Part 3

"Rascal has done more to hurt the salt-fish business than any fisherman I know. He manages to get hold of the most ornery, two-cent fish there are in the sea. These fish have a hankering for Rascal, I guess, and they scoot straight for his nets. When he gets 'em, he never cleans well and he always hurries the curing, and he is none too particular about either counting or weighing. He'll sell a little cheaper or lie a little stronger and get rid of 'em, usually to an exporter and they go perhaps to Naples and they're so poor, the folks who buy them never want any more Newfoundland cod-fish. The government ought not to wait for the Lord to punish Rascal, they should get after him right away.

"Rascal has other sins to account for. Everybody feels, though they don't hardly dare say so, that he killed his wife, and he's so mean he's never married since. If there's been a piece of deviltry carried out anywheres within fifty miles of St. John's that he hasn't had a part in, I have yet to learn o' the fact.

"I say to convert Rascal Moore would be a real miracle. And it will be done and I would be glad to see it done on short order. I know it can be done, for I have seen other folks as mean, ornery and selfish as Rascal come meekly to the judgment seat, I have seen 'em rise outen their old selves and become new and clean as a sunshiny morning after the air has been washed in a fog. I have seen so much done by the Lord on His own account and working thru the hands of His servants that I never doubt that Rascal Moore will be made right.

"Yes, sir, I believe in miracles and I see them every day. Brown earth a-turning into blades and blossoms, in some wonderful way that He planned. No less wonderful I see bad men becoming good men; sick men becoming well men; and they that have been under the heels of sin and slavery standin' up on their own feet. When I can't explain something I still feel it is happening under the law and it's another of His miracles."

V

"I ASKED FOR FISH"

My business in St. John's had been brought to a conclusion and it was time that I crossed to Port-aux-Basques and made my way thru Nova Scotia and back into the States. There was only one reason for my staying, and that was the chance of seeing a little more of Harbor Jim and perhaps learning a little more of his philosophy.

So it happened that again I was in the little fisherman's cottage and Mrs. Jim was brewing tea for me, for she never permitted even an inquirer to come to her door without his cup of tea. I put a question to Jim that fortunately set him to talking about prayer. I had expected to draw out a fish story but I found him launching into an account of his belief in prayer and his ventures in talking with His Father.

"What was the best catch you ever had, Jim?" I questioned him.

"It was last April and it come in direct answer to prayer," Jim answered promptly and without the least embarrassment.

"In answer to prayer?" I said, and the tone of surprise was in my voice.

"Why not," said Jim. "You believe in prayer, I suppose, then why limit it. I needed a big catch. I'd had to paint the house and there had been many expenses and I had to have a big catch to tide things over. You will remember that the Bible takes for granted folks will pray for fish, for it says:

"'If ye ask for fish will he give you a stone.'

"No, the man that asks for fish and asks right gets fish and the man that asks for bread gets bread. It doesn't matter what you want, prayer will fetch it. You remember He said:

"'Ye shall ask _what ye will_ in my name and I will give it you.'

"I don't pretend to set myself up to judge of what the parsons should or shouldn't do. I am more or less an ignorant man, so far as schools go, though I have read a heap since I was converted, and what's more important, I have looked and thought a good deal. And I've looked in more'n one direction. Old Mr. Squibbs who used to live out to Heart's Delight was an odd stick. His wife died and he took to livin' alone and he got kinder warped. He built him a house with only one window and he always had only the one view when he looked out. Thinks I, some folks are like old Mr. Squibbs, they have only one window and looking out o' that window they see only a few things and no wonder they're often a little lackin' in the loft. But I've tried to keep all the windows of my mind and soul open and to let the light in and to look out on all sides. The result o' all this lookin' and a thinkin' is that some parsons and some folks, parsons is folks, though they are commonly reckoned in a different class, don't understand the nature o' prayer. They take it the Lord has got kinder out o' touch with the doings of His children, and it's up to them to let the Lord on to the situation. I have heared some prayers in churches that sounded like a newspaper recounting the happenings. Strikes me they must have a queer notion of the Lord, to think He don't know what's happening to His own created children.

"There's other prayers appear rather impudent. They tell the Lord just what He ought to do. Who are we, poor creatures on the earth, who can't see back of us, or before us, but a very little way and then only when it's a clear sky, who are we that we should rise up in our conceit and tell the Lord what He had better do. It's turning the boat round and headin' it the wrong way. We are to ask Him what He wants us to do. We are to come to Him not to give knowledge but to get wisdom.

"Parson Curtis called me impudent because I asked the Lord for a mess o' fish, and a big mess, too. But I don't agree with the parson on this matter. I don't know why we shouldn't ask Him for what we think we need, but there's a right and a wrong way of asking. Mind you I didn't presume to tell the Lord how to send them or where. I just left it in His hands. I prayed something like this:

"'Kind Father, we were talking over blessings last night and I mentioned a good many that You had sent us; and then when I'd finished sayin' my thanksgivings, I asked that You make it possible for me to find a mess o' fish and a good-sized one. Now I know You'll say no, if it's best, and I'll not murmur or complain; but if it seems to You to be best, You'll know the way to send them and when it's best. It's all in Your hands and I'm not dictating to You, Father. But I want You to know that we are needing fish and that I'm a-goin' to keep my eyes open and my boat trim and my hooks and sinkers right and my nets all mended, and I'll be waitin' for the Word.'

"That's just about the way I pray. I am not afraid to come boldly to the throne of grace. He would never find fault with my grammar, for doesn't He encourage the little folks to talk with Him. Sure, that's just what it is talking with Him. When we talk to one another, it's conversation; when we talk to ourselves, it's thinking; and when we talk to God, it's praying.

"I never yet have told the Lord how to do anything, or how to fetch my gifts. For since all things and all powers and all means are in His hands, He doesn't need to be told. I most likely wouldn't know the best way for transporting His gifts. I have to ask humbly and faithfully and then to keep the doors open, so's whoever He sends will find me ready and waitin' to receive.

"Then again, I seldom pray for an easy time or a smooth sea. I want to be strong and I don't mind wrestling like Jacob with the strange one, so long's I come out the winner. I don't mind if the sea is ruffled, or the waves mount, or the wind lashes the sails, so long as I know He has an eye on me and keeps me. I have found that if He sends me extra work, He always sends along extra strength, and the blessed part of it is that the strength comes at just about the time the work does.

"I pray sometimes for health for my body, but I am much more likely to pray for the health of soul. For I dread sickness of soul, more'en I do sickness of my body. It is far harder to get rid of selfishness than to get over a stomach-ache. I'd rather see my little Clara sick with the measles than to see her developing dishonesty."

"How long does it usually take the Lord to answer your prayers," I asked, and not jocularly, but in the hope of finding out what results had come to Jim as a result of his sincere prayers.

"How long does it take before it rains, do you know? Can you tell when the frost will take my cabbages or the snow heap up my door-way? Neither can I tell when the Lord will send what I ask. He knows better than I do. He knows the value of delays, and how long to try my patience. I wouldn't say He hurried, for the more I come to know of Him, the more I find it true that He has taken time to do most things He has done. You can get an idea of how He works by looking at this earth that He took so long to fix up for us. As I've told you before, I think the Lord loves to surprise us children and often He sends a blessing when we are least expecting it and the answer comes on a dark, stormy day when it's like a ray of sunshine breaking thru a cloud.

"I talk over all my needs with Him, but I don't devote all my praying to myself. I've done quite a lot of praying for Rascal Moore, and some day the Lord will surprise Rascal and me and he'll be converted. Of course I pray for my own wife and my own little girl and I pray for Bob McCartney and I also remember Spotty, my dog. If I had a cow, which I haven't just now, I'd pray for her. They are God's offspring, and they were planned by Him and they need His care to provide fresh green and abundant water. It's a responsibility for which we need help, the caring for the other children."

"You are wandering away from your fish story," I reminded him. "What about that big catch? How did it happen?"

"It was very simple. I went out to the fishing grounds. It would have been asking too much of the Lord to have demanded that He send them ashore. I went where I'd be likely to find fish. And when I got to the grounds, I heared a voice say, 'Let your nets down on the starboard side.' And I did as He told me and I had the best catch of the season."

VI

LIVIN' ALONG

Several months had passed without a word from Harbor Jim, when one morning going thru a batch of mail, that was given over to business matters, I came upon a rather soiled envelope that was post-marked "St. John's." I was quite sure that it was from Jim and I pushed aside the communications from firms that offered me oil stock and a fortune and the letters of others who were suing for favors of one kind and another and turned with the relish of a boy to read the message from my friend. I am willing that you should read it, but I have made some corrections in spelling and a few in grammar, that you may read it about as he would have read it aloud, about, I think, as he intended it to read.

"Dear One,

"It's a long time since we've seen you on the flakes. It's a long time since we've read the word o' the Lord together beside the evening lamp. I'm not thinking of coming to New York to see you. I know I have been invited manys the time, but I'm not risking a leg yet in your full streets. It's gettin' bad enough in St. John's with all the autos a-whisking down Water St. It's a fine thing that we can send a message up there to you. It was a kind Father that made it possible for us to get acquainted with each other as well as with Him. I often think of the Master's ideas on the subject. You remember He told us if we really got acquainted with our brothers we should know the Father, and without that acquaintance we couldn't really know Him.

"There ain't no great thing happened to tell of. I've just been livin' along. Eatin' and sleepin' every day and fishin' most days. But I've been prayin' every day and a receivin' of replies day by day. The Lord's been with me all the way. Yes, just as much as though I could write you of a great, sudden happening. There's a good many folks I find who recognize the Lord's doings in the big, flashing things of life and forget Him altogether except at them special times. It's rare that I sit up with a corpse, which I often do, without hearing a confession about the Lord's hand and the Lord's doing in the coming of the stroke; but it's most likely that same man who is very conscious and pitiful didn't have much thought or dealings with the Lord till his sorrows come upon him.

"Now the Lord is in the Valley of the Dark Times and He's on the Bright Height of Victory, but He's also along the Common Way, the level road that makes up the every day's travel. That's what I used to forget and that's what I'm beginning to remember and it makes heap a different in your knowledge o' life itself and the joy you get outen it.

"There's countless folks know He never fails in time o' need, but I'm one who finds that He never fails at any time and that every day is a day o' need.

"It may be I've met the wrong kind o' folks some of the journey, but I've found a good many that make a heap a trouble just out o' living. They remind me o' Martha who got so fussed up doing common housework she couldn't understand the need o' spiritual house-keeping at all. Folks don't seem to have time enough to live their lives easily. They start off with a hitch and they break down afore they get very far. Seems though they thought there want goin' to be another life after this one and they'd got to do all eternity's work in this little span o' time. Don't seem reasonable and natural to expect a man to do the work o' two worlds in one. The Lord don't expect it neither.

"The Lord Jesus had about the biggest task on hand that any man ever had. His job was to save the world. He had only three years for His ministry and if he had lived as some of the folks hereabouts are livin' He would have so consumed Himself with worry and fret that He would a died with a fever afore the first year was over. One thing I note as I read His story is that He moved majestic like He had time to do what needed to be done. I guess it's the things that we could get on with out that take the most time and gender the most worry.

"There's always time enough to do what the Lord intended to be done in this life, else He wouldn't have assigned it. He wouldn't run His universe on a leisurely and comfortable plan, if He expected us to wear ourselves out hustling. I take it He counts a thousand years are as one day not only for Himself but as well for us children. Thinkin' of His plan kinder takes the fever outen your veins, kinder makes you understand what His Son meant about the peace that passeth understandin'.

"Effie is the same as ever. She's just livin' along, same's I. The children are doin' well at school. Bob McCartney was over night afore last. His boy has got the rheumatics, but I guess tain't nothin' permanent. The government is thinkin' o' takin' over the railroad again. Our railroad has had a hard time and it's been found fault with a good deal, but it's got an iron constitution and I guess it can stand it. As I told you once, it's all the railroad we've got and it's a powerful lot bettern no railroad.

"I am thinkin' often these days of little Peter. I can think now without swallowin' hard and I'm beginnin' to get comfort instead of trouble when I think. I have been thinking about the conditions o' life over there. Sometime when your down here I'll talk with you about the Heaven Home, but it would take too long to write it out and then I don't knows you would be interested. Any how it would come out easy with your kind o' questions. I like you, but I do think your about the hardest questioner I ever knowed.

"Respectfully yours, that's how letters are signed when a man writes you for fish or bait or somethin', but I don't see why it ain't proper for a friend, for certain we ought to respect our friends, and the fact we can respect 'em makes us the more sure their friends.

"Jim."

"P. S. I saw Bob McCartney last night. He was lookin' well and had his behaviour (silk-hat) on. He had been to a party."

VII

THE HEAVEN HOME

When again the good fortune brought me to Newfoundland and led me out to the fisherman's cottage, I did not forget Jim's promise to tell me of his observations concerning the future life. We had, thru our increasing friendship, come to understand each other. I had learned when to keep silent and I knew Jim's moods and when to intrude would be the height of ingratitude and when to enter would be the act of an accepted friend.

The reading of the Book had been finished for the evening and there was yet a half hour before my friend would count it his time to retire. "How about the Heaven Home, I think that is what you called it," I asked, and Jim, without parleying, was ready to speak freely in answer.

"Yes," he said, "I like the word home, as applied to it. I couldn't think of Peter as wantin' to stay in a mansion. In the Comfort Chapter in John, I've always read the word 'home' in place of 'mansion.' The parsons tell me that there are some mistakes in the translatin' o' the Good Book, and I am sure that it's a mistake here. There ain't enough comfort in the thought of a mansion for most of us common run o' folks, and it was for us that He come and told of this life and the life to come.

"I'm sure it's a home. I think it must have in it things that match up with what we got here. I don't see how we could feel at home without something like tables and chairs. We had a parson one time who knew all about it over there, accordin' to his tell. He told us about the crowns and harps and the golden streets and the singin' that went on all the day long. But I callate no Lander would care for such a life as that, and if that's what it's like there's precious few of us 'uns over there.

"Now if it's a home as I think it must be since the Father has planned it, there must be homelikeness there. There must be somethin' that corresponds to tables and chairs and all the little things that go to makin' up a real home, else how could a man be happy over there, who had just left a happy home here. I'm not sayin' we shall always need them things, but I am a sayin' that in the very next life we must have things we are used to for a spell till we get to the point where we don't need them, but somethin' else. Sounds sensible to me to think that way.

"You remember that after the Lord was dead and Peter was plumb worn out and discouraged; there didn't seem to be no hope nowheres; he decided to go fishin'. I callate there are times when a man would rather go salmon fishing than to do anything else in the world, provided he knows what good salmon fishin' is. Now for these fishermen about the only thing the Lord can do, if He wants to make 'em happy as He promised to do, is to give 'em a chance at fishin'.

"I wouldn't be at all surprised some morning in Heaven to be trailin' along the bank o' some good stream fishin' and lookin' up sudden to see the Lord there a fishin' too.

"You smile, but why not? Do you think the Father is so foolish as to drop us down in a strange place where we don't understand and we don't know what to do. Does it appear to you that the Lord would take a little fellow like Peter and send him around with a harp. I'll tell you what Peter would want to do, he would want to jump rain barrels so as he would know how to jump ice pans when he got older.

"What good would it do to take any little fellow outen the primary school and put him right into college. It wouldn't do him or the college one particle of good. It would be a sheer waste for everybody concerned. I think the Father is wiser than that, and it's always kinder amused me and somewhat disgusted me that the parsons have imagined heaven to be so teetotally different from this life.

"I've seen so much of His wisdom here, I can't come to think that He's working blind and foolish over there. Will I know little Peter, sure I will, or it wouldn't be heaven. Then his new little body must look like the present one, only stronger and it won't hurt it so much when he pinches it.

"He'll get into the place that fits for him, not because he's sent, but because he just naturally goes where he belongs. And as it is with little Peter so it will be with every one. Perhaps by this time he has seen the Christ, for the kingdom is always found quicker by a child than by a grown man. Children see things that we older folks find it hard to see."

"How about Rascal Moore?" I asked.

"Just now he's taken his cat and dog and he's gone to the woods.[2] Mebbe there a stick will hit him and knock a little sense into him. He's by no means hopeless. I've seen worse ones than he is get sense afore they died. But you mean what would become of him if he went just as he is. Well, there must be sufferin' for the likes o' him. You can't, and I find the Lord Himself don't, seem to make a sinner into a saint all of a sudden. He may wake him up sudden and start him, but it takes time to get him rounded off. He'll go where he belongs just as the others; and if for a while he belongs in an uncomfortable, painful place why there's where he'll go. I never could see the sense in trying to think that everybody would go right off to one same place and be in heaven. There's too much difference in folks; there's the converted and the unconverted; there's the sinners and the saints; and though you put 'em in the same place, it wouldn't be the same place for them. It don't seem probable to me either that they can't never change their places when they get over there. There's a good deal o' changin' here, so there's likely to be over there.

"There are changes in the earth homes, there'll be changes in the heaven homes. And it will be well so long as the changes are for the better. I can't think that will always be the case, howsomever, for it ain't the case here. But gradual I'm expectin' conditions will improve and the handicaps are less over there. With the help o' Moses, Isaiah and the prophets and saints we ought to get on at a fair pace. A tremendous lot o' mothers is over there; they've been a goin' out one by one for a terrible long spell, makes me dizzy when I get to thinkin' o' some o' these subjects. Mothers don't loaf so long as there's chance to help kids, an' I'm callating that they'll do some pretty good work along lines o' convertin' over there.

"I expect to hear the baccaloo[3] over there and I'd rather hear a baccaloo than a nightingale or a lark for it would seem more like home. That's the big thing and the Lord ain't likely to disappoint me or any one who is lookin' for a home over there.

"The heaven home is a good sight nearer than most folks think. The journey is short and it's only our poor sight and our hearin' that has made it so far away. I know Peter's often near me while I'm at work and it's a comfortable feeling, not a scarey one to think he's liable to be around most any time and I must be on my guard not to let slip any string o' words that would be bad for him to hear. It chucks a fellow up to feel that he must be on his best for the little fellow sees and knows. I want to be such a father as he'll respect. It must be mighty oncomfortable for some folks when they get over there, for some folks don't do no growing after they lose their loved ones and how in sank they expect to be fit company for their folks when they themselves get over there is more'n I can tell.

"Because there's homes there don't in no way interfere with it's bein' a beautiful place. It don't have to have golden harps to make it worth while. There's probably rivers that are prettier than 'ourn, and there must be pink calmia, fox-gloves and sweet william, pansies, tea-bushes and a good many others that I don't happen to think of. There must be places in heaven that look like Deer Lake, Gaff Topsail, Kelligrews and Brigus. Mebbe there's places in heaven like New York, too, though from what you say it will need some changin' to be kept as a heaven city.