Raven always remembered that as the night of his life, up to this
present moment, the mountain peak standing above the waters of his
discontent. The top of the mountain, that was what lifted itself in an
island inexpressibly green and fair above those sullen depths, and on
this, the island of deliverance, he was to stand. After he had reasoned
Amelia into her room and persuaded her to leave her packing till the
morning, he went up to his own chamber, mentally spent and yet keyed to
an exhausting pitch. He was excited yet tired, tied up into nervous
knots without the will to loose them. What sense in going to bed, when
he could not sleep? What need of reviewing the last chapter of his
knowledge of the woman who was so compelling in her helplessness and her
childlike faith? He would read: something silly, if he had it at hand.
The large matters of the mind and soul were not for this unwilling
vigil; and at this intruding thought of the soul he smiled, remembering
how glibly he had bartered the integrity of his own to add his fragment
to the rising temple of Tira's faith. He had strengthened her at the
expense of his own bitter certainties. It was done deliberately and it
was not to be regretted, but it did open a window upon his private
rectitude. Was his state of mind to be taken so very seriously, even by
himself? Not after that! Lounging before his book-shelves in search of a
soporific, suddenly he remembered the mottled book. It flashed into his
mind as if a hand had hurled it there. He would read Old Crow's journal.
Settled in bed, the light beside him and the mottled book in his hand,
he paused a thoughtful minute before opening it. Poor old devil! Was
this the jangled record of an unsound mind, or was it the apologia for
an eccentricity probably not so uncommon, after all? Foolish, he
thought, to leave a record of any sort, unless you were a
heaven-accredited genius, entrusted with the leaves of life. Better to
recognize your own atomic insignificance, and sink willingly into the
predestined sea. He opened it and took a comprehensive glance over the
first page: an oblong of small neat handwriting. Many English hands were
like that. He was accustomed to call it a literary hand. Over the first
date he paused, to refer it back to his own years. How big was he when
Old Crow had begun the diary? Seven, that was all. He was a boy of seven
years, listening with an angry yet fascinated attention to the other
boys talking about Old Crow, who was, they said, luny, love-cracked. He
never could hear enough about the terrifying figure choosing to live up
there in the woods alone, and who yet seemed so gentle and so like other
folk when you met him and who gave you checker-berry lozenges. Still he
was furious when the boys hooted him and then ran, because, after all,
Old Crow was his own family. And with the first words, his mind started
to an alert attention. The words were to him.
"I am going to write some things down for the boy," Old Crow began, in
the neat-handed script. "He is a good little boy. He looks like me at
his age. I had a kind of innocence. He has it, too. If he should grow up
anything like me, I want him to have this letter"--the last word was
crossed out and a more formal one substituted--"statement. If he thinks
about things anyways different from what the neighbors do, they will
begin to laugh at him, and try to make him believe he is not in his
right mind."
Over and over, through the first pages of the book, there were
grammatical lapses when Old Crow, apparently from earnestness of
feeling, fell into colloquial speech. This was always when he got so
absorbed in his subject that he lacked the patience to go back and
rewrite according to rules he certainly knew but which had ceased to
govern his daily intercourse.
"He must remember he may be in his right mind, for all that. If one man
thinks a thing, it might be true if forty thousand men think different.
The first man that thought the earth was round, when everybody else
thought it was flat, was one man. The boy will be told I was crazy. He
will be told I was love-cracked. I did want Selina James. She was a
sweet, pretty girl and high-headed, and the things some folks thought of
her were not so. But she was the kind that takes the world as it was
made and asks no questions, and when I couldn't take it so and tried to
explain to her how I felt about it, she didn't know any way but to
laugh. Perhaps she was afraid. And she did get sick of me and turned me
off. She married and went away. I was glad she went away, because it is
very hard to keep seeing anybody you thought liked you and find they
didn't, after all. It keeps reminding you. It was after that time I
built me the hut and came up here to live.
"Now the boy will hear it was on account of Selina James that I came up
here, but it is not so, though it well might have been. It was about
that time I began to understand what a hard time 'most everybody is
having--except for a little while when they are young, and sometimes
then--and I couldn't stand it. And I thought how it might not be so if
everybody would turn to and help everybody else, and that might be the
kingdom of heaven, the same as we read about it. And then one day I went
out--I was always going round the fields and woods, kind of still,
because I liked to come on little animals living their own lives in
their own way--and I came to the open spot up above the hut where there
are the old apple trees left from the first house the Ravens lived in,
on the back road, before the other road went through. And on one of the
lower limbs of the apple tree was a robin and she was making that noise
a robin makes when she is scared 'most to pieces, and on another limb
there was a red squirrel, and he was chattering so I knew he was scared,
too. And down under the tree there was a snake pointed right at a little
toad, and I stamped my foot and hollered to scare him away; and that
same minute he struck and the toad fell over, whether poisoned to death
or scared to death I didn't know. And the snake slipped away, because he
was afraid of me, just as the toad was afraid of him. And the bird
smoothed down her feathers and flew away, and the squirrel run along
where he was going. They had got off that time, and I suppose the next
minute they forgot all about it. But I never forgot. It was just as if
something had painted a picture to show me what the world was. It was
full of fear. Everything was made to hunt down and kill everything else,
except the innocent things that eat grass and roots, and innocent as
they be--as they are--they are killed, too. And who made it so? God. So
what peace could I have--what peace could anybody ever have--in a world
where, from morning till night, it is war and murder and the fear of
death? And what good is there in trying to bring the kingdom of heaven
down to men? You can't bring it to the animals. What if you could die
for men? A good many have done that besides Jesus Christ. But who is
going to die for the animals? And the animals in captivity--I saw a bear
once, in a cage, walking up and down, up and down, and moaning. I saw a
polar bear once trying to cool himself on a cake of ice. I saw an eagle
with his wings clipped. An eagle ought to be up in the air. And all that
could be done away with, by law, if men would see to it. But even then
(and this is the strangest part of it, the part that won't bear thinking
about) it is not only that men are unmerciful to the animals, but the
animals, when they are hungry, are unmerciful to one another. I shall
come back to this.
"Now about Jesus Christ. I hate to write this because, if the boy does
not see things as I do, maybe it will be bad for him to read it, and he
may think I am blaspheming holy things. I pray him to remember I write
in earnestness and love, love for him, for the earth and for the
animals. I want to tell him things look very black to me. When I think
how I felt over losing Selina James it seems to me as nothing compared
with the way I feel about the way the world is made. For it is all
uncertainty and 'most all pain. It seems to me it is not possible for
anything to be blacker than the earth is to me. I wake in the morning
with a cloud over me, and when I go to bed at night the cloud is there.
It settles down on me like--I don't know how to say what it is like--and
I call out, up here alone in the woods. I call to God. I remember how He
made the earth and I ask Him why He had to do it so. Over and over I ask
Him. He does not answer. He can't. I suppose that is what it is to be
God. You have to make a thing a certain way, and after it is done they
have to take it, the men and the animals, and do the best they can with
it. And one night when I was calling to God, there was a scream of an
animal--a little animal--just outside, and I knew an owl had got him.
And I covered my ears, for it seemed as if that was God's answer to me,
and I didn't want to hear any more. I even thought--and I tell the boy
this so that if he has thoughts that frighten him he will have the
comfort of knowing somebody has thought them before--I thought that
scream was God's answer. It was a good many months before I could pray
again, even to ask God why.
"Now about religion. A great many people go to church and find comfort
in it, and they come home and eat meat for their dinners, meat
killed--they don't know how it is killed. Sometimes it is killed the
best you can and sometimes not. They don't seem to think about that.
They have done their duty and gone to church, and they go out to feed
the animals they are going to kill when they are fat enough, and
sometimes the animals will be killed the best they can and sometimes
not. And if they think about their sins, they quiet themselves by
thinking Christ has taken them on His own shoulders. And so, unless
somebody they love has died, or they are poor or disappointed, they say
it is a very pleasant world, and they ask for another slice of beef and
plan what they will do Monday, now Sunday is so far along. Now if the
boy is that kind of a boy, let him be like those people who do the best
they can without questioning. Let him do the best he can and not
question. But if he is different, if he has to think--sometimes I am
sure he will have to, for I cannot help seeing he looks out of his eyes
like me. His eyes are terrible to me, for they are always asking
questions, and that is what Grandmother Raven used to say to me. She
used to say: 'You are always asking questions with your eyes. Stop
staring and ask your questions right out.' But I couldn't. As long ago
as that, I knew my questions hadn't any answers.
"Now if the boy begins to ask himself questions about Jesus Christ,
whether He is the son of God, and whether He could take on Himself the
sins of the world, I want to tell him that I am sure it is not so. I
want the boy to remember that nobody can take away his sins: nobody but
himself. He must accept his punishments. He must even go forward to meet
them, for through them alone can he learn how to keep away from sin. And
I want him to regard the life of Jesus Christ with love and reverence,
and make his own life as much like it as he can. But I want him to
remember, too, that God made him as he is, and made his father and
mother and all the rest back to the first man, and that there is no
guilt of sinfulness upon man as a race. There is only the burden of
ignorance. We live in the dark. We were born into it. As far as our
knowledge of right and wrong goes, so far are we guilty. But He has made
us as we are, and if there is guilt, it is not ours."
As Raven read this, he found himself breathing heavily in the excitement
of knowing what it cost the man to write so nakedly for casual eyes. To
that elder generation, trained in the habit of thought that prevailed in
a country region, so many years ago, it was little short of blasphemy.
He turned a page, and had a cumulative surprise. For time had leaped.
The date was seven years later. Old Crow was now over sixty, and this
was the year before his death. Raven could hardly believe in the
likelihood of so wide a leap, but the first line showed him it was
actual. The subject matter was different and so was the style. The
sentences raced as if they were in a hurry to get themselves said before
the pen should drop from a palsied hand.
"I gave up writing with that last line. I thought there was no more to
say. I didn't even want to read it over. If I hadn't said it well, still
I had said it and I didn't see any better way. I wanted to fortify the
boy against the loneliness of feeling there was nobody that understood.
I wanted to tell him I understood. That was all I could do for him at
that time. But a great deal more has happened. The last of it happened
over two years ago, but I was too busy to write it down. Besides, I
didn't know there would be such things to write. The boy knows me a
little now. He comes up oftener. His mother brings him. She is very
sweet and gentle, but she will not leave him alone with me because I am
queer and she is afraid I may teach him to be queer. She does not
understand. She wouldn't if I told her. She takes things as they are.
There are no questions in her mind. There will be in the boy's. They
have begun to come. I can see them more than ever by the look in his
eyes. Several years ago, about when I finished writing in this book, I
saw I should have to give up questioning myself and calling on God.
There were no answers. If there were, He didn't mean to let me have
them. I mustn't keep on. It was dangerous. I got no good out of it and I
should come to harm. And if I had got to live, I must be as near like
other folks as I could. So I must be as busy as I could. And it came to
me that over beyond the mountain there were folks poorer than I am, and
that knew less, a good deal less. I didn't know anything about God, but
I did know I must keep clean and eat the right food. So I begun to take
long tramps round the countryside, and wherever I went I'd try to find
out the sick and, if the family was poor, work for them a while and sit
up with the sick one, and, if he was discouraged, try to help him
through.
"So it happened I was away from the hut a good deal of the time, and I
got an idea the Ravens liked that. It must have touched their pride to
have Old Crow living up here alone, queer as Dick's hat-band. Whichever
way I fixed it, I was a kind of a curse: for when I went off on my
wanderings I was a tramp and the news of it came back home, and I often
think the boy's mother was sorry and wished I wouldn't, though even that
was better than my being around, toleing off the boy. I liked my
wanderings, in summer best of all. But in winter the folks needed me
more, shut up so in tight houses, catching colds in bad air, and it got
so when they were sick they'd send for me and I was proper pleased to
go. And they came to have a kind of a trust in me, and I was nearer
being contented than I'd been in my whole life. Because the questions
didn't come hardly at all, now. I was too busy by day and too tired at
night. So it went on till one day I came to old Billy Jones's little
house, where he lived all alone in the dirt and filth. It was just at
the foot of the mountain and no neighbors under half a mile. I say he
lived there, but he wasn't there more than a third of the time. The boy
will remember how he used to go along the road, full as a tick, and the
school children making fun of him and then running before he could get
at them. I don't know as he would, though. There never was any harm in
him, only he did neglect himself so he was an awful sight. And the only
time he was in his little house was when he'd been hired out haying or
something, and got his money and spent it and come back with crackers
and cheese in his old carpet bag, to sober up.
"This day I was speaking about (it was October and no wind) I was going
by his house and I saw a smoke coming out of the chimney, and I thought
old Billy had come home to sober up. But I hadn't hardly got to the
house before I heard him calling me, and I looked and there he was in
the front door leaning on a cane.
"'You come in here,' says he, and I went in.
"It was a terrible hog's nest, his front room was, but I paid no
attention, for that's the way he lived. He sat down in a chair and made
a motion with his hand for me to come near, and I did, and he took my
hand and put it on his knee.
"'Feel that,' he says. And when I didn't know what he meant, nor care
hardly, for I thought he might be in drink, he called out, in a queer
voice--sharp it was, and pitiful--and says he: 'My legs are swelling.
Hard as a rock.'
"Then I saw he was in a trouble of fear, and I asked him questions and
he told me how long it had been coming on and how he went to the doctor
down to the street, and the doctor told him he was a sick man, and how
he would grow worse instead of better and could never take care of
himself in the world, and the doctor would get him sent to the Poor
Farm. That was his trouble. He did not want to go to the Farm, and when
I told him it was the right way, he broke down and shook and cried and
said he was afraid to go. Then he told me why. The boy must not read
this until he is grown up, but when he is, he will hear there was a man
killed over across the mountain: Cyrus Graves, a poor, good-for-nothing
creature as it was said. (But God made him.) He was found by the side of
the road, and it was thought he had words with a peddler that went along
that day and never was found afterward. But some thought the authorities
never tried so hard as they might to find the peddler, because Cyrus was
such a poor good-for-nothing that he was well rid of, and if the peddler
was found and not convicted he might come back and burn their barns. And
when old Billy Jones was shaking there before me, I kept asking him what
he was afraid of, and he said:
"'Will you promise not to tell?'
"I said I would. And he said:
"'It was me that killed Cyrus Graves. We were coming home together, and
we had both had a drop too much, and we had words about something, I
forget what. And which of us struck first I don't know, but I know I
struck him and he fell pitch-polling down the side of the road into the
gully and I went home and crawled into bed. And the next day they found
him, and I said I came home across lots, and there was a man that met me
and he said it was so and I was so far gone in liquor I never could have
raised my head again that night, once I'd laid down and begun to sleep
it off. But he never knew I did raise my head for I was not so well
started as common and I went out again about ten to fill up. And it was
then I met Cyrus Graves.'
"I told him there was but one thing for him to do. He must send for the
sheriff and give himself up. But he cried out at that and said:
"'Look at my poor legs. Do you think a man with such legs as mine has
got strength enough to be hung?'
"I told him he would not be hung. He was a very sick man, and there was
no court of law in the world so unmerciful as not to take that into
account. But he would not do it. He had not meant to kill Cyrus Graves,
he said, and he would not die a murderer and known for one. And that was
why he would not go to the Poor Farm. As he got sicker, he might be
delirious or talk in his sleep. Rave, that was the word he used. He
might rave. After he stopped speaking, I sat thinking it over, and he
watched my face. He spoke first, and he spoke as if he could hardly wait
to hear the answer and yet was obliged to hear it.
"'Ain't you goin' to say you'll come here an' take care of me?' he said.
'My time won't be long.'
"Then I could see my going round taking care of the sick had made him
turn to me. That was the way with all of them round here. They turned to
me. It was the only comfort I had. I told him I could not take care of
him there. It was no fit place. I thought a spell longer, and he watched
me. His eyes were full of fear. The little animals look like that when
they are trapped. Then I told him I would have him brought over to the
hut if he would come, and he jumped at it. I scarcely ever saw a man so
wild with thankfulness. And the next day I hired a team and went over
after him, and I took care of him to the end."
Here was a heavy dash. Raven could imagine Old Crow's drawing the line
with one impatient stroke because he had got so far in a story he could
ill stop to write, but that had to be written. Raven had forgotten Tira
up there in the lonesome woods, forgotten a day was very near when she
would have to make one more of her desperate decisions. He was thinking
of Old Crow.