The Light in the Clearing
By Irving Bacheller

Chapter XIII

THE THING AND OTHER THINGS

I returned to Mr. Hacket’s house late in the afternoon of New Year’s day. The schoolmaster was lying on a big lounge in a corner of their front room with the children about him. The dusk was falling.

“Welcome, my laddie buck!” he exclaimed as I entered. “We’re telling stories o’ the old year an’ you’re just in time for the last o’ them. Sit down, lad, and God give ye patience! It’ll soon be over.”

Little John led me into the group and the schoolmaster began:–Let us call this bit of a story: The Guide to Paradise.

“One day in early June I was lyin’ under the big apple tree in the garden–sure I was. It was all white and sweet with the blossoms like a bride in her veil–an’ I heard the hum o’ the bee’s wing an’ odors o’ the upper world come down to me. I was lookin’ at the little bird house that we had hung in the tree-top. Of a sudden I saw a tiny bit o’ a ’warf–no longer than the thumb o’ Mary–God love her!–on its wee porch an’ lookin’ down at me.

“’Good luck to ye!’ says I. ’Who are you?’

“’Who do ye think I am?’ says he.

“’Nobody,’ says I.

“’That’s just who I am,’ says he, ’I’m Nobody from Nowhere–God save you from the like.’

“’Glad to see ye,’ says I.

“’Glad to be seen,’ says he. ’There’s a mighty few people can see me.’

“’Looks to me as if ye were tellin’ the truth,’ says I.

“’Nobody is the only one that always tells the truth–God help ye,’ says he. ’And here’s a big chunk o’ it. Not one in a thousand ever gets the feet o’ his mind in the land o’ Nowhere–better luck to them!’

“’Where is it?’ says I.

“’Up above the earth where the great God keeps His fiddle,’ says he.

“’What fiddle?’ says I.

“’The fiddle o’ silence,’ says he. ’Sure, I’m playin’ it now. It has long strings o’ gold that reach ’way out across the land o’ Nowhere–ye call ’em stars. The winds and the birds play on it. Sure, the birds are my hens.’

“He clapped his little hands and down came a robin and sat beside him. Nobody rumpled up the feathers on her back and she queed like she was goin’ to peck me–the hussy!

“’She’s my watch hen,’ says Nobody. ’Guards the house and lays eggs for me–the darlin’! Sure, I’ve a wonderful farm up here in the air–millions o’ acres, and the flowers and the tops o’ the trees and the gold mines o’ the sky are in it. The flowers are my cattle and the bees are my hired men. Do ye see ’em milkin’ this big herd o’ apple-blossoms? My hired men carry their milk away to the hollow trees and churn it into honey. There’s towers and towers of it in the land o’ Nowhere. If it wasn’t for Nowhere your country would be as dark as a pocket and as dry as dust–sure it would. Somewhere must be next to Nowhere–or it wouldn’t be anywhere, I’m thinkin’. All the light and rain and beauty o’ the world come out o’ Nowhere–don’t they? We have the widest ocean up here with wonderful ships. I call it God’s ferry. Ye see, Nowhere is not to be looked down upon just because ye don’t find it in Mary’s geography. There’s lots o’ things ye don’t know, man. I’m one o’ them. What do ye think o’ me?’

“’Sure, I like ye,’ says I.

“’Lucky man!’ says he. ’Everybody must learn to like me an’ play with me as the children do. I can get along with the little folks, but it’s hard to teach men how to play with me–God pity them! They forget how to believe. I am the guide to paradise and unless ye become as a little child I can not lead ye.’

“He ran to the edge o’ the tree roof and took hold o’ the end of a long spider’s rope hangin’ down in the air. In a jiffy he swung clear o’ the tree and climbed, hand over hand, until he had gone awa-a-a-a-y out o’ sight in the sky.”

“Couldn’t anybody do that?” said little John.

“I didn’t say they could–did I? ye unbeliever!” said the schoolmaster as he rose and led us in to the supper table. “I said Nobody did it.”

We got him to tell this little tale over and over again in the days that followed, and many times since then that impersonal and mysterious guide of the schoolmaster’s fancy has led me to paradise.

After supper he got out his boxing-gloves and gave me a lesson in the art of self-defense, in which, I was soon to learn, he was highly accomplished, for we had a few rounds together every day after that. He keenly enjoyed this form of exercise and I soon began to. My capacity for taking punishment without flinching grew apace and before long I got the knack of countering and that pleased him more even than my work in school, I have sometimes thought.

“God bless ye, boy!” he exclaimed one day after I had landed heavily on his cheek, “ye’ve a nice way o’ sneakin’ in with yer right. I’ve a notion ye may find it useful some day.”

I wondered a little why he should say that, and while I was wondering he felled me with a stinging blow on my nose.

“Ah, my lad–there’s the best thing I have seen ye do–get up an’ come back with no mad in ye,” he said as he gave me his hand.

One day the schoolmaster called the older boys to the front seats in his room and I among them.

“Now, boys, I’m going to ask ye what ye want to do in the world,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to tell me what ye may never have told before and I’ll do what I can to help ye.”

He asked each one to make confession and a most remarkable exhibit of young ambition was the result. I remember that most of us wanted to be statesmen–a fact due probably to the shining example of Silas Wright. Then he said that on a certain evening he would try “to show us the way over the mountains.”

For some months I had been studying a book just published, entitled, Stenographic Sound-Hand and had learned its alphabet and practised the use of it. That evening I took down the remarks of Mr. Hacket in sound-hand.

The academy chapel was crowded with the older boys and girls and the town folk. The master never clipped his words in school as he was wont to do when talking familiarly with the children.

“Since the leaves fell our little village has occupied the center of the stage before an audience of millions in the great theater of congress. Our leading citizen–the chief actor–has been crowned with immortal fame. We who watched the play were thrilled by the query: Will Uncle Sam yield to temptation or cling to honor? He has chosen the latter course and we may still hear the applause in distant galleries beyond the sea. He has decided that the public revenues must be paid in honest money.

“My friend and classmate, George Bancroft, the historian, has written this letter to me out of a full heart:

     “’Your fellow townsman, Silas Wright, is now the largest figure in
     Washington. We were all worried by the resolution of Henry Clay
     until it began to crumble under the irresistible attack of Mr.
     Wright. On the 16th he submitted a report upon it which for lucid
     and accurate statements presented in the most unpretending manner,
     won universal admiration and will be remembered alike for its
     intrinsic excellence and for having achieved one of the most
     memorable victories ever gained in the United States Senate. After
     a long debate Clay himself, compelled by the irresistible force of
     argument in the report of Mr. Wright, was obliged to retire from
     his position, his resolution having been rejected by a vote of 44
     to 1.’”

With what pride and joy I heard of this great thing that my friend had accomplished! The schoolmaster went on:

“It is a very good and proper thing, my boys, that you should be inspired by the example of the great man, whose home is here among us and whose beloved face is as familiar as my own, to try your talents in the service of the state. There are certain things that I would have you remember.

“_First–Know your subject-inside and outside and round about and from beginning to end.

“_Second–Know the opinions of wise men and your own regarding it.

“_Third–Be modest in the use of your own opinions and above all be honest.

“_Fourth–Remember that it is your subject and not yourself that is of prime importance. You will be tempted to think that you are the great part of the business. My young friends, it will not be true. It can not be true. It is not you but the thing you stand for that is important.

“_Fifth–The good of all the people must be the thing you stand for–the United States of America.

“Now I wish you to observe how our great fellow townsman keeps his subject to the fore and himself in the background.

“It was in 1834 that he addressed the Senate regarding the deposits of public money. He rose to voice the wishes of the people of this state. If he had seemed to be expressing his own opinions he would have missed his great point. Now mark how he cast himself aside when he began:

     “’I must not be understood as, for one moment, entertaining the
     vain impression that opinions and views pronounced by me, here or
     elsewhere, will acquire any importance because they are my opinions
     and views. I know well, sir, that my name carries not with it
     authority anywhere, but I know, also, that so far as I may
     entertain and shall express opinions which are, or which shall be
     found, in accord with the enlightened public opinion of this
     country, so far they will be sustained and no further.’

“Then by overwhelming proof he set forth the opinion of our people on the subject in hand. Studiously the Senator has hidden himself in his task and avoided in every possible way attracting attention from his purposes to his personality.

“Invitations to accept public dinners as a compliment to himself have received from him this kind of reply:

     “’A proper attention to the duties, on the discharge of which you
     so kindly desire to compliment me requires that I should decline
     your invitation.’”

All this was new to me, although much more was said touching his love for simple folk regarding which I needed no instruction. Altogether, it helped me to feel the deep foundations on which my friend, the Senator, had been building in his public life.

Going out with the crowd that evening, I met Sally and Mr. and Mrs. Dunkelberg. The latter did not speak to me and when I asked Sally if I could walk home with her she answered curtly, “No, thank you.”

In following the schoolmaster I have got a bit ahead of my history. Soon after the opening of the new year–ten days or so later it may have been–I had begun to feel myself encompassed by a new and subtle force. It was a thing as intangible as heat but as real as fire and more terrible, it seemed to me. I felt it first in the attitude of my play fellows. They denied me the confidence and intimacy which I had enjoyed before. They whispered together in my presence. In all this I had not failed to observe that Henry Wills had taken a leading part. The invisible, inaudible, mysterious thing wrought a great change in me. It followed me through the day and lay down with me at night. I wondered what I had done. I carefully surveyed my clothes. They looked all right to me. My character was certainly no worse than it had been. How it preyed upon my peace and rest and happiness–that mysterious hidden thing!

One day Uncle Peabody came down to see me and I walked through the village with him. We met Mr. Dunkelberg, who merely nodded and hurried along. Mr. Bridges, the merchant, did not greet him warmly and chat with him as he had been wont to do. I saw that The Thing–as I had come to think of it–was following him also. How it darkened his face! Even now I can feel the aching of the deep, bloodless wounds of that day. I could bear it better alone. We were trying to hide our pain from each other when we said good-by. How quickly my uncle turned away and walked toward the sheds! He came rarely to the village of Canton after that.

I was going home at noon one day and while passing a crowd of boys I was shoved rudely into the fence. Turning, I saw Henry Wills and my fist flashed to his face. He fell backward and rising called me a thief and the son of a thief. He had not finished the words when I was upon him. The others formed a ring around us and we began a savage battle. One of Wills’ friends tried to trip me. In the midst of it I saw the schoolmaster just outside the ring. He seized a boy by the collar.

“There’ll be no more interference,” said he. “It’s goin’ to be a fair fight.”

I had felt another unfriendly foot but had not seen its owner. We fought up and down, with lips and noses bleeding. At last the time had come when I was quicker and stronger than he. Soon Henry Wills lay on the ground before me with no disposition to go on with the fight. I helped him up and he turned away from me. Some of the boys began to jeer him.

“He’s a gentleman compared with the rest o’ you,” I said. “He had courage enough to say what he thought. There’s not another one o’ you would dare do it–not a one o’ you.”

Then said the schoolmaster:

“If there’s any more o’ you boys that has any such opinion o’ Bart Baynes let him be man enough to step up an’ say it now. If he don’t he ought to be man enough to change his mind on the spot.”

A number of the boys and certain of the townsfolk who had gathered about us clapped their hands. For a long time thereafter I wondered why Henry had called me a thief. I concluded that it was because “thief” was the meanest word he could think of in his anger. However that might be, The Thing forsook me. I felt no more its cold, mysterious shadow between me and my school fellows. It had stepped out of my path into that of Henry Wills. His popularity waned and a lucky circumstance it was for him. From that day he began to take to his books and to improve his standing in the school.

I observed that he did not go about with Sally as he had done. I had had no word with her since the night of Mr. Hacket’s lecture save the briefest greeting as we passed each other in the street. Those fine winter days I used to see her riding a chestnut pony with a long silver mane that flowed back to her yellow curls in his lope. I loved the look of her as she went by me in the saddle and a longing came into my heart that she should think well of me. I made an odd resolve. It was this: I would make it impossible for her to think ill of me.

I went home one Saturday, having thought much of my aunt and uncle since The Thing had descended upon us. I found them well and as cheerful as ever. For fear of disturbing their peace I said nothing of my fight with Wills or the cause of it. Uncle Peabody had cut the timber for our new house and hauled it to the mill. I returned to school in a better mind about them.

May had returned–a warm bright May. The roads were dry. The thorn trees had thatched their shapely roofs with vivid green. The maple leaves were bigger than a squirrel’s foot, which meant as well, I knew, that the trout were jumping. The robins had returned. I had entered my seventeenth year and the work of the term was finished.

[Illustration: She stopped the pony and leaned toward me.]

Having nothing to do one afternoon, I walked out on the road toward Ogdensburg for a look at the woods and fields. Soon I thought that I heard the sound of galloping hoofs behind me. Turning, I saw nothing, but imagined Sally coming and pulling up at my side. I wondered what I should say if she were really to come.

“Sally!” I exclaimed. “I have been looking at the violets and the green fields and back there I saw a thorn tree turning white, but I have seen no fairer thing than you.”

They surprised me a little–those fine words that came so easily. What a school of talk was the house I lived in those days!

“I guess I’m getting Mr. Hacket’s gift o’ gab,” I said to myself.

Again I heard the sound of galloping hoofs and as I looked back I saw Sally rounding the turn by the river and coming toward me at full speed, the mane of her pony flying back to her face. She pulled up beside me just as I had imagined she would do.

“Bart, I hate somebody terribly,” said she.

“Whom?”

“A man who is coming to our house on the stage to-day. Granny Barnes is trying to get up a match between us. Father says he is rich and hopes he will want to marry me. I got mad about it. He is four years older than I am. Isn’t that awful? I am going to be just as mean and hateful to him as I can.”

“I guess they’re only fooling you,” I said.

“No, they mean it. I have heard them talking it over.”

“He can not marry you.”

“Why?”

It seemed to me that the time had come for me to speak out, and with burning cheeks I said:

“Because I think that God has married you to me already. Do you remember when we kissed each other by the wheat-field one day last summer?”

“Yes.” She was looking down at the mane of her pony and her cheeks were red and her voice reminded me of the echoes that fill the cavern of a violin when a string is touched.

“Seems to me we were married that day. Seems so, every time I think of it, God asked me all the questions an’ I answered yes to ’em. Do ye remember after we had kissed each other how that little bird sang?”

“Yes.”

We had faced about and were walking back toward Canton, I close by the pony’s side.

“May I kiss you again?”

She stopped the pony and leaned toward me and our lips met in a kiss the thought of which makes me lay down my pen and bow my head a moment while I think with reverence of that pure, sweet spring of memory in whose waters I love to wash my spirit.

We walked on and a song sparrow followed us perching on the fence-rails and blessing us with his song.

“I guess God has married us again,” I declared.

“I knew that you were walking on this road and I had to see you,” said she. “People have been saying such terrible things.”

“What?”

“They say your uncle found the pocketbook that was lost and kept the money. They say he was the first man that went up the road after it was lost.”

Now The Thing stood uncovered before me in all its ugliness–The Thing born not of hate but of the mere love of excitement in people wearied by the dull routine and the reliable, plodding respectability of that countryside. The crime of Amos had been a great help in its way but as a topic it was worn out and would remain so until court convened.

“It’s a lie–my uncle never saw the pocketbook. Some money was left to him by a relative in Vermont. That’s how it happened that he bought a farm instead of going to the poorhouse when Grimshaw put the screws on him.”

“I knew that your uncle didn’t do it,” she went on. “Father and mother couldn’t tell you. So I had to.”

“Why couldn’t your father and mother tell me?”

“They didn’t dare. Mr. Grimshaw made them promise that they would not speak to you or to any of your family. I heard them say that you and your uncle did right. Father told mother that he never knew a man so honest as your Uncle Peabody.”

We went on in silence for a moment.

“I guess you know now why I couldn’t let you go home with me that night,” she remarked.

“Yes, and I think I know why you wouldn’t have anything more to do with Henry Wills.”

“I hate him. He said such horrid things about you and your uncle.”

In a moment she asked: “What time is it?”

I looked at my new watch and answered: “It wants ten minutes of five.”

“The stage is in long ago. They will be coming up this road to meet me. Father was going to take him for a walk before supper.”

Just then we came upon the Silent Woman sitting among the dandelions by the roadside. She held a cup in her hand with some honey on its bottom and covered with a piece of glass.

“She is hunting bees,” I said as we stopped beside her.

She rose and patted my shoulder with a smile and threw a kiss to Sally. Suddenly her face grew stern. She pointed toward the village and then at Sally. Up went her arm high above her head with one finger extended in that ominous gesture so familiar to me.

“She means that there is some danger ahead of you,” I said.

The Silent Woman picked a long blade of grass and tipped its end in the honey at the bottom of the cup. She came close to Sally with the blade of grass between her thumb and finger.

“She is fixing a charm,” I said.

She smiled and nodded as she put a drop of honey on Sally’s upper lip.

She held up her hands while her lips moved as if she were blessing us.

“I suppose it will not save me if I brush it off,” said Sally.

We went on and in a moment a bee lighted on the honey. Nervously she struck at it and then cried out with pain.

“The bee has stung you,” I said.

She covered her face with her handkerchief and made no answer.

“Wait a minute–I’ll get some clay,” I said as I ran to the river bank.

I found some clay and moistened it with the water and returned.

“There, look at me!” she groaned. “The bee hit my nose.”

She uncovered her face, now deformed almost beyond recognition, her nose having swollen to one of great size and redness.

“You look like Rodney Barnes,” I said with a laugh as I applied the clay to her afflicted nose.

“And I feel like the old boy. I think my nose is trying to jump off and run away.”

The clay having been well applied she began surveying herself with a little hand mirror which she had carried in the pocket of her riding coat.

“What a fright I am!” she mused.

“But you are the best girl in the world.”

“Don’t waste your pretty talk on me now. I can’t enjoy it–my nose aches so. I’d rather you’d tell me when–when it is easier for you to say it.”

“We don’t see each other very often.”

“If you will come out on this road next Saturday afternoon I will ride until I find you and then we can have another talk.”

“All right. I’ll be here at four-thirty and I’ll be thinking about it every day until then.”

“My nose feels better now,” she said presently and added: “You might tell me a little more if you want to.”

“I love you even when you have ceased to be beautiful,” I said with the ardor of the young.

“That is grand! You know old age will sting us by and by, Bart,” she answered with a sigh and in a tone of womanly wisdom.

We were nearing the village. She wiped the mud from her prodigious nose and I wet her handkerchief in a pool of water and helped her to wash it. Soon we saw two men approaching us in the road. In a moment I observed that one was Mr. Horace Dunkelberg; the other a stranger and a remarkably handsome young man he was, about twenty-two years of age and dressed in the height of fashion. I remember so well his tall, athletic figure, his gray eyes, his small dark mustache and his admirable manners. Both were appalled at the look of Sally.

“Why, girl, what has happened to you?” her father asked.

Then I saw what a playful soul was Sally’s. The girl was a born actress.

“Been riding in the country,” said she. “Is this Mr. Latour?”

“This is Mr. Latour, Sally,” said her father.

They shook hands.

“I am glad to see you,” said the stranger.

“They say I am worth seeing,” said Sally. “This is my friend, Mr. Baynes. When you are tired of seeing me, look at him.”

I shook the hand he offered me.

“Of course, we can’t all be good looking,” Sally remarked with a sigh, as if her misfortune were permanent.

Mr. Horace Dunkelberg and I laughed heartily–for I had told him in a whisper what had happened to Sally–while Mr. Latour looked a little embarrassed.

“My face is not beautiful, but they say that I have a good heart,” Sally assured the stranger.

They started on. I excused myself and took a trail through the woods to another road. Just there, with Sally waving her hand to me as I stood for a moment in the edge of the woods, the curtain falls on this highly romantic period of my life.

Uncle Peabody came for me that evening. It was about the middle of the next week that I received this letter from Sally:

     “DEAR BART–Mr. Latour gave up and drove to Potsdam in the evening.
     Said he had to meet Mr. Parish. I think that he had seen enough of
     me. I began to hope he would stay–he was so good looking, but
     mother is very glad that he went, and so am I, for our minister
     told us that he is one of the wickedest young men in the state. He
     is very rich and very bad, they say. I wonder if old Kate knew
     about him. Her charm worked well anyway–didn’t it? My nose was all
     right in the morning. Sorry that I can’t meet you Saturday. Mother
     and I are packing up to go away for the summer. Don’t forget me. I
     shall be thinking every day of those lovely things you said to me.
     I don’t know what they will try to do with me, and I don’t care. I
     really think as you do, Bart, that God has married us to each
     other.

     “Yours forever,
            SALLY DUNKELBERG.”

How often I read those words–so like all the careless words of the young!

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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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