NORT
I love Norton Carr very much, as he well knows, but if I am to tell a
truthful story I may as well admit, first as last, that Nort was never
quite sure how it was that he got off, or was put off, at Hempfield. In
making this admission, however, I do not for a moment accept all the
absurd stories which are afloat regarding Nort's arrival in Hempfield.
He says the first thing he remembers clearly was of standing in the
street at the top of our common, looking down into Hempfield--one of the
finest views in our town. The exact historic spot where he stood was
nearly in front of a small shoe shop, the one now kept by Tony, the
Italian. If ever the Georgia Johnson Chapter of the Daughters of the
American Revolution runs out of places upon which to plant stones,
tablets, trees, flowers, cannon balls, or drinking fountains, I would
respectfully suggest raising a monument in front of Tony's shop with
some such inscription as this:
Here Stood
NORTON CARR
On the Morning of His
INVOLUNTARY
Arrival in Hempfield
Nort walked down the street with a number of boys behind him--_three_,
to be exact, _not_ a "rabble." He was seen by old Mrs. Parker, one of
our most prominent journalists, who was, as usual, beating her doormat
on the front porch. He was seen by Jared Sparks, who keeps the woodyard,
and by Johnny McGonigal, who drives the hack; and finally he was caught
by the eagle eye of the Press, in the person of Captain Doane, as I have
already related, and his shame was published abroad to the world through
the columns of the _Star_. As nearly as I can make out, for the facts
regarding any given event in Hempfield often vary in adverse proportion
to the square of the number of persons doing the reporting, the main
indictment against Nort upon this occasion was that he appeared in town,
a stranger without a hat. _Without a hat!_
I admit that he _did_ stop in front of the Congregational Church; but I
maintain that it is well worth any man's while to stop on a fine morning
and look at our old church, with its mantle of ivy and the sparrows
building their nests in the eaves. I admit also that he _did_ make a
bow, a low bow, to the spire, but I deny categorically Johnny
McGonigal's absurd yarn that he said: "Good mornin', church. Shorry
sheem disrespechtful." Any one who knows Nort as well as I do would not
consider his making a bow to a perfectly respectable old church as
anything remarkable, or accusing him of having been intoxicated, save
with the wine of spring and of youth. Why, I myself have often bowed to
fine old oak trees and to hilltops. I wonder why it is that when small
communities jump at conclusions, they so often jump the wrong way?
And yet I don't want to blame Hempfield. You can see for yourself what
it would mean--a stranger, without a hat, bowing to the spire of the
Congregational Church--what it would mean in a town which has
religiously voted "dry" every spring since the local-option law went
into effect, which abhors saloons, which resounds with the thunders of
pulpit and press against the iniquity of drink, and where, if there are
three or four places where the monster may be quietly devoured, no one
is supposed to know anything about them.
I do not enlarge upon this picture of Nort with any delight, and yet I
have always thought that it was a great help to Nort that he should have
appeared in Hempfield in the guise of a vagabond.
If we had known then that he had the right kind of a father, had come
from the right kind of a college, and had already spent a good deal of
money that he had not earned, I fear he would have been seriously
handicapped. We should probably have looked the other way while he was
bowing to the church--and considered that he was going without a hat for
his health. As for putting him in the _Star_, we should never have
dreamed of it!
I love to think of Nort, coming down our street for the first time--the
green common with its wonderful tall elms on one side and the row of
neat stores and offices on the other. It must be a real adventure to see
Hempfield on a sunny morning with a new eye, to pass Henderson's
drygoods store and catch the ginghamy whiff from the open doorway, or go
by Mr. Tole's drug store and breathe in the aromatic odour of strange
things that should be stoppered in glass bottles and aren't. And then
the cool smell of newly watered sidewalks, and the good look of the
tomatoes in their baskets, and the moist onions, and spinach, and
radishes, and rhubarb in front of the shady market, and the sparrows
fighting in the street--and everything quiet, and still, and home-like!
[Illustration: _John Bass's blacksmith shop_]
And think of coming unexpectedly (how I wish I could do it myself some
day and wake up afterward to enjoy it) upon the wide doorway of John
Bass's blacksmith shop, and see John himself standing there at his anvil
with a hot horseshoe in his tongs. John never sings when his iron is in
the fire, but the moment he gets his hand on his hammer and the iron on
the horn of the anvil, then all the Baptist in him seems suddenly to
effervesce, and he lifts his high and squeaky voice:
"Jeru (whack) salem (whack) the gold (whack) en (whack, whack),
"With milk (whack) and hon (whack) ey blest (whack, whack, whack)."
And what wouldn't I give to clap my eyes newly on old Mr. Kenton,
standing there in front of his office, his florid face shaded by the
porch roof, but the rotundity of his white waistcoat gleaming in the
sunshine, his cane hooked over his arm, and himself looking benignly out
upon the world of Hempfield as it flows by, ready to discuss with any
one either the origin or the destiny of his neighbours.
At the corner above the post office Nort stopped and leaned against the
fence, and looked up the street and down the street. His spirits were
extremely low. He felt wholly miserable. He had not a notion in the
world what he was going to do, did not at that time even know the name
of the town he was in. It was indeed pure chance that had led him to
Hempfield. If he had had a few cents more in his pocket it might have
been Acton, or if a few cents less it might have been Roseburg. His only
instinct, blurred at the moment, I am sorry to say, had been to get as
far away from New York as possible--and Hempfield happened to be just
about the limit of his means.
[Illustration: _He pictured himself sitting in the quiet study of the
minister, looking sad, sad_]
He was already of two minds as to whether he should give it all up and
get back to New York as quickly as possible. He thought of dropping in
on the most important man in town, say the banker, or the Congregational
minister, and introducing himself in the role of contrite spendthrift or
of remorseful prodigal, as the case might be--trust Nort for knowing how
to do it--and by hook or crook raise enough money to take him back. He
pictured himself sitting in the quiet study of the minister, looking
sad, sad, and his mind lighted up with the wonderful things he could say
to prove that of all the sheep that had bleated and gone astray since
ever the world began, he was, without any doubt, the darkest of hue. He
sketched in the details with a sure touch. He could almost _see_ the
good old man's face, the look of commiseration gradually melting to one
of pitying helpfulness. It would require only a very few dollars to get
him back to New York.
He was on the point of carrying this interesting scheme into operation
when the scenes and incidents of his recent life in New York swept over
him, a mighty and inundating wave of black discouragement. Everything
had been wrong with him from the beginning, it seemed to him that
morning. He had not had the right parents, nor the right education, nor
enough will power, nor any true friends, nor the proper kind of
ambition.
When Satan first led Nort up on a high hill and offered him all the
kingdoms of the earth, Nort had responded eagerly:
"Why, sure! I'll take em. Got any more where those come from?"
Nort's was an eager, curious, ardent, insatiable nature, which should
have been held back rather than stimulated. No sooner had he stepped out
into life than he wanted it all--everything that he could see, or hear,
or smell, or taste, or touch--and all at once. I do not mean by this
that Nort was a vicious or abandoned character beyond the pale of his
humankind. He had, indeed, done things that were wrong, that he knew
were wrong, but thus far they had been tentative, experimental,
springing not from any deeply vicious instincts but expressing, rather,
his ardent curiosity about life.
I think sometimes that our common definition of dissipation is far too
narrow. We confine it to crude excesses in the use of intoxicating
liquor or the crude gratification of the passions; but often these are
only the outward symbols of a more subtle inward disorder. The things of
the world--a thousand clamouring interests, desires, possessions--have
got the better of us. Men become drunken with the inordinate desire for
owning things, and dissolute with ambition for political office. I knew
a man once, a farmer, esteemed an upright man in our community, who
debauched himself upon land; fed his appetite upon the happiness of his
home, cheated his children of education, and himself went shabby,
bookless, joyless, comfortless, that he might buy more land. I call that
dissipation, too!
And in youth, when all the earth is very beautiful, when our powers
seem as limitless as our desires (I know, I know!), we stand like
Samson, and for the sheer joy of testing our strength pull down the
pillars of the temple of the world.
In Nort's case a supply of unearned money had enormously increased his
power of seeing, hearing, feeling, doing; everything opened wide to the
magic touch of the wand of youth, enthusiasm, money. He could neither
live fast enough nor enjoy too much.
He had, indeed, had periods of sharp reaction. This was not the first
time that the kingdoms of the earth, too easily possessed, had palled
upon him, and he had resolved to escape. But he had never yet been quite
strong enough; he had never gone quite low enough. The lure of that
which was exciting or amusing or beautiful, above all, that which was or
pretended to be friendly or companionable, had always proved too strong
for him.
As time passed, and his naturally vigorous mind expanded--his body was
never very robust--the reactions from the diversions with which his life
was surrounded grew blacker and more desperate. In his moments of
reflection he saw clearly where his path was leading him. There was
much in him, though never yet called out, of the native force of his
stern old grandfather who had begun life a wage labourer, and in his
moments of revolt, as men who dissipate crave that which is cold or
bitter or sour, Nort had moments of intense longing for something hard,
knotty, difficult, for hunger, cold, privation. Without knowing it, he
was groping for reality.
And here he was in Hempfield, leaning against the fence of Mrs. Barrow's
garden, desperately low in his spirits, at one moment wondering why he
had come away, at the next feeling wretchedly that somehow this was his
last chance. Fool! fool! His whole being loathed the discomfort of his
pampered body, and yet he felt that if he gave up now he might never
again have the courage to revolt.
[Illustration: _What a thing is youth! That sunny morning in Hempfield
Nort thought that he was drinking the uttermost dregs of life--they were
pretty bitter--and yet, somehow he was able to stand a little aside and
enjoy it all_]
What a thing is youth! That sunny morning in Hempfield Nort thought that
he was drinking the uttermost dregs of life--they _were_ pretty
bitter--and yet, somehow, he was able to stand a little aside and enjoy
it all. Black as it was, it had yet the mystical quality of a new
adventure, new possibilities. At one moment Nort was hating himself,
hating his whole life, hating the town in which fate had dropped him,
with all the passion of a naturally robust nature; and at the next he
was peeping around the corner of the next adventure to see what he might
see. The suffering of youth with honey in its mouth!
Oh, to be twenty-four! To feel that one has sounded all the chords of
life, known every bitterness, to have become entirely disillusioned,
wholly cynical, utterly reckless--and not to know that life and illusion
have only just begun!
The hard, bristling, painful thing in his insides which Nort couldn't
identify, wrongly attributing it to certain things he had been eating
and drinking now for several days past, was in fact his soul.
How I love to think of Nort at that moment, that wonderful, fertile,
despondent, hopeful, passionate moment. How I love to think of him, who
is now so dear a friend, quite miserable, but with a half smile on his
lips, his vigorous nature full of every conceivable possibility of good
or evil, of success or failure, every capability of great love or great
bitterness----Nort, arm in arm with Life, tugged at by both God and
Satan, standing there, aimless, in the sunny street of Hempfield.
[Illustration]