CHAPTER XVI.

A YEAR OF HAPPINESS.

The success of James in trapping did by no means overshadow his love for the soil, neither did it lead him to neglect his studies, nor cool his affection for the colt. A quart of oats every night, and potatoes, Sunday morning, with plenty of hay, made the animal grow finely.

This winter James so excelled in writing that the master employed him to set the copies. Everything passed along pleasantly in the school; James mingled freely with the scholars in their diversions, and even Morse, Riggs, and Orcutt forgot the old grudge, or pretended they had. He likewise so far conquered his reserve as to spend a sociable evening where he was invited; went through the arithmetic, and took surveying by the advice of the old gentleman, who told him it would put many a dollar in his pocket if he could run land, and he could in no other way get it so easily, especially if he ever went into a newly settled place.

In short, it was the happiest winter James had ever passed; time seemed to take to itself wings, and he could hardly realize it was March when March came.

As the time for work upon the land drew near, James said to Mr. Whitman,—

“I don’t think you need to hire a man this summer; the boys are some older. I have got the run of the work, and have learned to cradle grain as well as to reap. I think we can do the work.”

“It is poor economy to have barely help enough to get along, providing the weather is just what you would wish. I shall plough less, and dress heavier than I have done; that will leave less ground to go over. I think we can get along till hay and wheat harvest, then I will hire George Kendrick; he can spread, rake, build the loads of hay, tie up grain, and reap a little; he’s but a boy, and won’t want much wages.”

Although they could not set to work upon their new land till autumn, the boys were teasing their father to go and measure it, and their grandfather said it was a pleasant day, and he would go with them.

When the boys came to see how large a piece of land was contained in a measure of two acres, and how near together the trees were, their courage cooled a little.

“If we are to cut all these trees,” said James, “snow will fly before we get half done.”

“You haven’t got to cut half of ‘em clear off. If I was twenty years younger I could fall the whole and lop off the large limbs, and burn and pile it in eight weeks.”

When the time came to clear their land, the old gentleman went with them, and spotted a great oak with long spreading limbs.

“That’s the _driver_; that’s not to be cut yet.”

He then spotted a great number of trees in a line before it, and in a space as wide as the branches of the great tree extended. He then directed the boys to cut the tree nearest the drive-tree nearly off, and the next ones less, and the next less still, till the outside ones received only a few blows.

While the boys were at work, the old gentleman began leisurely to chop into the great tree, sitting down to rest when he liked, till he had cut it as nearly off as was safe. This occupied him the greater part of the forenoon, and, seating himself in the sun, he slept till James shouted that they had cut all the spotted trees.

“Then come here, all of you.”

The great oak stood at the summit of gently descending ground. Directly before it was a clump of enormous pines, which the boys had been directed to chop into till they stood tottering to a fall, and before them were some large hemlocks and sugar-trees that had been cut half off, and below these smaller trees that had received but a few blows of the axe.

All were now assembled at the foot of the oak. A few well-directed strokes from the old gentleman’s axe, it began to nod, and small, dead limbs to fall from it; then came a short, sharp crack. Slowly it toppled, and seemed but to touch the trunks of the tall pines that stood seventy feet to a limb, when down they went with a tremendous roar upon the hemlocks, and the whole avalanche, smoking and cracking, plunged right down the descent into the mixed growth below: leaves, limbs, and bark flew high into the air, a wide lane was opened through the forest, as when a discharge of grape ploughs through a column of infantry; the very earth shook with the concussion, and the sunlight broke in where it had not shone for a hundred years.

Bertie leaped upon the trunk of the great oak, and swinging his hat, shouted,—

“Hoorah, grandfather, you know how to do it, don’t you?”

“I should be a dull scholar if I didn’t, considering how much experience and practice I’ve had.”

Scores of trees were prostrated, some torn up by the roots, others shorn of their branches, and sure to die when scorched by the clearing fire, others broken off at various heights. The trees broken off or stripped of their branches were not cut down, as, casting no shade, they did not interfere with the crop, but were left to rot down.

Finding the labor so much less than they had anticipated, the boys set to work with resolution, and before the ground froze, cut the trees, lopped the larger branches, and cleared up the work of the season. James raised three bushels of potatoes more than the previous year, and obtained two cents a bushel more for them of the same buyer.

The Whitmans all possessed musical ability. Mr. Whitman and his wife sang in the choir till they were married; and the children, though they had received no training, and could not read music, all sang by rote; and soon after school began, Bertie made a new discovery. One of the cows that he milked had spells of holding up her milk, and caused much inconvenience.

“I’ll swap cows with you, Bertie,” said James; “you milk my old line-back, and I’ll milk the black cow; perhaps she’ll give down her milk better to me.”

The black cow after this gave down her milk, which was for some time a great puzzle to Bertie and Peter, although their parents said it was because James milked faster, and it was easier to the cow.

James was the first to rise, and generally had his cows nearly milked by the time the rest got into the yard, and was ready either to work among his potatoes or to sit down to study till breakfast was ready, and the black cow was always milked before Bertie got along.

Bert imagined James had some method of charming the cow, and resolved to find out, so getting up before light he hid himself in the barn. By-and-by James came out and sitting down to the cow leaned his head against her and began to sing an old folk ditty to make a cow give down her milk, and Bertie’s quick ear discovered to his astonishment that James had both an ear and most excellent voice for singing, though so great was his diffidence and power of concealment that no one of the family had ever suspected it before. Bertie told his father and mother.

“If that is so,” said Mrs. Whitman, “let us get Walter Conly to keep a singing school this winter, and let James and our children go, we need better music in the church, most of the choir have sung out.”

When snow came they harnessed up the colt in a most singular vehicle called a drag, made of rough poles, the shafts and runners being made of the same pole. The harness they made of straw rope, which James, who had been taught at the workhouse, showed them how to twist with an instrument that he made, called a throw-crook. It was made of a crooked piece of wood bent at one end and a swivel in the other end by which he fastened it to his waist, and turned it with one hand, while one of the boys attached the straw and walked backwards as it twisted. He told them great use was made of these ropes in England to bind loads of hay and grain, and to secure stacks of grain. They braided the straw to make the saddle, and twisted hickory withes for bit and bridle. They put Bertie and Maria on the sled and the docile creature drew them to the schoolhouse with some help; there he was fastened in the sun beneath the lee of the woods and fed.

When school was done at night the creature, colt-like, and limber as an eel, had twisted round, gnawed off the straw halter, then the shoulder-strap, which permitted the traces to fall, and then being freed from the drag he rubbed against the tree to which he had been fastened till he broke the girth and freed himself from the saddle; and ended by devouring the whole harness, except the bridle, even to the reins.

“Oh, you little monkey,” cried Bertie, “if I had given you that straw at home you would have turned up your nose at it. How do you think Maria is going to get home? She won’t bake you any more corn cakes nor give you any more sweet apples.”

The snow was quite deep; they put Maria on the drag, James and Peter and the Wood boys hauled the drag, and Bertie led the colt after the vehicle. They made another straw harness, but took care to fasten him with a leather halter and hitch him short.

The inhabitants of the district and the scholars were so much attached to Mr. Conly that they assessed themselves to keep the school that was out in February through March, Mr. Whitman offering to board him the entire month. The days were so long that James found much time to work in the shop, both before and after school. Mr. Whitman was making a pair of wheels, tongue and axle-tree for one of his neighbors, and finding how much progress James had made in handling tools, availed himself of his help. When the job was finished, James, with some aid from Mr. Whitman, made an axle-tree, wheels and shafts, with which to break the colt. He had just put the finishing stroke to his work by boring the linchpin holes, and sitting down upon the axle-tree and contemplating it, he said,—

“There, I have done all I know how to do to those wheels; I don’t know whether they’ll run off or on, but I hope they will answer the purpose.”

The old gentleman was in the shop making a grain cradle, he viewed the work, took off the wheels, measured the shoulder, and the taper of the ends of the axle, and said,—

“I call that a good piece of work, and I believe those wheels will run true as a die; you have learned something since Jonathan brought you to our door two years ago last fall; you couldn’t have made a sled stake then and made it right.”

“Indeed I have, grandfather, and I owe it to you, and I have often wondered that you should take so much pains with a strange boy, and as you may say an outcast, with neither kith nor kin.”

“I have tried to teach you some things, and chiefly those that would put you in the way of getting your bread in this country, and the things that I knew by experience to be both necessary and profitable to a young man going to take up land, which is the best, safest, and in my judgment, the happiest venture here. I have spent a great many hours teaching you to handle a rifle, for though playing with a gun is just time thrown away in an old settlement where there is nothing to shoot but sparrows and robins, my family would have often gone without a meal had it not been for my rifle; and the money that bought the greater part of this farm came by trapping and hunting. If I could not have handled tools I must have gone without cart or plough or harrow, for I had no money to buy, and must have gone nine miles to borrow.

“But there is one thing more necessary for you than anything I have ever tried to teach you, and I cannot teach it, I wish I could.”

“What is that, grandfather?”

“The grace of God, something that cannot be learned as you can learn to line and cut the shoulder of an axle-tree to make the wheel run true, or to work out a sum at school, and yet it is by all odds more necessary than any and all of the things you have learned here.”

“But you never told me anything about this before.”

“Perhaps you think it strange that when I have taken so much pains from the time you came here to teach you other things, and so many other things, that I have never said anything about that.”

“Yes, grandfather, I do.”

“It was because I didn’t think the time had come for me to speak. I knew you were becoming acquainted with the Scriptures, that you heard the gospel faithfully preached every Sabbath, and that you would not then have understood my talk, but now you know what I mean, do you not?”

“You mean what you prayed, that Peter and Bertie and Maria and I might have, this morning at family prayers. But how can I get it? If neither the schoolmaster nor you can teach me, and I can’t learn it myself, how am I going to get it?”

“Beg for it. When a man has nothing to buy bread with, and can’t work, he must beg. Get it where I got mine, on your knees.”

“But the minister says folks must feel that they are sinners, and confess their sins and ask forgiveness in the name of the Saviour. I don’t feel that way; don’t feel that I have got anything to confess.”

“You don’t?”

“No, sir. I can’t confess that I have lied, or sworn, got drunk, or stolen, or broken the Sabbath, or cheated anybody, because I never have. I know I am not bad, like the workhouse boys I was brought up with, nor like some folks here, and I never go to bed or get up but I say the Lord’s prayer.”

“What makes you say in the Lord’s prayer ‘forgive us our sins,’ if you have no sins to be forgiven; and what sense was there in putting it in the Lord’s prayer, that was made for the whole world, and you among the rest, if you have no sin?”

“I don’t know.”

“The reason you don’t feel that you have anything to confess is that you don’t know what’s inside of you. Everybody is the same way by nature. I used to be.”

“What must I do then?”

“Ask the Lord to send His spirit to show yourself, and if He does, you will see need enough to ask pardon. I hope you’ll think about it, James, for I never was so set upon anything as I am upon this. It is not an affair of the moment with me. I have had it in my mind from the first spring you were here till now, and it has grown upon me of late, because within the last six months I have begun to feel that I have not much longer to tarry here. I don’t think I shall see the leaves fall again.”

The tears sprang into the eyes of James. He exclaimed,—

“Grandfather, don’t talk so; I can’t bear to hear you talk in that way. You will live a good many years to make us all happy.”

“That’s impossible according to the course of nature. I have lived to see all my children settled and making a good living, and what is more, giving evidence of grace, though Jonathan and Alice have not as yet seen their way clear to come forward, and I am ready to go; but I would like to see you and Peter, Bertie and Maria, rejoicing in the Lord.”

This conversation affected James as had nothing else in the course of his life. He loved and revered the old gentleman, and though he was aware of his great age yet the idea of parting with him had never crossed his mind, and when at night he repeated the Lord’s prayer as usual, the words “forgive us our sins” were fraught with a new meaning. He resolved to search the scriptures and find out if he was a sinner or not.

A few days after this one half-holiday Bertie came into the shop and hung around, sat upon the bench and whittled, a thing quite unusual, as he had no desire to handle tools, and was seldom in the shop except James or Peter was making something for him, at length he said,—

“Grandpa, I want you to pray for me.”

“My child, I have done that ever since you were born, but what makes you ask me now? How do you feel?”

“I don’t know, I never felt as I have these last two days. I want to be good. Mother says I am a good boy and so does father and the schoolmaster, but I know I am not good the way the Bible calls good.”

“My dear boy, it is the blessed spirit that is showing you your heart. We must both pray, for in these things one cannot take another’s place. Tomorrow is the Sabbath day and I hope you will find pardon through the Saviour, and that it will be the happiest Sabbath you ever spent. How came you to turn your thoughts that way?”

“I was hurrying to get my part of the chores done before school time when these thoughts came into my mind just like a flash, and they won’t go away.”

After meeting on the next Sabbath, as the minister, Mr. Redman, came to shake hands with the old gentleman as he always did, the former said,—

“Mr. Redman, if I were you at the close of the meeting to-night I would ask any persons who felt disposed to converse on religious subjects to tarry.”

“I don’t believe there would a single person stop. Never during my ministry here have I seen the people as thoughtless, and Christians themselves so indifferent; it is one to his farm and another to his merchandise.”

“Didn’t you notice how full the meeting has been to-day and how attentive the people were?”

“The pleasant Sabbath after several stormy ones accounts for the full attendance, and our people usually give good attention. But what leads you to think there is any special interest among the people?”

“The Lord has told me so.”

Mr. Redman looked anxiously into the face of his Elder, fearing that his mind was enfeebled, but in the clear eye and compressed lips and earnest expression of his features he saw nothing to confirm his suspicions, and replied,—

“Although I perceive not the least reason for doing as you desire, I will reflect upon it and if when we meet to-night you are of the same opinion, I’ll certainly do it.”

“Will you mix a little prayer with your reflections?”

“I will.”

When Mr. Redman got home he related the affair to his wife, and inquired if she thought there was any more thoughtfulness than usual among the females of the parish.

“In my opinion there was never less, but I would do as Elder Whitman requests.”

“He is a very old man and may be in his dotage. I am afraid it would seem ridiculous and do more harm than good.”

“He has the clearest head of any man in this parish to-day, and is more likely to know the mind of the Lord than anybody else, and I know never would say what he did to you without a solid reason.”

Mr. Redman, a nervous person, greatly puzzled and agitated by what he considered an unreasonable request, was unable to fix his mind upon any definite topic of remark, and went to the meeting with very slight preparation.

He was surprised to find the house was filled and Mr. Whitman of the same opinion, which served to increase his agitation, and after a few, as he felt, incoherent remarks threw the meeting open and sat down.

Mr. Whitman instantly got up and said,—

“I am an old man, about the oldest among you. I feel that I have been an unprofitable servant and that, profitable or unprofitable, I am almost at my journey’s end, but this is no time to depart. I would not die in such a dead state of the church and people of God as this. My neighbors, you must wake up, and wake up to-night. I must go and I want to carry better tidings than it is possible to carry now. Can I face my Master, and yours, and tell him that the wise and the foolish are slumbering together, and that the seed his servant sows rots in the furrow because it is not watered with the prayers of the church, and because Christian people are more concerned to train their children to get a living than they are to save their souls?”

He went on for half an hour, and when he sat down there were three or four on their feet together, for his words went through the people like an electric shock.

At the close of the meeting Mr. Redman gave the notice and more than half of the assembly stopped. Among them was Walter Conly the schoolmaster, his brother Edward, and sister Emily; Will Orcutt who had come home from Reading on a visit, and his brother George; Arthur and Elmer Nevins, John and William Edibean, and the Wood boys, Jane Gifford, Martha Kendrick; many heads of families, Lunt the miller and Samuel Dorset the drover. Mr. Whitman and his wife, Peter and Maria, remained, but the grandfather saw Bertie and James go out. It gave the good old man a heartache, and he said within himself,—

“God’s ways are not our ways, His will be done.”

That night after the old gentleman had retired to rest, Bertie crept to his bedside and said,—

“Grandfather, the reason I did not stop to-night was I didn’t want to talk with anybody only you, but I have prayed to God a great many times, and asked him to take me for his child, and make me just what he wants me to be, and somehow I feel as though he hears me.”

“Would you be ashamed to have your father and mother know how you feel?”

“I shouldn’t be ashamed to have the whole school know I am trying to be good and be a Christian.”

A week passed away, and the old gentleman found no opportunity to talk with James, as he was busy out of doors, and did not come into the shop, but on Saturday evening as the former was sitting in his bedroom, James entered and said,—

“Grandfather, I have done what you wished me to, and I have been studying the New Testament to find out what sin is and whether I am a sinner.”

“What did you find there?”

“I found that sin is the transgression of the law; that it is not doing this or that, but having a wrong principle, and that I had a wrong principle, and so there was not a bit of good in me. When I came to cipher the thing right out, I saw that it was not because it was a sin against God that I didn’t do as the rest in the workhouse did, but because Mr. Holmes told me not to, and that Mr. Holmes was my God all the while.”

“Ah! you’ve got to the bottom of it now, my boy.”

“But why did not Mr. Holmes tell me about my being a sinner, and about pardon through the Saviour, as you have, and as Mr. Redman does?”

“Because Mr. Holmes was not only a good man, but a man of sense, all good men don’t have common sense. You were a child then, and he did not mean to burden your mind with things that, not understanding, you would forget, but he knew if he told you not to lie, steal nor swear, and taught you the commandments, that you would know what that meant, and he put the idea of God in your mind. He knew that you loved him and would do as you promised him you would, and that if you kept clear of those sins it would keep your conscience alive, and that if you said the Lord’s prayer it would give you the idea of going to God, and though you might not understand it would finally have its effect, and as you grew older that influence would grow stronger.”

The religious interest increased not only there, but extended to other towns in the county, and was part of that wonderful religious movement called “The Great Awakening” that pervaded Kentucky, was more or less felt in every state then in the Union, and which provided Christian pioneers for the new settlements constantly forming.