Brian had walked along the river-bank below the house to a spot just above the point where the high bluff jutting out into the river-channel forms Elbow Rock.
The bank here is not so high above the roaring waters of the rapids, for the spur of the mountain which forms the cliff lies at a right angle to the river, and the greater part of the cliff is thus on the shore, with its height growing less and less as it merges into the main slope of the mountain-side. From the turn in the road, in front of the house, a footpath leads down the bank of the river to the cliff, and, climbing stairlike up the face of the steep bluff, zigzags down the easier slope of the down-river side, to come again into the road below. The road itself, below Elbow Rock, is forced by the steep side of the mountain-spur and the precipitous bluff to turn inland from the river, and so, climbing by an easier grade up past Tom Warden's place, crosses the ridge above the schoolhouse, and comes back down the mountain again in front of Auntie Sue's place, to its general course along the stream. The little path forms thus a convenient short cut for any one following the river road on foot.
Brian, seated on the river-bank a little way from the path where it starts up the bluff, was trying to decide whether it would be better for him to follow his desire and stay with Auntie Sue for a few weeks or months, or whether he should not, in spite of the land he might clear for her, return to the world where he could more quickly earn the money to pay back that which he had stolen.
And as he sat there, the man was conscious that he had reached one of those turning-points that are found in every life where results, momentous and far-reaching, are dependent upon comparatively unimportant and temporary issues. He could not have told why, and yet he felt a certainty that, for him, two widely separated futures were dependent upon his choice. Nor could he, by thinking, discover what those futures held for him, nor which he should choose. Even as his boat that night had hung on the edge of the eddy,—hesitating on the dividing-line between the two currents,—so the man himself now felt the pull of his life-currents, and hesitated,—undecided.
Looking toward the house, he thought how like the life offered by Auntie Sue was to the quiet waters of The Bend, and—his mind finished the simile—how like the life to which he would go was to the rapids at Elbow Rock; and, yet, he reflected, the waters could never reach the sea without enduring the turmoil of the rapids. And, again, the thought came, “The Bend is just as much the river as the troubled passage around the rock.”
When he had given up life, and, to all intent and purpose, had left life behind him, the river, without his will or knowledge, had mysteriously elected to save him from the death he had chosen as his only refuge from the utter ruin that had seemed so inevitable. As the currents of the river had carried his boat to the eddy at the foot of Auntie Sue's garden, the currents of life had mysteriously brought him to the saving influence of Auntie Sue herself. Should he push out again into the stream to face the danger he knew beset such a course? or should he wait for a season in the secure calm of the harbor she offered until he were stronger? Brian Kent knew, instinctively, that there was in the wisdom and love of Auntie Sue's philosophy and faith a strength that would, if he could make it his, insure his safe passage through every danger of life, and yet—The man's meditations were interrupted by a chance look toward the bluff which towered above him.
Judy was climbing the steep trail.
Curiously, Brian watched the deformed mountain girl as she made her way up the narrow, stairlike path, and her cutting words came back to him: “God-A'mighty and my drunken pap made me like I am. But you,—damn you!—you made yourself what you be.” And Auntie Sue had said that the all-important thing in life was not to DO something, but to BE something.
The girl, who had gained a point halfway to the top of the bluff, paused to look searchingly about, and Brian, who was half-hidden by the bushes, started to call to her, thinking she might be looking for him; but some impulse checked him and he remained silently watching her. Climbing hurriedly a little higher up the path Judy again stopped to look carefully around, as if searching the vicinity for some one. Then, once more, she went on until she stood on top of the cliff; and now, as she looked about over the surrounding country, she called: “Mr. Burns! Oh, Mr. Burns! Who-o-e-e! Mr. Burns!”
Brian's lips were parted to answer the call when something happened on top of the bluff which held him for the moment speechless.
From beyond where Judy stood on the brink of the cliff, a man's head and shoulders appeared. Brian saw the girl start and turn to face the newcomer as if in sudden fear. Then she whirled about to run. Before she could gain the point where the path starts down from the top, the man caught her and dragged her roughly back, so that the two disappeared from Brian's sight. Brian was halfway up the bluff when he heard the girl's shrill scream.
There was no sign of weakness, now, in the man that Judy had dragged from the river. He covered the remaining distance to the top in a breath. From among the bushes, a little way down the mountainside, came the sound of an angry voice mingled with Judy's pleading cries.
An instant more, and Brian reached the spot where poor Judy was crouching on the ground, begging the brute, who stood over her with menacing fists, not to hit her again.
The man was a vicious-looking creature, dressed in the rough garb of the mountaineer; dirty and unkempt, with evil, close-set eyes, and a scraggly beard that could not hide the wicked, snarling mouth.
He stood for a second looking at Brian, as if too surprised by the latter's sudden appearance to move; then he went down, felled by as clean a knockout as was ever delivered by an Irish fist.
“Are you hurt, Judy?” demanded Brian, as he lifted the girl to her feet. “Did he strike you?”
“He was sure a-fixin' ter lick me somethin' awful when you-all put in,” returned the poor girl, trembling with fear. “I know, 'cause he's done hit to me heaps er times before. He's my pap.”
“Your father!” exclaimed Brian.
Judy nodded;—then screamed: “Look out! He'll git you, sure!”
Judy's rescuer whirled, to see the man on the ground drawing a gun. A vigorous, well-directed kick, delivered in the nick of time, sent the gun whirling away into the bushes and rendered the native's right arm useless.
“Get up!” commanded Brian.
The man rose to his feet, and stood nursing his damaged wrist and scowling at Judy's companion.
“Are you this girl's father?”
“I reckon I am,” came the sullen reply. “I'm Jap Taylor, an' you-all are sure goin' to find that you can't come between a man an' his lawful child in these here mountains, mister,—if you-all be from the city.”
“And you will find that you can't strike a crippled girl in my presence, even if she is your daughter,—in these mountains or anywhere else,” retorted Brian. “What are you trying to do with her, anyway?”
“I aim ter take her back home with me, where she belongs.”
“Well, why didn't you go to the house for her like a man, instead of jumping on her out here in the woods!”
“Hit ain't none of your dad burned business as I can see,” came the sullen reply.
“I am making it my business, just the same,” returned Brian.
He turned to the girl, who had drawn back a little behind him. “Judy,” he said, kindly, “I think perhaps you better tell me about this.”
“Pap, he was a-layin' for me in the bresh 'cause he dassn't come to the house ter git me,” said the girl, fearfully.
“But, why does he fear to come to the house?” persisted Brian.
“'Cause he done give me ter Auntie Sue.”
“Gave you to Auntie Sue?” repeated the puzzled Brian.
Jap Taylor interrupted with, “I didn't sign ary paper, an'—”
“Shut up, you!” snapped Brian. “Go on, Judy.”
“Hit was a year last corn-plantin',” explained the girl. “My maw, she died. He used ter whip her, too. An' Auntie Sue was there helpin' weuns; an' Tom Warden an' some other folks they was there, too; an' they done fixed hit so that I was ter go an' live with Auntie Sue; an' pap, he give me ter her. He sure did, Mr. Burns, an' I ain't a-wantin' ter go with him, no more.”
The poor girl's shrill monotone broke, and her twisted body shook with her sobs.
“I didn't sign ary paper,” repeated Judy's father, with sullen stubbornness. “An' what's more, I sure ain't a-goin' ter. I 'lows as how she'll just go home an' work for me, like she ort, 'stead of livin' with that there old-maid schoolma'am. I'm her paw, I am, an' I reckon I got rights.”
He started toward the girl, who drew closer to Brian, and begged piteously: “Don't let him tech me! 'Fore God, Mr. Burns, he'll kill me, sure!”
Brian drew the girl behind him as he faced the father with a brief, “Get out!”
The mountaineer hesitated.
Brian went one step toward him: “Do you hear? Get out! And if you ever show your dirty face in this vicinity again, I'll not leave a whole bone in your worthless carcass!”
And Jap Taylor saw something in those Irish blue eyes that caused him to start off down the mountain toward the river below Elbow Rock.
When he had placed a safe distance between himself and the man who appeared so willing and able to make good his threat, Judy's father turned, and, shaking his uninjured fist at Brian, delivered a volley of curses, with: “I'll sure git you-all for this! Jap Taylor ain't a-lettin' no man come between him an' his'n. I'll fix you, an' I'll fix that there schoolma'am, too! She's nothin' but a damned old—”
But Brian started toward him, and Jap Taylor beat a hasty retreat.
“Never mind, Judy,” said Brian, when the native had disappeared in the brush and timber that covered the steep mountain-side. “I'll not let him touch you. Come, let us sit down and talk a little until you are yourself again. Auntie Sue must not see you like this. We don't want to let her know anything about it. You won't tell her, will you?”
“I ain't aimin' ter tell nobody,” said Judy, between sobs. “I sure ain't a-wantin' ter make no trouble,—not for Auntie Sue, nohow. She's been powerful good ter me.”
When they were seated on convenient rocks at the brink of the cliff overlooking the river, Judy gradually ceased crying, and presently said, in her normal, querulous monotone: “Did you-all mind what pap 'lowed he'd do ter Auntie Sue, Mr. Burns?”
“Yes, Judy; but don't worry, child. He is not going to harm any one while I am around.”
“You-all are aimin' ter stay then, be you? I'm sure powerful glad,” said Judy, simply.
Brian started. A new factor had suddenly been injected into his problem.
“I was powerful scared you-all was aimin' ter go away,” continued Judy. “Hit was that I was a-huntin' you-all to tell you 'bout, when pap he ketched me.”
“What were you going to tell me, Judy?”
“I 'lowed ter tell you-all 'bout Auntie Sue. She'd sure be powerful mad if she know'd I'd said anythin' ter you, but she's a-needin' somebody like you ter help her, mighty bad. She—she's done lost a heap of money, lately: hit was some she sent—”
Brian interrupted: “Wait a minute, Judy. You must not tell me anything about Auntie Sue's private affairs; you must not tell any one. Anything she wants me to know, she will tell me. Do you understand?” he finished with a reassuring smile.
“Yes, sir; I reckon you-all are 'bout right, an' I won't tell nobody nothin'. But 'tain't a-goin' ter hurt none ter say as how you-all ort ter stay, I reckon.”
“And why do you think I ought to stay, Judy?”
“'Cause of what Auntie Sue's done for you-all,—a-nursin' you when you was plumb crazy an' plumb dangerous from licker, an' a lyin' like she did ter the Sheriff an' that there deteckertive man,” returned Judy stoutly; “an' 'cause she's so old an' is a-needin' you-all ter help her; an' 'cause she is a-lovin' you like she does, an' is a-wantin' you-all ter stay so bad hit's mighty nigh a-makin' her plumb sick.”
Brian Kent did not answer. The mountain girl's words had revealed to him the selfishness of his own consideration of his problem so clearly that he was stunned. Why had he not, in his thinking, remembered the dear old gentlewoman who had saved him from a shameful death?
Judy went on: “Hit looks ter me like somebody just naturally's got ter take care of Auntie Sue, Mr. Burns. All her whole life she's a-been takin' care of everybody just like she tuck me, an' just like she tuck you-all, besides a heap of other ways; an' now she's so old and mighty nigh plumb wore out, hit sure looks like hit was time somebody was a-fixin' ter do somethin' for her. That was what I was a-huntin' you-all ter tell you when pap ketched me, Mr. Burns.”
“I am glad you told me, Judy;—very glad. You see, I was not thinking of things in just that way.”
“I 'lowed maybe you mightn't. Seems like folks mostly don't.”
“But it's all right, now!” Brian cried heartily. “You have settled it. I'll stay. We'll take care of Auntie Sue,—you and I, Judy. Come on, now; let's go to the house, and tell her. But we won't say anything about your father, Judy;—that would only make her unhappy; and we must never make Auntie Sue unhappy—never.” He was as eager and enthusiastic, now, as a schoolboy.
“'Course,” said Judy, solemnly; “'course you just naturally got ter stay an' take care of her now, after what pap's done said he'd do.”
“Yes, Judy; I've just naturally got to stay,” returned Brian.
Together they went down the steep cliff trail and to the little log house by the river to announce Brian's decision to Auntie Sue. They found the dear old lady in her favorite spot on the porch overlooking the river.
“Why, of course you will stay,” she returned, when Brian had told her. “The river brought you to me, and you know, my dear boy, the river is never wrong. Oh, yes, I know there are cross-currents and crooked spots and sand-bars and rocks and lots of places where it SEEMS to us to be wrong. But, just the same, it all goes on, all the time, toward the sea for which it starts when it first begins at some little spring away over there somewhere in the mountains. Of course you will stay with me, Brian,—until the river carries you on again.”
From the very day of his decision, to which he had been so unexpectedly helped by Judy, Brian Kent was another man. The gloomy, despondent, undecided spirit that was the successor of the wretched creature that Judy had helped to Auntie Sue's that morning was now succeeded by a cheerful, hopeful, contented man, who went to his daily task with a song, did his work with a smile and a merry jest, and returned, when the day was done, with peace in his heart and laughter on his lips.
As the days of the glorious Ozark autumn passed, Brian's healthful, outdoor work on the timbered mountain-side brought to the man of the cities a physical grace and beauty he had lacked,—the grace of physical strength and the beauty of clean and rugged health. The bright autumn sun and the winds that swept over the many miles of tree-clad hills browned his skin; while his work with the ax developed his muscles and enforced deep breathing of the bracing mountain air, thus bringing a more generous supply of richer blood, which touched his now firmly rounded cheeks with color.
The gift of humor and the faculty of quaint and witty conversational twists, with the genius of storytelling that was his from his Irish mother, made quick friends for him of the mountain neighbors who welcomed this new pupil of their old school-teacher with whole-hearted pleasure, and quoted his jests and sayings throughout the country with never-failing delight. And Judy,—it is not too much to say that Judy became his most ardent admirer and devoted slave.
But the dear old mistress of the little log house by the river alone recognized that these outward changes in the human wreck that the river had brought to her were but manifestations of a more potent transformation that was taking place in the man's inner life; and it was this inner change that filled the teacher's loving heart with joy, and which she watched with keen and delighted interest.
It was not, after all, a new life that was coming to this man, Auntie Sue told herself; it was his own old and more real life that was reassuring itself. It was the real Brian Kent that had been sojourning in a far country that was now coming home to his own. It was the wealth of his heart and mind and soul which had been deep-buried under an accumulation of circumstances and environment that was now being brought to the surface.
Might it not be that Auntie Sue's genius for absorbing beauty and making truth her own had, in her many years of searching for truth and beauty in whatever humanity she encountered, developed in her a peculiar sensitiveness? And was it not this that had made her feel instinctively the real nature of the man in whom a less discerning observer would have recognized nothing worthy of admiration or regard? Without question, it was the true,—the essential,—the underlying,—elements in the character of the absconding bank clerk that had aroused in this remarkable old gentlewoman the peculiar sense of kinship—of possession—that had determined her attitude toward the stranger. The law that like calls to like is not less applicable to things spiritual than to things material. The birds of a feather that always flock together are not of necessity material birds of material feathers.
Nor was Brian Kent himself unconscious of his Re-Creation. The man knew what he was, as every man knows deep within himself the real self that is. And that was the horror of the situation which had set him adrift on the river that night when, in his last drunken despairing frenzy, he had left the world with a curse in his heart and had faced the black unknown with reckless laughter and a profane toast. It is to be doubted if there can be a hell of greater torment than that experienced by one who, endowed by nature with a capacity for great living, is betrayed by the very strength of his genius into a situation that is intolerable of his real self, and is forced, thus, to a continuous self-crucifixion and death.
In his new environment the man felt the awakening of this self which he had mourned as dead. Thoughts, emotions, dreams, aspirations, which had, as he believed, been killed, he found were not dead, but only sleeping; and in the quickening of their vitality and strength he knew a joy as great as had been his despair.
The beauty of nature, that had lost its power of appeal to his sodden soul, now stirred him to the very depth of his being. The crisp, sun-sweet air of the autumn mornings, when he went forth with his ax to the day's clean labor, was a draught of potent magic that set every nerve of him tingling with delight. The woodland hillside, where he worked, was a wonderland of beautiful creations that inspired a thousand glowing fancies. Sometimes, at his heavy task, he would pause for a moment's rest, and so would look out and away over the vast expanse of country that from his feet stretched in all its charm of winding river and wooded slopes, and tree-fringed ridges to the far, blue sky-line; and the very soul of him would answer to the call as he had thought he never could answer again. The very clouds that drifted past on their courses to unseen ports beyond the hills were freighted with meaning for him now. The winds that came laden with the subtly blended perfume of ten thousand varieties of trees and grasses and shrubs and flowers whispered words of life which he now could hear. The loveliness of the glowing morning skies, as he saw them when he rose for the day's work, and the glories of the sunsets, as he watched them with Auntie Sue from the porch when the day's task was accomplished, filled him with an exquisite gladness which he had never hoped to know again.
Most of all, did the river speak to him; not, indeed, as it had spoken that dreadful night, when, from the window of his darkened room, he had listened to its call: the river spoke, now, in the full day as his eye followed its winding length through the hills in all its varied beauty of sunshine and shadow;—of gleaming silver and living green and russet-brown. It talked to him in the evening when the waters gave back the glories of the sky and the deepening twilight wrapped the world in its dusky veil of mystery. It spoke to him in the soft darkness of the night, as it swept on its way under the stars, or in the light of the golden moon. And, in time, some of these things which the river said to him, he, in turn, told to Auntie Sue.
And Auntie Sue, delighted with the man's awakening self, and charmed with his power of thought and his gift of expression, led him on. With artful suggestion and skilful question and subtle argument, she stimulated his mind and fancy to lay hold of the truths and beauties that life and nature offered. But ever the rare old gentlewoman was his teacher, revealing himself to himself; guiding him to a fuller discovery and knowledge of his own life and its meaning, which, indeed, is the true aim and end of all right teaching.
So the days of the autumn passed. The hills changed their robes of varied green for costumes of brown and gold, with touches here and there of flaming scarlet and brilliant yellow. And then winter was at hand, and that momentous evening came when Auntie Sue said to her pupil, after an hour of most interesting talk, “Brian, why in the world don't you write a book?”
“'A book'!” exclaimed Brian, in a startled tone.
Judy laughed. “He sure ought ter. Lord knows he talks like one.”
“I am in earnest, Brian,” said Auntie Sue, her lovely old eyes shining with enthusiasm and her gentle voice trembling with excitement. “I have been thinking about it for a long time, now, and, to-night, I just can't keep it to myself any longer. Why don't you give to the world some of the thoughts you have been wasting on Judy and me?”
“Hit's sure been a-wastin' of 'em on me,” agreed Judy. “'Fore God, I don't sense what he's a-talkin' 'bout, more'n half the time.”
Brian laughed. “Judy is prophetic, Auntie Sue. She voices perfectly the sentiment of the world toward any book I might write.”
Auntie Sue detected a note of bitterness underlying the laughing comment, and wondered.
Judy spoke again as she arose to retire to her room for the night: “I reckon as how there's a right smart of things youuns talk that'd be mighty fine if a body only had the learnin' ter sense 'em. An' there must be heaps of folks where youuns come from what would know Mr. Burns's meaning if he was to write hit all out plain. Everybody ain't like me. Hit's sure a God's-blessin' they ain't, too.”
“And there, Brian, dear, is your answer,” said Auntie Sue, as Judy left the room. “Any book has meaning only for those who have the peculiar sympathy and understanding needed to interpret it. A book that means nothing to one may be rich in meaning for another. Every writer writes for his own peculiar readers, just as every individual has his own peculiar friends.”
“Or enemies,” said Brian.
“Or enemies,” agreed Auntie Sue.
Brian went to the window, and stood for some time, looking out into the night. Then turning, with a nervous gesture, he paced uneasily up and down the room; while Auntie Sue watched him in silence with an expression of loving concern on her dear old face.
At last, she spoke: “Why, Brian, what is the matter? What have I said? I did not mean to upset you like this. Come, sit down here, and tell me about it. What is it troubles you so?”
With a short laugh, Brian came and stood before her. “I suppose it had to come sooner or later, Auntie Sue. I have been trying for days to muster up courage enough to tell you about it. You have touched the one biggest thing in my life.”
“Why, what do you mean, Brian?”
“I mean just what we have been talking about,—writing,” answered Brian.
“Oh!” she cried, with quick and delighted triumph. “Then I AM right. You have been thinking about it, too.”
“Thinking about it!” he echoed, and in his voice she felt the nervous intensity of his mood. “I have thought of nothing else. All day long when I am at work, I am writing, writing, writing. It is the last thing on my mind when I go to sleep. I dream about it all night. And, it is the first thing I think about in the morning.”
Auntie Sue clasped her hands to her heart with an exclamation of joyous interest.
Brian, with a quiet smile at her enthusiasm, went on: “I know exactly what I want to say, and why I want to say it. There is a world of people, Auntie Sue, whose lives have been broken and spoiled by one thing or another, and who have more or less cut themselves loose from everything, and are just drifting, they don't care a hang where, because they think they have failed so completely that there is nothing more in life for them. People like me,—I don't mean thieves and criminals necessarily,—who have had that which they know to be the best and biggest and truest part of themselves tortured and warped and twisted and denied and smashed and beaten and betrayed and killed; and who, because they feel that their real selves are dead within them, don't care what happens to that part which is left.”
He was walking the floor again now, and speaking with a depth of feeling which he had never before revealed to his gentle companion.
“It is not so much the love of wrong-doing that makes people turn bad,”—he continued,—“it is having their real selves misunderstood and doubted and smothered and their realest loves and dreams and aspirations never recognized, or else distorted and twisted and made to appear as something they hate. I want to make the people—and there are many thousands of them—who are suffering in the living hell that tormented me, feel that I know and understand. And then, Auntie Sue, then I want to tell them about you and your river.
“I would teach them the things you have taught me. I would say to every one that I could persuade to listen: 'It doesn't in the least matter what your experience is, the old river is still going on to the sea. No matter if every woman you ever knew has proved untrue, virtuous womanhood still IS. No matter if every man you ever knew has proved false, true manhood still IS. If every friend you ever had has betrayed your friendship, loyal friendship still IS. If you have found nothing in your experience but dishonesty and falsehood and infidelity and hypocrisy, it is only because you have been unfortunate in your experience; because honesty and fidelity and sincerity are existing FACTS. They are the very foundation facts of life, and can no more fail life than the river can fail to reach the sea.
“'Your little individual experience, my little individual experience,—what are they? They are nothing more than the tiny bubbles, swirls, ripples, and breaks on the surface of the great volume of water that flows so inevitably onward. The bit of foam, the tiny wave caused by twig or branch or blade of water-grass, or the great rocks and cliffs that make the roaring whirlpools and rapids,—do they stay the waters, or turn the river back on its course, or in any way prevent its onward flow? No more can the twigs of circumstances, or the boughs of environment, or the grasses of accident that make the tiny waves of our individual experiences,—or even the great rocks and cliffs of national or racial import,—such as wars, and pestilence, and famine,—finally check or stay the river of life in its onward flow toward the sea of its final and infinite meaning.'”
He went again to the window, and stood looking out into the night as though listening to the voices.
“Why, Auntie Sue,” he said, turning back to the old gentlewoman,—and his face was radiant with the earnestness of this thought,—“Auntie Sue, there are as many currents in our river out there as there are human lives. A comparatively few great main or dominant currents in the river flow—a comparatively few great dominant currents in the river flow of life. But if you look closer, you will see that in each one of those established principal currents there are countless thousands—millions—of tiny currents all turning and twisting across, and back, and up, and down in every direction,—weaving themselves together,—pulling themselves apart,—criss-crossing, clashing,—interlacing,—tangled and confused,—and these are the individual lives. And no matter what the conflict or confusion; no matter what direction they take for the moment, they all, ALL, go to make up the river;—they, all together, ARE the river,—and they all together move onward,—ceaselessly, inevitably, irresistibly.”
He paused to stand smiling down at her, as she sat there in her low chair beside the table with the lamplight on her silvery hair,—there in the little log house by the river.
“That is what you have made your river mean to me, Auntie Sue; and that is what I would give to the world.”
With trembling hands, the gentle old teacher reached for her handkerchief, which lay in the sewing-basket on the table beside her. Smilingly, she wiped away the tears that filled her eyes. Lovingly, she looked up at him,—standing so tall and strong before her, with his reddish hair tumbled and tossed, and his Irish blue eyes lighted with the fire of his inspiration.
“Well,” she said, at last, “why don't you do it, Brian?”
As a breath of air puts out the light of a candle, so the light went from Brian Kent's face. Dropping into his chair, he answered hopelessly, “Because I am afraid.”
“Afraid?” echoed Auntie Sue, troubled and amazed. “What in the world are you afraid of, Brian?”
And the bitter, bitter answer came, “I am afraid of another failure.”
Auntie Sue's quick mind caught the significance of his words. “ANOTHER failure, Brian? Then you,—then you have written before?”
“Yes,” he returned. And not since his decision to remain with her had she seen him so despondent. “To write was the dream and the passion of my life. I tried and tried. God, how I worked and slaved at it! The only result from my efforts was the hell from which you dragged me.”
Alter a little silence, Auntie Sue said gently: “I don't think I understand, Brian. You have never told me about your trouble, you know.”
“It is an old, old story,” he returned. “I am only one of thousands. My wretched experience is not at all uncommon.”
“I know,” she answered. “But don't you think that perhaps you had better tell me? Perhaps, in the mere telling of it to me, now that it is all over, you may find the real reason for—for what happened to you.”
Wise Auntie Sue!—wise in that rarest of all wisdom,—the sympathetic understanding of human hearts and souls.
“You know about my earlier life,” he began; “how, in my boyhood, after mother's death, I worked at anything I could do to keep myself alive, and how I managed to gain a little schooling. I was always dreaming of writing, even then. I took the business course in a night-school, not because I liked it, but because I thought it would help me to earn a living in a way that would give me more time for what I really wanted to do. And after I finished school, and had finally worked up to a good position in that bank, I did have more time for my writing. But,”—he hesitated—“I—well,—other interests had come into my life,—and—”
Auntie Sue said, softly, “She did not understand, Brian.”
“No, she did not understand,” he continued, accepting Auntie Sue's interpretation without comment. “And when my writing brought no money, because no publisher would accept my stuff, and the conditions under which I wrote became intolerable because of misunderstanding and opposition and disbelief in my ability and charges of neglect, I—I—stole money from my employers to gain temporary relief until my writing should amount to something. You see, I could not help believing that I would succeed, in time. I suppose all dreamers have more or less confidence in their dreams: they must, you know, or their dreams would never be realized. I always expected to pay back the money I took with the money I would earn by my pen. But I failed to earn anything, you see; and then—then the inevitable happened, and the river brought me to you.”
“But, my dear boy!” cried Auntie Sue, “all this that you have told me is no reason why you should fear to write now. Indeed, it is a very good reason why you should not fear.”
He looked at her questioningly, and she continued: “You have given every reason in the world why you failed. Your whole life was out of tune. How could you expect to produce anything worthy from such a jangling discord? You should have been afraid, indeed, to write THEN. But, NOW,—now, Brian, you are ready. You are a long, long way down the river from the place of your failures. The disturbing, distracting things are past,—just as in the quiet reach of the river below Elbow Rock the turmoil of the rapids is past. You say that you know exactly what you want to write, and why you want to write it—and you do know—and because you know,—because you have suffered,—because you have learned,—because you can do this thing for others,—it is yours to do, and so you must do it. What you really mean when you say you are 'afraid to write' is, that you are AFRAID NOT TO,” she finished with a little laugh of satisfaction.
And Brian Kent, as he watched her glowing face and felt the sincerity and confidence that vibrated in her voice, was thrilled with a new courage. The fires of his inspiration shone again in his eyes, as he answered, with deep conviction, “Auntie Sue, I believe you are right. What a woman you are!”
So Brian wrote his book that winter.
When the days were fair, he worked with his ax on the mountain-side. But his notebook was ever at hand, and many a thought that went down on the pages of his manuscript was born while he wrought with his hands in the wholesome labor which gave strength to his body and clearness to his brain. In the evenings, he wrote in the little log house by the river, with Auntie Sue sitting in her chair beside the table,—the lamp-light on her silvery hair, and her sewing-basket within reach of her hand,—engaged with some bit of needlework, a book, or perhaps with one of her famous letters to some other pupil, far away. The stormy days gave him many hours with his pen, and so the book grew.
And always as the man endeavored to shape his thoughts for the printed pages that would carry his message to the doubting, disconsolate, and fearful world that he knew so well, he heard in his heart the voices of the river. From the hillside where he worked in the timber he could see the stream winding through the snowy hills like a dark line carelessly drawn with many a crook and curve and break on the sheet of white. From the porch he saw the quiet Bend a belt of shining ice and snow, save for a narrow line in the centre, which marked the course of the strongest currents; while the waters of the rapids crashed black and dreadful against the Elbow Rock cliff, which stood gaunt and grim amid the surrounding whiteness; and in the deathlike hush of the winter twilight, the roar of the turmoil sounded with persistent menace. And all that the river said to him he put down,—so far as it was given him to do.
And that which Brian Kent wrote was good. He knew it—in his deepest, truest self he knew. And Auntie Sue knew it; for, of course, he read to her from his manuscript as the book grew under his hand. Even Judy caught much of his story's meaning, and marvelled at herself because she, too, could understand.
So the spring came, and the first writing of the book was nearly finished.
And now the question arose: What would they do about the final preparation of the manuscript for the printers? Brian explained that he should have a typewritten copy of his script, which he would work over, correct, and revise, and from which perfected copy the final manuscript would be typewritten. But neither Auntie Sue nor Brian would consider his finishing the book anywhere but in the little log house by the river; even if there had been no other reason why Brian should not go to the city, if it could be avoided.
“There is only one thing to do,”—said Auntie Sue, at last, when the matter had been discussed several times,—“we must send for Betty Jo. She has been studying stenography in a business college in Cincinnati, and, in her latest letter to me, she wrote that she would finish in April. I'll just write her to come right here, and bring her typewriter along. She will need a vacation, and she can have it and do your work at the same time. Besides, I need to see Betty Jo. She hasn't been to visit me since before Judy came.”
Brian thought that Auntie Sue seemed a little nervous and excited as she spoke, but he attributed it to her combined interest in the book and in the proposed typist. The man could not know the real cause of his gentle old companion's agitation, nor with what anxiety she had considered the matter for many days before she announced her plan. The fact was that Auntie Sue was taking a big chance, and she realized it fully. But she could find no other way to secure the services of a competent stenographer for Brian, and, as Brian must have a competent stenographer in order to finish his book properly, she had decided to accept the risk.
“That sounds all right, Auntie Sue,” returned Brian. “But who, pray tell, is Betty Jo?”
“Betty Jo is,”—Auntie Sue paused and laughed with a suggestion of embarrassed confusion,—“Betty Jo is—just Betty Jo, Brian,” she finished.
Brian laughed now. “Fine, Auntie Sue! That describes her exactly,—tells me her life's history and gives me a detailed account of her family,—ancestors and all.”
“It describes her with more accuracy than you think,” retorted Auntie Sue, smiling in return at his teasing manner.
“I reckon as how she's got more of er name than that, ain't she?” said Judy, who was a silent, but intensely interested, listener. “I've allus took notice that folks with funny names'll stand a right smart of watchin'.”
Brian and Auntie Sue laughed together at this, but the old lady said, with a show of spirit: “Judy! You know nothing about it! You never even saw Betty Jo! You shouldn't say such things, child.”
“Might as well say 'em as ter think 'em, I reckon,” Judy returned, her beady-black eyes stealthily watching Brian.
“What is your Betty Jo's real name, Auntie Sue?” asked Brian, curiously.
Again Auntie Sue seemed to hesitate; then—“Her name is Miss Betty Jo Williams,” and as she spoke the old teacher looked straight at Brian.
“A perfectly good name,” Brian returned; “but I never heard of her before.”
Judy's black eyes, with their stealthy, oblique look, were now watchfully fixed on Auntie Sue.
“She is the orphan-niece of one of my old pupils,” Auntie Sue continued. “I have known her since she was a baby. When she finished her education in the seminary, and had travelled abroad for a few months, she decided all at once that she wanted a course in a business college, which was just what any one knowing her would expect her to do.”
“Sounds steady and reliable,” commented Brian. “But will she come?”
“Yes, indeed, she will, and be tickled to death over the job,” returned Auntie Sue. “I'll write her at once.”
While Auntie Sue was preparing to write her letter, Judy muttered, in a tone which only Brian heard: “Just the same, 'tain't no name for a common gal ter have; hit sure ain't. There's somethin' dad burned queer 'bout hit somewhere.”
“Nonsense! Judy,” said Brian in a low voice; “don't worry Auntie Sue.”
“I ain't aimin' ter worry her none,” returned the mountain girl; “but I'll bet you-all a pretty that this here gal'll worry both of youuns 'fore you are through with her;—me, too, I reckon.”
For some reason, Auntie Sue's letter to Betty Jo seemed to be rather long. In fact, she spent the entire evening at it; which led Judy to remark that “hit sure looked like Auntie Sue was aimin' ter write a book herself.”
A neighbor who went to Thompsonville the following day with a load of hogs for shipment, posted the letter. And, in due time, another neighbor brought the answer. Betty Jo would come.
It was the day following the evening when Brian wrote the last page of his book that another letter came to Auntie Sue,—a letter which, for the second time, very nearly wrecked Brian Kent's world.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg