelief in this same thing--that is, a disbelief that G.o.d sometimes makes an exception, and, instead of working through the laws of the Nature which He has inst.i.tuted, produces a direct result having the quality of what we are accustomed to call a miracle.

The two discussed the matter together very often after they came close together, as lovers may. The first time they debated there came a little wedge between them as thin as tissue paper abraded to an end. Next time the wedge grew larger, and where it ended there was a cleft reaching down to anywhere. The third time there was a split broad and well defined, and the engagement was broken.

"My dear, I do believe in special providences; I do believe that earnest prayer will bring results in certain cases, justifiable in themselves."

"I do not."

"Why?"

"Because I believe that the whole thing--and I am only a girl talking, I don't know what you call it--is just a belief and taken on trust. What would you think of going down to the mill there and praying the miller to make one bag of flour coa.r.s.e in the midst of all his business? The miller is giving us bread for our physical life, and he knows best how to do it, at least as compared with the rest of us. I know that this is all a poor simile, a poor comparison, but I can't help it."

Now, even an earnest preacher is human, and a great many girls--though the healthy among us call them angels--are human. The engagement between the two was at this juncture broken off so squarely that the ends weren't even ragged, though there was left a possible sequence, not altogether black as midnight--a vague hope in the heart of each that the future might have something to it. This brought a few words more before they parted.

Said the girl: "Show me a case of special providence and I will believe with you. It must be--it cannot possibly be otherwise--than that there should in some way, somehow, come an opportunity for showing that you are right and I wrong."

The pale-faced man's eyes were burning as he looked at her.

"The day will come!" he said.

Time pa.s.sed and the two worked together in social and church relations, but there was no more talk of marriage. It was one day in mid-July, a year after the conversation just described, when John Elwell was talking earnestly from his pulpit, and Jane Conant was one of the congregation.

The preacher talked well that day--there is no denying it. He talked in a simple, straightforward but wonderfully eloquent way of how the quality of one's relation to others in this world must make easy or uneasy the path toward what is the better habitation after death. He told of the duties of the successful to the unsuccessful, of the strong to the weak; and he told too, of how, even in this world, each man's mind is accuser or justifier, and how, even in this world, come rewards and punishments, and how to him with faith enough should come immediate returns. With glowing face he even went aside a little to speak of those who talk too much of Nature and the Universe, and who believe that a general scheme is as true and strong and believable as one more definite--"'He noteth the sparrow's fall,'" he said.

It was sultry within the church, and all seemed lifeless, though hearts were beating rapidly under the preacher's eloquence. There seemed no oxygen in the air; all was oppressive. There was no sound as the speaker closed a long and telling sentence, save the slight "swish" as a locust alighted on the sill of an open window. There was sound enough a moment later.

Through the open doorway leaped a young man who shouted but one word:

"Cyclone!"

At the exclamation breaking in thus on the religious stillness perhaps one-fourth of the congregation started to their feet and rushed into the open air, but the three-fourths remained in their seats as if paralyzed.

The preacher paused, looked about, and then with almost s.h.i.+ning face spoke solemnly:

"My friends, we are threatened with one of the visitations which G.o.d sometimes decrees, but which, it is my earnest belief, cannot harm those who believe in Him rightly and appeal to Him most trustingly. Let us pray that the cyclone will avoid this church."

They knelt together, preacher and congregation, and strong and trustful and appealing was the pastor's prayer. His clear voice did not falter in the eloquent appeal, and those who knelt felt confidence and a glorified pride in the att.i.tude taken in an awful hour. Men came rus.h.i.+ng to the doorway crying aloud upon all within to make the attempt at escape to a safer place, but there was no response, no sound save that of the preacher's uplifted voice. There was a roar and rumble in the far southwest and a half darkness was approaching. As the sound outside increased, the voice of the preacher became less audible, but the spellbound and trusting congregation did not move. Among the women was still Jane Conant.

The rumble became a roar, the roar an ear-splitting, paralyzing blast, and then--chaos! In blackness, with its steeple, its roof, its whole upper part torn away and leaving but an uncovered brick rectangle, ten or fifteen feet in height, remained what was of the church in Maxonville. With the blackness came a torrent; the interior of the rectangle became a flooded s.p.a.ce, within which area men and women waded, and floundered and shouted, and shrieked, and felt for each other, and feared, almost, that the world was ended. Then gradually, the flood ceased, and daylight came again, and the drenched creatures within what was left of the church--by what seemed a miracle there had been none injured--emerged upon the greenery about. Among them was the preacher.

He spoke to no one. He had worn a straw hat when he came to the church, and had found it somehow. It had been wetted and crushed, and now hung down on each side of his head grotesquely. He was a sodden, queer creature who looked neither to the right nor to the left. But there was thought in him still. He lifted his face to Heaven, and thanked G.o.d that all had been preserved, but said no other word. He walked drippingly along the sidewalk and then turned down a lane which led into the country.

Barely one-fourth of a mile--estimated conventionally as the crow flies--from the town of Maxonville was the farm of John Dent. It was not a large farm; it was, in fact, but a quarter of a quarter-section, which means forty acres; but acres have nothing to do with ideas. John Dent, though he had only a little farm, worked hard and lived reasonably well, and had a standing, and knew the preacher well, and debated one important question with him frequently. It was this same question of special providence, and the att.i.tude of John Dent was, though in a man's way, identical with that of Jane Conant, the preacher's lost sweetheart.

The preacher wondered at this sometimes. He wondered how it was that this gifted girl and this obstinate, deep-thinking farmer should so chance to decide alike. Of course all this was before the cyclone.

Down at the bottom of his heart John Dent was a little sentimental. His father and mother had come to the small farm before him. They were dead now, as well as certain sisters and brothers, and they were buried in a little private graveyard on the farm, around which the beeches grew thickly and from which the ground sloped gently into a laughing creek.

There was not much surplus left at the end of each year of the product of John Dent's farming, and the surplus had more channels for immediate and demanding distribution than it could supply, still John Dent thought that some day he would put up a neat little brick monument in that graveyard--a somewhat unusual form of monument--but that was Dent's idea. He was going to have a pyramidical thing about fifty feet high.

The spire of the church at Maxonville was of brick, hollow of course, welded solidly in its weather-hardened cement, as if it were a monolith of stone.

The cyclone had pa.s.sed. A preacher had gone down a lane thinking the thoughts which come to a clean Christian man in a surprising and dispiriting emergency. A fair young woman had gone home crying over what was where her heart was, and Mr. John Dent had seen a cyclone come and miss his place by about forty rods, and had also seen an out-flinging and eccentric wing of that same cyclone deposit, just in the proper place in the burying-ground of his family, a perfect pyramid monument, such as he had been dreaming of for the last quarter of a century. It was all queer and out of the common, and was hard to explain; it is not attempted here, for this is only the story of what happened within an hour or two on a certain afternoon in Iowa.

This is going back to the preacher. He walked fast and he walked far, and found himself deep in the country. He was at least honest in all he thought; he was a good man, yet he was troubled to the depths of his being. "I have prayed to G.o.d," he said to himself, "and He has refused me. The cyclone didn't turn away from the church! Is the woman I love right, and am I wrong? Is there a broader and greater scheme of being wherein I should be a trusting and unquestioning instrument rather than one who demands as a special suppliant? I will see Jane," he said in his great strait. "I feel that she may aid me."