"I have been too sure!" I said. "What do we know after all! Why may there not be future heavens and h.e.l.ls--"other heavens for other earths"?
We do not know--we do not _know_--"
So, carrying the calf, in the cool of the evening, we came at last to my yard. We had no sooner put the calf down than it jumped nimbly to its feet and ran, wobbling absurdly, to meet its mother.
"The rascal," I said, "after all our work."
"It"s the nature of the animal," said Mr. Purdy, as he put on his coat.
I could not thank him enough. I invited him to stay with us to supper, but he said he must hurry home.
"Then come down soon to see me," I said, "and we will settle this question as to the existence of a h.e.l.l."
He stepped up close to me and said, with an appealing note in his voice:
"You do not really believe in a h.e.l.l, do you?"
How human nature loves collusiveness: nothing short of the categorical will satisfy us! What I said to Mr. Purdy evidently appeased him, for he seized my hand and shook and shook.
"We haven"t understood each other," he said eagerly. "You don"t believe in eternal d.a.m.nation any more than I do." Then he added, as though some new uncertainty puzzled him, "Do you?"
At supper I was telling Harriet with gusto of my experiences. Suddenly she broke out:
"What was his name?"
"Purdy."
"Why, he"s the infidel that Mrs. Horace tells about!"
"Is that possible?" I said, and I dropped my knife and fork. The strangest sensation came over me.
"Why," I said, "then I"m an infidel too!"
So I laughed and I"ve been laughing gloriously ever since--at myself, at the infidel, at the entire neighbourhood. I recalled that delightful character in "The Vicar of Wakefield" (my friend the Scotch Preacher loves to tell about him), who seasons error by crying out "Fudge!"
"Fudge!" I said.
We"re all poor sinners!
XI
THE COUNTRY DOCTOR
_Sunday afternoon, June 9._
We had a funeral to-day in this community and the longest funeral procession, Charles Baxter says, he has seen in all the years of his memory among these hills. A good man has gone away--and yet remains. In the comparatively short time I have been here I never came to know him well personally, though I saw him often in the country roads, a ruddy old gentleman with thick, coa.r.s.e, iron-gray hair, somewhat stern of countenance, somewhat shabby of attire, sitting as erect as a trooper in his open buggy, one muscular hand resting on his knee, the other holding the reins of his familiar old white horse. I said I did not come to know him well personally, and yet no one who knows this community can help knowing Doctor John North. I never so desired the gift of moving expression as I do at this moment, on my return from his funeral, that I may give some faint idea of what a good man means to a community like ours--as the more complete knowledge of it has come to me to-day.
In the district school that I attended when a boy we used to love to leave our mark, as we called it, wherever our rovings led us. It was a bit of boyish mysticism, unaccountable now that we have grown older and wiser (perhaps); but it had its meaning. It was an instinctive outreaching of the young soul to perpetuate the knowledge of its existence upon this forgetful earth. My mark, I remember, was a notch and a cross. With what secret fond diligence I carved it in the gray bark of beech trees, on fence posts, or on barn doors, and once, I remember, on the roof-ridge of our home, and once, with high imaginings of how long it would remain, I spent hours chiseling it deep in a hard-headed old boulder in the pasture, where, if man has been as kind as Nature, it remains to this day. If you should chance to see it you would not know of the boy who carved it there.
So Doctor North left his secret mark upon the neighbourhood--as all of us do, for good or for ill, upon _our_ neighbourhoods, in accordance with the strength of that character which abides within us. For a long time I did not know that it was he, though it was not difficult to see that some strong good man had often pa.s.sed this way. I saw the mystic sign of him deep-lettered in the hearthstone of a home; I heard it speaking bravely from the weak lips of a friend; it is carved in the plastic heart of many a boy. No, I do not doubt the immortalities of the soul; in this community, which I have come to love so much, dwells more than one of John North"s immortalities--and will continue to dwell. I, too, live more deeply because John North was here.
He was in no outward way an extraordinary man, nor was his life eventful. He was born in this neighbourhood: I saw him lying quite still this morning in the same sunny room of the same house where he first saw the light of day. Here among these common hills he grew up, and save for the few years he spent at school or in the army, he lived here all his life long. In old neighbourhoods and especially farm neighbourhoods people come to know one another--not clothes knowledge, or money knowledge--but that sort of knowledge which reaches down into the hidden springs of human character. A country community may be deceived by a stranger, too easily deceived, but not by one of its own people. For it is not a studied knowledge; it resembles that slow geologic uncovering before which not even the deep buried bones of the prehistoric saurian remain finally hidden.
I never fully realised until this morning what a supreme triumph it is, having grown old, to merit the respect of those who know us best. Mere greatness offers no reward to compare with it, for greatness compels that homage which we freely bestow upon goodness. So long as I live I shall never forget this morning. I stood in the door-yard outside of the open window of the old doctor"s home. It was soft, and warm, and very still--a June Sunday morning. An apple tree not far off was still in blossom, and across the road on a gra.s.sy hillside sheep fed unconcernedly. Occasionally, from the roadway where the horses of the countryside were waiting, I heard the clink of a bit-ring or the low voice of some new-comer seeking a place to hitch. Not half those who came could find room in the house: they stood uncovered among the trees.
From within, wafted through the window, came the faint odour of flowers, and the occasional minor intonation of someone speaking--and finally our own Scotch Preacher! I could not see him, but there lay in the cadences of his voice a peculiar note of peacefulness, of finality. The day before he died Dr. North had said:
"I want McAlway to conduct my funeral, not as a minister but as a man.
He has been my friend for forty years; he will know what I mean."
The Scotch Preacher did not say much. Why should he? Everyone there _knew_: and speech would only have cheapened what we knew. And I do not now recall even the little he said, for there was so much all about me that spoke not of the death of a good man, but of his life. A boy who stood near me--a boy no longer, for he was as tall as a man--gave a more eloquent tribute than any preacher could have done. I saw him stand his ground for a time with that grim courage of youth which dreads emotion more than a battle: and then I saw him crying behind a tree! He was not a relative of the old doctor"s; he was only one of many into whose deep life the doctor had entered.
They sang "Lead, Kindly Light," and came out through the narrow doorway into the sunshine with the coffin, the hats of the pallbearers in a row on top, and there was hardly a dry eye among us.
And as they came out through the narrow doorway, I thought how the Doctor must have looked out daily through so many, many years upon this beauty of hills and fields and of sky above, grown dearer from long familiarity--which he would know no more. And Kate North, the Doctor"s sister, his only relative, followed behind, her fine old face gray and set, but without a tear in her eye. How like the Doctor she looked: the same stern control!
In the hours which followed, on the pleasant winding way to the cemetery, in the groups under the trees, on the way homeward again, the community spoke its true heart, and I have come back with the feeling that human nature, at bottom, is sound and sweet. I knew a great deal before about Doctor North, but I knew it as knowledge, not as emotion, and therefore it was not really a part of my life.
I heard again the stories of how he drove the country roads, winter and summer, how he had seen most of the population into the world and had held the hands of many who went out! It was the plain, hard life of a country doctor, and yet it seemed to rise in our community like some great tree, its roots deep buried in the soil of our common life, its branches close to the sky. To those accustomed to the outward excitements of city life it would have seemed barren and uneventful. It was significant that the talk was not so much of what the Doctor did as of _how_ he did it, not so much of his actions as of the natural expression of his character. And when we come to think of it, goodness _is_ uneventful. It does not flash, it glows. It is deep, quiet and very simple. It pa.s.ses not with oratory, it is commonly foreign to riches, nor does it often sit in the places of the mighty: but may be felt in the touch of a friendly hand or the look of a kindly eye.
Outwardly, John North often gave the impression of brusqueness. Many a woman, going to him for the first time, and until she learned that he was in reality as gentle as a girl, was frightened by his manner. The country is full of stories of such encounters. We laugh yet over the adventure of a woman who formerly came to spend her summers here. She dressed very beautifully and was "nervous." One day she went to call on the Doctor. He made a careful examination and asked many questions.
Finally he said, with portentous solemnity:
"Madam, you"re suffering from a very common complaint."
The Doctor paused, then continued, impressively:
"You haven"t enough work to do. This is what I would advise. Go home, discharge your servants, do your own cooking, wash your own clothes and make your own beds. You"ll get well."
She is reported to have been much offended, and yet to-day there was a wreath of white roses in Doctor North"s room sent from the city by that woman.
If he really hated anything in this world the Doctor hated whimperers.
He had a deep sense of the purpose and need of punishment, and he despised those who fled from wholesome discipline.
A young fellow once went to the Doctor--so they tell the story--and asked for something to stop his pain.
"Stop it!" exclaimed the Doctor: "why, it"s good for you. You"ve done wrong, haven"t you? Well, you"re being punished; take it like a man.
There"s nothing more wholesome than good honest pain."
And yet how much pain he alleviated in this community--in forty years!
The deep sense that a man should stand up to his fate was one of the key-notes of his character; and the way he taught it, not only by word but by every action of his life, put heart into many a weak man and woman, Mrs. Patterson, a friend of ours, tells of a reply she once had from the Doctor to whom she had gone with a new trouble. After telling him about it she said:
"I"ve left it all with the Lord."
"You"d have done better," said the Doctor, "to keep it yourself. Trouble is for your discipline: the Lord doesn"t need it."
It was thus out of his wisdom that he was always telling people what they knew, deep down in their hearts, to be true. It sometimes hurt at first, but sooner or later, if the man had a spark of real manhood in him, he came back, and gave the Doctor an abiding affection.