HEDGED IN.
As for John, perhaps he was quite as much astonished at the turn of
events as was any of the family. It is true he had been threatening for
many weeks to turn his back on the old homestead, but it is doubtful if
he had really, during that time, a well-defined intention of doing any
such thing.
No plans as to where he should go or what he should do had taken shape;
only a vague unrest, and a more or less settled determination to some
time get away from it all.
Therefore, as he turned his back on the familiar barns and
long-stretching fields, and went out from them in the darkness of that
May evening, not one of the family was more in fog as to what he would
do next than was John himself. Instinctively he turned his steps to the
village, spending the evening in his old haunt, showing only by a more
reckless manner than usual that there had been any change in his life.
In fact he realized no change; he never turned toward the family road
leading homeward as he came out from that corner grocery at a later
hour than usual; but he stopped abruptly before he reached the top of
the hill, considered a moment, then turned and retraced his steps, and
presently struck out boldly on the road leading cityward. The great
city, only sixty miles away, was of course the first point for an
enterprising young man about to start out in life for himself.
About midnight he reached the station where the express train stopped.
By the station lamps he discovered that the eastern-bound train would
be due in five minutes. He drew from his pocket the handful of silver
and copper that constituted his available means, slowly counted them,
lounged into the station, and inquired the price of a ticket to the
city, then smiled grimly to himself to discover that after purchasing
one he should have just fivepence left. "I guess I can live on that for
a week or so," he muttered; "father could. If I can't I can starve. I'm
going to the city anyhow." And the ticket was bought. Presently came
the train, and our reckless young traveller sauntered into it, selected
the best seat he could find, settled himself comfortably, and went
to sleep, apparently indifferent to the fact that his mother was at
that moment shedding bitter tears for him. No, he was not indifferent;
would not have been, at least, had he known the fact. Nothing in
all his young life's experience would have amazed him more. He did
not understand his mother, which is not strange, perhaps, when one
considers that she had spent years in learning how to hide her heart
away from the sight of those she loved best. John Morgan actually did
not believe that he had ever caused his mother to shed one tear; he did
not believe that she loved him. What did he know about mother love,
save as she revealed it to him?
It is not my purpose to take you wandering with John Morgan. Even if
we had time for it, the experience would be anything but pleasant. He
went into many places where you would not like to follow; he did many
things that were better left undone, and are much better left untold.
Yet I will be just to poor, silly, wicked John. He held back, or rather
was held back by a force which he did not in the least understand, from
many a place that otherwise he would have entered. There were depths
of sin and folly into which he had abundant chance to sink, and from
which nothing in his own depraved heart kept him from sinking, and yet
into which he did not sink. He would have smiled in superior scorn
over the thought that the incense of prayer, which had been rising
day and night concerning him during the passing weeks, had anything
to do with the unseen force that held him when he would have plunged
headlong. Still he was held. He is not the first one who has been saved
from self-shipwreck by a power outside of himself, unrecognized and
unthanked.
Still it must be confessed that John Morgan took long enough strides
in the road to shipwreck, and did what he could for his own overthrow,
goaded meantime by an exasperating and ever-increasing sense of
failure. Here was he at last, his own master, able to work, if he
could find anything to do, or to let it alone, just as he pleased;
no one to direct, or, as he had always phrased it, to "order." No
one to complain, no one to question—a life of freedom at last. Was
it not for this he had pined? It was humiliating to discover that it
did not satisfy him. He could not, even for an hour, cheat himself
into believing that he was happy in the life that he had chosen. A
very vagabond of a life he led. He tried working and lounging and
starving, and the time hung heavily. It was more than humiliating, it
was exasperating; but the fact remained that he could no more get away
from the memory of that clean, sweet-smelling, sweetly kept room, in
which he had lately passed his nights, than he could get away from his
own miserable self. Nay, the very smell of the wild-wood violets which
had nodded on him from the tiny vase that last morning at home, and
which he had affected to despise, seemed to follow and haunt him. How
perfectly absurd it was in him here, in the very centre of this great
centre of life, to actually long for a whiff of those wild violets! He
sneered at himself, and swore at himself, and longed for them all the
same.
So passed the days, each one bearing him steadily downward, and yet
each one holding him back from the downward depths into which he might
have plunged. And the summer heats came in all their fierceness and
wilted him with their city-polluted breath; he had been used all his
life to the free, pure air of the country. At times it was hard for him
to believe that this crowded, ill-smelling city could belong to the
same earth on which the wide-stretching harvest-fields lay and smiled.
And the summer waned, and the rich, rare October days, so beautiful
in the country, so barren of all interest to the homeless in a great
city, came to him, and John Morgan had actually become a tramp! The
work which he had at first despised and hated he now could not find;
and if he would not carry his early threat into execution and literally
starve, he must tramp and beg. Now starving had lost its charms
somewhere among the parchings of those summer months; he had so nearly
tried that way as to shudder over it; to ask for a bite at the back
door of country-looking houses was more to his mind.
One never-to-be-forgotten October day he shook himself out from the
shelter of a wrecked car, near which he had passed the night, and
resolved upon a breakfast of some sort. I wish I could give you a
picture of him. His own mother would not have recognized him. His
clothing in the old days had been none of the finest, but whatever
passed through Mother Morgan's hands was clean, and carefully mended.
Now this bundle of rags and dirt would have been in danger of being
spurned from her door without a second glance. "There is no excuse for
filth!" she was wont to say grimly. Her son John had heard her say it
many a time. He thought of it this morning as he shook himself; yet how
could he help the filth? He had no clothes, he had no place in which
to wash, he had nothing with which to brush, and very little left to
brush! True, he had brought himself into this very position, but of
that he did not choose to think; and besides, everybody knows it is
easier to get into certain positions than to get out of them. I wish I
could tell you how he felt. He did not understand his own mood. He was
not repentant, not in the least; if anything, he was more bitter and
defiant than ever. But he was disappointed: assuming control of one's
own actions was by no means so comfortable or desirable a lot as he had
imagined. There were days in which he believed that to have milked the
gentle cows, and cared for the fine horses, would have been a positive
relief. It was not work that John had shirked. Yet he had no idea of
going home; his proud spirit and defiant nature would not let him even
suggest that thought to himself.
On this particular morning he had resolved to try again for work. He
managed to get on the last car of an outgoing goods train, and was
thus whirled a few miles into the country. At the first station he
jumped off, and began his search for work. He found a farmer who was
compassionate, and gave him wood to carry into the already well-stocked
shed by way of earning his breakfast. Presently the farmer came to the
door and called:
"We are about ready for breakfast now. You can come in while we have
prayers and then have breakfast."
"I don't want prayers," said John, stopping short midway between the
door and the wood-pile, his arms full. "I asked for something to eat,
not for praying."
"I know that, and you shall have the something to eat; but a little
praying won't hurt you. Why, man, you can afford to be thankful that
you have found a chance to eat again!"
"No, I can't," said John fiercely. "If I can't have the breakfast
without the praying, I'll go without the breakfast."
"Very well," said the sturdy farmer, "I'm bound you shall then. I
declare, if a fellow has got so far that he can't even listen to a word
of prayer, he doesn't deserve to eat."
"Then I'll starve," said John in anger, and he threw the wood on the
floor and strode away.
"Oh, I don't know about that, father," said a motherly voice, and a
motherly face looking out after angry John. "Seems to me I'd have given
him some breakfast if he didn't want to come to prayers. Maybe he was
ashamed to, he looks so much like a rag-bag."
"Why didn't he say so then!" said the disturbed farmer. "Who expected
him to fly off in a passion at the mention of a prayer? He's a hard
case, I'm afraid."
That was true enough; and yet the incident was not so much against
John as it sounds. Poor John! he was angry at his own heart for
remembering, with a certain lingering touch of tenderness, that prayer
in the kitchen at home in the Sabbath evening twilight; he wanted no
experience that would call it up more plainly. Breakfastless, and
supperless last night, John Morgan! There had always been plenty to eat
in his father's house. What a bitterness it was to think that, now he
was independent, he was actually a dependent on the chance charities of
the world!
He tramped on; he was growing hungrier; he felt that he really could
not work now until he had a chance to eat; it was actual pauperism this
time. A neat-looking house, a neat kitchen door; he knocked at it and
asked for a bit of bread. A trim old lady answered it,—
"Yes, to be sure. Come in. And so you're hungry? Poor fellow! It must
be hard to be hungry. No home, I suppose?"
John shook his head.
"Poor fellow! You look young too. Is your mother dead, did you say?"
All the while she bustled about, getting a savoury breakfast ready for
him—a cup of steaming coffee, and a bit of meat, and generous slices
of bread and butter—bread that looked and butter that smelled like his
mother's. And this was a farmhouse, and a neat, clean kitchen, and a
yellow painted floor.
At that last question a strange feeling came over John Morgan. Was his
mother dead? "No," he almost said. He would not have liked to nod his
head to that. And yet, here he was among the October days, and it had
been early May when he left her. How many funeral processions he had
passed on the streets since, and he had had no word from his mother.
Down in the pasture meadow one day his father had said to him, "Don't
plough that bit up; I've never made up my mind to it. In spite of me,
it looks as if it was meant for a kind of family burying-ground."
There was a great tree there and a grassy hillside, and a small clear
stream purled along very near. How did he know but a grave had been
dug on that hillside since he went away? His heart gave a few sudden
thuds, and then for a minute almost seemed to stop beating. Could it be
possible that John Morgan really loved his mother! He was eating his
breakfast now—a good breakfast it was, and the trim old lady talked on.
"Well, there are a good many homeless people in the world. It must be
hard; but then, you know, the Master himself gave up his home, and
had not where to lay his head—did it for our sakes too. Wasn't that
strange? Seems to me I couldn't give up my home. But he made a home by
it for every one of us. I hope you've looked after the title to yours,
young man."
No answer from John. The old lady sighed, and said to herself, as she
trotted away for a biscuit for him,—
"He doesn't understand, poor fellow. I suppose he never has had any
good thoughts put into his mind. Dear me! I wish I could do something
for him besides feeding his poor, perishing body."
But John did understand perfectly. What was the matter with all the
people this morning? Why were they so persistently forcing that subject
at him? He had been wandering almost six months, and had never met so
many straightforward words concerning it in all the months as he had
this morning. Is not it possible, John Morgan, that God's watching
Spirit knows when to reach even your heart? The little old lady trotted
back, a plate of biscuits in one hand and a little card in the other.
"Put these biscuits in your pocket; maybe they'll come good when you
are hungry again. And here is a little card; you can read, I suppose?"
The faintest suspicion of a smile gleamed in John Morgan's eyes as he
nodded assent.
"Well, then, you read it once in a while just to please me. Those are
true words on it; and Jesus is here yet trying to save, just the same
as he always was. He wants to save you, young man, and you had better
let him do it now. If I were you I wouldn't wait another day."
As he tramped down the street, his inner man so wonderfully refreshed
by the good coffee and bread and butter, he could not help looking at
the card, which, also, after that breakfast, he could not help taking,
although he wanted to put it into the cheery fire. It was a simple
enough card, and printed on it in plain letters were these words, "It
is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners." Then underneath, "I am the bread
of life. He that believeth on me shall never hunger." Still lower on
the card, in ornamented letters, the words, "The Master is come, and
calleth for thee." Then a hand pointing to an italicized line, "I that
speak unto thee am he."
"Queer mess that," said John, and he thrust the card into his pocket
and strode toward the village depot. He meant to board the next train
and get a little farther into the country, and continue his search
for work. The train arrived, and he succeeded in slipping into it.
But it was hardly fairly under way when he discovered that he had
miscalculated, and was being borne back toward the great city, instead
of farther into the country.
"I don't care," he said. "I don't know what I want of the country.
On the whole, I may as well try my chances in the city. I'll go up
Greenwich Street and try my luck in the warehouses. I can roll boxes
about now since I've had another breakfast."
But the train presently switched off and ran into another station,
into another part of the city, wherein John was as total a stranger as
though he had just dropped from the clouds.
"Where on earth am I?" he said bewildered, swinging himself down from
the top of the car and looking around. "Just my luck. I'm nowhere.
East, west, north, south,—which way shall I go? I'll go north. Which is
north? Or no, I won't; it's coming winter. I guess I'll go south, and
walk as long as it looks interesting, and see where I'll bring up. What
difference does it make which way I go?"
All the difference in the world, John Morgan. It is a link in the chain
which is narrowing around you. It is one of the apparently trivial
movements which will have its silent, unnoticed, unthought-of part in
helping you to decide which way you will go during all your future, and
at what station you will finally land.