and yet, o god, i know not how to fail!
within my heart still burns an unquenched fire,
like israel of old i must prevail,
or failing, still reach on to something higher.
they counted him a failure when he trod
the slopes of calvary that led to god!
—helena coleman.
all winter the eldest orphan's reformed conduct had been the subject of joyous wonder on the part of his parents. hannah was of the opinion that the boy had been converted at mr. scott's series of special meetings at christmas time, but jake, having been a boy himself, shook his head, and said it was likely just a spell he had taken with the cold weather, and it would work off when the summer came, like joey's whooping-cough. but, strange to say, tim went no more abroad with davy munn on lawless expeditions. sawed-off wilmott and the young lochinvar from glenoro came regularly, on alternate evenings, to see ella anne long, and never found ropes tied across the gate, nor whips nor lap-robes missing, as in tim's unregenerate days. even miss weir testified that sometimes he would not do anything particularly outrageous in school for a week at a time. the truth was that the eldest orphan had neither time nor inclination for childish mischief. mentally, he had grown up. he dwelt no more in the common walks of humanity, but in the land of romance. for one who consorted with heroes, fought great battles, and performed mighty deeds of valor, childish pranks had no interest. he cared now for nothing in the world but to read all day long, and half the night; to read anything and everything, from the hair-raising cowboy tales davy munn loaned him, to the ponderous histories from the minister's book-shelf. through this selfsame book-shelf the minister had become one of tim's closest friends, and might have made a pastoral visitation every day in the week and been welcome. he had almost got ahead of the doctor in the eldest orphan's regard; for while the doctor had plenty of books, whole shelves of them, they were queer, stupid things, full of long, hard words, and never a battle or a shipwreck from one cover to the other.
at first, the boy's greedy desire to devour a story at one sitting filled him with impatience at his own slowness. he found, to his chagrin, that he could not read the "waverley novels" with the swiftness the course of events demanded. he tried having them read aloud by his father, but though jake was always willing, he stumbled and spelled his way through the battles and adventures with a laboriousness that nearly set his young listener mad.
but one winter night tim discovered a royal road to learning. the minister had called, and left "quentin durward." it was an evening the boy had been in the habit of spending with john mcintyre, so he slipped the volume inside his coat and sped away with it down to the drowned lands.
and wonderful good fortune, john mcintyre proved a splendid reader. not only that, but after his first reluctance had been overcome, he seemed to like the task.
that was the beginning of a new life for both of them. the boy came almost every evening now, and as john mcintyre grew stronger he often read on, as absorbed as his listener, until the hour was late. then, instead of going home, tim would curl up snugly in bed behind his friend, and sleep until he was awakened in time to start for school.
one evening, when the sick man had almost recovered his wonted strength, tim came hobbling down the road with a large volume bulging out the front of his coat. john mcintyre sat before his fire, looking through his little frosted panes at the beauty of the winter sunset, and something of the sadness in his weary eyes vanished as the little figure appeared against the filmy rose mists of treasure valley, and came trotting down the glittering road. there seemed to be a reflection of the sunset glow in the man's face as the boy bounded in.
"hello!" he shouted, pitching his snowy mittens under the stove and his cap upon the bed. "i've got a new story." he struggled to extract the book from his coat. "old hughie cameron gave it to me. hech! hech! hoots! toots! indeed and indeed!" he added, hobbling about the room, and imitating the old man's caressing manner to perfection.
no one in elmbrook had ever seen john mcintyre smile, nor did he do so now; but as he watched the absurd attempts of the youngster to portray the queer gait of the village philosopher there came into his eyes a look as though there had passed before them the ghost of the days when he, himself, was young and light-hearted and full of boyish pranks. he arose, and lighting the little lamp, placed it upon the table.
"it's a bully story," went on the boy. "old hughie started to read it to me an' the twins las' night, but they got to scrappin', an' i had to lambaste 'em both, an' so he didn't finish. he said mebby you would. it's about an old guy who was rich an' had chunks o' money, an' a big family, an' all the rest; an' the devil got after him an' busted up the whole thing. he got all his cows an' his horses an' things struck with lightning, an' his boys an' his girls were all at a swell birthday spree, an' the house up an' fell down, an' smashed every bloomin' one o' them—oh, say! it's a dandy!"
he placed the book on the table and shoved it toward john mcintyre. the man reached for it, but quickly drew back.
"it's—the bible!" he said sharply.
"yes," said tim, "'course. did ye ever read any of it?" he paused in embarrassment. john mcintyre, being such a particularly bad man, a fact he was prone to forget, would naturally scorn to read the bible. he felt ashamed of himself. "it's got a whole lot o' bully yarns in it," he added apologetically.
the man was looking at the book as though he were afraid of it.
"this man's name was job. d'ye ever hear about him?" continued tim insinuatingly.
"yes, i've read it."
"oh, have you? well, read it again. aw, go on. it won't hurt!"
he shoved the book into the man's hands. he had learned, long ere this, that john mcintyre was his obedient servant. "begin at the beginning, 'cause i kinder forget how it starts."
so, for the first time in many long years, john mcintyre took into his hands the word of god—the book he had been wont to read every evening, so long ago, in the light of his happy home circle.
"there was a man in the land of uz whose name was job, and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared god and eschewed evil."
tim snuggled down on miss arabella's rug, close to the stove, his chin in his hands, and stared up with eager, devouring eyes. at first, john mcintyre read in a strained, hard voice, but soon he seemed to forget everything but the absorbing tale—the tale of his own life—a man's struggle with overwhelming sorrow; and yet how different from his own. for job had not sinned, nor "charged god foolishly," while he, in his bitterness, had thrown the blame of his evil case upon his maker, and declared that he knew not compassion.
throughout the early portion of the story tim listened with eyes and ears, but when they entered upon the long discourses of job's friends he grew restless. there was not enough action here. thunder and lightning, sudden deaths, and overwhelming catastrophes were exactly suited to the orphan's taste, but theological controversy was a weariness to his soul. he wriggled around impatiently, counted the purple robins again and again, and gouged holes in the single eye each possessed. but still the dreary talk went on.
"say! ain't that coon ever goin' to get done shootin' off?" he broke in wearily, in the midst of a long speech from eliphaz the temanite.
john mcintyre did not hear. he had come to the answer of job, words that found an echo in his own bitter heart:
"i was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder; he hath also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark. his archers compass me round about. he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare."
the anguish in the reader's voice, conveying the strength of the man's mighty grief, made itself felt in the child's soul, and stilled him. he gazed up into john mcintyre's haggard face with a strange heaviness at his heart. through chapter after chapter he waited, silent and subdued, but at last his weariness overcame his fears. he rolled over on the rug and yawned loudly.
"aw, shucks!" he muttered; "they're as bad at gassin' as ella anne long!" he waited through another chapter, and then broke in once more.
"say! couldn't you skip all that blather, an' tell us what happened next? didn't the devil get after him again?"
the reader paused, and gazed down at the boy in a dazed fashion. "what do you want?" he asked vaguely.
"i wish them fellows would hustle up, an' quit chewin'. did job get all right again?"
john mcintyre mechanically turned the leaves. he experienced a grim satisfaction in the boy's complaints. what did these wordy friends of job know of sorrow and despair? as though they were conditions that could be explained away! he turned almost to the end of the story, and there he paused. a new actor had entered the sorrowful drama. out of the whirlwind there came a voice—the voice of the infinite—and before its thunder the souls of job and his friends bowed in self-abasement.
the reading went on again, continuing uninterrupted to the end. the man closed the book, dropping it heavily upon the table.
"is that all?" demanded tim, fearing to be cheated out of one word of the story.
"that is all," said john mcintyre in a whisper. he shaded his eyes with his hand. what long, weary days and nights had passed over him since he last looked into that book! he had thought never to look into it again, and yet its pages held their old convincing power. there was still that magic touch that went straight to a man's heart, as only god's word can. job had suffered, had been bereft of all that made life worth the holding, and yet he had garnered from the seed sown in anguish, not bitterness and despair and hatred of god and man, but a golden harvest of divine revelation, a wealth of eternal hope and joy: "i know that my redeemer liveth!"
when the eldest orphan started out for the drowned lands the next evening he sighted the minister on the village street ahead of him. he was about to hasten his footsteps to overtake him, when he noticed mr. scott pause and speak to some one.
as the boy drew slowly near, he was amazed to see that it was sandy mcquarry. they seemed to be talking in quite a friendly tone, too, while over at long's store tim's foster-father, and his enemy, spectacle john, and the blacksmith, were craning their necks through the doorway, and apparently enjoying the scene. sandy did not speak long, but they parted with a hearty handshake.
"hello!" cried the boy, coming up alongside the tall figure. the orphans could never be accused of stiffness or formality.
"hello!" cried the minister, with equal cordiality. his eyes were shining, and he looked as though he had just received great and good news.
"ain't he mad at ye any more?" asked tim, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to indicate sandy mcquarry, the way he had seen his father do.
the minister's eyes grew brighter. "no, tim, he's not mad at me any more, and, please god, he never will be."
"did you take it back, what you said about muskoka?"
"well, yes, partly; but it wasn't that." the laughter lines were deepening around the minister's eyes. "when you grow older you will understand better. and how are you feeling to-night? cold better, eh?"
"oh, i'm fine and dandy. how's yourself?" he was prancing along by the man's side, with a gait peculiar, even to himself. the orphans all had a curious, orphan-like habit of rendering pedestrianism as difficult as possible. the twins would stagger around for a whole day tied together at the ankles, and tim now displayed this family peculiarity by hirpling along, one foot up on the smooth, hard roadway, the other plunging far into the deep snow.
"very well, thank you," said mr. scott. "where are you going?"
"down to see john." his tone revealed his pride in the daring confession. it was a splendid thing to have such a wicked man for a chum, a man whom folks said even the minister feared.
"ah! what are you reading now?"
"'we haven't got anything new for to-night. i was wishin' i had a book." he looked up slyly, to see if the hint had taken effect.
the minister fell easily into the trap. "dear me! i'm sorry i didn't know that. you might have had 'nicholas nickleby.' i'll send it to school with tommy to-morrow, if you promise you won't read any of it in school, eh?"
"all right; 'course not," cried tim righteously.
"and what have you been reading since you finished 'pilgrim's progress'?"
the minister looked down enviously at the small, hobbling figure. if he had only been wise enough, he reflected, to go to that man with this child's faith and good-fellowship, they might have been on such terms of intimacy now, and he might have helped to cure that look of pain in john mcintyre's eyes.
"we've been readin' about a chap named job. it's in the bible. ever read it?"
"the bible!" the minister paused in the road. what miracle had led the child thither? "did mcintyre read job to you?"
"yes."
"every bit of it?"
"yes—all but a lot o' mushy talk in the middle. them jiggers had such an awful lot to say we skipped some of it. but we read the end."
"ah, you've got a fine story-book now, tim! you'll not find such another. ask mcintyre to read you some more of its stories. they're better than 'nicholas nickleby.'"
tim looked dubious. with the exception of job, and daniel in the lions' den, and extracts from one or two thrilling tales like that, he considered the bible rather tame. his foster-father read a chapter to them every night before they went to bed, but the eldest of the family was generally too much occupied in pinching the twins, or keeping them in order, to give the reading anything better than a very desultory attention. but jake's slow, droning voice was not calculated to arouse interest. "i dunno," he said, glancing up sidelong at the man. "mebby he—i don't think he likes it—much."
"oh, you set him at the right stories, and he will. don't you like stories of shipwreck?"
"you bet!"
"well, get him to read to you about paul; he had some wonderful adventures on the sea. and there's a better story than that there, about some people who were nearly shipwrecked, and a man on board saved them. and how do you think he did it? why, he got up and stopped the storm and the waves."
the child nodded. "daddy read us that one night," he said.
so the book remained in john mcintyre's shanty, and often, when some other story was finished, the boy would bring it out. the books of esther and daniel, the tales of samson and gideon, and the wonderful stories of the savior himself, all had to be gone over again and again. and one night john mcintyre read of love's great sacrifice, when the skies grew dark and the earth trembled with the agony of calvary.
tim lay on the floor, staring up at the reader. john mcintyre's sorrowful voice had brought home to him some inkling of the stupendousness of that tragedy.
"what did they kill him for?" he demanded sharply. "he never did anything bad, did he?"
"no." john mcintyre's voice was almost inaudible.
"couldn't he have stopped them if he had wanted to?"
"yes," hesitatingly.
"why didn't he, then?" scornfully.
why? there had been a day when john mcintyre could have given a ready answer. he would have told the boy it was god's love and man's great need that held the savior there; but he had long ceased to believe in that love, and he was silent.
tim waited a while, and then tried another question. "where is jesus now? is he in heaven?"
"i suppose so—yes."
"that's where our mother is—an' your boys, too, eh?"
"i suppose so," faltered the man.
"were they very bad boys?" asked tim in an awed whisper.
"no." the answer was almost fierce.
"oh, then they'll be in heaven for sure, won't they?"
"yes."
"are you dead sure?"
"yes, sure." the man drew a deep breath as he answered.
the boy lay silent, evolving a new question. it came at last.
"say! all boys and girls have to have mothers, don't they?"
"yes."
"then your boys must 'a' had one, too, eh?"
"yes."
"is—is she in heaven, too?"
"yes, she is." john mcintyre spoke with a defiant firmness that startled the boy.
"you're dead sure about that, ain't you?" he inquired, half admiringly.
"yes. if there's a heaven, she's there, even if no one else is."
"but ain't there one?" cried tim eagerly. it would be rather nice to shock miss scott on sunday with the news that there was no such place, backed up by an authority like john mcintyre.
"yes, there is." the answer was long in coming, but when it did come it sounded final.
tim was slightly disappointed. "well," he argued at last, "i guess there oughter be, anyhow, for good people like mammy and daddy sawyer and dr. allen and mr. scott—eh?"
"i suppose so."
"why, daddy read about it one night in the bible. it was a city, he said—aw, shucks! i'd rather it was the country. but it had gold streets, and was all pearls and diamonds and things. say! find it, will you?"
so the next reading was of the new jerusalem, the city that had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of god did lighten it, and the lamb was the light thereof.
"for there shall be no night there." when john mcintyre came to those words his voice broke, and he closed the book quickly, as though it hurt him. he had not shed a tear since that day when he and mary laid their last child in the grave; and a far deeper sorrow had come upon him since; but something shone in his eyes now as he turned his back to the light.
for some minutes tim lay staring into the fire, and wondering. it was a wild winter night, and the storm came wailing across the drowned lands, and shook the old door of the little cabin. but its sorrow-laden notes, that always found an echo in the winter of john mcintyre's lonely heart, spoke to him of something new and wonderful—of that other land where there would be "no more death, neither sorrow nor crying."
"it must be an awful pretty place," tim ventured at last, rather wistfully. "say!"—he looked up eagerly—"d'ye s'pose it 'ud be nicer'n nova scotia?" his companion did not answer, and he went on: "our mother's there, 'cause she was good; but if our father's dead, he ain't."
john mcintyre looked down at the child, and tim nodded his head emphatically. "oh, but i know he ain't," he said with firm conviction. "he was so awful bad. don't you mind i told you? he cheated a lot of other folks, an' got all their money, an' then he ran away, for fear they'd put him in jail. the last time i seen him he come to give ole mother cummins money for keepin' us. she was drunk that night, and i sneaked out o' bed an' listened, an' he didn't give her 'nough, an' she yelled at him, an' she says, 'joseph symonds, you're a——' wha—what's the matter?"
john mcintyre had leaned forward in his chair and was glaring at the boy. "that name!" he cried. "what was your father's name?"
"symonds—joseph symonds," repeated the child, staring. "that's our name, too, an' joey was called after him."
"was fair hill the place you were born in?"
"yes. how did you know? it was right beside the ocean——" he paused. the look in john mcintyre's face alarmed him. "ye—ye ain't goin' to get sick again, are ye?"
he arose and came nearer, and the man drew back, with a gesture of loathing. "your—father—was joseph symonds!" he repeated, dazed.
tim had a fashion, when he was very much interested in anything his friend was saying, of seizing a button of the man's coat and twisting it. he took hold of it now, and turned it around and around, gazing at him wonderingly.
"yes; did ye know him?" he asked, innocently eager.
john mcintyre's clenched hands relaxed. his first impulse had been to hurl far from him the offspring of the scoundrel who had been his ruin. but one look into the boy's inquiring eyes, gazing at him in perfect faith, rendered him powerless. he let his hand fall heavily upon tim's shoulder, and holding him back, stared into his wondering face. line by line he traced resemblances, hitherto unnoticed, to the man he had hated. there was the same pointed chin, the same cunning droop of the eyes. and yet, oh, miracle of love! those very hated features now formed the one thing in the world to which his heart clung. he was overcome by a feeling of utter impotence. hitherto, his strength had lain in his relentless hatred; and now, what had become of it? it was gone—transformed into another feeling infinitely more potent. something of the all-conquering force of love—the impossibility of escape from it—was borne in upon john mcintyre's soul. for an instant the veil of mystery that shrouded human suffering seemed to grow transparent, and behind it shone divine love in the agony of calvary. inevitable, all-pervading, like the voice of the apocalypse thundering from heaven, it spoke: "i am alpha and omega, the beginning and the ending."
the man placed his hand on the boy's head in a helpless fashion.
"are ye sick?" whispered tim.
"it's nothing," he faltered weakly. "i—i was just feeling weak. come, it's time you were in bed. it is too stormy for you to go home."
and that night john mcintyre slept with a protecting arm placed around the son of the man who had ruined his life.
