But wait! Pearl sat still and listened. There was something doing. It was a Welsh rhapsodie that he was playing. It was all there--the mountains and the rivers, and the towering cliffs with glimpses of the sea where waves foam on the rocks, and sea-fowl wheel and scream in the wind, and then a bit of homely melody as the country folk drive home in the moonlight, singing as only the Welsh can sing, the songs of the heart; songs of love and home, songs of death and sorrowing, that stab with sudden sweetness. A child cries somewhere in the dark, cries for his mother who will come no more. Then a burst of patriotic fire, as the people fling defiance at the conquering foe, and hold the mountain pa.s.ses till the last man falls. But the glory of the fight and the march of many feet trail off into a wailing chant--the death song of the brave men who have died. The widow mourns, and the little children weep comfortless in their mountain home, and the wind rushes through the forest, and the river foams furiously down the mountain, falling in billows of lace over the rocks, and the sun shines over all, cold and pitiless.
"Why, Pearlie Watson, what are you crying for?" Mrs. Francis whispered severely. Pearl"s sobs had disturbed her. Danny lay asleep on Pearl"s knees, and her tears fell fast on his tangled curls.
"I ain"t cryin", I ain"t cryin" a bit. You leave me alone," Pearl blubbered rudely, shaking off Mrs Francis"s shapely hand.
Mrs. Francis was shocked. What in the world was making Pearl cry?
The next morning Mrs. Francis took out her little red book to enter the result of her experiment, and sat looking long and earnestly at its pages. Then she drew a writing pad toward her and wrote an illuminative article on "Late Hours a Frequent and Fruitful Cause of Irritability in Children."
CHAPTER VII
"ONE OF MANITOBA"S PROSPEROUS FARMERS"
Mr. Samuel Motherwell was a wealthy farmer who lived a few miles from Millford. Photographs of Mr. Motherwell"s premises may be seen in the agricultural journals, machinery catalogues, advertis.e.m.e.nts for woven wire, etc.--"the home of one of Manitoba"s prosperous farmers."
The farm buildings were in good repair; a large red barn with white tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs surmounted by a creaking windmill; a long, low machine shed filled with binders, seeders, disc-harrows--everything that is needed for the seed-time and harvest and all that lies between; a large stone house, square and gray, lonely and bare, without a tree or a shrub around it. Mr. Motherwell did not like vines or trees around a house.
They were apt to attract lightning and bring vermin.
Potatoes grew from the road to the house; and around the front door, as high as the veranda, weeds flourished in abundance, undisturbed and unnoticed.
Behind the cookhouse a bed of poppies flamed scarlet against the general sombreness, and gave a strange touch of colour to the common grayness. They seemed out of place in the busy farmyard. Everything else was there for use. Everybody hurried but the poppies; idlers of precious time, suggestive of slothful sleep, they held up their brazen faces in careless indifference.
Sam had not planted them--you may be sure of that. Mrs. Motherwell would tell you of an English girl she had had to work for her that summer who had brought the seed with her from England, and of how one day when she sent the girl to weed the onions, she had found her blubbering and crying over what looked to Mrs. Motherwell nothing more than weeds. The girl then told her she had brought the seed with her and planted it there. She was the craziest thing, this Polly Bragg. She went every night to see them because they were like a "bit of home,"
she said. Mrs. Motherwell would tell you just what a ridiculous creature she was!
"I never see the beat o" that girl," Mrs. Motherwell would say. "Them eyes of hers were always red with homesickness, and there was no reason for it in the world, her gettin" more wages than she ever got before, and more"n she was earnin", as I often told her. Land! the way that girl would sing when she had got a letter from home, the queerest songs ye ever heard:
Down by the biller there grew a green willer, Weeping all night with the bank for a piller.
Well, I had to stop her at last," Mrs. Motherwell would tell you with an apologetic swallow, which showed that even generous people have to be firm sometimes in the discharge of unpleasant duties.
"And, mind you," Mrs. Motherwell would go on, with a grieved air, "just as the busy time came on didn"t she up and take the fever--you never can depend on them English girls--and when the doctor was outside there in the buggy waitin" for her--he took her to the hospital--I declare if we didn"t find her blubberin" over them poppies, and not a flower on them no mor"n nothing."
Sam Motherwell and his wife were nominally Presbyterians. At the time that the Millford Presbyterian Church was built Sam had given twenty-five dollars toward it, the money having been secured in some strange way by the wiles of Purvis Thomas, the collector. Everybody was surprised at Sam"s prodigality. The next year, a new collector--for Purvis Thomas had gone away--called on Mr. Motherwell.
The grain was just beginning to show a slight tinge of gold. It was one of those cloudless sunshiny days in the beginning of August, when a faint blue haze lies on the Tiger Hills, and the joy of being alive swells in the breast of every living thing. The creek, swollen with the July rain, ran full in its narrow channel, sparkling and swirling over its gravelly bed, and on the green meadow below the house a herd of shorthorns contentedly cropped the tender after-gra.s.s.
In the farmyard a gigantic turkey-gobbler marched majestically with arched neck and spreading wings, feeling himself very much the king of the castle; good-natured ducks puddled contentedly in a trough of dirty water; pigeons, white winged and graceful, circled and wheeled in the sunshine; querulous-voiced hens strutted and scratched, and gossiped openly of mysterious nests hidden away.
Sam stood leaning on a pitchfork in front of the barn door. He was a stout man of about fifty years of age, with an ox-like face. His countenance showed the sullen stolidity of a man who spoke little but listened always, of a man who indulged in suspicious thoughts. He knew everything about his neighbours, good and bad. He might forget the good, but never the evil. The tragedies, the sins, the misdeeds of thirty years ago were as fresh in his memory as the scandal of yesterday. No man had ever been tempted beyond his strength but Sam Motherwell knew the manner of his undoing. He extended no mercy to the fallen; he suggested no excuse for the erring.
The collector made known his errand. Sam became animated at once.
"What?" he cried angrily, "ain"t that blamed thing paying yet? I"ve a good notion to pull my money out of it and be done with it. What do you take me for anyway?"
The collector ventured to call his attention to his prosperous surroundings, and evident wealth.
"That"s like you town fellows," he said indignantly. "You never think of the hired help and twine bills, and what it costs to run a place like this. I pay every time I go, anyway. There ain"t a time that I let the plate go by me, when I"m there. By gosh! you seem to think I"ve money to burn."
The collector departed empty-handed.
The next time Sam went to Millford he was considerably surprised to have the young minister, the Reverend Hugh Grantley, stop him on the street and hand him twenty-five dollars.
"I understand, sir, that you wish to withdraw the money that you invested in the Lord"s work," he said as he handed the money to Sam, whose fingers mechanically closed over the bills as he stared at the young man.
The Rev. Hugh Grantley was a typical Scotchman, tall and broad shouldered, with an eye like cold steel. Not many people had contradicted the Rev. Hugh Grantley, at least to his face. His voice could be as sweet as the ripple of a mountain stream, or vibrate with the thunder of the surf that beats upon his own granite cliffs.
"The Lord sends you seed-time and harvest," he said, fixing his level gray eye on the other man, who somehow avoided his gaze, "has given you health of body and mind, sends you rain from heaven, makes his sun to shine upon you, increases your riches from year to year. You have given Him twenty-five dollars in return and you regret it. Is that so?"
"I don"t know that I just said that," the other man stammered. "I don"t see no need of these fine churches and paid preachers. It isn"t them as goes to church most that is the best."
"Oh, I see," the young man said, "you would prefer to give your money for the relief of the poor, for hospitals or children"s homes, or something like that. Is that so?"
"I don"t know as there"s any reason for me givin" up the money I work hard for." Sam was touched on a vital spot.
"Well, I"ll tell you the reason," the minister said; his voice was no louder, but it fell with a sledge-hammer emphasis. He moved a step nearer his companion, and some way caught and held his wavering vision.
"G.o.d owns one-tenth of all that stuff you call your own. You have cheated Him out of His part all these years, and He has carried you over from year to year, hoping that you will pay up without harsh proceedings. You are a rich man in this world"s goods, but your soul is lean and hungry and naked. Selfishness and greed have blinded your eyes. If you could see what a contemptible, good-for-nothing creature you are in G.o.d"s sight, you would call on the hills to fall on you.
Why, man, I"d rather take my chances with the gambler, the felon, the drunkard, than with you. They may have fallen in a moment of strong temptation; but you are a respectable man merely because it costs money to be otherwise. The Lord can do without your money. Do not think for a minute that G.o.d"s work will not go on. "He shall have dominion from sea to sea," but what of you? You shall lie down and die like the dog. You shall go out into outer darkness. The world will not be one bit better because you have pa.s.sed through it."
Sam was incoherent with rage. "See here," he sputtered, "what do you know about it? I pay my debts. Everybody knows that."
"Hold on, hold on," the young man said gently, "you pay the debts that the law compels you to pay. You have to pay your hired help and your threshing bills, and all that, because you would be "sued" if you didn"t. There is one debt that is left to a man"s honour, the debt he owes to G.o.d, and to the poor and the needy. Do you pay that debt?"
"Well, you"ll never get a cent out of me anyway. You have a mighty poor way of asking for money--maybe if you had taken me the right way you might have got some."
"Excuse me, Mr. Motherwell," the young man replied with unaffected good humour, "I did not ask you for money at all. I gave you back what you did give. No member of our congregation will ask you for any, though there may come a time when you will ask us to take it."
Sam Motherwell broke into a scornful laugh, and, turning away, went angrily down the street. The fact that the minister had given him back his money was a severe shock to some of his deep-rooted opinions. He had always regarded churches as greedy inst.i.tutions, looking and begging for money from everyone; ministers as parasites on society, living without honest labour, preying on the working man. Sam"s favourite story was the old one about the woman whose child got a coin stuck in its throat. She did not send for the doctor, but for the minister! Sam had always seen considerable truth in this story and had told it to every minister he had met.
He told himself now that he was glad to get back the money, twenty-five dollars was not picked up every day. But he was not glad. The very touch of the bills was distasteful to him!
He did not tell his wife of the occurrence. Nor did he put the money in the black bag, where their money was always kept in the bureau drawer, safe under lock and key. He could not do that without telling his wife where it came from. So he shoved it carelessly into the pocket of the light overcoat that he was wearing. Sam Motherwell was not a careless man about money, but the possession of this particular twenty-five dollars gave him no pleasure.
CHAPTER VIII
THE OTHER DOCTOR
The young minister went down the street with a thoughtful face.
"I wonder if I did right," he was thinking. "It is a hard thing to talk that way to a human being, and yet it seems to be the only thing to do.
Oh, what it would mean for G.o.d"s work if all these rich farmers were saved from their insatiable greed."
He turned into Dr. Clay"s office.