Dorian's high school days in the city began that fall, a little late
because he had so many things to set right at home; but he soon made up
the lost time, for he was a student not afraid of hard work. He walked
back and forth the three miles. Mrs. Brown offered him a room at her
large city residence, but he could not accept it because of his daily
home chores. However, he occasionally called on the Brown's who tried to
make him feel as much at home as they did at Greenstreet.
Never before were days so perfect to Dorian, never before had he so
enjoyed the fleeting hours. For the first week or two, he was a little
shy, but the meeting each morning with boys and girls of his own age and
mingling with them in their studies and their recreations, soon taught
him that they were all very much alike, just happy, carefree young
people, most of them trying to get an education. He soon learned, also,
that he could easily hold his own in the class work with the brightest
of them. The teachers, and students also, soon learned to know this.
Boys came to him for help in problems, and the younger girls chattered
about him with laughing eyes and tossing curls. What a wonder it was! He
the simple, plainly-dressed country boy, big and awkward and ugly as he
thought himself to be, becoming a person of some importance. And so
the days went all too swiftly by. Contrary to his younger boyhood's
experience, the closing hour came too soon, when it was time to go home
to mother and chores and lessons.
And the mother shared the boy's happiness, for she could see the added
joy of living and working which had come into his life by the added
opportunities and new environment. He frequently discussed with his
mother his lessons. She was not well posted in the knowledge derived
from books, and sometimes she mildly resented this newer learning which
he brought into the home and seemed to intrude on her old-established
ideas. For instance, when the cold winter nights came, and Dorian kept
open his bedroom window, the mother protested that he would "catch his
death of cold." Night air and drafts are very dangerous, especially if
let into one's bedroom, she held.
"But, mother, I must have air to breathe," said Dorian, "and what other
kind of air can I have at night? I might store a little day-air in my
room, but I would soon exhaust its life-giving qualities at night.
You know, mother," he went on in the assurance of his newly acquired
knowledge, "I guess the Lord knew what He was about when He enveloped
the earth with air which presses down nearly fifteen pounds to the
square inch so that it might permeate every possible nook and corner of
the globe." Then he went on to explain the wonderful process of blood
purification in the lungs, and demonstrated to her that the breath is
continually throwing off foul matter. He did this by breathing into a
fruit jar, screwing on the lid for a little while, and then having the
nose make the test.
"Some bed rooms I've gone into smell just like that," he said.
"Here, mother is a clipping from a magazine. Listen:
"'Of all the marvels of God's workmanship, none is more wondrous than
the air. Think of our all being bathed in a substance so delicate as to
be itself unperceived, yet so dense as to be the carriage to our senses
of messages from the world about us! It is never in our way; it does not
ask notice; we only know it is there by the good it does us. And this
exquisitely soft, pure, yielding, unseen being, like a beautiful and
beneficent fairy, brings us blessings from all around. It has the skill
to wash our blood clean from all foulness. Its weight keeps us from
tumbling to pieces. It is a reservoir where the waters lie stored, until
they fall and gladden the earth. It is a great-coat that softens to us
the heat of the day, and the cold of the night. It carries sounds to
our ears and smells to our nostrils. Its movements fill Nature with
ceaseless change; and without their aid in wafting ships over the sea,
commerce and civilization would have been scarce possible. It is of all
wonders the most wonderful.'"
At another time when Dorian had a cold, and consequently, a loss of
appetite, his mother urged him to eat more, saying that he must have
strength to throw off his cold.
"What is a cold?" he smilingly asked.
"Why, a cold is--a cold, of course, you silly boy."
"What does it do to the activities of the body?"
"I'm not a doctor; how can I tell."
"All mothers are doctors and nurses; they do a lot of good, and some
things that are not so good. For instance, why should I eat more when I
have a cold?" She did not reply, and so he went on: "The body is very
much like a stove or a furnace; it is burning material all the time.
Sometimes the clinkers accumulate and stop the draft, both in the human
as well as the iron stove. When that happens, the sensible thing to do
is not to throw in more fuel but to clean out the clinkers first."
"Where did you get all that wisdom, Dorian?"
"I got it from my text book on hygiene, and I think it's true because it
seems so reasonable."
"Well, last night's talk led me to believe that you would become a
philosopher; now, the trend is more toward the doctor; tomorrow I'll
think you are studying law."
"Oh, but we are, mother; you ought to hear us in our civil government
class. We have organized into a Congress of the United States, and we
are going to make laws."
"You'll be elected President, I suppose."
"I'm one of the candidates."
"Well, my boy" she smiled happily at him, "I hope you will be elected to
every good thing, and that you will fill every post with honor; and now,
I would like you to read to me from the 'Lady of the Lake' while I darn
your stockings. Your father used to read the story to me a long, long
time ago, and your voice is very much like his when you read."
And thus with school and home and ward duties the winter passed. Spring
called him again to the fields to which he went with new zeal, for life
was opening to him in a way which life is in the habit of doing to the
young of his age. Mildred Brown and her mother were in California. He
heard from her occasionally by way of postcards, and once she sent him
one of her sketches of the ocean. Carlia Duke also was not forgotten by
Mildred. Dorian and Carlia met frequently as neighbors will do, and they
often spoke of their mutual friend. The harvest was again good that
fall, and Dorian once more took up his studies at the high school in the
city. Carlia finished the grades as Dorian completed his second year,
and the following year Carlia walked with Dorian to the high school.
That was no great task for the girl, now nearly grown to young
womanhood, and it was company for both of them. During these walks
Carlia had many questions to ask about her lessons, and Dorian was
always pleased to help her.
"I am such a dunce," she would say, "I wish I was as smart as you."
"You must say 'were' when you wish. I were as smart as you," he
corrected.
"O, yes: I forgot. My, but grammar is hard, especially to a girl
which--"
"No--a girl who; which refers to objects and animals, who to persons."
Carlia laughed and swung her books by the strap. Dorian was not carrying
them that day. Sometimes he was absentminded regarding the little
courtesies.
The snow lay hard packed in the road and it creaked under their feet.
Carlia's cheeks glowed redder than ever in contact with the keen winter
air. They walked on in silence for a time.
"Say, Dorian, why do you not go and see Mildred?" asked Carlia, not
looking at him, but rather at the eastern mountains.
"Why? Is she not well?"
"She is never well now. She looks bad to me."
"When did you see her?"
"Last Saturday. I called at the house, and she asked about you--Poor
girl!"
"What do you mean by that?"
"You are very smart in some things, but are a stupid dunce in other
things. Mildred is like an angel both in looks and--everything. I wish I
was--were half as good."
"But how am I such a dunce, Carlia?"
"In not seeing how much Mildred thinks of you."
"Thinks of me? Mildred?"
"She just loves you."
Carlia still looked straight ahead as though fearful to see the
agitation she had brought to the young man; but he looked at her, with
cheeks still aflame. He did not understand Carlia. Why had she said
that? Was she just teasing him? But she did not look as if she were
teasing. Silently they walked on to the school house door.
But Dorian could not forget what Carlia had said. All day it intruded
into his lessons. "She said she loves me" he whispered to his heart
only. Could it be possible? Even if she did, what final good would come
of it? The distance between them was still too great, for he was only a
poor farmer boy. Dear Mildred--his heart did not chide him for thinking
that--so frail, so weak, so beautiful. What if she--should die! Dorian
was in a strange state of mind for a number of days. He longed to visit
the Brown home, yet he could not find excuse to go. He could not talk
to anybody about what was in his mind and heart, not even to his mother
with whom he always shared his most hidden thoughts.
One evening he visited Uncle Zed, ostensibly, to talk about a book.
Uncle Zed was deep in the study of "Natural Law in the Spiritual World"
and would have launched into a discussion of what he had found, but
Dorian did not respond; he had other thoughts in mind.
"Uncle Zed," he said, "how can I become something else than a farmer?"
The old man looked questioningly at his young friend. "What's the matter
with being a farmer?" he asked.
"Well, a farmer doesn't usually amount to much, I mean in the eyes of
the world. Farmers seem to be in a different class from merchants, for
example, or from bankers or other more genteel workers."
"Listen to me, Dorian Trent." Uncle Zed laid down his book as if he had
a serious task before him. "Let me tell you something. If you haven't
done so before, begin now and thank the Lord that you began life on this
globe of ours as a farmer's child and boy. Whatever you do or become in
the future, you have made a good beginning. You have already laid away
in the way of concepts, we may say, a generous store of nature's riches,
for you have been in close touch with the earth, and the life which
teems in soil and air and the waters. Pity the man whose childish eyes
looked out on nothing but paved streets and brick walls or whose young
ears heard nothing but the harsh rumble of the city, for his early
conceptions from which to interpret his later life is artificial and
therefore largely untrue."
Uncle Zed smiled up into the boy's face as if to ask, Do you get that?
Dorian would have to have time to assimilate the idea; meanwhile, he had
another question:
"Uncle Zed, why are there classes among members of our Church?"
"Classes? What do you mean?"
"Well, the rich do not associate with the poor nor the learned with
the unlearned. I know, of course, that this is the general rule in the
world, but I think it should be different in the Church."
"Yes; it ought to be and is different. There are no classes such as you
have in mind in the Church, even though a few unthinking members seem to
imply it by their actions; but there is no real class distinction in the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, only such that are based on
the doing of the right and the wrong. Character alone is the standard of
classification."
"Yes, I see that that should be true."
"It is true. Let me illustrate: The presiding authority in the Church
is not handed down from father to son, thus fostering an aristocratic
tendency; also this authority is so wide-spread that anything like a
"ruling family" would be impossible. In a town where I once lived, the
owner of the bank and the town blacksmith were called on missions. They
both were assigned to the same field, and the blacksmith was appointed
to preside over the banker. The banker submitted willingly to be
directed in his missionary labors by one who, judged by worldly
standards, was far beneath him in the social scale. I know a shoemaker
in the city who is a teacher in the theological class of his ward,
whose membership consists of merchants, lawyers, doctors, and the like.
Although he is poor and earns his living by mending shoes, he is greatly
respected for his goodness and his knowledge of Scriptural subjects and
doctrine."
"So you think--that a young fellow might--that it would not be wrong--or
foolish for a poor man to think a lot of--of a rich girl, for instance."
Uncle Zed peered at Dorian over his glasses. The old man took him gently
by the shoulders. Ah, that's what's back of all this, he thought; but
what he said was:
"My boy, Emerson said, 'Hitch your wagon to a star,' and I will add,
never let go, although the rocks in the road may bump you badly. Why,
there's nothing impossible for a young man like you. You may be rich, if
you want to; I expect to see you learned; and the Priesthood which you
have is your assurance, through your diligence and faithfulness, to any
heights. Yes, my boy; go ahead--love Mildred Brown all you want to;
she's fine, but not a bit finer than you."
"Oh, Uncle Zed," Dorian somewhat protested; but, nevertheless, he went
home that evening with his heart singing.