The Light in the Clearing
By Irving Bacheller

Chapter X

I MEET PRESIDENT VAN BUREN AND AM CROSS-EXAMINED BY MR. GRIMSHAW

The days went easier after that. The boys took me into their play and some of them were most friendly. I had a swift foot and a good eye as well as a strong arm, and could hold my own at three-old-cat–a kind of baseball which we played in the school yard. Saturday came. As we were sitting down at the table that morning the younger children clung to the knees of Mr. Hacket and begged him to take them up the river in a boat.

“Good Lord! What wilt thou give me when I grow childless?” he exclaimed with his arms around them. “That was the question of Abraham, and it often comes to me. Of course we shall go. But hark! Let us hear what the green chair has to say.”

There was a moment of silence and then he went on with a merry laugh. “Right ye are, Michael Henry! You are always right, my boy–God bless your soul! We shall take Bart with us an’ doughnuts an’ cheese an’ cookies an’ dried meat for all.”

From that moment I date the beginning of my love for the occupant of the green chair in the home of Michael Hacket. Those good people were Catholics and I a Protestant and yet this Michael Henry always insisted upon the most delicate consideration for my faith and feelings.

“I promised to spend the morning in the field with Mr. Wright, if I may have your consent, sir,” I said.

“Then we shall console ourselves, knowing that you are in better company,” said Mr. Hacket.

Mr. Dunkelberg called at the house in Ashery Lane to see me after breakfast.

“Bart, if you will come with me I should like to order some store clothes and boots for you,” he said in his squeaky voice.

For a moment I knew not how to answer him. Nettled as I had been by Sally’s treatment of me, the offer was like rubbing ashes on the soreness of my spirit.

I blushed and surveyed my garments and said:

“I guess I look pretty badly, don’t I?”

“You look all right, but I thought, maybe, you would feel better in softer raiment, especially if you care to go around much with the young people. I am an old friend of the family and I guess it would be proper for me to buy the clothes for you. When you are older you can buy a suit for me, sometime, if you care to.”

It should be understood that well-to-do people in the towns were more particular about their dress those days than now.

“I’ll ask my aunt and uncle about it,” I proposed.

“That’s all right,” he answered. “I’m going to drive up to your house this afternoon and your uncle wishes you to go with me. We are all to have a talk with Mr. Grimshaw.”

He left me and I went over to Mr. Wright’s.

They told me that he was cutting corn in the back lot, where I found him.

“How do I look in these clothes?” I bravely asked.

“Like the son of a farmer up in the hills and that’s just as you ought to look,” he answered.

In a moment he added as he reaped a hill of corn with his sickle.

“I suppose they are making fun of you, partner.”

“Some,” I answered, blushing.

“Don’t mind that,” he advised, and then quoted the stanza:

     “Were I as tall to reach the pole
       Or grasp the ocean in a span,
     I’d still me measured by my soul;
       The mind’s the standard of the man.”

“Mr. Dunkelberg came this morning and wanted to buy me some new clothes and boots,” I said.

[Illustration: “Good Lord! What wilt thou give me when I grow childless?"]

The Senator stopped work and stood looking at me with his hands upon his hips.

“I wouldn’t let him do it if I were you,” he said thoughtfully.

Just then I saw a young man come running toward us in the distant field.

Mr. Wright took out his compass.

“Look here,” he said, “you see the needle points due north.”

He took a lodestone out of his pocket and holding it near the compass moved it back and forth. The needle followed it.

The young man came up to us breathing deeply. Perspiration was rolling off his face. He was much excited and spoke with some difficulty.

“Senator Wright,” he gasped, “Mrs. Wright sent me down to tell you that President Van Buren is at the house.”

I remember vividly the look of mild amusement in the Senator’s face and the serene calmness with which he looked at the young man and said to him:

“Tell Mrs. Wright to make him comfortable in our easiest chair and to say to the President that I shall be up directly.”

To my utter surprise he resumed his talk with me as the young man went away.

“You see all ways are north when you put this lodestone near the needle,” he went on. “If it is to tell you the truth you must keep the lodestone away from the needle. It’s that way, too, with the compass of your soul, partner. There the lodestone is selfishness, and with its help you can make any direction look right to you and soon–you’re lost.”

He put his hand on my arm and said in a low tone which made me to understand that it was for my ear only.

“What I fear is that they may try to tamper with your compass. Look out for lodestones.”

He was near the end of a row and went on with his reaping as he said:

“I could take my body off this row any minute, but the only way to get my mind off it is to go to its end.”

He bound the last bundle and then we walked together toward the house, the Senator carrying his sickle.

“I shall introduce you to the President,” he said as we neared our destination. “Then perhaps you had better leave us.”

At home we had read much about the new President and regarded him with deep veneration. In general I knew the grounds of it–his fight against the banks for using public funds for selfish purposes and “swapping mushrats for mink” with the government, as uncle put it, by seeking to return the same in cheapened paper money; his long battle for the extension of the right of suffrage in our state; his fiery eloquence in debate. Often I had heard Uncle Peabody say that Van Buren had made it possible for a poor man to vote in York State and hold up his head like a man. So I was deeply moved by the prospect of seeing him.

I could not remember that I had ever been “introduced” to anybody. I knew that people put their wits on exhibition and often flung down a “snag” by way of demonstrating their fitness for the honor, when they were introduced in books. I remember asking rather timidly:

“What shall I say when–when you–introduce me?”

“Oh, say anything that you want to say,” he answered with a look of amusement.

“I’m kind o’ scared,” I said.

“You needn’t be–he was once a poor boy just like you.”

“Just like me!” I repeated, thoughtfully, for while I had heard a good deal of that kind of thing in our home, it had not, somehow, got under my jacket, as they used to say.

“Just like you–cowhide and all–the son of a small freeholder in Kinderhook on the Hudson,” he went on. “But he was well fed in brain and body and kept his heart clean. So, of course, he grew and is still growing. That’s a curious thing about men and women, Bart. If they are in good ground and properly cared for they never stop growing-never!–and that’s a pretty full word–isn’t it?”

I felt its fulness, but the Senator had a way of stopping just this side of the grave in all his talks with me, and so there was no sign of preaching in any of it.

“As time goes on you’ll meet a good many great men, I presume,” he continued. “They’re all just human beings like you and me. Most of them enjoy beefsteak, and apple pie and good boys.”

We had come in sight of the house. I lagged behind a little when I saw the great man sitting on the small piazza with Mrs. Wright. I shall never forget the grand clothes he wore–black, saving the gray waistcoat, with shiny, brass buttons–especially the great, white standing collar and cravat. I see vividly, too, as I write, the full figure, the ruddy, kindly face, the large nose, the gray eyes, the thick halo of silvered hair extending from his collar to the bald top of his head. He rose and said in a deep voice:

“He sows ill luck who hinders the reaper.”

Mr. Wright hung his sickle on a small tree in the dooryard and answered.

“The plowman has overtaken the reaper, Mr. President. I bid you welcome to my humble home.”

“It is a pleasure to be here and a regret to call you back to Washington,” said the President as they shook hands.

“I suppose that means an extra session,” the Senator answered.

“First let me reassure you. I shall get away as soon as possible, for I know that a President is a heavy burden for one to have on his hands.”

“Don’t worry. I can get along with almost any kind of a human being, especially if he likes pudding and milk as well as you do,” said the Senator, who then introduced me in these words:

“Mr. President, this is my young friend Barton Baynes of the neighborhood of Lickitysplit in the town of Ballybeen–a coming man of this county.”

“Come on,” was the playful remark of the President as he took my hand. “I shall be looking for you.”

I had carefully chosen my words and I remember saying, with some dignity, like one in a story book, although with a trembling voice:

“It is an honor to meet you, sir, and thank you for the right to vote–when I am old enough.”

Vividly, too, I remember his gentle smile as he looked down at me and said in a most kindly tone:

“I think it a great honor to hear you say that.”

He put his hands upon my shoulders and turning to the Senator said:

“Wright, I often wish that I had your modesty.”

“I need it much more than you do,” the Senator laughed.

Straightway I left them with an awkward bow and blushing to the roots of my hair. A number of boys and girls stood under the shade trees opposite looking across at the President. In my embarrassment I did not identify any one in the group. Numbers of men and women were passing the house and, as they did so, taking “a good look,” in their way of speaking at the two great men. Not before had I seen so many people walking about–many in their best clothes.

As I neared the home of Mr. Hacket I heard hurrying footsteps behind me and the voice of Sally calling my name. I stopped and faced about.

How charming she looked as she walked toward me! I had never seen her quite so fixed up.

“Bart,” she said. “I suppose you’re not going to speak to me.”

“If you’ll speak to me,” I answered.

“I love to speak to you,” she said. “I’ve been looking all around for you. Mother wants you to come over to dinner with us at just twelve o’clock. You’re going away with father as soon as we get through.”

I wanted to go but got the notion all at once that the Dunkelbergs were in need of information about me and that the time had come to impart it. So then and there, that ancient Olympus of our family received notice as it were.

“I can’t,” I said. “I’ve got to study my lessons before I go away with your father.”

It was a blow to her. I saw the shadow that fell upon her face. She was vexed and turned and ran away from me without another word and I felt a pang of regret as I went to the lonely and deserted home of the schoolmaster.

I had hoped that the Senator would ask me to dinner, but the coming of the President had upset the chance of it. It was eleven o’clock. Mrs. Hacket had put a cold bite on the table for me. I ate it–not to keep it waiting–and sat down with my eyes on my book and my mind at the Dunkelbergs’–where I heard in a way what Sally was saying and what “Mr. and Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg” were saying.

At twelve-thirty Mr. Dunkelberg came for me, with a high-stepping horse in a new harness and a shiny still-running buggy. He wore gloves and a beaver hat and sat very erect and had little to say.

“I hear you met the President,” he remarked.

“Yes, sir. I was introduced to him this morning,” I answered a bit too proudly, and wondering how he had heard of my good fortune, but deeply gratified at his knowledge of it.

“What did he have to say?”

I described the interview and the looks of the great man. Not much more was said as we sped away toward the deep woods and the high hills.

I was eager to get home but wondered why he should be going with me to talk with Mr. Grimshaw and my uncle. Of course I suspected that it had to do with Amos but how I knew not. He hummed in the rough going and thoughtfully nicked the bushes with his whip. I never knew a more persistent hummer.

What a thrill came to me when I saw the house and the popple tree and the lilac bushes–they looked so friendly! Old Shep came barking up the road to meet us and ran by the buggy side with joyful leaps and cries. With what affection he crowded upon me and licked my face and hands when my feet were on the ground at last! Aunt Deel and Uncle Peabody were coming in from the pasture lot with sacks of butternuts on a wheelbarrow. My uncle clapped his hands and waved his handkerchief and shouted “Hooray!”

Aunt Deel shook hands with Mr. Dunkelberg and then came to me and said:

“Wal, Bart Baynes! I never was so glad to see anybody in all the days o’ my life–ayes! We been lookin’ up the road for an hour–ayes! You come right into the house this minute–both o’ you.”

The table was spread with the things I enjoyed most–big brown biscuits and a great comb of honey surrounded with its nectar and a pitcher of milk and a plate of cheese and some jerked meat and an apple pie.

“Set right down an’ eat–I just want to see ye eat–ayes I do!”

Aunt Deel was treating me like company and with just a pleasant touch of the old company finish in her voice and manner. It was for my benefit–there could be no doubt of that–for she addressed herself to me, chiefly, and not to Mr. Dunkelberg. My absence of a few days had seemed so long to them! It had raised me to the rank of company and even put me above the exalted Dunkelbergs although if Mrs. Horace Dunkelberg had been there in her blue silk and gold chain “big enough to drag a stone boat,” as Aunt Deel used to say, she might have saved the day for them. Who knows? Aunt Deel was never much impressed by any man save Silas Wright, Jr.

Mr. Grimshaw came soon after we had finished our luncheon. He hitched his horse at the post and came in. He never shook hands with anybody. In all my life I have met no man of scanter amenities. All that kind of thing was, in his view, I think, a waste of time, a foolish encouragement to men who were likely to be seeking favors.

“Good day,” he said, once and for all, as he came in at the open door. “Baynes, I want to have a talk with you and the boy.”

I remember how each intake of his breath hissed through his lips as he sat down. How worn and faded were his clothes and hat, which was still on his head! The lines on his rugged brow and cheeks were deeper than ever.

“Tell me what you know about that murder,” he demanded.

“Wal, I had some business over to Plattsburg,” my uncle began. “While I was there I thought I’d go and see Amos. So I drove out to Beekman’s farm. They told me that Amos had left there after workin’ four days. They gave him fourteen shillin’s an’ he was goin’ to take the stage in the mornin’. He left some time in the night an’ took Beekman’s rifle with him, so they said. There was a piece o’ wood broke out o’ the stock o’ the rifle. That was the kind o’ gun that was used in the murder.”

It surprised me that my uncle knew all this. He had said nothing to me of his journey or its result.

“How do you know?” snapped Mr. Grimshaw.

“This boy see it plain. It was a gun with a piece o’ wood broke out o’ the stock.”

“Is that so?” was the brusque demand of the money-lender as he turned to me.

“Yes, sir,” I answered.

“The boy lies,” he snapped, and turning to my uncle added: “Yer mad ’cause I’m tryin’ to make ye pay yer honest debts–ain’t ye now?”

We were stunned by this quick attack. Uncle Peabody rose suddenly and sat down again. Mr. Grimshaw looked at him with a strange smile and a taunting devilish laugh came out of his open lips.

Uncle Peabody, keeping his temper, shook his head and calmly said: “No I ain’t anything ag’in’ you or Amos, but it’s got to be so that a man can travel the roads o’ this town without gettin’ his head blowed off.”

Mr. Dunkelberg jumped into the breach then, saying:

“I told Mr. Grimshaw that you hadn’t any grudge against him or his boy and that I knew you’d do what you could to help in this matter.”

“Of course I’ll help in any way I can,” my uncle answered. “I couldn’t harm him if I tried–not if he’s innocent. All he’s got to do is to prove where he was that night.”

“Suppose he was lost in the woods?” Mr. Dunkelberg asked.

“The truth wouldn’t harm him any,” my uncle insisted. “Them tracks wouldn’t fit his boots, an’ they’d have to.”

Mr. Dunkelberg turned to me and asked:

“Are you sure that the stock of the gun you saw was broken?”

“Yes, sir-and I’m almost sure it was Amos that ran away with it.”

“Why?”

“I picked up a stone and threw it at him and it grazed the left side of his face, and the other night I saw the scar it made.”

My aunt and uncle and Mr. Dunkelberg moved with astonishment as I spoke of the scar. Mr. Grimshaw, with keen eyes fixed upon me, gave a little grunt of incredulity.

“Huh!–Liar!” he muttered.

“I am not a liar,” I declared with indignation, whereupon my aunt angrily stirred the fire in the stove and Uncle Peabody put his hand on my arm and said:

“Hush, Bart! Keep your temper, son.”

“If you tell these things you may be the means of sending an innocent boy to his death,” Mr. Dunkelberg said to me. “I wouldn’t be too sure about ’em if I were you. It’s so easy to be mistaken. You couldn’t be sure in the dusk that the stone really hit him, could you?”

I answered: “Yes, sir–I saw the stone hit and I saw him put his hand on the place while he was running. I guess it hurt him some.”

“Look a’ here, Baynes,” Mr. Grimshaw began in that familiar scolding tone of his. “I know what you want an’ we might jest as well git right down to business first as last. You keep this boy still an’ I’ll give ye five years’ interest.”

Aunt Deel gave a gasp and quickly covered her mouth with her hand. Uncle Peabody changed color as he rose from his chair with a strange look on his face. He swung his big right hand in the air as he said:

“By the eternal jumpin’–”

He stopped, pulled down the left sleeve of his flannel shirt and walked to the water pail and drank out of the dipper.

“The times are hard,” Grimshaw resumed in a milder tone. “These days the rich men dunno what’s a-comin’ to ’em. If you don’t have no interest to pay you ought to git along easy an’ give this boy the eddication of a Sile Wright.”

There was that in his tone and face which indicated that in his opinion Sile had more “eddication” than any man needed.

“Say, Mr. Grimshaw, I’m awful sorry for ye,” said my uncle as he returned to his chair, “but I’ve always learnt this boy to tell the truth an’ the hull truth. I know the danger I’m in. We’re gettin’ old. It’ll be hard to start over ag’in an’ you can ruin us if ye want to an’ I’m as scared o’ ye as a mouse in a cat’s paw, but this boy has got to tell the truth right out plain. I couldn’t muzzle him if I tried–he’s too much of a man. If you’re scared o’ the truth you mus’ know that Amos is guilty.”

Mr. Grimshaw shook his head with anger and beat the floor with the end of his cane.

“Nobody knows anything o’ the kind, Baynes,” said Mr. Dunkelberg. “Of course Amos never thought o’ killing anybody. He’s a harmless kind of a boy. I know him well and so do you. The only thing that anybody ever heard against him is that he’s a little lazy. Under the circumstances Mr. Grimshaw is afraid that Bart’s story will make it difficult for Amos to prove his innocence. Just think of it. That boy was lost and wandering around in the woods at the time o’ the murder. As to that scar, Amos says that he ran into a stub when he was going through a thicket in the night.”

Uncle Peabody shook his head with a look of firmness.

Again Grimshaw laughed between his teeth as he looked at my uncle. In his view every man had his price.

“I see that I’m the mouse an’ you’re the cat,” he resumed, as that curious laugh rattled in his throat. “Look a’ here, Baynes, I’ll tell ye what I’ll do. I’ll cancel the hull mortgage.”

Again Uncle Peabody rose from his chair with a look in his face which I have never forgotten. How his voice rang out!

“_No, sir!” he shouted so loudly that we all jumped to our feet and Aunt Deel covered her face with her apron and began to cry. It was like the explosion of a blast. Then the fragments began falling with a loud crash:

“NO, SIR! YE CAN’T BUY THE NAIL ON MY LITTLE FINGER OR HIS WITH ALL YER MONEY–DAMN YOU!”

It was like the shout of Israel from the top of the mountains. Shep bounced into the house with hair on end and the chickens cackled and the old rooster clapped his wings and crowed with all the power of his lungs. Every member of that little group stood stock-still and breathless.

I trembled with a fear I could not have defined. Quick relief came when, straightway, my uncle went out of the room and stood on the stoop, back toward us, and blew his nose vigorously with his big red handkerchief. He stood still looking down and wiping his eyes. Mr. Grimshaw shuffled out of the door, his cane rapping the floor as if his arm had been stricken with palsy in a moment.

Mr. Dunkelberg turned to my aunt, his face scarlet, and muttered an apology for the disturbance and followed the money-lender.

I remember that my own eyes were wet as I went to my aunt and kissed her. She kissed me–a rare thing for her to do–and whispered brokenly but with a smile: “We’ll go down to the poorhouse together, Bart, but we’ll go honest.”

“Come on, Bart,” Uncle Peabody called cheerfully, as he walked toward the barnyard. “Le’s go an’ git in them but’nuts.”

He paid no attention to our visitors–neither did my aunt, who followed us. The two men talked together a moment, unhitched their horses, got into their buggies and drove away. The great red rooster had stood on the fence eying them. As they turned their horses and drove slowly toward the gate, he clapped his wings and crowed lustily.

“Give it to ’em, ol’ Dick,” said Uncle Peabody with a clap of his hands. “Tell ’em what ye think of ’em.”

At last the Dunkelbergs had fallen–the legendary, incomparable Dunkelbergs!

“Wal, I’m surprised at Mr. Horace Dunkelberg tryin’ to come it over us like that–ayes! I be,” said Aunt Deel.

“Wal, I ain’t,” said Uncle Peabody. “Ol’ Grimshaw has got him under his thumb–that’s what’s the matter. You’ll find he’s up to his ears in debt to Grimshaw–prob’ly.”

As we followed him toward the house, he pushing the wheelbarrow loaded with sacks of nuts, he added:

“At last Grimshaw has found somethin’ that he can’t buy an’ he’s awful surprised. Too bad he didn’t learn that lesson long ago.”

He stopped his wheelbarrow by the steps and we sat down together on the edge of the stoop as he added:

“I got mad–they kep’ pickin’ on me so–I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help it. We’ll start up ag’in somewheres if we have to. There’s a good many days’ work in me yet.”

As we carried the bags to the attic room I thought of the lodestone and the compass and knew that Mr. Wright had foreseen what was likely to happen. When we came down Uncle Peabody said to me:

“Do you remember what you read out of a book one night about a man sellin’ his honor?”

“Yes,” I answered. “It’s one o’ the books that Mr. Wright gave us.”

“It’s somethin’ purty common sense,” he remarked, “an’ we stopped and talked it over. I wish you’d git the book an’ read it now.”

I found the book and read aloud the following passage:

     “Honor is a strange commodity. It can not be divided and sold in
     part. All or none is the rule of the market. While it can be sold
     in a way, it can not be truly bought. It vanishes in the transfer
     of its title and is no more. Who seeks to buy it gains only loss.
     It is the one thing which distinguishes manhood from property. Who
     sells his honor sells his manhood and becomes simply a thing of
     meat and blood and bones–a thing to be watched and driven and
     cudgelled like the ox–for he has sold that he can not buy, not if
     all the riches in the world were his.”

A little silence followed the words. Then Uncle Peabody said:

“That’s the kind o’ stuff in our granary. We’ve been reapin’ it out o’ the books Mr. Grimshaw scolded about, a little here an’ a little there for years, an’ we knew it was good wheat. If he had books like that in his house mebbe Amos would ’a’ been different. An’ he’d ’a’ been different. He wouldn’t ’a’ had to come here tryin’ to buy our honor like you’d buy a hoss.”

“Oh, dear!” Aunt Deel exclaimed wearily, with her hands over her eyes; “a boy has to have somethin’ besides pigs an’ cattle an’ threats an’ stones an’ hoss dung an’ cow manure to take up his mind.”

Uncle Peabody voiced my own feeling when he said:

“I feel sorry, awful sorry, for that boy.”

We spent a silent afternoon gathering apples. After supper we played Old Sledge and my uncle had hard work to keep us in good countenance. We went to bed early and I lay long hearing the autumn wind in the popple leaves and thinking of that great thing which had grown strong within us, little by little, in the candle-light.

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This eBook of “The Light in the Clearing - A Tale of the North Country in the Time of Silas Wright” (1917) by Irving Bacheller belongs to the public domain. Complete book.
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