The Light in the Clearing
By Irving Bacheller

Chapter XVIII

I START IN A LONG WAY

I journeyed to Canton in the midst of the haying season. After the long stretches of forest road we hurried along between fragrant fields of drying hay. At each tavern we first entered the barroom where the landlord–always a well-dressed man of much dignity and filled with the news of the time, that being a part of his entertainment–received us with cheerful words. His housekeeper was there and assigned our quarters for the night. Our evenings were spent playing cards or backgammon or listening to the chatter of our host by the fireside. At our last stop on the road I opened my trunk and put on my best suit of clothes.

We reached Canton at six o’clock in the evening of a beautiful summer day. I went at once to call upon the Dunkelbergs and learned from a man at work in the dooryard that they had gone away for the summer. How keen was my disappointment! I went to the tavern and got my supper and then over to Ashery Lane to see Michael Hacket and his family. I found the schoolmaster playing his violin.

“Now God be praised–here is Bart!” he exclaimed as he put down his instrument and took my hands in his. “I’ve heard, my boy, how bravely ye’ve weathered the capes an’ I’m proud o’ ye–that I am!”

I wondered what he meant for a second and then asked:

“How go these days with you?”

“Swift as the weaver’s shuttle,” he answered. “Sit you down, while I call the family. They’re out in the kitchen putting the dishes away. Many hands make light labor.”

They came quickly and gathered about me–a noisy, happy group. The younger children kissed me and sat on my knees and gave me the small news of the neighborhood.

How good were the look of those friendly faces and the full-hearted pleasure of the whole family at my coming!

“What a joy for the spare room!” exclaimed the schoolmaster. “Sure I wouldn’t wonder if the old bed was dancin’ on its four legs this very minute.”

“I intend to walk up to the hills to-night,” I said.

“Up to the hills!” he exclaimed merrily. “An’ the Hackets lyin’ awake thinkin’ o’ ye on the dark road! Try it, boy, an’ ye’ll get a crack with the ruler and an hour after school. Yer aunt and uncle will be stronger to stand yer comin’ with the night’s rest upon them. Ye wouldn’t be routin’ them out o’ bed an’ they after a hard day with the hayin’! Then, my kind-hearted lad, ye must give a thought to Michael Henry. He’s still alive an’ stronger than ever–thank God!”

So, although I longed for those most dear to me up in the hills, I spent the night with the Hackets and the schoolmaster and I sat an hour together after the family had gone to bed.

“How are the Dunkelbergs?” I asked.

“Sunk in the soft embrace o’ luxury,” he answered. “Grimshaw made him; Grimshaw liked him. He was always ready to lick the boots o’ Grimshaw. It turned out that Grimshaw left him an annuity of three thousand dollars, which he can enjoy as long as he observes one condition.”

“What is that?”

“He must not let his daughter marry one Barton Baynes, late o’ the town o’ Ballybeen. How is that for spite, my boy? They say it’s written down in the will.”

I think that he must have seen the flame of color playing on my face, for he quickly added:

“Don’t worry, lad. The will o’ God is greater than the will o’ Grimshaw. He made you two for each other and she will be true to ye, as true as the needle to the north star.”

“Do you think so?”

“Sure I do. Didn’t she as much as tell me that here in this room–not a week ago? She loves ye, boy, as true as God loves ye, an’ she’s a girl of a thousand.

“Her father is a bit too fond o’ money. I’ve never been hard struck with him. It has always seemed to me that he was afflicted with perfection–a camellia man!–so invariably neat and proper and conventional! Such precise and wearisome rectitude! What a relief it would be to see him in his shirt-sleeves or with soiled boots or linen or to hear him say something–well-unexpected! Six shillings a week to the church and four to charity, as if that were the contract–no more, no less! But did ye ever hear o’ his going out o’ his way to do a good thing–say to help a poor woman left with a lot o’ babies or a poor lad that wants to go to school? ’No, I’m very sorry, but I give four shillings a week to charity and that’s all I can afford.’”

“Why did they go away? Was it because I was coming?”

“I think it likely, my fine lad. The man heard o’ it some way–perhaps through yer uncle. He’s crazy for the money, but he’ll get over that. Leave him to me. I’ve a fine course o’ instruction ready for my Lord o’ Dunkelberg.”

“I think I shall go and try to find her,” I said.

“I am to counsel ye about that,” said the schoolmaster. “She’s as keen as a brier–the fox! She says, ’Keep away. Don’t alarm him, or he’ll bundle us off to Europe for two or three years.’

“So there’s the trail ye travel, my boy. It’s the one that keeps away. Don’t let him think ye’ve anything up the sleeve o’ yer mind. Ye know, lad, I believe Sally’s mother has hold o’ the same rope with her and when two clever women get their wits together the divvle scratches his head. It’s an old sayin’, lad, an’ don’t ye go out an’ cut the rope. Keep yer head cool an’ yer heart warm and go right on with yer business. I like the whole plan o’ this remarkable courtship o’ yours.”

“I guess you like it better than I do,” was my answer.

“Ah, my lad, I know the heart o’ youth! Ye’d like to be puttin’ yer arms around her–wouldn’t ye, now? Sure, there’s time enough! You two young colts are bein’ broke’ an’ bitted. Ye’ve a chance now to show yer quality–yer faith, yer loyalty, yer cleverness. If either one o’ ye fails that one isn’t worthy o’ the other. Ye’re in the old treadmill o’ God–the both o’ ye! Ye’re bein’ weighed an’ tried for the great prize. It’s not pleasant, but it’s better so. Go on, now, an’ do yer best an’ whatever comes take it like a man.”

A little silence followed. He broke it with these words:

“Ye’re done with that business in Cobleskill, an’ I’m glad. Ye didn’t know ye were bein’ tried there–did ye? Ye’ve stood it like a man. What will ye be doin’ now?”

“I’d like to go to Washington with the Senator.”

He laughed heartily.

“I was hopin’ ye’d say that,” he went on. “Well, boy, I think it can be arranged. I’ll see the Senator as soon as ever he comes an’ I believe he’ll be glad to know o’ yer wishes. I think he’s been hopin’, like, that ye would propose it. Go up to the farm and spend a happy month or two with yer aunt an’ uncle. It’ll do ye good. Ye’ve been growin’ plump down there. Go an’ melt it off in the fields.”

“How is Deacon Binks?” I asked presently.

“Soul buried in fat! The sparkler on his bosom suggests a tombstone stickin’ out of a soiled snowbank.”

A little more talk and we were off to bed with our candles.

Next morning I went down into the main street of the village before leaving for home. I wanted to see how it looked and, to be quite frank, I wanted some of the people of Canton to see how I looked, for my clothes were of the best cloth and cut in the latest fashion. Many stopped me and shook my hand–men and women who had never noticed me before, but there was a quality in their smiles that I didn’t quite enjoy. I know now that they thought me a little too grand on the outside. What a stern-souled lot those Yankees were! “All ain’t gold that glitters.” How often I had heard that version of the old motto!

“Why, you look like the Senator when he is just gittin’ home from the capital,” said Mr. Jenison.

They were not yet willing to take me at the par of my appearance.

I met Betsy Price–one of my schoolmates–on the street. She was very cordial and told me that the Dunkelbergs had gone to Saratoga.

“I got a letter from Sally this morning,” Betsy went on. “She said that young Mr. Latour was at the same hotel and that he and her father were good friends.”

I wonder if she really enjoyed sticking this thorn into my flesh–a thorn which made it difficult for me to follow the advice of the schoolmaster and robbed me of the little peace I might have enjoyed. My faith in Sally wavered up and down until it settled at its wonted level and reassured me.

It was a perfect summer morning and I enjoyed my walk over the familiar road and up into the hill country. The birds seemed to sing a welcome to me. Men and boys I had known waved their hats in the hay-fields and looked at me. There are few pleasures in this world like that of a boy getting home after a long absence. My heart beat fast when I saw the house and my uncle and Purvis coming in from the twenty-acre lot with a load of hay. Aunt Deel stood on the front steps looking down the road. Now and then her waving handkerchief went to her eyes. Uncle Peabody came down the standard off his load and walked toward me.

“Say, stranger, have you seen anything of a feller by the name o’ Bart Baynes?” he demanded.

“Have you?” I asked.

“No, sir, I ain’t. Gosh a’mighty! Say! what have ye done with that boy of our’n?”

“What have you done to our house?” I asked again.

“Built on an addition.”

“That’s what I’ve done to your boy,” I answered.

“Thunder an’ lightnin’! How you’ve raised the roof!” he exclaimed as he grabbed my satchel. “Dressed like a statesman an’ bigger’n a bullmoose. I can’t ’rastle with you no more. But, say, I’ll run ye a race. I can beat ye an’ carry the satchel, too.”

We ran pell-mell up the lane to the steps like a pair of children.

Aunt Deel did not speak. She just put her arms around me and laid her dear old head upon my breast. Uncle Peabody turned away. Then what a silence! Off in the edge of the woodland I heard the fairy flute of a wood-thrush.

“Purvis, you drive that load on the floor an’ put up the hosses,” Uncle Peabody shouted in a moment. “If you don’t like it you can hire ’nother man. I won’t do no more till after dinner. This slave business is played out.”

“All right,” Purvis answered.

“You bet it’s all right. I’m fer abolition an’ I’ve stood your domineerin’, nigger-driver ways long enough fer one mornin’. If you don’t like it you can look for another man.”

Aunt Deel and I began to laugh at this good-natured, make-believe scolding of Uncle Peabody and the emotional strain was over. They led me into the house where a delightful surprise awaited me, for the rooms had been decorated with balsam boughs and sweet ferns. A glowing mass of violets, framed in moss, occupied the center of the table. The house was filled with the odors of the forest, which, as they knew, were dear to me. I had written that they might expect me some time before noon, but I had begged them not to meet me in Canton, as I wished to walk home after my long ride. So they were ready for me.

I remember how they felt the cloth on my back and how proudly they surveyed it.

“Couldn’t buy them goods ’round these parts,” said Uncle Peabody. “Nor nothin’ like ’em–no, sir.”

“Feels a leetle bit like the butternut trousers,” said Aunt Deel as she felt my coat.

“Ayes, but them butternut trousers ain’t what they used to be when they was young an’ limber,” Uncle Peabody remarked. “Seems so they was gettin’ kind o’ wrinkled an’ baldheaded-like, ’specially where I set down.”

“Ayes! Wal I guess a man can’t grow old without his pants growin’ old, too–ayes!” said Aunt Deel.

“If yer legs are in ’em ev’ry Sunday they ketch it of ye,” my uncle answered. “Long sermons are hard on pants, seems to me.”

“An’ the longer the legs the harder the sermons–in them little seats over ’t the schoolhouse–ayes!” Aunt Deel added by way of justifying his complaint. “There wouldn’t be so much wear in a ten-mile walk–no!”

The chicken pie was baking and the strawberries were ready for the shortcake.

“I’ve been wallerin’ since the dew was off gittin’ them berries an’ vi’lets–ayes!” said Aunt Deel, now busy with her work at the stove.

“Aunt, you look as young as ever,” I remarked.

She slapped my arm and said with mock severity:

“Stop that! W’y! You know better–ayes!”

How vigorously she stirred the fire then.

“I can’t return the compliment–my soul! how you’ve changed!–ayes!" she remarked. “I hope you ain’t fit no more, Bart. I can’t bear to think o’ you flyin’ at folks an’ poundin’ of ’em. Don’t seem right–no, it don’t!”

“Why, Aunt Deel, what in the world do you mean?” I asked.

“It’s Purvis’s brain that does the poundin’, I guess,” said my uncle. “It’s kind o’ got the habit. It’s a reg’lar beetle brain. To hear him talk, ye’d think he an’ you could clean out the hull Mexican nation–barrin’ accidents. Why, anybody would suppose that yer enemies go to climbin’ trees as soon as they see ye comin’ an’ that you pull the trees up by the roots to git at ’em.”

“A certain amount of such deviltry is necessary to the comfort of Mr. Purvis,” I remarked. “If there is nobody else to take the responsibility for it he assumes it himself. His imagination has an intense craving for blood and violence. It’s that type of American who, egged on by the slave power, is hurrying us into trouble with Mexico.”

Purvis came in presently with a look in his face which betrayed his knowledge of the fact that all the cobwebs spun by his fancy were now to be brushed away. Still he enjoyed them while they lasted and there was a kind of tacit claim in his manner that there were subjects regarding which no honest man could be expected to tell the truth.

As we ate our dinner they told me that an escaped slave had come into a neighboring county and excited the people with stories of the auction block and of negroes driven like yoked oxen on plantations in South Carolina, whence he had escaped on a steamboat.

“I b’lieve I’m goin’ to vote for abolition,” said Uncle Peabody. “I wonder what Sile Wright will say to that.”

“He’ll probably advise against it, the time isn’t ripe for so great a change,” was my answer. “He thinks that the whole matter should be left to the glacial action of time’s forces.”

Indeed I had spoken the view of the sounder men of the North. The subject filled them with dread alarm. But the attitude of Uncle Peabody was significant. The sentiment in favor of a change was growing. It was now to be reckoned with, for the abolition party was said to hold the balance of power in New York and New England and was behaving itself like a bull in a china shop.

After dinner I tried to put on some of my old clothes, but found that my nakedness had so expanded that they would not cover it, so I hitched my white mare on the spring wagon and drove to the village for my trunk.

Every week day after that I worked in the fields until the Senator arrived in Canton about the middle of August. On one of those happy days I received a letter from old Kate, dated, to my surprise, in Saratoga. It said:

     “DEAR BARTON BAYNES–I thought I would let you know that my father
     is dead. I have come here to rest and have found some work to do. I
     am better now. Have seen Sally. She is very beautiful and kind. She
     does not know that I am the old witch, I have changed so. The
     others do not know–it is better that way. I think it was the Lord
     that brought me here. He has a way of taking care of some people,
     my boy. Do you remember when I began to call you my boy–you were
     very little. It is long, long ago since I first saw you in your
     father’s dooryard–you said you were going to mill on a butterfly’s
     back. You looked just as I thought my boy would look. You gave me a
     kiss. What a wonderful gift it was to me then! I began to love you.
     I have no one else to think of now. I hope you won’t mind my
     thinking so much of you.

     “God bless you,
            KATE FULLERTON.”

I understood now why the strong will and singular insight of this woman had so often exercised themselves in my behalf. I could not remember the far day and the happy circumstance of which she spoke, but I wrote her a letter which must have warmed her heart I am sure.

Silas Wright arrived in Canton and drove up to our home. He reached our door at eight in the morning with his hound and rifle. He had aged rapidly since I had seen him last. His hair was almost white. There were many new lines in his face. He seemed more grave and dignified. He did not lapse into the dialect of his fathers when he spoke of the ancient pastimes of hunting and fishing as he had been wont to do.

“Bart,” he said when the greetings were over, “let’s you and me go and spend a day in the woods. I’ll leave my man here to help your uncle while you’re gone.”

We went by driving south a few miles and tramping in to the foot of the stillwater on our river–a trail long familiar to me. The dog left us soon after we took it and began to range over thick wooded hills. We sat down among small, spire-like spruces at the river’s edge with a long stretch of water in sight while the music of the hound’s voice came faintly to our ears from the distant forest.

“Oh, I’ve been dreaming of this for a long time,” said the Senator as he leaned back against a tree and filled his lungs and looked out upon the water, green with lily-pads along the edge and flecked with the last of the white blossoms. “I believe you want to leave this lovely country.”

“I am waiting for the call to go,” I said.

“Well, I’m inclined to think you are the kind of man who ought to go," he answered almost sadly. “You are needed. I have been waiting until we should meet to congratulate you on your behavior at Cobleskill. I think you have the right spirit–that is the all-important matter. You will encounter strange company in the game of politics. Let me tell you a story.”

He told me many stories of his life in Washington, interrupted by a sound like that of approaching footsteps. We ceased talking and presently a flock of partridges came near us, pacing along over the mat of leaves in a leisurely fashion. We sat perfectly still. A young cock bird with his beautiful ruff standing out, like the hair on the back of a frightened dog, strode toward us with a comic threat in his manner. It seemed as if he were of half a mind to knock us into the river. But we sat as still as stumps and he spared us and went on with the others.

The baying of the hound was nearer now. Suddenly we saw a big buck come down to the shore of the cove near us and on our side of the stream. He looked to right and left. Then he made a long leap into the water and waded slowly until it covered him. He raised his nose and laid his antlers back over his shoulders and swam quietly down-stream, his nose just showing above the water. His antlers were like a bit of driftwood. If we had not seen him take the water his antlers might easily have passed for a bunch of dead sticks. Soon the buck slowly lifted his head and turned his neck and looked at both shores. Then very deliberately he resumed his place under water and went on. We watched him as he took the farther shore below us and made off in the woods again.

“I couldn’t shoot at him, it was such a beautiful bit of politics,” said the Senator.

Soon the hound reached the cove’s edge and swam the river and ranged up and down the bank for half an hour before he found the buck’s trail again.

“I’ve seen many a rascal, driven to water by the hounds, go swimming away as slyly as that buck, with their horns in the air, looking as innocent as a bit of driftwood. They come in from both shores–the Whig and the Democratic–and they are always shot at from one bank or the other.”

I remember it surprised me a little to hear him say that they came in from both shores.

“Just what do you want to do?” he asked presently.

“I should like to go down to Washington with you and help you in any way that I can.”

“All right, partner–we’ll try it,” he answered gravely. “I hope that I don’t forget and work you as hard as I work myself. It wouldn’t be decent. I have a great many letters to write. I’ll try thinking out loud while you take them down in sound-hand. Then you can draft them neatly and I’ll sign them. You have tact and good manners and can do many of my errands for me and save me from those who have no good reason for taking up my time. You will meet the best people and the worst. There’s just a chance that it may come to something worth while–who knows? You are young yet. It will be good training and you will witness the making of some history now and then.”

What elation I felt!

Again the voice of the hound which had been ringing in the distant hills was coming nearer.

“We must keep watch–another deer is coming,” said the Senator.

We had only a moment’s watch before a fine yearling buck came down to the opposite shore and stood looking across the river. The Senator raised his rifle and fired. The buck fell in the edge of the water.

“How shall we get him?” my friend asked.

“It will not be difficult,” I answered as I began to undress. Nothing was difficult those days. I swam the river and towed the buck across with a beech withe in his gambrel joints. The hound joined me before I was half across with my burden and nosed the carcass and swam on ahead yelping with delight.

We dressed the deer and then I had the great joy of carrying him on my back two miles across the country to the wagon. The Senator wished to send a guide for the deer, but I insisted that the carrying was my privilege.

“Well, I guess your big thighs and broad shoulders can stand it,” said he.

“My uncle has always said that no man could be called a hunter until he can go into the woods without a guide and kill a deer and bring it out on his back. I want to be able to testify that I am at least partly qualified.”

“Your uncle didn’t say anything about fetching the deer across a deep river without a boat, did he?” Mr. Wright asked me with a smile.

Leaves of the beeches, maples and basswoods–yellowed by frost–hung like tiny lanterns, glowing with noonday light, above the dim forest-aisle which we traveled.

The sun was down when we got to the clearing.

“What a day it has been!” said Mr. Wright when we were seated in the wagon at last with the hound and the deer’s head between his feet and mine.

“One of the best in my life,” I answered with a joy in my heart the like of which I have rarely known in these many years that have come to me.

We rode on in silence with the calls of the swamp robin and the hermit thrush ringing in our ears as the night fell.

“It’s a good time to think, and there we take different roads,” said my friend. “You will turn into the future and I into the past.”

“I’ve been thinking about your uncle,” he said by and by. “He is one of the greatest men I have ever known. You knew of that foolish gossip about him–didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Well, now, he’s gone about his business the same as ever and showed by his life that it couldn’t be true. Not a word out of him! But Dave Ramsey fell sick–down on the flat last winter. By and by his children were crying for bread and the poor-master was going to take charge of them. Well, who should turn up there, just in the nick of time, but Delia and Peabody Baynes. They fed those children all winter and kept them in clothes so that they could go to school. The strange thing about it is this: it was Dave Ramsey who really started that story. He got up in church the other night and confessed his crime. His conscience wouldn’t let him keep it. He said that he had not seen Peabody Baynes on that road the day the money was lost but had only heard that he was there. He knew now that he couldn’t have been there. Gosh t’almighty! as your uncle used to say when there was nothing else to be said.”

It touched me to the soul–this long-delayed vindication of my beloved Uncle Peabody.

The Senator ate supper with us and sent his hired man out for his horse and buggy. When he had put on his overcoat and was about to go he turned to my uncle and said:

“Peabody Baynes, if I have had any success in the world it is because I have had the exalted honor and consciousness that I represented men like you.”

He left us and we sat down by the glowing candles. Soon I told them what Ramsey had done. There was a moment of silence. Uncle Peabody rose and went to the water-pail for a drink.

“Bart, I believe I’ll plant corn on that ten-acre lot next spring–darned if I don’t,” he said as he returned to his chair.

None of us ever spoke of the matter again to my knowledge.

Continue...

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.
Authorama - Classic Literature, free of copyright. About...