FERGUS'S FAVOURITE POEM
I recall now vividly the growing excitement of those winter days, the
interest we all had. Each day brought something new, some surprised
comment in a "contemporary," some quotation from a city paper, some
curious visitor to see the old Captain, some new subscriber or
advertiser, some necessity for adding to our order for "insides."
One of the best ways to attract and interest other people is by going
about one's own business as though it were the most wonderful and
fascinating thing in the world. People soon begin to look on wistfully,
begin to wonder what all this activity and triumphant joyousness is
about, and are presently drawn to it as bees are drawn by a blooming
clover field. So the printing-office began to be a place of importance
and curiosity in Hempfield. The news spread that almost any surprise
might be expected in the _Star_.
"It's that fellow Carr that's doing it," said old Mr. Kenton, voicing
the hopeless philosophy of the country when facing competition with the
city. "One o' these days, you'll see, he'll get a better job in Bosting,
and that'll be the end of _him_."
In the meantime, however, we were too busy to indulge in any
forebodings, and as for Nort the whole great golden world of real life
was opening to him for the first time.
No sooner had the interest in the old Captain's autobiography somewhat
subsided, and the advertising scheme, with several lesser matters, been
disposed of, than Nort's fertile brain began to devise new schemes.
"Say," he exclaimed one winter day, coming in from one of his
expeditions and looking us all over as though we were specimens of a
curious sort, "this office is a pretty interesting place."
"Just found it out?" grunted Fergus.
"Well," said Nort, "I've suspected it all along, and now I know it.
There's the Cap'n, for example. We didn't know we had a gold mine in the
Cap'n, now, did we? But we had! Great thing, the Cap'n's story! Finest
thing done in country journalism anywhere, at any time, I suppose."
I exchanged an amused glance with Anthy, and we both looked at the old
Captain. As Nort talked the Captain grew more and more erect in his
chair, wagged his head, and, finally, arising from his seat, took two or
three steps down the room looking very grand. Nort went on talking,
glancing at the old Captain out of the corner of his eye, and evidently
enjoying himself hugely.
"Now, I say, we've got other gold mines here, if we only knew how to
work 'em. There's David! Let's have a column from him--wise saws and
modern instances. David will become the official Hempfield philosopher.
And then there's Fergus----"
"Humph!" observed Fergus.
"There's Fergus. Everybody in town knows Fergus, and I'll stake my
reputation that anything that Fergus writes over his own name will be
read."
Nort was riding his highest horse.
"Miss Doane, let's announce it in big type this very week, something
like this: 'The _Star_ of Hempfield has arranged a new treat for its
readers. We shall soon present a column containing the ripe observations
of our esteemed printer, fellow citizen, and spotless Scotchman, Mr.
Fergus MacGregor. We shall also have contributions in a philosophical
vein by Mr. David Grayson, and a column by that paragon of country
journalism'"--here he paused and looked solemnly at the old Captain, and
then resumed--"'that paragon of country journalism, Mr. Norton Carr.'"
We all thought that Nort was joking, but he wasn't. He was in dead
earnest. That afternoon he walked home with me down the wintry road. It
was a cold, blustery day with a fine snow sifting through the air, but
Nort's head was so hot with his plans that I am sure, if his feet were
chilled, he never knew it. He laboured hard with me to write something
each week for the _Star_, and the upshot of the matter was that I began
to contribute short paragraphs and bits of description and narrative
which we headed
DAVID GRAYSON'S COLUMN
It was made up of the very simplest and commonest elements, mostly
little scraps of news from my farm--the description of a calf drinking,
the sound of pigeons in the hay loft. I told also about the various
country odours in spring, peach leaves, strawberry leaves, and new hay,
and of the curious music of the rain in the corn. I inquired what was
the finest hour of the day in Hempfield, and tried to answer my own
question. I put in a hundred and one inconsequential things that I love
to observe and think about, and added here and there, for seasoning, a
bit of common country philosophy. It was very enjoyable to do, and a
number of people said they liked to read it, because I told them some of
the things they often thought about, but had never been able to express.
Nort found Fergus far harder to influence than he found me. A curious
change had been going on in Fergus which I did not at first understand.
At times he was more garrulous than ever I had known him to be, and at
times he was a very sphinx for silence. It is a curious thing how people
surprise us. In our vanity we begin to think we know them to the
uttermost, and then one day, possibly by accident, possibly in a moment
of emotion, a little secret door springs open in the smooth panel of
their visible lives, and we see within a long, long corridor with other
doors and passages opening away from it in every direction--the vast
secret chambers of their lives.
I had some such experience with that prickly Scotchman, Fergus
MacGregor. It began one evening when I found him alone by the office
fire. He was sitting smoking his impossible pipe and gazing into the
glowing open draft of the corpulent stove. He did not even look around
when I came in, but reaching out one foot kicked a chair over toward me.
Suddenly he fetched a big sigh, and said in a tone of voice I had not
before heard:
"Night is the mither o' thoughts."
He relapsed into silence again. After some moments he took his pipe out
and remarked to the stove:
"Oaks fall when reeds stand."
"Fergus," I said, "you're cryptic to-night. What do you consider
yourself, an oak or a reed?"
"Well, David, I'm the oak that falls, while the reed stands."
I tried to draw him out still further on this interesting point, but not
another explanatory word would he say. It was the beginning, however, of
a new understanding of Fergus.
A little later, that very evening, Anthy and her uncle came in for a
moment on their way home from some call or entertainment, and not a
minute behind them, Nort. I saw Fergus's eyes dwell a moment on Anthy
and then return to his moody observation of the fire. And Anthy was well
worth a second glance that evening. The sharp winter wind had touched
her cheeks with an unaccustomed radiance, and had blown her hair, where
the scarf did not quite protect it, wavily about her temples. She was in
great spirits.
"Fergus," she cried out, "what do you mean sitting here all humped up
over the fire on a wonderful night like this!"
Here Nort broke in:
"Fergus is thinking about what he will put into his issue of the
_Star_."
"They're all my issues, so far's I can see," growled Fergus.
"But now, Fergus," persisted Nort, "if you were editing a column in the
newspaper what would you put in it?"
Fergus began to liven up a little.
"Tell us, Fergus," said Anthy.
Fergus took his pipe out of his mouth and rubbed the bowl of it along
his cheek, screwing up his face as though he were thinking hard. We all
watched him. No one could ever tell quite where Fergus would break out.
"What is most interesting to you?" prompted Nort.
"That's easy," said Fergus, and turning in his chair he reached across
to the shelf and produced his battered volume of "Tom Sawyer." This he
opened gravely and began to read the passage in which Tom beguiles the
other boys in the village to do his white-washing for him:
"Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and
a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all
gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon
his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life
seemed to him hollow and existence but a burden."
Fergus read it with a deliciously humorous Scotch twist in the words, a
twist impossible to represent in print. Occasionally he would pause and
bark two or three times, his excuse for laughter. When he had reached
the end of the passage, Nort said:
"I've got it! This is the very thing: let's put it in the _Star_.
Where's a pencil and paper? _Fergus MacGregor's Favourite Passage from
'Tom Sawyer.'_ Everybody in town knows that Fergus likes 'Tom Sawyer.'"
"Humph!" said Fergus, but it was evident that he was not a little
pleased. Do what he would, he could not help liking Nort.
"I know something that represents Fergus still better," said Anthy.
Fergus looked across at her, and then began thumbing his pipe.
"What's that?" asked Nort.
"'The Twa Dogs.' Isn't that your favourite poem, Fergus?"
"Whur'll you find a better one?" asked Fergus, putting his pipe back in
his mouth.
"That's Number Two," said the irrepressible Nort. "We'll put that in
some other issue headed _'Fergus MacGregor's Favourite Poem.'_"
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