PEARL'S PHILOSOPHY
For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of man's mind,
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.
_----F. W. Faber._
IT WAS a dreamy day in late October, when not only the Tiger Hills
were veiled in mist, but every object on the prairie had a gentle
draping of amber gray. "Prairie fires ragin' in the hills," said Aunt
Kate, who always sought for an explanation of natural phenomena, but
Pearlie Watson knew better. She knew that it was a dream curtain that
God puts around the world in the autumn, when the grass is faded and
the trees bare and leafless. She explained it to the other children
coming home that night.
"You see, kids," said Pearl, "in the summer everything is so well
fixed up that there's no need to hide anything, and so the sun just
shines and shines, and the days are long and bright to let every one
have a good look at things. There's the orange-lilies pepperin' the
grass, and there's cowslips and ladies' slippers, if it's yellows you
like, and there's wild roses and morning-glories, and pink ladies'
slippers, if you know whereto look for them, and the hills are all so
green and velvety, and there's the little ponds full of water with
the wind crinklin' the top of it, and strings of wild ducks sailin'
kind o' sideways across them. Oh, it's a great sight, and it would be
a pity to put a mist on it. But now the colour has faded and the
ponds have dried up, and the grass is dead and full of dust, and it's
far nicer to have this gray veil drawn in close around. It helps you
to make a pretty picture for yourself. Now, look over there, near Tom
Simpson's old house--that ain't a train track at all, but a deep blue
sea, where boats sail day and night, and 'Spanish sailors with
bearded lips' walk up and down clankin' their swords and whisperin'
about hidden treasures."
Pearl's voice had fallen almost to a whisper.
"To-night when the moon rises the tallest one, the one with the deep
scar on his cheek, will lead the way to the cave in the rock; the
door flies open if you say the password 'Magooslem,' and there the
golden guineas lie strewn upon the stone floors. And look back there
at Lib Cavers's house--do you see how dreamy like and sleepin' it is,
not takin' a bit of notice of anything? It don't look like a house
where there's ever dirty dishes or anybody feelin' sad or lonely, and
I don't believe that's Cavers's house at all," went on Pearl, making
a bold appeal to the imagination of her audience--"that's just a
dream house, where there is a big family of children, and they're
goin' to have pancakes for supper--pancakes and maple syrup!"
At this association of ideas Bugsey made a quick move for the
dinner-pail, in which he had a distinct interest. Bugsey was what his
parents called a "quare lad" (his brothers often called him worse
than that), and one way he had of showing his "quareness" was that he
did not even eat like other people. On this particular day the Watson
children had for dinner, among other plainer things, a piece of wild
cranberry pie, with the pits left in, for each child. Patsy's piece
had gone at the first recess; Danny's did not get past the fireguard
around the school; Tammy's disappeared before he had gone a hundred
yards from the house (Tommy was carrying the dinner-pail); but
Bugsey, the "quare lad," did not eat his in school at all, but left
it to eat on the way home.
Now cranberry pie with the pits in is a perishable article, and
should not be left unguarded in this present evil world, where human
nature has its frailties. When Bugsey looked into the pail, he raised
a wail of bereavement, and at the same moment Tommy set out for home
at high speed accelerated no doubt by the proddings of conscience.
Bugsey followed, breathing out slaughter, and even made the murderous
threat of "takin' it out of his hide," which no doubt was only
intended figuratively.
"Come back here, Bugsey Watson!" cried Pearl authoritatively. "What
do yez mane by it? S'posin' he did ate yer pie? It ain't as bad as if
he knocked an eye out of yer. You shouldn't have left it in the pail
to tempt him anyway. If you'd et it when you should ye'd had it and,
anyway, don't be ye wasting yer temper fightin' for things like pie,
that's here to-day and away to-morrow. It's a long way worse for him
that has the mean feelin' than it is for you, so it is." In her
excitement Pearl went back to her Irish brogue. Tommy by this time
was a long way down the road, still making his small legs fly,
thinking that the avenging Bugsey was in pursuit.
So intent were the children on the pie dispute that they did not hear
the approach of a buggy behind them, until Sandy Braden with his
pacing horse drove by. When he saw Pearl he reined in with a sudden
impulse.
"Will you come and ride with me? I'll drive you home," he said,
addressing her. "Bring that little chap with you," he added, noticing
the shortness of Danny's fat legs.
Pearl assented to this, and she and Danny climbed into the
rubber-tired buggy.
They drove for a short distance in silence, and then, pulling his
pacer to a walk, Mr. Braden said: "I have always wanted to tell you,
Pearl, that I did not break my word that day. I left word with the
bartender not to give Bill Cavers any liquor, but he did give it to
him, and I have been sorry ever since about it, and I wanted you to
know."
"I am glad you told me," Pearl answered quickly, "for I've often been
sorry for you, thinkin' what sad thoughts you must be havin'."
"My thoughts are sad enough," he said gloomily, "for it was my
whiskey that killed him, even if I didn't hand it out to him myself."
Pearl did not contradict him.
"Isn't it queer how things happen?" she said at last thoughtfully.
"God does His level best for everybody! He tries to take them easy at
first, to see if they'll take telling, and if they do, all right; but
if they won't take telling, He has to jolt them good and plenty. But
He always knows what He's doin'."
"I'm afraid I have not such unbounded faith in the Ruler of the
Universe as you have," he said at last "Bill Cavers didn't get
exactly a fair deal."
"Oh, don't worry about Bill Cavers now," said Pearl quickly. "Bill's
still in God's hands, and God has a better chance at him now than He
ever had. God never intended Bill to be a drunkard,--or you to be
handing liquor out to people; you can bank on that. And he never
intended Mrs. Cavers to be all sad and discouraged. God would do good
things for people if they would only let Him, but He has to have a
free hand on them. When you see people goin' wrong or cuttin' up dog,
you may be sure that God didn't put it down that way in the writin's.
Some one has jiggled His elbow, that's all. And it's great how He
makes it up to people, too. Now, you'd be surprised to see how
cheerful Mrs. Cavers is. When I went over after our threshin' to take
her the money--"
"What money?" he interrupted.
Pearl hesitated. "Well, you know we took their farm when they left
it, and there was some cleared on it, and the house is better than
none, and so we gave her a little to help her and Libby Anne to get
ready to go back to her folks down East."
"How much did you give her?" he asked.
"Two hundred dollars. She didn't want to take it, but really was glad
of it, and Pa and Ma and all of us have been feeling better ever
since. But I was goin' to tell you how cheerful she is, and Libby
Anne is happier than she used to be. Poor little Lib, she's so thin
and pale, she's never had a good time like other children."
Sandy Braden winced at her words, for an illuminated conscience
showed him what had cheated Libby Anne out of her childhood.
"Poor little kid!" he said.
"I knew," said Pearl, after a pause, "that day that Jimmy and I went
in with the onions that you didn't really know what a mean business
you were in, or you wouldn't do it. You did not look to me like a man
that would hit a woman."
"That's the part of it I can't forget," he said bitterly. "I can't
forget the look of that thin little wisp of a woman, and Lord! how
she glared at me! She could have killed me that day. I don't go much
on religion, Pearl. I don't see much in religion, but I certainly
would not hit a woman if I knew it."
"Where did you learn that?" Pearl asked quickly. "You wouldn't know
that if it wasn't for religion. Mr. Burrell was telling us last
Sunday that there's no religion teaches that only ours. You say you
don't go much on religion, and still it's religion that has put any
good in you that there is, and don't you forget it."
"That's not saying much for it, either," he said gloomily.
"Well, now, I think it is,"--said Pearl. "In lots of countries you'd
pass for an awful good man. It's on'y when you stood up beside
Christ, who was so good and kind and straight, that you can see
you're not what you ought to be. If it wasn't for the Bible and
Christ we wouldn't know how good a man should be."
"I haven't read the Bible for a goad many years," he said slowly. "I
don't believe I ever read much of it."
Pearl looked straight into his face, and said without a minute's
hesitation: "Well, I'll bet you a dollar some one read it for you and
passed it on to you."
Sandy Braden looked straight ahead of him, down the deeply tinted
prairie road, at the hazy outlines of the sand-hills, with their
scattered spruce trees, blurred now into indistinctness--that is, his
eyes were turned toward them, but what he really saw in one of those
sudden flashes of memory which makes us think that nothing is ever
entirely forgotten, was a cheerful old-fashioned room, with a
rag-carpet on the floor and pictures in round frames on the wall. The
sun came in through the eastern windows, and the whole place felt
like Sunday. He saw his mother sitting in a rocking-chair, with a big
Bible on her knee, and by her side was a little boy whom he knew to
be himself. He saw again on her finger the thin silver ring, worn
almost to a thread, and felt the clasp of her hand on his as she
guided his finger over the words she was teaching him; and back
through the long years they came to him: "Love one another as I have
loved you." He remembered, too, and smelled again the sweet-mary
leaves that were always kept in his mother's Bible, and saw again
the cards with big coloured birds on them that he had got at
Sunday-school for regular attendance, and which were always kept
between its pages; and while he mused on these things with sudden
tenderness, there came back again the same numb feeling of sorrow
that he had had when he came home, a heartbroken boy, from his
mother's funeral that day so many years ago, and buried his face in
the sweet-mary leaves in the old Bible, and blotted its pages with
his tears; for it seemed more like her than anything else in the
house. He remembered that the undertaker's black mat with its ghastly
white border was still in the front window, where the coffin had
rested, and that the room smelled of camphor.
Pearl saw that memory was busy with him, and said not a word.
At last he spoke. "You're right, Pearl," he said. "Some one did read
it and pass it on to me, and it would have been better for me if I'd
stayed closer to what she taught me."
"Ain't it queer how things turn out?" Pearl exclaimed, after a long
pause. "Now, I've often wondered why Christ had to die--it seemed a
terrible thing to happen to Him, and Him that lovin' and kind--do you
mind how gentle and forgivin' He was?"
Sandy Braden nodded.
"Well, Mr. Donald and I have been talkin' about it quite a bit, and
at first we thought it shouldn't have happened, but now it looks as
if God had to strike hard to make people listen, and to show them
what a terrible thing sin is. Death ain't nothin' to be afraid of,
nor sufferin' either. Sin is the only thing to be real scared of. It
wasn't the rusty nails through His hands that made the dear Lord cry
out in agony--it was the hard hearts of them that done it. Bill
Cavers's death has done good already, for it has closed your bar, and
no one knows how many men and boys that may save; and you're a
different man now, thinking different thoughts, ain't you?"
"I'm a mighty unhappy man," he said sadly. "I'm different that way,
that's a sure thing."
Pearl looked at him closely, as if she would see the inner working of
his mind.
"Mr. Braden, I know just what you're like," she said. "Did you ever
see a man 'trying to stand still on a bicycle? That's no harder than
what you're tryin' to do. You've stopped doin' wrong, but you haven't
gone on, and you're in great shape to take a bad fall. If you'd
just get busy helpin' people you'd soon get over bein' sad and
down-hearted. You're feelin' bad over Bill Cavers's death. Why don't
you make Bill's death count for something good? You're a smart man,
and everybody likes you. If you was to teach a Bible class every one
would come to hear you."
"I'll bet they would," he said, shrugging his shoulders and laughing
almost bitterly.
"Well, then," said Pearl, "don't let the chances all go by you. Do
you know, I often look at trees and feel sorry for them?"
"Why?" he asked curiously.
"Because they can't do a thing to help each other; and I often wonder
if they're the people who wouldn't lift a finger to help any one when
they were livin', and so they were turned into trees when they died,
and now they see grubs and worms crawlin' over their own folks,
maybe, and they can't lift a leaf to help them. Mr. Donald read us a
story in school about a man who was awful mean while he lived and
wouldn't help anybody, and when he died he had to wander up and down
the world and see people starvin' and all sorts of sad sights, but he
couldn't do a single thing for them, though he wanted to bad enough,
because he had forged a chain that bound him hand and foot while he
was livin', all unbeknownst to himself. Did you ever read that little
book, Mr. Braden?"
"I did," he said. "I read that story, but I had almost forgotten it.
I haven't thought of it for years."
"It's a good story," said Pearl meaningly.
"I guess it is," he answered, smiling.
When they reached the Watson home, Mrs. Watson and Aunt Kate came out
and thanked Mr. Braden profusely for his kindness in "givin' the
childer a lift." Danny, who had been bored by the serious nature of
the conversation, had gone to sleep, and was carried snoring into the
house.
Mr. Braden admired the display of poppies and asters, which still
made a brave show of colour against the almost leafless trees of the
bluff, and when Pearl ran over to pick him a bouquet of asters, was
it by accident--or does anything ever happen by accident--that she
put in some leaves of sweet-mary?