you. There's a fellow I'd like you to see awful well. Say! do you
call on anybody else except Protestants? You do, eh? Well, I wish
you'd see Jimmy Hayson. He's in a bad fix. They shipped him home from
the camp. He was cookee there, and I guess he couldn't stand that kind
of life. His stummick's gone on a holiday. Anyway, he's most all in.
It ain't much of a trail to follow, but after you pass Marston's you'll
see a wood road, and then, if you keep your eyes skinned, on the north
side you'll see, about forty rod along, a foot track--Jimmy ain't got
any team--just follow the track, and you'll stumble into his shack."
The second stop that afternoon was at Hayson's. It was a poor place
for a sick man to be in. The entire furnishings of the home would not
have been a bargain at five dollars. The wife was most grateful for
the visit, and before the missionary had spoken to the invalid, she
said, "You are the only preacher ever in our house; and will you make a
bit of a prayer for Jimmy?" A few flour sacks had been made into a
curtain, and the faithful wife pulled them aside and gazed lovingly at
the sick man, and then questioningly at the missionary. The missionary
felt that not many prayers would have to be made for Jimmy, and perhaps
there was an increased tenderness in the voice as it was lifted to the
Friend of the weary and heavy-laden. The five children were not very
clear as to what was going on, and during the devotions the dog kept up
a low growl of distrust at the whole procedure, but the wasted form of
poor Jimmy, and the subdued sobs of the wife, overshadowed minor
disturbances.
It was the first of almost a dozen calls during the next two months. A
round trip of thirty-two miles once a week meant something over
unbeaten tracks; but Jimmy was in need, and there was only One Helper:
other helpers had failed, and Jimmy was pathetically eager for
something he had not hitherto received.
On the occasion of the fourth visit, the wife called the visitor as far
away from the sick bed as the dimensions of the little shack permitted.
"Would you"--the voice was agitated--"would you----. Oh! please, you
won't mind me asking, but would you stay for dinner; we've never had a
minister take a bite in our house, and Jimmy'd be so pleased?"
The invitation was most gladly accepted. What a time ensued! How the
poor soul exerted herself to prepare that meal! It was over an hour
before the "bite" was ready, and in that hour one child had gone over
two miles. The preacher saw her fluttering rags as she ran across the
snow. He saw her come back with a little newspaper package. It
contained a knife and fork--two miles, that the preacher might have a
knife and fork! The meal was not appetizing, but after the trouble it
had cost, no man with a heart could leave a morsel which it was
possible to dispose of.
Day by day Jimmy weakened, and it was evident that he needed attention
and quiet, such as was not possible in the one-roomed shack. Could he
gain entrance to the distant hospital, and was it possible to provide
anything like a satisfactory conveyance in which the sick man could
safely make the journey from that pioneer district? These
possibilities especially occupied the mind of the missionary on a
subsequent visit.
He talked to the now worn-out wife about the matter. Prejudices
against hospitals were very real in that remote district, and it was
some time before she could be convinced that such a course would be in
the interest of the family. The few neighbours did much coming and
going for the next two days, and such blankets and wrappings as the
community afforded were provided for the cold journey. Bricks and
hardwood sticks were to be heated and placed around Jimmy to keep him
as warm as possible. Henry Wallis was to make the trip the day before
to arrange for the replenishing of these, and for some nourishment for
the sick man, at three selected stopping-places.
It was late in the evening when the sleigh pulled up in front of the
hospital. The sufferer had stood the journey better than was expected.
The "Sisters" soon had Jimmy in the most comfortable bed that he had
occupied for years.
Two days later the missionary called at the hospital as early in the
morning as he was permitted to. Jimmy knew his end was not far
distant. He could speak but little, and in order to hear the feeble
whisper it was necessary to put an ear close to the patient's lips.
Very slowly the words came: "Say--about--Shepherd." Once more the
Shepherd Psalm was repeated with its message for those whose lives are
overshadowed. Jimmy's eyes spoke his thanks, and tenderly the student
wiped the tears off the sunken cheeks. Something else was wanted.
Again the whisper was with difficulty understood: "Tell--about--rest."
It was the words that only the publican Matthew has recorded that Jimmy
wanted to hear.
Slowly they were repeated: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Once again the parched lips
moved: "If--I--could--see children--that's all." The eyes were so
irresistibly pleading that the student could only reply, "I'll try,
Jimmy."
A few words were spoken to the nurse. How long would Jimmy be here?
She thought he might go that night. Certainly within three days the
end would come. It was no small undertaking to bring a family such as
the Haysons into town. Clothing had to be procured in order that the
little ones might be protected on the longest journey any of them had
ever taken. Their own scanty attire would afford little protection
from the cold wind. And so hurried visits were made to a few homes,
and to the stores of one or two merchants. The case was briefly
stated, and a dozen hearts instantly kindled into kindness for the
needy ones in the lonely home. A wardrobe, such as the Hayson family
had never dreamed of, was soon stowed away on the missionary's "jumper."
Inside of two hours the long, cold drive was commenced. At each shanty
and shack word was given as to the sick man's condition, and what the
present journey was for. Within five miles of the lonely home, which
would soon be the abode of the fatherless and widow, the missionary
stopped for the night. In the dimly-lighted shack of Sandy MacGregor
Jimmy's last request was made known. MacGregor rose from a nail-keg on
which he was sitting, and said slowly and emphatically, "Well, if Jimmy
wants to see the children, he's a-going to see 'em."
The student grasped the roughened hand of the speaker gratefully. "I
knew I could count on you, Mac. Thanks. I'm tired, so I'll say
good-night. I can sleep now that that's settled."
Before the missionary appeared the next morning, Mac had everything
ready for driving Jimmy's family into the town where the husband and
father was rapidly nearing his end.
The horses were driven as hard as was consistent with mercy. Jimmy was
still alive, the Sister told them as they stood in the hall. In a
moment they were beside the bed. It was one of those scenes that live
in the memory. The sobbing wife, kissing again and again the poor, wan
face. The little ones weeping, perhaps more in sympathy with the
mother than on account of their own realization of the coming sorrow.
Quietly the large screen was placed around the group at the bedside,
and for a few moments the family was left alone. The journey had been
accomplished just in time. In less than an hour Jimmy was gone. His
last request was for the passages of Scripture mentioned above. "Yes,
that's it," he whispered, "rest--rest." The wasted arm was raised a
little as if he would put it around the missionary's shoulder, but the
poor Cookee's strength had departed. They saw he would say something
more, and ears were alert to catch his every word. "I--think----"
Then there was a long pause, and the sunken eyes turned from face to
face as though seeking to tell them what the tongue refused to utter.
They waited with tear-bedimmed gaze, but no other word was uttered.
Ere long there was a rattling in the throat, and the death-pallor
increased; a few short and long-separated gasps and the Cookee had
finished his course. They laid him away in the quiet little cemetery
during an almost blinding snowstorm.
With less than five dollars in cash, and a rough bit of land heavily
mortgaged, the mother went back to the lonely shack to toil through
weary days to provide for her five little children. With occasional
help from other settlers, the struggle for existence was made a little
less severe.
* * * * *
Ten years have passed away. The poverty-stricken pioneers of earlier
days have cleared large sections of land, and the earth has brought
forth her fruit. Prosperity abounds. Where Jimmy Hayson's shack stood
is an attractive modern farm-house. A mother looks proudly at her
farmer son as she introduces him to a city pastor who is visiting the
mission field of his student ministry. A few hours later, in the quiet
of eventide, she stands with the visitor exchanging incidents of bygone
days.
"It's been a pretty hard road to travel, sir, but the neighbours were
just as good as they could be after Jimmy went. But I often say to my
boy Allan that there is only One who can help us in such times as I
passed through then."
THE REGENERATION OF BILL SANDERS
A severe snow-storm had raged for over twelve hours, and the home
missionary was twenty miles away from head-quarters. His little Indian
pony was "all grit," as one of the settlers said, but with darkness
only two hours away, the preacher began to reconsider his decision to
make The Valley and home that night. Not a few days "Queenie" and her
driver had travelled fifty miles, but to-day the drifting snow almost
blinded man and beast, and with eleven miles of unbeaten path on the
storm-swept plain immediately before him, the missionary hesitated. At
best it would be dark before he reached the bush, and he had not
forgotten a former experience, when anxious hours were spent in a
similar storm seeking to find the rarely-travelled road that led from
the plain through the bush to The Valley.
One reason out of several that made him anxious to get home was the
fact that Widow Nairn's wood-pile needed replenishing. She was a poor
friendless old woman, who had remained on a plot of ground to which she
had only "squatter's rights," and while the few scattered neighbours
were kindness itself, the widow was, as Grayson said, so "blamed
peculiar" that it was "hard to know how to do anything for her without
making her mad." Perhaps she could get along for one more day, and the
missionary resolved to drive directly to her shack the next morning.
The decision being made, he spoke cheerily to his pony, and after a
little manoeuvring, the cutter was turned around and Queenie was headed
towards the spot where two solitary pines rose like sentinels from the
underbush. The road to Pearson's was not far beyond these landmarks,
and the home was one of the few he knew in this rarely-visited district.
An hour later he peered anxiously through the storm. The snow melting
around his eyes made seeing difficult, and he began to fear he had
taken a wood-path instead of the one intended. Pulling up his pony, he
listened for the jingle of bells, the bark of a dog, the call of a
settler, or anything that might help him to locate some abode, but no
sound except that made by the winter wind reached him. Tying his pony
to a poplar, he plunged ahead in an endeavour to find out something
about the road he was on. In a few minutes he saw that the trees
closed together again, and knew that the pony had taken the wrong track.
Once more the cutter was turned around with considerable difficulty.
It was a hard return journey; every sign of their own recently-made
track was gone, and the snow was still falling.
No more welcome sound had been heard by any ears that day than when
distinct, though somewhat distant, the tired traveller heard the bark
of a dog. Stopping his pony, he engaged in a barking contest, until he
was sure of the direction from which the sound came. "We are all right
now, thank God," he said aloud.
Through the trees a light flickered a few minutes later, and soon a
pioneer's home came into view. The little clearance with its
low-roofed log-house was not one the missionary had seen before, but
where there was a house there was hospitality on a night like this.
Bill Sanders was soon assisting the traveller to unhitch, and with the
aid of a "bug"[*] Queenie was crowded into the roughly constructed
stable. There were times when it would have been both difficult and
dangerous to have put her into such quarters, but that night she seemed
to understand, and behaved herself accordingly.
[*] A tin lard pail fixed to hold a candle and to serve as a lantern.
The occupants of the little home consisted of father, mother, two boys
and two girls. When the missionary introduced himself there was
manifest embarrassment on the part of the wife, and the children gazed
in wonderment from "the room" door; they were unwilling to run any
risks through getting too close to this human novelty until they saw
how he acted. "You see, sir, we don't have many people here, and they
aren't used to strangers: I guess you are the first minister that's
been in this house; and then, as the husband went to bring in a fresh
supply of firewood, she added half apologetically, "but I was praying
all week that God might send somebody in here that loved Him. When I
used to work for Home Missions in Ontario, I never thought how much I'd
long for the visit of a missionary myself some day; it's very lonesome
sometimes."
Before the missionary retired to his allotted space on the floor, he
asked permission to read a few verses of Scripture. There was no
response from the father: the mother said, "Yes, please."
The Scripture and prayer were for the encouragement of the heavy laden,
and tears were wiped away from the mother's eyes as the little group
arose from kneeling.
When prayers were mentioned after breakfast the next morning, Bill
Sanders deliberately left the shack. "Two doses of religion within
twelve hours" were too many for him, as he often said in after years
when recalling the missionary's visit. "We've a lot to be thankful
for," said the much-tried wife, as the visitor spoke a few words of
encouragement. The missionary glanced at the mud floor, at the
roughly-hewn table, at the round blocks used for chairs, at the
newspaper curtains, at the flour-sacks that partitioned off the
bedroom, at the miscellaneous and damaged collection of dishes and tins
that rested on the coverless table, and wondered wherein the "lot to be
thankful for" lay. "We don't get along well with the farm; somehow
Bill don't----." The words were checked, and nothing suggestive of
complaint at the husband was uttered. "The children are well," she
continued, "and they are obedient," and then, with a fine reticence
that cannot be written, she added slowly, "I am trying to teach them
about God; and I often tell them that if the shack isn't a credit to
us, we must try to be a credit to it. You see, sir, I'm not strong,
and with the little ones to look after, I can't work outside as much as
a settler's wife ought; but anyhow, I'd rather leave my children a good
character than anything else. Yes, God knows I would."
Late in the morning the storm was over, and with a promise on the part
of the missionary to return again as soon as possible, and on the part
of the children to come to a Sunday School being started in the
four-mile-distant schoolhouse, good-byes were said.
Many weeks passed before the missionary could visit again the lonely
little home. This time the mother, pale and trembling, was struggling
from the stable with a pail of milk. Inside the house lay a
four-days'-old baby boy. The missionary's heart was heavy. Since his
last visit he had heard of the faithfulness and goodness of the wife
and mother, and of the brutality of the husband and father, but he
found it hard to believe that any man would compel his wife to do what
this poor creature had been made to do in such a physical condition.
At first there was fight in the missionary's heart, but when the lazy,
cruel husband returned from his rabbit-snaring, the fighting spirit had
been replaced by a great yearning for this man's salvation. To angrily
rebuke Bill might only add to the wife's burden, while "the soul of all
improvement is the improvement of the soul." Bill's need was of a
changed heart.
A prayer for guidance was breathed forth as he walked to meet one who,
a few years ago, had promised to protect and love the wife whose spirit
was crushed and whose heart was well-nigh broken by neglect and abuse.
The two men stood talking for some time on the evening of that now
memorable day. Often the pale face of an anxious, prayerful wife
looked out through the tiny window. Perhaps the prayer within was
mightier than the simple message spoken without, but at any rate new
desires and purposes were awakened in Bill's heart that night. There
was no sudden "light of glory," or ecstatic condition, but during the
next few weeks it was evident that this man was being changed. When
the missionary suggested getting his pony hitched, Bill urged him to
remain overnight. At retiring time, it was the father who handed a
much-soiled Bible to the preacher. Strange that so simple an act as
that should cause the wife to weep, but at that hour she saw the
dawning of a new day.
Three weeks later the scattered settlers "visiting" outside the
schoolhouse on Sunday afternoon were amazed to see Bill Sanders
bringing his wife to church on the "jumper."
The singing in the little service was usually more hearty than
harmonious. For two or three years it had been an unsettled and vexed
question as to whether Sam Gadsley or Martha McLeod was the finer
singer. One faction deemed the matter settled beyond all controversy
when a late arrival at the service confided to a few friends at the
close that he "could hear Sam, good, clear across the concession,"
while he "couldn't have told whether Martha was there at all, at all."
Martha's friends felt keenly the consequent verdict of the community,
deposing their champion.
To-day the missionary broke all his own previous records in the singing
of "Praise God from whom all blessings flow."
People said "it was a great sermon that the little parson preached"
that day. Although the congregation may not have known it, the
preacher almost broke down in prayer, his heart was so filled with
gratitude. When he shook hands with Bill, there was a grip that
thrilled new-comer and preacher alike. To the wife he managed to say,
"I'm so glad," and the now happy woman looked as though the opening
doxology had become a large part of her very self.
* * * * *
The visit of the Home Mission Superintendent is always a great day in
these isolated places, and when on his next visit he welcomed the new
members into full communion, and took father, mother, and two children
from the little log-house, not a few felt it was the greatest day the
schoolhouse had seen.
During the subsequent days of the missionary's term of service,
whenever there was work to be done, Bill Sanders could be counted on.
* * * * *
In the summer of 1912, after a lapse of ten years, the missionary stood
once more in The Valley. As is true of most Western communities,
everything was changed. A little city had arisen--the old schoolhouse
was no more, and the once well-known places could no longer be located.
But there stands a beautiful little church not far from where the old
schoolhouse once stood, and one of the honoured elders bears the name
of William Sanders. Two of his daughters teach in the Sabbath School,
and of the five children, a well-known business man said, "Why, you'd
just be proud of every one of them, if they were your own."
In the churchyard a marble slab bears the name, "Mary Perry Sanders,"
and near the base, "She hath done what she could." As was her desire
in the days of struggle and isolation, the patient, faithful mother had
left the precious legacy of a good character to her children.
Thus had the seed sown brought forth its fruit after many days. Among
hallowed memories, few are so precious to the missionary as that of the
day when his now old friend "Queenie" took the wrong road. And
whenever on lonely prairie, in quiet hamlet, or noisy city, he hears a
congregation sing Cowper's hymn, "God moves in a mysterious way, His
wonders to perform," he thinks of that distant, stormy winter day when
a barking dog led him to a home that is now transformed, and to a
darkened life that was in God's goodness guided into that light "that
shineth more and more unto the perfect day."
THE SNAKE-ROOM
The hotels in the town on the "boundary"[*] were crowded. For several
days the men had been returning from the bush after the winter's cut,
until over a thousand "lumber-jacks" from the various camps in the
immediate vicinity had taken possession of the place. For most of
these men the bar-room was the only social centre, and the arrival of
each gang meant the recognition of old friends and the celebration
thereof in a call for "drinks all round."
[*] Boundary line between U.S. and Canada.
In a hallway adjoining a popular bar-room the missioner stood sadly
watching the procession of hard toilers losing at the one time their
winter's earnings and the control of their faculties. It seemed
useless to plead with the men either collectively or individually.
"It's the only way we've got to let off steam, boss--it's a fool way,
you bet, but here goes." The speaker was a man of not over thirty
years of age. With unsteady step he entered the bar-room again, and
pushed his way to the double line that kept the bar-tenders perspiring
as they sought to respond to the sometimes cursing demands for more
rapid service.
[Illustration:
1. A Western Lumber Camp. 2. Lumber Camp Group in Sunday Attire.
3. The Day's Work Ended. 4. A Typical Bar-room
"In some districts fully 75% of shanty men's earnings
goes over the bar. One bank paid out 38,000 dollars
in wages. Within a week a near-by bar-room deposited
22,000 dollars."]
Along the hallway were men in various stages of intoxication, and the
missioner knew from past experiences that some of the men were only at
the beginning of a debauch that would last for several days, perhaps
weeks. Much had been done by the lumber companies to improve the
conditions in camp and to brighten and turn to good account the long
winter evenings. Then, in order to protect the earnings of the men at
paytime, arrangements were made to furnish immediate facilities for
banking or for remitting home; yet everything proved ineffective in the
case of some. The open bar with its foolish and dangerous treating
system had led to what had become known around town as "the
lumber-jacks' annual spring spree."