"I don"t know anything, Mrs. Stuvic. I can only hope."
She turned loose his wrist and shoved herself back further from him.
"You can only hope. You mean that you"re only a fool. That"s what you mean. What do you want to hope for? Why don"t you find out? What"s all the smart men doin" that they don"t find out? Talk to me about the world gettin" wiser! Oh, they can invent their machines and all that, but why don"t they find out the truth?"
"Some of the wisest of them think they have found out long ago," Milford replied. "Don"t you see the churches? Somebody must believe that the truth is known or there wouldn"t be so many churches."
"Churches," she sneered, "yes, churches. But I don"t believe in "em, and you don"t neither. Same old thing all the time; believe, believe, nothin" but believe. Well, I"m goin" home. I see you don"t know any more than I do. We"re all a pack of fools."
Mitch.e.l.l said that he was going her way, and she told him to come on. At the door going out they met the Professor coming in. The old woman fell back as if she had seen a ghost. She declared that for a moment he was Old Lewson, just as he looked on the day when last he urged her to accept his faith. She sat down to recover breath. The Professor a.s.sured her that he meant no harm. Any resemblance that he might bear to the living or the dead was wholly unintentional on his part. She told him to shut up, that he was a fool. He acknowledged it with a bow, and said that this fact also was wholly unintentional.
"You pretend to be so smart," she said. "Yes, but why don"t you know the truth?"
"I should know it, madam, were I to hear it."
"Oh, you get out! You don"t know half the time what you"re talkin"
about. What"s to become of us all? That"s what I want to know."
The Professor sat down. The hired man stood at the door. Milford leaned back in his chair. The old woman looked at the learned man and repeated her question. He began to say something about philosophy, and she broke in with a contemptuous snort and the cat"s foot. She did not want philosophy; she wanted the truth. The Professor attempted to persuade her that philosophy was the truth, and she fluttered like a hen. It was nothing of the sort; it was ignorance put in big words. What she wanted was the truth.
"But if you won"t listen I can"t give it to you," said the Professor.
"You cut me off at the beginning. Now, you say that what you want is the truth. You demand an answer to your question of what is to become of us all, after this life. You want me to answer it in a word, when the books that have been written on the subject would sink the biggest ship afloat."
"Yes, and you don"t know anythin" about it. What I want to know is, can we come back? Answer me that."
"Madam, in my opinion----"
"I don"t give a snap for your opinion. Come on, Bob Mitch.e.l.l, if you"re goin" with me." She bustled out of the room, leaving the Professor with his finger-tips pressed together and his head erect. "As odd a fish as was ever hooked," said he. "She must be afraid that she is going to die."
"It"s on her mind all the time," said Milford. "She wants to believe something, she doesn"t know exactly what."
"The pitiable case of one beyond the reach of philosophy. But in her struggling to land herself somewhere she keeps her interest in herself keenly alive. There is always some sort of hope as long as we are interested in ourselves. Trite, I admit that it is trite, but it is a fact that we should always bear in mind, endeavoring constantly to keep alive an interest in self so that we may not fail in the obligations which we owe to others. But well may the old woman ask what is to become of us all. I wash my hands of the spiritual part," he said, going through the motion of washing; "I can shift the responsibilities here, or at least feel that I can, but--bodily, bodily, what"s to become of us bodily?"
"When such riddles are asked of me, I"m always ready to give them up,"
said Milford. "I"m not asking myself any questions."
"Ha! you don"t need to," the Professor declared. "You bristle yourself against the world, and in the fight that ensues you are not always beaten. I am. Your nerve is sound. Mine has been broken many a time, tied together again, and is therefore weak. Leaving age out of the question, there is scarcely any comparison between our equipments for the fight. You have a habit of silence that enforces respect for your talk. I am talkative, and a talkative man utters many an unheeded truth.
At times you are almost grim, and this makes your good humor the brighter. I am always pleasant, and as a consequence fail to hold the interest of the company. In overalls you can a.s.sert a sort of dignity, or rather what the thoughtless would take for dignity, but which I know to be a gruffism--permit the expression--a gruffism toned down. But I--even in a dress-suit I could not keep my dignity from cutting a prejudicial caper. The trouble is that my acquaintances will not take me seriously. I once heard a man say, "Yes, as light as one of Dolihide"s worries." It angers me to feel that outwardly I am a caricature of my inner self. Not even my wife knows how serious I am, or what a tragedy life is to me. But, my dear fellow, my oddities are crystal, and I will not thread them off in spun gla.s.s. I came over for a different purpose.
The money with which you so generously deceived me--I have raised it; it was a fearful scuffle, but I seized the obstacles that danced about me and threw them down, one by one. Here is the money."
He took out a number of bank notes with a scattering of silver, and slowly spread them on the table, carefully placing one upon the other.
"I said that I would pay you, and here"s the money,--down to the forty cents."
"I am much abliged to you, Professor. No hurry, though, you understand."
"There has been no hurry, my dear friend. No one can ever know what a struggle it was to--to raise it at this time, this needful time." He leaned back, and with lips tightly sealed together, and with head slowly nodding, gazed at the pile of dirty paper. "This needful time, thou filth," he said.
"Now, if you need it," Milford spoke up quickly, "take it. I"m not pressed. You can pay it some other time."
"My life insurance will be due again within three days."
"Then go ahead and pay it."
The Professor continued to gaze at the bank notes. "Must I again crease you into uncleanly folds--I am a thousand times your debtor, my dear boy. I could spin fine, but I won"t. I could p.r.o.nounce a curse upon these pieces of motley paper, but I won"t. I cannot afford to. In their mire they lie between me and my family"s future misery. I don"t know what your ultimate aim is in this life, but I know that you are a Christian. I don"t know what you have done, but it is what a man does now that makes him a Christian. Well, solemn under the weight of a renewed obligation, I will return to my own fireside. Before touching this money again, let me shake your hand."
CHAPTER XXIII.
NOT THE OLD SUMMER.
At no time during the lagging winter did the Professor mention his renewed obligation, but one night in April he came over with a tune in his voice, a laugh in his eye, and paid the debt. The bank notes were not ragged and soiled as if they had been s.n.a.t.c.hed in the dust of a fierce scuffle; they were new, and as bright as if they had come as a gracious legacy. And, indeed, they had. A dead "lot," lying in the neighborhood of a punctured "boom" in Kansas, fluttered with the returning life of speculative resurrection. A new railway needed the site for a station. An agent found the Professor, reluctantly offered him half as much as the property was worth, and he gladly accepted it.
For a day his household was happy in the possession of a set of new chairs, a rug and a center table, but soon fell to brooding over the lonesome absence of dining-room linen and new paper on the walls. The Professor had hoped that he might be able to buy a bookcase for his room upstairs, but realizing that it was impossible to fill up the rat hole of want in the floor below, did not dare to speak of his longing. But he was sharper than his family had suspected. With a wink he told Milford that he had, in the stealthy hour of midnight, put by enough to enable him to do a little speculating. Milford had set him an example of thrift. There was money to be made in buying and selling and he was going to buy and sell. All that he had needed was an example. A mind that could weigh a heavy problem could turn a trifle to account. The ancient philosophers, counseling contentment of the mind, had money loaned out at interest. It was no wonder that they could be contented.
And, after all, they held the right idea of life, money first and philosophy afterward. He would go back to first principles; would deal in cattle, the origin of money. The bicycle might hurt the horse, but it could not hurt the steer. There was no invention to take the place of a beefsteak. Some men might argue that it was difficult if not impossible for a failure to become a success, but all astonishing success had come out of previous failure. Without failure the world could never have realized one of its most precious virtues--perseverance. Society placed a premium upon rascality. He could be a rascal. At one time he had thought it wise to lie down with his friend, death; but now he felt it expedient to stand up with his enemy, life.
Milford did not take issue with his newly adopted creed. He brought up a jug of cider and they drank to it. The Professor had an option on four bullocks, and they drunk to them. And then filling his cup, the reformed scholar said:
"To our dear enemies, the ladies."
"No," Milford replied. He had that day received a letter. "I won"t drink to them as our enemies."
"Well, then, as our endeared mistakes."
"No, they are not mistakes."
"Ha! you put me to for a term. What shall we call them?"
"The honest helpers of dishonest men," said Milford.
The Professor frowned. "I cannot subscribe to a sentiment so ruffled and furbelowed with--shall I say tawdry flounces? Permit me; I have said it.
My dear fellow, in this humid air of American sentimentalism, we are not permitted to talk rationally about woman. Some man is always ready to hop up and declare that his mother is a woman. Of course she is. Has any one ever disputed the fact? His mother is a woman, and so in fact we hope is the person whom he expects to marry--I say expects to marry, for it is usually an unmarried man who hops up. I would not abolish marriage, you understand. I would--well, I would insist upon both parties having a little more sense. I would enact a law, compelling a man, before being granted a license, to show a certificate of financial success. I would inquire into the amount of money he had realized on his last lot of bullocks."
"You"d have a fine world."
"Wouldn"t I? There would be no scuffling for life insurance, no hara.s.sment over wall-paper, no daughters to pity a father"s failure. If I could roll up the surface of the sea into a megaphone, I would shout a caution to the unmarried world."
"What would you shout, Professor?"
"Shut your eyes on love. If you have no money, throw your license into the fire and turn the preacher out at the back door. That is what I would shout."
"There are millions of mistakes," said Milford. "But there are many happy hits. Your marriage----"
"Thoroughly happy, my dear fellow--as a marriage, you understand. I wouldn"t undo it for the world. My people are everything to me. They are too much to me, hence my everlasting worry over life insurance. But it is not possible for the average woman to understand, and nearly every woman is the average woman. But my worries are over now. I am to start out anew. Don"t think ill of me for not having opened my eyes sooner. An eye is like a chestnut bur; it doesn"t open till it is ripe, and up to this time mine has been green in ignorance. Don"t call me eccentric. I would rather be called a thief than eccentric. What is eccentricity but a loose joint, a flaw in the machinery? I am not so much out of the common. The trouble is that I show effects more plainly perhaps than other men. But I am serious. I am not light. To the plodder, I have been chimerical, but I will shame him by becoming a plodder, by out-plodding him. For the first time in many months, I return to my home as much as half satisfied with myself."
A few days later Milford saw him in the road, popping a whip behind four bullocks. Not long afterward, at a farmyard sale, he was seen haggling for a small flock of sheep. He bought a cow of Mrs. Stuvic. He urged her to come to terms. He was a man of business, and had no time for words.
"Well, now you have woke up," she said. "Who would thought it? They might as well go out to the graveyard now and tell the rest of "em it"s time to get up. Gracious alive, take the cow. I don"t want to stand in the way of a man that"s just woke up. Have you quit the mill?"