THE TRAGEDY
"Now, for the first time, he was face to face with existing conditions.
Not the theory but the practice confronted him now. Not the traditional,
but the actual. It was, indeed, a tragedy."
Dan went heavily up the path between the roses, while the Doctor observed
him closely. The young minister did not sit down.
"Well?" said the Doctor.
Dan's voice was strained and unnatural. "Will you come over to my room?"
Without a word the old man followed him.
In the privacy of his little study the boy said, "Doctor, you had a
reason for telling me to ask Miss Farwell if the church could do anything
for--for that poor girl. And the nurse told me to ask you about the case.
I want you to tell me about her--_all_ about her. Why is she living in
that wretched place with those negroes? Why did she attempt to kill
herself? I want to know about this girl as you know her--as Miss Farwell
knows."
The old physician made no reply but sat silent--studying the young man
who paced up and down the room. When his friend did not speak Dan said
again, "Doctor you must tell me! I'm not a child. What is this thing
that you should so hesitate to talk to me freely? I must know and you
must tell me now."
"I guess you are right, boy," returned the other slowly.
To Big Dan, born with the passion for service in his very blood and
reared amid the simple surroundings of his mountain home, where the
religion and teaching of the old Shepherd had been felt for a generation,
where every soul was held a neighbor--with a neighbor's right to the
assistance of the community, and where no one--not even the nameless
"wood's colt"--was made to suffer for the accident of birth or family,
but stood and was judged upon his own life and living, the story of Grace
Conner was a revelation almost too hideous in its injustice to be
believed.
When the Doctor finished there was a tense silence in the minister's
little study. It was as though the two men were witnessing a grim
tragedy.
Trained under the influence of his parents and from them receiving the
highest ideals of life and his duty to the race, Dan had been drawn
irresistibly by the theoretical self-sacrificing heroism and
traditionally glorious ministry of the church. Now, for the first time,
he was face to face with existing conditions. Not the theory but the
practice confronted him now. Not the traditional, but the actual.
It was, indeed, a tragedy.
The boy's face was drawn and white. His eyes--wide with that questioning
look--burned with a light that his old friend had not seen in them
before--the light of suffering--of agonizing doubt.
In his professional duties the Doctor had been forced to school himself
to watch the keenest suffering unmoved, lest his emotions bias his
judgment--upon the accuracy of which depended the life of his patient.
He had been taught to cause the cruelest pain with unshaken nerve by the
fact that a human life under his knife depended upon the steadiness of
his hand. But his sympathy had never been dulled--only controlled and
hidden. So, long years of contact with what might be called a disease of
society, had accustomed him to the sight of conditions--the revelation
of which came with such a shock to the younger man. But the Doctor could
still appreciate what the revelation meant to the boy. Knowing Dan from
his childhood, familiar with his home-training, and watching his growth
and development with personal, loving interest, the old physician had
realized how singularly susceptible his character was to the beautiful
beliefs of the church. He had foreseen, too, something of the boy's
suffering when he should be brought face to face with the raw, naked
truths of life. And Dan, as he sat now searching the rugged, but kindly
face of his friend, realized faintly why the Doctor had shrunk from
talking to him of the sick girl.
Slowly the minister rose from his chair. Aimlessly--as one in perplexing,
troubled thought--he went to the window and, standing there, looked out
with unseeing eyes upon the cast-iron monument on the opposite corner of
the street. Then he moved restlessly to the other window, and, with eyes
still unseeing, looked down into the little garden of the crippled
boy--the garden with the big moss and vine-grown rock in its center. Then
he went to his study table and stood idly moving the books and papers
about. His eye mechanically followed the closely written lines on the
sheets of paper that were lying as he had left them that morning. He
started. The next moment, with quick impatient movement, he crushed the
pages of the manuscript in his powerful hands and threw them into the
waste basket. He faced the Doctor with a grim smile.
"My sermon on 'The Christian Ministry.'"