That same summer I began going to school. Perhaps I should say that John
Lane and I began going to school, as it was something of a joint
adventure. We talked of it together for weeks before the great event. At
that time my objective in life, in so far as I had one, was to be a
locomotive engineer, but John had elected to be the owner of a woolen
mill--blandly overlooking the little question of capital--and we
discussed our school training in the light of these ambitions.
On the eventful morning I remember my father coming into the loft and
leaning over my bed, where I feigned sleep. "Puir wee mannie," I heard
him say, dropping into the Scotch tongue which he reserved for moments
of emotion, "it's a long road he's starting on, and a hard one, too, or
he'll no be like the rest o' us." My mother scoured me well and dressed
me in a clean new suit and took my cheeks between her hands and kissed
me, and told me to work hard and grow up a good man like my father. At
the gate I met John, and together we started down the turnpike of life.
I spent the day becoming accustomed to my new environment, and
marvelling over a certain bald spot on the teacher's head which shone
resplendent when the light struck it a certain way, and wondering what
possible advantage it could be to a locomotive engineer to know that A
had two slanting legs tied together in the middle. But nothing of
importance happened until after school was dismissed, when suddenly I
found myself surrounded by a group of boys a little older than myself. A
carroty-headed little gamin about my size came dancing out in front of
me, flinging his arms about and demanding, "Kin you fight?"
I was much too guileless to realize that this was an undersized boy,
nine or ten years old, a bully who maintained his position by picking
fights with children about his own size, but much his inferior in
strength and hardihood. Now I had never been in a fight in my life,
unless dragging Marjorie home once or twice when she was obstreperous
could be so described. I don't know what made me answer as I did;
probably it was the immeasurable insolence on his little, twisted face,
but I shouted, "You bet! I can knock your head off!"
The boast was no sooner out than I got a smash on the mouth which set my
lips trembling and drew a veil of mist across my eyes. This was followed
instantly by a blow in each eye, and I saw light dancing in all
directions. I could make no defence, and my assailant proceeded to
punish me systematically. The little circle of savages were shouting,
"Punch him, Carrots! Punch him, Carrots!" and I could have testified
that Carrots was following their advice. I threw my arms about in the
air and yelled with what breath I had left, but I did not run away; I
stood and took it. That is one of the facts of my life which I like to
remember, that although hopelessly outclassed in my first fight, I
proved that, if I couldn't give a thrashing, I could take one.
How much I should ultimately have taken I don't know, for suddenly John
Lane rushed into the circle like a young tornado. John was no more a
fighter than I, but he was resourceful; he seized the bully by the knees
and bore him to the ground, where they rolled about together.
Enheartened by this sudden change of fortune I too pounced upon Carrots,
kicking, punching, and gouging with the greatest enthusiasm. Had I been
strong enough no doubt I would have killed him, regardless of his
shrieks, "Two on one; no fair! no fair!"
For a moment or two I had one misgiving--would the supporters of Carrots
now come to the rescue of their chief? I might have saved myself any
worry on that account. They viewed the sudden change of Carrots' fortune
with surprise, certainly, but also with complacency. Very soon they were
shouting, "Punch him, New Boy! Punch him, New Boy!" and even seemed
disposed to lend a hand. But John and I handled the case ourselves,
ending in a tour of triumph in which we dragged Carrots feet-foremost
around the complete square of the gravelly schoolyard.
As we walked home together John and I knew that, for good or ill, our
lots were now inseparable. If Carrots caught either of us by himself he
would be sure to take adequate revenge. And yet, even through my
swollen eyes, I looked on the world with a new joy, and had a stride in
my gait that I didn't have in the morning. My theology did not go far
enough to advise me whether one went to Hell for fighting, so I
consulted John on the point.
"Of course," he replied, laconically.
"Then we're in for it," I remarked.
"Uh-huh. But so is Carrots, and he got the worst of it here, too."
John's philosophy appealed to me. I was beginning to feel that I could
stand what anybody else could stand. But my mother put a new aspect on
the case.
"What you been doing?" she demanded as I entered the house. "Look at
your new suit!"
Now it seemed to me that a boy who had just helped to whip the school
bully, and who had two black eyes and a mouth swollen out of shape for
his pains, had something more to think about than his new suit, so I
retorted, "I been fighting. Look at my face!"
"I'll give you all the fighting you want," said she, reaching for the
strap . . . It had been a hot day, and the cows had knocked down the
fence and got into the corn field, and mother had had to chase them out
six times, and she was tired. None of these things reacted to my
advantage.
Two years later Marjorie and Jean started going to school, and we were
proud boys indeed as we led them up the aisle to the master's desk.
I have said that the religion of my parents was essentially selfish,
but I should have added that they were better than their religion. My
mother's kindness had been marked in many a neighbour's home. In those
days, when large families were still considered proper, her two children
were a comparatively small impediment; indeed, it was commonly said
among the townspeople that the smallness of my father's family had made
it possible for him to pay for and clear his farm. At any rate my mother
was a person of leisure by comparison with neighbour women who were
trying to clothe, clean, and discipline ten or twelve children apiece.
The Lanes were in the same happy circumstances as ourselves, and being
also our nearest neighbours, a considerable friendship had sprung up
between the two families. This developed as we children grew older and
had mutual interests in studies and sports. Jack--he was Jack now--and
Jean often came over to our house on a winter's evening, bringing their
school books, and the four of us sat about our big kitchen table poring
over our studies or throwing or intercepting furtive glances between
Jack and Marjorie, and, I may confess, between Jean and Frank. Jean was
fair, with large blue eyes and clear pink cheeks and lips that always
made me think of roses. They seemed always as delicate and tremulous as
a rose-leaf after rain.
At eight o'clock we would close our books, and mother would say,
"Marjorie, you may bring up a basin of apples," or perhaps it would be a
dozen ears of roasting corn, and we would sit about the fireplace,
munching in great happiness. Then we would have a game of blind-man's
buff, in which I had a way of catching Jean, or button, button, who's
got the button? or hide-the-handkerchief. And at nine Jack and Jean
would leave for home, and we would go with them to their gate, and I
would help Jean where the drifts were deep. And Marjorie and I would
walk back arm in arm, and she would talk an unnecessary lot about Jack.
Jean's first poem was written about this time. She developed it one
night while ostensibly busy at her studies, and slipped it into my hand
when we parted in front of her house. I hurried home, but my mother and
Marjorie sat so close to the lamp that I had no opportunity to read it
until I went upstairs to bed. Then I smoothed the crumpled little sheet
and read--
"When I am old
And very tall
I hope my name
Will be Mrs. Hall."
I lay awake for hours that night, joyously piecing together bits of
rhyme, but I was no versifier, and had to be content with prose. I put
it in very matter-of-fact form on my slate, which I managed next day to
leave on Jean's desk:
"Your proposal is accepted.--F.H."
When I was twelve Granny Lane died, and after that Mr. and Mrs. Lane
often came over, too. As we worked at our lessons we would hear the
restless clicking of our mothers' knitting-needles, while our fathers
fought over their checker-board in a silence broken only by an outburst
of triumph upon some clever strategy, or of chagrin when some deep-laid
scheme had gone agley. Or sometimes the men would lay aside the board,
and, turning their chairs toward the fire, with their pipes well lit and
glowing in the bowl, would begin to recount tales of their youth when
they were part of the locust-army of axe-men that had swept through the
land and in some strange way had left standing the great tree at the end
of our farm. Then lessons were forgotten, and we children drew silently
close to the fire, as, big-eyed and flushed with adventure, we entered
the enchanted halls of Romance. Sometimes it was a tale of the bear that
my father met on a lonely road at night, or of the spring-gun which Mr.
Lane had set and which had killed a neighbour's pig, for which offence
he had been up before the magistrate; or of wolverines howling along
dismal lake-shores in the moonlight, or the soft pit-pat of a panther's
footfall close to the trail, but always along side, or of the tracks of
a giant windigo which broke up the lumber camp at Carse's Ferry. And
after such a night I would crawl to bed, trembling at every creak of the
loose boards of my attic floor, and pull the clothes over my head so
that even the moon might not seek me out.
It was when I was fourteen, and about to enter the mill, that mother was
taken sick. I had never known mother to be sick, and it was hard to
understand the silent house and the darkened room. Mrs. Lane came over
and took charge, and Marjorie stayed at home from school to help.
One day as I came up the path Marjorie met me with, "Mother wants you,"
so I went into the room. Father was there; it seems he had not gone to
the mill that afternoon. He was sitting on a chair with his elbows
resting on his knees and his cheeks between his hands, and a stray beam
of light from the afternoon sun fell through the window and across his
forehead. I wondered that I had never noticed before how old he was.
"Is that you, Laddie?" my mother called in a thin, weak voice, and I
came beside the bed. "My boy, my boy!" she said, and her face worked
strangely, but she could say nothing more than just "My boy." Then I
knelt beside her, not knowing what else to do, and she put one of her
thin hands in my hair, and ran her fingers slowly, with a strange sort
of caressing, up and down and about my head. And then an odd thing
happened. She began to sing, in a strange, high, tremulous key, "The
Lord is my Shepherd." She did not sing it as you have heard it in
church, but with a gentle, rhythmic beat, like a lullaby, just as she
had sung it to me many a time when I was a little child. After a while
she seemed to fall asleep, and I slipped out again. Father had never
moved, but beads of sweat were standing on his forehead.
Marjorie met me, round-eyed and pale, at the door. "Oh, Frank! Is mother
going--is mother going--to die?" The last words were breathed rather
than spoken.
"I don't know," I said, pushing by her and gulping at something in my
throat. . . .
After mother's death Marjorie had to stay at home from school and take
charge of the house. Marjorie had a vast native ability behind her deep
black eyes, and in a short time matters were running as smoothly as
could be hoped. I took a job in the mill--my dream of being a locomotive
engineer had vanished almost with my baby teeth--and I was now working
from seven in the morning until six at night for a consideration of
three dollars a week. My father earned ten dollars a week, so we were in
easy circumstances. There were no picture shows to tempt our spare
quarters, nor automobiles to make us envious of our more fortunate
neighbours.
Jack Lane also took a job in the mill, when I did. We graduated into
long trousers together, and made our youthful excursions, arm in arm,
into the town on Saturday nights. Jack was a handsome boy, with the fair
skin and hair of his sister Jean, and many a coquettish eye was turned
on him as we strolled about the little town, or even as he worked at his
post in the mill. But while Jack was by no means above a mild
flirtation, he used to dismiss such events with the comprehensive
remark, "They're not in the class of Marjorie--or Jean."
We were eighteen when the accident happened to Peter Lane. He was
working about a shaft, as he had done perhaps a thousand times before,
when some loose end of his clothing lapped around it. He clutched the
shaft and whirled with it until the strength of his arms gave way; then
his body flew out and his head struck a beam. . . . Outside the
mill-wheel placidly sprayed its mist of jewels as from the hand of a
fairy prince.
I need not follow the events of the next year or so further than to say
that my father developed a habit of putting on his good clothes in the
evening and brushing his shoes, and walking over to see whether Mrs.
Lane might not need some help with the affairs of the farm.
Jack found me one evening in September cutting firewood in the uncleared
portion of our farm up by the big pine. The sun was almost setting; it
hung like a blood-red globe through an avenue of maple trees, and its
slanting light struck the autumn foliage with a wizardry of color and
beauty. Jack sat down on a log and when I paused in my work he said,
"You're too industrious, Frank; if you are not careful you'll die rich.
Come over here; I want to talk to you."
I took a seat at his side, and for a minute or two he punched the earth
with a stick, as though uncertain how to open his subject.
"I guess you're as much awake as I am, Frank," he said at length, "so
you know what's on the books."
"You mean about my father?" I was going to add, "and your mother," but I
stopped; someway it seemed out of place. But Jack filled it in,--"And my
mother."
Then we both sat silent for awhile.
"Has he said anything about it to you?" I ventured, "He hasn't mentioned
it to me."
"No," said Jack. Then, with one of his unexpected touches of
humor,--"I'm not sure that he knows about it yet. But mother does."
"Well, it's all right, isn't it?" I said, after we had had our laugh.
"Your mother has been pretty much a mother to Marjorie and me since our
own left us. She's O.K. I'm not complaining."
"Neither am I," Jack agreed, "so far as they are concerned. But just how
about us? We've got to get out."
"Why?"
Jack turned his full blue eyes on me with a sort of pity. "Do you think
Marjorie is going to play second fiddle to a new mother? You don't know
your sister, Frank."
In a moment I knew he was right. He had not asked me if I thought that
Jack would play second fiddle to a new father, but that, too, may have
been in his mind.
"Well, what are we to do about it?"
"Go west!" he said, emphatically. "Go west! I am beginning to think it's
the only thing for a young fellow to do, anyway. What is there here for
us? Drudge away in the mill, seven to six, seven to six, seven to six,
seven to six, week in, month in, year in; then, some day, caught on a
shaft, and they stop the mill just long enough to untangle your remains.
And that is life! By God, Frank, it's _not_ life--as I see it--as I'm
going to see it!"
I turned to him in surprise; it was the first time I had heard him use
such an expression. His teeth were set; his thin lips were pressed
together; his eyes were big and luminous in the twilight; his pose was a
picture of resolution, even of defiance. All unknown to me, Jack Lane
had become a man, and his exclamation had had more of prayer than of
profanity in it.
Presently he continued: "We can go out to that new country, west of
Manitoba, and take up a homestead each. In a few years we will have land
enough to make a dozen of these Ontario farms. Others are doing it--so
can we. And it won't be so hard for us. The worst thing, usually, is the
loneliness; holding it down in a shack, three years or more, all by
one's self. But we can get claims beside each other, and, although we'll
have to have separate shacks, the girls will keep house for us, so it
won't be so bad."
He had touched on something which had already come into my mind. "Will
the girls go?" I questioned.
"Frank," he said, and again he seemed to speak from some superior wisdom
of his own, "those girls will go with us anywhere we ask
them--anywhere!"