WE BEGIN THE SUBJUGATION OF NORT
Here is a curious and interesting thing often to be noted by any man who
looks around him, that we human creatures are all made up into uneven
and restless bundles--family bundles, church bundles, political-party
bundles, and a thousand amusing kinds of business bundles. It will also
be observed that a very large part of us, nearly all of us who are old
and most of us who are women, are struggling as hard as ever we can (and
without a bit of humour) to hold our small bundles together, while
others are struggling with equal ferocity to burst out of their bundles
and make new ones. And so on endlessly!
If you see any one particular specimen in any one particular bundle who
is making himself obnoxious by wriggling and squirming and twisting with
an utter disregard for the sensibilities of the bundle-binders, you may
conclude that he is affected by the most mysterious influence, or power,
or malady--whatever you care to call it--with which we small human
beings have to grapple. I mean that he is growing. When you come to
think of it, the most incalculable power in the life of men is the power
of growth. If you could tell when any given human being was through
growing, you could tell what to do with him; but you never can. Some men
are ripe at twenty-five, and some are still adding power and knowledge
at eighty. It is not inheritance, nor environment, nor wealth, nor
position, that measures the difference between human beings, but rather
the mysterious faculty of continued growth which resides within them. It
is growth that causes the tragedies of this world--and the
comedies--and the sheer beauty of life. Here are a husband and wife
bound together in the commonest of bundles: one stops growing, the other
keeps on growing; consult almost any play, novel, poem, newspaper, or
scandalous gossip, for the results. Consider the restless bundle of
nations called Europe, one of which recently began to grow tremendously,
began to squirm about in the bundle, began to demand room and air. What
an almighty pother this has caused! What an altogether serious business
for the bundle-binders!
These observations may seem to lead entirely around the celebrated barn
of Robin Hood, but if you follow them patiently you will find that they
bring you back at last (by way of Europe) to the dilapidated door of the
quiet old printing-office of the _Star_ of Hempfield. If you venture
inside you will discover, besides a cat and a canary, one of the most
interesting bundles of human beings I know anything about.
And one specimen in this bundle, as you may already suspect, has
developed a prodigious power of squirming and wriggling, and otherwise
making the bundle-binders of the _Star_ uncomfortable. I refer to
Norton Carr.
The world, of course, is in a secret conspiracy against youth and
growth. Any man who dares to be young, or to grow, or to be original,
must expect to have the world set upon him and pound him
unmercifully--and if that doesn't finish him off, then the world clings
desperately to his coat tails, resolved that if it cannot stop him
entirely it will at least go along with him and make travelling as
difficult as possible. This latter process is what a friend of mine
illuminatively calls the "drag of mediocrity."
But this punching and pounding is mostly good for youth and
originality--good if it doesn't kill--for it proves the strength of
youth, tests faith and enthusiasm, and measures surely the power of
originality. And as for the provoking drag upon their coat tails, youth
and originality should reflect that this is the only way by which
mediocrity ever gets ahead!
As I look back upon the history of the _Star_ it seems to me it is a
record of Nort's wild plunges within our bundle, and our equally wild
efforts to keep him disciplined. I say "our" efforts, but I would, of
course, except Ed Smith. Ed had a narrow vision of what that bundle
called the _Star_ should be. He wanted it no larger than he was, so that
he could dominate it comfortably, and when Nort became obstreperous, he
simply cut the familiar cord which bound Nort into the bundle: to wit,
his wages. Ed had the very common idea that the only really important
relationships between human beings are determined by monetary payments,
which can be put on or put off at will. But the fact is that we are
bound together in a thousand ways not set down in the books on
scientific management. For example, if that rascal of a Norton Carr had
not been so interesting to us all, had not so worked his way into the
hearts of us, I should never have gone hurrying after him (at Anthy's
suggestion) on that November day. And it might--who knows--have been
better in dollars and cents for the _Star_, if I had _not_ hurried. No,
as an old friend of mine in Hempfield, Howieson, the shoemaker (a wise
man), often remarks: "They say business is business. Well, I say
business _ain't_ business if it's _all_ business." Business grows not as
it eliminates talent or youth, however prickly or irritating to work
with, but by making itself big enough to use all kinds of human beings.
I recall yet the strange thrill I had when I left the printing-office
that day to search for Nort. It had given me an indescribable pleasure
to have Anthy ask me to help (her "we" lingered long in my
thoughts--lingers still), and I had, moreover, the feeling that it
depended somewhat on me to help bind together the now fiercely
antagonistic elements of the _Star_.
It may appear absurd to some who think that only those things are great
which are big and noisy, that anything so apparently unimportant should
stir a man as these events stirred me; but the longer I live the more
doubtful I am of the distinction between the times and the things upon
which the world places the tags "Important" and "Unimportant."
As I set forth I remember how very beautiful the streets of Hempfield
looked to me.
"Have you seen Norton Carr?" I asked here, and, "Have you seen Norton
Carr?" I asked there--tracing him from lair to lair, and friend to
friend, and thus found myself tramping out along the lower road that
leads toward the west and the river. He had sent a telegram, I found in
the course of my inquiry, which added a dash of mystery to my quest and
stirred in me a curious sense of anxiety.
The very feeling of that dull day, etched deep in my memory by the acid
of emotion, comes vividly back to me. There had been no snow, and the
fields were brown and bare--dead trees, dead hedges of hazel and cherry,
crows flying heavily overhead with melancholy cries, and upon the hills
beyond the river dull clouds hanging like widows' weeds: a brooding day.
At every turn I looked for Nort and, thus looking, came to the bridge.
It was the same spot, the same bridge, where, some years before, the
Scotch preacher and I, driving late one evening, looked anxiously for
the girl Anna. I can see her yet, wading there in the dark water, her
skirts all floating about her, hugging her child to her breast and
crying piteously, "I don't dare, oh, I don't dare, but I must, I must!"
Of all that I have told elsewhere.
I stopped a moment and looked down into the water where it reflected
the dark mood of the day, and then turned along the road that runs
between the alders of the river edge and the beeches and oaks of the
hill. It was the way Nort and I had taken more than once, talking great
talk. I thought I might find him there.
And there, indeed, I did find him--and know how some old chivalric
knight must have felt when at last he overtook the quarry which was to
be the guerdon of his lady.
"I shall take him back a captive," I said to myself.
Nort was sitting under a beech tree, looking out upon the cold river. A
veritable picture of desolation! He was whistling in a low monotone, a
way he had. Poor Nort! Life had opened the door of ambition for him,
just a crack, and he had caught glimpses of the glory within, only to
have the door slammed in his face. If he had walked upon cerulean
heights on Sunday he was grovelling in the depths on Monday. It was all
as plain to me as I approached him as if it had been written in a book.
"Hello, Nort," said I.
He started from his place and looked around at me.
"Hello, David," said he carelessly. "What brings you here?"
"You do," said I.
"I do!"
"Yes, I'm about to take you back to Hempfield. The _Star_ finds
difficulty in twinkling without you."
I told him what Anthy had said, and of what I felt to be a new effort to
control the policies of the _Star_. But Nort slowly shook his head.
"No, David. This is the end. I have finished with Hempfield."
I wish I could convey the air of resigned determination that was in his
words; also the cynicism. Pooh! If Hempfield didn't want him, Hempfield
could go hang. He was at the age when he thought he could get away from
life. He had not learned that the only way to get on with life is not to
get out of it, but to get into it.
He told me that he had wired for money to go home; he drew his brows
down in a hard scowl and stared out over the river.
"I've stopped fooling with life," said he tragically.
I could have laughed at him, and yet, somehow, I loved him. It was a
great moment in his life. I sat down by him under the beech.
"I'm going to be free," said Nort. "I'm going to do things yet in this
world."
"Free of what, Nort?" I asked.
"Ed Smith--for one thing."
"Have you thought that wherever you go you will be meeting Ed Smiths?"
He did not reply.
"I'm sorry," I said, "that you've surrendered."
"Surrendered?" He winced as though I had cut him.
"Yes, surrendered. Haven't you sent for money? Haven't you given up?
Aren't you trying to run away?"
Nort jumped from his place.
"No!" he shouted. "Ed Smith discharged me. I would rather cut off my
right hand than work in the same county with him again."
"So you have balked at the first hurdle--and are going to run away!"
I have thought often since then of that perilous moment, of how much in
Nort's future life turned upon it.
Nort's eyes, usually so blue and smiling, grew as black as night.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean just what I said"--I looked him in the eye--"you are running
away before the battle begins."
For a moment I thought I had lost him, and my heart began to sink within
me, and then--it was beautiful--he stepped impulsively toward me:
"Well, what do you think I should do, anyway?"
"Nort," I said, "only yesterday you were enthusiastic over the idea of
getting the truth about Hempfield, of publishing a really great country
newspaper."
"What an ass I was!"
"Wrong!" I said.
"David," he cut in petulantly, "I don't get what you mean."
"I'll tell you, Nort: The greatest joy in this world to a man like you
is the joy of new ideas, of wonderful plans---- Now, isn't it?"
"Yes. I certainly thought for a few days last week that I had found the
pot at the end of the rainbow."
"It was only the rainbow, Nort: if you want the pot you've got to dig
for it."
"What do you mean?"
"You think that you can stop with enthusiastic dreams and vast ideas.
But no vision and no idea is worth a copper cent unless it is brought
down to earth, patiently harnessed, painfully trained, and set to work.
There is a beautiful analogy that comes often to my mind. We conceive an
idea, as a child is conceived, in a transport of joy; but after that
there are long months of growth in the close dark warmth of the soul, to
which every part of one's personality must contribute, and then there is
the painful hour of travail when at last the idea is given to the world.
It is a process that cannot be hurried nor borne without suffering. And
the punishment of those who stop with the joy of conception, thinking
they can skim the delight of life and avoid its pain, is the same in the
intellectual and spiritual spheres as it is in the physical--barrenness,
Nort, and finally a terrible sense of failure and of loneliness."
I said it with all my soul, as I believe it. When I stopped, Nort did
not at once respond, but stood looking off across the river, winding a
twig of alder about his finger. Suddenly he looked around at me,
smiling:
"I'm every kind of a fool there is, David."
I confess it, my heart gave a bound of triumph. And it seemed to me at
that moment that I loved Nort like a son, the son I have never had. I
could not help slipping my arm through his, and thus we walked slowly
together down the road.
"But Ed Smith----" he expostulated presently.
"Nort," I said, "you aren't the only person in this world, although you
are inclined to think so. There are Ed Smiths everywhere--and old
Captains and David Graysons--and you may travel where you like and
you'll find just about such people as you find at Hempfield, and they'll
treat you just about as you deserve. Ed Smith is the test of you, Nort,
and of your enthusiasms. You've got to reconcile your ideas with corned
beef and cabbage, Nort, for corned beef and cabbage _is_."
I have been ashamed sometimes since when I think how vaingloriously I
preached to Nort that day (after having got him down), for I have never
believed much in preaching. It usually grows so serious that I want to
laugh--but I could not have helped it that November afternoon.
* * * * *
I see two men, just at evening of a dull day, walking slowly along the
road toward Hempfield, two gray figures, half indistinguishable against
the barren hillsides. All about them the dead fields and the hedges, and
above them the wintry gray of the sky, and crows lifting and calling.
Knowing well what is in the hot hearts of those two men--the visions,
the love, the pain, the hope, yes, and the evil--I swear I shall never
again think of any life as common or unclean. I shall never look to the
exceptional events of life for the truth of life.
The two men I see are friend and friend, very near together, father and
son almost; and you would scarcely think it, but if you look closely and
with that Eye which is within the eye you will see that they have just
been called to the colours and are going forth to the Great War. You
will catch the glint on the scabbards of the swords they carry; you will
see the look of courage on the face of the young recruit, and the look,
too, on the face of the old reservist. In the distance they see the
fortress of Hempfield with its redoubts and entanglements. They are
setting forth to take Hempfield, at any cost--their Captain commands it.
* * * * *
Near the town of Hempfield, as you approach it from the west, the road
skirts a little hill. As we drew nearer I saw some one walking upon the
road. A woman. She was stepping forth firmly, her figure cut in strong
and simple lines against the sky, her head thrown back, showing the
clear contour of her throat and the firm chin. A light scarf, caught in
the wind, floated behind. Suddenly I felt Nort seize my arm, and exclaim
in low, tense voice:
"Anthy!"
I thought his hand trembled a little, but it may have been my own arm. I
remember hearing our steps ring cold on the iron earth, and I had a
strange sense of the high things of life.
She had not seen us. She was walking with one hand lifted to her breast,
the fingers just touching her dress, in a way she sometimes had. I shall
not forget the swift, half-startled glance from her dark and glowing
eyes when she saw us, nor the smile which suddenly lighted her face.
I suppose all of us were charged at that moment with a high voltage of
emotion. I know that Anthy, walking thus with her hand raised, was deep
in the troubled problems of the _Star_. I know well what was in the
heart of Nort, and I know the vain thoughts I was thinking; and yet we
three stood there in the gray of the evening looking at one another and
exchanging at first only a few commonplace words.
Presently Anthy turned to Nort with the direct way she had, and said to
him lightly, smiling a little:
"I hope you will not desert the _Star_. We must make it go--all of us
together."
Nort said not a word, but looked Anthy in the eyes. When we moved onward
again, however, his mood seemed utterly changed. He walked quickly and
began to talk volubly-- Jiminy! If they'd let themselves go! Greatest
opportunity in New England! National reputation-- I could scarcely
believe that this was the same Nort I had found only an hour before
moping by the river.
As we came into Hempfield the lights had begun to come out in the
houses; a belated farmer in his lumber wagon rattled down the street.
Men were going into the post office, for it was the hour of the evening
mail; we had a whiff, at the corner, of the good common odour of cooking
supper. So we stopped at the gate of the printing-office, and looked at
each other, and felt abashed, did not know quite what to say, and were
about to part awkwardly without saying anything when Nort seized me
suddenly by the arm and rushed me into the office.
"Hello, Fergus!" he shouted as we came in at the door.
Fergus stood looking at him impassively, saying nothing at all. He had
compromised himself once before that day by giving way to his emotions,
and did not propose to be stampeded a second time.
But the old Captain had no such compunctions, and almost fell on Nort's
neck.
"The prodigal is returned," he declared. "Nort, my boy, I want to read
you my editorial on Theodore Roosevelt."
Just at this moment Ed Smith came in. I wondered and trembled at what
might happen, but Nort was in his grandest mood.
"Hello, Ed!" he remarked carelessly. "Say, I've thought of an idea for
making Tole, the druggist, advertise in the _Star_."
"You have?" responded Ed in a reasonably natural voice.
Thus we were rebundled, at least temporarily. I think of these events as
a sort of diplomatic prelude for the real war which was to follow. I was
the diplomat who lured Nort back to us with fine words, but old General
Fergus was waiting there grimly at the cases, in full preparedness, to
play his part. For this was not the final struggle, nor the most
necessary for Nort. That was reserved for a simpler man than I am: that
was left for Fergus.
[Illustration]