A Cry in the Wilderness Part 26

"Because the poles will just spoil everything; as it is, it is--"

"Is what, Marcia? Out with it," said Jamie encouragingly.

"Perfect as it is," I said boldly, willing they should know what I thought of this wilderness of neglect that surrounded us in the heart of French Canada.

"Guess we can keep it perfect, as you say, Marcia, 'thout havin' to rub the burrs off'n our coats every time we go round the house," said Cale.

"We 're going to do some pretty tall cuttin' inter some of this underbrush and dead timber next week if the snow ain't too deep."

"Oh, Cale, it will spoil it!"

"Wal, thet 's as you look at it; but 't ain't good policy to keep a fire-trap quite so near to a livin'-place; makes insurance rates higher."

"How would you feel then about having a modern hot water heater put into the old manor, Miss Farrell?" Mr. Ewart put the question to me.

"Put it to a vote," I replied.

"All in favor, aye," he continued.

There was silence in the room except for one of the dogs that, asleep under the table, stirred uneasily and whined as if rousing from a dream of an unattainable bone.

"It's a vote against. How about piping in gas?"

"No!" we protested as one.

"Settled," he said smiling. We saw that our decision pleased him.

"Confess, now, Gordon, you did n't want any such innovations yourself,"

said the Doctor.

"I did n't, for I like my--home, as it is," he said simply.

"I like to hear you use that word 'home', Gordon," said the Doctor, looking intently into the fire; "as long as I 've known you, I think I 've never heard you use it."

"No." The man on the opposite side of the hearth spoke decidedly, but in a tone that did not invite further confidence. "I 've never intended to use it until I could feel the sense of it."

"Another who has felt what it is to be a stranger in this world," I thought to myself. And the fact that there were others, made me, for the moment, feel less a stranger. I was glad to hear him speak so frankly.

The Doctor looked up, nodding understandingly.

"Now I want some advice from all this household," he said earnestly, and I thought to change the subject; "it's about the farm I 've hired and the experiment with it. Give it fully, each of you, and, like every other man, I suppose I shall take what agrees with my own way of looking at it. My plans were so indefinite when I wrote to you to hire it, Gordon, that I went into no detail; and I 'm not at all sure that they are so clear to me now. Here 's where I want help."

"That's not like you, John; what's up?" said his friend.

"I want to start the thing right, and I 'm going to tell you just how I 'm placed; a deuce of a fix it is too."

Cale put on a log and left the room, saying good-night as he pa.s.sed out. I gathered up my sewing--I was hemming some napkins--and made a motion to follow him.

The Doctor rose. "Marcia,"--he put out a hand as if to detain me; he spoke peremptorily,--"come back. There are no secrets among us, and I want you to advise with."

There seemed nothing to do but to obey, and I was perfectly willing to, because I wanted to hear all and everything about the farm project that threatened to break up my pleasant life in the manor.

I took up my work again.

"Put down your work, Marcia; fold your hands and listen to me. I want your whole attention."

I obeyed promptly. Jamie gleefully rubbed his hands.

"It takes you, Doctor, to make Marcia mind."

"I 'm a man of years, Boy," the Doctor retorted, thereby reducing Jamie to silence.

We sat expectant; but evidently the Doctor was in no hurry to open up his subject. After a few minutes of deep thought, he spoke slowly, almost as if to himself:

"I'm wondering where to begin, what to take hold of first. The ordering of life is beyond all science--we 've found that out, we so-called 'men of science'. The truth is, I believe I have a 'conscience fund' in the bank and on my mind. I know I am speaking blindly, and perhaps reasoning blindly, and it's because I want you to see things for me more clearly than I do, and through a different medium, that I am going to tell you, as concisely as I can--and without mentioning names--of an experience I had more than a quarter of a century ago. I 've had several of the kind since, they are common in our profession--but the result of this special experience is unique."

He paused, continuing to look steadfastly into the fire.

In the silence we heard the sweep of the wind through the woods, now and then the sc.r.a.ping swish of a pine branch brus.h.i.+ng the roof beneath it.

"I recall that it was in December. I was twenty-nine, and had just got a foothold on the first round of the professional ladder. Near midnight I was called to go down into one of the slum districts--I don't intend to mention names--of New York. There in a bas.e.m.e.nt, I found a woman who had just been rescued from suicide."

He paused, still keeping his gaze fixed intently on the fire. And I?

At the first words a faint sickness came upon me. Was I to hear this again?--here, remote from the environment from which I had so recently fled? Could it be possible that I was to hear again that account of my mother's death? I struggled for control. They must not know, they should not see that struggle. Intent on keeping every feature pa.s.sive, hoping that in the firelight whatever my face might have shown would pa.s.s unnoticed, I waited for the Doctor's next word.

"It seems unprofessional, perhaps, to enter into any detail, but we are far away from that environment now--and in time, too, for it was over a quarter of a century ago. She was very young, nineteen perhaps, and about to become a mother. I remained with her till morning. I knew she would never come through her trial alive. I went again in the evening and stayed with her till her child was born and--to the end which came an hour afterwards. During all those twenty-four hours she spoke but twice. She gave me no name, although I asked her; no name of friends even--G.o.d knows if she had any, or why was she there?

"Now, here is my dilemma: in the morning, I signed the death certificate and then went out of the city on a case that kept me forty-eight hours. On my return, the woman, who had rescued this poor girl,--a woman who took in was.h.i.+ng and ironing in that bas.e.m.e.nt--told me a man had appeared at the house to claim the body he said was his wife's. She gave me the man's name, but the name of this man was not the name of the husband according to a marriage certificate which I found in an envelope the young woman entrusted to me for her child. At any rate, he had claimed the body and taken it away.

"Now, ordinarily the living waves of existence close very soon over such an episode--all too common; and, so far as I am concerned, in such and other similar cases I forget; it is well that I can. But I 've never been permitted to forget this!"

He made this announcement emphatically, looking up suddenly from the fire, and glancing at each of us in turn.

"And, moreover, I don't believe I am ever going to be permitted to forget. Some one intends I shall remember!

"With me it was merely a charity case--one, it is true, that called forth my deepest sympathy. The circ.u.mstances were peculiar. The woman was young, rarely attractive in face, refined, well dressed. Her absolute silence concerning herself during all that weary time; her heroic endurance and, I may say, angelic acceptance of her martyrdom--and all this in such an environment! How could it help making a deep impression? Still, I am convinced I should have forgotten it, had it not been for a constant reminder.

"In the first week of the next February, I received a notification from a national bank in the city that five hundred dollars had been deposited to my credit. The woman who lived in that bas.e.m.e.nt received during the first week of the New Year a draft on that bank--and mailed by the bank--for the same amount. She consulted me about accepting it.

When I attempted to investigate at the bank, I found that no information would be given and no questions answered--only the statement made that the money was mine to do with what I might choose.

Next December, and a year to a day from the death of that young woman, I received a similar notification, and the woman a draft for one hundred. Since that time, now over twenty-five years ago, no December has ever pa.s.sed that the regular notification has not been mailed to me and to the woman. I wrote to the man who had claimed the body, and whose name and address the woman, who lived in the bas.e.m.e.nt, remembered. The letter was never answered. I waited a year, and wrote the second time. The letter came back to me from the dead letter office. I invested the increasing amount after two years and let it acc.u.mulate at compound interest. As you will see, these donations have amounted now to a tidy sum. I believe it to be 'conscience money'--either from the man who claimed the body as that of his wife, or from the woman's husband according to the marriage certificate. Or are both men one and the same?

"I hired the farm of you, Gordon, merely telling you it was one of my many philanthropic plans that, thus far, I have been unable to carry out. As yet I have not used that money for any benefactions. Would you hold it longer, or would you apply it to my farm project which is to provide a home for the homeless, and for those whose home does not provide sufficient change for them? I have thought sometimes I would limit the philanthropy to those who need up-building in health.-- What do you say, Gordon?"

He looked across the hearth to his friend who was leaning back in his chair, his arm resting on the arm, his hand shading his eyes from the firelight.

"I should like to think it over, John; it is a peculiar case. Have you ever thought of the child? Do you know anything about it? Was it a boy or a girl?"

"A girl. No, I never thought of the child--poor little bit of life's flotsam. We don't get much time to think of all those we help to float in on the tide. Now this is what I am getting, by looking at the matter through others' eyes--you mean she should be looked up, and the money go to her?"

"That was my first thought, but, as I said, I must think it over. The two men, at least, the two names of possibly the same man, complicate matters."