Part 2

"'What are you doing here?' was the next question and I put myself to answer it there on the rock that morning I was converted.

"Fishing, I answered first, but what for, and is that all, came the questions. Now I take it fishing or farming, writing or preaching, it don't make much difference, so long as we're each just where He wants us to be and are doing just what He wants us to do. And every man has got to find out if he is where the Father wants him to be.

"It didn't take me long to find out that I might be where He wanted me to be, but I knew I wasn't doing all He wanted me to do and I was adoin' a good many things He didn't want me to do.

"Then I made some resolutions. Some folks don't believe in 'em, I know, but they always seemed to me to be good crutches, till a man could manage to get on without them and learn to walk straight. I resolved to be the best fisherman ever put out to sea, to clean my fish thorough, to salt 'em well and sell 'em honest weight.

"Then I resolved to know more of His world since He made it for me and the other children. Then, I remembered that since He had sent His Son to show the way, I'd better listen to Him and go His way.

"The next day I went over to Parson Curtis' and said to him:

"'Yesterday was my day o' grace, and I was converted at half past nine. I'm not saved, but I'm on the way to salvation and I'd like to be broughten just as near to His Son as I can be. I'm just a learnin', but no child ever wanted to learn more than I do now.'

"So when it come Sunday, he took me into the fellowship of Jesus and I've been learnin' ever since."

I think I have given you almost his words. You see they were short, real words, and the only fear I have is that in repeating them I may have lost the quiet, deep-seated earnestness that was in his voice. He spoke that night from his heart. We were on Water Street now and it was time for us to part.

"Thank you," I said, and I spoke as sincerely as he had spoken, "and if you don't mind I would like to know your name. It is James, what?"

He reached out a big hand and took a firm grip of mine and said: "I'm Jim. Harbor Jim they call me." And then I remembered that I had been looking for him.

III

AN ENGAGEMENT AS PLANNED

"Come," came a voice from within and I opened the door and stepped into Harbor Jim's cozy home. Its warmth and cheer were in sharp contrast to the evening without. It was raining hard and everything was saturated with water. Out of the chill and wet, I stepped across the threshold into warmth and dryness.

I thought at once of the Cotter's Saturday night. In the centre of the room at a little table, close to a kerosene lamp, was Harbor Jim reading from the Bible, and sharing the rather uncertain light with him was his wife with a pile of stockings to be mended, in her lap. Beyond them, a small fire-place with rough stone dogs. A spruce fire crackled like pop corn and did its best to dissipate anything of disconsolateness that might have crept in from the night's cold rain. At the right of the fire-place, on a roll of comforters, lay a little girl of perhaps two years, breathing gently in her sleep.

Harbor Jim did not rise to greet me but with a motion of his hand expressed his desire that I should remove my wet coat and take the empty chair. He paused long enough for me to be comfortably seated and resumed his reading. He was in the midst of the Ninety-First Psalm, and he read slowly on, as one none too familiar with print and anxious that no word or meaning be lost.

"He shall cover thee with His wings, and under His feathers shalt thou trust. You understand it, Effie," he said, turning to his wife. "It's the picture you see every day when the mother hen tucks the little ones under her wings.

"You, sir, will remember," he turned now to me, "that our Master used the same thought of the cuddling power of love, when He stood on Olivet and looked down on the sin-blind Jerusalem. I would have gathered you as a hen doth her chicks under her wing.

"His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. This sentence puzzled me for a good while, chiefly because I didn't know what a buckler was. For a long time I couldn't find any Lander who did know. Finally I got an Englishman to look it up in a book he had and he told me it was something that went all around the body. Then I seed it plain. The Lord was to protect us at the one danger point, with the shield; but He doesn't stop there, He protects us at all points with the buckler."

He did not pause again in the reading of the Psalm until he came to the word angels, and then he spoke rather forcibly of his belief in angels.

"Yes, I believe in angels, travelling angels. Why shouldn't He let 'em travel? He let's us go about, then surely He must let them journey considerable more. Naturally they want to be where they are needed most and I reckon this world needs 'em. When we get the listenin' habit, we'll all hear 'em, and when we get to the trustin' habit, we'll obey 'em when they bring us messages. I reckon they've helped me a good deal. Sometimes they guide me to a big haul of fish, but more often they bring me to a passage of Scripture, that's like a draft of cool water on a thirsty day. I don't want you to think I'm looney, sir, but I fancy they walk with me sometimes and most often when no humans are with me."

At the last verse he paused and then read these words twice:

"With long life will I satisfy thee. This promise has troubled me a good deal. It don't seem to be coming true. Good little kids die; and tough, scaly old rascals live on poking fun at the righteous. I have been wondering what the Hebrews meant, for a good many of their prophets have said the same thing.

"Mebbe it's one of the delayed promises. But I imagine it is coming true oftener than we know. There is some connection between holiness and happiness and between contented days and lengthened days. It is natural to expect the man who obeys the law to find the benefit here and now in this life. Well, if the Lord had each one of us alone working out the promises, it would be very easy for Him and for us, but He's seen fit to let us live together and we interfere with one another considerable; but He thinks it best because we've got to get well acquainted with each other before we are really able to know Him. As we get so we can understand the laws for the many as well as the laws for the each, I guess we'll most of us live long, but now the main thing is to live well."

"But does it seem quite fair, Jim?" his wife questioned him, naturally, as though they were alone together.

"I've thought about that a good while, Effie," he replied. "If I had only one day to fish and only caught something on one hook in twenty-eight, it would be a sorry day for me and you 'uns; but since I've many days, it doesn't matter which day I get the fish, so long as I get 'em. Now, I take it, it doesn't make much difference whether the bounty and the blessing He's intended for each of us comes one day or another, so long as it never fails to come. If this earth day was all I couldn't believe in Him as I do, but when I remember that there are days that have no ending, why it seems all right to have some getting a little more this day and others a little more that day. It's all in the life time of the soul. How long we stay in this room of Hisn' and how much He gives us don't matter much in the long years o' eternity. Do you begin to see how it is, Effie?"

Then Jim closed his Bible and was silent. Without the rain came down and beat its loud tattoo upon the roof. The spruce log ceased to crackle and the little kerosene light seemed to relax its effort now that it was no longer necessary to read the print. I had learned in the few weeks that I had known Jim, that silence even more than speech hath her rewards. After a quarter of an hour of quiet, in which we could hear in the occasional let up of the rain the tick-tock of the little clock on the shelf, I ventured a question:

"How long have you been married, Jim?"

"Fourteen years," he answered, "and it was no mistake that we made when we built this home. There's been rain, but the sun came out the quicker because of the together-spirit we had. Would you be interested, sir, in hearing how we started out?"

My face answered him and he began to tell me such parts of his own love story as it pleased him to tell.

"I was not married until after I was converted, that was a good thing! There is a good many reasons why a man should be converted before he is married. If there is anything in this life, more'n another in which the hand of God should be felt it's marriage.

"I'd had friends among the girls before I was converted, but I'd never thought of settling down, until after that morning. Then I come to see that a man needed a home on shore as well as a boat on the sea; that a man would be likely to catch more fish if he had some one waiting on shore and that fish never tasted so well when eaten alone.

"I got to readin' the book of Genesis one night. I never read the Bible much till after I was converted, and then it became a new book to me and I began diggin' in it for treasure and I'm by no manner a means thru diggin' and findin' treasure. I come across the command in Genesis: To be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. I halted there that night for a spell o' thinkin' and I came to the conclusion that I ought to do my part and leave some one else to take my place and fish when I lay down the hooks. The next thing was to find the right one. Now a Bible readin' man is a prayin' man. And I shut the book and I prayed, for if there is anywhere a man needs guidance it is in finding the right one and keepin' offen the rocks o' trouble and despair in such matters.

"The next morning I went fishing the same as usual. I've noted that the Lord never hurries an answer to a man who prays and then stands round idle waitin' for his answer. Seems the Lord loves to surprise a man with his answer while he's in the midst of work.

"So the weeks went by till one late afternoon I was walking along the flakes and I see a young woman splitting cod in the front yard of a house, and the western light rested on her hair and it shimmered and she looked up as I come by and we both smiled. Sir, then, I knew, just as plain as a straight, taut line that she was the one and I had my answer from the Lord, but I had still to get her answer. Some times you have to wait for a woman's answer same as you do for the Lord's.

"The next afternoon, about the same time, I come by her house, and just as I expected she was there splitting cod, and that afternoon we talked. I'd inquired and found her name was Effie Streeter. Now what I said and the walks we had together wouldn't interest you, and anyhow they belonged to us. But perhaps you might like to hear a little of our engagement day. It come out just as I planned only a little better.

"I was pretty sure then and it has been confirmed to me many times since that a woman likes to have her joys come as surprises. Now if I'd a proposed to her on the ordinary walk on an ordinary evening, she might have accepted but it wouldn't have come with the happiness that comes when you're not expecting, then it's like light out of dark cloud or flowers that come quick after a long winter's snow.

"One night I stopped in at her house and told her I had to go on business over beyond Brigus and would like to have her go with me on the train the next morning. It would be a short trip and we would be back at night, on the train.

"A fellow doesn't have much choice of trains here, but some seasons you can go somewhere and get back the same day, but not every season.

"It was the middle of July, but as I started for the station, thinks I, it might be colder up at Brigus and I took along my great coat, so she would be sure to be warm. We made the ride up, without event. It is a lovely ride to Brigus, as you know, sir.

"I don't remember much that we said on the way, do you, Effie?" and he turned to her acquiescing smile. "But I had the place all selected and I never expect to forget that day, either here or in Kingdom Come.

"Under the shadow of a spruce we sat down and before us were acres and acres of sheep laurel. The winter before had been cold and that summer the laurel was redder than ever I have seen it, before or since. Away beyond was Conception Bay with its hills and the wonderful blue water. I don't know, sir, what scenes there are over seas, but I doubt if there's a lovelier view anywhere in the world than that.

"I had rehearsed pretty well what I was going to say and I have never forgotten it to this day, and I am glad I haven't. Some forget what they say before marriage and it brings a black shadow after marriage.

"It was so very beautiful, that we set a spell, a holdin' hands and lookin' with our souls as well as our eyes.

"'Effie,' I said, 'I've brought you here to say a great word and I felt it ought to be said in the fairest place in the world. This is the loveliest place I know and if I knew a fairer one I'd have taken you there. The word I am going to say is the one God said when it was dark and He decided to make it light. It's the word He said when the world was tired and He decided to send His Son and it's the one word the Son spoke that has been changing the world since. That word is, Love!' Then I felt my own unworthiness and I stammered and I lost something out o' my speech and I've never found it, but I added,--'I'm only a fisherman but what I want to give you is as much as I can of the very same love.'

"Sir, that was all I had to say and she understood. Right after that a strange thing happened. It had been clouding up and it began to snow. Yes, we have once in a while a snow storm in summer, and we did that year. Then I took the great coat I had brought and wrapped her tenderly up in it and I said: Love has a good many duties, but I guess one on'em is to keep you warm.

"The snow came down and it covered the earth, but it didn't cover the blossoms and there was a world of white with pink beauty scattered on it, all the spruce and firs standing and looking and worshipping, if trees worship. And I said: I guess it's the Lord's way of saying, He's glad it's all settled. Now, if He had sent the rain we might a doubted, but He's sent the snow so's we wouldn't doubt and we never have.

"Now our trains sometimes take an uncommon long time, and you folks from the States laugh at our railroads, but do you know I never went a journey where the train made such a fast time as that night. We were in St. John's afore we knew it."

IV

SOME MIRACLES

"You orter been here a short while ago," Jim chuckled, as he addressed his friend Bob McCartney, who entered soon after Mr. Jewett had left. "We had a queer one here who believed you and I and the rest o' the sinners were out o' sight of the Lord. Told us the Lord didn't know nothing except the good and this world was just shadows and delusions."

"Well," said Bob, "there's a few real things left and last night Harry Marchant got up agin one of 'em. Towards night I met him on the Bowring Road. He motioned to me afore I got to him to keep my side o' the road. He acted just as though he had leprosy. When he got within hearing he shouted:

"'Bob, you never did me a bad turn and I'm not agoin' to do you one. You keep your side of the road and don't ever speak to me when I go by. I was comin' along a spell back and I met some skunks, not one, but a mother and father and two children. They was walkin' separate and I tried to dodge, but I couldn't dodge four ways at the same time. I'm goin' home now to bury my clothes, scour my skin and try to forget myself.' Now, Harry Marchant didn't meet no shadow and he was bathed in the very oil o' gloom."

We all laughed, but Jim was the first to sober up. "See here, boys, we mustn't poke fun at the queer one. Some folks probably get a blessing without thinking straight. Mebbe he's on the way to a great faith. There's more'n one way across the sea and we all got to go thru the same narrows to get into the Harbor.

"There's this much to be said in favor of the fellow, he's beginning to read his Bible. Seems strange though that outen the same book men draw so many different things. Then, it was written by many a different one and it's intended for all. Perhaps when we get too far astray He'll send us another Son and a new Book.

"Though I don't believe in his notion of getting rid of a real world with real things in it, an' pushin' God out of this world, I do believe in miracles. Now some folks come to a miracle in the Bible and they sit down in front of it like the Marys at the tomb and they never are able to roll it away or pass it. Just beyond that miracle is a great truth, there always is, and these folks never get beyond wondering and doubting about how it happened to be there.

"Take the story of the miracle that happened to Jonah. I don't pretend to say whether he ever had a berth in a real whale or not. It may be the boat was called a whale and he took passage on her against orders. But either way it's a beautiful truth we find, after we get over worrying about the whale. The point, I take it, is, the man was trying to run away from his duty and the story tells how he fared and how he came back and was established as a prophet. A good many folks seem to be still worrying about the whale and forgetting all about the truth. I'm not sayin' it didn't happen. It could a happened and stranger things have happened, I am only saying that whatever you believe about the whale the truth is there to help just the same.

"I don't like the way a good many folks talk about miracles, anyhow. They look at 'em once or twice and then they say that it couldn't a happened. Why it doesn't follow because the Lord couldn't work a miracle on them He couldn't on somebody else. It may only prove they was too hardened in their sins and their doubts to be worked on, at least, for the present. Then it may be the thing has happened, right before their eyes only when it comes to great things and spiritual facts they are more'n half blind.

"Raisin' from the dead I suppose would be considered the biggest miracle of all, and perhaps it's about the hardest to believe. But at some time or other, I have never been able to tell when, and I don't knows any one else can either, the Lord God puts a soul into every child of His. It is something that a father or a mother cannot put in of themselves, and it is something that can't be destroyed. A good many have tried to destroy their souls; but it's my belief they haven't succeeded, not any one of all that have tried. Now, if He is the only one that can put a soul into this earth house, He's the one that knows best when to take it out, and it might be very easy, on an important occasion, for Him to slip the soul back in again for a few days. He did that in the case of His Divine Son and the Son did it on several occasions, when He thought the soul ought to keep in its earth house a while longer."

"Did you ever hear anything about reincarnation, Jim?" I inquired.

"Big word, isn't it," said Jim, immediately giving full attention to my subject. "No, I don't know as ever I did. What is it, a doctrine or a medicine?"

"It's the belief, Jim, that souls return to the earth again in new bodies. Some believe that only in animals and lower forms does this happen and others that even when souls have been on this earth, they return again to complete their experiences. I was thinking that your idea of the ease with which God might slip in or out a soul might make it easy for you to believe in this rather strange doctrine of reincarnation. What do you think of it?"

"Sounds fairly sensible to me, on first thought. I don't remember anything in the Book about it, though I don't pretend to say I know all that's in that Book. It might explain some things that's hard to explain now with our present eye-sight. There's old lady Farrar, that I was a'telling you about, who cured herself of weakness and was about twenty years younger at eighty-five than eighty. She never had any real luck or any great blessings until she cured herself. She was one of the unfortunate kind, most always ailin' and when you went to see her she had some new misfortune to tell you about. She lost every one of her children and two husbands besides. Folks said it wasn't any great loss, so far as the husbands were concerned, but then they were hers and she took on considerable. Yet she has always been a decent woman, kept the commandments far as her neighbors could judge; paid her bills, when she could; went to church and said her prayers; and she had only a triflin' amount of good fortune. She had to wash and scrub for the neighbors to make ends meet and the splicin' was often poor.

"Just compare her life with the lives of other women folks whose husbands usually had a good catch and got good prices, whose children never died and who prospered thru the years and even handled the commands in a slippery fashion. It is hard to think justice has been done in both cases or perhaps in either case. But if this miracle of slipping a soul back into a body and sending it to school again is true, that you are telling me about, why it clears up a lot of the problems. Mrs. Farrar didn't pass the examinations the first or second time she was here and she was sent back to study more and she is getting about what she ought to have in His judgment.

"I think, however, that reincarnation idea that you mention, I would need to think a good deal about before I cared to tie too fast to it. I presume I'll end up in putting it into quite a big package of goods I am saving for shipping across the stream when I take passage. I've marked them 'For His Judgment' and when I get over there, I'll sort 'em and see if they're worth saving, and if I'm still doubtful about any on 'em I'll just get Him to pass judgment on them. That's seems to be a sensible thing to do.

"But we was talking about miracles here and now. To me the greatest miracles Christ worked were not in curing diseases, but in curing sins. I have always thought it a miracle that He could take Peter with his stubbornness and his habit of speaking up too quick and make him strong enough, sound enough, to be a real corner stone in His new church. I callate Peter was pretty well along in years when the Master called him and old folks ain't as easy to work on as those that are young and more pliable. I count it a miracle that He made over Peter so well.

"I have always been a good deal interested to find out what became of Judas Iscariot who betrayed Him. He wasn't a fisherman like Peter and he was harder still to work on. I know some of the ministers have got rid of him, by tossing him over board and letting him drown in perdition. But the Lord God that went after the sheep would a some day heared the moaning of Judas and a-gone to his rescue, seems though. If the Lord could work a miracle on Peter couldn't He some time, some how do it on Judas? He must a had some beginning points on him some wheres."

"I tell you the Lord has plenty a chances to work miracles if He wishes, right round here. There's Rascal Moore. He ain't been converted yet."

"_Rascal_ Moore, did you say, Jim?" I interrupted.

"Well that wasn't the name his mother gave him, but she didn't know he would take all his father's bad points and add a few more evil ways. She named him, Pascal. But Rascal fits him better and everybody knows him by that name, and I have to think twice to remember he ever had another name.