HARBOR JIM
[Illustration: SIGNAL HILL, HARBOUR OF ST. JOHNS.]
HARBOR JIM
OF NEWFOUNDLAND
By
A. EUGENE BARTLETT, D.D.
_Author of "The Joy Maker," etc._
[Illustration]
NEW YORK CHICAGO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
Copyright, 1922, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street
_To those Newfoundlanders who, in gathering
harvests from the sea for the world's hungry,
have garnered for themselves both faith and
courage, I dedicate this book._
Contents
I. JIM AND BOB 9
II. THE CONVERSION OF JIM 20
III. AN ENGAGEMENT AS PLANNED 30
IV. SOME MIRACLES 40
V. "I ASKED FOR FISH" 49
VI. LIVIN' ALONG 56
VII. THE HEAVEN HOME 61
VIII. CHRISTMAS WITH JIM'S FRIENDS 68
IX. HONEY-MOONING ON THE FLAKES 80
X. JIM AND HIS BOOK 86
XI. RAILROADING WITH THE KID 93
XII. THROUGH THE VALLEY WITH THE LITTLE
FELLOW 100
XIII. THE QUEER ONE 107
I
JIM AND BOB
Bob McCartney was spreading cod on the flakes and I was watching
him and estimating the chances of better weather. The sun had not
succeeded in rolling back the fog and St. John's was still half asleep
in blankets of mist. Signal Hill was altogether hidden and the harbor
entrance could not be seen. In the water-soaked atmosphere the flakes
were merged together and the tiny houses of the fishers were almost
joined into one long rambling house. The air was heavy with the smell
of fish and the morning was not conducive to enthusiastic conversation.
Bob McCartney was a Newfoundlander born and bred and had left with his
ancestors in Ireland the gift of blarney. This morning in particular he
contented himself with monosyllabic answers, that occasionally did not
come even to the estate words, but ended only in an effective grunt.
Finally he condescended to speak a whole sentence with some little life
in his voice.
"Yes, I guess she's agoin' to lift, fer there goes Harbor Jim."
I strained my eyes to see thru the fog and could just discern a sail
boat headed toward what I supposed was the harbor entrance.
"And who is Harbor Jim?" I asked.
"Why, he's my friend and he can knock spalls off'n any Lander in the
Dominion," replied Bob and then lapsed into silence as he went on
slowly laying out his cod on the flakes.
Just then the sun made a gain and succeeded in piercing thru the fog
and I saw, suddenly, a little boat some seventy-five yards out from the
shore, and standing out near the bow stood a man as erect as the mast
behind him, and looking straight out to sea.
"There's Harbor Jim!" and Bob pointed over his shoulder in the
direction of the boat as he spoke the words.
It gave me a thrill, as the light brought him sharply to my attention,
to see him standing there, intently looking toward the harbor entrance.
I looked from the shore even as he looked from his boat and the sun at
that moment uncovered the rocks on both sides. He lifted his hand and
the helper behind him brought the sail to the faint breeze that was
springing up, and the boat headed for the harbor entrance and the open
sea.
The sun seemed to lift Bob's spirit and the sight of Harbor Jim to warm
the cockles of his heart, for he began in a good-natured drawl to tell
me of the finding of his friend.
"It was the third week in March, eleven years ago, come next spring,
that we were sealing down North. Harbor Jim and I were then on Cap'en
Boynton's ship. I didn't know Jim then more'n any other fellow. It was
an odd kind of a trip. For days it hung nasty and we couldn't have seen
a seal if he had been within shot of us.
"Then, one day, I think it was a Friday, but that doesn't matter, it
come bright and sparkling and grew cold. By noon our ship was frozen in
the ice, and we were waiting and hoping the look-out would see seals.
The ice had been piled up in some places and just south it looked like
a town, a little village with houses and meeting house and school, all
a sparklin' pretty. I never seed bluer sky, deep as chicory flowers and
you could see fer miles, seems though you was a-goin' to see thru it
almost to 'tother side o' the world.
"Long about two o'clock the look-out yelled: 'Seals to the nor-east!'
"No sooner did he yell than the Cap'en shouted: 'Look alive men! Over
and after!'
"Then with gaffs and guns and ropes we went over the ship's side and
after the seals. The ice was uncertain and some of the men went thru
the crust into the sea, but we quickly pulled them out and were off
agin.
"Now in the days before we had decided to make a contest of it, as we
often did. It made good sport and we would get more seals. Harbor Jim
and I had chosen up, like they do in a spellin' bee, and all the men
had been divided into two sides to see which one on'em would bring the
biggest load o' seals back to the ship.
"Unfortunately the seals were some distance from the ship and it was
after two when we started. We were so intent on getting the catch that
we failed to note it was not only beginning to snow, but also getting
on toward the end o' the day.
"At the moment when we should have turned back, I saw an old hood,
that's an old seal that pulls a visor over his eyes and fights to a
finish. I'd been tender-hearted and passed by just then a young seal
that looked kinder pitiful at me and begged for life and I resolved
that I'd get the old hood, come what would. He lured me away from the
crowd, and when I finally succeeded in silencing him, the men were
gone, and thru the snow I could not see the ship.
"Worse luck still the ice-pan on which I stood was beginning to shake
and break up. I thought of the woman at home and the boy, and I thought
of freezing to death out to sea and I guess, too, I thought o' my sins.
The other fellows had gone back to the ship and I was alone, facing
the cold, the storm and the night. Then I began to shout in the hope
that they were not too far away to hear me. After some waiting, that
seemed longer than probably 'twas, I heared two words and I don't
honest think, if I gets to Paradise and the good Lord says, 'Come, Bob,
there's room,' it'll sound half so good as it did to me then when I
heared ringing out:
"'Comin', Bob!' It was the shout of Harbor Jim. I kept hollering and he
found me and together we made our way back. I don't know jes' how and
I don't believe he does, but when we reached the rest, we joined hands
and felt our way back to the ship.
"I have asked him about it, many a time, but he always says, '_He_
showed me the way, Bob, and He'll show you the way. Ask Him, Bob.'
"He went after me when all the rest said he was a fool and a riskin'
of his life. That's how I found my friend and I don't believe Jonathan
ever loved David more'n I love Jim. He never goes scow-ways; he always
sails straight. But you mustn't think I am the only one that loves him.
Jerusalem spriggins, I do believe the whole world would love Jim, if
they only could know him."
The lethargy that had been born out of the morning had completely
disappeared. Bob had become all animation as he told of the finding of
his friend. If I had not known that Bob was a man who never showed his
feelings, except in most orderly and measured fashion, I should have
thought, once or twice, that the tears were starting, but it must have
been the dampness of the morning, that the sun was now fast drying up.
The city of St. John's now stood out clear in the sunshine. Harbor
Jim's boat had gone thru the narrow entrance and disappeared out to
sea. Both sides of the bay stood out sharp, revealing a harbor that
from many viewpoints is as beautiful as that of Naples.
Bob carefully laid out his last fish and left it to dry on the flakes.
Rubbing his sleeve across his face, he abruptly turned and said:
"I needs a plug of terbaccy. Walk down town and I'll tell you how Jim
got his name."
I did not need a second invitation and we started toward town.
"You see it was this-away. His mother gave him the Jim, but his friends
and neighbors give him the Harbor.
"Jim was always one to take chances, 'specially if some one needed him.
Didn't he take a chance--a big one--when he saved me on the ice-pan?
But somehow he always pulled thru. Other boats would lie outside and
wait but Jim would pull thru the Narrows and tie up and be home afore
the others. The others dasn't come into the Harbor, a fear o' the rocks.
"Folks come to say, 'Jim always makes the Harbor.' Then jes' naturally
they come to call him Harbor Jim. It's so now that the women folks
are always glad if their men can go with Jim, for they feel that then
they'll sure come back. Everybody who lives yere loves Harbor Jim."
"I would like to meet Harbor Jim and have a talk with him," I said,
when Bob ceased talking and trudged on in silence. "I am sure he has a
philosophy worth hearing about and adopting."
"You can meet him all right," replied Bob, "but as for talkin' much
with him, I don't know. He isn't very strong on talkin'. He says some
folks talk so much, they set their tongue to goin' and go off and leave
it runnin' and it does a heap a mischief. Another time he sed to me
that he thought most folks would _do_ more if they talked less.
"I remember a year ago a white-washed Yankee was here travelling for
some soap concern. He heared about Harbor Jim and wanted me to take
him over to his house and introduce him and I did. That Yankee started
right in doing all the talkin'. He had a tongue that was balanced and
would wag easy. He told Jim he was making a mistake in not having a
bigger garden, that he ought to farm more and fish less. He told him
what the Dominion needed and when at last he began to get out of breath
he turned to Jim and said:
"'What do you think?'
"And Harbor Jim just said kind of slow like and deliberate:
"'Guess you have said it all, sir, but mebbe when everybody goes to
farming they will need a little fish to change off from potatoes and
cabbage, and I guess I better bid you good day and go fishing.' That
was every word Jim said and that Yankee watched him go out of sight and
what that Yankee said then want a credit to him nor favorable to the
Dominion."
I smiled at the thought of the discomforted travelling man and wondered
if my own luck or my own tact would succeed any better, for I was
already convinced that Harbor Jim was a man worth knowing.
"Suppose we go and meet Mrs. Harbor Jim," I said to Bob when the
tobacco had been purchased and his pipe was doing right.
"If you say so, but meetin' her ain't the same as meetin' him. She's
all right, but she's jes' learning from Jim, she says so herself,"
answered Bob.
Their home was in a little town a few miles out from St. John's and
it was kind of Bob to go out with me. After a walk of about an hour
we stood looking down upon a little fishing village with great,
brown-stained rocks protecting it a little from the sea.
"This is his town," said Bob, "can you find his house?"
But they looked alike to me; for all were small rectangular affairs,
flat-roofed, shingled and painted white. Jim's house was evidently no
different from his neighbor's.
"I guess I'll have to tell you," Bob chuckled, as we went down a lane
and saw two rather dirty children at play in front of a house where a
woman was bending over a tub of clothes.
"Hello, Bob, did Jim go out?" the woman called, as soon as she
recognized Bob.
"Yes, he went out a couple of hours ago. Here's a man who wants to meet
Mrs. Harbor Jim."
She wiped her hands on her wet apron, pushed the hair back from the
baby's face as she passed her and beckoned us to follow her into the
house. Extending her hand she said:
"I think, sir, you want to see my husband, but he's a fishin' and may
not be back afore tomorrow. Can I do anything for you, sir? There's
some brewse,[1] on the back of the stove, if you care to eat. I am
wondering what you can be awantin' this time of a working morning? Is
it that some one has fell sick and wants Jim to watch or pray?"
"We were a bit tired with walking and thought we would like to rest and
see you and the children in passing," I said none to easily, for the
little woman was searching us hard to find the reason of our visit.
Bob came to our rescue by starting a conversation about the promise
of prices for fish and what Bill Coaker was doing for the Fishermen's
Protective Union. Relieved by the shift in the conversation I looked
about the room. It was positively no different from other fishermen's
homes that I had visited; no better furniture, no more of it; the house
was no cleaner; and the woman, who was Jim's wife, was on a par with
other women of the neighborhood; only she seemed a little brighter and
a certain light was in her eyes when she spoke of Jim. There was just
one object that attracted my attention, a spruce tree in one corner,
and I asked the purpose of it.
She replied: "Jim keeps a tree in that corner. He says it keeps him
remembering how beautiful the world is. He says it connects us with out
o' doors and Jim loves the open country just as he does the sea."
Then after a pause she added: "But you must come again when Jim is
home. I want you to know him. I wish every one could know Jim; he is so
good, so true, so kind!"
That was all I could find out about Harbor Jim that day, but I did not
forget that tribute to her husband, spoken simply, out of her heart,
and it made me feel as I went back to the city with Bob, that perhaps
I had under-estimated her ability and worth. It was more than a week
afterward that in unexpected fashion and without introduction, I met
Jim, But there was not a day of that week that I did not think of the
little woman in faded blue, her flaxen hair falling over her face in
confusion, because of wind and work, as I had seen her that morning
over the white-picketed fence of Jim's house. I knew that I should not
leave St. John's until I had seen Harbor Jim and his wife again.
[1] A Newfoundland dish of hard bread, fish and pork.
II
THE CONVERSION OF JIM
The pressure of my own work, during the following days, postponed my
intended visit to Harbor Jim's. Then, one afternoon, I started for a
walk, not to Jim's, but to Signal Tower by way of the flakes. The path
I chose, wound around among the little fishermen's summer homes and
past the flakes now heavy with fish curing in the sun; then across the
little valley, near the end of the promontory, up back of the hospital
to Cabot Tower and down around the reservoir back to the city. St.
John's offers many attractive walks. There is the road out to Quidi
Vidi, past the little lake where the regattas are held. There is the
road to Bowring Park that gives one the quiet of woods there, with many
flowers and a little, singing brook; but for one who loves the sea
and the fishers, the walk that goes along the flakes must ever be the
favorite.
The afternoon of my walk was clear and the deep, blue water of the
harbor was in sight most of the way. I had reached Cabot Tower and had
been looking across the unhindered sea toward Ireland, the nearest
land beyond, and was turning to go down toward the city, that lay
comfortably upon the hills in the mellow, warm light of late afternoon,
when I noticed a rather tall, bronzed fisherman, standing close by,
evidently sharing the view with me.
I turned and looked squarely at him and thought, "John Cabot himself
might have been such a one as you are."
I nodded and the fellow returned it and said, removing his hat as he
spoke:
"Don't you think we had better uncover before such a view as that?"
I did as he suggested and drawn to the fellow by his winsome smile
I decided to go back to the city with him; but there was a certain
reserve in his manner, that did not make it quite easy to go with him
unbidden. I hesitated and then asked:
"Have you any objection to my walking back to the city with you?"
"Not in the least," he replied, "provided you do not spoil the last of
the day with too many words. You see, sir, I need some time to let that
scene sink into my soul."
For a New Yorker who had been interviewing Dominion leaders and talking
politics in the interests of a newspaper, the command to keep silent
was at least a surprise, but no doubt altogether wholesome.
We started toward the city. The hill drops rather rapidly, you may
remember, and then winds more leisurely. Forbidden to spoil the
afternoon with words, I could at least watch my unknown companion who
chose to practice the vow of silence like a Trappist monk.
He was a fisherman. His clothes told me that, but there was to his walk
an elasticity, a certain springiness that the fishermen I knew had
lacked. He carried his head higher, his back was straighter. He walked
as the son of a King might have walked, who had decided for the time to
travel incognito and had chosen the garb of a fisherman.
Now and then I would get a little ahead of him for the chance of
looking back and up into his face. The very smile with which he had
closed my mouth lingered and lit his face, just as light sometimes
lingers on clouds at sunset. I fell to wondering how long it would
last, just as sometimes I had estimated the length of sunsets.
We came to a house and a little girl, seeing him, came running down
and, without a word, slipped her hand into the man's and walked on some
three rods and then left him and went back into the house from which
she had come. She also smiled and seemed glad to walk and be silent.
The houses increased in number as we came down the hill. Two boys came
and, grabbing each a hand of my companion, walked a little way with
him. This time he bestowed upon the boys, not words but a marble a
piece. The boys utterly ignored me, kept their eyes rivetted upon him
and left, giving him a hearty "Thank you!"
When we came to the last dip of the hill that descends into the city,
he paused and, keeping his eyes on the western sky, said:
"Hard on you, sir! I didn't intend to be rude, but since I was
converted I have to have more time to myself. Seems only fair that a
fellow should have a little time now and then to enjoy his own company.
Here's a good place to watch the Lord as He blesses the city at the
close of the day."
He waved me to a seat beside him and we sat watching. The silence was
not as oppressive. I was a little nearer to my companion and the great
gray clouds suffused with pink rivetted my attention. As the sunset
waned and the cold, gray of night came on, he got up and, starting
toward the city, said:
"Thank you for praying with me."
Now I had not been aware of having said anything at all, but I
remembered that prayer may be uttered or unexpressed and ventured no
reply.
"Words often weigh down as well as lift. A lot of folks are smothered
with them." He was breaking the silence which he had stipulated should
be maintained until the view had sunk into his soul. "Words have to be
well chosen, then they lift their pound. I'm not averse to talking on
occasion; only, I find, when I'm talking too much, I'm thinking too
little. Then, again, God wants to have His say now and then, and how
can He, if we are sputtering all the while? Guess He talks still to
some folks in the cool of the evening just as He did in the old garden."
Released from the command to be silent and no longer with the
opportunity of seeing my companion clearly, for it was fast growing
dark, I felt that I would very much like to know something more of this
strange, yet likable, fellow, and the words that he had spoken about
his conversion prompted me in turn to break the silence.
"I think I have received more out of this walk and this sunset than any
I can remember, but my conversion was evidently not the same as yours.
I would like to know about your conversion. Maybe it would open my eyes
wider and let me see more as you do."
I spoke now, not curiously, but earnestly, for I wanted to know how he
could find so much on the old familiar hill and how I might find what
he was finding.
He laughed heartily and his laugh left the situation less tense and
made him seem more human.
"Maybe my conversion won't interest you," he said, "then again, it may
help you. It was on this very road, I was converted. Only it was in the
morning at half past nine. It was a foggy morning. Newfoundland has a
good many of them. I used to think, too many, before I was converted,
but now it seems to me best, for it just curtains the beautiful world
and each time the curtain lifts it seems a little fairer than before
for the waiting.
"Now I've always loved the hills and the sea and enjoyed a good view,
as most fishermen do, but that morning I was scuffing along, out of
patience with a poor catch of the day before and seeing nothing but
fog. The sea and the hills were out of sight. Suddenly I heard a voice
say:
"'Why don't you look at yourself, Jim?'
"I stopped stock still in the middle of the road, like a hand had been
put upon me and detained me. The voice was no more but the question was
for me and it had to be answered.
"It would take some time, so I decided to sit down and consider it. I
could show you the very rock, sometime, if you cared to see it. I had
never done much thinking 'till that morning. I said to myself:
"'James, you don't know yourself well enough to call yourself by your
first name. You have peeped into your neighbors' affairs. You've
criticised other folks but you've never really gotten acquainted with
yourself.'
"So I stood myself up and asked myself questions in a real, down-right,
honest desire to see just what I was and what I was doing here. First I
says:
"'Who are you, Jim?'
"And I figured out that I had the right answer, though I had forgotten
it and lived in contradiction of it. I was and I am a child of the
Father.
"Do you know, sir, the knowledge of that will ask a man a good many
more questions and answer 'em, too.
"'Where are you living, Jim?' I said to myself and the answer came,
'You are living in His world and it's a good world. He made it for
you and His other children. He's put fish in all the seas and if it
ain't one kind it's another. There is enough in His world for all the
children, and if any on'em starves, it's because some on'em is blind
or the other children has forgotten they are to share His things. It's
a fair world, with blue sky and little birds that sing, and little
flowers that praise Him, too.'
"It's a cheery thought, sir, that we're a livin' in _His_ world. It
makes it worth while to live right. Then the next question I put myself
was this:
"'What are you worth?'
"I reckoned up and found I was worth five quintals of salt fish, a half
a barrel of cod liver oil and twelve lobster pots, most of 'em empty.
I owned no house and aside from the fish I had $149 in the bank and an
extra suit of clothes that wouldn't count for much.
"'Is that _all_ you're worth,' I said, and I saw it wasn't enough
to count me rich. I remembered, I could really think that morning,
that Job's riches were not in camels and sheep. So I might be rich in
other things beside codfish and oil, but I grew ashamed of myself that
morning when I come to see how little I could count up that was worth
carrying with me for eternity.
"Bob McCartney's friendship, the part I'd given, counted a little; but
when it come to counting faith and hope and truth, it didn't show up
very well. I was poor and I had come to know it and that was the best
part of it. There was hope then for me and a chance I might become rich.
"'Where are you going?' again the Voice asked me a big question. I meet
folks who have forgotten, just as I had done. But it helps to keep a
fellow on the right track to remember where the road ends.
"'What are you doing here?' was the next question and I put myself to
answer it there on the rock that morning I was converted.
"Fishing, I answered first, but what for, and is that all, came the
questions. Now I take it fishing or farming, writing or preaching, it
don't make much difference, so long as we're each just where He wants
us to be and are doing just what He wants us to do. And every man has
got to find out if he is where the Father wants him to be.
"It didn't take me long to find out that I might be where He wanted
me to be, but I knew I wasn't doing all He wanted me to do and I was
adoin' a good many things He didn't want me to do.
"Then I made some resolutions. Some folks don't believe in 'em, I know,
but they always seemed to me to be good crutches, till a man could
manage to get on without them and learn to walk straight. I resolved to
be the best fisherman ever put out to sea, to clean my fish thorough,
to salt 'em well and sell 'em honest weight.
"Then I resolved to know more of His world since He made it for me and
the other children. Then, I remembered that since He had sent His Son
to show the way, I'd better listen to Him and go His way.
"The next day I went over to Parson Curtis' and said to him:
"'Yesterday was my day o' grace, and I was converted at half past nine.
I'm not saved, but I'm on the way to salvation and I'd like to be
broughten just as near to His Son as I can be. I'm just a learnin', but
no child ever wanted to learn more than I do now.'
"So when it come Sunday, he took me into the fellowship of Jesus and
I've been learnin' ever since."
I think I have given you almost his words. You see they were short,
real words, and the only fear I have is that in repeating them I may
have lost the quiet, deep-seated earnestness that was in his voice. He
spoke that night from his heart. We were on Water Street now and it was
time for us to part.
"Thank you," I said, and I spoke as sincerely as he had spoken, "and if
you don't mind I would like to know your name. It is James, what?"
He reached out a big hand and took a firm grip of mine and said: "I'm
Jim. Harbor Jim they call me." And then I remembered that I had been
looking for him.
III
AN ENGAGEMENT AS PLANNED
"Come," came a voice from within and I opened the door and stepped into
Harbor Jim's cozy home. Its warmth and cheer were in sharp contrast to
the evening without. It was raining hard and everything was saturated
with water. Out of the chill and wet, I stepped across the threshold
into warmth and dryness.
I thought at once of the Cotter's Saturday night. In the centre of
the room at a little table, close to a kerosene lamp, was Harbor Jim
reading from the Bible, and sharing the rather uncertain light with
him was his wife with a pile of stockings to be mended, in her lap.
Beyond them, a small fire-place with rough stone dogs. A spruce fire
crackled like pop corn and did its best to dissipate anything of
disconsolateness that might have crept in from the night's cold rain.
At the right of the fire-place, on a roll of comforters, lay a little
girl of perhaps two years, breathing gently in her sleep.
Harbor Jim did not rise to greet me but with a motion of his hand
expressed his desire that I should remove my wet coat and take the
empty chair. He paused long enough for me to be comfortably seated and
resumed his reading. He was in the midst of the Ninety-First Psalm, and
he read slowly on, as one none too familiar with print and anxious that
no word or meaning be lost.
"He shall cover thee with His wings, and under His feathers shalt thou
trust. You understand it, Effie," he said, turning to his wife. "It's
the picture you see every day when the mother hen tucks the little ones
under her wings.
"You, sir, will remember," he turned now to me, "that our Master used
the same thought of the cuddling power of love, when He stood on Olivet
and looked down on the sin-blind Jerusalem. I would have gathered you
as a hen doth her chicks under her wing.
"His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. This sentence puzzled me
for a good while, chiefly because I didn't know what a buckler was.
For a long time I couldn't find any Lander who did know. Finally I got
an Englishman to look it up in a book he had and he told me it was
something that went all around the body. Then I seed it plain. The Lord
was to protect us at the one danger point, with the shield; but He
doesn't stop there, He protects us at all points with the buckler."
He did not pause again in the reading of the Psalm until he came to the
word angels, and then he spoke rather forcibly of his belief in angels.
"Yes, I believe in angels, travelling angels. Why shouldn't He let 'em
travel? He let's us go about, then surely He must let them journey
considerable more. Naturally they want to be where they are needed most
and I reckon this world needs 'em. When we get the listenin' habit,
we'll all hear 'em, and when we get to the trustin' habit, we'll obey
'em when they bring us messages. I reckon they've helped me a good
deal. Sometimes they guide me to a big haul of fish, but more often
they bring me to a passage of Scripture, that's like a draft of cool
water on a thirsty day. I don't want you to think I'm looney, sir, but
I fancy they walk with me sometimes and most often when no humans are
with me."
At the last verse he paused and then read these words twice:
"With long life will I satisfy thee. This promise has troubled me a
good deal. It don't seem to be coming true. Good little kids die;
and tough, scaly old rascals live on poking fun at the righteous. I
have been wondering what the Hebrews meant, for a good many of their
prophets have said the same thing.
"Mebbe it's one of the delayed promises. But I imagine it is coming
true oftener than we know. There is some connection between holiness
and happiness and between contented days and lengthened days. It is
natural to expect the man who obeys the law to find the benefit here
and now in this life. Well, if the Lord had each one of us alone
working out the promises, it would be very easy for Him and for us, but
He's seen fit to let us live together and we interfere with one another
considerable; but He thinks it best because we've got to get well
acquainted with each other before we are really able to know Him. As we
get so we can understand the laws for the many as well as the laws for
the each, I guess we'll most of us live long, but now the main thing is
to live well."
"But does it seem quite fair, Jim?" his wife questioned him, naturally,
as though they were alone together.
"I've thought about that a good while, Effie," he replied. "If I
had only one day to fish and only caught something on one hook in
twenty-eight, it would be a sorry day for me and you 'uns; but since
I've many days, it doesn't matter which day I get the fish, so long as
I get 'em. Now, I take it, it doesn't make much difference whether the
bounty and the blessing He's intended for each of us comes one day or
another, so long as it never fails to come. If this earth day was all
I couldn't believe in Him as I do, but when I remember that there are
days that have no ending, why it seems all right to have some getting a
little more this day and others a little more that day. It's all in the
life time of the soul. How long we stay in this room of Hisn' and how
much He gives us don't matter much in the long years o' eternity. Do
you begin to see how it is, Effie?"
Then Jim closed his Bible and was silent. Without the rain came down
and beat its loud tattoo upon the roof. The spruce log ceased to
crackle and the little kerosene light seemed to relax its effort now
that it was no longer necessary to read the print. I had learned in the
few weeks that I had known Jim, that silence even more than speech hath
her rewards. After a quarter of an hour of quiet, in which we could
hear in the occasional let up of the rain the tick-tock of the little
clock on the shelf, I ventured a question:
"How long have you been married, Jim?"
"Fourteen years," he answered, "and it was no mistake that we made when
we built this home. There's been rain, but the sun came out the quicker
because of the together-spirit we had. Would you be interested, sir, in
hearing how we started out?"
My face answered him and he began to tell me such parts of his own love
story as it pleased him to tell.
"I was not married until after I was converted, that was a good thing!
There is a good many reasons why a man should be converted before he is
married. If there is anything in this life, more'n another in which the
hand of God should be felt it's marriage.
"I'd had friends among the girls before I was converted, but I'd never
thought of settling down, until after that morning. Then I come to see
that a man needed a home on shore as well as a boat on the sea; that a
man would be likely to catch more fish if he had some one waiting on
shore and that fish never tasted so well when eaten alone.
"I got to readin' the book of Genesis one night. I never read the
Bible much till after I was converted, and then it became a new book
to me and I began diggin' in it for treasure and I'm by no manner a
means thru diggin' and findin' treasure. I come across the command in
Genesis: To be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. I halted
there that night for a spell o' thinkin' and I came to the conclusion
that I ought to do my part and leave some one else to take my place
and fish when I lay down the hooks. The next thing was to find the
right one. Now a Bible readin' man is a prayin' man. And I shut the
book and I prayed, for if there is anywhere a man needs guidance it is
in finding the right one and keepin' offen the rocks o' trouble and
despair in such matters.
"The next morning I went fishing the same as usual. I've noted that the
Lord never hurries an answer to a man who prays and then stands round
idle waitin' for his answer. Seems the Lord loves to surprise a man
with his answer while he's in the midst of work.
"So the weeks went by till one late afternoon I was walking along the
flakes and I see a young woman splitting cod in the front yard of a
house, and the western light rested on her hair and it shimmered and
she looked up as I come by and we both smiled. Sir, then, I knew, just
as plain as a straight, taut line that she was the one and I had my
answer from the Lord, but I had still to get her answer. Some times you
have to wait for a woman's answer same as you do for the Lord's.
"The next afternoon, about the same time, I come by her house, and
just as I expected she was there splitting cod, and that afternoon we
talked. I'd inquired and found her name was Effie Streeter. Now what I
said and the walks we had together wouldn't interest you, and anyhow
they belonged to us. But perhaps you might like to hear a little of our
engagement day. It come out just as I planned only a little better.
"I was pretty sure then and it has been confirmed to me many times
since that a woman likes to have her joys come as surprises. Now if
I'd a proposed to her on the ordinary walk on an ordinary evening, she
might have accepted but it wouldn't have come with the happiness that
comes when you're not expecting, then it's like light out of dark cloud
or flowers that come quick after a long winter's snow.
"One night I stopped in at her house and told her I had to go on
business over beyond Brigus and would like to have her go with me on
the train the next morning. It would be a short trip and we would be
back at night, on the train.
"A fellow doesn't have much choice of trains here, but some seasons you
can go somewhere and get back the same day, but not every season.
"It was the middle of July, but as I started for the station, thinks I,
it might be colder up at Brigus and I took along my great coat, so she
would be sure to be warm. We made the ride up, without event. It is a
lovely ride to Brigus, as you know, sir.
"I don't remember much that we said on the way, do you, Effie?" and he
turned to her acquiescing smile. "But I had the place all selected and
I never expect to forget that day, either here or in Kingdom Come.
"Under the shadow of a spruce we sat down and before us were acres and
acres of sheep laurel. The winter before had been cold and that summer
the laurel was redder than ever I have seen it, before or since. Away
beyond was Conception Bay with its hills and the wonderful blue water.
I don't know, sir, what scenes there are over seas, but I doubt if
there's a lovelier view anywhere in the world than that.
"I had rehearsed pretty well what I was going to say and I have never
forgotten it to this day, and I am glad I haven't. Some forget what
they say before marriage and it brings a black shadow after marriage.
"It was so very beautiful, that we set a spell, a holdin' hands and
lookin' with our souls as well as our eyes.
"'Effie,' I said, 'I've brought you here to say a great word and I felt
it ought to be said in the fairest place in the world. This is the
loveliest place I know and if I knew a fairer one I'd have taken you
there. The word I am going to say is the one God said when it was dark
and He decided to make it light. It's the word He said when the world
was tired and He decided to send His Son and it's the one word the Son
spoke that has been changing the world since. That word is, Love!' Then
I felt my own unworthiness and I stammered and I lost something out o'
my speech and I've never found it, but I added,--'I'm only a fisherman
but what I want to give you is as much as I can of the very same love.'
"Sir, that was all I had to say and she understood. Right after that a
strange thing happened. It had been clouding up and it began to snow.
Yes, we have once in a while a snow storm in summer, and we did that
year. Then I took the great coat I had brought and wrapped her tenderly
up in it and I said: Love has a good many duties, but I guess one on'em
is to keep you warm.
"The snow came down and it covered the earth, but it didn't cover the
blossoms and there was a world of white with pink beauty scattered on
it, all the spruce and firs standing and looking and worshipping, if
trees worship. And I said: I guess it's the Lord's way of saying, He's
glad it's all settled. Now, if He had sent the rain we might a doubted,
but He's sent the snow so's we wouldn't doubt and we never have.
"Now our trains sometimes take an uncommon long time, and you folks
from the States laugh at our railroads, but do you know I never went a
journey where the train made such a fast time as that night. We were in
St. John's afore we knew it."
IV
SOME MIRACLES
"You orter been here a short while ago," Jim chuckled, as he addressed
his friend Bob McCartney, who entered soon after Mr. Jewett had left.
"We had a queer one here who believed you and I and the rest o' the
sinners were out o' sight of the Lord. Told us the Lord didn't know
nothing except the good and this world was just shadows and delusions."
"Well," said Bob, "there's a few real things left and last night Harry
Marchant got up agin one of 'em. Towards night I met him on the Bowring
Road. He motioned to me afore I got to him to keep my side o' the road.
He acted just as though he had leprosy. When he got within hearing he
shouted:
"'Bob, you never did me a bad turn and I'm not agoin' to do you one.
You keep your side of the road and don't ever speak to me when I go
by. I was comin' along a spell back and I met some skunks, not one,
but a mother and father and two children. They was walkin' separate
and I tried to dodge, but I couldn't dodge four ways at the same time.
I'm goin' home now to bury my clothes, scour my skin and try to forget
myself.' Now, Harry Marchant didn't meet no shadow and he was bathed in
the very oil o' gloom."
We all laughed, but Jim was the first to sober up. "See here, boys, we
mustn't poke fun at the queer one. Some folks probably get a blessing
without thinking straight. Mebbe he's on the way to a great faith.
There's more'n one way across the sea and we all got to go thru the
same narrows to get into the Harbor.
"There's this much to be said in favor of the fellow, he's beginning to
read his Bible. Seems strange though that outen the same book men draw
so many different things. Then, it was written by many a different one
and it's intended for all. Perhaps when we get too far astray He'll
send us another Son and a new Book.
"Though I don't believe in his notion of getting rid of a real world
with real things in it, an' pushin' God out of this world, I do believe
in miracles. Now some folks come to a miracle in the Bible and they
sit down in front of it like the Marys at the tomb and they never are
able to roll it away or pass it. Just beyond that miracle is a great
truth, there always is, and these folks never get beyond wondering and
doubting about how it happened to be there.
"Take the story of the miracle that happened to Jonah. I don't pretend
to say whether he ever had a berth in a real whale or not. It may be
the boat was called a whale and he took passage on her against orders.
But either way it's a beautiful truth we find, after we get over
worrying about the whale. The point, I take it, is, the man was trying
to run away from his duty and the story tells how he fared and how he
came back and was established as a prophet. A good many folks seem to
be still worrying about the whale and forgetting all about the truth.
I'm not sayin' it didn't happen. It could a happened and stranger
things have happened, I am only saying that whatever you believe about
the whale the truth is there to help just the same.
"I don't like the way a good many folks talk about miracles, anyhow.
They look at 'em once or twice and then they say that it couldn't
a happened. Why it doesn't follow because the Lord couldn't work a
miracle on them He couldn't on somebody else. It may only prove they
was too hardened in their sins and their doubts to be worked on, at
least, for the present. Then it may be the thing has happened, right
before their eyes only when it comes to great things and spiritual
facts they are more'n half blind.
"Raisin' from the dead I suppose would be considered the biggest
miracle of all, and perhaps it's about the hardest to believe. But at
some time or other, I have never been able to tell when, and I don't
knows any one else can either, the Lord God puts a soul into every
child of His. It is something that a father or a mother cannot put in
of themselves, and it is something that can't be destroyed. A good many
have tried to destroy their souls; but it's my belief they haven't
succeeded, not any one of all that have tried. Now, if He is the only
one that can put a soul into this earth house, He's the one that knows
best when to take it out, and it might be very easy, on an important
occasion, for Him to slip the soul back in again for a few days. He
did that in the case of His Divine Son and the Son did it on several
occasions, when He thought the soul ought to keep in its earth house a
while longer."
"Did you ever hear anything about reincarnation, Jim?" I inquired.
"Big word, isn't it," said Jim, immediately giving full attention to my
subject. "No, I don't know as ever I did. What is it, a doctrine or a
medicine?"
"It's the belief, Jim, that souls return to the earth again in new
bodies. Some believe that only in animals and lower forms does this
happen and others that even when souls have been on this earth, they
return again to complete their experiences. I was thinking that your
idea of the ease with which God might slip in or out a soul might
make it easy for you to believe in this rather strange doctrine of
reincarnation. What do you think of it?"
"Sounds fairly sensible to me, on first thought. I don't remember
anything in the Book about it, though I don't pretend to say I know
all that's in that Book. It might explain some things that's hard to
explain now with our present eye-sight. There's old lady Farrar, that
I was a'telling you about, who cured herself of weakness and was about
twenty years younger at eighty-five than eighty. She never had any real
luck or any great blessings until she cured herself. She was one of the
unfortunate kind, most always ailin' and when you went to see her she
had some new misfortune to tell you about. She lost every one of her
children and two husbands besides. Folks said it wasn't any great loss,
so far as the husbands were concerned, but then they were hers and she
took on considerable. Yet she has always been a decent woman, kept the
commandments far as her neighbors could judge; paid her bills, when she
could; went to church and said her prayers; and she had only a triflin'
amount of good fortune. She had to wash and scrub for the neighbors to
make ends meet and the splicin' was often poor.
"Just compare her life with the lives of other women folks whose
husbands usually had a good catch and got good prices, whose children
never died and who prospered thru the years and even handled the
commands in a slippery fashion. It is hard to think justice has been
done in both cases or perhaps in either case. But if this miracle of
slipping a soul back into a body and sending it to school again is
true, that you are telling me about, why it clears up a lot of the
problems. Mrs. Farrar didn't pass the examinations the first or second
time she was here and she was sent back to study more and she is
getting about what she ought to have in His judgment.
"I think, however, that reincarnation idea that you mention, I would
need to think a good deal about before I cared to tie too fast to it.
I presume I'll end up in putting it into quite a big package of goods
I am saving for shipping across the stream when I take passage. I've
marked them 'For His Judgment' and when I get over there, I'll sort 'em
and see if they're worth saving, and if I'm still doubtful about any on
'em I'll just get Him to pass judgment on them. That's seems to be a
sensible thing to do.
"But we was talking about miracles here and now. To me the greatest
miracles Christ worked were not in curing diseases, but in curing sins.
I have always thought it a miracle that He could take Peter with his
stubbornness and his habit of speaking up too quick and make him strong
enough, sound enough, to be a real corner stone in His new church. I
callate Peter was pretty well along in years when the Master called him
and old folks ain't as easy to work on as those that are young and more
pliable. I count it a miracle that He made over Peter so well.
"I have always been a good deal interested to find out what became
of Judas Iscariot who betrayed Him. He wasn't a fisherman like Peter
and he was harder still to work on. I know some of the ministers have
got rid of him, by tossing him over board and letting him drown in
perdition. But the Lord God that went after the sheep would a some day
heared the moaning of Judas and a-gone to his rescue, seems though. If
the Lord could work a miracle on Peter couldn't He some time, some how
do it on Judas? He must a had some beginning points on him some wheres."
"I tell you the Lord has plenty a chances to work miracles if He
wishes, right round here. There's Rascal Moore. He ain't been converted
yet."
"_Rascal_ Moore, did you say, Jim?" I interrupted.
"Well that wasn't the name his mother gave him, but she didn't know he
would take all his father's bad points and add a few more evil ways.
She named him, Pascal. But Rascal fits him better and everybody knows
him by that name, and I have to think twice to remember he ever had
another name.
"Rascal has done more to hurt the salt-fish business than any fisherman
I know. He manages to get hold of the most ornery, two-cent fish there
are in the sea. These fish have a hankering for Rascal, I guess, and
they scoot straight for his nets. When he gets 'em, he never cleans
well and he always hurries the curing, and he is none too particular
about either counting or weighing. He'll sell a little cheaper or lie
a little stronger and get rid of 'em, usually to an exporter and they
go perhaps to Naples and they're so poor, the folks who buy them never
want any more Newfoundland cod-fish. The government ought not to wait
for the Lord to punish Rascal, they should get after him right away.
"Rascal has other sins to account for. Everybody feels, though they
don't hardly dare say so, that he killed his wife, and he's so mean
he's never married since. If there's been a piece of deviltry carried
out anywheres within fifty miles of St. John's that he hasn't had a
part in, I have yet to learn o' the fact.
"I say to convert Rascal Moore would be a real miracle. And it will
be done and I would be glad to see it done on short order. I know it
can be done, for I have seen other folks as mean, ornery and selfish
as Rascal come meekly to the judgment seat, I have seen 'em rise outen
their old selves and become new and clean as a sunshiny morning after
the air has been washed in a fog. I have seen so much done by the Lord
on His own account and working thru the hands of His servants that I
never doubt that Rascal Moore will be made right.
"Yes, sir, I believe in miracles and I see them every day. Brown earth
a-turning into blades and blossoms, in some wonderful way that He
planned. No less wonderful I see bad men becoming good men; sick men
becoming well men; and they that have been under the heels of sin and
slavery standin' up on their own feet. When I can't explain something
I still feel it is happening under the law and it's another of His
miracles."
V
"I ASKED FOR FISH"
My business in St. John's had been brought to a conclusion and it was
time that I crossed to Port-aux-Basques and made my way thru Nova
Scotia and back into the States. There was only one reason for my
staying, and that was the chance of seeing a little more of Harbor Jim
and perhaps learning a little more of his philosophy.