The Light in the Clearing
By Irving Bacheller

Chapter XII

THE SPIRIT OF MICHAEL HENRY AND OTHERS

That last peril is one of the half-solved mysteries of my life. The following affidavit, secured by an assistant of the district attorney from a young physician in a village above Ballybeen, never a matter of record, heightened its interest for me and my friends.

     “Deponent saith that about eleven o’clock on the evening of the,
     24th of September (that on which the attack upon me was made) a man
     unknown to him called at his office and alleged that a friend of
     the stranger had been injured and was in need of surgical aid. He
     further alleged that his friend was in trouble and being sought
     after and that he, the caller, dared not, therefore, reveal the
     place where his friend had taken refuge. He offered the deponent
     the sum of ten dollars to submit to the process of blindfolding and
     of being conducted to I said place for the purpose of giving relief
     to the injured man. Whereupon the deponent declares that he
     submitted to said process and was conducted by wagon and trail to a
     bark shanty at some place in the woods unknown to him where the
     bandage was removed from his eyes. He declares further that he
     found there, a strong built, black-bearded man about thirty years
     of age, and a stranger to him, lying on a bed of boughs in the
     light of a fire and none other. This man was groaning in great pain
     from a wound made by some heavy weapon on the side of his head. The
     flesh of the cheek and ear were swollen and lacerated. Deponent
     further declares that he administered an opiate and dressed and put
     a number of stitches in the injured parts and bound them with a
     bandage soaked in liniment. Then deponent returned to his home,
     blindfolded as he had left it. He declares that the time consumed
     in the journey from the shanty to his home was one hour and ten
     minutes.”

It should be said that, in the theory of the district attorney the effort to retire the principal witness, if, indeed, that were the intention of their pursuit of me, originated in the minds of lawless and irresponsible men. I know that there are those who find a joy in creating mysteries and defeating the law, but let it be set down here that I have never concurred in the views of that able officer.

At the examination of Amos Grimshaw my knowledge was committed to the records and ceased to be a source of danger to me. Grimshaw came to the village that day. On my way to the court room I saw him walking slowly, with bent head as I had seen him before, followed by old Kate. She carried her staff in her left hand while the forefinger of her right was pointing him out. Silent as a ghost and as unheeded–one would say–she followed his steps.

I remember when I went on the stand my eyes filled with tears. Amos gave me an appealing look that went to my heart. It was hard for me to tell the truth that day–never has it been so hard. If I had had the riches of Grimshaw himself I would have given them to be relieved. Was there nothing that I could do for Amos?

I observed that old Kate sat on a front seat with her hand to her ear and Grimshaw beside his lawyer at a big table and that when she looked at him her lips moved in a strange unuttered whisper of her spirit. Her face filled with joy as one damning detail after another came out in the evidence.

Aunt Deel and Uncle Peabody came to the village that day and sat in the court room. They had dinner with us at the schoolmaster’s, but I had little chance to talk with them. Aunt Deel went up to my room with me and slyly gave me some fresh cookies wrapped in a piece of newspaper which she carried in a little basket bought from the Indians.

“Here’s somethin’ else,” she said. “I was keepin’ ’em for Chris’mas–ayes!–but it’s so cold I guess ye better have ’em now–ayes!”

Then she gave me a pair of mittens with a red fringe around the wristbands, and two pairs of socks.

I remember that my uncle laughed at the jests of Mr. Hacket but said little and was not, I thought, in good spirits. They went home before the examination ended.

The facts hereinbefore alleged, and others, were proven, for the tracks fitted the shoes of Amos. The young man was held and presently indicted. The time of his trial was not determined.

I received much attention from young and old in the village after that, for I found soon that I had acquired a reputation for bravery, of the slender foundation for which the reader is well aware. I was invited to many parties, but had not much heart for them and went only to one at the home of Nettie Barrows. Sally was there. She came to me as if nothing had interrupted our friendship and asked if I would play Hunt the Squirrel with them. Of course I was glad to make this treaty of peace, which was sealed with many kisses as we played together in those lively games of the old time. I remember that I could think of nothing in this world with which to compare her beauty. I asked if I could walk home with her and she said that she was engaged, and while she was as amiable as ever I came to know that night that a kind of wall had risen between us.

I wrote a good hand those days and the leading merchant of the village engaged me to post his books every Saturday at ten cents an hour. Thenceforward until Christmas I gave my free days to that task. I estimated the sum that I should earn and planned to divide it in equal parts and proudly present it to my aunt and uncle on Christmas day.

One Saturday while I was at work on the big ledger of the merchant I ran upon this item:

     October 3. S. Wright–To one suit of
                clothes for Michael Henry
                from measures furnished by
                S. Robinson               $14.30
                Shirts to match             1.70

I knew then the history of the suit of clothes which I had worn since that rainy October night, for I remembered that Sam Robinson, the tailor, had measured me at our house and made up the cloth of Aunt Deel’s weaving.

I observed, also, that numerous articles–a load of wood, two sacks of flour, three pairs of boots, one coat, ten pounds of salt pork and four bushels of potatoes–all for “Michael Henry” had been charged to Silas Wright.

So by the merest chance I learned that the invisible “Michael Henry” was the almoner of the modest statesman and really the spirit of Silas Wright feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and warming the cold house, in the absence of its owner. It was the heart of Wright joined to that of the schoolmaster, which sat in the green chair.

I fear that my work suffered a moment’s interruption, for just then I began to know the great heart of the Senator. Its warmth was in the clothing that covered my back, its delicacy in the ignorance of those who had shared its benefactions.

I count this one of the great events of my youth. But there was a greater one, although it seemed not so at the time of it. A traveler on the road to Ballybeen had dropped his pocketbook containing a large amount of money–two thousand seven hundred dollars was the sum, if I remember rightly. He was a man who, being justly suspicious of the banks, had withdrawn his money. Posters announced the loss and the offer of a large reward. The village was profoundly stirred by them. Searching parties went up the road stirring its dust and groping in its grass and briers for the great prize which was supposed to be lying there. It was said, however, that the quest had been unsuccessful. So the lost pocketbook became a treasured mystery of the village and of all the hills and valleys toward Ballybeen–a topic of old wives and gabbing husbands at the fireside for unnumbered years.

By and by the fall term of school ended. Uncle Peabody came down to get me the day before Christmas. I had enjoyed my work and my life at the Hackets’, on the whole, but I was glad to be going home again. My uncle was in high spirits and there were many packages in the sleigh.

“A merry Christmas to ye both an’ may the Lord love ye!” said Mr. Hacket as he bade us good-by. “Every day our thoughts will be going up the hills to your house.”

As he was tucking the blankets around my feet old Nick Tubbs came zigzagging up the road from the tavern.

“What stimulation travels with that man!” said the schoolmaster. “He might be worse, God knows. Reeling minds are worse than reeling bodies. Some men are born drunk like our friend Colonel Hand and that kind is beyond reformation.”

The bells rang merrily as we hurried through the swamp in the hard snow paths.

“We’re goin’ to move,” said my uncle presently. “We’ve agreed to get out by the middle o’ May.”

“How does that happen?” I asked.

“I settled with Grimshaw and agreed to go. If it hadn’t ’a’ been for Wright and Baldwin we wouldn’t ’a’ got a cent. They threatened to bid against him at the sale. So he settled. We’re goin’ to have a new home. We’ve bought a hundred an’ fifty acres from Abe Leonard. Goin’ to build a new house in the spring. It will be nearer the village.”

He playfully nudged my ribs with his elbow.

“We’ve had a little good luck, Bart,” he went on. “I’ll tell ye what it is if you won’t say anything about it.”

I promised.

“I dunno as it would matter much,” he continued, “but I don’t want to do any braggin’. It ain’t anybody’s business but ours, anyway. An old uncle over in Vermont died three weeks ago and left us thirty-eight hundred dollars. It was old Uncle Ezra Baynes o’ Hinesburg. Died without a chick or child. Your aunt and me slipped down to Potsdam an’ took the stage an’ went over an’ got the money. It was more money than I ever see before in my life. We put it in the bank in Potsdam to keep it out o’ Grimshaw’s hands. I wouldn’t trust that man as fur as you could throw a bull by the tail.”

It was a cold clear night and when we reached home the new stove was snapping with the heat in its fire-box and the pudding puffing in the pot and old Shep dreaming in the chimney corner. Aunt Deel gave me a hug at the door. Shep barked and leaped to my shoulders.

“Why, Bart! You’re growin’ like a weed–ain’t ye?–ayes ye be,” my aunt said as she stood and looked at me. “Set right down here an’ warm ye–ayes!–I’ve done all the chores–ayes!”

How warm and comfortable was the dear old room with those beloved faces in it. I wonder if paradise itself can seem more pleasant to me. I have had the best food this world can provide in my time, but never anything that I ate with a keener relish than the pudding and milk and bread and butter and cheese and pumpkin pie which Aunt Deel gave us that night.

Supper over, I wiped the dishes for my aunt while Uncle Peabody went out to feed and water the horses. Then we sat down in the genial warmth while I told the story of my life in “the busy town,” as they called it. What pride and attention they gave me then!

Three days before they had heard of my adventure with the flail, as to which Mr. Hacket, the district attorney and myself had maintained the strictest reticence. It seemed that the deacon had blabbed, as they used to say, regarding his own brave part in the subsequent proceedings.

My fine clothes and the story of how I had come by them taxed my ingenuity somewhat, although not improperly. I had to be careful not to let them know that I had been ashamed of the home-made suit. They, somehow, felt the truth about it and a little silence followed the story. Then Aunt Deel drew her chair near me and touched my hair very gently and looked into my face without speaking.

“Ayes! I know,” she said presently, in a kind of caressing tone, with a touch of sadness in it. “They ain’t used to coarse homespun stuff down there in the village. They made fun o’ ye–didn’t they, Bart?”

“I don’t care about that,” I assured them. “’The mind’s the measure of the man,’” I quoted, remembering the lines the Senator had repeated to me.

“That’s sound!” Uncle Peabody exclaimed with enthusiasm.

Aunt Deel took my hand in hers and surveyed it thoughtfully for a moment without speaking.

“You ain’t goin’ to have to suffer that way no more,” she said in a low tone.

I rose and went to the parlor door.

“Ye mustn’t go in there,” she warned me.

Delightful suspicions came out of the warning and their smiles.

“We’re goin’ to be more comf’table–ayes,” said Aunt Deel as I resumed my chair. “Yer uncle thought we better go west, but I couldn’t bear to go off so fur an’ leave mother an’ father an’ sister Susan an’ all the folks we loved layin’ here in the ground alone–I want to lay down with ’em by an’ by an’ wait for the sound o’ the trumpet–ayes!–mebbe it’ll be for thousands o’ years–ayes!”

“You don’t suppose their souls are a-sleepin’ there–do ye?” my uncle asked.

“That’s what the Bible says,” Aunt Deel answered.

“Wal the Bible–?” Uncle Peabody stopped. What was in his mind we may only imagine.

To our astonishment the clock struck twelve.

“Hurrah! It’s merry Christmas!” said Uncle Peabody as he jumped to his feet and began to sing of the little Lord Jesus.

We joined him while he stood beating time with his right hand after the fashion of a singing master.

“Off with yer boots, friend!” he exclaimed when the stanza was finished. “We don’t have to set up and watch like the shepherds.”

We drew our boots on the chair round with hands clasped over the knee–how familiar is the process, and yet I haven’t seen it in more than half a century! I lighted a candle and scampered up-stairs in my stocking feet, Uncle Peabody following close and slapping my thigh as if my pace were not fast enough for him. In the midst of our skylarking the candle tumbled to the floor and I had to go back to the stove and relight it.

How good it seemed to be back in the old room under the shingles! The heat of the stove-pipe had warmed its hospitality.

“It’s been kind o’ lonesome here,” said Uncle Peabody as he opened the window. “I always let the wind come in to keep me company–it gits so warm.”

I lay down between flannel sheets on the old feather bed. What a stage of dreams and slumbers it had been, for it was now serving the third generation of Bayneses! The old popple tree had thrown off its tinkling cymbals and now the winter wind hissed and whistled in its stark branches. Then the deep, sweet sleep of youth from which it is a joy and a regret to come back to the world again. I wish that I could know it once more.

“Ye can’t look at yer stockin’ yit,” said Aunt Deel when I came down-stairs about eight o’clock, having slept through chore time. I remember it was the delicious aroma of frying ham and buckwheat cakes which awoke me, and who wouldn’t rise and shake off the cloak of slumber on a bright, cold winter morning with such provocation?

“This ain’t no common Chris’mas–I tell ye,” Aunt Deel went on. “Santa Claus won’t git here short o’ noon I wouldn’t wonder–ayes!”

“By thunder!” exclaimed Uncle Peabody as he sat down at the table. “This is goin’ to be a day o’ pure fun–genuwine an’ uncommon. Take some griddlers,” he added as three or four of them fell on my plate. “Put on plenty o’ ham gravy an’ molasses. This ain’t no Jackman tavern. I got hold o’ somethin’ down there that tasted so I had to swaller twice on it.”

About eleven o’clock Uncle Hiram and Aunt Eliza and their five children arrived with loud and merry greetings. Then came other aunts and uncles and cousins. With what noisy good cheer the men entered the house after they had put up their horses! I remember how they laid their hard, heavy hands on my head and shook it a little as they spoke of my “stretchin’ up” or gave me a playful slap on the shoulder–an ancient token of good will–the first form of the accolade, I fancy. What joyful good humor there was in those simple men and women!–enough to temper the woes of a city if it could have been applied to their relief. They stood thick around the stove warming themselves and taking off its griddles and opening its doors and surveying it inside and out with much curiosity.

Suddenly Uncle Hiram tried to put Uncle Jabez in the wood-box while the others laughed noisily. I remember that my aunts rallied me on my supposed liking for “that Dunkelberg girl.”

“Now for the Chris’mas tree,” said Uncle Peabody as he led the way into our best room, where a fire was burning in the old Franklin grate. “Come on, boys an’ girls.”

What a wonderful sight was the Christmas tree–the first we had had in our house–a fine spreading balsam loaded with presents! Uncle Hiram jumped into the air and clapped his feet together and shouted: “Hold me, somebody, or I’ll grab the hull tree an’ run away with it.”

Uncle Jabez held one foot in both hands before him and joyfully hopped around the tree.

These relatives had brought their family gifts, some days before, to be hung on its branches. The thing that caught my eye was a big silver watch hanging by a long golden chain to one of the boughs. Uncle Peabody took it down and held it aloft by the chain, so that none should miss the sight, saying:

“From Santa Claus for Bart!”

A murmur of admiration ran through the company which gathered around me as I held the treasure in my trembling hands.

“This is for Bart, too,” Uncle Peabody shouted as he took down a bolt of soft blue cloth and laid it in my arms. “Now there’s somethin’ that’s jest about as slick as a kitten’s ear. Feel of it. It’s for a suit o’ clothes. Come all the way from Burlington.”

“Good land o’ Goshen! Don’t be in such a hurry,” said Aunt Deel.

“Sorry, but the stage can’t wait for nobody at all–it’s due to leave right off,” Uncle Peabody remarked as he laid a stuffed stocking on top of the cloth and gave me a playful slap and shouted: “Get-ap, there. You’ve got yer load.”

I moved out of the way in a hurricane of merriment. It was his one great day of pride and vanity. He did not try to conceal them.

The other presents floated for a moment in this irresistible tide of laughing good will and found their owners. I have never forgotten how Uncle Jabez chased Aunt Minerva around the house with a wooden snake cunningly carved and colored. I observed there were many things on the tree which had not been taken down when we younger ones gathered up our wealth and repaired to Aunt Deel’s room to feast our eyes upon it and compare our good fortune.

The women and the big girls rolled up their sleeves and went to work with Aunt Deel preparing the dinner. The great turkey and the chicken pie were made ready and put in the oven and the potatoes and the onions and the winter squash were soon boiling in their pots on the stove-top. Meanwhile the children were playing in my aunt’s bedroom and Uncle Hiram and Uncle Jabez were pulling sticks in a corner while the other men sat tipped against the wall watching and making playful comments–all save my Uncle Peabody, who was trying to touch his head to the floor and then straighten up with the aid of the broomstick.

By and by I sat on top of the wood with which I had just filled the big wood-box and very conscious of the shining chain on my breast. Suddenly the giant, Rodney Barnes, jumped out of his chair and, embracing the wood-box, lifted it and the wood and me in his great arms and danced lightly around a group of the ladies with his burden and set it down in its place again very gently. What a hero he became in my eyes after that!

“If ye should go off some day an’ come back an’ find yer house missin’ ye may know that Rodney Barnes has been here,” said Uncle Hiram. “A man as stout as Rodney is about as dangerous as a fire.”

Then what Falstaffian peals of laughter!

In the midst of it Aunt Deel opened the front door and old Kate, the Silent Woman, entered. To my surprise, she wore a decent-looking dress of gray homespun cloth and a white cloud looped over her head and ears and tied around her neck and a good pair of boots.

“Merry Chris’mas!” we all shouted.

She smiled and nodded her head and sat down in the chair which Uncle Peabody had placed for her at the stove side. Aunt Deel took the cloud off her head while Kate drew her mittens–newly knitted of the best yarn. Then my aunt brought some stockings and a shawl from the tree and laid them on the lap of old Kate. What a silence fell upon us as we saw tears coursing down the cheeks of this lonely old woman of the countryside!–tears of joy, doubtless, for God knows how long it had been since the poor, abandoned soul had seen a merry Christmas and shared its kindness. I did not fail to observe how clean her face and hands looked! She was greatly changed.

She took my hand as I went to her side and tenderly caressed it. A gentler smile came to her face than ever I had seen upon it. The old stern look returned for a moment as she held one finger aloft in a gesture which only I and my Aunt Deel understood. We knew it signalized a peril and a mystery. That I should have to meet it, somewhere up the hidden pathway, I had no doubt whatever.

“Dinner’s ready!” exclaimed the cheerful voice of Aunt Deel.

Then what a stirring of chairs and feet as we sat down at the table. Old Kate sat by the side of my aunt and we were all surprised at her good manners.

Uncle Jabez–a member of the white church–prayed for a moment as we sat with bowed heads. I have never forgotten his simple eloquence as he prayed for the poor and for him who was sitting in the shadow of death (I knew that he referred to Amos Grimshaw and whispered amen) and for our forgiveness.

We jested and laughed and drank cider and reviewed the year’s history and ate as only they may eat who have big bones and muscles and the vitality of oxen. I never taste the flavor of sage and currant jelly or hear a hearty laugh without thinking of those holiday dinners in the old log house on Rattleroad.

Some of the men and two of the women filled their pipes and smoked while the dishes were being picked up and washed. By and by the men and the big boys went with us down to the brook where we chopped holes in the ice to give the sheep and the cattle a chance to drink. Then they looked at the horses.

“Peabody you mus’ be gittin’ rich,” said Hiram Bentley.

“No I ain’t. I’ve had to give up here, but a little windfall come to us t’other day from an old uncle in Vermont. It ain’t nothin’ to brag of, but it’ll give us a start an’ we thought that while we had the money we’d do somethin’ that we’ve been wantin’ to do for years an’ years–give a Chris’mas–an’ we’ve done it. The money’ll go some way an’ we may never have another chance. Bart is a good boy an’ we made up our minds he’d enjoy it better now than he ever would ag’in.”

That Christmas brought me nothing better than those words, the memory of which is one of the tallest towers in that long avenue of my past down which I have been looking these many days. About all you can do for a boy, worth while, is to give him something good to remember.

The day had turned dark. The temperature had risen and the air was dank and chilly. The men began to hitch up their horses.

“Kind o’ thawin’ a little,” said Uncle Hiram as he got into his sleigh and drove up to the door. “Come on, there. Stop yer cacklin’ an’ git into this sleigh,” he shouted in great good humor to the women and children who stood on the porch. “It’ll be snowin’ like sixty ’fore we git home.”

So, one by one, the sleighloads left us with cheery good-bys and a grinding of runners and a jingling of bells. When the last had gone Uncle Peabody and I went into the house. Aunt Deel sat by the stove, old Kate by the window looking out at the falling dusk. How still the house seemed!

“There’s one thing I forgot,” I said as I proudly took out of my wallet the six one-dollar bills which I had earned by working Saturdays and handed three of them to my aunt and three to my uncle, saying:

“That is my Christmas present to you. I earned it myself.”

I remember so well their astonishment and the trembling of their hands and the look of their faces.

“It’s grand–ayes!” Aunt Deel said in a low tone.

She rose in a moment and beckoned to me and my uncle. We followed her through the open door to the other room.

“I’ll tell ye what I’d do,” she whispered. “I’d give ’em to ol’ Kate–ayes! She’s goin’ to stay with us till to-morrow.”

“Good idee!” said Uncle Peabody.

So I took the money out of their hands and went in and gave it to the Silent Woman.

“That’s your present from me,” I said.

How can I forget how she held my arm against her with that loving, familiar, rocking motion of a woman who is soothing a baby at her breast and kissed my coat sleeve? She released my arm and, turning to the window, leaned her head upon its sill and shook with sobs. The dusk had thickened. As I returned to my seat by the stove I could dimly see her form against the light of the window. We sat in silence for a little while.

Aunt Deel broke it by singing in a low tone as she rocked:

     “My days are passing swiftly by
       And I–a pilgrim stranger–
     Would not detain them as they fly,
       These days of toil and danger.”

Uncle Peabody rose and got a candle and lighted it at the hearth.

“Wal, Bart, we’ll do the chores, an’ then I warn ye that we’re goin’ to have some fun,” he said as he got his lantern. “There’s goin’ to be some Ol’ Sledge played here this evenin’ an’ I wouldn’t wonder if Kate could beat us all.”

I held the lantern while Uncle Peabody fed the sheep and the two cows and milked–a slight chore these winter days.

“There’s nothing so cold on earth as a fork stale on a winter night,” he remarked as he was pitching the hay. “Wish I’d brought my mittens.”

“You and I are to go off to bed purty early,” he said as we were going back to the house. “Yer Aunt Deel wants to see Kate alone and git her to talk if she can.”

Kate played with us, smiling now and then at my uncle’s merry ways and words, but never speaking. It was poor fun, for the cards seemed to take her away from us into other scenes so that she had to be reminded of her turn to play.

“I dunno but she’ll swing back into this world ag’in,” said Uncle Peabody when we had gone up to our little room. “I guess all she needs is to be treated like a human bein’. Yer Aunt Deel an’ I couldn’t git over thinkin’ o’ what she done for you that night in the ol’ barn. So I took some o’ yer aunt’s good clothes to her an’ a pair o’ boots an’ asked her to come to Chris’mas. She lives in a little room over the blacksmith shop down to Butterfield’s mill. I told her I’d come after her with the cutter but she shook her head. I knew she’d rather walk.”

He was yawning as he spoke and soon we were both asleep under the shingles.

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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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