Eben Holden: A Tale of the North Country

  Chapter 12

  It was a time of new things--that winter when I saw the end of myfifteenth year. Then I began to enjoy the finer humours of life inFaraway--to see with understanding; and by God's grace--to feel.

  The land of play and fear and fable was now far behind me and I hadbegun to feel the infinite in the ancient forest' in the everlastinghills, in the deep of heaven, in all the ways of men. Hope Brower wasnow near woman grown. She had a beauty of face and form that was thetalk of the countryside. I have travelled far and seen many a fair facehut never one more to my eye. I have heard men say she was like a girlout of a story-book those days.

  Late years something had come between us. Long ago we had fallen out ofeach other's confidence, and ever since she had seemed to shun me. Itwas the trip in the sledgehouse that' years after, came up between usand broke our childish intimacy. Uncle Be had told, before company, howshe had kissed me that day and bespoke me for a husband, and while theothers laughed loudly she had gone out of the room crying. She wouldhave little to say to me then. I began to play with boys and she withgirls. And it made me miserable to hear the boys a bit older than Igossip of her beauty and accuse each other of the sweet disgrace oflove.

  But I must hasten to those events in Faraway that shaped our destinies.And first comes that memorable night when I had the privilegeof escorting Hope to the school lyceum where the argument of JedFeary--poet of the hills--fired my soul with an ambition that hasremained with me always.

  Uncle Be suggested that I ask Hope to go with me.

  'Prance right up to her,' he said, 'an' say you'd be glad of thepleasure of her company.

  It seemed to me a very dubious thing to do. I looked thoughtful andturned red in the face.

  'Young man,' he continued, 'the boy thet's 'fraid o' women'll never hevwhiskers.'

  'How's that?' I enquired.

  'Be scairt t' death,' he answered,' 'fore they've hed time t' startYe want t' step right up t' the rack jes' if ye'd bought an' paid feryerself an' was proud o' yer bargain.'

  I took his advice and when I found Hope alone in the parlour I came andasked her, very awkwardly as I now remember, to go with me.

  She looked at me, blushing, and said she would ask her mother.

  And she did, and we walked to the schoolhouse together that evening, herhand holding my arm, timidly, the most serious pair that ever struggledwith the problem of deportment on such an occasion. I was oppressed witha heavy sense of responsibility in every word I uttered.

  Ann Jane Foster, known as 'Scooter Jane', for her rapid walk and stiffcarriage, met us at the corners on her way to the schoolhouse.

  'Big turn out I guess,' said she. 'Jed Feary 'n' Squire Town is comin'over from Jingleville an' all the big guns'll be there. I love t' hearJed Feary speak, he's so techin'.'

  Ann Jane was always looking around for some event likely to touch herfeelings. She went to every funeral in Faraway and, when sorrow wasscarce in her own vicinity, journeyed far in quest of it.

  'Wouldn't wonder 'f the fur flew when they git t' going',' she remarked,and then hurried on, her head erect, her body motionless, her legsflying. Such energy as she gave to the pursuit of mourning I have neverseen equalled in any other form of dissipation.

  The schoolhouse was nearly full of people when we came in. The big boyswere wrestling in the yard; men were lounging on the rude seats, inside,idly discussing crops and cattle and lapsing into silence, frequently,that bore the signs both of expectancy and reflection. Young menand young women sat together on one side of the house whispering andgiggling. Alone among them was the big and eccentric granddaughter ofMrs Bisnette, who was always slapping some youngster for impertinence.Jed Feary and Squire Town sat together behind a pile of books, bothlooking very serious. The long hair and beard of the old poet were nowwhite and his form bent with age. He came over and spoke to us andtook a curl of Hope's hair in his stiffened fingers and held it to thelamplight.

  'What silky gold!' he whispered.' 'S a skein o' fate, my dear girl!'

  Suddenly the schoolteacher rapped on the desk and bade us come to orderand Ransom Walker was called to the chair.

  'Thet there is talent in Faraway township,' he said, having reluctantlycome to the platform, 'and talent of the very highest order, no one candeny who has ever attended a lyceum at the Howard schoolhouse. I seeevidences of talent in every face before me. And I wish to ask what arethe two great talents of the Yankee--talents that made our forefathersfamous the world over? I pause for an answer.'

  He had once been a schoolmaster and that accounted for his didacticstyle.

  'What are the two great talents of the Yankee?' he repeated, his handsclasped before him.

  'Doughnuts an' pie,' said Uncle Be who sat in a far corner.

  'No sir,' Mr Walker answered, 'there's some hev a talent fer sawin'wood, but we don't count that. It's war an' speakin', they are the twogreat talents of the Yankee. But his greatest talent is the gift o'gab. Give him a chance t' talk it over with his enemy an' he'll lick 'imwithout a fight. An' when his enemy is another Yankee--why, they bothgit licked, jest as it was in the case of the man thet sold me lightnin'rods. He was sorry he done it before I got through with him. If we didnot encourage this talent in our sons they would be talked to death byour daughters. Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me pleasure t' say thatthe best speakers in Faraway township have come here t' discuss theimportant question:

  'Resolved, that intemperance has caused more misery than war?

  'I call upon Moses Tupper to open for the affirmative.'

  Moses, as I have remarked, had a most unlovely face with a thin andbristling growth of whiskers. In giving him features Nature had beengenerous to a fault. He had a large red nose, and a mouth vastly toobig for any proper use. It was a mouth fashioned for odd sayings. He waswell to do and boasted often that he was a self-made man. Uncle Be usedto say that if Mose Tupper had had the 'makin' uv himself he'd oughterdone it more careful.'

  I remember not much of the speech he made, but the picture of him, ashe rose on tiptoe and swung his arms like a man fighting bees, and hisdrawling tones are as familiar as the things of yesterday.

  'Gentlemen an' ladies,' said he presently, 'let me show you a pictur'.It is the drunkard's child. It is hungry an' there ain't no food in itshome. The child is poorer'n a straw-fed hoss. 'Tain't hed a thing t' eatsince day before yistiddy. Pictur' it to yourselves as it comes cryin'to its mother an' says:

  '"Ma! Gi' me a piece o' bread an' butter."

  'She covers her face with her apron an' says she, "There am none left,my child."

  'An' bime bye the child comes agin' an' holds up its poor little han'san' says: "Ma! please gi' me a piece O' cake."

  'An' she goes an' looks out O' the winder, er mebbe pokes the fire, an'says: "There am' none left, my child."

  'An' bime bye it comes agin' an' it says: "Please gi' me a little pieceO' pie."

  'An' she mebbe flops into a chair an' says, sobbin', "There ain' noneleft, my child."

  'No pie! Now, Mr Chairman!' exclaimed the orator, as he lifted bothhands high above his head, 'If this ain't misery, in God's name, what isit?

  'Years ago, when I was a young man, Mr President, I went to a dance onenight at the village of Migleyville. I got a toothache, an' the Deviltempted me with whiskey, an' I tuk one glass an' then another an' purtysoon I began t' thank I was a mighty hefty sort of a character, I did,an' I stud on a corner an' stumped everybody t' fight with me, an'bime bye an accomanodatin' kind of a chap come along, an' that's all Iremember O' what happened. When I come to, my coat tails had been toreoff, I'd lost one leg O' my trousers, a bran new silver watch, tewdollars in money, an a pair O' spectacles. When I stud up an' tried t'realise what hed happened I felt jes' like a blind rooster with only oneleg an' no tail feathers.'

  A roar of laughter followed these frank remarks of Mr Tupper and brokeinto a storm of merriment when Uncle Eb rose and said:

  'Mr President, I hope you see that the misfortunes of our frie
nd was duet' war, an' not to intemperance.'

  Mr Tupper was unhorsed. For some minutes he stood helpless or shakingwith the emotion that possessed all. Then he finished lamely and satdown.

  The narrowness of the man that saw so much where there was so littlein his own experience and in the trivial events of his own township waswhat I now recognise as most valuable to the purpose of this history.It was a narrowness that covered a multitude of people in St Lawrencecounty in those days.

  Jed Feary was greeted with applause and then by respectful silence whenhe rose to speak. The fame of his verse and his learning had gone farbeyond the narrow boundaries of the township in which he lived. It wasthe biggest thing in the county. Many a poor sinner who had gone out ofFaraway to his long home got his first praise in the obituary poem byJed Feary. These tributes were generally published in the county paperand paid for by the relatives of the deceased at the rate of a dollara day for the time spent on them, or by a few days of board and lodgingglory and consolation that was, alas! too cheap, as one might see by aglance at his forlorn figure. I shall never forget the courtly manner,so strangely in contrast with the rude deportment of other men in thatplace, with which he addressed the chairman and the people. The drawlingdialect of the vicinity that flavoured his conversation fell from himlike a mantle as he spoke and the light in his soul shone upon thatlittle company a great light, as I now remember, that filled me withburning thoughts of the world and its mighty theatre of action. The wayof my life lay clear before me, as I listened, and its days of toil andthe sweet success my God has given me, although I take it humbly andhold it infinitely above my merit. I was to get learning and seek someway of expressing what was in me.

  It would ill become me to try to repeat the words of this venerableseer, but he showed that intemperance was an individual sin, while warwas a national evil. That one meant often the ruin of a race; the otherthe ruin of a family; that one was as the ocean, the other as a singledrop in its waters. And he told us of the fall of empires and themillions that had suffered the oppression of the conqueror and perishedby the sword since Agamemnon.

  After the debate a young lady read a literary paper full of clumsywit, rude chronicles of the countryside, essays on 'Spring', and liketopics--the work of the best talent of Faraway. Then came the decision,after which the meeting adjourned.

  At the door some other boys tried 'to cut me out'. I came through thenoisy crowd, however, with Hope on my arm and my heart full of a greathappiness.

  'Did you like it?' she asked.

  'Very much,' I answered.

  'What did you enjoy most?'

  'Your company,' I said, with a fine air of gallantry.

  'Honestly?'

  'Honestly. I want to take you to Rickard's sometime?'

  That was indeed a long cherished hope.

  'Maybe I won't let you,' she said.

  'Wouldn't you?'

  'You'd better ask me sometime and see.'

  'I shall. I wouldn't ask any other girl.'

  'Well,' she added, with a sigh, 'if a boy likes one girl I don't thinkhe ought to have anything to do with other girls. I hate a flirt.'

  I happened to hear a footfall in the snow behind us, and looking backsaw Ann Jane Foster going slow in easy hearing. She knew all, as we soonfound out.

  'I dew jes love t' see young folks enjoy themselves,' said she, 'it'sentrancin'.'

  Coming in at our gate I saw a man going over the wall back of the bigstables. The house was dark.

  'Did you see the night man?' Elizabeth Brower whispered as I lit thelamp. 'Went through the garden just now. I've been watching him here atthe window.'