Among them I presently recognized the house of the father of Lem Hackett(fictitious name). It carried me back more than a generation in a moment,and landed me in the midst of a time when the happenings of life were notthe natural and logical results of great general laws, but of special orders,and were freighted with very precise and distinct purposes--partly punitivein intent, partly admonitory; and usually local in application.
When I was a small boy, Lem Hackett was drowned--on a Sunday.
He fell out of an empty flat-boat, where he was playing.
Being loaded with sin, he went to the bottom like an anvil.
He was the only boy in the village who slept that night.
We others all lay awake, repenting. We had not needed the information,delivered from the pulpit that evening, that Lem's was a caseof special judgment--we knew that, already. There was a ferociousthunder-storm, that night, and it raged continuously until near dawn.
The winds blew, the windows rattled, the rain swept along the roofin pelting sheets, and at the briefest of intervals the inky blacknessof the night vanished, the houses over the way glared out whiteand blinding for a quivering instant, then the solid darkness shutdown again and a splitting peal of thunder followed, which seemedto rend everything in the neighborhood to shreds and splinters.
I sat up in bed quaking and shuddering, waiting for the destructionof the world, and expecting it. To me there was nothing strangeor incongruous in heaven's making such an uproar about Lem Hackett.
Apparently it was the right and proper thing to do.
Not a doubt entered my mind that all the angels were grouped together,discussing this boy's case and observing the awful bombardmentof our beggarly little village with satisfaction and approval.
There was one thing which disturbed me in the most serious way;that was the thought that this centering of the celestial intereston our village could not fail to attract the attention of the observersto people among us who might otherwise have escaped notice for years.
I felt that I was not only one of those people, but the very one mostlikely to be discovered. That discovery could have but one result:
I should be in the fire with Lem before the chill of the riverhad been fairly warmed out of him. I knew that this would beonly just and fair. I was increasing the chances against myselfall the time, by feeling a secret bitterness against Lem for havingattracted this fatal attention to me, but I could not help it--this sinful thought persisted in infesting my breast in spite of me.
Every time the lightning glared I caught my breath, and judged I was gone.
In my terror and misery, I meanly began to suggest other boys,and mention acts of theirs which were wickeder than mine, and peculiarlyneeded punishment--and I tried to pretend to myself that I was simplydoing this in a casual way, and without intent to divert the heavenlyattention to them for the purpose of getting rid of it myself.
With deep sagacity I put these mentions into the form of sorrowingrecollections and left-handed sham-supplications that the sins of thoseboys might be allowed to pass unnoticed--'Possibly they may repent.'
'It is true that Jim Smith broke a window and lied about it--but maybe he did not mean any harm. And although Tom Holmessays more bad words than any other boy in the village,he probably intends to repent--though he has never said he would.
And whilst it is a fact that John Jones did fish a littleon Sunday, once, he didn't really catch anything but only just onesmall useless mud-cat; and maybe that wouldn't have been so awfulif he had thrown it back--as he says he did, but he didn't. Pitybut they would repent of these dreadful things--and maybe they willyet.'
But while I was shamefully trying to draw attention to these poor chaps--who were doubtless directing the celestial attention to me at the same moment,though I never once suspected that--I had heedlessly left my candle burning.
It was not a time to neglect even trifling precautions. There was no occasionto add anything to the facilities for attracting notice to me--so I putthe light out.
It was a long night to me, and perhaps the most distressful one I ever spent.
I endured agonies of remorse for sins which I knew I had committed,and for others which I was not certain about, yet was sure that they hadbeen set down against me in a book by an angel who was wiser than I and didnot trust such important matters to memory. It struck me, by and by,that I had been making a most foolish and calamitous mistake, in one respect:
doubtless I had not only made my own destruction sure by directing attentionto those other boys, but had already accomplished theirs!--Doubtless thelightning had stretched them all dead in their beds by this time!
The anguish and the fright which this thought gave me made my previoussufferings seem trifling by comparison.
Things had become truly serious. I resolved to turn overa new leaf instantly; I also resolved to connect myselfwith the church the next day, if I survived to see itssun appear. I resolved to cease from sin in all its forms,and to lead a high and blameless life for ever after.
I would be punctual at church and Sunday-school; visit the sick;carry baskets of victuals to the poor (simply to fulfilthe regulation conditions, although I knew we had none among usso poor but they would smash the basket over my head for my pains);I would instruct other boys in right ways, and take the resultingtrouncings meekly; I would subsist entirely on tracts;I would invade the rum shop and warn the drunkard--and finally,if I escaped the fate of those who early become too good to live,I would go for a missionary.
The storm subsided toward daybreak, and I dozed gradually to sleepwith a sense of obligation to Lem Hackett for going to eternal sufferingin that abrupt way, and thus preventing a far more dreadful disaster--my own loss.
But when I rose refreshed, by and by, and found that those other boyswere still alive, I had a dim sense that perhaps the whole thingwas a false alarm; that the entire turmoil had been on Lem's accountand nobody's else. The world looked so bright and safe that theredid not seem to be any real occasion to turn over a new leaf.
I was a little subdued, during that day, and perhaps the next;after that, my purpose of reforming slowly dropped out of my mind,and I had a peaceful, comfortable time again, until the next storm.
That storm came about three weeks later; and it was the mostunaccountable one, to me, that I had ever experienced;for on the afternoon of that day, 'Dutchy' was drowned.
Dutchy belonged to our Sunday-school. He was a Germanlad who did not know enough to come in out of the rain;but he was exasperatingly good, and had a prodigious memory.
One Sunday he made himself the envy of all the youth and the talkof all the admiring village, by reciting three thousand verses ofScripture without missing a word; then he went off the very next dayand got drowned.
Circumstances gave to his death a peculiar impressiveness.
We were all bathing in a muddy creek which had a deep holein it, and in this hole the coopers had sunk a pile of greenhickory hoop poles to soak, some twelve feet under water.
We were diving and 'seeing who could stay under longest.'
We managed to remain down by holding on to the hoop poles.
Dutchy made such a poor success of it that he was hailed withlaughter and derision every time his head appeared above water.
At last he seemed hurt with the taunts, and begged usto stand still on the bank and be fair with him and give himan honest count--'be friendly and kind just this once, and notmiscount for the sake of having the fun of laughing at him.'
Treacherous winks were exchanged, and all said 'All right, Dutchy--go ahead, we'll play fair.'
Dutchy plunged in, but the boys, instead of beginning to count,followed the lead of one of their number and scamperedto a range of blackberry bushes close by and hid behind it.
They imagined Dutchy's humiliation, when he should rise aftera superhuman effort and find the place silent and vacant,nobody there to applaud. They were 'so full of laugh' with the idea,that they were continually exploding into muffled cackles.
Time swept on, and presently one who was peeping through the briers,said, with surprise--'Why, he hasn't come up, yet!'
The laughing stopped.
'Boys, it 's a splendid dive,' said one.
'Never mind that,' said another, 'the joke on him is all the better for it.'
There was a remark or two more, and then a pause.
Talking ceased, and all began to peer through the vines.
Before long, the boys' faces began to look uneasy, then anxious,then terrified. Still there was no movement of the placid water.
Hearts began to beat fast, and faces to turn pale.
We all glided out, silently, and stood on the bank, our horrifiedeyes wandering back and forth from each other's countenancesto the water.
'Somebody must go down and see!'
Yes, that was plain; but nobody wanted that grisly task.
'Draw straws!'
So we did--with hands which shook so, that we hardly knewwhat we were about. The lot fell to me, and I went down.
The water was so muddy I could not see anything, but I felt aroundamong the hoop poles, and presently grasped a limp wrist whichgave me no response--and if it had I should not have known it,I let it go with such a frightened suddenness.
The boy had been caught among the hoop poles and entangledthere, helplessly. I fled to the surface and told the awful news.
Some of us knew that if the boy were dragged out at once he mightpossibly be resuscitated, but we never thought of that. We did notthink of anything; we did not know what to do, so we did nothing--except that the smaller lads cried, piteously, and we all struggledfrantically into our clothes, putting on anybody's that came handy,and getting them wrong-side-out and upside-down, as a rule.
Then we scurried away and gave the alarm, but none of us went back to seethe end of the tragedy. We had a more important thing to attend to:
we all flew home, and lost not a moment in getting ready to leada better life.
The night presently closed down. Then came on that tremendousand utterly unaccountable storm. I was perfectly dazed; I couldnot understand it. It seemed to me that there must be some mistake.
The elements were turned loose, and they rattled and banged and blazedaway in the most blind and frantic manner. All heart and hope wentout of me, and the dismal thought kept floating through my brain,'If a boy who knows three thousand verses by heart is not satisfactory,what chance is there for anybody else?'
Of course I never questioned for a moment that the storm wason Dutchy's account, or that he or any other inconsequentialanimal was worthy of such a majestic demonstration from on high;the lesson of it was the only thing that troubled me;for it convinced me that if Dutchy, with all his perfections,was not a delight, it would be vain for me to turn over a new leaf,for I must infallibly fall hopelessly short of that boy,no matter how hard I might try. Nevertheless I did turn it over--a highly educated fear compelled me to do that--but succeedingdays of cheerfulness and sunshine came bothering around,and within a month I had so drifted backward that again Iwas as lost and comfortable as ever.
Breakfast time approached while I mused these musings and calledthese ancient happenings back to mind; so I got me back intothe present and went down the hill.
On my way through town to the hotel, I saw the house which wasmy home when I was a boy. At present rates, the people who nowoccupy it are of no more value than I am; but in my time theywould have been worth not less than five hundred dollars apiece.
They are colored folk.
After breakfast, I went out alone again, intending to hunt up someof the Sunday-schools and see how this generation of pupils mightcompare with their progenitors who had sat with me in those placesand had probably taken me as a model--though I do not rememberas to that now. By the public square there had been in my daya shabby little brick church called the 'Old Ship of Zion,'
which I had attended as a Sunday-school scholar; and I foundthe locality easily enough, but not the old church; it was gone,and a trig and rather hilarious new edifice was in its place.
The pupils were better dressed and better looking than were thoseof my time; consequently they did not resemble their ancestors;and consequently there was nothing familiar to me in their faces.
Still, I contemplated them with a deep interest and a yearning wistfulness,and if I had been a girl I would have cried; for they were the offspring,and represented, and occupied the places, of boys and girls someof whom I had loved to love, and some of whom I had loved to hate,but all of whom were dear to me for the one reason or the other,so many years gone by--and, Lord, where be they now!
I was mightily stirred, and would have been grateful to be allowedto remain unmolested and look my fill; but a bald-summited superintendentwho had been a tow-headed Sunday-school mate of mine on that spotin the early ages, recognized me, and I talked a flutter of wildnonsense to those children to hide the thoughts which were in me,and which could not have been spoken without a betrayal of feelingthat would have been recognized as out of character with me.
Making speeches without preparation is no gift of mine;and I was resolved to shirk any new opportunity, but inthe next and larger Sunday-school I found myself in the rearof the assemblage; so I was very willing to go on the platforma moment for the sake of getting a good look at the scholars.
On the spur of the moment I could not recall any of the old idiotictalks which visitors used to insult me with when I was a pupil there;and I was sorry for this, since it would have given me timeand excuse to dawdle there and take a long and satisfying lookat what I feel at liberty to say was an array of fresh youngcomeliness not matchable in another Sunday-school of the same size.
As I talked merely to get a chance to inspect; and as I strungout the random rubbish solely to prolong the inspection,I judged it but decent to confess these low motives,and I did so.
If the Model Boy was in either of these Sunday-schools, I did not see him.
The Model Boy of my time--we never had but the one--was perfect:
perfect in manners, perfect in dress, perfect in conduct, perfect infilial piety, perfect in exterior godliness; but at bottom he was aprig; and as for the contents of his skull, they could have changedplace with the contents of a pie and nobody would have been the worse offfor it but the pie. This fellow's reproachlessness was a standingreproach to every lad in the village. He was the admiration of all themothers, and the detestation of all their sons. I was told what becameof him, but as it was a disappointment to me, I will not enter intodetails. He succeeded in life.
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