TOM'S NEW VIEWPOINT
Pearl was quite disappointed in Tom's appearance the morning after the
party. Egbert always wore a glorified countenance after he had seen
Edythe; but Tom looked sleepy and somewhat cross.
He went to his work discontentedly. His mother's moroseness annoyed
him. His father's hard face had never looked so forbidding to him as it
did that morning. Mrs. Slater's hearty welcome, her good-natured
motherly smiles, Mr. Slater's genial and kindly ways, contrasted
sharply with his own home life, and it rankled in him.
"It's dead easy for them Slater boys to be smart and good, too," he
thought bitterly; "they are brought right up to it. They may not have
much money, but look at the fun they have. George and Fred will be off
to college soon, and it must be fun in the city,--they're dressed up
all the time, ridin' round on street cars, and with no chores to do."
The trees on the poplar bluff where he had made his toilet the evening
before were beginning to show the approach of autumn, although there
had been no frost. Pale yellow and rust coloured against the green of
their hardier neighbours, they rippled their coin-like leaves in glad
good-will as he drove past them on his way to the hayfield.
The sun had risen red and angry, giving to every cloud in the sky a
facing of gold, and long streamers shot up into the blue of the
mid-heaven.
There is no hour of the day so hushed and beautiful as the early
morning, when the day is young, fresh from the hand of God. It is a new
page, clean and white and pure, and the angel is saying unto us
"Write!" and none there be who may refuse to obey. It may be gracious
deeds and kindly words that we write upon it in letters of gold, or it
may be that we blot and blur it with evil thoughts and stain it with
unworthy actions, but write we must!
The demon of discontent laid hold on Tom that morning as he worked in
the hayfield. New forces were at work in the boy's heart, forces mighty
for good or evil.
A great disgust for his surrounding filled him. He could see from where
he worked the big stone house, bare and gray. It was a place to eat in,
a place to sleep in, the same as a prison. He had never known any real
enjoyment there. He knew it would all be his some day, and he tried to
feel the pride of possession, but he could not--he hated it.
He saw around him everywhere the abundance of harvest--the grain that
meant money. Money! It was the greatest thing in the world. He had been
taught to chase after it--to grasp it--then hide it, and chase again
after more. His father put money in the bank every year, and never saw
it again. When money was banked it had fulfilled its highest mission.
Then they drew that wonderful thing called interest, money without
work--and banked it--Oh, it was a great game!
It was the first glimmerings of manhood that was stirring in Tom's
heart that morning, the new independence, the new individualism.
Before this he had accepted everything his father and mother had said
or done without question. Only once before had he doubted them. It was
several years before. A man named Skinner had bought from Tom's father
the quarter section that Jim Russell now farmed, paying down a
considerable sum of money, but evil days fell upon the man and his
wife; sickness, discouragement, and then, the man began to drink. He
was unable to keep up his payments and Tom's father had foreclosed the
mortgage. Tom remembered the day the Skinners had left their farm, the
woman was packing their goods into a box. She was a faded woman in a
faded wrapper, and her tears were falling as she worked. Tom saw her
tears falling, and he had told her with the awful cruelty of a child
that it was their own fault that they had lost the farm. The woman had
shrunk back as if he had struck her and cried "Oh, no! No! Tom, don't
say that, child, you don't know what you say," then putting her hands
on his shoulders she had looked straight into his face--he remembered
that she had lost some teeth in front, and that her eyes were sweet and
kind. "Some day, dear," she said, "when you are a man, you will
remember with shame and sorrow that you once spoke hard to a
broken-hearted, homeless woman." Tom had gone home wondering and
vaguely unhappy, and could not eat his supper that night.
He remembered it all now, remembered it with a start, and with a sudden
tightening of his heart that burned and chilled him. The hot blood
rushed into his head and throbbed painfully.
He looked at the young Englishman who was loading the hay on the rack,
with a sudden impulse. But Arthur was wrapped in his own mask of
insular reserve, and so saw nothing of the storm that was sweeping over
the boy's soul.
Then the very spirit of evil laid hold on Tom. When the powers of good
are present in the heart, and can find no outlet in action, they turn
to evil. Tom had the desire to be kind and generous; ambition was
stirring in him. His sullenness and discontent were but the outward
signs of the inward ferment. He could not put into action the powers
for good without breaking away, in a measure at least, from his father
and mother.
He felt that he had to do something. He was hungry for the society of
other young people like himself. He wanted life and action and
excitement.
There is one place where a young man can always go and find life and
gaiety and good-fellowship. One door stands invitingly open to all.
When the church of God is cold and dark and silent, and the homes of
Christ's followers are closed except to the chosen few, the bar-room
throws out its evil welcome to the young man on the street.
Tom had never heard any argument against intemperance, only that it was
expensive. Now he hated all the petty meanness that he had been so
carefully taught.
The first evening that Tom went into the bar-room of the Millford hotel
he was given a royal welcome. They were a jolly crowd! They knew how to
enjoy life, Tom told himself. What's the good of money if you can't
have a little fun with it?
Tom had never had much money of his own, he had never needed it or
thought anything about it. Now the injustice of it rankled in him. He
had to have money. It was his. He worked for it. He would just take it,
and then if it was missed he would tell his father and mother that he
had taken it--taking your own is not stealing--and he would tell them
so and have it out with them.
Thus the enemy sowed the tares.