TURNING THE CORNER.
The journey home was not a difficult one for Katy, as the roads were
broke out thoroughly by this time. The journey, the subsequent day
however, was a hard one for Mr. and Mrs. Plympton, as they went with
Walter to the cars to see him safely started for his ride to Franklin
Academy.
“Oh!” said Walter, who was not so absorbed in school–plans but that
he could see two pairs of misty eyes when he chanced to turn suddenly
toward them, “don’t feel bad, father and mother. You know I shall be
back by the first of August, and you know, father, what you said about
time going like a sled, the iron on whose runner is rubbed smooth.”
“Yes,” said his father soberly.
“Be a good boy, Walter,” was his mother’s last reminder. About fifty
had preceded it, but she kept this as the last. The next minute, there
were two solemn faces on the platform of a country station, gazing
intently at a car window that moved off rapidly and framed but for a
moment a young, eager, ambitious, hopeful face.
Walter’s stay at Franklin Academy was not an eventful one outwardly.
There was the usual course of instruction for a boy of sixteen, and
Walter acquitted himself creditably. There was the usual proportion
of “bad boys and small scrapes,” but Walter had no affinity for them
and was known as a warm–hearted, enthusiastic youth, but not at all as
a wild one. He gained some note as a fine gymnast. Day after day the
academy bell tinkled out its mild warnings that study or recitation
hours had arrived, and day after day, the same flock of boys and
girls passed along the shaded walks traversing the academy yard.
Outwardly, as already asserted, Walter’s academy course was without
special incident. In the boy’s personal private history though, a very
important corner was turned. That which led to the turn was singular
also.
It was “composition day” in the academy, and various young essayists
had read their opinions upon “School days,” “A Summer landscape,”
and “George Washington.” Then came May Elliott’s piece of pen–work.
May was not very generally known by the students. Her home was not in
town, and the people with whom she boarded lived two miles away, so
that the students did not see very much of her apart from her class
hours. Although not pretty, yet her face interested you. Her blue
eyes had a certain bright, positive look, as if she had something
to say to you, and they arrested your attention. The subject of her
composition was this, “What are we living for?” Her course of thought
was to specify the aims of different people in life, their worthiness
and unworthiness; and then she closed in this fashion: “The life that
does not take into account the need of those about us, that does not
take into account another life, that does not take God into account, is
making,—”
Here May looked up in her bright, positive way. It was a chance look
that she gave in the direction of the north–east rather than the
north–west corner of the schoolroom. “Making—a serious mistake,”
said May. In the north–east corner sat two students on opposite sides
of the same aisle, Walter Plympton and Chauncy Aldrich. Each student
said, “Does she mean me?” May Elliott did not mean either individual.
It was a chance movement of her eyes, but like many of our movements
that without intent are very significant in their results, the look
set two young men to thinking. After school, they discussed the merits
of May’s theme and treatment. Chauncy was the first speaker. He was
a very forcible looking young man, one who seemed to come at you and
collide with you, although he might be a hundred feet off. He brushed
up his hair in a mighty roll above his forehead, and that gave his head
the look of a battering–ram. He was nicknamed “Solomon,” as he talked
and acted as if he carried more native and more acquired wisdom in his
head than all the students, all the teachers, and all the trustees
of Franklin Academy bunched together. And yet he was rather liked in
school, as he had a bright, pleasant face, was generally smiling, and
combined with a really selfish nature, an apparent readiness to help
everybody that came along.
“Walter,” said Chauncy, as they went away from the academy together,
“What do you think of May Elliott’s composition?”
“I thought it was quite good. Anyway she looked over in my corner as if
she meant me.”
“That’s what I thought. I didn’t know but she was looking at me, as
much as to say, ‘Chauncy, this is meant for you.’ However, Miss
Elliott, you may keep looking all day, and I shall only take what
I please of it, and you may dispose of the rest in what market you
please.” Here Chauncy pushed back his hat; and his front knob of hair
came into prominence, and looked very belligerent, as if warning Miss
Elliott to be careful how she threw her ink–arrows in that direction.
“Oh, I didn’t suppose she really meant anything personal, Chauncy.”
“Perhaps not; but my motto is to be on the lookout, and not take people
as meaning to give you a higher per cent than human nature is inclined
to allow you.”
Chauncy was professedly preparing himself for a “business life,” and
terms like “per cent,” “market,” “stock,” were favorite words in his
vocabulary. The wise man now resumed his conversation.
“The fact is, with regard to what she said about other folks’ need, and
another life, and so on, those things of course are so; but as for my
needy neighbor, why, look at my needy self—ha—ha!”
Here Chauncy gave one of his quick, ready laughs, that had something
of the sound of a new half dollar when you throw it on a counter;
ringing, yet hard and metallic. “There is my Uncle Bezaleel. His motto
is, ‘Don’t forget number one,’ and how he has pulled the money in!
Nobody stands higher in the market.”
“Bezaleel?” asked Walter, catching at the word.
“Yes, Bezaleel Baggs.”
“Beelzebub your uncle?” Walter was about to say, remembering Aunt
Lydia’s habit of speech; but he checked this imprudent phraseology and
remarked, “Bez—Bezaleel Baggs your uncle?”
“Yes, and a smart one. He is a great land–owner, buying up whole
forests, and he runs mills and so on. He expects to give me a lift,
perhaps take me in business with him. That’s my uncle.”
“Indeed!” thought Walter.
“Oh,” resumed Chauncy, “we were speaking of May Elliott’s composition.
Well, I was going to say about her pious remarks at the close, that
they are well enough in their place, of course; but if she meant me
when she looked our way, I only want to say that there will be time for
that by and by. _You_ can think them over, if you want to.”
Walter made no reply and the two separated.
It was a casual remark, “You can think them over,” and at another time,
Walter might quickly have forgotten the words. Somehow that day, the
words stayed with Walter. They seemed to have roots, and they took hold
of Walter’s thoughts, and went deep down into his soul, and there they
clung.
“I don’t know what the matter is why I keep thinking of that
composition,” he said, later in the day.
“You look sober, Walt,” observed Chauncy.
“Thinking,” replied Walter laughing.
“About that composition—eh? Well, here is one who is not,” and the
wise man gave two or three satisfied little chuckles.
“Why should he fancy I was thinking about that composition?” Walter
asked himself. “I am, though, and can’t seem to get rid of it.”
He went to his boarding–place, passed directly to his room, and sat
down in a chair by the western window. There was an outlook across
a stretch of green fields waving with grain, up to a round–topped
hill, bushy with vigorous oaks. Over a shoulder of this hill peeped
another, but so distant, that a veil of blue haze covered it all day.
The stillness of the hour, for it was at twilight, the sun going down
behind hangings of crimson along the blue hill, made a quiet in
Walter’s breast, and suggested thoughts that in the hurry and noise of
the day are not likely to be fostered.
“Oh, that composition, ‘What are we living for?’” thought Walter.
“Well, what _am_ I living for?”
Was he living for others? He did trust he was a help to those at home,
and yet he had no conscious, definite purpose to give himself for their
welfare; and as for those outside, he certainly hoped he had done them
no harm, and he ventured to think he might have granted a few favors,
but he had not thought in a very special way about anybody except
Walter Plympton. He had gone on in a boy’s careless fashion, meaning
in a general way to mind his parents and consult their welfare; and to
do “about the fair thing by outsiders,” was also his thought. As for
that other life which we must all meet, the whole subject to his mind
was in a hazy condition like the distant blue hill he was looking at.
Once a week, while sitting in St. Mary’s at home, the old rector saying
some solemn thing in the pulpit or the choir singing a plaintive tune,
he was quite likely to think of another life. The other six days, he
was thinking of school, and farmwork, and his duties at home, or play,
outside. And as for thoughts about God, they would chase through his
mind like the shadows of clouds across a green summer field. They might
visit him at family prayers, or on Sunday, in church, or when praying
by himself at home; but like the hasty cloud–shadows, such thoughts
were soon gone. His general attitude toward all these subjects was that
of a thoughtless indifference; and any particular attention he paid
now and then was the result of a mere habit of going to church, or the
saying of hurried prayers, rather than a direct preference and purpose
of his heart.
“I don’t think I am where I ought to be in such matters,” was Walter’s
conclusion, and if he had a comfortable satisfaction in himself when
he began to think, it had now melted away like a snow–bank in a spring
rain.
“The sun has been down, some time,” he said at last, “and the bright
colors have all faded out of the sky. It looks pretty sober over there
now.”
Walter felt, as the sky looked, “sober.” The distant blue hill had
quickly turned to a dark, undefined mass of shadow. The hill near by
went behind a veil. Soon, the fields shrank out of sight, like green
scrolls rolled up and taken away. Walter rose and left the room. He
did not leave his thoughts behind. Those went with him. For several
days, he was thinking upon that subject: “What am I living for?” The
longer he thought, the more deficient seemed his life. There came
another night when he bowed his head in prayer as never before. Feeling
his unworthiness, how poor and mean his life had been, he asked God
to forgive him. Feeling that his life had been without a strong,
definite, acceptable purpose, he asked God to take him, and help him
live for the highest ends. And there rose up before him Jesus Christ,
as the expression of God’s readiness to forgive a past, deficient life,
sincerely regretted; Jesus Christ, as the perfect, divine Guide by
which to direct all our lives in the future; Jesus Christ, his Saviour
from sin. A letter arrived for the Plymptons one day, and it read thus:
“_Dear Father and Mother_: I suppose you will be surprised to get this,
but I wanted to tell you of something that has interested me and I know
will interest you. I have made up my mind, God helping me, to be a
different person. I hope I haven’t been what people call a bad boy, but
still, I might have been better, and thought more of your interests,
and tried hard to do my duty toward God. You will forgive me for all my
thoughtlessness, won’t you? And you will pray for me, please, won’t you?
Your affectionate son,
“WALTER.”
“The dear boy!” exclaimed Mrs. Plympton. “Yes, father and I will pray
for you, won’t we?”
Mr. Plympton could only nod assent, for the tears filled his eyes.
Indeed there were two people in that house who often looked at one
another with red eyes that day, but it was the redness that goes with
happy hearts, with the bright hopes of a morning sky, and not the glare
of a sad fire that destroys our dearest interests.
It may have been two weeks after the arrival of the above letter, that
another came.
“Here is a letter from your brother Boardman,” said Mr. Plympton,
entering the kitchen, where his wife was cooking her weekly batch of
pies. “Open it, please, and see what he says.”
Mrs. Plympton wiped carefully her floury hands, adjusted her
spectacles, and sitting down by a window where the light streamed in
across the hollyhocks and sunflowers in the yard, began to read:
“_Dear Ezra and Louisa_:—We are all well, and hope you are the same. I
suppose you are expecting Walter home before long, this summer, and I
got the impression from you that he was not going back again. I think I
can give him a job this fall and winter if you agree to it, and I’ll see
that he has good wages. I have always, with Lydia’s help, as you know,
managed my store and post–office myself, but I expect I shall need the
help of a clerk. I have sold a lot of land, timber land, to Mr. Bezaleel
Baggs; and I am putting up a steam mill, and I am interested in it, and
it is going to take me away from the store a good deal. Then I have
engaged to supply the crew at the life saving station with provisions,
and also to take their mail to them. So you see somebody has got to go
and look after their orders, and fetch their goods, and it is more than
I can conveniently look after. What do you say to letting Walter come
here the first of September? Please let me know soon.
“Your affectionate brother,
“BOARDMAN BLAKE.”
“Well, Ezra, what do you say?”
“I—I—don’t know. I sort of hate to have him away, Louisa.”
“So do I.”
“I suppose though, he must start some time to be doing for himself.”
“Oh, here is a postscript! Tucked away up in one corner. I almost lost
sight of it.”
“What does it say?”
“‘P. S.—He can come home every week.’ That makes it different, Ezra.”
“And it’s only ten miles away. I suppose he’ll be just crazy to see
that life saving station.”
“So he will. When he came back last winter, he said it was just
aggravating to think he could not stay longer.”
“Let us write to Walter and see what he says.”
The result of all this was that the first day of September, when the
life saving station was opened for the season, there appeared at the
door Uncle Boardman’s new clerk, to receive the daily order for the
crew’s provisions.
“I am beginning a new life,” thought Walter.
It was a new life in many ways. About six months ago, the careless,
laughing, kindly–natured youth at home, had left it to assume new
responsibilities elsewhere, at the academy. He had come back still
happy and laughing, but a new and earnest purpose had entered his soul,
and was controlling him. He had since been confirmed, in the little
village church, openly acknowledging his Saviour. He had entered his
uncle’s neighborhood to meet and assume fresh responsibilities. He
would come in contact with the men at the life saving station. He would
meet others in his daily business duties. Would he keep and increase
the religion he had brought with him? Would it lessen?
“I shall try hard to do my duty,” said Walter, in his thoughts.
We shall see what he did.