Nelson Lloyd - The Soldier of the Valley

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"Can I help you upstairs?" he said.

"No, I'm going to sit awhile and smoke," I answered jauntily, "and
talk--to Captain."

VII

Tim was leaving the valley. We tied his tin trunk on the back of the
buggy and he climbed to the seat beside me. Tip Pulsifer handed him a
great cylindrical parcel, bound in a newspaper, and my brother held it
reverently in his lap; for it was a chocolate cake, six layers high,
that Mrs. Tip had baked from the scanty contents of the Pulsifer flour
barrel. Tim was going to the city, and all the city people Mrs. Tip
had ever seen were lean, quick-moving and nervous, a condition which
she concluded was induced by starvation. So she had done her best to
provide Tim against want. Her mind was the mind of Six Stars. All the
village was about the buggy. Josiah Nummler had rowed down from his
hill-top, and the bulge in Tim's pocket was caused by the half dozen
fine pippins which the old man had brought as his farewell gift. Even
Theophilus Jones left the store unguarded, and hurried over when the
moment arrived that the village was to see the last of its favorite
son. Mrs. Tip Pulsifer is always red about the eyes, and no way was
left her to show her emotion but to toss her apron convulsively over
her face and swing Cevery wildly to and fro, so that the infant's cries
arose above the chorus of "good-bys" as we drove away.

"Farewell, comrade." We heard Aaron Kallaberger's stentorian tones as
we clattered around the bend. "Head up--eyes front--for'a'd!"

Tim turned and waved his hat to the little company at the gate, to all
the friends he had ever known, to the best he ever was to know; to Mrs.
Bolum and her Isaac, feebly waving the hands that had so often helped
him in time of boyish trouble; to Nanny Pulsifer and Tip; to all the
worthies of the store.

Tim was off to war. He was going to take part in a greater battle than
I had ever seen, for I had been one of thousands who had marched
together on a common enemy. He was going forth as did Launcelot and
Galahad, alone, to meet his enemies at every turn, to be sore pressed,
and bruised and wounded; not to be as I was, a part of a machine, but
to be the machine and the god in it, too. How I envied him! He was
going forth to encounter many strange adventures, and while he was in
the press, laying about him in all the glory of his strength, fighting
his way against a mob, to fame and fortune, I should be dozing life
away with Captain.

"Did it feel that way when you left?" said Tim. He spoke for the first
time when we passed the tannery lane, and his voice was a wee bit husky.

"I suppose it's the same with everybody when they turn the bend," I
answered.

"That's it exactly--at the turn in the road--when you can't see home
any more--when you'd give all the world to turn back, but dare not."
Tim had faced about and was looking over the valley as we climbed the
long slope of the ridge. "It's just like being torn in two, isn't it?"
he said.

"Naturally," said I. "Home and home people are as much a part of you
as head and limbs. When I dragged you away, binding you here in the
buggy with your tin trunk and your ambition, something had to snap."

"And it snapped at the bend," Tim said grimly; "when I saw the last of
the house and the rambo tree at the end of the orchard."

My brother took to whistling. He started away bravely with a
rollicking air, keeping time to the creaking of the buggy and the slow
crunching of the horse's feet on the gravel road. Even that failed
him. We were at the crest of the hill; we were turning another bend;
we were in the woods, and through the trees he had a last look at Black
Log. And it's such a little valley, too, that it would hardly seem
worth looking back on when the rich fields of Kishikoquillas roll away
before one! The lone pine on the stone cap of Gander Knob waved its
farewell, and we clattered down the long slope into the great world.

[Illustration: He had a last look back at Black Log.]

"It's all over at last," said Tim, smiling, "and now I am glad I've
come; for Black Log is a good place, but it's so little, after all."

"I'm afraid you will find it bigger than a desk in Western's office,
and a tiny room on a cramped city street," said I.

My brother recovered his old spirit and refused to be discouraged by my
pessimistic view of his expedition. He laughed gayly and pointed
across the country where half a dozen spires of smoke were rising.
There was the railroad. There was the great highway where his real
journey was to start. There was the beginning of his great adventure.
I was the last outpost of the friendly land, and he was going into the
unknown. There we were to part! It was my turn to whistle and to
watch the wheels as, mile by mile, they measured off the road to that
last bend, where I should see no more of Tim.

* * * * * *

There was something strange in my brother's resolve to leave Six Stars
and try his fortunes in the city. Just as I had settled down to the
old easy ways which my absence had made doubly dear to me, when we
should have been drawn closer to each other than ever, and my
dependence on him was greatest, he announced his purpose. It was only
yesterday. I returned from my accustomed afternoon visit to the
Wardens to find him rummaging the house for a few of his more personal
belongings and stowing them away in a small, blue tin trunk that a
little while before had adorned the counter in the store.

"I am going to New York," he said, not giving me time to inquire into
his strange proceeding.

I laughed. Tim was joking. This was some odd prank. He had borrowed
the tin trunk and was giving me a travesty on Tip Pulsifer fleeing over
the mountain from his petulant spouse: for last night Tim and I had had
a little tiff. For the first time I had forgotten the post-prandial
pipe, and undismayed by the horrors of the famine in India or the
tribulations of Sister Flora Martin, journeyed up the road to sit at
Mary's side.

"Over the mountain, eh, Tim?" I laughed. "And is Tip going?"

My brother caught my meaning, but he did not smile.

"Honest," he said. "I am going to New York."

"To New York!" I cried. My crutches clattered to the floor as I sank
into my chair.

"Yes," said Tim, speaking so quietly that I knew it was the truth.
"Mr. Weston has given me a position in his store. It's a tea importing
concern, and he owns it, though he doesn't spend much time at his
business."

"I didn't think you'd leave me alone." The words were hardly spoken
till I regretted them. I had spoken in spite of my better self, for
what right had I to stand between my brother and a broader life? When
I had gone away to see the world, he had plodded on patiently in the
narrow valley to keep a home for me. Now that I was back, it was
justly his turn to go beyond the mountains and learn something more
than the dull routine of the farm and the sleepy village.

"I hate to leave you, Mark," he said. "But you have felt as I feel
about getting away and seeing something. Still, if you really want me
to stay, I'll give it up. But you are a good deal to blame. You have
told me of what you saw when you were in the army. You have showed me
that there are bigger things in this world than plodding after a
plough, and more exciting chases than those after foxes. I want to do
more than sit on a nail-keg in the store and discuss big events. I
want to have a little part in them myself--you understand."

"Yes, Tim," said I, "you are right, and I'll get along first rate."

"That's the way to talk," he cried cheerfully, slapping me on the
shoulder. "You won't be half as lonely here as I shall down there in a
strange city; and when you clean away the supper dishes and light your
pipe and think of me, I'll be lighting mine and thinking of you
and----" He stopped. Captain had trotted in, and was sitting close
by, looking first at one and then at the other of us quizzically.
"You'll have Captain," added Tim, laughing, "and then by and by, when I
am making money, you and Captain will come down to the city and we'll
all smoke our pipes together--eh, Captain?"

The hound leaped up and Tim caught his forepaws and the two went
dancing around the room until a long-drawn howl warned us that such
bipedic capers were not to the dog's liking.

"Captain isn't going to leave home, Tim," I cried. "You mustn't expect
him to take so active a part in your demonstrations of joy."

"It wasn't the delight of leaving home made me dance," returned the
boy. "It was the contemplation of the time we'll have when we get
together again."

"Then why go away at all?"

"There you are. A minute ago you agreed with me; you were right with
me in my plan to do something in this world. Now you are using your
cunning arguments to dissuade me. But you can't stop me, Mark. I've
accepted the place. Mr. Weston has sent word that I am coming, and
there you are. I must keep to my bargain."

"When did Weston arrange all this for you?"

"This morning. We were on Blue Gum Ridge hunting squirrels, and we got
to talking over one thing and another. I guess I kind of opened
up--for he's a clever man, Mark. Why, he pumped me dry. We hadn't sat
there on a log very long till he knew the whole family history and
about everything I had ever learned or thought of. He asked me if I
intended to spend all my life here, and I said it looked that way, and
then I told him how I wanted to go and do something and be somebody."

[Illustration: "He pumped me dry."]

Tim stopped suddenly, and winked at Captain. "I told him I wanted to
go away and see something as you had done, for I was weary of listening
to your accounts of things you'd seen. It's awful to have to listen to
another's travels. It must be fine to tell about your own."

"Well, is it my talking that's driving you away, or is it Weston's
alluring offers?"

"Alluring?" Tim laughed. "I'll say for Weston, he is frank. He told
me that to his mind business was worse than death. He was born to it.
His father left it to him and he has to keep it going to live; but he
lets his partner look after it mostly, and he is always worrying lest
his partner should die and leave him with the whole thing on his hands.
He told me I'd have to drudge in a dark office over books for ten hours
a day, and that it would be years before I began to see any rewards.
By that time I would probably decide that the old-fashioned scheme of
having kings born to order was more sensible than making men wear their
lives out trying to become rulers. A cow was contented, he said,
because it was satisfied to stand under a tree and breathe the free
air, and look up into the blue skies and over the green fields, and
chew the cud. As long as the cow was satisfied with one cud it would
be contented; but once the idea got abroad in the pasture that two cuds
were required for a respectable cow, peace and happiness were gone
forever."

"Our lanky stranger seems a wise man," said I. "In the face of all
that, what did you say?"

"I told him I wasn't a cow," Tim answered.

There was no controverting such a reply, and though my sympathies were
with the pessimistic Weston, I dared not raise my voice in defence of
his logic as against this young brother. Tim seemed to think that the
fact that he was not a cow turned from him all the force of Weston's
philosophy, and insisted on going blindly on in search of another cud.

"He laughed when I said that," Tim continued, "and he said he guessed
there was no sense in using figures of speech to me, but he was willing
to bet that some time I would come to his way of thinking. I told him
that perhaps I would when I had seen as much of men and things as he
had; but now I looked about me with the mind and the eye of a yokel.
That was just what I wanted to escape. He was himself talking to me
from a vantage-point of superior knowledge, and the consciousness of my
own inferiority was one of the main things to spur me on."

"At that he gave you up?" said I.

"He gave me up," Tim answered; "and after all, Mark, old Weston is a
fine fellow. He said that there was just one thing for me to do, and
that was to see and learn for myself. So he wrote to his partner
to-day, and I go in the morning."

"But must you go on a day's notice?"

"The quicker the better, Mark; and you see I haven't been letting any
grass grow under my feet. When Weston and I reached our conclusion, I
went to the store and got the trunk. In the interval of packing, I've
gone over to Pulsifer's and arranged for Tip to work regularly for you
this winter, looking after the farm. He wanted to go up to Snyder
County and dig for gold. He knows where there's gold in Snyder County
and you may have trouble there; but when you see any signs of a break
you are to tell Mrs. Tip. She says she'll head him off all right.
Nanny Pulsifer, by the way, will come every day and straighten up the
house. I saw Mrs. Bolum, and she said she would keep an eye on Nanny
Pulsifer, for Nanny is likely to get one of her religious spells and
quit work. When you hear her singing hymns around the house, you are
to tell Mrs. Bolum."

[Illustration: "Nanny is likely to get one of her religious spells and
quit work."]

"Who will look after Mrs. Bolum? To whom must I appeal when I see
signs there?"

"When Mrs. Bolum fails you, Mark, write to me," Tim answered. "When
you see signs of her neglecting you, drop me a line and I'll be home in
three days."

"I may have to appeal to you to save me from my friends," I said, "if
Tip Pulsifer goes digging gold and Nanny Pulsifer gets religion and old
Mrs. Bolum belies her nature and forgets me. But anyway, if Captain
and I sit here at night knee-deep in dust and cobwebs, at least we can
swell our chests and talk about our brother in the city, who is
making--how much?"

"Seven dollars a week!" cried Tim. "Think of it, Mark, seven dollars a
week. That's more than you made as a soldier."

* * * * * *

"We are near the last bend, Tim. Yes--I'll say good-by to Mary for
you. I'll tell her that in the hurry you forgot her. And she will
believe me! Why didn't you go up the hill last night, instead of
sneaking off this way?--for you know you didn't forget her. That last
smoke--that's right--you and Captain and I, and our pipes. I fear she
did pass from our minds, but we had many things to talk over in those
last hours. I promise you I will go up to-night and explain. Tell
Weston about that fox on Gander Knob--of course I shall. School starts
tomorrow, else I'd be after him myself; but on Saturday we'll hie to
the mountain, Weston and Captain and I. You, Tim, shall have the skin,
a memento of the valley. I'll say good-by to Captain again, and I'll
keep the guns oiled, and Piney Carter shall have the rifle whenever he
wants it--provided he cleans it every hunting night. And I'll tell old
Mrs. Bolum--but the train is going to start. Are you sure you have
your ticket, and your check, and your lunch? Yes, I'll say good-by to
Mary for you.--Good-by, Tim!"

And Tim went around the bend.

VIII

Books! Books! Eternal, infernal books! The sun was printing over the
floor the shadow skeleton of the juniper-tree by the westerly window.
That always told me it was one o'clock. And one o'clock meant books
again--three long hours of wrangling with dull wits, of fencing with
sharper ones; three long hours of a-b-abs, of two-times-twos and
three-times-threes; hours of spelling and of parsing, hours of bounding
and describing. With it all, woven through it, now swelling, now dying
away, now broken by a shrill cry of pain or anger, was the ceaseless
buzzing of the school. There was no rest for the eye, even. The walls
were white, their glare was baneful, and through the chalk-dust mist the
rustling field of young heads suggested anything but peace and repose to
one of my calling. That was the field I worked in.

I had been with Tim. His letter from New York was in my hands, and over
and over I had read it, until I knew every twist in the writing. In the
reading I had been carried away from myself, and seemed to be beside him
in his battle in the world, laying about with him right lustily. Then by
force of habit I had looked up and had seen the shadow of the
juniper-tree. I was back in my prison. And it was books!

[Illustration: I was back in my prison.]

"Brace up there, Daniel Arker, and quit your blubbering!" I cried.

Daniel was a snuffler. Whenever I had a companion in the schoolhouse at
the noon recess, it was generally this lad, and when he was there he was
nursing a wound and snuffling. If there was any trouble to be got into,
if there was a flying ball to come in contact with, ice to break through
or a limb to snap, Daniel never failed to be on hand. Then he would
burst rudely into my solitude and while I sopped cold water over his
injured members, he would blubber. When I turned from him to my own
corner by the window, the blubber would die away into a snuffle, and
there he would sit, his head buried in his hands, snuffling and snuffling
until books.

Now I spoke sharply to the boy. He raised his head and fixed one red eye
on me, for the other was hidden by his hand.

"I guesst you was never hit on the eye by a ball, was ye?" he stuttered.

"I guess I have been," was my reply. "I was a good round-town player,
and you never saw me crying like that, either."

"I was playin' sock-ball," snuffled the boy, and a solitary tear rolled
down his snub nose. He flicked it away with his right hand, and this act
disclosed to me a great bluish swelling, from under which a bit of eye
was twinkling mournfully at me. The boy was hurt; my heart went out to
him, for the memory of my own sock-ball and tickley-bender days came back
to me.

"Come, come," I said more kindly, laying a hand on the black head.
"Brace up, Daniel, for I must call the others in, and you don't want them
to see you crying. Dare to be like the great Daniel, who wasn't even
afraid of the wild beasts."

"But Dan'el in the Lion's Den never played sock-ball," whimpered the boy,
covering each eye with a chubby fist as he rubbed away the traces of his
tears.

Beware, Daniel Arker! Form not in my mind such a picture as that of the
mighty prophet in his robes being "it." Over the mantel in our parlor we
have a picture of the lion's den, and it is one of the choicest of our
family treasures. Whence it came, we do not know. Even my mother,
familiar as she was with the minutest detail of our family history as far
back as my grandfather's time, could not tell me that; but we always
believed it to be one of the world's great pictures that by some strange
chance had come into our possession. How well I remember my keen
disappointment on learning that it was not a photograph. It took years
to convince Tim of that, and we consoled ourselves that at least it had
been drawn by one who was there. Else how could he have done it so
accurately? For the likeness of Daniel was splendid. The great prophet
of Babylon must have looked just like that. He must have sat on a
boulder in the middle of the rocky chamber, his eyes fixed on the
ceiling, one hand resting languidly on the head of a mighty lion, a
sandalled foot using another hoary mane as a footstool. There were lions
all around him, and how they loved him! You could see it in their eyes.
Tip Pulsifer once told me that Daniel had them charmed, and that he was
looking so intently at the ceiling because he was repeating over and over
again the mystic words--probably Dutch--that his grandfather had taught
him. One slip--and I should see the fiery flash return to the eyes of
the beasts! One slip--and they would be upon him! To Tip I replied that
this was preposterous, as Babylon lived before there was any Dutch, and
there being no Dutch, how could there be effective charms? Daniel was
saved by a miracle. But Tip is slow-witted. Charms were originally
called miracles, he said. The miracle was the father of the charm.
Folks would say there were no charms to-day, yet they would believe in
charms that were worked a few thousand years ago, only they called them
miracles. It was useless to argue with a thick fellow like Tip. I had
always preferred to think of Daniel stilling the wild beasts by the
grandeur of his soul, and the suggestion that I drag him from his throne,
king of men and king of beasts, and picture him playing sock-ball, doing
a double shuffle with his sandalled feet, tossing his long robe wildly
about, now leaping, now dodging, to avoid the flying sphere--it was too
much. It angered me.

"You should be ashamed of yourself, Daniel Arker!" I cried. "The idea of
a boy that comes of good church folks like yours talking that way about
one of the prophets! I'll dally with you no more. The boys shall see
you as you are. It's books!"

I threw the window open and shouted, "Books!" I pounded on the ledge
with my ruler and shouted, "Books!"

For a minute the boys feigned not to see me, and played the harder,
trying to drown my cries in their yells to the runners on the bases. But
the girls took up my call and came trooping schoolward. The little boys
began to break away, and soon the school resounded with the shuffle of
feet, the clatter of empty dinner pails, and the banging of desk tops.

"It's books, William; hurry," I cried to the last laggard.

I knew this boy well. He was the biggest in the school, and to hold his
position among his fellows he had to defy me. As long as I watched him,
he must lag. The louder I called, the deafer he must seem to be. His
post was hemmed around by tradition. It was his by divine right, and it
involved on its holder duties sometimes onerous, often dangerous; but for
him to abate one iota of his privileges would be a reflection on his
predecessors, an injustice to his heirs. It would mean scholastic
revolution. He knew that I must yell at him. My position also was
hemmed about by tradition. To appear not to fear the biggest boy was one
of the chief duties of a successful pedagogue. We understood each other.
So I yelled once more and closed the window. The moment my back was
turned he ran for the door.

"It is," Daniel Arker was shouting.

"It ain't," Samuel Carter retorted, sticking out his tongue.

"Boys, be quiet!" I commanded.

"He said his eye was swole worse 'an mine oncet," cried Daniel.

His good eye was blazing, his shoulders were squared back, and his fists
were clenched. There was no sign of a snuffle about him now. Heaven,
but he looked fine! All this time I had wronged Daniel. I had only
known him as he crawled to me broken and bruised after the conflict. I
had never known the odds he had encountered, for when I questioned him he
just snuffled. Now I saw him before the battle, ready to defend his
honor against a lad of more than his years and size, and the wickedest
fighter in the school. I believed that had I let him loose there he
would have whipped. But one in my position is hemmed in by tradition, so
in my private capacity I was patting the boy's head with the same motion
that I used in my public capacity to push him into his seat, while with a
crutch I made a feint at Samuel that sent him scurrying to his place.

The biggest boy in the school sauntered in. He carefully upset three
dinner pails from the shelves in the rear as he hung up his hat. I
reprimanded him most severely, but I finished my lecture before he had
replaced the cans. Then he shuffled to his place and got out a book as a
sign that school might begin.

Now, I always liked that biggest boy. He knew his position so well. He
knew just how far it was proper for him to go, and never once did he
overstep those bounds. He held the respect and fear of his juniors
without making any open breach with the teacher. But in one way William
Bellus had been peculiarly favored. His predecessors had to deal with
Perry Thomas, and in spite of his gentle ways and intellectual cast,
Perry is active and wiry. He is a blacksmith by trade, and is the
leading tenor in the Methodist choir. This makes a combination that for
staying powers has few equals. My biggest boy's predecessor had been
utterly broken. Even the girls jeered at him until he quit school
entirely. But William had another problem. It was the disappointment of
his life that Perry Thomas retired just as he came into power. He had
declared at a mass-meeting behind the woodshed that it was a gross
injustice on the part of the directors to put a crippled teacher in
charge of the school. Where now was glory to be gained? They would have
a school-ma'am next, like they done up to Popolomus, and none but little
boys, and girls not yet out of plaits, would be so servile as to suffer
such domination. Mark Hope, the soldier, he honored! Mark Hope, the
veteran, he revered! Mark Hope, the teacher, he despised; for his
crutches made him a safe barricade against which no Biggest Boy with a
spark of honor would dare to hurl himself. There might be in the school
boys base enough to charge that he lacked spirit in his attitude of armed
neutrality. Let those traducers step forward, whether they be two or a
dozen. What would follow, the Biggest Boy did not say; but he had pulled
off his coat, and there was none to dispute him. His position was
established. Thereafter he assumed toward me a calm indifference. He
was never openly offensive. He always kept within certain carefully laid
bounds of supercilious politeness. At first he was exasperating, and I
longed to have him forget himself and overstep those bounds, that I might
make up for his disappointment in being cheated out of Perry Thomas. But
he never did.

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