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Cornell University Library 
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 3 1924 022 327 104 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022327104 
 
THE 
 RURAL 
 PUBLISHING 
 COMPANY 
 NEW YORK 
 
"The Child 
 
 9f 
 
 By 
 
 'The Hope Farm Man" 
 
 4* 
 
 Published by 
 The Rural Publishing Company- 
 New York 
 
Copyright, 1912 
 
 By The Rural Publishing Company 
 
 All EigMs Reserved 
 
To 
 
 u. a. ©. 
 
 "MOTHER" 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 Before you start and become a reader let me have 
 a word with you. I know well enough that this little 
 story is a rather poor patchwork performance. That 
 is so of necessity, for the book has been written by 
 snatches — in little scraps of time taken out of busy 
 days. Perhaps you have known the time, as I have, 
 when a patchwork quilt, when the padding was thick 
 and warm, proved more comfortable than a silken 
 robe. You may say that the story deals only with 
 small and petty or trifling incidents, and very com- 
 mon people. Your criticism may be that a farm 
 story to be worth anything ought to deal with great 
 pioblems of education and rural "uplift." Let us 
 not quarrel about it. I only try to tell of things I 
 have known and seen. I have tried to picture plain 
 and kindly farmers — people that I know and love — 
 just as they are, the human side — their faults as 
 well as their virtues. If you have lived in a true 
 country neighborhood you know them all. I have 
 also tried to describe the little things and incidents 
 which make up the human side of neighborhood life. 
 You must know that "rural uplift" and higher edu- 
 cation have not yet become a part of the human side 
 of country living. That is one reason why they do 
 not get deeper to the heart of our great farm prob- 
 lems. You will find no thrilling love story here; 
 there are no murders or crimes or heroic incidents — 
 only a plain and simple tale of the hill country and 
 its kindly people. 
 
 We shall agree regarding the weakness and limi- 
 tations of this simple record as a story. I hope we 
 may also agree regarding the thought and spirit 
 which I have tried to put into these pages. Many 
 of us come to middle years feeling that something 
 
has dropped out of life. We may have reached a< 
 fair share of what we thought in other years would 
 mean success, yet somehow it seems tasteless and with- 
 out flavor. We do not always know it, but what we 
 have lost is the spirit and hope of youth. The great 
 vital problem for the farmer of middle years, partic- 
 ularly the well-to-do farmer, is how he may regain 
 something of this conquering spirit of youth. This 
 is the great problem, not only for the individual but 
 through him for the Nation — since the farm home 
 and what it stands for is the Nation's foundation. 
 Hiram Bently, and through him, his neighbors and 
 friends, gained something of this spirit of youth 
 through the child. It started when Hiram invested 
 his money in the boy. That was a sacrifice, which 
 most of us can easily understand, and from it grew 
 the new feeling in the man's life. I hope you will get 
 my thought in this, and see how the child really acted 
 as a little "middleman," bringing something of the 
 truth and faith and joy of childhood to these weary 
 and unsatisfied men and women. It would have been 
 nearer the line of a great romance if I had saved the 
 Hill Country Produce Co. through some great busi- 
 ness deal or some wonderful thing connected with 
 agricultural education rather than sausage and pies 
 and cider apples. The only thing about that is that 
 I know where such things were done by the latter, 
 while I do not know how the former could have helped 
 the situation with Jim Turner. And so, let us un- 
 derstand that this little story is only a rough and 
 crude way of asking you to think out your little part 
 of a great problem. For we and all the rest of us 
 must understand that we are to look to ourselves 
 finally for what we need, and that we cannot work 
 together as we should until there is something of the 
 sentiment and love of childhood to bind us together. 
 "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you" — and so is 
 the Kingdom of Man. 
 
 "The Hope Farm Man." 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Of course, a story must start somewhere, although 
 the starting is of small importance compared with the 
 coming out. Let us start our little record at the most 
 comfortable point of a farm home, before an open 
 fire. I give you fair warning now that it will end 
 at the same place and not wander 50 miles away in its 
 dull travels. Imagine a well- furnished farm sitting- 
 room. You know what that is. The house is back 
 among the hills in what we may call the hill country. 
 There is a pile of blazing sticks in the big fireplace, 
 and just enough of brush to make a blaze of light 
 which fills fhe room. Before the fire is a man of mid- 
 dle years. You might tell from his carriage, if not 
 from the little bronze button on his coat, that he is an 
 old soldier. He sits looking into the fire like one who 
 is reading an interesting book. A little back from 
 the fire where the blaze rests upon her face, sits a 
 gray-haired woman. Her spectacles are in place, and 
 on her lap is a big black book with a very familiar 
 appearance. By the side of the man lies an old dog. 
 You know he is old by the grizzle of white around his 
 jaws, and one lip curled up at the side shows a broken 
 tooth. His shoulder is against the old soldier's leg, 
 his head stretched out to the fire, the ears drooping, 
 and one watchful eye open. 
 
 Fall comes early up among the hills. The late Au- 
 gust days may be bright and warm in the sunshine, but 
 after the sun crawls beyond the western hills, somehow 
 there comes a chill in the air like the touch of a cold 
 hand. As the farmer comes up from the barnyard 
 through the twilight on such nights, he is likely to 
 shrug his shoulders with a half-shudder, and look at 
 the corn with a little of apprehension. The chill does 
 
10 THE CHILD 
 
 not mean frost exactly, but it seems like a distant 
 relative sent ahead to spy out the ground. In the 
 hill country there is always a dread at this season, for 
 when frost lays a hand upon the corn it is like the 
 touch of death. You see, when the frost jumps in 
 ahead of his season he is known as that mean old Jack 
 Frost. When, however, he stays back like a gentle- 
 man until the corn has been well ripened, he might 
 well be called the Honorable John Frost, and he is 
 sure of election in any event. 
 
 Hiram Bently had felt that little chill at his shoul- 
 ders when he came in with the milk. Somehow it came 
 to him that with each year the chill came a little 
 earlier, or else was a little sharper, he could not tell 
 which. It was too early to start a fire in the stove, 
 and the kitchen fire had gone out, for they do not 
 have very hot suppers in the hill country. The big 
 fireplace was open, and Hiram had started a fire there, 
 as much perhaps for its company as for its warmth, 
 for you know an old soldier like Hiram likes an open 
 fire. There are memories which come from it, burned 
 out of the wood, called into life by the cheerful heat. 
 It carries such a man back to camp life in the army, 
 where youth and hope and power may sit with the 
 soldier and look into the fire. In those older days 
 there would sit with him by the old camp fire the 
 vision of a bright-eyed girl. She was a part of the 
 hope which Hiram had for companion. On this chilly 
 August night there sat before the fire in this farm 
 sitting room only a gray-haired woman with spec- 
 tacles and her big black book on her lap. As the 
 flames burst out and lighted up her face, it seemed 
 somehow to Hiram Bently that here was after all a 
 part of the fulfillment of that old hope which sat 
 with him in other days before the camp fire. 
 
 They made a picture for a great artist as they sat 
 there in silence. Could you, who know something of 
 the sorrows and joys of life, have looked in upon them 
 
THE CHILD 11 
 
 from the darkness outside, you would have felt a tug 
 at your heart, and there would have been a mist of 
 tenderness before your eyes, for that silent group in 
 the lonely farmhouse, childless and alone, seemed 
 somehow to represent a past all out of touch with the 
 great throbbing and bustling present. The old sol- 
 dier, erect and firm, gazing at the fire, the gray-haired 
 woman with her hands folded upon her book, the old 
 dog with his head close to his master's foot, all seemed 
 somehow to have stepped out of the past, a happy, 
 quieter, thoughtful time, before we ever heard of sci- 
 entific farming or modern agriculture. 
 
 .And so they had stepped out of the past. As 
 Hiram Bently sat before the fire that night, his mind 
 went back over the years through a long and quiet 
 track. He did not know it, but a gentle fate was at 
 that moment bringing him to the real turning point 
 of life, when he had begun to feel that life had no 
 turning for him, but went away from the pleasant 
 pastures of youth, driving dully out over the barren 
 hills to the end. To a man with a little sentiment in 
 his heart, an open fire is like a picture book. He sees 
 his life passed before him. Here is the work of his 
 hand, the old rails which he split, and the dead apple 
 wood which he cut away, slowly eaten up by the flame, 
 to fall at last into ashes. Happy is the man who can 
 see in these ashes the enduring, indestructible good 
 which remains after the hot fires of youth and man- 
 hood have burned away the non-essentials. 
 
 You see, Hiram Bently was a farmer, just exactly 
 like thousands of the rest of us. Middle age had 
 found him a little gray, a little weary, a little bitter, 
 a little inclined to feel that in some way life had not 
 handed him his rightful share. These old soldiers 
 feel that way; they cannot help it, it is entirely nat- 
 ural, a part of growth, and not all of them have 
 the philosophy to realize that the world's affairs have 
 slowly passed into the hands of younger people, who 
 
12 THE CHILD 
 
 cannot understand just how these old soldiers feel 
 about the past. 
 
 That was it exactly. Hiram thought it out with 
 a little touch of bitterness before his fire. His mind 
 went away from the old battles and the part he had 
 taken in great events, to a little mound in the yard 
 back of the old church. A child could step over it, 
 yet somehow it always seemed like a mountain to 
 Hiram, standing as it did between what he had hoped 
 for, what he had, and what he had hoped the end of 
 his life would be. Before his fire on this chilly night 
 of early Fall, he was thinking of the Winter to come. 
 How different the house and the farm would be if there 
 were little children asleep upstairs; if one of them 
 could sit beside the dog, or fall asleep beside that big 
 book in mother's lap. He glanced at her as he 
 thought. She had opened her book, and in the dim 
 light was slowly tracing words with her finger. What 
 she read there is the key of this little story, but we 
 shall not find it until we come to the very end. We 
 cannot lock things up until they are completed ; we do 
 not use the key at the beginning. 
 
 For now we have come to our beginning before the 
 fire. Hiram and Mary, busy with their thoughts and 
 their book, did not hear the wheels of Hen Bingham's 
 buggy as it turned in from the road. The driveway 
 was grassy anyway, for few found business that way. 
 It was Hen's old gray horse answering the barn call 
 of Hiram's black that really announced the visitors. 
 The old dog roused himself with a growl, as if ashamed 
 of his deafness and his drowsiness. Mary put aside 
 her book and brought out the lamp, while Hiram, like 
 a soldier who demands the countersign, opened the 
 door and held out his lantern. 
 
 "It's all right, Hiram! It's all right, Hiram!" 
 There was no mistaking Hen Bingham's voice. His 
 name was an abbreviation of Henry, but when he 
 
THE CHILD IS 
 
 spoke in the damp air it did sound somewhat like the 
 call of a Plymouth Rock rooster. 
 
 "I've got the Elder and a boy. They started to 
 walk out and got tired, and I brought 'em over." 
 Careful of the step, Elder. Come on, boy! you got 
 home at last." 
 
 The old buggy creaked as the Elder stepped out of 
 it, and the horse sounded his call again, a conversa- 
 tion with his friend in the barn. Hen went to tie his 
 horse, and the Elder and the boy walked up the path 
 to the door. 
 
 Somehow mother could not find the match box eas- 
 ily, and the lamp was not lighted as the Elder came 
 in. There was just the blaze of the fire. It is hardly 
 fair to introduce a prominent character in such a light, 
 he ought to have every fair chance to walk into print, 
 especially a man like the Elder. Yet there was some- 
 thing about him as he stood framed in the doorway, 
 with the firelight playing over him, which seemed 
 somehow to present the man just as you would like to 
 see him. He was a little man, with a rough gray 
 beard and a black hat which somehow seemed to be 
 crawling back to the rear of his head as if not on 
 good terms with the bald spot in front. A shabby 
 little man ; there was dust upon his coat, and even the 
 feeble light of the fire brought out the shiny seams 
 under his arms, the buttons with the cloth partly 
 Worn off, and the shabby unfitting coat which seemed 
 to fall down around his body. Is it not a strange 
 thing that in spite of all sacred history — in spite of all 
 the real lessons of life — we are somehow disappointed 
 to find the real people who touch the very germ of 
 life and sorrow, shabby and poor — confessed "fail- 
 ures" ? 
 
 The Elder had a kindly face, deeply lined, and 
 with sad, pathetic-looking eyes. You would mark 
 him at once, as he stood there in the door, hesitating 
 a little and drooping somewhat from fatigue, for a 
 
14 THE CHILD 
 
 man of sorrows, one who came carrying something of 
 the trouble and worry of the world. And leaning 
 against his side, one little hand held up to shade his 
 eyes, and the other with a tight hold of the Elder's 
 coat, stood perhaps the strangest and most unprom- 
 ising-looking child that Hiram Bently had ever seen. 
 No one could have told his age as he stood there. His 
 face was old. It might have been the age of years, 
 of suffering, or of a premature look into the mystery 
 of life. He wore the cast-off dress of a child evidently 
 several years younger than he was. This dress was 
 buttoned tightly around him. It was about three 
 inches too short, and did not reach high enough upon 
 his throat to protect him from the chilly night. His 
 hair had not been brushed, and the dust had gathered 
 thick upon his little face. Two black smears down 
 his cheeks showed where the tears had followed their 
 way through this coat of dust on a journey down to 
 the sides of his chin. And there stood the Elder and 
 the boy, a strange pair, and there is no wonder that 
 Hiram Bently in his comfortable home, with his back 
 to the fire, felt a curious feeling of resentment in his 
 heart that such a child as this should come in through 
 his door to break up the memories which had filled 
 his mind before the fire. By this time Mrs. Bently 
 had the lamp in flame. The Elder walked in and 
 closed the door behind him. He looked as if he wanted 
 to cry, and probably a weaker man would have done 
 6o, for his disappointment had been great. You need 
 not wonder at his coming unannounced. Mother was 
 an honorary member of the Children's Society, which 
 he had organized, and — shall I betray her secret? — 
 she had often written him about a child, though 
 Hiram had not favored her taking one. 
 
 "Draw up your chair to the fire, Elder," said 
 Hiram; "let the boy sit on the floor. What can we 
 do for you? What's wrong, any way?" Mrs. Bently 
 was practical to the last. 
 
THE CHILD 15 
 
 "Have you had your supper, Elder?" 
 
 His hesitation showed that there had been no sup- 
 per thus far, and the boy's eyes brightened at the 
 word. The good woman bustled away to the kitchen 
 to prepare food for the visitors, and the Elder, sit- 
 ting by the fire and holding out his thin hands to the 
 blaze, told his story. His life had been spent among 
 the poor. Some men have one ambition, and some 
 another. The Elder had one, such as it was, to 
 find homes for the homeless. His theory was that the 
 homeless child left to itself to roam at large, or in 
 an institution, had seven chances in ten of growing 
 up to be a parasite or enemy of society. In a home 
 the chance was turned about, for the Elder knew that 
 if the child could be taken early enough in its life, 
 the chances were eight in ten that he would become, 
 in place of a parasite, a useful member of society. 
 And this was his work, and this was his visit. Some- 
 one had applied to his institution for a boy, and it 
 was with a hopeful heart that the good Elder had 
 taken this child over the hills, and into the country, 
 that he might find a home. But when they came to 
 the farmhouse he found a man and a woman who 
 looked the child over as they would have examined a 
 sewing machine, or a Berkshire pig. They wanted a 
 child who would work, and be a credit to them in ap- 
 pearance and habits. And the poor little waif of 
 humanity, with the tear-marks down his cheek, his 
 tangled hair and ill-fitting dress, had no place with 
 them. 
 
 "Do you know," said the Elder, "the man looked 
 this boy over, and said right in his hearing, 'What do 
 I want of such a brat as that !' And the child heard 
 him say it, and I know that he will never forget it 
 as long as he lives." 
 
 The boy had listened with great wide eyes, to the 
 story, and as the Elder finished, the boy ran to him, 
 and with a great sob climbed into his lap and hugged 
 
16 THE CHILD 
 
 him tight. It seemed a strange sight to Hiram 
 Bently, the old Elder rocking back and forth in the 
 firelight, the child clinging to him like a frightened 
 little animal, the wise old dog sitting at their side 
 wagging his stub of a tail, his grizzled old head 
 pressed against the Elder's side, as though he, too, 
 had known the sorrows of the world, and would offer 
 his sympathy. But Mrs. Bently came bustling back ; 
 she was a practical woman, and she knew that a cup 
 of hot tea and some of her bread and fruit would re- 
 move many of the temporary world sorrows at least, 
 and she took the Elder away that he might wash his 
 hands and face, and enjoy his supper. Hiram was 
 left alone with the boy. He sat in his chair watching 
 this small specimen of humanity, as he stood before 
 the fire with his little hand in his pocket, and the other 
 resting upon the old dog. He glanced now and then 
 at Hiram, but there was something of fear and won- 
 der in his gaze. As he looked about the room he saw 
 over the fireplace the old saber which Hiram had car- 
 ried through the war, and the little faded flag which 
 had always been nailed over it. He stood and gazed 
 at it, and finally pointed with his little hand and 
 looked with questioning eyes at the old soldier. 
 
 "Yes, sir; we was there!" Hen Bingham's voice 
 broke in as the boy turned his questioning look from 
 the saber. When you came to see Hen Bingham you 
 noticed more and more that his resemblance to a 
 Plymouth Rock rooster was not confined to his voice. 
 It is a fact that some men take perhaps unconsciously 
 something from the animals with which they associ- 
 ate, which stamps itself upon their appearance and 
 character. 
 
 "We was there all through the fight, and some day 
 I'm going to tell you what Uncle Hiram done with 
 that sword." 
 
 The "Uncle Hiram" somehow startled the silent 
 man standing by the fire. He had been watching the 
 
THE CHILD IT 
 
 strange little figure before him. He noticed how one 
 of the little legs twisted in with a curious turn when 
 the boy walked, and he had a habit which had always 
 displeased Hiram of dropping his lower jaw and hold- 
 ing his mouth open. Yet somehow he liked to see 
 that finger pointing at the flag, and the "Uncle Hi- 
 ram" part of it brought into his mind for the first 
 time a suspicion of what the Elder had come for. 
 
 But a boy's eyes and fingers cannot long remain 
 upon sabers and flags when he is hungry and there is 
 food to be eaten. Through the open door they saw 
 what was going on in the kitchen. Mother had put a 
 cloth over one end of the table, and the Elder, having 
 washed his face and hands, and combed his beard with 
 his fingers, was sitting down in his chair with a tired 
 sigh. 
 
 "Why, if we hadn't forgotten that boy." Mother 
 bustled in and led the child away from the fire. Hiram 
 and Hen watched her take him to the sink, rub the 
 hard soap over his dust-covered face, and briskly 
 souse him with water. Boy-like, he sputtered and 
 struggled, but a firm hand held his head while another 
 polished him hard with the big towel until his face 
 shone like an apple. The Elder waited patiently 
 until the child was perched upon a soap box placed 
 on a chair beside the table. Then the good Elder 
 bowed his head for a moment, while .he offered thanks 
 for the food. Hiram and Hen, as they watched 
 him from the other room, could not help seeing how 
 thin his hair had grown, and how his shoulders sagged 
 like some strong support which has begun to give 
 way beneath its burden. The boy evidently saw no 
 reason for supposing that the bread and milk before 
 him were not sufficiently blessed. He fell upon them 
 like a little animal, grasping his spoon in his little fist, 
 and tearing at the bread like a hungry little wolf. 
 He stuffed his mouth and swallowed from time to time 
 with something like a gasp and a scowl of anger, as 
 
18 THE CHILD 
 
 though the food, hungry as he was, aroused his resent- 
 ment. The two men watched him through the open 
 door as they stood by the fire. Their thoughts were 
 much alike, as they had been since the old army days 
 upon everything except politics. 
 
 "Don't seem to me he's worth raisin'," said Hen. 
 "See that leg all twisted out of shape, and I'll bet 
 ten dollars there is something wrong with his throat, 
 or he wouldn't try to swaller that way. It's about 
 as poor a kid as I ever seen offered a man to bring up. 
 He couldn't do no work, and look at him as he 
 stands." 
 
 It did seem a fair criticism of the child, for he 
 seemed more like a little animal devouring his bread 
 and milk, with his great eyes roaming from one to 
 another of his new acquaintances. 
 
 "The Elder tells me that the folks that promised 
 to take him called him a brat right to his face," said 
 Hiram. "I think they were right, though they ought 
 not to done it right in his presence. Even a kid don't 
 like to have such things rubbed into him." 
 
 "But what's going to become of him?" said Hen. 
 "The Elder can't keep him. What's he brought him 
 here for anyway, Hiram? I see the woman has be- 
 gun to take to him already." 
 
 It was true, for Mrs. Bently had come to the table, 
 pouring more milk into the child's bowl, and had taken 
 one of his hands in hers. The little creature glanced 
 across at the Elder, who smiled and nodded his head, 
 as if to say that here was a new friend who might 
 be trusted. And so the child, still devouring his milk 
 and bread with his right hand, reached out his left 
 hand to the woman, who stood holding it and patting 
 it from time to time, while Hiram watched her from 
 the shadows of the fire slowly fading. At last even 
 the child's appetite was satisfied, and they brought 
 the lamp back to the sitting room. The boy curled 
 up on the floor by the side of the dog, and in a short 
 
THE CHILD 19 
 
 time had fallen asleep, while the fire began to burn 
 low. And Hen Bingham, after many false starts, 
 finally got his hat and made his way to the door. 
 
 "The old woman will be lookin' for me to come 
 back, and I won't get much sleep to-night, because 
 I don't bring no news," which was Hen's suggestive 
 way of stating that it was time for the Elder to open 
 up the object of his visit. 
 
 Hiram Bently was a man of action, and needed 
 few words, and he went right to the point. 
 
 "Well, Elder, what will it be, and what's this child 
 here for?" 
 
 Mrs. Bently held up her hand, with "0 ! Hiram, 
 don't talk that way," but the Elder, being a man of 
 sorrows and acquainted with plain words, lost no time 
 in explaining his visit. 
 
 "I am going to ask you to keep this boy about ten 
 days, until I can find a home for him. He is a good 
 little boy, but he isn't strong, and most people do not 
 take to his looks. To my notion that is all the more 
 reason why the child should have a good home. Every- 
 one likes a pretty child, or one whom they can make 
 useful, but this poor little thing is neither attractive 
 nor strong now, yet I think he will grow to be both, 
 if he can only have a chance. I think I can find a 
 home for him, but I do not like to take him back to 
 the institution. That will discourage him, for even 
 a little child knows when he is despised and rejected 
 of men. I will come and get him in ten days. I do 
 not ask you to keep him permanently, but I would 
 like to have you hold him until I can place him where 
 this little thing will be happy." That was all the 
 Elder said, and before Hiram Bently could answer, 
 the child roused from his slumber and gazed about him 
 with wild eyes, as if searching for his friends. He 
 scrambled clumsily to his feet and ran toward the 
 Elder, but before he could reach him Mrs. Bently 
 surprised everybody by reaching out and catching the 
 
20 THE CHILD 
 
 little figure by its ridiculous dress and pulling him 
 close to her. The child struggled for a moment, 
 stood back and studied her face, and in the great 
 wisdom" of childhood saw something there which told 
 him that here was a new friend and protector, and he 
 ran ,to her and tucked his head under her apron, as 
 Hen Bingham said, "like a chick running to an old 
 hen, when he hears the squawk of a hawk." And 
 Hiram, sitting there by the fire, knew that the Elder 
 had been answered, and there was nothing more to be 
 said at that time. 
 
 And so did Hen Bingham. "Well, good night, 
 folks; come over and see my chicks, sonny. I got a 
 rooster with one leg, arid a hen with one eye, and a 
 duck that eat so much glass that sha goes a-looking 
 into the winder." 
 
 They heard him in the yard turning his buggy. 
 Then came, "Gid-up, Jack!" and the quick trot of a 
 horse on the stony road. The child can still remem- 
 ber thinking that Jack must have been a very re- 
 ligious horse, for in the still, clear night the hoof- 
 beats fell in exact time with what Hen Bingham was 
 singing : 
 
 "Just as I am, without one plea, 
 
 But that thy blood was shed for me, 
 
 And that thou bid'st me come to Thee 
 
 Oh Lamb of God — I come ! I come !" 
 
 The song was heard longer than the hoof-beats, but 
 both finally died away over the hill. Hen was one 
 of those soloists whose wife denies him an audience 
 at home, while the neighbors know better than to 
 provide one. 
 
 The Elder was a practical man, which means that 
 he knew the habits of common people. He had once 
 visited a farmhouse where a visitor had turned into a 
 bore. He had hung on long beyond his time, and had 
 turned kindly hospitality into a nuisance. In the hill 
 country hospitality is like a good habit, and the 
 
THE CHILD 21 
 
 kindly farmers had not been able to give their guest 
 a hint strong enough to propel him on his way with a 
 fair amount of good feeling. You see it takes consid- 
 erable force to separate a lazy man from the com- 
 fort and good living of a farm home. The Elder set- 
 tled it after he sized the situation, by offering a 
 morning prayer for the family. He prayed among 
 others for "the stranger within these gates who de- 
 parts on the next train." What else was there besides 
 pleasant travel for a guest after that? 
 
 And so the Elder simply reached for the big black 
 book. He put on his spectacles, found his place, and 
 began to read. I have never been told exactly 
 whether the Elder opened the book at random, or 
 whether there was method in his choice. I have my 
 opinion, and so had Hiram Bently that night. The 
 Elder read what all of us ought to know by heart, 
 yet all of it that remained long in Hiram Bently's 
 mind was this : 
 
 "I was hungered, and ye gave me meat : I was 
 thirsty and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, and 
 ye took me in : Naked, and ye clothed me : I was sick 
 and ye visited me : I was in prison and ye came unto 
 me _ * * * Inasmuch as ye have done it unto 
 one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it 
 unto me." 
 
 Then the Elder turned the leaves over rapidly and 
 found another place, and he read once more : 
 
 "And as Jesus passed he saw a man which was 
 blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, 
 saying, Master who did sin — this man or his parents, 
 that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither 
 hath this man sinned nor his parents, but that the 
 works of God should be made manifest in him." 
 
 The child was asleep again. The Elder carried 
 him upstairs, while mother followed with the light. 
 Hiram heard them walking about, and they seemed to 
 be changing the furniture in some way. The fire was 
 
32 THE CHILD 
 
 dying down, yet Hiram still sat looking into it. The 
 old dog knew that the end of the waking day had 
 come. He could not understand why his master 
 waited. He could not realize how, for the first time 
 in years, the man's mind was striving to place the true 
 connection between "the least of these," that the 
 Elder had read about, and the working out of a 
 miracle. The child, repellant as he seemed, had 
 brought these two things together. It seemed a 
 strange and wasteful thing for Hiram to do, but he 
 threw a handful of fresh brush upon the coals of the 
 fire. The quick blaze which started up filled the room 
 with light, and Hiram took the big black book, and 
 hunted laboriously for what he wanted. Perhaps you 
 have seen a man unused to a concordance, guessing 
 at words and hunting down a text. At last Hiram 
 found what the Elder had read, and he slowly studied 
 it out with the old dog's head against his knee, until 
 the blaze sunk down once more to glowing coals. 
 Then with a half sigh, like one who gladly would 
 understand, and yet cannot do so, he laid down the 
 book, let the waiting dog outdoors, and covered the 
 fire with ashes. 
 
 Upstairs in their bedroom, mother had fitted up 
 the little crib, which for all these years had stood in 
 the back of the attic. Hiram saw what the noise of 
 scraping and changing furniture had meant. It 
 seemed as if someone had thrust a needle into his 
 heart as he saw this relic of old hope and years 
 brought out from its hiding place. His child, for 
 whom he had hoped so much, had lain in this crib, and 
 now this inferior, repellent brat was there. For the 
 child lay in the crib stretched out asleep. His pitiful 
 outfit of clothing was scattered on the floor where his 
 little hands had thrown them. The mouth was still 
 open, and Hiram saw that the child was a mouth 
 breather, that the old doctor had talked so much 
 about. He had kicked away the covers, and they saw 
 
THE CHILD 23 
 
 the deep scars on the little leg where it seemed as if 
 some amateur with clumsy instruments had tried to 
 cut the twisted limb straight. And there was mother 
 bending over the crib with that look on her face which 
 somehow frightened Hiram, and deprived him of ar- 
 gument or speech. 
 
 "O! Hiram, isn't he beautiful!" 
 
 Have you ever stopped to think what a blessed 
 thing it is for most of us that love is blind? This 
 world would seem like a hopeless prison to you and 
 me if there were none so blinded by love that they 
 cannot see the meanness and the ugliness which may 
 be so apparent to those who wear the glasses of criti" 
 cism. In truth, Hiram Bently could see no beauty 
 in this strange child. It came to him again that the 
 man who had rejected the child as a brat was right, 
 and yet he repeated the words to himself, "He ought 
 not to have said so before that child." 
 
 You see this gentler fate that I have mentioned was 
 reaching out to touch Hiram Bently, and he did not 
 know it. And yet he was filled with a strange wonder 
 as mother bent over and kissed the child. Uncon- 
 sciously it raised its hand and caught her by the 
 shoulder. It was an ugly, repellent child, just the 
 very creature that he would never have selected had 
 there been any choice left for him, and yet Hiram 
 lay long into the night thinking, thinking as he had 
 not done for years. Could it be true that this child 
 was what they called "one of the least of these"? 
 What was this the Elder had read about the works of 
 God being made manifest in the man who was given 
 up as hopelessly blind? Thousands of people, you 
 perhaps, have pondered and pondered over such 
 things hopelessly, until at last they led you off, as 
 they did Hiram, into the troubled land of dreams. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 They are early risers up among the hills. Some- 
 times there will come to them a visitor from town or 
 city bringing the habits of the valley. This man 
 will wonder why the farmers get up with the sun, and 
 stay up with him, instead of being satisfied with a 
 plain ten-hour day. The man will awaken at the 
 farm noises of sunrise, give vent to his wonder, and 
 then turn over for another sleep. The farmer will 
 give you an industrial argument and prove that a 
 ten-hour day persisted in would finally land his busi- 
 ness in perpetual night. There is another and bet- 
 ter reason which country people have unconsciously 
 absorbed. The real glory of the day comes when 
 the first crimson streak appears in the east, and the 
 sun comes slowly over the hills to view the sparkling 
 splendor of a dew-washed world. Just as youth car- 
 ries the supreme joy of life, so the damp fields and 
 woods, and the fog-haunted hollows, show the very 
 wine of nature's life, when in the youth of day the 
 sun first floods them with light. At noon the dry 
 fields and hills show the shabbiness of one who has 
 stood too long in the limelight, ,, but, in the first burst of 
 morning there is a solemn religious joy in the air, as 
 though the world had made a new resolve — to make 
 this the one perfect day. In the hill country people 
 feel something of this, although they cannot express 
 it as they turn their faces to the early sun. 
 
 A flood of this morning light had burst into the 
 room as the child stirred in his sleep, and then sat up 
 in his crib. The room was empty, and the child clam- 
 bered to the floor and ran to the window. Through 
 
THE CHILD 25 
 
 all his years he will never forget that glorious morn- 
 ing in the hill country. It was the first of a long 
 series of impressions which this eventful day was to 
 stamp indelibly upon his little mind. Far away to 
 the east the sun rose above a great distant blue hill 
 like a ball of fire. It seemed to the child to represent 
 the end 'of the world. Between the sun and the Bently 
 farm swept a broken country, wet with dew and spark- 
 ling with spots of it like beds of diamonds. Here and 
 there were bright silver-like ribbons traced along the 
 hills through bright banks of green, where little 
 streams trickled down along the hills and danced away 
 in the valleys out of sight. In the hollows the sun 
 was driving out the fog, which rose in sullen clouds 
 of mist. Far away to the right, off somewhere over 
 the hill, a hoarse voice could be heard calling, "Come, 
 boss ! Come, boss !" A herd of speckled cattle on a 
 distant hillside raised their heads at the call, and 
 started in slow and stately procession, one old brown 
 cow walking in advance as a leader; and something 
 told the child that even these cows obeyed the call 
 and were walking home to be fed and milked. 
 
 And down by the barnyard was something more 
 tangible, the old dog which the child remembered to 
 have seen the night before. Old Shep sat by the path 
 which led from the kitchen door, with his head on one 
 side expectantly, as if he waited for a friend. And 
 the child's lonely little heart was filled with the great 
 hope that Shep was waiting for him, for I hope you 
 do not know, and I hope you never will know, how 
 in strange and lonely places, or in hopeless situations, 
 the heart longs for sympathy and leaps at the prom- 
 ise of a friend. 
 
 The institution child has no one to handle his but- 
 tons and pins ; he must dress himself as best he can. 
 It mattered little to the child that his ill-fitting dress 
 was twisted about and half buttoned. He decided not 
 to risk trying to tie his shoes, and so he crept bare- 
 
26 THE CHILD 
 
 footed down the stairs and into the sun. When he 
 put the little bare foot first upon the wet grass, it 
 came over him that while the sun might be full of 
 warm promise, it was really a very cold earth which 
 welcomed him so early in the morning. He ran with 
 a strange little limp down the path where Shep was 
 waiting for him, and the reception was worth all his 
 hurry, for the wise old dog nearly threw his tail out 
 of joint to show his affection, and he put that grizzled 
 old jaw up against the child's face in genuine welcome. 
 The boy with his arms around the dog's neck, hugging 
 with all his strength, heard a strange tinkling sound, 
 which seemed to come from behind a black cow in the 
 barnyard. The old dog heard it, too, and he gently 
 pulled away from the boy and asked him to follow. 
 I believe, I know, that in some way these wise old dogs 
 are able to converse with people who know and love 
 them. I cannot tell you how the influence is given, 
 but the child knew as the old dog looked at him that 
 he was to follow. So with a firm hold on Shep's col- 
 lar, the child moved on his cold little feet in the di- 
 rection of that tinkling sound. 
 
 It is hard to say which was the more surprised, 
 Hiram Bently or the child, when Shep solemnly in- 
 troduced them in the barnyard. Hiram was milking, 
 the quick streams of milk pounding upon the tin until 
 the sound changed to a dull chug as the pail filled, 
 and the stream lost its power to strike through to 
 the bottom. He seemed hard and stern to the child, 
 for a good milker goes at his job with a determined 
 expression on his face. It requires some power to 
 force out the milk. The old cow knew better; she 
 knew that the man's face was only a mask which 
 changed expression with his work. She placidly 
 chewed her cud and turned a mild eye upon her old 
 friend Shep. The cat knew better, too. She sat 
 waiting at the barn door, well knowing that the froth 
 and some of the substance as well, would go into her 
 
THE CHILD aft 
 
 dish. But to the child human friendship was pretty 
 well exhausted when it passed Shep and the Elder — 
 all others were suspicious characters. 
 
 To Hiram the sudden appearance of the child with 
 his ridiculous dress on "hind side before," with his 
 great round eyes, and the little feet turned red with 
 cold, seemed somehow in line with the thought which 
 led him off into troubled slumber. 
 
 "Well, sonny! are your feet cold?" 
 
 It was a useless question, but the only thing to ask 
 under the circumstances. The child looked at him a 
 moment, and then at Shep. Happily the old dog's 
 eye caught him, and they understood. 
 
 "Yes, they be, Uncle Hiram." 
 
 "Uncle Hiram"; it was the only name the child 
 knew, for he remembered what Hen Bingham had said 
 to him about the sword. The man milked on in si- 
 lence for half a moment, and then suddenly turned. 
 
 "Come here, sonny, and this will warm you up." 
 Old Shep moved forward, the child with him until 
 they stood at Hiram's side. 
 
 "Hold up your head and open your mouth." Be- 
 fore the child knew it, Hiram was milking at close 
 range a gentle stream right into the child's mouth. I 
 am not prepared to say whether the force of Hiram's 
 hand, or the suction of the child had most to do with 
 drawing the milk; that is not for me to say. Ah! 
 but the warm and beautiful milk ! The child shut his 
 eyes in ecstasy, the life-giving fluid sending a thrill 
 of comfort all through his little body. Without ques- 
 tion, the sanitary milk inspectors would have objected 
 to such practice. Probably they would have rejected 
 Hiram's milk, and not permitted him to ship it where 
 city children might possibly get hold of it. But then 
 these milk inspectors are not obliged to play the part 
 of homeless little children with cold feet on an early. 
 Fall morning. I sometimes wish they could be com- 
 pelled to play this part for a time, with no frills on 
 
28 THE CHILD 
 
 furnishings. There would be more of charity in the 
 world if a good many of us could go through this 
 form of education. 
 
 "And now," said Hiram, "let's warm your feet. See 
 that fat black cow over there?" 
 
 There was a fat cow lying in the yard near them, 
 one of those warm, lazy creatures to whom rest is a 
 delight, and energy a nightmare. 
 
 "Go and make her get up. She won't hurt you. 
 Never strike a cow, but make her get up. Shep will 
 show you how." 
 
 And Shep did. With the child still clinging to him 
 the old dog walked up to the cow, and pretended to 
 bark, while the child waved his arms in the air. Sev- 
 eral buttons on his dress had become loose, and the 
 strange single garment fluttered as he waved. 
 
 The cow looked at them in gentle wonder for a 
 moment, and then gave a deep sigh. You may have 
 heard something like it from a fat and good-natured 
 man who is aroused from his chair and book by an 
 insistent wife whose wood box is empty. The lazy 
 creature, with many a grunt and sigh, finally crossed 
 her hind legs and slowly stood herself on four feet. 
 She arched her back and shook her tail, as one aroused 
 from comfortable slumber, and with another look of 
 mild reproach moved away. 
 
 "Now step in where she was," advised Hiram. Old 
 Shep's feet were not cold, but his new friend was a 
 stranger to farm ways, so the dog led the child upon 
 the spot where the black cow had been lying. I need 
 not tell any farm-raised boy what the child found 
 there. A Fall night in the hill country makes the 
 earth a cold and dreary proposition when your feet 
 are bare and young, and your circulation is poor. A 
 black cow is a very small unit compared with the 
 whole of this cold old earth, but give that cow con- 
 tentment, sweet cud to chew, and a dry place for a 
 bed, and she will warm up her small part of the earth 
 
THE CHILD 29 
 
 at least. Men rush here and there seeking to warm 
 up the entire earth ; they never take the chill off any 
 part of it. The cow settles upon one small spot and 
 stays there until she warms it, and men forget to take 
 the cow as their model. The child could never forget 
 how the warm glow came back to the chilled little feet. 
 He danced for joy on his warm spot, and Shep moved 
 away to give him full room, as his dress fluttered and 
 flared around him. 
 
 But farming is not all drinking warm milk and 
 warming your cold feet. There is work to be done. 
 St. Paul's remark about the true connection between 
 working and eating is peculiarly a part of farm re- 
 ligion. What is a boy good for if he will not and 
 cannot work? So it was but natural that Hiram 
 should put the child at some little labor. 
 
 "Here, sonny, take this bucket to the pump and 
 bring back all the water you can carry." 
 
 The child was not lazy, and he remembered the 
 warm milk and the warm feet with gratitude. So he 
 took the bucket and trudged away without knowing 
 just where he was going, for in the institution, and in 
 the city where he had lived, there was no such thing 
 as a pump; he had never seen one. You just turn a 
 faucet or a screw and the water ran out; you never 
 knew where it came from, and you did not care; it 
 does not represent your labor. And so the child wan- 
 dered about to find the faucet and the pipe. He 
 passed by the pump, not knowing what it was, the 
 heavy bucket bumping against his legs. Old Shep 
 would willingly have told him, but here was some- 
 thing he could not translate, for in this communion 
 between the child and the animal, material things can 
 hardly be understood; their language has to do with 
 the heart and soul. 
 
 "Why don't you bring that water?" Hiram called 
 with some irritation. He saw the child pass the pump, 
 
30 THE CHILD 
 
 and wander about aimlessly about, and he set him 
 down as a lazy or stupid chid. 
 
 It was a very earnest little trembling voice that re- 
 plied, "I ain't never seed no pump, and I dunno where 
 the faucet is at." 
 
 Some men would have put this down as hopeless 
 stupidity, and ended their connection with the child 
 at once, but Hiram Bently, much as the child's ap- 
 pearance displeased him, was a just man, and he 
 knew the difference between the ways of city and of 
 town. He once came near being the victim of this 
 ignorance of social custom. Years before he had at- 
 tended an old soldiers' reunion at a great city. His 
 colonel, now a great lawyer, had invited him home 
 for dinner. The plain farmer, ill at ease, had hardly 
 known what to do with his hands and his feet. At 
 the end of the meal a servant had brought him a 
 finger bowl, partly filled with water. Hiram had 
 never seen one before. At home, when his hands 
 needed washing, he would go to the tin basin on the 
 bench beside the kitchen door. In his embarrassment 
 he thought he was expected to drink from it if he was 
 thirsty. He was about to try it, when a kindly hand 
 reached out and took the bowl away from him. His 
 colonel had seen the situation at a flash, and he took 
 the, bowl, and in a joking way said, "Hiram, I need 
 this more than you do," and he had bathed his hands 
 in the water so that Hiram might see what it was 
 for. Hiram always remembered how this had saved 
 him from ridicule, and regret which would have fol- 
 lowed him all his life, and he had gone back to the 
 farm realizing the difference between country and 
 city manners and habits. Somehow this experience 
 came to him on that early Fall morning, when 
 the pitiful little creature before him said so earnestly 
 that he did not know what a pump was. And so 
 Hiram took the bucket, carried it to the pump and 
 worked the handle a few strokes to show the child 
 
THE CHILD 31 ! 
 
 how the water was to be raised. Then he stood and 
 watched the little figure working laboriously at the 
 pump handle, jumping in the air as the handle went 
 up, and springing upon it with his whole weight to 
 raise the water. He pumped the bucket about half 
 full, and started to carry it to the barn. It was a 
 heavy load, and at every step a little slop jumped 
 over the side of the bucket and bathed his little legs 
 and feet, until Hiram gently took the bucket from 
 him and carried it himself, the child tagging behind 
 him and Shep following in the rear. 
 
 They marched in procession up to the kitchen 
 door, Hiram carrying two pails of milkj at mother's 
 call for breakfast. The child followed Hiram to the 
 tin basin at the bench, although his little hand was 
 hardly large enough to clear away all the dirt which 
 Shep's rough fur had put on his face. Mother came 
 to the rescue with her soap, and she fastened the flut- 
 tering dress in place. 
 
 Hiram drove the Elder to town. The child sobbed 
 as he saw his old friend depart, but the Elder was what 
 may be called an experienced hand at parting, and 
 he wasted no time on sentiment. With the institu- 
 tion in his mind, it was not hard for the child to be 
 reconciled sitting on the sunny doorstep with one hand 
 on the old dog, and the other holding one of mother's 
 doughnuts. Shep had his share of it, too. The child 
 watched the wagon slowly climb the steep hill, and 
 finally disappear on the other side. Then he went in 
 and stood by the sink where mother was washing her 
 dishes. Shep halted at the doorstep, for the kitchen 
 was privileged ground which he was not to enter. 
 The child went at. his thought with simple directness. 
 
 "Say, mum, don't you want a boy?" 
 
 Mother smiled at the forlorn little figure, and yet 
 there was a mist upon her spectacles as she slowly 
 answered : 
 
 "Yes, I do, I have wanted one for a long time." 
 
32 THE CHILD 
 
 "And Uncle Hiram, does he want a boy?" 
 
 "Perhaps he does." 
 
 "What kind of a boy does he want?" 
 
 Mother did not mean to do it, but this poor, shabby 
 little waif, voicing the dread and the desire that lay 
 in his untrained soul, was too much for her reserve. 
 Without stopping to dry her hands from the dish 
 water, she sat in her rocking chair and gathered the 
 child in her arms. "You poor little thing, you poor 
 little thing." 
 
 But the child was wise ; he knew. 
 
 "But what kind of a boy does Uncle Hiram want?" 
 he persisted. 
 
 "Oh, he wants a smart boy, one that can work and 
 help him." 
 
 "I kin work, I kin work. Tell me what I can do, 
 so I kin help Uncle Hiram." 
 
 The child was so earnest in his talk that mother 
 put him at picking chips and brush at the woodpile, 
 and much to his joy gave him the definite job of 
 keeping the wood box filled. When Hiram came home 
 he found the child tugging a basket of chips up the 
 kitchen steps. 
 
 "See me work, Uncle Hiram, see me work. I'm go- 
 ing to help you." 
 
 Through the long forenoon the child picked his 
 chips, played with the dog, or sat and watched Hiram 
 at his work. They had an early dinner, for Hiram 
 and mother were to drive to town in the afternoon. 
 Children are supposed to enjoy gnawing a drumstick, 
 so Hiram gave the child two of the best that a fat 
 Leghorn could produce. The child gnawed at them 
 with wolfish eagerness. He probably bit off a small 
 piece of sharp bone in his hunger, for in trying to 
 swallow he suddenly gave a sharp cry, and in his 
 anger threw the bone across the table. It barely 
 missed knocking a cup to the floor. Then the child 
 
THE CHILD 33 
 
 caught at his throat and looked at Hiram like a 
 hunted little animal. 
 
 "It's his throat ; let's look at it," said mother. 
 
 But the frightened child refused to keep his mouth 
 open. He seemed to dread an inspection of the fatal 
 secret which lay in his throat. Hiram got a small 
 corncob and held it behind him until the child opened 
 his mouth to breathe. Then by quickly thrusting the 
 cob in at the side of the mouth, they held the boy's 
 jaws open. The upper part of the throat was angry 
 and red. Below, and extending as far down as they 
 could see, was a grayish, horrible growth like the 
 mold found upon bread or grain. It must have been 
 torture to the child to swallow hard food. 
 
 "Hopeless." 
 
 Hiram and mother both had the same thought as 
 they glanced at each other. The child watched them, 
 as if he realized what it meant to have his sad secret 
 revealed. 
 
 "We'd better make him gargle with salt and water, 
 and make him wear his stocking tied around it at 
 night," said mother, but Hiram shook his head, for 
 he knew that such a case was far beyond the reach of 
 her simple remedies. 
 
 They did not take the child as they drove away. 
 Had he been a handsome, attractive child without that 
 ridiculous dress, Hiram would have been rather proud 
 to have him perched on the little stool which he car- 
 ried in front of the buggy. But in truth he was a 
 little ashamed to be seen with this shabby castaway. 
 He would sooner have been seen driving a shambling, 
 limping, broken-down horse. So the child sat with 
 old Shep by the woodpile and watched them drive 
 away. A depression had fallen upon him. It was 
 doubtful if he was the smart boy that Uncle Hiram 
 wanted after all. Mother turned back at the top of 
 the hill and waved her hand. I wish Uncle Hiram 
 had not looked straight ahead without turning, for 
 
34 THE CHILD 
 
 there was a lonely little heart back on his farm long- 
 ing for a sign from him. 
 
 It was a long afternoon for the child. He picked 
 up chips, played with the old dog and watched the 
 cattle on the distant hills. Yet it was lonely when 
 the shadows of the fence posts lengthened, and it grew 
 a little dark on the shady side of the barn. Mother 
 had left him two pieces of bread and butter. One went 
 to Shep, who gulped his share down without remark or 
 previous preparation, and the child with his tender 
 throat, envied his old friend's remarkable ability in 
 the way of swallowing. 
 
 They had just finished their lunch when Hen Bing- 
 ham came climbing over the pasture fence. He came 
 and sat on the woodpile, while the child filled the bas- 
 ket with chips. Hen Bingham would not willingly 
 have harmed a fly, yet as he watched the child he felt 
 the same feeling of repugnance which had come to 
 Hiram. As he told his wife later in explanation of 
 his conduct, "Some of these folks is p'ison to me, and 
 yer can't help it." 
 
 "Quite a worker, ain't ye ?" 
 
 The child stopped with a chip in his hand. "Uncle 
 Hiram wants a smart boy." 
 
 "Kinder applying for the job, are ye? Ain't ye 
 got no folks of your own?" 
 
 The child dropped his chip and looked suspiciously 
 at Hen Bingham. He was coming to secret family 
 matters now. 
 
 "My father must be 'way off yonder." He swung 
 his arms half round the horizon as if to indicate the 
 indefinite location of his parent. "My mudder is in 
 a hospital." 
 
 In truth, the child's mother had died in an alms- 
 house. It is not clear whether he realized it, but his 
 loyal little heart had coined the hope into expression 
 that she was on the road to recovery at a hospital. 
 
 "Sho, sho, don't you never go and see her?" 
 
THE CHILD 35 
 
 Hen should have been warned by the eager joy 
 
 which lighted up the child's face at this suggestion. 
 
 "Oh, say, mister! you don't suppose I can go, do 
 
 yer?" 
 
 I do not think Hen Bingham meant to lead the 
 child along in this way. He could not realize what 
 it meant, for life had brought no real sorrows into his 
 existence. Hen was one of those unfortunate crea- 
 tures who go through life fooling with human emo- 
 tions, and thus never sounding their real depths. Sit- 
 ting there on the woodpile with the shadows gathering 
 around him, he merely saw a chance to play a poor, 
 foolish, practical joke on this unlovable child. 
 
 "Why, of course ye kin. I might hitch up myself 
 and take ye over." 
 
 "But when, mister, when?" 
 
 The child ran to him eagerly and caught hold of 
 his coat. 
 
 "We'll go — let me see, let me see — I guess we can 
 go when Sunday comes in the middle of the week." 
 
 The child studied a moment, and then asked with 
 a shade of doubt in his voice, "When do Sunday come 
 in the middle of the week, anyway?" 
 
 "Figger on it," said Hen. 
 
 The child sat down on the basket and counted on 
 his little fingers through the days of the week. The 
 joy died out of his face. 
 
 "How do they ever git Sunday in between Wednes- 
 day and Thursday?" 
 
 "When somebody dies and the minister preaches 
 a funeral service Wednesday night," and Hen, proud 
 of his j oke, burst into a roar of laughter. 
 
 "Then Sunday don't never come in the middle of 
 the week?" 
 
 "Not up here in Grant County it don't. Mebbe it 
 does where you come from, and where the hospital 
 is," and Hen roared again. 
 
36 THE CHILD 
 
 The child burst into a wild sob of grief that fright- 
 ened Hen Bingham. "Yer fooled me, yer lied to mc 
 about my mudder, all the mudder I ever did have. 
 Sunday don't never come in the middle of the week, 
 and you knowed it. I hate ye, I hate ye. I wished I 
 was growed up and could make ye suffer." 
 
 It was pitiful, the impotent anger of the lonely 
 child. He held his little arm before his eyes and stag- 
 gered blindly to the kitchen door. There he stood, his 
 arm still to his eyes, and his face pressed close against 
 the side of the house. It was the saddest picture of 
 hopeless grief that the farm had ever known. It was 
 the death of childish hope. Old Shep walked slowly 
 to the side of the little sufferer, and stood there in 
 mute sympathy. 
 
 Hen Bingham was frightened. He had never be- 
 fore seen such grief as this. The child's wild out- 
 burst startled the man's dull and complacent soul like 
 an electric shock. He stood awkwardly by the side 
 of the woodpile rubbing his hands together. 
 
 "Why, sonny, I didn't mean nothin', I was just 
 foolin'. Come on now, sonny, I'll give you a pigeon, 
 and I'll tell you where there is a woodchuck's hole." 
 
 Poor Hen Bingham, poor, shallow, sterile soul 
 that could not understand the heart hunger and the 
 thirst of the soul which filled the sobbing child. Poor 
 Hen Bingham, to offer pigeons and woodchucks as 
 balm for the bleeding heart of a lonely little one ! 
 
 The child, with his arm before his eyes, only pushed 
 closer against the house. "You lied to me, you bed 
 to me about my mudder, and I ain't got nobody else. 
 You knew Sunday don't never come in the middle of 
 the week. Now I know she's dead. I hate ye, I hate 
 ye," and the child burst into another wild sob of rage. 
 Old Shep had known Hen Bingham as a neighbor all 
 his life, yet even he turned with a half growl at the 
 words of the child. And it was right at this point 
 that Hiram and mother drove into the yard. 
 
THE CHILD 37 
 
 For the first time in twenty-five years Hiram and 
 mother had driven a mile or more without speaking. 
 That means more than you think when the woman 
 represents wife, sweetheart and daughter all com- 
 bined, but it was true, and the cause of it was the 
 child. He had been in their thoughts all the way 
 home along the lonely country road, and finally 
 mother had voiced the question which they could not 
 escape : 
 
 "What shall we do with that child?" 
 They both knew that legally there was nothing to 
 do but wait until the Elder came back, and then let 
 the child go, with perhaps a few regrets that he did 
 not measure up closer to their ideal. There should have 
 been no discussion over that, yet somehow the last 
 few hours had revived old memories, and both of them 
 knew that the future would never be just the same 
 again now that a child had sat by their fire, and slept 
 in the crib. And with this had come a fierce resent- 
 ment to Hiram's heart. Why had this unloved and 
 repellent child come into his life to arouse all longings 
 and dreams, and yet. turn them into nightmare by his 
 undesirable personality? Hiram regretted it for 
 years after, but he gave voice to his disappointment. 
 "I do not care what becomes of him. The man who 
 called him a brat was right. He is the poorest speci- 
 men I ever saw, the last child on earth that I would 
 ever have picked out. If I am to have a child in my 
 house, why do I not have some choice in selecting him ? 
 He would die on our hands with that throat and leg. 
 Give me a child that is worth anything, and I might 
 take him, but this one has no more value than a stray 
 cat. I wish the Elder would take him away to-night. 
 I do not care what becomes of him ; drown him if you 
 want to." 
 
 Hiram would have bitten off his tongue rather than 
 say this a moment after the words were out of his 
 mouth, for then he knew in his heart that he did not 
 
38 THE CHILD 
 
 mean what lie had said, and yet somehow he could 
 not in his pride and resentment take them back. He 
 glanced at mother's frightened face, and he read her 
 thoughts, for he had read in her big black book the 
 key to this story, which we are not to know until the 
 very end. Then there flashed into his mind the 
 thought of what he had mentally done to "one of the 
 least of these." Hiram was not a religious man, but 
 on the last sullen mile of that ride, with the shadows 
 deepening along the country road, and that fright- 
 ened face beside him, the man's soul seemed to climb 
 to the top of the barrier and glance for a moment 
 over into the eternity which lies beyond. And thus 
 they drove in silence into the shadowed yard. Some- 
 thing told them that the crisis had come in the piti- 
 ful group before the kitchen door. 
 
 If you ever have the misfortune to catch some old 
 friend robbing a henroost, you may know exactly how 
 Hen Bingham felt and acted as Hiram pulled in the 
 black. Hen was no coward; he had proved that un- 
 der fire, but now he hung his head and edged away 
 toward the fence like a soldier who hunts for a place 
 to run. Under ordinary circumstances Hiram would 
 have noticed this, and he would also have seen that 
 Shep had something to tell him, but his eyes were 
 fixed upon the child, still standing with his little face 
 pressed close against his arm. Hiram got to the child 
 before mother could, and shook him by the shoulder. 
 
 "Here, what you bin up to?" 
 
 But the friendless child could not answer. He 
 struggled free and tried to press even closer against 
 the house. 
 
 "Speak up or I'll take the stick to you," Hiram 
 said roughly. Then it suddenly occurred to him that 
 Shep for the first time in his life was actually growl- 
 ing at his master, and had come menacingly between 
 him and the child. Through many years of friend- 
 ship before the fire, on lonely walks, and through 
 
THE CHILD 39 
 
 stormy journeys, Hiram had come to know Shep. He 
 knew and trusted him as one of the few friends on 
 earth who would die, if need be, for him. Never be- 
 fore had the old dog acted like this, never before had 
 he growled and ruffled his fur. Hiram took his hand 
 from the child's shoulder and turned to Hen Bingham. 
 
 "What's this mean, anyway?" 
 
 "I guess it's kinder my fault. I didn't mean noth- 
 in'. I was just a-foolin' him, that's all." 
 
 The child burst out with another wild fit of anger. 
 
 "He lied to me about me mudder. He told me I 
 could see her when Sunday come in the middle of the 
 week, an' I figgered an' figgered, an' Sunday don't 
 never come then, and he knowed it, he knowed it, and 
 he larfed, he larfed at me mudder; I ain't got no 
 other." 
 
 I cannot tell you how mother managed to get him 
 away from his place by the wall, but she did. When 
 Hiram turned again she was sitting on the kitchen 
 step holding the child. He still had his arm pressed 
 against his eyes, and the little wailing voice repeated 
 over and over, "Sunday won't never, never come in the 
 middle of the week." 
 
 Then anger, hot and terrible, surged over Hiram's 
 heart. This man was his comrade. They had faced 
 death side by side, yet the crime which this man had 
 committed, the sin against childhood, the murdering 
 of that most beautiful tiling of human nature, child- 
 ish faith, seemed to tear their friendship apart as one 
 would throw off a hateful thing. 
 
 "What, Hen Bingham, have you bin fooling this 
 child about his mother? You bin breaking down this 
 child's faith?" 
 
 "Why, Hiram, I was just a-foolin', that's all. I 
 didn't know he'd feel so bad." 
 
 Hiram suddenly remembered how, years before, at 
 the battle of Antietam, looking across the battlefield, 
 he had seen a sharpshooter of the enemy deliberately 
 
40 THE CHILD 
 
 shoot a drummer boy, a mere child, and then wave 
 his hat in triumph. It was so deliberate and cruel 
 that there was hellish glee in Hiram's heart when his 
 regiment was ordered to charge. He had hunted like 
 a madman over that battlefield for the child's slayer, 
 only to find him at last shot through and through by 
 some more fortunate avenger. The same wild rage 
 possessed him now at the shuffling and cringing Hen 
 Bingham. He forgot their years of friendship, all 
 that had gone between them, in the wild anger, as he 
 thought of what this man had done. 
 
 "Damn you, get off my farm !" he cried in a terri- 
 ble voice. 
 
 "But, Hiram, come, old comrade." 
 
 "Damn you, damn you for a damned coward ! Get 
 off my farm." 
 
 Hen Bingham was no coward ; he had proved that. 
 Those who saw him do it have told me how at Vicks- 
 burg Hen ran out into an open field where dead men 
 lay as thick as leaves, and saved the regiment's colors 
 from capture, when the color bearer was shot down. 
 Hen had looked straight into the eyes of death with- 
 out a quiver. He was no coward then. Ah ! but at 
 that time he knew in his soul that he was offering his 
 life as a holy sacrifice. The cry of the child con- 
 victed him now. He edged on back to the fence with 
 a feeble attempt to explain. 
 
 "Damn you, get off my farm before I kill yer." 
 
 Hiram actually ran to the kitchen door and took 
 down the old musket which had hung there unused for 
 years. Both Hiram and Hen should have known that 
 the old gun could not possibly get into action; no 
 man living could have ever cocked it, and the barrel 
 was choked full with rust, but there was something 
 frightful on the face of the old soldier as he came 
 down the kitchen steps with the musket in his hands. 
 It turned Hen's heart cold. He had seen something 
 
THE CHILD 41 
 
 like that before. It was in a Bible picture ; on the hag- 
 gard, sharp, starved face of a woman standing before 
 the bodies of her sons, staff in hand and beating back 
 with wearied arms great hideous looking birds fierce 
 for their prey. Hen was no coward, but there was 
 guilt and fear in his heart, and he climbed the fence 
 and started at his shuffling trot across the field to his 
 home. He went slower and slower, looking back from 
 time to time, yet he did not stop until he reached the 
 last fence from which he could look down upon his 
 own home. Poor Hen Bingham, poor Hen Bingham. 
 He was thinking as he sat there how the night before 
 he had gone home with a light heart after his kindly 
 drive with the Elder, singing — 
 
 "Just as I am, 
 Without one plea." 
 
 He could not sing it now, for he would not dare to 
 offer himself as he was then. 
 
 Back on the Bently. farm Hiram stood white and 
 trembling, leaning upon the old musket. His burst 
 of fierce anger had passed, and there followed a curi- 
 ous wonder at his own action. He had cursed and 
 driven away the friend of his youth, a tried old com- 
 rade, a good neighbor, with all that means in the hill 
 country. And why had he done it? To defend a 
 strange child, a poor, useless creature, who he him- 
 self had accurately classed as not worth bringing up. 
 Hiram had felt sure of himself through his life, yet 
 here had come a new influence, a powerful influence, 
 which he could not understand. 
 
 The child had stopped his crying as Hiram took 
 down the musket. He watched Hen Bingham climb 
 the fence, and retreat across the pasture. Then he 
 caught mother's dress in his' hand and gently pulled it. 
 
 "Come," he said, "I have something to say." 
 
 Mother rose and followed him. Still holding her 
 dress, he led her to where Hiram was standing leaning 
 
'42 THE CHILD 
 
 upon the musket. Clutching the dress with his left 
 hand, the child caught Hiram's coat with his right. 
 There he stood between them, pulling with his feeble 
 strength to bring them together, not realizing that 
 he had separated their thoughts for the first time in 
 a quarter of a century. 
 
 "Say, do you know what I want?" 
 
 "No, sonny, I don't," said Hiram honestly. 
 
 "I want her for me mudder, and I want you for me 
 father." 
 
 And all that Hiram Bently could bring himself to 
 say was this: 
 
 "Well, sonny, there are mighty few folks in this 
 world that are permitted to pick out their own 
 parents." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 They were sitting before the fire again, when they 
 heard Hen Bingham's gray turn into the yard. There 
 were three of them now, four if you give old Shep 
 the family rights which belonged to him. The child 
 sat beside Hiram in a little chair which had made its 
 way from the attic — the companion of the crib. 
 
 Hen Bingham was no coward. I repeat that state- 
 ment again and again, because it is true. It might 
 be necessary to remind you of it once more when you 
 saw Hen walk into that room. He did not come will- 
 ingly, but he was pushed on by a stronger power. Of 
 course, I would like to be able to say that it was Hen's 
 conscience which had directed old Gray out in the 
 road without letting her go by the Bently farm. In 
 truth, however, I cannot say that. It had helped, no 
 doubt, but Mrs. Bingham had more to do with it. It 
 was she who puHed so hard on the left rein as' they 
 reached the gate and were going }jj. 
 
 If you have ever traveled to the salt water, you 
 have probably seen a big ocean liner brought into 
 harbor. It seems as if the great ship comes in re- 
 luctantly, unwilling to leave the boundless ocean and 
 risk itself in some land-locked harbor. And so some 
 little tug, pigmy by the side of the giant, grips the 
 great ship with its surprising power and pushes it in. 
 That was about the manner of Hen Bingham's en- 
 trance from the darkness of the night, where he would 
 gladly have remained. They heard him on the out- 
 side as he tied his horse. 
 
 "I guess I'll kinder wait out here while you borry 
 the thread." 
 
 "No y\>u won't," answered a sharp voice; "you'll 
 
44 THE CHILD 
 
 go right in ahead of me and make this here thing up 
 before you go to sleep." 
 
 Hen took the slowest and longest way of getting 
 in. He went slowly through the kitchen and the shed, 
 and at last appeared in the door, his wife behind him 
 urging him on. If Hen made you think of a Ply- 
 mouth Rock rooster, his wife reminded you of a Ban- 
 tam hen. Who does not know that little Mrs. Ban- 
 tam, in her plain brown dress, carries more of the 
 power which rules her world to the ounce than any 
 other occupant of the barnyard? 
 
 Mrs. Bingham brought her chair up beside mother, 
 but all her influence failed to drive Hen into the fire- 
 light. He sat back in the corner by the little melo- 
 deon, not that there was music in his heart, quite the 
 reverse, but so that his wife might fully occupy the 
 limelight, and she was quite equal to the occasion. 
 Some people approach their subject through pleasant 
 bypaths of conversation ; the weather, the crops, 
 housework, or the like; considering these things, a 
 sort of easy approach, smoothing the way for the 
 business in hand. Mrs. Bingham was as direct in her 
 approach as a deaf man who, denied the skim-milk of 
 conversation, must get at the cream at once. 
 
 "I brought this here man of mine over to set things 
 right. When you put this man off a farm, I will help 
 you if it's right, but if it hain't, you'll have to put me 
 off, too." 
 
 There was a fierce note of determination about this 
 little woman as she pointed her sharp finger at Hiram. 
 The child began to tremble, and drew closer to 
 Hiram's knee. The man put his own hand down over 
 the child's and waited. He knew Nancy Bingham; 
 there was nothing to do but wait until she had fin- 
 ished. 
 
 "This here man of mine come home last night mak- 
 ing the medders ring with 'Just as I am.' I always 
 did think that a dangerous song for a lazy, triflin' 
 
THE CHILD 45 
 
 man to be singin'. It don't hold him up to nothin'. 
 As he quit singin' at the barn, however, I didn't say 
 a word. To-night he come home from the same place 
 white and tremblin', and wouldn't eat no supper. He 
 wouldn't touch nothin', although I had some hot 
 dough left over and had cooked some fried pies. 
 When Hen Bingham comes a soft sawderin' around 
 me, he always praises them pies, but to-night he 
 wouldn't touch one. He said he'd bin talkin' polytics 
 and got kinder het up over 'lection. After supper I 
 found I didn't have no thread to match his coat, so 
 as I could mend it, and I told him to come over and 
 borry a spool of Mis' Bently, and he wouldn't come. 
 'Why not?' says I. Then he said that he wouldn't 
 have a spool of Republican thread used on his Demy- 
 cratic coat if he had to wear rags. Now, me and Mis' 
 Bently don't see no polytics in thread, one way or 
 'nother; its all made in the same house and all wound 
 on the same kind of spool, like Demycrats and Re- 
 publicans all wear the same kind of clothes, and 
 finally come to the same kind of grave. Me and Mis' 
 Bently kin forgit polytics on top of the earth if the 
 men can't. In spite of this he wouldn't come. Then 
 I says, says I, 'Hen Bingham, you got somethin' 
 terrible corruptin' in your mind. You and Hiram 
 Bently ain't got no ordinary differences to last ye 
 overnight. Talk up,' says I. 'What's happened to 
 ye?' Then he comes out with a ramblin' story about 
 foolin' the child, and Hiram orderin' him off the farm. 
 Now I am bound to say that Hen tells the truth, 
 when you force him to it, and I ain't gonter let him 
 sleep to-night, nor never, with no such thing hangin' 
 over him and between good neighbors." 
 
 The -child was struggling to restrain another out- 
 burst, but Hiram patted his hand. 
 
 "Don't talk, sonny," he said ; "it will come out all 
 right." 
 
 "And so," continued this police woman of peace, 
 
46 THE CHILD 
 
 "here we be, and now, Henry Bingham, you do your 
 duty." 
 
 I have always felt sorry for a man like Hen Bing- 
 ham, when it comes to confessing a fault. One of 
 these glib-tongued mouthers can get it over in short 
 order, and really make you think before they are done 
 that they are much abused persons, when they are 
 clearly at fault. A strong, passionate character comes 
 to his confession with something of tragic dignity and 
 pathos, but when some honest, good-natured, awk- 
 ward character like Hen Bingham bows at the stool 
 of repentance, humbles himself in all his ungainly 
 strength, and tries to clear his heart, it seems to me 
 that his enemies might well weep rather than rejoice 
 at his poor humiliation. 
 
 Hen got as far into the shadow as he could and 
 cleared his throat. "Well, gentlemen," he could 
 not think of any better way to begin a speech, "I 
 done wrong and I know it. I didn't mean no harm 
 to nobody; I was just a-foolin', and I guess it was 
 the devil himself that sorter led me along. I ought 
 not to done it. I got started wrong on this here fool- 
 in' and devilin' with things. When I was a boy my 
 folks sorter encouraged this foolin' and playin' with 
 life, and I sorter picked it up. I can't get rid of it no 
 more than a dog can stop waggin' his tail. Hiram, 
 you done right to order me off after what I done to 
 the child. Gawd knows I wish I had the livin' power 
 to get mad like that when it's a righteous call. I 
 hope you'll forgive me, comrade ; and as for the child, 
 as a man I can't say no more than this: I'm darn 
 sorry I ever plagued him so, and if he was only big 
 enough, I'd turn round and let him kick me hard till 
 my nose bled. As a man, I can't say no more than 
 that." 
 
 That was a great speech for Hen Bingham to 
 nake; no man could have said more, as he expressed 
 it, as a man. As he finished, a fat log on the fire 
 
THE CHILD 47, 
 
 burst into flame with a sudden poof, as if nature at 
 .east wanted to provide some applause. Hiram held 
 out his hand, and the two old soldiers renewed their 
 friendship, but the child folded his arms and refused 
 to make friends with Hen. His little heart was too 
 sore. Even when Hen came and held out his hand, 
 the child obstinately refused to take it. 
 
 "Oh, sonny, you better make it up with Uncle Hen. 
 He said he was sorry." 
 
 But the child still folded his arms. "Sunday don't 
 never come in the middle of the week," was all he 
 would say. 
 
 "Jest what I was a-lookin' for," broke in Mrs. 
 Bingham. "Jest what I told Hen, this here trouble 
 between my man and the child ain't a thing for no 
 human power to remove. We got to look higher for 
 the remedy. Now, Hen, you git right down on your 
 knees and ask the Lawd to forgive you, for when He 
 does it, the child will do it, too, and he won't before." 
 
 Hen Bingham, I have called you poor because it 
 seemed to me that the poverty of your soul made you 
 a moral pauper, but now I will say rich Hen Bing- 
 lam, for you are rich, so rich that a millionaire might 
 jnvy you. You are rich, though faltering, awkward, 
 and tongue-tied in the poor apology for a prayer 
 which you tried to make that night in the firelight. 
 You are rich, Hen Bingham, for that awkward prayer 
 was heard, and will be treasured up through eternity 
 for you. No, no, I cannot tell you what poor Hen 
 tried to say. He knelt there in his patched overalls, 
 the great cowhide boots clumsily in his way. His 
 coat surely needed that Republican thread. His gray 
 hair was tangled, the sweat stood on his forehead, 
 and the knuckles of his great gnarled hands were 
 white at the force which which he gripped the chair. 
 Yet awkward figure as he was, as he tried to pray, 
 there came a nobility, a peace upon his face, which 
 we have not seen there before. 
 
48 THE CHILD 
 
 I ought not to tell you how poor Hen rambled on, 
 seemingly repeating over and over again, "I didn't 
 mean no harm to the child, and you know I'm darn 
 sorry for it." I would not care to attempt to edit 
 that prayer. But finally Hen stopped before his 
 prayer was finished. The great beads of sweat stood 
 on his face, but his tongue was tied. His faltering 
 petition had broken down. Then a strange thing 
 happened. Mrs. Bingham stood up as one would have 
 supposed to scold this awkward and faltering man. 
 Instead of that she stepped lightly to his side and 
 knelt there beside him. She took up the petition 
 which the poor fellow had dropped, and this was tjtie 
 end of her prayer : 
 
 "0 dear Lord, help this here poor sinful, faltering 
 man to get such a holt on Thy abiding grace that he 
 will appear lovely into the eyes of this here little child. 
 Amen." 
 
 It had been altogether a hard day for poor Hen 
 Bingham, a day of fierce emotions to a man so un- 
 emotional, that he would hardly have recognized one 
 had he seen it in his barnyard. He got back into his 
 chair to find that the child was standing looking 
 straight at him. They faced each other in the fire- 
 light. Something in the soul of the child searched 
 the soul of Hen Bingham, and found hidden there 
 behind the rubbish of years of "foolin' " the thing 
 which satisfied it, for the child walked up to Hen and 
 put his little hand up on that patched knee. "Uncle 
 Hen," he said, "it do look like Sunday had finally 
 come right here in the middle of the week, don't it?" 
 
 He pulled Hen Bingham until he brought the 
 chair up to the fire. Then the child climbed up upon 
 the man's knee' and nestled up closer to him, and Hen, 
 no longer poor, but rich, with that little form pressed 
 warmly against him, felt something of that peace 
 which passeth understanding. As for Mrs. Bingham, 
 for a wonder she was silent. She went out into the 
 
THE CHILD 49 
 
 kitchen for a drink of water, and remained a suspi- 
 ciously long time. It would never do for the head of 
 the Bingham household to show the weakening evi- 
 dence of emotion. 
 
 And now, by this time, of course, some of you are 
 beginning to say, "What is this man driving at, any- 
 way ? I thought this was to be a story. Why doesn't 
 this man start in on his plot? What is he getting at 
 anyway ? He ought to have some 'problem' under way 
 by this time. Why not a murder or two, or some 
 spicy crime ? Why does he not begin to analyze char- 
 acters and get away from these plain and homely 
 folks who have no excitement about their lives ? Where 
 is the beautiful heroine who marries the rich man and 
 saves the home? Is there no barefooted boy who runs 
 away and makes several millions in Wall Street? 
 
 You will have to be patient with me, my dear, im- 
 patient reader. The kindly people of the hill country 
 do not indulge in murders and crimes. Their prob- 
 lem is as important as yours, but it comes in the sim- 
 ple march of life from day to day. You must remem- 
 ber that "agriculture" is merely the polished boots of 
 farming. I do not know how to analyze a character; 
 I could not do it to save my life. All that I do know 
 is that history is being made through the impressions 
 which are engraved upon the heart and soul of little 
 children. These mental pictures make sentiment and 
 character one way or the other. As our poor little 
 plot develops, we shall see, I think, how the homely 
 little scenes with which you are impatient and which 
 we are trying faithfully to record, determined the 
 future life of the child. You will see, if you think 
 for a moment, that the future life of a child means all 
 there is of future history for evil or for good. And 
 when we come to the end and read the key which lies 
 in mother's black book, I think we shall all under- 
 stand. 
 
 We have gone far enough to see that the child has 
 
50 THE CHILD 
 
 found a place in Hiram Bently's heart. This is prog- 
 ress, but wait and see if the child can also get into his 
 pocketbook. I am sorry to admit it, but up in the hill 
 country as elsewhere the treasure walks ahead and 
 the heart follows tagging behind, so that you may 
 know where to go and hunt for them. Of course, I 
 know it ought to be different, but then, you know, I 
 am not trying to tell a modern problem story; I am 
 here to record facts as we may find them in the hill 
 country. 
 
 And now it was Hiram's turn to "take it back." 
 
 "I done wrong, too, Hen. I ought not to have said 
 what I did." 
 
 " 'Taint so, Hiram ; I think more of ye than I did 
 before. It's just like General Grant." 
 
 Nancy Bingham had heard about General Grant 
 until she knew the story by heart. Under ordinary 
 circumstances Hen would never have got any further, 
 but after a man has done what Hen Bingham did 
 that night, is he not entitled to some little reward on 
 earth at least? Should he not be free for the moment 
 to enjoy the few poor privileges which cost so little? 
 So at least Nancy seemed to decide, and Hen went 
 on: 
 
 "I know it's so, because Sam Claflin was standing 
 guard on the General's tent. The guard brought a 
 prisoner down the camp street. He was a Union sol- 
 dier, and they had him handcuffed. They had catched 
 him at a crime which ought to mean death in the army. 
 Just as they reached Grant's tent, the General come 
 out and stopped them. They explained it to him, 
 just as it was, in words that I won't repeat here. The 
 General lost control of himself to think one of his 
 soldiers could do like that, and he catched Sam's gun 
 out of his hands and struck that prisoner to the 
 ground right then and there. A lot of 'em said Grant 
 would lose control of the army, for there he had shown 
 that he couldn't control himself. Instead of that the 
 
THE CHILD 51 
 
 soldiers thought more of him than they ever did be- 
 fore. They see that at heart he was jest a common 
 man like the rest of them. He could hold himself 
 better and carry bigger loads when he tried, but after 
 all was said and done he weren't nothin' but a man 
 like all the rest." 
 
 The evening ended early, as is right in the hill 
 country. Just before she rose to go, Nancy Bingham 
 produced a small bundle. It contained a pair of 
 small blue overalls for the child. 
 
 "They may not fit," she apologized, "but they beat 
 that dress anyway." 
 
 The child hugged them tight, for this was really 
 the first new clothing he had ever known. 
 
 It was pleasant for all of them to hear Hen Bing- 
 ham's song once more, slowly dying away over the 
 hill: 
 
 "Just as I am, poor, helpless, blind, 
 Sight, hearing, healing of the mind." 
 
 And what is this? Those who have keener ears 
 than I have tell me that they are sure they heard 
 through the clear evening air a sharp, high soprano 
 chiming into the song with Hen's awkward bass. 
 
 Rich Hen Bingham, you are rich indeed. I do 
 not know, because I have never found it, but it would 
 seem to me that you have stumbled upon the pearl of 
 great price. You are one of the richest men I know 
 of. You take wealth which a millionaire might envy 
 home in your old buggy, and yet you can afford to 
 leave a fortune behind you in that fire-lighted room. 
 After your song died out over the hill, the child fell 
 asleep before the fire. Mother looked her question 
 this time ; she could not ask it again after what had 
 passed, and this was Hiram's answer: 
 
 "I cannot let the child go now." And so, Hen 
 Bingham, that was where they picked up the future, 
 and in it the fortune which you left in that room. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The next day Hiram wrote to the Elder and told 
 him not to come for the child. There were no prom- 
 ises in the letter; they would just keep the child for 
 awhile and try him. But the wise old Elder smiled 
 and nodded his head at the letter. He was some- 
 thing of a student of human nature, and he knew the 
 power of a child as few men did. 
 
 It was close to noon when Dr. Greenway drove into 
 the yard. Your country doctor comes to know the 
 hills and the farmhouses as his big brown horse goes 
 jogging on his errands of mercy. When you see one 
 of these men, you almost wish that the hill country 
 were not as healthy as it is, for somehow these good 
 Samaritans look a little shabby through lack of prac- 
 tice, and you feel that somehow they cannot keep up 
 in this mighty race where the dollar runs ahead. 
 When sickness called the doctor out near dinner time, 
 he knew where he could best stop for refreshments 
 for man and beast. The doctor knew of no demand 
 for his pills and powders at Hiram's, but the inner 
 man did sound a strong demand for a piece of moth- 
 er's pumpkin pie. It was probably due to the long 
 ride over the hills, but that pie grew in demand until 
 it developed into a large share of a genuine New 
 England dinner. 
 
 There is always time for an after-dinner chat in 
 the hill country at this season. Your city man grabs 
 at his food, bolts and screws it down, and is off on 
 the run to keep his place in the line. But after har- 
 vest, and before corn cutting among the hills, good 
 digestion might well wait upon appetite when Doctor 
 Greenway drove in, and while his horse was munchinc 
 his oats in the barn. 
 
THE CHILD 53 
 
 The child, in the full proud glory of his new over- 
 alls, finished his dinner and ran out to pick up chips. 
 It looked a little like a storm in the east, and' the 
 wood box must be filled with dry wood. He stood up 
 to look at Shep, who had the suspicion that a skunk 
 had crawled under the barn, and Hiram and the doc- 
 tor both noticed that drooping under j aw. 
 
 "A mouth breather," said Doctor Greenway; "let 
 me see that throat." 
 
 The child did not struggle as he did before, yet 
 there were tears in his eyes as he opened his mouth 
 for examination. It is but human nature to attempt 
 to hide our infirmities, as though the fatal secret of 
 disease or affliction could ever be kept from prying 
 eyes. The future of many a little child lies in its 
 throat, and the good doctor shook his head sadly as 
 he saw the hideous gray mold. 
 
 "Run off and play, my boy," he said, as the child 
 lingered as one who waits for a verdict. 
 
 "A dreadful throat, one of the worst I have ever 
 seen," he told Hiram, as the child slowly walked out 
 of earshot. 
 
 "Hopeless?" 
 
 "No, I do not think so, if that growth could be cut 
 out at once. That is the only thing that will stop 
 it. If it is not done, he will be stone deaf at twenty, 
 should he live that long, and he will never be strong. 
 You have no idea, Hiram, how many children's lives 
 are destroyed in their throats. It is the weakness of 
 childhood. That leg is not serious. A strap or a sup- 
 port for a time will help that, but the throat will 
 mean death or worse in time to the child. That is 
 what makes him hold his mouth open. He cannot 
 breathe through his nose as he should." 
 
 Hiram hesitated. Somehow it had seemed natural 
 to him to have the little thing drawn closer, as he had 
 been by the events of the day before. But the question 
 
54 THE CHILD 
 
 of an invalid or a surely defective child was quite an- 
 other thing. To cure him would mean money, and 
 up in the hill country that is the last precious meas- 
 ure of all values. Of necessity money must be in- 
 vested wisely, if at all, in the hill country. There 
 should be no experiments in man or in property, or 
 one may have a "gold brick" in his hand. You can- 
 not afford to put money dug out of these hard hills 
 into land or stock or tools, or in boys, unless you can 
 see through the investment and know the principal is 
 safe with sure interest. He who gambles in these 
 things, gambles with his home, or with those things 
 that make home worth occupying. "The love o? 
 money is the root of all evil." Not always, for money 
 dug out of man's desire to retain it and invested where 
 love leads the way is the root of all blessings. Finally 
 Hiram asked: 
 
 "Could you do the job?" 
 
 "No, Hiram, this is beyond my skill. I am only a 
 countryman, you know, and up here I cannot keep 
 up fully with the procession. I might cut off a leg, 
 pull a tooth, or pull you through pneumonia, but 
 working inside that throat is beyond me. My gar- 
 gles and washes cannot reach it. I would not trust 
 my stiff old hand to scrape and cut within a hair's 
 breadth of the vitals of that boy's throat. You would 
 have to take the child to the hospital at Brownsville. 
 We old fellows back on the hills may do the rough 
 work, but we seem to lack the skill or the power and 
 the light fingers for a job like that, almost as you 
 farmers lack the power to get a fair price for what 
 you sell." 
 
 "How much would it cost?" 
 
 "At least seventy-five dollars,' and perhaps one 
 hundred. It seems awful to pay all that money for 
 a job that takes about as much time as you need to 
 hoe fifty hills of corn. But we can hire one thousand 
 men to hoe the corn, where we find one man to cut out 
 
THE CHILD 55 
 
 that throat. Any one of the thousand hired men 
 would kill the child, and the one skilled surgeon would 
 probably kill the corn. It's the old problem of han- 
 dling the raw material and the finished goods. The 
 prizes all seem to go to the latter class." 
 
 I think Hiram's face must have shown something 
 of the disappointment he felt, for one hundred dol- 
 lars meant half a year's net cash to a hill country 
 farmer; besides, I should not be at all surprised if 
 there were a little mortgage on Hiram's farm anyway. 
 Very likely it was held by his old colonel in the great 
 city. I do not know; it is quite likely, but I should 
 not have the heart to look up the records and find it 
 there. The keen-eyed old doctor read his friend's 
 thought.' 
 
 "I doubt if he is worth that anyway, Hiram. You 
 never can tell about these unpedigreed children. You 
 know, the doctor, the lawyer and the minister see 
 sides of life which are shut to most of the world. You 
 might cure that throat, but a few inches below it is 
 a heart. There you take your risk. It is black or 
 white, and you don't know which. You can't tell what 
 dead influences back of that boy will come to life 
 later, and go to pulling that heart one way or the 
 other. I doubt if you ever could get interest on any 
 such investment. The child has a good head, and I 
 think some good blood in him, but it's a doubtful risk, 
 Hiram, a mighty doubtful risk. But I must go." 
 
 So they watered the big brown horse and hitched 
 him to the doctor's buggy. The doctor left a few of 
 his powders and pills for the child, but he rather shook 
 his head. "He don't need medicine ; let him run and 
 play and do a little work. Let him eat all the fruit 
 and grain that he can. Give him all the milk he 
 wants. Don't feed him meat. Next to the knife at 
 his throat that's all you can do." 
 
 The big brown horse was calling his master back to 
 duty. There was a patient over the hills who would 
 
56 THE CHILD 
 
 scold at the doctor's delay. The brown horse thought 
 it a very important case, for the woman's husband al- 
 ways followed them out at the end of each visit with 
 a white and frightened face, but with all his horse 
 sense the horse did not know as much of human na- 
 ture as the doctor did. The old man knew better. He 
 was acquainted with nerves. Had he not been giving 
 that woman cornmeal pills, coated red? Had the 
 powders which she took so readily not contained 
 sugar and starch, and a little quinine to give them a 
 taste? Possibly the doctor had violated some of the 
 ethics of his profession in conducting this treatment 
 for a few weeks. But Doctor Greenway knew the hill 
 people far better than the gentlemen who organize 
 the rules of conduct for the medical profession. As 
 for the man, he, poor fellow, was a victim of that sad 
 disease which the doctor had named "got-him-fooled." 
 Truth to say, had Doctor Greenway been a czar or 
 emperor, with the power to work his will, he would 
 have had that lady at the washtub or down on her 
 knees scrubbing the kitchen floor and thus develop a 
 great appetite. When the Doctor charged these visits 
 on his books, he always hesitated, for he felt that he 
 was about to handle tainted money. 
 
 But they were off at last, the big brown horse jog- 
 ging on up hill and down, trying in his poor way to 
 hold the old doctor to his duty. The hill people saw 
 him across the country, jogging over the road, and 
 they said one to another: 
 
 "There goes old Doc. Greenway. Wonder who's 
 sick now, anyway; but whoever it is, I'll bet they'll 
 be well cared for. If I git sick don't you send for 
 none of them scientific fellers down to town, but bring 
 old Doc Greenway as quick as the Lord will let ye. 
 He may not be up on science, but he knows the hills, 
 and he knows the folks that live there. I don't want 
 them young fellers playin' new games with me !" 
 
 It may be said, however, that Dr. Greenway was 
 
THE CHILD SI 
 
 more concerned over the basket of Fameuse apples 
 and the dozen of eggs which Hiram had put in the 
 hack of his buggy. For Doctor Greenway had had 
 his hour of romance long ago, and it had sweetened 
 his life and given him visions and hopes. He believed 
 in the hill country and what it could produce. There 
 were none better so long as the spirit of the hills was 
 left in them. That was why he passed as more than a 
 wise man — which is a wise man with a tender heart 
 and a tongue that can be silent if need be. On this 
 very trip across the country Sam Bassett came out 
 of the house where he lived alone, and stopped him. 
 Sam was not sick, and both knew it, but Sam had to 
 follow a winding road to his needs. 
 
 "Doc, honest, now, I hate to have Winter come on 
 once more without gettin' married. Sorter lone- 
 some up here when snow flies. What you think of 
 my tryin' one of these matrymonial agencies?" 
 
 Doctor Greenway never smiled. Did he not tell 
 Hiram that the doctor sees sides of life which most of 
 us cannot know even by guess? The big brown 
 horse was impatient, but the doctor held him in. 
 
 "Sam," he said, "I want to tell you about a widow 
 woman in Colorado." 
 
 "That's a good ways off. Car fare would be heavy." 
 
 "This woman's husband died and left her a legacy 
 of five children and a washtub. She stood outside her 
 little house day after day toiling at that tub to sup- 
 port her children. It was all she knew, and she kept 
 scrubbing while the tears ran down her cheeks. One 
 day an engineer came running a line across the valley, 
 with a mining expert with him. The line they were 
 on ran right under her tub. These men knew. They 
 found a vein of silver right under her feet — not a 
 yard below her. There she was toiling and slaving at 
 her tub, with almost uncounted wealth within reach of 
 her hand. She did not know enough to look for it. 
 Now, Sam, one trouble with this country is that a lot 
 
58 THE CHILD 
 
 of men cannot see that right here, close to their feet, 
 he the very things they need. Get up, Tom — we're 
 late!" 
 
 Sam Bassett watched the big brown horse at his 
 j og trot until he j ogged out of sight. Then he leaned 
 on the fence for 10 solid minutes and looked directly 
 at the ground. He quit work an hour earlier than 
 usual, shaved and put on his best clothes, and he was 
 last seen, as night came on, walking across the pas- 
 ture where the Widow Brown's farm joined his. 
 
 Every business instinct which Hiram possessed told 
 him that as an investment the child was not worth one 
 hundred dollars of his money. That was the first 
 thing he was able to decide. It is hard where' one is 
 obliged to estimate the value of living flesh and blood 
 in cash, and yet when this cash is as elusive an arti- 
 cle as they find it in the hill country after taxes and 
 interest and feed bills are paid, you can hardly blame 
 them for figuring the throat of a strange child as a 
 dubious risk. Still, cold-blooded reasoning and figur- 
 ing could hardly settle it when the child day by day, 
 tried more and more to "help," and began to tell what 
 he would do off in that great beautiful future of 
 childhood when he could run the farm and Uncle 
 Hiram could rest. 
 
 At any rate, there was to be a reunion of war vet- 
 erans in Brownsville the next week. You could not 
 keep Hiram and Hen away, and mother and Nancy, 
 who were stout members of the Women's Relief Corps, 
 would be on hand to help relieve the situation. How 
 could they miss it? Hiram's old colonel was coming 
 up from the great city to make the speech, or "deliver 
 the oration," as the papers had it. Yes, and it was 
 finally decided to take the child along. Somehow 
 Hiram and Hen had difficulty in figuring the money 
 value of an investment which gave no practical return, 
 yet they were very willing to spend their money over 
 the sentiment of this reunion. It was a whim of 
 
THE CHILD 59 
 
 Hiram's that the child must wear a suit of blue, like 
 his old Grand Army coat. i 
 
 And so the day before their departure, we find our 
 friends at the village. The black was tied to the 
 post in front of the bank, and mother was picking 
 out the child's suit in Sterling's dry goods store. This 
 was no job for Hiram, and he walked down the street 
 to the post office, where a crowd of farmers stood talk- 
 ing pohtics. 
 
 Have you ever been able to account for the fact 
 that men and women are seized now and then with 
 an overpowering desire to play with temptation? 
 There may be those of iron character who have never 
 known this feeling, but most of us poor human beings 
 know what it is to be driven -by some sudden impulse 
 to do, right there on the spur of the moment, the 
 very things which we have decided not to do, and 
 which cold-blooded reason has proved to us should 
 not be done. I know not what causes this strange im- 
 pulse. It may be some warp or twist of the mind. I 
 have heard cynics say that it may be caused by too 
 much mince pie or too large a dinner. It may be the 
 sudden springing into life of some desire which has 
 leaped over half a dozen generations from some senti- 
 mental ancestor who should have had sense enough 
 to remain quiet where he was put. I give up all these 
 theories, as too hard for me, but I do know that as 
 Hiram Bently reached the bank there came to him 
 a sudden inclination to go in and draw one hundred 
 dollars of his money. Was it not ridiculous ? Hiram 
 had fully decided that he could not afford to invest 
 that money in the child. He knew the value of every 
 hard-earned dollar he had in that bank, and they 
 were so few that he could give you the personal his- 
 tory of every one. Of course, if a man lives in some 
 country of high-priced land, where, sleeping or wak- 
 ing, values are steadily rising, he would not feel quite 
 this way over his money. But in the hill country at 
 
60 THE CHILD 
 
 the time of this little record, there was no demand for 
 farm land. In fact, people were trying to get rid of 
 it without much success. Charity may well patch up 
 her old dress and go barefooted to save shoe leather, 
 when land values are running down, and half a dozen 
 middlemen are taking the cream of the milk which 
 you must pay for. 
 
 A man does not carry a musket for three years and 
 make a living at old-fashioned farming in the hill 
 country without gaining a sort of stern character, 
 and with gray hairs and the knowledge that hard 
 work has ended, there comes a hard grasp upon self- 
 earned money. And Hiram had, like most other men, 
 a few "gold brick investments" tucked away in secret 
 though not forgotten places. When I tell you that 
 Hiram Bently right on Main Street felt as if some 
 one was behind him pushing him right into the bank 
 to draw one hundred hard, sweat-stained dollars, you 
 will hardly believe. me. You will rather say, "Ah! 
 I told you so ; this man had come to it. He has run 
 out of romantic material; he is at last getting into 
 his story, and we may expect the other elements of a 
 problem novel to follow." But no, I am only giving 
 the plain record of events and impressions. If you 
 are one of the fortunate creatures who never did any- 
 thing upon impulse, or never were driven this way and 
 that by conflicting emotions which swept you out of 
 yourself, you have my admiration as a rare specimen 
 of humanity, and you also have my sympathy, since 
 you have missed much of the rarest joy of life. 
 
 But we must hurry on with our records. Hiram 
 finally did what most of us do in such a situation; 
 he compromised. I know the process very well. He 
 would draw the money anyway; he was not obliged 
 to spend it on the child just because he had it in his 
 pocket. Perhaps after all the bank was not as safe as 
 he thought. It might not be a bad thing to test it 
 -out, and so he finally found himself in the bank. 
 
THE CHILD 61 
 
 There were several people drawing money, so Hiram 
 walked on behind the railing to the little room where 
 the president sat. 
 
 "John, I want to get one hundred dollars." 
 
 John Bascom was raised on a hill farm, and had 
 milked his string of cows before he married the bank- 
 er's daughter. He kept up his milking, and taught 
 his wife the operation, and between them they had 
 pretty well milked out the old gentleman and had 
 separated the cream for themselves. It had been good 
 business, a part of the milking, for him to keep on in- 
 timate terms with the farmers. He knew that Hiram, 
 in his simple plan of living, had no ordinary use for 
 this money. I think he meant it kindly in the hope 
 of saving Hiram's cash. 
 
 "Why, Hiram, what in the world do you want with 
 one hundred dollars?" 
 
 When a man has a sore spot which he is trying to 
 hide for good reasons of his own, it is an unfortunate 
 thing in a business way to rub it. 
 
 "That's my business," said Hiram shortly. 
 
 I think if John Bascom had let him alone or 
 changed the subject right there, Hiram would not 
 have drawn this money, and I should then be obliged 
 to give up these records, and invent a story which 
 would satisfy my impatient friends. But these im- 
 pulses, or shall we call them whisperings from old 
 ancestors who lived in a fighting age, are poor friends 
 of reason. The more you argue with them, the more 
 they fight back. 
 
 "Oh, Hiram, oh, Hiram, don't, don't! Don't buy 
 any gold bricks or fool investments. Leave your 
 money in the bank, Hiram. I can get you a small 
 bond and mortgage next week at six per cent safe as 
 gold. Don't blow your money on wild cats." 
 
 "Wild cats !" said Hiram. "About the worst wild 
 cat I have now is that creamery stock you sold me. 
 ,You got your bonus all right, and I got left. The 
 
62 THE CHILD 
 
 creamery building is rotting down. Now this money 
 belongs to me; do I get it or not?" 
 
 Several customers in the bank had stopped to listen. 
 John Bascom knew enough to change the subject of 
 gold bricks when that creamery stock was mentioned, 
 for the bank certainly got all the cream of that deal; 
 the farmers got a very poor quality of skim-milk, 
 which they regarded as inadequate food for pigs and 
 calves. He got the money and handed it to Hiram 
 without a word. The old soldier put the bills in his 
 pocket and walked off with a quick step and his 
 shoulders thrown back. 
 
 But John Bascom was a man of wires and re- 
 sources. He stepped outside and beckoned to a man 
 who was just then crossing Main Street. If you have 
 ever lived in the hill country, you know the man. He 
 wears gray clothes and a light soft hat. His hair is 
 gray, there is a short beard on his chin, with the 
 upper lip clean shaved. It is a shrewd and on the 
 whole a kindly face, though when you mention the 
 subject of money or talk the wrong kind of politics, 
 that face will harden like a stone mask. The man is 
 part lawyer, though he does not practice, part real 
 estate man, a large part money-lender and politician. 
 He has been in the Legislature, where they say he 
 got close to good pickings. In a close election, when 
 Grant County must poll every party vote, and gain 
 a few if possible, this man handles the money which 
 comes in some mysterious way, handed from the big- 
 ger men outside. He is expected to know where 
 debts and mortgages are to be found, for in their 
 ragged holes must be planted the money in order to 
 sprout votes. You have seen this man, if you lived 
 in the hill country. Shrewd and hard, he has ruled 
 for fifty years, ruled by keeping real sentiment and 
 real hope out of public life. I have told you what 
 the hill folks say when they see old Dr. Greenway's 
 big brown horse jogging over the hills. When across 
 
THE CHILD 63 
 
 the country they see this man trotting behind his 
 white horse they say, "There goes Sam Storms. I 
 wonder what dirty political job he's up to now for 
 them State fellers down yonder? God help the poor 
 thing who owes money to Sam Storms !" 
 
 "Now, Captain," said John, "Hi Bently has just 
 drawn one hundred dollars for some fool investment. 
 Get after him and argue him out of it." 
 
 "It's probably that cussed child." 
 
 "What child?" All children may have deserved 
 that adjective for all that John Bascom knew, for he 
 and his wife had been too busy milking the old man's 
 cream into their bank to know whether children were 
 to be cursed or blessed. 
 
 "A poorhouse child that was left with Hiram. Doc 
 Greenway tells me about him. The child is sick. 
 Hiram will probably waste that money on a brat that 
 ain't worth raising. John, take it from me, there's 
 no fool like an old fool. Some men prove it by run- 
 ning after a woman; that's bad enough, but the end 
 finally comes. The woman gets his money, and then 
 has no further use for him. Most likely the old man 
 will go to work again and forget it, but at least he 
 will shut up. It's worse when an old man runs after 
 some child like this one. You know the woman's pedi- 
 gree such as it is, and there can't be any Bible non- 
 sense mixed up with her ; it's a pure, dead, illegal gam- 
 ble. But the child gets in on the sentimental side of 
 an old man; and he grows to him like a leech. The 
 old man spoils the child ; he grows up lazy and worth- 
 less. The end is that the old man works, and the 
 child loafs. The woman quits when funds run dry, 
 but the child will hang on forever. This child can't 
 do a better thing for all concerned than to die off. 
 The sooner the better for Hiram." 
 
 You will rightly get the idea from this that Cap- 
 tain Storms is not exactly a lover of children, yet he 
 and men like him have had more than their share 
 
64 THE CHILD 
 
 to do with making the laws which determine the future 
 of children and of defectives. It is to their glory 
 that the farmers of the hill country have had their 
 share of responsibility in making into law some of the 
 noblest legislation in the world's history. It is rather 
 to their shame that they have also helped make possi- 
 ble some of the meanest legislation this country has 
 ever known. The meanness came whenever these 
 farmers permitted Captain Storms, and men like him, 
 to name their candidates, and tell them what to do. 
 The glory of legislation came when these farmers 
 rose in their might, put Captain Storms on one side, 
 and walked up straight to do what they knew was 
 their political duty. In a small way, if we did but 
 know it, the struggle for Hiram's money between the 
 captain and the child represented the larger struggle 
 which has come upon us in State and in Nation. You 
 will, of course, say that in a contest against the skilled 
 and scarred old politician, this strange and ailing 
 child would have no chance to win. Do not be too 
 sure of that. Remember this is not a novel; it is a 
 record of fact. 
 
 The captain found Hiram in front of the post office. 
 Do not try to teach this old war horse any new tricks 
 of politics. Not because he cannot learn them, he 
 knows them all now. He whispered in the old sol- 
 dier's ear and led him away down the street. The 
 other farmers of the group watched them half envi- 
 ously. What did Sam Storms want now? Perhaps 
 he wanted to nominate Hiram Bently for some county 
 office. It looked as if the election was going to be 
 close this year. It was about time that Sam Storms 
 worked his old trick of nominating some "well-known 
 and sterling citizen" to give character to the ticket 
 and drag a few rascals into office with him, after which 
 he knew how to separate the goat from his sheep! 
 Not a man in that group who would not willinglv 
 have played the part of Nathan and said, "Here I 
 
THE CHILD 65 
 
 am, send me to the county town." Sam Storms knew 
 all this. He could read their thoughts; there was 
 where he got his power. The weak man reads the 
 thoughts of others after they are put into print, the 
 strong man can read them before they are printed, 
 and thus get the advantage of the other. That was 
 why he drew Hiram away out of earshot, and then 
 proceeded to whisper to him with his hand held before 
 his mouth. 
 
 "Hiram, I have got a chance to put some money 
 into a sure and good thing. It's better than a farm 
 mortgage, and sure to grow better yet. No use keep- 
 ing your money in the bank at five per cent. I can 
 get you eight sure, and maybe more. Come back to 
 the bank right now, and we'll fix it up." 
 
 But Hiram's sore spot was still a little raw, and 
 Sam Storms had been interested in that creamery 
 stock. It was said that Sam never paid a cent for 
 the shares which he held, and got a little bonus beside. 
 You could not prove it, but there were Democrats who 
 said Sam Storms had played Judas on his neighbors. 
 But these partisan opinions are often political poison. 
 There was a boy from one of the back hill farms who 
 attended the Methodist Sunday School. During the 
 second campaign for Grant the teacher asked her 
 class one Sunday, "Who is the devil?" This boy 
 came up promptly with his answer: "I reckon he was 
 a Democrat." That was prejudiced and interested 
 opinion of long years ago, and the boy has voted the 
 Democratic ticket for some years. But such things 
 die hard in the hill country, to the great advantage 
 of Sam Storms and a whole army of middlemen. 
 
 "No," said Hiram, "I am satisfied with five per 
 cent and a sure thing. I've got use for my money 
 right now." 
 
 It was said of Sam Storms that when it did not 
 pay him to scratch, he could go pussy-foot. 
 
 "All right,, Hiram, I thought of you among the 
 
66 THE CHILD 
 
 first. By the way, what's this I hear Doc Greenway 
 telling about the child you have taken?" 
 
 "We haven't taken him, he is just staying there.'* 
 "That's good. I am glad you haven't obligated 
 yourself. Better send him right back where he came 
 from. Doc Greenway tells me he won't live unless there 
 is a lot of money spent on him. A man of your age 
 has no use for a sick boy. If he had a good frame and 
 constitution now so you could work him, you might 
 get his board and clothes out of it, but when he got 
 so he was worth anything, off he'd go, the devil knows 
 where. As for investing money in a sick child, noth- 
 ing to it. No worse gamble! in this world than tak- 
 ing a chance on somebody else's brat. It's bad enough 
 when you know the folks way back to grandfather, 
 but nothing to it when the child is all you have got to 
 look back to. You remember that Jersey bull them 
 farmers off in Scott Township bought? How they 
 did brag on what they would do when his heifers got 
 into the dairy ! That bull, to hear them talk, had a 
 pedigree a mile long, with a cow at every corner just 
 coughing up butter. According to the papers that 
 came with the bull, a heifer out of him had to do just 
 exactly like her grandmother, and make 4<00 pounds 
 of butter a year. She had to do it according to the 
 papers. Didn't make any difference if her mother 
 was the worst scrub on the hills, she had to take after 
 father's folks. How them farmers did brag for three 
 years while they were waiting. The heifers when they 
 did give milk weren't as good as our common stock. 
 If you ever saw a man looking at his own children 
 and realizing that they look for all the world like 
 their mother-in-law, you know how them farmers felt. 
 Then they looked it up and found they had been bun- 
 koed. The papers of that bull didn't fit him by half 
 a mile. He was a plain scrub with some old beef for 
 a mother, worked off on 'em with a bum pedigree. It's 
 bad enough when the papers don't fit the bull, but 
 
THE CHILD 67 
 
 this child ain't got no pedigree or papers either. 
 Hiram, let him alone, don't put a dollar in him, you 
 can't afford to risk it." 
 
 There would have been more of this, but the deputy 
 county clerk did not feel entirely sure of his job, and 
 he felt disposed to break up any possible combina- 
 tion which might put his chief out of the running. So 
 he "butted in," and the captain in order to make po- 
 litical capital shook hands with Hiram confidentially 
 and whispered so as to be overheard, "Don't make 
 any combination till you see me," and then he walked 
 off with the deputy. 
 
 There was no disputing the force of this argu- 
 ment. It would have influenced you, my friend, had 
 you been brought up to know the value of a hill coun- 
 try dollar. I give it to you as my firm conviction 
 that Hiram would have taken his money back to the 
 bank, and thus made an end of our faithful records, 
 had it not been for Brother Chase. 
 
 Have you seen an old superannuated minister of 
 the Methodist Church turned out to browse his last 
 years away on the scanty pickings of a little hill 
 country town? If you have, you have seen the pathos 
 of the pulpit. I do not single the Methodist Church 
 out because its old veterans are put into rockier pas- 
 tures than others, but because I may have seen more 
 of them. It is well enough when the minister has 
 saved a nest egg of his own from his scanty salary, 
 though generally this nest egg will have been accu- 
 mulated like drops of blood from his heart, for every 
 dollar of it might well have gone for deserving char- 
 ity. Some ministers have a militant and domineering 
 personality, which carries them through, just as an 
 old war horse can make you forget his spavins and 
 his scars when with a supreme effort he arches his 
 neck and paws with his clumsy feet. When, how- 
 ever, you see a man who has actually followed in the 
 footsteps of Jesus Christ as poor, as patient, as long 
 
68 THE CHILD 
 
 suffering, and as homeless as the great Master of 
 mankind, you may look upon one of the most pathetic 
 figures which modern society has to offer. For it 
 must be admitted that Christ, as a "business man," 
 would have been voted a sad failure. Could He come 
 back to earth as He was, without evidence of His 
 divine character, but just a frail child or man of sor- 
 rows, men like Captain Storms would surely say of 
 Him as they did of the child, "He ain't worth the 
 investment." I think that is why again and again 
 opportunity comes into the lives of men and women to 
 help those who are rejected as a business investment, 
 for this, I take it, is after all the supreme test of 
 practical religion. And Brother Chase had tried in 
 his humble way to live the life, the true life, of a min- 
 ister. I cannot say that he had given up fortune or 
 fame or great power to cast his life in the hill coun- 
 try ; he had neither the eloquence nor the power, nor 
 the ability to fill a great pulpit. There had been no 
 calls for him. Conferences had become used to his 
 humble, shabby figure, and he had always been put 
 out in the barren field of stony ground, where no one 
 ever seemed to expect the seed to grow. The sowing 
 was thought to be a perfunctory duty and little more. 
 In truth, the people slept through his sermons. He 
 stammered and blundered through the marriage serv- 
 ice, and the young people were tired of his shabby 
 coat and his shambling walk. Only the sick and the 
 dying knew and felt the comfort and power that lay 
 in this man's pure heart. The sick seemed to forget 
 it in the joy of returning health, and the dying did 
 not come back to tell their story. Run Grant County 
 through and through and you would have said that 
 Captain Storms was the most influential citizen in 
 his power to make men do his bidding. If you were 
 interested enough to carry the analysis through to 
 the end, you would have concluded that Brother 
 Chase would win the leather medal for influence. 
 
THE CHILD 69 
 
 Hiram had long regarded this man with amused 
 pity, as a forlorn, feeble wreck of a church which 
 had somehow none too much influence in the hill 
 country at best. He would probably have nodded 
 and passed on to the bank, but Brother Chase stopped 
 him. 
 
 "Brother Bently," he said in his hesitating way, "I 
 have just seen your child. That is a smart child, 
 Brother Bently. He will live to be a comfort and a 
 blessing to you some day. I hear that you are think- 
 ing of having his throat treated. I hope you will do 
 it, the job will pay. I know what they say about it. 
 Down the street just now I heard a man say this: 
 
 " 'If Hiram Bently puts money into that child he 
 •will be the worst sucker that ever lived!' 
 
 "I do not think the man meant this exactly, but let 
 me tell you one thing, Brother Bently, you will not 
 be the worst sucker in the world if you do this. There 
 was once a man who lived years ago and earned that 
 title forever, if it can be jearned in that way ; that 
 man's name was Jesus Christ. I tell you, Brother 
 Bently, that if you can have that child cured, or try 
 to do it under all these conditions, that will be re- 
 ligion pure and undefiled. That's what I said, re- 
 ligion pure and undefiled, and you may take it from 
 an old man who cannot lay claim to any part of the 
 world's wealth, that you cannot buy pure religion in 
 any other way." 
 
 There it was, there you have it, as you see a 
 straight joint debate between Captain Storms in the 
 clover field of power, and poor old Brother Chase, the 
 man turned out to nibble his life away in rocky pas- 
 tures. You see, I told you that the conflict over this 
 child was simply a miniature of the larger battles 
 which society must fight. And Hiram Bently shook 
 hands with Brother Chase, buttoned his coat up tight, 
 unhitched the black and started home with mother 
 and the child. 
 
70 THE CHILD 
 
 The old soldiers were lined up at the station when 
 the train came bumping in from the south. There 
 were Hiram, Hen, Joe Burgess and a dozen others. 
 Somehow I have the kindliest feeling of all for Joe 
 Burgess, for Joe had never been able to rise above 
 "Joe." He was just a hired man who had thrown 
 away his life. When a man cannot rise above "Joe," 
 it does not secure him a soft or a dignified berth in 
 the hill country when his hair is gray, and he is known 
 to have more than a liking for hard cider and beer. 
 That was Joe's fault, and he knew it. To see Joe 
 Burgess hoeing corn in his overalls and blue blouse, 
 you would hardly look at him the second time, bub 
 now he had separated himself from the ordinary run 
 of men. He had on his blue coat and the hat with 
 the gold braid, and somehow it brought his shoulders 
 and head up a little straighter. Fighting weeds in 
 a cornfield is very common work for quite an ordinary 
 man, but standing out in a thin blue line and fighting 
 the enemies of your country is the work for a hero. 
 All that Joe had now to separate these two conditions 
 of man was his Grand Army coat and hat, and an oc- 
 casion like this reunion. The women had no uniform 
 or gold braid. I do not know why, for the women who 
 stayed at home, cared for the farms, reared the chil- 
 dren, and prayed while they were picking the lint or 
 doing a man's work, did as much to preserve the 
 Union as their men folks who were on the firing line. 
 Mother and Nancy Bingham did not look like heroes, 
 but just like farmers' wives, dressed in their best, go- 
 ing along to see that their men looked the hero part 
 as best they could. The child was there in his new 
 blue suit, large-eyed and happy. 
 
 The railroad wound north through the pleasant hill 
 country some twenty-five miles, until it reached a level 
 plain and followed a river into the city. The child at 
 the car window watched the fields go skimming by, 
 asking few questions, but with eyes ever on the hills 
 
THE CHILD 71 
 
 which rolled range after range to the West. As they 
 passed out of the station, they ran directly upon their 
 old colonel. He had come a day ahead like the rest 
 of them, to attend to some legal business. Hiram 
 and Hen and their wives must go with him, for the 
 colonel's wife was here, and so he took them to a 
 great hotel where the plain farmers scraped their feet 
 at every door they entered, and sat ill at ease on the 
 edge of their chairs. And then the colonel noticed the 
 child and asked about him. Hiram told him the story 
 frankly, and asked his advice, for the colonel was 
 like an old comrade to the plain farmer. Hiram had 
 heard that the colonel was a great lawyer, which was 
 true, but he had little idea as to how large a man the 
 colonel really was. Hiram's idea of a great lawyer 
 was some cold, calculated brain on legs, a man who re- 
 duced all sentiment to pure reason, not exactly a man 
 like Sam Storms, of course, but most certainly a man 
 who would frown upon sentiment, and in truth Hiram 
 hesitated about asking advice, for he had begun to 
 feel that the great lawyer would see very small value 
 in the little child. Hiram did not know that true 
 greatness in human lives after all is their mastery of 
 human nature. The great go on to touch the sublim- 
 ity of human sentiment. The near-great stop, and 
 seem content with dry and cold facts. They lack the 
 courage and the vision to cultivate true sentiment. 
 The great lawyer put his hand on Hiram's shoulder 
 with the frankness and affection of an old comrade. 
 
 "Do it, Hiram, do it. You do not realize what a 
 privilege the good Lord has given you. My stars, 
 man, what can you buy with one hundred dollars that 
 will equal the love of a little child ? Edith and I have 
 no children. It seems to me that the most bitterly 
 mocking thing there is in life is for a man to work 
 and toil and win what he thought was worth while, 
 only to find fate laughing at him because he has no 
 child to carry his work on." 
 
72 THE CHILD 
 
 Hiram thought he saw a weary look on the great 
 lawyer's face as he went on: 
 
 "No man touches the future except through a 
 child. Right here in this city strong men are schem- 
 ing and battling to pile up great loads of wealth. 
 They are planning for the future, but no one stops to 
 think that the future of all their money or their prop- 
 erty lies in the little hands of children who are now 
 playing on the street. More than that, this future 
 is not in their hands alone, but in the things that are 
 being written on their brains by what they see in 
 others. Do it, Hiram, do it at once." 
 
 The colonel had been mentioned for great things. 
 Some said he could be governor, if he desired. He 
 had done a few things which the people could under- 
 stand, and they loved him and would willingly have 
 rewarded him. But the colonel was a wise man. Did 
 he not know that the public have a way of making a 
 halo for the man who does things which they can un- 
 derstand? And when he has the moral courage to do 
 things which are right, and yet too deep for the pub- 
 lic to see at a glance, that same public will pound the 
 halo into a tin can and tie it to the man and chase him 
 down the back highway of life into oblivion ! 
 
 There is no disputing the decision of a great law- 
 yer, especially when he goes right to the 'phone, calls 
 up the hospital and makes an appointment for the 
 next hour. The colonel spent a long time at the 
 'phone, it seemed, but he made things ready, and 
 Hiram and Hen started with the child. I am glad to 
 say that Hen Bingham insisted upon carrying the 
 child in to the operating table. It did not take long, 
 just as Dr. Green way said; this light-fingered man 
 knew his business, and in less time than Hiram could 
 have taken to hoe fifty hills of corn, the little throat 
 was clean, and the child back from the painless sleep 
 into which they had lulled him. Then Hiram and 
 Hen left him until the next day. When Hiram called 
 
THE CHILD 73 
 
 for his bill, they charged him forty dollars. It seems 
 that the two young doctors who helped with the ether 
 and with the instruments had declined to charge a 
 cent. One of them had been a waif himself, brought 
 up from a baby by kind people, who took him in and 
 gave him a chance. I rather think they needed the 
 money, too, but one of them was on the 'phone when 
 the colonel was talking. And then it came out that 
 shamefaced Hen Bingham had handed the doctor ten 
 dollars when he first came in, and Hen obstinately re- 
 fused to take the money back. He said he wanted a 
 share in any glory that was going on, and Nancy 
 sided with him so emphatically that there was noth- 
 ing to do but let them in on the investment. 
 
 The colonel's speech was a wonder, so they all said. 
 Hiram and Hen, with their wives, sat down in front 
 drinking it in, and so did poor Joe Burgess, who had 
 unhappily been drinking something else. The colonel 
 led them through their old campaigns once more until 
 in the glory of it gray hairs, and poverty, and rheu- 
 matism, and dread of the future were forgotten. Then 
 he went on to tell them how what they did would 
 always be remembered by coming generations ; that 
 while the blows they struck, and the guns they fired 
 would be forgotten, the sentiment of what they tried 
 to do could never be blotted out. A wise man, the 
 colonel. He knew what was needed more than wisdom 
 or strength to help along to better things in the hill 
 country, yet it would not always do to outline these 
 things like cold-blooded facts and figures. There 
 again was the value of sentiment which made these 
 things grow in unconsciously upon a man. And the 
 colonel had brought up with him from the great city 
 a famous singer, a man whose name was known the 
 world over. This man sang the "Star Spangled Ban- 
 ner," and "Rally Round the Flag." I think the en- 
 tire audience wanted to thank Joe Burgess for jump- 
 ing up in his seat and yelling his applause. Then 
 
74 THE CHILD 
 
 when this golden-voiced singer sang "Tenting on the 
 Old Camp Ground," it was Joe again who saved the 
 situation by leading the crying. 
 
 Next day there was a great parade. The child, 
 sitting between mother and Nancy, saw the veterans 
 march by. Hen and Hiram marched straight in line, 
 but I regret to say that Joe Burgess wabbled sadly 
 as he wandered on. The child laughed and waved 
 his hand as the old battle flags went by, until he 
 suddenly realized that the older people near him were 
 silent. He represented the great forgetting present 
 of youth, they were all of the past which could not be 
 forgotten because it was tied fast by memories. The 
 child felt something of this. His little throat was 
 sore, and his head ached, but somehow he knew that 
 life had taken on a new meaning for him. 
 
 The doctors were ready to let the patient go on 
 the next day. After that they said Doctor Green- 
 way could dress the throat properly. The colonel 
 had come from the great city in his motor car. At 
 that time such a car was a novelty. Rarely had one 
 been seen in the hill country, and the colonel declared 
 he would take them all home on his way back to the 
 city. So they stayed over another night, while the 
 others went back by train. There was a last reunion 
 at the station. Hiram and Hen were there with the 
 child between them. There was a commotion at one 
 side of the room, and the sound of loud talking. 
 
 "Too bad, too bad," said Hen, "but Joe Burgess 
 is full again." 
 
 It was so; there stood Joe Burgess, no longer an 
 inferior hired man back on a stony farm, but in fancy 
 at least an orator going over his battles and shouting 
 the glory of his country. Poor Joe Burgess ! May I 
 say Comrade Burgess, for I, too, have shuffled along 
 the road of life slipping and stumbling over the 
 bumps and stones, not just where you have bruised 
 
THE CHILD 75 
 
 your feet, but in other places! Joe Burgess, I sup- 
 pose if I did my duty as men lay it out for me, I 
 should stop and try to preach a very poor and per- 
 functory sermon on the evils of intemperance. I sup- 
 pose I should take for my text the sin of your present 
 situation. You, an old soldier of the Union, who 
 ought to set an example for the young ! But I confess 
 that I cannot bring myself to do it. You will wake 
 up in the morning at milking time with a head that 
 will remind you of your shame more effectively than 
 any sermon from me would do. There will be more 
 weary months of hired man ahead of you. I could 
 not find the heart to disturb your poor romance or 
 take you out of the glory of old days. 
 
 Finally Joe made his way unsteadily to a seat, and 
 with the aid of a comrade he mounted it. Perhaps I 
 am wrong, but there seemed on that flushed face with 
 its tousled gray hair, something of dignity which si- 
 lenced them all. And then Joe began to sing in a 
 thick, loud voice, which the child remembered to have 
 heard calling to the distant cows — "Come, boss ; come, 
 boss." But now there seemed somehow a mellow note 
 in it which he had not heard before : 
 
 "Bring the good old bugle, boys, we'll have another 
 song, 
 Sing it with a chorus that will start the world along, 
 Sing it like we uster sing it fifty thousand strong, 
 Whilst we was marchin' through Georgy. 
 Hurray! hurray, we'll sing the jubylee, 
 Hurray ! hurray ! the flag had set 'em free, 
 So we sang the chorus from Atlanty to the sea, 
 Whilst we was marchin' through Georgy. 
 
 It was only a gray-haired, rather disreputable hired 
 man — a failure, no doubt of it, standing in a dim- 
 bghted room roaring out a doggerel of war days; 
 days that had long since dropped out in the silent, 
 relentless shuffle of the years. Yet do you know that 
 
76 THE CHILD 
 
 the great singer, he who had brought tears to the eyes 
 of kings, took off his hat and bowed his head before 
 Joe Burgess as he sang. For here was nature, rough 
 and crude, but true. The great artist could listen to 
 the unshed tears in the hired man's voice, for was 
 not this his only way of giving expression to the man- 
 hood which, in better days, had put him on the plane 
 with heroes? And there was another there who felt 
 the pathetic power of Joe's song. This was the Irish 
 policeman who was supposed to keep order at that 
 station. He may have traced back to a long line of 
 Irish bards for all I know, but at any rate he forgot 
 his duty, forgot that he should have stopped the dis- 
 turbance, but took off his hat and clapped his hands. 
 
 A little, important gentleman bustled up to this 
 police poet. 
 
 "My name is Cabot of the Austin Cabots, and / 
 object." 
 
 "Well, what of it?" 
 
 "You did not quite get the remark, officer. My 
 name is Cabot of the Austin Cabots. I am from Bos- 
 ton, and I object." 
 
 "The hell you do. Well, what do you want?" 
 
 "I want you to arrest this vulgar fellow; he is 
 making a disturbance, and I object." 
 
 The policeman straightened himself up, and began 
 to swing his club. 
 
 "I wouldn't arrist one of them old fellers, not if I 
 lost me job." 
 
 "Why not, officer?" 
 
 "Because they're beyont arrist in song and story, 
 like the President and Members of Congress is in 
 law. Them old fellers saved the country, didn't they? 
 Us Americans can afford to let 'em have their fun 
 now and again, even if youse foreigners do object, Mr. 
 Cabot." 
 
 "But, officer, my name is Cabot. My ancestors 
 came to this country directly after the Mayflower." 
 
THE CHILD 77 
 
 "Why the hell didn't they stay where they was, and 
 why don't you go back where they came from? Us 
 Americans is satisfied with this country. I wouldn't 
 arrist one of them old fellers, not for me job." 
 
 "I shall report you, officer." 
 
 "Get to the job right away an' then go chase your- 
 self. With me uniform on I am out of your class, 
 Mr. Cabot, but let me get off my badge, and I will 
 fight ye for a foreigner." 
 
 It was a foolish thing for a policeman to offer to 
 fight a Cabot of Boston, yet I think more of this man 
 that he felt something of the power and pathos in 
 Joe's song. The descendant from the Mayflower is 
 rather to be pitied. It is true that some centuries 
 ago the Cabot would merely have said, "I object," 
 and the policeman's ancestors would have nothing to 
 do but take off their hats and humbly do the bidding. 
 The trouble with the Boston Cabot was that he 
 failed to realize what is being done in the great Amer- 
 ican melting pot. There his pedigree and his blood 
 without performance are being boiled into dead things 
 as useless as a picture, or an old armor in the free de- 
 veloping world of to-day. If the Cabots could have 
 but developed true sentiment and patriotism as their 
 pedigree extended, they could still have leavened and 
 flavored that which we hope to call Americanism. 
 With their "I object," they have left that flavoring 
 to the child and the policeman who can still recognize 
 the true sentiment of nature. 
 
 The colonel finally pacified Mr. Cabot, and Joe 
 sang no more, but the child walked back to the hotel 
 trying hard to understand what it meant to be an 
 American, and why a blue coat and a gold-braided hat 
 should make these middle-aged people feel as they 
 did. It was all a part of the outcome of these plain 
 records that the child should have this in his mind. 
 
 The seven of them packed the car, but close pack- 
 ing is all the better when there is good feeling, and 
 
78 THE CHILD 
 
 they whirled merrily through the hill country over 
 the hills and through long valleys, and beside pleas- 
 ant streams, for it was in the full glory of the year 
 and a perfect day. There were shadows in the barn- 
 yard and under the clumps of trees in the pasture 
 when they finally reached Hiram's farm, and nothing 
 would do but that the colonel and his wife should 
 spend the night. You should have seen Hiram and 
 Hen at table, with Mr. and Mrs. Colonel. Mother 
 cooked the supper and Nancy Bingham fluttered 
 about the table as waitress, while the child wiped the 
 dishes. It was a great day for the Bently farm, and 
 the night was greater yet, for, of course, Hiram built 
 a fire in that old fireplace, which has already looked 
 upon so much of this history. 
 
 They talked of old times, of army days, of old 
 friends who had passed off into the shadow, and then 
 a silence fell upon them. The child climbed into 
 mother's lap and curled up against her. The old 
 colonel watched them under the hand which shaded 
 his face from the fire. 
 
 "Sing something, Edith," he finally said. 
 
 You might not think so to look at her dress and 
 her jeweled hands, but Edith had been a farmer's 
 daughter in her girlhood. It is a long step backward 
 from great lawyer to hired man on a dairy farm, yet 
 the colonel had traveled the entire track, and Edith 
 had waited for him through the long war and till he 
 started well in his profession, though her parents had 
 often reminded her that she might do better. Yes 
 indeed, the farmer's daughter had been true to the 
 hired man all through these long years. They both 
 thought of it that night. 
 
 Edith glanced at the little melodeon back in the 
 corner. She pulled off those glittering rings and 
 gave them to the colonel to keep for her. I am glad 
 she did that, for it seemed far more appropriate for 
 her to play and sing just what she did with hands 
 
THE CHILD 79 
 
 which were nearer like those of the farmer's daughter. 
 There was dust in the lungs of that old melodeon, for 
 it had stood there unused for years. Finally after 
 many a wheeze and puff, the melody came true, and 
 Edith, with her fingers lightly upon the keys, sang as 
 ihe fire died lower, and outside the crickets chirped 
 while the clear moon sailed up serenely out of the 
 cold hills : 
 
 "Believe me if all these endearing young charms, 
 Which I gaze on so fondly to-day, 
 Were to vanish to-morrow and fleet from my arms, 
 Like fairy gifts fading away." 
 
 The great lawyer sitting by the fire forgot his prac- 
 tice, forgot the great law case he was preparing, 
 slid back into the beckoning years and was once more 
 the hired man standing at night by the pasture bars, 
 watching the shining pathway which led up over the 
 hills out into the great world. 
 
 •"Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment thou 
 art, 
 Let thy loveliness fade as it will, 
 And around the sweet ruins each wish of my heart, 
 Would entwine itself verdantly still." 
 
 Hiram looked across to a gray-haired woman with 
 spectacles holding the child close to her, and he saw 
 that his investment had already begun to pay interest. 
 
 "It is not while beauty and youth are thine own, 
 Or thy cheek unprofaned by a tear, 
 That the fervor and faith of the heart may be 
 known, 
 To which time can but make thee more dear ; 
 For the heart that once truly loved never forgets, 
 But as truly loves onward to its close." 
 
80 THE CHILD 
 
 And what is this I see? Nancy Bingham has reached 
 out to put her hand over that of poor, old, blundering 
 Hen. The dying fire caught at a scrap of unburned 
 pine and suddenly blazed out to the great embarrass- 
 ment of Hen Bingham, who straightened up and ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 "This won't buy the woman a dress." 
 
 It certainly was a glorious night, long to be re- 
 membered. Thank God for the peace and memory 
 of the hills. Thank God for the faith that had kept 
 that memory true. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 And now, of course, if this were a novel, it would 
 be an easy thing to end it in a blaze of glory. I can 
 think of a dozen things that the child in a novel 
 might easily do. No child ever does them outside of 
 a novel, to be sure, but that is a very small matter. 
 We might have our child discover a valuable gold 
 mine on the Bently farm, or perhaps dig up a large 
 pot of money out of a ditch. Then they could all 
 move to the city and live happily ever after. But 
 that is just the point; I want them to stay in the hill 
 country, which, if you can make the conditions a little 
 better, is the best place for a man to stay. Then 
 again there are no gold mines in the hill country at 
 all. I am glad of it, and also glad that coal and iron 
 were gouged out when the great ice plows worked 
 down from the north and cut the valleys out. There 
 is a curious thing about gold. It was packed away 
 originally in the hardest places of all to get at, where 
 men must freeze or roast, or come close to death from 
 hunger or thirst before they find 'it. Then, when, 
 after their battle with these hideous things, they win 
 their gold and bring it back where they can spend it, 
 they are never the same men again. You will not 
 notice the difference while they are amused or inter- 
 ested, but come upon them suddenly when they are 
 alone, and you will notice that they have shed some- 
 thing of the best of their life in that hateful struggle 
 for the gold. It is much the same with those who win 
 their gold in the more civilized struggle of modern 
 business. After the struggle is over, and they try to 
 cast up the balance sheet of life, they find something 
 lias fallen out along the way. Somehow the tail-board 
 
82 THE CHILD 
 
 of youth's wagon worked loose as they were bumping 
 over the stones. And let me tell you that the thing 
 they miss' out of their rich lives is just what the child 
 has gained, faith in human nature and hope in hum- 
 ble things. It is hardly likely that any of these 
 golden men will read our little tale. Should they 
 chance to do so, they will tell me if I am wrong. You 
 see now why I hope there will never be coal or gold 
 or iron mines found in the hill country. They would 
 enrich it with money, but impoverish it in sentiment 
 and kindly spirit. As for a coal mine, whenever I see 
 the great black piles of waste on the hillsides it seems 
 as if some brutal husband of nature had struck her in 
 his anger and left her beautiful face blackened and 
 bruised. 
 
 Yet there is gold in the hill country, in small grain 
 it is true, yet dug out laboriously and with sweat and 
 blood from the hard and stony soil. The miner en- 
 dures his struggle and carries his. gold back with him, 
 back to the city, where he may spend it. The farm- 
 ers also endure and toil, but they see their gold pass 
 out into other hands which demand more and more 
 as their toll. For all the way to the great city, along 
 the railroads, at the docks, in the stores, on the 
 trucks, in the streets, a dozen hands reach out into 
 every can of milk, every bag of potatoes, every case 
 of eggs, all the forms in which the gold of these hills 
 may leave the farm. And these greedy hands do 
 more, for when the things which these hill farmers 
 need come on their way back from the city, again the 
 hands reach out and pile price after price upon feed 
 or clothing or tools until the farmer is left with one- 
 third of a can of milk with which to buy two pairs 
 of rubber boots, one of which he never receives. Nor 
 is this all, for the fingers on these thieving hands, some 
 of them sparkling with gems, beckon and point down 
 where the rivers flow along to the sea. And the chil- 
 dren on the hill farms feel these beckoning fingers 
 
THE CHILD 83 
 
 pulling, pulling them away from home and parents, 
 out of the hills down along the rivers where the hard- 
 earned hill dollar goes and comes not back. For to 
 the children on these hill farms these fingers seem to 
 spell in some agreeable sign language the word op- 
 portunity, which is denied at home. 
 
 For this is the problem of the hill country, work- 
 ing for the dollar but receiving only the small change. 
 Wise men whose wisdom is of the city or of the schools 
 realize that there is a problem, and they beg money 
 from the State or from rich men in an effort to solve 
 it. Some of them would operate through the rural 
 church, others see in the school-house the power to 
 work out the problem ; others would look to scientific 
 agriculture to renew the soil and thus the people who 
 occupy it. They do not touch the real heart of the 
 problem and are thus working blindly. The child felt 
 it before his first Winter was over. The shadow 
 which hangs over the hills is an industrial one, a form 
 of slavery. After years of hard toil, can you blame a 
 farmer for feeling that he is chained to the thankless 
 task of supporting two families beside his own, both 
 better paid, and then bearing the blame which the 
 final consumer feels inclined to throw upon someone? 
 If I were writing a fairy story, I should have the child 
 paying interest on his investment by going out to 
 kill a few fire-eating dragons which threatened the 
 Bently Farm. As it is let us see if he cannot help 
 somehow in cutting off a few of those useless hands 
 which have fingered away the best of the hills. 
 
 I can hardly tell you how the child grew and de- 
 veloped in the pure air of the hills. The throat healed 
 and the mouth closed, for he was no longer a mouth- 
 breather. The little leg grew stronger, the pale skin 
 took on color, and the flesh grew solid as the child ran 
 about and worked at his little chores. He was a 
 thoughtful child, older by far than his years ; a child 
 of strange sayings and reasonings. He seemed to be 
 
84 THE CHILD 
 
 possessed with the feeling that in some way he was an 
 investment which must be made good. I think he 
 must have overheard some of the discussion regarding 
 the value of his throat. One night while Hiram was 
 milking, the child came with Shep and stood looking 
 off to the west, where the sun had painted the over- 
 hanging clouds with crimson. Even the farmer on 
 the farm below, with a mortgage and no money with 
 which to meet the interest, had stopped on his way in 
 from the field to watch that sky. 
 
 "Uncle Hiram," said the child, "what is there over 
 the hills?" 
 
 "Why, more hills when you get to 'em." 
 
 "When you went to war and traveled 'way off 
 there, did you jest find hills an' hills an 'hills one 
 after another?" 
 
 "That was about all there was to it," said Hiram 
 slowly . 
 
 "Then nobody don't never really get there, does he 
 Uncle Hiram? There is always another hill ahead 
 of ye to climb." 
 
 "That's right, always another hill." 
 
 "Didn't the colonel never get there? Is there jest 
 the same hills, great big hills on ahead of him?" 
 
 "Yes, the colonel is a mighty big man, but the hills 
 are bigger than he is, -sonny." 
 
 "Then what's the use, Uncle Hiram, what's the use 
 to climb 'em if everybody knows they can't get no- 
 where? Why not stay right here at home and let 
 them other folks follow the sun and climb over the 
 hills back to us?" 
 
 Hiram had no answer. Here was part of the hill 
 problem. All his life he had seen the men and the 
 products of the hill country climbing, climbing up to 
 Get There, that wonderful city over the hill and down 
 there where the rivers ran to the ocean. Few of 
 these men ever came back, only the halting and the 
 lame. The others did not find the peace and the 
 
THE CHILD 85 
 
 fortune they started for, yet they stayed away eating 
 themselves up with a heart hunger for what they had 
 missed. As for the dollars out of the hills, they 
 rolled on through the valley and sent back only a few 
 cents as seed for more. 
 
 "I ain't going to climb no hills, I'm going to stay 
 right here and be a farmer and make them other folks 
 come over the hills to me." 
 
 And that was the most hopeful statement of the 
 hill country problem that Hiram Bentlj- had heard in 
 twenty-five years. 
 
 The first serious trouble with the child came the 
 week after the return from the hospital. The doctors 
 had been careful to warn mother that the child must 
 not eat meat for a year at least. They explained 
 carefully how meat stimulates the glands and how 
 the little throat of this nervous child must be kept 
 normal, if possible. This is strange doctrine to most 
 people, yet mother was convinced, and the child was 
 fed on fruit and grains and milk. And every desire 
 of the little thing rose in rebellion. The very craving 
 of his unhealthy glands drove him on in his wild de- 
 sire for meat. He began to steal it from the pantry, 
 and when confronted with the theft he would deny it. 
 Hiram and mother had been brought up "on the 
 stick." The only theory they knew of child-raising 
 was to whip the obstinate youngster into submission. 
 Had they been twenty years younger, I fear that the 
 birches in the pasture would have been about cleaned 
 out, but the older most men grow the more they dis- 
 like to strike a child, but at last Hiram laid down the 
 law, and he told the child plainly that if he touched 
 the meat again he would whip him so, if I may use 
 Hiram's emphatic statement, "you'll eat your supper 
 standing." The child knew that this meant business, 
 and we shall never know through our feeble attempts 
 to resist temptation how he mustered the power to run 
 away from the pantry door. 
 
86 THE CHILD 
 
 There was half a chicken left at Wednesday's din- 
 ner, and the child watched with dry eyes and a watered 
 mouth as mother put it on a low shelf in the pantry. 
 Fate could hardly have steered her course closer to 
 his hands, for mother had a headache and went up- 
 stairs to lie down, while Hiram drove to town to have 
 the black shod. I confess that the child got half way 
 to the pantry door, and saw that it actually stood 
 ajar. Then he turned and ran as fast as his little 
 legs could transport him past the barn and through 
 the orchard. Shep was at his heels ; two meat eaters 
 guilty at heart running from temptation. I have had 
 drunkards tell me how they overcame the drink habit 
 by eating half a dozen apples each day, a large mel- 
 low Baldwin whenever the taste came on them. The 
 child filled his hands and pockets with ripe Fall ap- 
 ples and carried them down to the brook out of sight 
 of the house. And there, munching his fruit and play- 
 ing with Shep, he fought out his little battle against 
 temptation. 
 
 When Hiram came home in the late afternoon 
 mother met him at the kitchen door with the well- 
 known marks of trouble on her face. 
 
 "Hiram, you get the stick and give that child a 
 good thrashing. You must do it, or I will. He has 
 stolen that chicken and run off and eaten it. You said 
 you would whip him, Hiram Bently, and if you don't 
 do it now, he'll get the upper hands of you. Oh, 
 Hiram! ain't it awful?" 
 
 "Oh, I guess he didn't take it, did he?" said Hiram 
 weakly. 
 
 Tell me now, you who are prepared to criticise 
 Hiram for his weakness, would you, if you were a 
 gray-haired soldier, like to whip a child that had won 
 your heart and your money? It might be compara- 
 tively easy to tell what you are going to do, but would 
 you envy Hiram the job when it came to taking the 
 stick in your hand? 
 
THE CHILD 8*7. 
 
 But men have been hung on weaker evidence than 
 that which confronted the child. The chicken was 
 gone. They hunted for it everywhere. There were 
 even small tracks on the floor of the pantry and 
 kitchen. Shep and the child had disappeared, and 
 Shep had evidently swallowed the bones to prevent 
 identification ! The child had taken chicken before. 
 Here was a case with no large loop-holes in sight, and 
 to add to it Shep and the child at that moment ap- 
 peared from behind the barn with the most guilty air 
 surrounding them. For the child had fallen into the 
 brook and had wet his new overalls. 
 
 In the face of this evidence the child straightened 
 up and denied that he had taken the chicken. They 
 could not shake him. He did not falter even when 
 mother read him that verse from Revelations which 
 has brought many a trembling liar to confession. But 
 he had no witness except Shep, and the dog could not 
 testify, and they faced a bad record. In truth Hiram 
 did not believe what the child told him. 
 
 "Here," he said, "you come out behind the barn 
 and I'll attend to your case." 
 
 He took the child by the shoulder and pushed him 
 along before him. How many of my middle-aged 
 readers I wonder can lay aside this record, shut their 
 eyes, and go over just such a scene with themselves 
 as a leading character. With his other hand Hiram 
 took the whip out of the buggy as he passed. 
 
 "Now, then, you better own up," said Hiram as he 
 raised the whip over the child. "Own up now and 
 it won't be so bad." He was not looking at the child 
 as he spoke; somehow he could not bring himself to 
 look into those big brown eyes with the horsewhip in 
 his hand. But the child folded his arms and forced 
 the man to look at him. 
 
 "Uncle Hiram, of course you can lick me, if you 
 want to, you're bigger'n I am, and I can't run away, 
 and you have done a lot for me, but, Uncle Hiram, I 
 
88 THE CHILD 
 
 thought you was the best man in all this world. Hon- 
 est, Uncle Hiram, I didn't take that chicken, honest 
 I didn't." 
 
 I do not know whether Hiram would have struck 
 him or not, had there not come a high-pitched scream 
 from the front of the barn. "Hiram Bently, don't you 
 never hit that child," and like a bantam hen with her 
 wings a-flutter, Nancy Bingham rushed upon them 
 and got in front of the child. 
 
 She had taken the chicken. Company came late to 
 dinner, and, as Nancy said, "nothing in the house to 
 eat." While Hen entertained the visitors out at the 
 barn she had run across the fields to borrow some 
 cooked meat. She could find no one around the house, 
 and with the neighborly freedom of the hill country 
 she had helped herself to the chicken and taken it 
 home, where her visitors had smacked their lips over it 
 and gnawed the bones. That night they gave the 
 child a piece of white meat in spite of the doctor's 
 advice, for Nancy Bingham thought hard, and she 
 was sure she remembered hearing the doctor say that 
 a little white meat now and then would not hurt him. 
 
 And then began that strange, beautiful intimacy 
 between the child and the man which lasted as long 
 as Hiram lived. I think they were closer in their way 
 than father and son could ever have been. Some men 
 have children of their own that come into their lives 
 at middle age or later. The feeling towards these 
 buds of Autumn is different from that between the 
 parent and the child of his youth. For then life was 
 an experiment with the man ; he tried to graft experi- 
 ence upon his children, yet at best it was but shallow 
 and superficial. But with gray hair and the blaze 
 gone from the fires of life, the real test of experience 
 comes to the man, and the desire will come like a 
 prayer in his heart, that the child of his maturer 
 years may share the wisdom and the truth that life 
 has finally given him. The younger children have 
 
THE CHILD 89 
 
 somehow grown away from him without showing what 
 he would now give them, but the little one may come 
 nearer to knowing what the years have stored up in 
 his heart as the real treasure of life. Hiram became 
 more and more desirous of appearing to this child 
 what he had called him, "the best man in all this 
 world." There are parents who sometimes look at 
 their children and wonder why the little ones cannot 
 realize what a sacrifice has been made for them, and 
 why they do not rise to the ideal which such care and 
 sacrifice demands. Do they ever think that the chil- 
 dren, too, have their childish ideals, and are wonder- 
 ing why father and mother do not or cannot rise up 
 to them? 
 
 Some of you who are rich and think you are great, 
 will smile or worse at a man with such a childish ideal, 
 yet I am not so sure as you are, and I have lived some 
 years, too. And the child grew up with the burning 
 idea that in some way he must help, be worthy of the 
 love of this man who was to him an ideal. I think it 
 was because of this feeling that these two were able 
 finally to do something toward solving the problem 
 of the hill country. The man had not been satisfied 
 with his condition, but years of seeing the best of his 
 labor pass away from his hands had made the case 
 seem hopeless. He was provided for, therefore why 
 fight a hopeless battle? But here was the child; as 
 the colonel had said, "The future was only touched 
 through the children." The problem affected the 
 child. Would he stay among the hills, or follow the 
 beckoning fingers down along the streams to the city? 
 The child was bringing the hope and vision of youth 
 into this problem where so many of the young farm 
 people had run away from it, for had not the child 
 said that he would not go and seek the world, but 
 rather bring the world in to him ? 
 
 At school the child had learned to figure. He could 
 already read, though where he had learned no one 
 
90 THE CHILD 
 
 could tell. The problem of the hills entered early into 
 his figuring. The colonel's wife started this at break- 
 fast when she told them the price of eggs. She had 
 just eaten a good brown egg, only twelve hours from 
 old Speckle, which she said would have cost her five 
 cents in the city. Such eggs were selling in trade at 
 the store for eighteen cents a dozen. Hen Bingham 
 had sent a crate of eggs to the city. Some one must 
 have played base ball with that crate, making a base 
 hit, for they reported to Hen that half the eggs were 
 broken, and most of the rest were what they called 
 "off grade.", He finally received about one cent each 
 for the eggs. Hiram bought a spray pump and gave 
 his orchard good care. It was not a fruit-growing 
 section, but the Bently orchard was well known, and 
 one day a fine-looking man appeared as buyer. He 
 made what he called a trial purchase, which certainly 
 developed into a trial. He paid a small sum down in 
 cash, and agreed to pay the balance when the apples 
 came. Hiram and Joe Burgess, with mother to help, 
 packed the apples, and off they went on their way, 
 and that was the last seen of them. They got past 
 the hands along the way to find at the end a dishon- 
 est mouth which gulped them down. The buyer had 
 not been heard from since, and still the hands along 
 the way reached out for their share. Carl Schmitt, 
 who was in Hiram's regiment, sent a shipment of pota- 
 toes along the same road, and all he got back was a 
 bill for $3.25 to pay the balance of freight, for they 
 told him that those potatoes were frozen, and could 
 not be sold or given away. The people in the hill 
 country could not understand how frost should de- 
 scend so suddenly upon that great city. 
 
 There was one farmer back on the hills who thought 
 he had cut off several of those hands. He received a 
 confidential letter from a very fine man in the great 
 city, who told him wonderful stories of a special trade 
 he had with the great hotels. It was all in confidence, 
 
THE CHILD 91 
 
 of course, but this fortunate creature could pay five 
 cents a dozen above the market price for eggs. It 
 was very easy; try him and see. The hands along 
 the river seemed to turn and point at this farmer as 
 the one fortunate man who could find gold in the 
 hills. So he sent his crate of eggs, and sure enough 
 the price came back at once, with a call for mora, 
 more. It was one thing to be a poor hill farmer grub- 
 bing along on your own labor, but a much smarter 
 thing to make money work for you. So this farmer 
 borrowed fifty dollars of his mother-in-law, and he 
 bought eggs from every henroost in the hills. These 
 eggs went hopefully on their way, and have never 
 been heard from since. Mother-in-law, however, men- 
 tions her fifty dollars frequently enough to make a 
 fair average of attention. 
 
 The hills were full of such stories ; that was the 
 problem. The child heard them everywhere, and from 
 his earliest knowledge of arithmetic he was seized 
 with a desire to learn how much of Uncle Hiram's dol- 
 lar landed into those hands which dipped so freely 
 into the milk, the apples and the eggs. One day he 
 heard a man speak of "middlemen" who seemed 
 strong and fat and comfortable, while people like the 
 colonel's wife paid five cents for an egg, and Uncle 
 Hiram got less than two cents. What was a middle- 
 man, and what did he do with his three cents? The 
 child wanted to see one, and, as usual, he had his 
 wish. If we will but look for them, we may find wise 
 men, great men, fools, rogues and angels, or at least 
 types of them right at home in our town. 
 
 One bright Friday in October, the teacher dismissed 
 her school shortly after noon. The child started home 
 with his dinner pail in hand to meet Hen Bingham on 
 the road. Hen had a load of cider apples, bound for 
 Ike Barber's mill. Hiram and Hen made vinegar, 
 and they usually took turns hauling the apples to the 
 mill. It was Hen's day, and he insisted that the child 
 
02 THE CHILD 
 
 go along with him, for Hen was unhappy without 
 company. The child would listen to his worn-out 
 stories, or even to his singing, where all others would 
 end the performance. Mother and Nancy Bingham 
 represented about all there was to the W. C. T. U. in 
 that neighborhood, and they knew what was ground 
 out in Ike Barber's mill besides the cider, but the child 
 had not been told not to go there, and, as usual, Hen 
 Bingham did not think. So the child climbed over 
 the apple barrels and sat behind Hen, who indulgently 
 let him drive the horses. 
 
 Ike Barber had for years squeezed all the juice out 
 of the apples, and all he could out of the farmers. 
 When the child first saw him it seemed that he had 
 found the middleman at last, and the sight was not 
 an agreeable one. Ike was a Cape Cod Yankee, of 
 what I may call the underside. I came from close to 
 the Cape myself, and ought to know the breed, and 
 I think it upsets all the laws of heredity that our 
 scientific friends have so patiently dug out. The real 
 Cape Cod folks are about the purest-bred Americans 
 we have, and they ought to be of a certain fixed type, 
 but through some form of selection they have pro- 
 duced two distinct types, more different in character 
 than Canadians are from Cubans. During the eld 
 abolition days, when a holy cause needed a stern and 
 devoted soul who would gladly give comfort, wealth, 
 life if need be, for an unpopular thing, they hunted 
 for a Cape Cod Yankee. In all their travels through 
 this great country they could find no keener brains or 
 whiter souls than were carried by those who had lis- 
 tened to the wild old Atlantic playing its hymn of 
 freedom upon that barren sand. An old slave-holder 
 in Mississippi years ago told me that when they 
 wanted a slave driver to really drive, they also hunted 
 for a Cape Cod Yankee. But they hunted for a dif- 
 ferent type. They wanted one who had heard only 
 the cruel destructive note which came out of those 
 
THE CHILD 93 
 
 ocean waves. And this is a good illustration of the 
 difference between the two types. Those who know 
 them best have formulated an infallible test for sep- 
 arating them. If you meet a Cape Cod man whose 
 eyes are wide apart and clear, with a full forehead, 
 you may safely lend him all your money without even 
 a note, for he will keep it as faithfully for you as the 
 man who handled the ten talents for his master. Meet 
 one with eyes close together, and a forehead which 
 slants back, and my advice to you is to put one hand 
 on your watch, and the other on your jackknife, and 
 run. Talk with this man ten minutes and he will 
 have both articles, and you will be thanking him for 
 relieving you of the pain of carrying them about. If 
 one of this type had been given the one talent to care 
 for, he would have buried it in the ground, as did the 
 unfaithful servant of old, and would then have forgot- 
 ten where he buried it until a more convenient time. 
 I go into this because the first impression of the child 
 was that Ike Barber's eyes were pushing his nose out 
 of his face. That was why the child thought he must 
 be one of the hated middlemen. 
 
 Business was good, and Die's two old horses were 
 toiling around and around inside at the big tree which 
 formed a sweep power for the grinder. There would 
 be an hour's wait, and Hen left his load in care of a 
 neighbor, and went across the fields to a distant farm, 
 so that he might have a chat with a sick comrade. Ike 
 Barber's mill was no place for a child. I should as 
 soon think of leaving my child in a gunpowder fac- 
 tory, with the knowledge of where I kept the 
 matches, but Hen Bingham, as usual, did not think, 
 and public thought was different at the time these 
 records were made. Ike Barber's mill was really more 
 dangerous than a saloon. The beer and whiskey 
 which the saloon-keeper sold were recognized as evils, 
 and the saloon was disreputable. The mill and the 
 cider had a certain respectability, and were thus all 
 
y* THE CHILD 
 
 the more dangerous, for, as all the country knew, a 
 hard-cider drunk had worse features about it than 
 beer or whiskey were ever able to produce. The child 
 found a group of other children, and they were 
 watching the toiling horses on the sweep, and listen- 
 ing to the crunch of the apples when Ike Barber ap- 
 peared. 
 
 "You boys like cider?" 
 
 It was a useless question, but Ike knew how to 
 make useless things useful. 
 
 "If you boys will pick two barrels of seedling 
 apples under them trees along the road, I'll give you 
 a chance to suck two quarts of cider through a straw. 
 Mind what I say now ; I will give you a chance." 
 
 My friend, you have had your ambitions, most of 
 them no doubt long since blasted. Unless you have 
 been so unfortunate as to pass ypur childhood among 
 stone and brick, it is doubtful if you can recall one 
 which seemed to mean more to you than that of forty- 
 odd years ago of getting your mouth at one end of 
 a straw with the other end in the tank of sweet cider 
 as it dropped from the press. You may have voted 
 the Prohibition ticket for twenty-five years, but even 
 now you realize what Ike Barker's proposition meant 
 to those hill country boys. Would you, in those days, 
 have ever stopped to analyze such a proposition and 
 see if there were any middlemen concealed therein? 
 
 The child and his little friends went at their job 
 with enthusiasm. Ike Barber ran out a flour barrel 
 and a sugar barrel, but who stops to measure such 
 things ? The seedling apples lay thick on the ground, 
 and the children gathered them in baskets. The child 
 did his share, but his wise little mind told him that 
 two brothers were giving an example of the strong 
 superiority of head work to heel work. One was the 
 largest boy in the group. He picked up no apples, 
 but stationed himself beside the barrels so, as he said, 
 he would know when they were full. He emptied a 
 
THE CHILD 95 
 
 few baskets, but did no other work, and through it all 
 was so plausible that this seemed entirely natural and 
 as if his job was the most important of all. 
 His brother was the smallest boy of the 
 group. This midget also picked no apples, 
 but he sat under the tree and told the child 
 and the two others where to pick. It slowly 
 dawned upon the child's mind that five were to divide 
 what three earned, while three were to provide cider 
 for two who gave no labor equivalent. It is well that 
 he got into the problem of the hills in his own way. 
 These were toy models of those larger hands which 
 were reaching out along the road to the city. When 
 the barrels were filled there were three tired and 
 sweaty children, and two that were fully rested. The 
 larger brother appointed himself a committee of one 
 to collect the cider. Then Ike came to the door, arid 
 I am ready to testify with the child that his eyes 
 seemed to push closer together as he talked. 
 
 "Much obliged to ye for tfie apples, boys. Now I 
 told ye I'd give you a chance to suck cider through a 
 straw, but you can't come inside the mill to take it. 
 You will have to suck from the outside." 
 
 A group of farmers on the steps burst into a roar 
 of laughter at this slick breach of contract. The 
 child long remembered thinking that if these men had 
 sided seriously with him then and there, and helped 
 these children to their rights, their own struggles 
 against the hill problem might have been easier. Not 
 long after the child heard one of these same farmers 
 declare profanely against the way the big politicians 
 permitted the trusts and powerful combinations to 
 steal the common rights away from farmers. Here 
 was a man shouting against evils which he could not 
 reach, yet standing by and permitting the little ones, 
 which in time made the big ones possible. The other 
 boys seemed ready to accept their defeat. It seemed 
 to be what finally came to farmers, large and small, 
 
96 THE CHILD 
 
 anyway. They always got the chance to carry the 
 butt end of a contract. But the child was not satis- 
 fied. Ike Barber had crawled out of his agreement, 
 and sucking cider from the outside of a building 
 seemed a foolish proposition, yet he hated to be 
 beaten. Was there no way to do the impossible? The 
 persistent child slowly walked around the mill, and 
 finally found a small knot-hole at one side. Looking 
 through it he found the cider tank within two feet of 
 him. The child's brain was working properly, and it 
 came to him that a long straw with one end dipping 
 in the cider tank and the other through this knot-hole 
 and outside, would enable him to do that impossible 
 thing, suck cider from the outside of a building. It 
 seemed clear. Ike Barber had promised the cider, 
 therefore, it belonged to the boys. Here was the 
 chance to get it. The child's first idea was to make 
 sure of his own share and then publish his discovery. 
 He had not yet seen a middleman really at work, and 
 his idea of cooperation was based upon a fair share for 
 all with no favors. Was it not the reverse of this 
 that was slowly killing the hill country, and could any- 
 body expect to cure a disease by using the same 
 disease as a medicine? So the child called the other 
 boys and outlined his plan. It was too late to find 
 straw in the field, so they hunted in a pile of fresh 
 pomace and found several long straws, bent it is true, 
 but yet fairly capable as acting as pump or pipe. 
 For your lemonade or stronger fluid now you use a 
 clean straw, or more likely an imitation straw made of 
 paper, but the chances are that forty years or more 
 ago you would have hunted the fresh pomace with 
 these boys. Of course, I realize that your wife and 
 your daughters, and perhaps your highly educated 
 sons, will come close to disgust at this true recital. 
 Possibly you will deny the record in your own case in 
 their presence, but remember that they never were 
 fortunate enough to be bare-footed boys in the hill 
 
THE CHILD 97 
 
 country all these years ago, while it is my sincere 
 hope that it was your own privilege in other days to 
 be a farm youngster. 
 
 When they got back to the knot-hole the larger 
 brother claimed the right to the first suck. He had 
 his straw in the cider tank and was just emptying 
 his lungs so as to apply all possible suction, when 
 he suddenly felt himself pulled away from his job. 
 Ike Barber had come upon them unawares and was 
 breaking connections. I doubt if Ike Barber cared so 
 much for the cider. It was now the joy which the 
 Yankee feels in matching his wits against another's. 
 He brought out hammer and nails, and an armful of 
 old boards. Then he drove two stout stakes into the 
 ground and nailed boards onto them until the boys 
 saw a fence built around the knot-hole. It was a 
 high fence with boards close together, and two feet 
 or more out from the wall. 
 
 "Now," said Ike, "if you can suck through the 
 fence you can have the cider." 
 
 I do not know where the child came from, but he 
 outwitted the Yankee. He may have come from the 
 Cape himself, of the wide-eyed breed. At any rate 
 he thought out the problem, even if it ended as the 
 hill country problem usually did. Under his direc- 
 tion the midget got down to the ground and worked 
 in under the lower board. He had to dig and wiggle 
 like a woodchuck, but he finally worked under and 
 stood inside. Then the child passed two long straws 
 in to him, and Ike Barber's keen wit saw what was 
 coming. He could not interfere now, for he knew the 
 farmers would side with the children, not so much 
 perhaps from a sense of justice, but because they 
 wanted to beat the cider-mill man. The old horses 
 inside the mill on the sweep power had stopped to 
 rest, and even the driver ran out to see the fun. 
 
 The boy inside the fence, directed by the child, ran 
 his longest straw through the knot-hole until it 
 
98 THE CHILD 
 
 reached the cider tank. He put the other end in the 
 right side of his mouth. Then he put another straw 
 in the left side of his mouth and passed the other end 
 of it out between the boards of the fence. It ex- 
 tended far enough for a boy on the outside to get the 
 end of the second straw into his mouth. 
 
 There was a roar of laughter from the farmers, for 
 here was the impossible performance, sucking cider 
 through a board fence. Ike Barber had tried to make 
 an impossible contract, but here he was beaten at his 
 own game. Yet these farmers who laughed and 
 slapped Ike on the back did not at that time realize 
 that inside this little fence was to be enacted a toy 
 performance of the great problem which had combed 
 their country of the best it had produced. 
 
 The little fellow inside the fence proceeded to busi- 
 ness at once. Like the typical middleman he paid no 
 attention to the second straw, in fact it dropped out 
 of his mouth. He put that mouth up close to the 
 knot-hole with both hands up against the side of 
 the mill. The other boys, unable to get inside, danced 
 about calling to him, but the midget was master of 
 the situation. Deaf to the appeal of these thirsty 
 consumers he shut his eyes, held back his head and 
 slowly pumped the deliberate and delicious drops into 
 his mouth. In these more scientific days men measure 
 milk and other fluids by weight. At this happier 
 period a quart and gallon of indefinite capacity were 
 used, so we may not credit the report of the farmers 
 who witnessed this performance. We may surely, 
 however, credit their unanimous statement that they 
 saw the midget swell and grow until with a deep sigh 
 of enjoyment he turned his face about. It was evi- 
 dent that he had lost interest in his job, like many 
 another middleman, yet urged on by his larger brother 
 he put the two straws in his mouth as before. The 
 larger boy connected with the outside straw, pushing 
 
THE CHILD 99 
 
 the three workers inside. I can hardly improve upon 
 the graphic description of one of the fanners. 
 
 "That inside boy jest pulled with one cheek and 
 pushed with t'other, and passed that cider along from 
 one straw to the next. He were'nt so keen as he 
 might be about pumping. It wan't quite so cool as 
 when it left the tank, but who says it warn't cider 
 when the outside boy got it?" 
 
 I cannot say so certainly. Ike Barber will agree 
 with me, for long before the second boy was satisfied 
 Ike claimed that his contract for two quarts was 
 fully settled, and the farmers with many loud guf- 
 faws agreed with him. It is related that the midget 
 could not crawl back under the fence and had to be 
 lifted out by one of the farmers. Happily the child 
 saw the face of this human cider pump, and he forgot 
 his thirst at once. He classed cider with the hated 
 middleman forever after, a thing to be let alone. 
 
 ,As the crowd separated, the child found himself 
 trying to balance up the outcome of his work. He 
 had done the planning, and with two other boys had 
 done practically all the work, yet all the cider had 
 gone to two boys who had produced nothing, but had 
 taken advantage of their situation and relationship to 
 divide between them what should have been divided 
 among five. He had at last looked upon the hated 
 middleman, and found him not some terrible distant 
 creature, but a child of his own age, a schoolmate who 
 by all the laws of comradeship should have given him 
 a fair share. For what the child looked upon inside 
 that fence by the cider mill was the spirit of the 
 middleman, the same spirit which made it possible for 
 those hands along the way to the city to get their 
 fingers into so many milk cans and packages. The 
 farmers on their way home slowly grasped part of 
 the same idea. 
 
 "That chunk suckin' that cider was jest like a 
 middleman, warn't he? The first thing he done was 
 
100 THE CHILD 
 
 to fill himself up; then he lost interest in his job 
 and quit passing it. Jest like them fellers that 
 handle our milk, but that boy knew his business. 
 He'll make a middleman all right, haw, haw, haw !" 
 
 And one of the very few Prohibitionists in Grant 
 County who had driven up at the end of this sad toy 
 performance answered him. 
 
 "Yes, and what lays in the cider barrel is a worse 
 middleman yet. The Lord gave ye brains and sense 
 and courage to make your rights and use 'em, but 
 them devils of middlemen in hard cider get pretty 
 much all the sentiment and brotherly love, and all ye 
 got left is selfishness." 
 
 Of course, a man so far behind in the minority 
 was bound to make his statement strong when he 
 once got a chance, yet there was no way of answering 
 it. There was the trouble; men recognized the mid- 
 dleman and saw the greedy hands along the way to 
 the city reaching out to finger their heaping share, 
 but they did not see so much the sin of the system 
 as what they called the smartness of it. That is why 
 true cooperation will come hard for men who cannot 
 see and feel the real sentiment of brotherhood, which 
 means giving your friend his share, rather than mak- 
 ing him fight for it. I am glad that the child saw 
 with his first view of a middleman just why that 
 character grows fat at the expense of both ends. 
 The under men are always more numerous than the 
 middlemen, yet somehow they lack the power to unite 
 their forces, while the middlemen get inside the fence 
 and stay there as a point of advantage. When Hen 
 Bingham got back to the farm, mother gave him a 
 very large slice of her mind for leaving the child as 
 he did. There was enough of this slice to provide a 
 full mental lunch until Hen got home. Then Nancy 
 took up the argument, and it was not laid down until 
 long after the honest hill farmer whose wife chanced 
 to be good-natured should have been asleep. 
 
THE CHILD 101 
 
 And the child was to have that day an experience 
 with another sort of middleman, for there are many 
 of them. On their way home they passed through a 
 small piece of woods. Seated on a stump not far 
 from the road was a short fat man with a very bald 
 head. His hat was off, and he was industriously 
 rubbing that bald head with a red bandanna hand- 
 kerchief. Back in the woods stood an old white 
 horse, gaunt and thin, hitched to a log. The soft 
 ground was torn up like a battlefield where the horse 
 had struggled in his efforts to start the log. One end 
 of it was padded in the soft mud, and the panting 
 old beast could not loosen it. 
 
 "Well, Deacon, what can we do for ye?" said Hen 
 as he stopped the horses. 
 
 "You can lend me your boy, I want to borry him 
 for about ten minutes." 
 
 "Lend you the boy; what for, to hitch up with 
 the hoss?" 
 
 "Well, Hen, the trouble with my hoss is he aint 
 got heft according to his strength. Lacking the 
 heft he can't hold his feet on the ground, and they 
 slip on him. Put sixty pounds on his back and 
 he'll pull the log out, because then he'll get a 
 better purchase with his feet, and dead weight won't 
 do it, live weight will, so I want to borry your boy 
 to help the hoss." 
 
 The child was ready for any adventure, so he 
 clambered down from the wagon. With the Deacon 
 to help, he mounted astride of the sharp backbone 
 of the old horse, and took the bridle lines. The 
 Deacon took up a long stick to encourage the horse, 
 while Hen fed him two cider apples which had been 
 left on the wagon. I know not by what proposition 
 of mechanics the Deacon had figured out his plan, 
 nor can I say whether the boy, the stick or the apples 
 were responsible. I do know that when the Deacon 
 finally called to his horse, the poor brute struggled 
 
102 THE CHILD 
 
 and finally inch by inch he got the log going. He 
 actually pulled it out of the woods and on to the 
 hard road, where he could easily handle it. 
 
 "Didn't I tell ye so?" cried the Deacon. "The 
 only trouble was he didn't have heft according to his 
 strength." 
 
 "But why didn't ye feed him up and put sixty 
 pounds of meat on his ribs? That would be live 
 weight." 
 
 "But grain costs money, Hen Bingham." 
 
 "But don't boys cost money?" 
 
 "Not when ye can borry them, they don't." 
 
 Hen's loud guffaws at the Deacon's smart 
 economy waked the echoes for half a mile, but the 
 child rode on in silence. Here was another side to 
 the problem. Those hands along the way to the 
 great city would take out far more than their share, 
 but why did men like the Deacon and Bee Barber 
 always try to imitate them in their small and petty 
 way? To the clean soul of the child it seemed that 
 the way to > overcome injustice or meanness in others 
 was first of all to be just and fair in your own life. 
 Every reformer, every man who really tries to im- 
 prove society, must sooner or later come to consider 
 that most common of all social propositions, "A 
 stream cannot rise higher than its source." And the 
 child saw as his elders could not yet see, that the big 
 hands down the way will continue to take more than 
 their share just as long as there are smaller hands 
 up above them ready to borrow a boy as live weight 
 rather than feed their own horse. That is true, be- 
 cause the only way to cut off those thieving hands 
 is for the producers to co-operate, and co-operation 
 is impossible without honest sentiment, and some- 
 thing that may be classed with brotherly love. 
 
 It had become a habit for Hiram and the child to 
 sit before the fire each night and talk over what the 
 day had brought to them. I do not know how this 
 
THE CHILD 103 
 
 silent man ever started this practice. He did little 
 of the talking, but sat merely asking questions to 
 draw out the child. And thus unconsciously Hiram 
 was taking on a new view of life. As a farmer he 
 had become satisfied with many old methods and 
 theories that were about as practical and useful as the 
 old saber which hung on his wall. Yet why should 
 a middle aged man with a fair competence and no 
 children care particularly for the new-fangled notions 
 which these young sprouts were advocating? If you 
 give me any reason at all for answer, you are sure 
 to run upon what the child found out at every corner 
 of the problem as it struck him. That was the sen- 
 timental or spiritual side of it. And that was what 
 was coming to Hiram, although he did not know it, 
 and might have resented it had you told him so. 
 
 For the new order of things, or the spirit of them, 
 was in the air, and the child brought fragments of 
 it. Outside in the world, somewhere, they knew how 
 to sprinkle potato vines so there was no blight. A 
 man had come back from the farms around Browns- 
 ville telling great stories about what he called 
 "Alfalfy," which would give a farmer three tons of 
 mill feed right out of an acre. The teacher's beau 
 had attended an agricultural college and he was 
 very willing to advertise the fact. You see the 
 teacher was one of those sensible young women who 
 knew how to make themselves appear like a choice 
 prize package so that the young men are very glad 
 to put their best side first. The child heard some- 
 thing of these wonders, and in the belief of child- 
 hood brought them to Uncle Hiram as what he would 
 do when he grew up to run the farm. And the child's 
 prattle was actually beginning to find an airhole in the 
 man's unbelief in these new-fangled things. When 
 you start an airhole in a crust of this kind, it is sure 
 to grow in time into an open gate. The child had 
 seen the middleman at last, and he described it to 
 
1041 THE CHILD 
 
 Uncle Hiram. The old soldier listened as was his 
 wont, and then drew out the child's reasons. 
 
 "Well, sonny, all of us, large and small, know 
 what the middleman does, but how can we stop him? 
 What would you do if they tried it on you again?" 
 
 "I can think of three things. First, I wouldn't pick 
 no apples till Ike Barber brought out the cider and 
 left it where we could get it when we had the apples 
 picked." 
 
 "And then you ought to pour it right on the 
 ground," put in mother. 
 
 "But if he didn't do it?" 
 
 "Then I wouldn't pick no apples, and he wouldn't 
 have none." 
 
 "But he wouldn't need any from you, because 
 the farmers would bring all he wanted." 
 
 "Then I'd go around with you, and we'd ask all the 
 farmers not to bring an apple till Ike Barber done 
 us right." 
 
 Hiram had not really laughed for years, but here 
 he broke into an untrained roar which nearly fright- 
 ened the child. This roar was worthy of the idea of 
 many farmers that he knew, risking the loss of cider 
 apples in order to prevent injustice to a child or a 
 man. And yet when you thought of it, what else 
 could they ever do to stop the injustice of these thiev- 
 ing hands down the way ? The hill country had tried 
 many times to control the milk situation and obtain 
 better prices for their milk. A man once came and 
 told them that if for three days in succession they 
 would pour their milk upon the ground, that it would 
 be the best milking they ever did. And thinking it 
 over, the majority of them knew that he was right, 
 and yet who would ever start throwing away a can 
 of milk in order that future cans might be worth 
 more ? 
 
 The child was disappointed, for his theory had 
 seemed right. 
 
THE CHILD 105 
 
 "Well, if that wouldn't work I'd go to them two 
 boys and tell them to be fair. I'd make them promise 
 that they would give us our share, or we wouldn't 
 never help them again." 
 
 Hiram knew the pedigree of those boys. They 
 would do what father did. 
 
 "But suppose they wouldn't play fair, and stole 
 your cider again?" 
 
 Mother's comment was that she hoped they would, 
 but the child spoke with equal truth. 
 
 "Well, I ain't big 'nough to lick 'em." 
 
 "Well, what next?" 
 
 "I'd take a gimlet and bore a hole in the side of 
 the building and run in a longer straw. I know 
 there must be straws long enough. Look at that 
 bunch of rye that growed down by the barnyard 
 where the ground is rich." 
 
 "But what would Ike Barber be doing?" 
 
 "Why the law would fix him, wouldn't it? Ain't 
 that cider mine if I worked for it? If it's mine, won't 
 the law give it to me?" 
 
 Hiram wanted to laugh again, yet what the child 
 had said in his innocence had truth in it. That 
 strange and indefinite thing they call law ought to 
 protect this little child in his rights. Yet who made 
 this law protection possible? That group of farmers 
 at Ike Barber's cider mill were responsible for this 
 child's law, and they failed to enforce his rights. 
 Here it was again, a toy performance of the larger 
 law which had permitted the hill country to be robbed 
 of its best. 
 
 "Uncle Hiram, what is this law anyway?" 
 
 I never did like to see a good man cornered by a 
 question which everyone should be able to answer, yet 
 which no one can answer. Therefore it was well that 
 right then Hiram and the child heard a strange horse 
 walking into the yard with a buggy behind it. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 They knew it was a strange animal because they 
 could tell the step of every neighbor's horse, as they 
 could that of the neighbors themselves. Further evi- 
 dence lay in the peculiar note in Shep's bark. The 
 child got the lantern and ran out, with Hiram follow- 
 ing him. In the moonlight they saw a gray horse 
 standing by the barnyard gate, where he had drawn 
 the buggy. The horse was tired ; he stretched out his 
 neck and called to the black inside the barn. At 
 first they thought the buggy was empty, but when the 
 lantern was held up they saw on the seat what seemed 
 to be a bundle with a thick shawl tied around it. 
 Hiram pulled one end of the shawl back, and the 
 lantern light fell upon the face of a sleeping child. 
 He tied the horse to the fence, threw a blanket over 
 him, and then gathered up the shawl-wrapped bundle 
 and carried it to the house, the child lighting the 
 way with his lantern. 
 
 Once inside, mother quickly got the bundle away 
 from Hiram, and unwound the shawl. A little girl 
 wearing a red hood dug her small fists into her face 
 and opened a pair of very black eyes upon them. 
 Remember now, this is no love story, but the child 
 standing there in his rough cap, holding the lantern 
 in his mittened hands, will carry to the end of his 
 days, and I hope beyond, what he saw when those 
 eyes opened. But perhaps we will know more about 
 that at a later time. The little thing gazed at them 
 with that curious contemplation which we see on the 
 face of a baby awakening in a strange place. She 
 glanced at them all, and then her glance came back 
 to mother, as the most likely of this strange new 
 group to answer her honestly. 
 
THE CHILD 107 
 
 "I want Uncle Jim and Aunt Mary." 
 
 I am glad that this little one had no chance to 
 be frightened and disappointed ; that her coming into 
 the Bently home was entirely natural. She is to 
 mean more than you think to these records before we 
 are done with them. Before they could ask her who 
 Uncle Jim might be, Hen Bingham's crow of a voice 
 broke in from the road. 
 
 "Hello Hiram, seen anything of a gray hoss and 
 buggy?" 
 
 It is a great thing to have lively legs in such an 
 emergency, and the child was outside waving his lan- 
 tern before Hiram could think to answer. 
 
 "They're here, Uncle Hen, a horse and a little 
 girl." 
 
 "Oh! Oh!" 
 
 It was a woman's voice sounding that great note 
 of love which you may have heard when the lost has 
 been found, or a life despaired of finally turns back 
 with the tide out of the shadow. There was a quick 
 step at the front gate, and a small woman rushed 
 into the house and grasped the little girl. A man 
 followed her and stood by her side. Shambling Hen 
 Bingham followed him, after tying his gray to the 
 fence. There was one thing about Hen Bingham at 
 least; he could relieve a situation by telling a story. 
 
 "I was comin' home from town when I catched 
 up with these here two people, pretty nigh crazy it 
 'peared to me. Their hoss had broken loose and 
 traveled on with the little gal asleep in the buggy, 
 and I picked 'em up and follered. It's no use worry- 
 in,' says I; that hoss can't leave the road till he 
 comes to the corner, and then I'll get out and look 
 for his tracks. I'll bet he ain't going to travel at 
 no record speed. Says I, if that hoss has got any 
 sense, he'll put into Hi Bently's yard, for that's 
 where they take in strangers at wholesale. And here 
 we be. Sho now, marm, aint goin' to cry be ye? 
 
108 THE CHILD 
 
 Here we be home, like I told this child the first night 
 he come." 
 
 Is it not a woman's privilege to cry at such a 
 time? This one clasping her little girl, and sitting 
 in mother's rocking chair did her best to rise above 
 her privilege, but it is doubtful if she could have suc- 
 ceeded if mother had not helped the situation. 
 
 "Now I'll warrant you haven't had any supper. 
 You just take off your hat and cloak and I'll get a 
 cup of tea. You sit right there and hold the baby 
 and get rested." 
 
 There was no denying mother. She bustled about 
 while the child woke up the fragments of fire left 
 in the kitchen stove so as to heat the tea. She soon 
 had them at the kitchen table, the little girl seated 
 on the child's box. 
 
 "Well, Mis' Bently, if you'll give me a slice of 
 that bread and butter, I'll go home," said Hen 
 Bingham. "No, there ain't no charge for doing jest a 
 neighborly service. Glad I got along j est in time." 
 
 Hiram and the child followed Hen out, and saw 
 him start for home. Then they went down to the 
 barnyard where the gray horse was tied. The horse 
 was weak and tired, there could be no doubt about 
 it. The child hesitated a moment, and then he said: 
 
 "Uncle Hiram, this horse is terrible tired, ain't he ?" 
 
 "Yes, he is played out, ought not to travel." 
 
 "Uncle Hiram, you know what I'd like to have 
 you do?" 
 
 Hiram had become used to the child's strange ways. 
 He waited without answer. 
 
 "I wish you'd invite them people to stay all night 
 with us." 
 
 Hiram looked at him a moment as if to fathom 
 his motive. Twice he started to speak, then took 
 hold of the traces to unhitch the horse, the child 
 helping on the other side as best he could. With 
 the child to carry the lantern, Hiram led the horsfe 
 
THE CHILD 109 
 
 into the barn and gave him a comfortable bed in 
 the vacant stall. Then he backed the buggy under 
 the shed. I cannot tell you how grateful Jim Turner 
 and his wife were when Hiram made them understand 
 that they must remain over night. They had dreaded 
 their lonely ride over the hills with their tired horse, 
 and the worry and trouble which they must take 
 home with them. 
 
 It must have surprised Jim Turner to find him- 
 self sitting by the fire a little later telling something 
 of his troubles. He had not meant to speak of them, 
 but somehow they were drawn out of him. Two 
 months before at the same place I think they would 
 have remained locked in his heart, and these records 
 would have ended differently. But though none of 
 them could realize it yet, the coming of the child into 
 that home had mellowed it with a sympathy which 
 it had not quite know before. So Jim, naturally a 
 man of reserve, found himself talking on until most 
 of his care seemed to disappear in the blaze of the 
 fire. 
 
 I think Jim Turner was one of the first "back-to- 
 the-landers" that ever went into the hill country to 
 buy a farm. There has been a long string of them 
 since, and the hills are now peopled with the ghosts 
 of high and extravagant hopes which came along 
 with these home-seekers and died there. Jim had 
 been easy meat for our old friend Captain Storms. 
 He was a mechanic in a New England town, good 
 at his trade, and making fair wages. One day he 
 found a few gray hairs over his temples. They came 
 faster and faster, though he was still a young man. 
 One winter it suddenly came upon him that he and 
 his wife were no longer "young folks." They were 
 not invited to parties and sleigh rides as they formerly 
 were. One day a great machine in the factory stopped 
 and Jim and his mate pulled it apart. They found 
 two little wheels inside with the cogs worn out. The 
 
110 THE CHILD 
 
 boss took these wheels in his hand, looked them over 
 and then threw them upon a pile of junk. "No good, 
 get new ones." It was a simple thing, happening 
 every week, but somehow Jim Turner could not get 
 it out of his mind. Every time he passed that pile 
 of junk there were these little wheels on top, slowly 
 rusting away. One day he stopped to look at the 
 pile ; some force which he could not control compelled 
 him to do so. Then the thing which had lain so long 
 in his mind framed itself into words. 
 
 "/ am like that wheel. I am only a little cog m 
 this big machine. In a few years I shall be worn 
 out, and the same thing will be said of me, no good, 
 
 GET A NEW ONE!" 
 
 This thought haunted him. He caught up the 
 wheel in his hand, and on his way home in the dark 
 threw it as far as he could into a pasture, where it 
 rolled down hill and out of sight. The next week 
 he came home to find a group of boys playing with 
 that wheel in front of his house. He hid it in his 
 woodshed, and on Saturday afternoon carried it to 
 a foundry and saw it thrown into the furnace. On 
 Monday another machine stopped, and the same part 
 was found worn out. Then the boss ordered two 
 dozen new castings from that very foundry into 
 which the old wheel had been thrown. 
 
 Then Jim Turner began to lose his nerve. He tried 
 to throw it off his mind, and to prove to himself that 
 he was just as good as ever, good for twenty years 
 yet, but every argument that he could put up ended 
 with just that little touch of terror in his heart. I 
 am telling you what hundreds of city men go through 
 after they begin to turn gray. They go about their 
 work and fight desperate battles with themselves to 
 keep at the game, but every time they raise their eyes 
 from their job it seems to them as if half a dozen 
 young men are eyeing them like hungry wolves. It 
 
THE CHILD . Ill 
 
 is quite likely that these very younger men are look- 
 ing at them with a feeling of admiration, but when 
 the terror of being considered a worn-out casting is 
 in a man's soul, the reason is distorted. That is the 
 way thousands of "back-to-the-landers" are started 
 for the country. That is why they often seem such 
 childish victims of the real estate men. If the man 
 has money enough to afford to pay for the opinion the 
 doctors will tell him that he has neurasthenia, and 
 tell him that he must get away from his work en- 
 tirely. If the man is a common laborer, or poor man, 
 the doctor will usually shake his head, give him a dose 
 of medicine, and say in his heart "here is another help- 
 less case." 
 
 Jim Turner had been through it all. When these 
 men begin to see rusty castings at every turn, they 
 hunt for some job where they can be their own boss, 
 and can be "fired" only by themselves. It is like fit- 
 ting the casting into a smaller machine that will work. 
 And in theory there is only one business that will 
 permit such a thing; that is farming. Jim Turner 
 was no farmer. There had been no farming in his 
 pedigree. He had a garden where, in a backyard, he 
 raised his vegetables and kept hens. If I can make 
 ten hens pay on a square rod, I can make sixteen hun- 
 dred hens pay on an acre. Why not? The easy 
 arithmetic of a "back-to-the-lander" proves it. If a 
 farmer raises his meat and eggs, and vegetables and 
 fruit and grain, he is independent, isn't he? What 
 else is there for him to buy? No one can possibly 
 throw such a man out of a job. He runs his own 
 machine which never wears out. Thus runs the 
 bright visions and glowing hope of the "back-to-the- 
 lander," and with that worn-out casting urging him 
 on Jim took the road which so many of them have 
 traveled. Mary was no farmer, but she went where 
 Jim went. I know not what freak of fate brought 
 them up into the hill country. Jim Turner said 
 
112 THE CHILD 
 
 he knew how to take his medicine, and he blamed 
 no one. They tell me he looked at the farm in 
 early Spring, and found "a beautiful lake" just 
 back of the house. On a side hill back of the 
 pasture were snow-covered mounds, which the farm 
 owner told him were piles of manure hauled out 
 in the Fall. This farmer took him to the barn 
 and showed him some tremendous stalks of corn with 
 great ears, as samples of what the farm produced. 
 Jim paid for the farm, and then he found it was 
 nearly a mile off the main road, with a track of mud 
 or dust between. The "beautiful lake" faded away 
 before the sun. By May there was a swamp full of 
 wild grass and brush, with the most wonderful pastur- 
 age for mosquitoes. The manure piles on the hill- 
 side which promised so much for the next corn crop 
 came out from under the sheltering snow solid chunks 
 of granite in a rocky pasture. The farm had been 
 well "salted," and instead of the wine of freedom, 
 Jim drank the brine of slavery. Then they made a 
 mistake in paying the full price of the farm in cash. 
 You see Captain Storms told them that old ghost of 
 a story that three other people were trying to buy 
 the place, each one with the money right at his hand. 
 There was little if anything left for capital. But at 
 least here was a home of their own, and they had 
 struggled on. They might have done better, but 
 bad news came from New England. Jim's brother 
 broke down and could not work. Jim and Mary took 
 the little girl, for they had no children of their own. 
 Bill made a struggle, but the doctors told him that 
 his only hope was in the far West. Well, to make 
 it short, Jim and Mary had finally induced Sam 
 Storms to take a small mortgage at his own terms on 
 their farm, so that Bill could have a chance for his 
 life. They had driven over that day, but the gray 
 horse was feeble and a little lame, and Sam Storms 
 had beaten and beaten them down to hard terms. 
 
THE CHILD 113 
 
 Finally in desperation Jim took what he offered. 
 They had both gone into the house to hear the mort- 
 gage read. The baby was so sleepy that they had 
 wrapped her in the shawl and left her in the buggy. 
 In some way the old horse slipped his bridle and wan- 
 dered off aimlessly along the road. When they came 
 out to find the little one gone, Jim and Mary had 
 rushed down the road, scarcely knowing where they 
 went, until Hen Bingham had picked them up. 
 
 I cannot begin to tell this as Jim Turner did that 
 night before the fire. It was a new page out of life 
 for Hiram; he had not thought of it before. He saw 
 at once that Jim was no farmer. Such a man was 
 surely doomed to failure, more so than an awkward 
 countryman would be as waiter in a city hotel. A 
 man may learn most city trades, but no man learns 
 farming unless he has naturally something of what 
 we call instinct, or ability to learn without books. We 
 may take agriculture out of books, but we must take 
 farming out of ourselves. Jim had been drinking the 
 brine of his salted farm to the dregs. When the snow 
 went he found the stalks actually growing in his corn- 
 field the size of your little finger. Sam Storms knew 
 how to bring up a shock of corn grown on the field 
 in the rich river bottom land; that was good "salt," 
 for who would think of going out into the fields, dig- 
 ging away the snow and comparing these great stalks 
 with what he found growing there? Then Jim had 
 delivered his milk to a fine sympathetic man, who in- 
 tended to lift the milk farmers out of slavery. This 
 man walked off with great freedom and carried with 
 him three months' payment. Then they had invested 
 in a fine outfit of incubators and brooders, and hatch- 
 ing eggs, but Jim's accurate figures proved that 
 each hen he raised had cost five cents more than she 
 brought in. Yet Jim and Mary were hopeful. They 
 had lived in their own home for two years. Strange 
 to say, Jim had recovered his nerve on that "salted" 
 
114 THE CHILD 
 
 farm. The blood spot of the rusty casting was out of 
 his brain. He knew that if he had the capital and 
 could drain that swamp he could make it into the best 
 soil in the county. If the farmers would only let 
 him do it, he knew he could sell their produce to better 
 advantage than they could, for he had lived in the 
 town, and he knew he could get past those hands that 
 reached out along the way. He could do it, if the 
 farmers would fit him out and trust him. 
 
 So they sat and talked far into the night — the 
 baby asleep upstair. The child sat with sleepless 
 eyes listening to this new side of the hill country 
 problem. It was easy to see that Uncle Hiram con- 
 sidered this man a sad failure as a farmer, and the 
 ability to run a farm was considered the test of ef- 
 ficiency. Was it possible that a failure at one thing 
 could prove a success at another? It was too much 
 for the child. Finally Jim looked at his watch, hold- 
 ing it down to the dying fire. 
 
 "One thing Mary and I try to do the last thing 
 at night. It's hard sometimes, but we try to sing. 
 No matter how hard the day has been, it helps us 
 to remember that we have one thing which we have 
 hunted for at least." 
 
 And so with Mary at the little melodeon, and Jim 
 standing beside her, they sang "Home, Sweet Home." 
 Yes, the failure, the financial fool as Captain Storms 
 called him, he who had mortgaged his farm to give 
 his brother one more chance for life, knew as he stood 
 there in the dim light that he had one thing at least 
 which ranked him with kings. Outside in the road an 
 old farmer and his wife, a belated couple from town, 
 heard the song and stopped their horse to listen. 
 When it was ended they drove on in silence, but be- 
 fore they reached the schoolhouse he turned to her. 
 
 "Mar, you need a brand new dress, don't ye, and 
 I will get one." 
 
THE CHILD 115 
 
 "I don't need it no more than you need a coat, par, 
 and you know it." 
 
 I know now how Jim Turner got back his nerve 
 and kept his hope on that "salted" farm. At the 
 Buffalo Exposition I saw the two extremes of Amer- 
 ican society meet, and with them the only thing that 
 could draw them together. There was an exhibit of 
 Eskimos, and they were the real thing, small men 
 and women, clad in furs, direct from the ice and 
 snow of Labrador. When" President McKinley was 
 killed, the Exposition was halted for a day, and there 
 were few on the grounds except exhibitors. On that 
 day of leisure I saw two of these Eskimos walk down 
 the street and go into the main exposition building. 
 Finally they entered the Longfellow house. This was 
 a miniature representation of the house in which the 
 poet Longfellow lived at Cambridge. Within it, in 
 addition to the old clock on the stairs, and some relic 
 of Paul Revere, was an old-fashioned piano or spinet, 
 said to be 250 years old. The gentle poet certainly 
 represented the highest type of our American civiliza- 
 tion. The skin-clad man who had stepped out of his 
 frozen hut at the north, stood at the other extreme. 
 This man sat down at the old piano and with one 
 finger played "Home Sweet Home." A missionary 
 had taught him the tune. It was all he knew of music, 
 yet it brought the two extremes of civilization to- 
 gether upon common ground. For as he slowly 
 fingered out the air, memories that were two centuries 
 old stirred in the strings of that old harp, and I could 
 see that this man was homesick. Homesick, think of 
 it, homesick for a hole in a frozen snowdrift, a bunch 
 of furs, and blubber lamp which he called home. And 
 yet that homesickness and what it stands for, is the 
 great enduring thing which saves a nation rather 
 than its money or its military power. 
 
 This was one of the things which the child never 
 forgot. Next morning Jim Turner and his family 
 
116 THE CHILD 
 
 drove away for their home, but they do not drive out 
 of these pages, as we shall see. We may now jump 
 some months ahead with our records. Winter went 
 by, and the child grew and developed in body and 
 mind. He did his work, and he played as the other 
 children did, yet somehow the problem of the hills 
 remained in his mind, and he carried it about as one 
 would carry a burden, for he seemed in some way 
 to be a part of it himself. He had seen a "middle- 
 man," and knew its personality. Therein he had the 
 advantage of the men who came to Uncle Hiram's 
 and talked of their wrongs, and discussed middle- 
 men in a general way, as if they had never really 
 seen one. These men were excited and full of great 
 plans, for the time had come for one of those spas- 
 modic, powerful, but loosely organized movements to 
 obtain better prices for the milk. The scheme was a 
 grand one in theory, to control the milk supply of the 
 great city and thus cut off a few of those thieving 
 hands. All the dairymen were to combine and hold 
 back their milk until the handlers offered a fair price 
 for it. Every few years this plan came up, some- 
 time in one way, sometimes in another. The big 
 organization is formed, and grows like a corn* plant 
 in August, but somehow it always crumbled at the 
 crisis. For some reason the members could not hold 
 together, yet the farmers still talked hopefully, and 
 thejr plan was ever the same, a large organization to 
 control the entire situation at once. 
 
 The child listened to the talk, but he had seen at the 
 schoolhouse the fatal weakness of the plan. One day 
 a book agent, a young clergyman selling a religious 
 book to help him through college, had stopped at the 
 school, and as may be expected, was invited to ad- 
 dress the pupils. The world is full of strange, ab- 
 normal things which it is hard to understand. Here 
 is one. If you will tell me why an intelligent man, 
 capable of gaining the confidence of children, drops 
 
THE CHILD 1171 
 
 all human nature and begins to preach whenever he 
 gets in front of them, I shall have mastered a prob- 
 lem which has long puzzled me. This man's speech 
 was brought to a close in the following dramatic way. 
 The speaker fastened his eye and finger upon a 
 medium-sized boy on the front seat: 
 
 "Now, my young friend, suppose you decided to be 
 a model little gentleman ; suppose you came to school 
 and always said 'please' and 'thank you,' and never 
 got angry, and always gave up your playthings to 
 others, now, my dear boy, what would the other 
 schoolmates think of you?" 
 
 The boy wanted to tell the truth, and he did. 
 
 "They would all think they could lick me." 
 
 The child knew the feeling among the scholars, 
 and that it was something of a reflection of what they 
 heard at home. There was an invisible line which 
 divided the district into two localities, known as Bung- 
 town and Cattle Street. Hiram's farm was on the 
 edge of Bungtown, so the child was expected to train 
 and fight with that side. The child cared nothing for 
 this neighborhood feud. It meant nothing to him. 
 What did he care for inherited prejudice, and what 
 feeling could he have against the boys of Cattle 
 Street? But he found that Cattle Street had adopted 
 a feud against him. In Winter the boys fought 
 at intervals with snowballs, and in Summer with 
 sticks and stones. Most grown-up country boys who 
 read this will remember these senseless school feuds 
 which have been handed down over some far-off fan- 
 cied grievance, and which in some localities have 
 stunted and dwarfed moral and social development. 
 Th child could not understand it, but he clearly saw 
 the part it was taking in the hill problem. 
 
 One Friday afternoon a big hay wagon drove into 
 the school yard. The scholars from a district in 
 Scott Township had come over to play ball. For 
 the first time in his life the child saw what it meant 
 
118 THE CHILD 
 
 to be organized with the sentiment of local pride to 
 tie boys together. These boys from Scott Township 
 did not fight each other. They were past that, for 
 their feud had been eaten up and digested by public 
 sentiment. The child was not large enough to play, 
 but he helped to organize the game. When they 
 came to select the nine for the district, they found 
 that the best pitcher came from Bungtown, the catcher 
 from Cattle Street, and the other players were about 
 equally divided. Imagine a boy who has thrown 
 stones and snowballs at another boy, or fought with 
 him behind the shed in the hatred of a school district 
 feud, now trying to throw a ball at him for the glory 
 of the entire district ! The child sat on the fence and 
 saw Scott Township, with much smaller boys, play 
 all around his district. Finally the first baseman, 
 who came from Bungtown, dropped a ball. A boy 
 from Cattle Street attacked him for the error, and a 
 general battle ensued, which ended the game. The 
 child heard the shouts of Scott Township on their 
 triumphant ride homeward, and it was hard to get 
 them out of his ears, for the boys from his district 
 had the size, and they had the strength needed to 
 win that game. They lacked that little something 
 which held people together, and tied them fast for a 
 cause. There it was again, sentiment, the strange 
 thing which most people laughed at, and yet no one 
 in the hill country ever seemed to stay by his friend 
 through thick and thin, unless he had something of it. 
 The child walked home after that game, tired and 
 depressed. The shouts of the Scott Township boys 
 tired him far more than a day's work could have 
 done. It seemed such a mean and ignoble thing to 
 lose their game when they had everything in their 
 favor except that foolish thing which people call 
 sentiment. Walking on in this mood he did not hear 
 a white horse trotting rapidly in the soft road be- 
 hind him, until a harsh voice shouted. 
 
THE CHILD 119 
 
 "Get out of the road." 
 
 The child jumped to one side, glancing back to 
 see a white horse pulling a buckboard in which were 
 two men, one with a gray suit and a gray chin beard, 
 the other a stout man with a red face. Here were 
 our old friends John Bascom and Captain Storms 
 on one of their "errands of mercy," as Bascom put 
 it. He said they went on these errands to relieve 
 widows and orphans of their money, so they couldn't 
 make fools of themselves with it. The two men 
 glanced at the child as they passed, and he heard the 
 Captain say : 
 
 "That's the brat Hiram Bently is fooling with." 
 
 Perhaps it was this or some other mental suggestion 
 that drove him to it. At any rate the child ran behind 
 the buckboard and climbed so lightly upon it that the 
 two men, deep in their discussion, did not notice 
 him. 
 
 "John," Captain Storms was saying, "I think we 
 have got that cuss tied up tight. He can't pay that 
 chattel mortgage, and he can't raise the money. 
 Pinch him, and we get his farm for just about noth- 
 ing." 
 
 "But it's a pretty raw deal, Sam." 
 
 "I call it well done. Didn't the fool have a chance 
 to get out? I had another sucker just like him 
 ready to buy that place, if the cuss had only been 
 willing to tell him the right story. I had it all framed 
 up for him, but the fool cut under me and gave away 
 everything I had told the new man, and the deal was 
 off. Will he have any right to kick after that?" 
 
 "No, he won't," admitted John. 
 
 "Now you squeeze him on that mortgage and we 
 can get the farm at our own figure. Then we can 
 turn it over to the quarry company for five times what 
 it cost us. We can take it in stock, for this is a 
 big thing and sure to pay." 
 
 Here the dust from the white horse's lively feet 
 
120 THE CHILD 
 
 choked the child, and he coughed. Sam, who was 
 driving, turned quickly and saw his unexpected pas- 
 senger. He caught up his whip and lashed behind. 
 
 "Get out of that you brat," he commanded. 
 
 The child dodged the whip and jumped safely to 
 the ground. The white horse trotted on, but the 
 child stood for some time watching those two figures 
 in the buckboard. He could not be called a revenge- 
 ful child. Did he not forgive Hen Bingham? Yet I 
 think he understood instinctively that that buckboard 
 was part of the sinister influence which made the 
 problem of the hills so hard. He could not understand 
 that conversation, except that some poor farmer was 
 likely to have his farm stolen from him because no 
 one would help him out at a crisis. He saw John 
 Bascom look back at him, and then speak to the 
 Captain. 
 
 "You don't suppose that brat knows enough to 
 give it away?" 
 
 "No, no. He hasn't got sense enough to remem- 
 ber his dinner. Suppose he did. Who would ever put 
 up money enough to pay that mortgage? These 
 farmers might buy gold bricks, but they won't in- 
 vest in sentiment." 
 
 In his sorrow over the loss of the ball game, the 
 child forgot to speak of this episode in his talk with 
 Hiram that night. On Sunday afternoon they had 
 a visit from Jim Turner. Poor Jim, he was obliged 
 to admit at last that he was a sad failure as a farmer, 
 with no hope for recovery. One thing after another 
 had upset all his plans. The dry weather had 
 scorched his crops on the upland and the long rains 
 in Spring had drowned what he planted in the lower 
 fields. Jim had planted in both places so as to be 
 sure, but nature had cut both ways. Then Bill had 
 failed to find the health he went after, and had been 
 taken sick again in a lonely desert town. This time 
 Jim in his desperation had gone to the bank for a 
 
THE CHILD 121 
 
 loan, and John Bascom had demanded a chattel mort- 
 gage on his furniture and stock. When he signed 
 that paper for perhaps one-quarter of what his goods 
 were worth, Jim's potatoes were rank and green, and 
 there could not be less than four hundred bushels in 
 sight. It is one thing to have potatoes in sight, but 
 unhappily many things may step in to interrupt the 
 vision before you dig them. Right at their bloom 
 came a long rain, followed by warm and "muggy" 
 weather. Blight, which seemed like a fond brother 
 of the mortgage, came to visit these vines, as though 
 the disease felt that if these potatoes grew they would 
 shake the grip of his clinging brother. In a few weeks 
 the vines were dead, and the potatoes smaller than 
 pullet's eggs. Of course, I know that our friends of 
 scientific agriculture will say, "Now, you have lost 
 a great point! Why did you not have this child 
 find out all about spraying potatoes and rush to 
 Jim's rescue with Bordeaux mixture? You might 
 have had the child walking into John Bascom's bank 
 like a man in a play, throwing money on the table 
 and demanding the mortgage." Or I should have 
 had Jim Turner suddenly blooming out as a scientific 
 farmer and showing his neighbors just how to do 
 things properly. Very likely I am far behind the 
 times in this, but you must remember that I am 
 writing this record of very ordinary people at a 
 time when spraying potatoes was a thing reserved 
 for a few men with a mental ability which put them 
 out of the ordinary crowd . All there was to it was 
 that Jim Turner lost his potato crop. The mort- 
 gage was nearly due, and the home seemed likely to 
 follow the potatoes. 
 
 Jim could not bring himself to ask Hiram for a 
 loan. He knew he was a failure as a farmer. The 
 hill country people must judge a man's ability by 
 his power to make the soil produce a living. Jim 
 could not do that, and who ever heard of a man in- 
 
122 THE CHILD 
 
 vesting his money in a self-confessed failure? To 
 be sure he had invested his money in Bill, but that 
 was a different thing, and so Jim, feeling a little bet- 
 ter for the kindly sympathy which listened to his 
 story, drove back home behind his limping gray. I 
 know of no sadder journey for a man to make than 
 this one which Jim was taking. His home was to be 
 stolen from him. Here he was with hands and brain 
 and heart, with love and the will to wear them out 
 if need be for his family, yet he was powerless, and 
 every rock and every tree along the way seemed to 
 point at him in scorn and say, "You are a fail- 
 ure!" Jim Turner, many a man has gone to the 
 end of that sad road. There are plenty of foot- 
 prints all along the way. I am sorry that so few of 
 them have been followed by the silent companions 
 which were soon to follow you. 
 
 The child watched Uncle Jim until the limping 
 gray turned off the main road at the corner. He 
 had listened to the story, sitting beside Uncle Hiram's 
 chair, and in his childish way he was trying to con- 
 nect it with something he had heard, for the mo- 
 ment he could not remember what. It came to him 
 just as two blue-coated gentlemen walked in from 
 the road. Oh, no, these are not policemen, come to 
 add some mystery of a problem novel to this little 
 record. We have only to behold two good friends, 
 Hen Bingham and Carl Schmitt. We ought to have 
 known Carl Schmitt long ago. He was the only 
 German farmer in the district, and perhaps because 
 that was so, the best farmer. Just before the war, a 
 light-haired German boy with his hair cut square 
 above his ears, and a pair of wooden shoes in his 
 bag, came into the hill country to milk cow's for 
 Hiram's father. This man never bought another 
 pair of wooden shoes, but he nailed the pair he 
 brought with him on the wall of his house, where 
 they stood as a finger mark in history, showing what 
 
THE CHILD 123 
 
 he started from, and that he was proud of the start. 
 Carl's daughter, after she married a city man, wanted 
 to pull those shoes down and burn them. She never 
 knew what her father's anger meant until she sug- 
 gested doing it. When the war broke out Hiram 
 and Carl volunteered together, one because there had 
 been handed down to him unconsciously, visions and 
 dreams of a liberty which his ancestors had prayed 
 for, the other because of visions of a future liberty 
 which, those who follow him should enjoy. After 
 the war, when so many Germans went west to build 
 new States upon the prairies, Carl had followed his 
 friend back to the hill country. There was a girl in 
 Germany who had waited for Carl, as Edith had 
 for the Colonel, and she came when he was ready, 
 They tell me there was a singular thing about the 
 way Carl Schmitt got his farm. An old farmer had 
 sent five boys to the war. Four of them were killed, 
 the other came back wounded unto death at the close 
 of the struggle. They say that a few days before 
 he died this soldier sat with his father looking down 
 the long slope of their beautiful farm, and over the 
 hills which were soon to open for him into that 
 strange far-ofF country where there are no hills and 
 hills and hills, to keep men from their desire. This 
 boy had been his father's pride. He reached out 
 his thin, wasted hand and touched the old man's 
 arm. 
 
 "Father," said the boy, "this war is to change his- 
 tory more than you think. The very fact that our 
 section has given so many of its boys will make a 
 change which I see coming. When I am gone you 
 will have no heirs to come and carry on this farm. 
 There will be hundreds more like you. I have lived to 
 learn that our country has been made strong and 
 rich, not by what we dug out of the soil, but by that 
 strange thing which made so many of us go to war. 
 When you older men pass away, much of that thing 
 
124. THE CHILD 
 
 will go with you if our farms are to pass into the 
 hands of people who have never fought or suffered 
 in some way for their country. And so, father, 
 I wish you would plan it so that Carl Schmitt may 
 buy this farm some day and work it after you are 
 gone. He is a German, a foreigner, I know, but he 
 was a good soldier, and he has that in his heart which 
 has made the real strength of these hills." 
 
 So it came about that Carl Schmitt, the German 
 hired man, bought the best farm in that district, 
 and had made it still better. The hands along the 
 way to the city did not get at Carl quite as much as 
 they did at others, for he did not depend entirely 
 upon milk, but was one of the first of that wise, far- 
 seeing group who practiced general farming, and did 
 it well. On Sunday afternoon it was a common thing 
 for Carl Schmitt to put on his blue coat and gold- 
 braided hat and visit his old comrades. 
 
 Hen and Carl walked down to the barnyard, where 
 Hiram joined them. There was a wooden seat on the 
 sunny side of the barn, and the three old soldiers 
 seated themselves for a happy review of old cam- 
 paigns. It was then that the child suddenly got the 
 connection between Jim Turner's mortgage and the 
 conversation in that buckboard behind the white horse. 
 He ran down to the barnyard and broke up the bat- 
 tle of Gettysburg in the middle. It was easy to see 
 the point. John Bascom and Captain Storms knew 
 that Jim Turner could not pay 'his mortgage. They 
 knew this quarry company wanted the property, and 
 their scheme was to squeeze Jim out, get his farm, 
 and then realize on it. It surely was a very slick 
 scheme — still another toy performance of the way 
 larger schemes are worked down along the way where 
 tiie hands beckon and grab. Carl Schmitt acted as 
 spokesman of the group. 
 
 "Hir-em, how much off a failure vas dis man, 
 vhat?" 
 
THE CHILD 125 
 
 "About the limit. He doesn't know anything about 
 farming." 
 
 "Oh, veil, I was a failure when I was come by 
 your fader. You remember dot time I was first try 
 me to milk a cow, und vork five, ten minutes mit a 
 dry heifer, vhat?" 
 
 "Oh! but Carl, you could learn; this man can't 
 make a farmer to save his life." 
 
 "Veil, he was not a failure mit someding else, ain't 
 it? You get him away farming from und start him 
 by someding he know how, und he make success, vhat ? 
 Veil, leafe him like he was, und he makes a worst fail- 
 ure yet." 
 
 "That's right," put in Hen. 
 
 "Veil, gentlemens, I tell you dis I call a goot in- 
 vestment. I moof j r ou that we organize a gumpany, 
 call it the Hill Country Broduce Gumpany. Our 
 object by dis gumpany was to shut off dem blood- 
 suckers by investing der money in a mortgage, so 
 dot a man dot was a failure mit varming vas maj'be a 
 success mit someding else. Officers of dis gumpany 
 vas Hirem Bently, president ; Hein Bingham, secre- 
 tary; Carl Schmitt, treasurer, und — und " 
 
 Here Carl looked about for the other officer until 
 his eye fell upon the child, then he went on. 
 
 "Und the child, vice president. Dem vhat favors 
 the motion says aye!" 
 
 No one voted except the child, and he did so with 
 such voice that mother came to the door to see what 
 was the matter. 
 
 "Und now the treasurer proceeds to raise the 
 funds," and Carl, regardless of the fact that this 
 was Sunday, pulled a good-sized wallet out of his 
 pocket. And it is a fact that Carl and Hiram and 
 Hen put up that money and loaned it to Jim Turner 
 as an investment to save his farm. Carl Schmitt did 
 not know that on that bright Sunday afternoon he 
 gave another of those toy performances, this time of 
 
126 THE CHILD 
 
 a great blessed system which is some day to spread 
 and help to solve the hill country problem. For there 
 are thousands of homes like Jim Turner's going out 
 of the hands of men who need them. There are thou- 
 sands of young men to whom a fair loan on long time 
 will make all the difference between farm ownership 
 and life-long serfdom or tenancy. There are tens of 
 thousands of farmers like Hiram and Hen and Carl, 
 who could not possibly do better for themselves or 
 for their country, than to invest their money in 
 just such farm loans. 
 
 The president and vice-president of the new com- 
 pany notified Jim of the result of this meeting. No, 
 I cannot tell you what it meant to them all. The 
 little girl climbed on Hiram's knee and kissed him. 
 He had not known what that meant for twenty-five 
 years, for his relations with the child were not those 
 of ordinary affection. They were more of comrade- 
 ship. Jim and Mary signed a note for the money, 
 and you may say what you like about the curse of 
 wealth, but that bunch of bills in Jim's breast pocket 
 felt as if the tip of an angel's wing had touched his 
 heart, as he walked into the bank the day his mort- 
 gage was due. John Bascom and the Captain were 
 both there. 
 
 "I have come to see you about that mortgage," 
 said Jim. 
 
 John put on his regretful sympathetic mask at 
 
 once. "I am mighty sorry, Mr. Turner, but we can't 
 
 renew. We have just had several big calls for cash, 
 
 and we must call in all the paper we have out." 
 
 "But I don't want to renew it, I want to pay it." 
 
 "Pay it! What with ? What in " 
 
 But there was no discounting or rejecting the 
 good money in Jim's hand. Even when a financial 
 fool or a cuss comes forward with genuine U. S. 
 paper, he is master of the situation. It was tough, 
 too, for John and the Captain had felt so sure of 
 
THE CHILD 127 
 
 their deal that they had practically given the quarry 
 company an option on that farm. So Jim paid his 
 mortgage and started out. Then they had to call him 
 back, and the man who must do that carries the 
 necessities of the bargain on his back, with the other 
 man riding them like a comfortable saddle. To make 
 it short, they had to give Jim what he paid for his 
 farm, and a small bonus beside. Let them not com- 
 plain, for they still made more money out of it than 
 they deserved. 
 
 Jim paid his note to the Hill Country Produce Com- 
 pany and put the rest of this money into his pocket 
 until he got to Brownsville, and then he put it in a 
 bank. There was work at his trade, and so Jim 
 Turner, the "back-to-the-lander," a failure, steps out 
 of the hill country into another field. Jim's hopes 
 as a farmer were shattered upon the big gray rocks 
 which pushed their noses out of the soil as though 
 snuffing the blood of a "back-to-the-lander." The 
 quarry company blew them out and shaped them, and 
 sent them off along the road to town, where the hill 
 country laid the foundation for bridges and buildings, 
 as well as for the nerve and blood for city civiliza- 
 tion. Thus Jim Turner left the hills a wiser but not 
 a sadder man, for he had found hope and courage 
 once more, and kindly sympathy, which was more 
 than all. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Of course, we must all know about the great base- 
 ball game. Not only was it one of the great events 
 of the year, but the child learned from it a thing 
 which helped to solve the hill problem. Therefore, 
 while some of you may not know a base hit from a 
 foul tip, we all know about human nature, and that 
 is what the child learned at the game. This old mas- 
 ter, human nature, can use a ball field as well as a 
 college class-room for his lectures, and some who 
 would only be dunces in the class-room may become 
 wise men at the game. People had been talking of 
 this famous game for weeks. You would see hired 
 men and young farmers out in the yard after milking, 
 practicing with ball and bat. The younger genera- 
 tion imitated them so thoroughly that the crop of 
 bioken windows that year was a record breaker. 
 The college nine from Jefferson was coming down 
 to play the corn planters, a nine picked from the 
 entire east end of the county. There were few who 
 realized that in this ball game was to be fought out 
 to the end the old-time struggle between organiza- 
 tion, and crude, untrained and unorganized power. 
 
 Sitting on the grass beside Uncle Hiram, the child 
 felt something of this from the time the college boys 
 stepped off the train. There were only a few of them, 
 the players and their manager, and a handful of 
 shouting students. Yet these few marched up the 
 street in a group waving their flags and shouting 
 their college yell. There were probably 500 peo- 
 ple from the farms in town, but this little organized 
 group of shouting college boys attracted more atten- 
 tion than all the other crowd of visitors. The child 
 
THE CHILD 129 
 
 felt somehow drawn by the power of this plucky lit- 
 tle band, confident and cheerful, always acting in 
 concert so that every sound and every action should 
 appear as strong as possible. 
 
 When they came to the ball field the contrast be- 
 tween the two nines seemed ridiculous. In the Sun- 
 day school the week before the lesson had been about 
 David and Goliath, and the child had gone home 
 thinking it over, and wondering what he would have 
 done if he had been put up to fight Captain Storms. 
 He had pictured the Captain armed with a horse- 
 whip, with every point of advantage in strength and 
 size, and the child had decided that in the event of 
 such a battle he would have picked up a handful of 
 sand and thrown it at the Captain's eyes. And this 
 certainly was a wise inspiration. Here it was again 
 on the ball field, this old combat between the giant 
 and the striphng, with the chances decidedly against 
 David, for these trim college youths seemed like chil- 
 dren beside the great brawny fellows who opposed 
 ihem. They were hired men and farmers' sons, the 
 pick of every district, brown skinned giants with 
 great bulging muscles, hardened in the hayfield or 
 ditch. When the two captains met to arrange the 
 game, and Henry Smith, a giant of six feet and 
 more, looked down upon a boy seemingly about half 
 his size, I think most of the farmers agreed with the 
 child that there was to be a slaughter of the inno- 
 cents. Yet, before the game began, this little band 
 of college boys grouped themselves together and sang 
 a song, simple enough about "Bright College Days." 
 As they sang, a silence fell upon that great crowd, for 
 it seemed to every man there as if there were silent 
 companions standing beside that brave little group 
 of singers. And so they were, for all the traditions 
 that hung about the old college, all the famous men 
 who looked down upon these boys from the fading can- 
 vas ; all seemed to have come walking down the silent, 
 
ISO THE CHILD 
 
 haunted aisles of memory to stand there with those 
 who represented what they had loved and cherished. 
 And here it was again, the sentiment, the spirit back 
 of a cause which somehow ties men together. Sitting 
 there in the sun, it suddenly came to the child why 
 the boy David was able to face the giant with his 
 simple weapons. He had this sentiment, this spirit 
 in his heart, whatever it was, and it had been put 
 there by invisible companions of courage and faith, 
 who had come with him out of the desert and over 
 lonely mountains to stand with him in time of battle 
 
 The manager of the college nine was a middle-aged 
 man, with a little gray in his hair, but he, too, sung 
 with his eyes shut, and his head a little bent and 
 turned away, as if memory were walking with sen- 
 timent hand in hand in time with the song. And the^ 
 child, sitting there beside Hiram in the hush which 
 followed the song, found himself thinking that if 
 somehow the people of the hill country could do such 
 things together their problem would be ended. Why 
 was it not possible for the hill country people to get 
 at that spirit and sentiment, and make their work 
 from day to day something like what those boys felt 
 about their college? If they could only sing some- 
 thing in praise of the pioneers, the brave old men 
 who had conquered their country, taken it from the 
 wilderness and made it such a glorious place for men 
 to live in, would not the problem of the hill country 
 be settled? 
 
 It was not until years later that the child learned 
 that this very thing had once saved a nation, Den- 
 mark. For it is a fact of history that, at about the 
 end of our Civil War, Denmark seemed like a dying 
 nation, beaten in war, with some of her best prov- 
 inces stolen from her. It seemed as if the little na- 
 tion which had held such a brave place in history 
 were hopelessly beaten, and would be absorbed by 
 Germany. But this very peril had aroused the 
 
THE CHILD 131 
 
 Danes to action. They were able to develop a national 
 spirit or patriotism, not for war, for the nation was 
 too feeble for that, but for agriculture and the things 
 which it is possible to produce from it. You would 
 call it impossible for a nation, which had in its history 
 the glorious record of old sea kings, to utilize their 
 memory and the spirit of patriotism in the humbler 
 works of cultivating the soil and making butter, but 
 the Danes did it. As a result they were able to form 
 that true co-operation which holds men together in 
 their business, as it holds an army fighting for the 
 freedom of a nation. Because they were able to put 
 this spirit and sentiment or patriotism into their 
 daily work, the Danes rose in fifty years from abject 
 poverty and desperate conditions to become the most 
 prosperous and patriotic nation in Europe. What 
 they did in reality was to earn for themselves the 
 ability to put in their own country fifty per cent, 
 more of the final consumer's dollar than they had 
 been able to obtain before. Had they not been able to 
 do that their work at producing and improving their 
 farms would never have made them free. No nation 
 or individual can be free when he must labor and per- 
 mit the hands of others to go through his pockets. 
 The work of this brave little nation is often put for- 
 ward by those who wish to have farmers see the ad- 
 vantages of co-operation. The dry details of their 
 work are like dead fruit to most of our people, unless 
 there can also be shown the spirit and sentiment which 
 gave life to it. For the lawyers and the workers and 
 the planners would all, every one of them, have fail- 
 ed had it not been for the dreamers and the poets, 
 who had a vision of the future and who wrote the farm 
 songs and hymns which the people sang. For it is a 
 fact that the Danes sang themselves into industrial 
 freedom. Their singing of the songs and the hymns 
 which expressed the ideal they had for their coun- 
 try, gave life to their work and made them feel that 
 
132 THE CHILD 
 
 those strong invisible companions were at their side. 
 Very likely dreamer and poet went to their grave, 
 characterized by the practical men as failures, non- 
 producers, or worse ; and yet they gave the sentiment 
 which, like the binding power in the concrete, holds 
 the brick and the stone together in its enduring 
 clasp. 
 
 As the game went on, the hill country folks saw the 
 development of a curious thing. They had fully ex- 
 pected to see the corn planters "eat up" these college 
 boys. They were certainly large enough to do it, 
 and then look about for another meal. But some- 
 how the unexpected was happening. Smash at the 
 ball as the corn planters would, there was always a 
 college boy in front of it, and when it got by him 
 there was always another boy who had run to help 
 him. It startled the corn planters to realize that 
 they were batting as individuals, but were always 
 opposed by more than one boy. The manager stood 
 at one side directing the game. The boys obeyed him 
 like a company of soldiers. His eye and brain were 
 free to watch every point of the game, and the 
 boys followed out his thought. There was no such 
 team work among the corn planters. Each man played 
 for himself as an individual. Sometimes two or three 
 different men would run after a ball, and either run 
 into each other, or leave some point on the diamond 
 unguarded. Then, again, a ball would be knocked 
 into' the air and, without direction, two men would 
 hesitate for an instant, and neither would start for 
 it in time. As this went on one player would find 
 fault with another, while the college boys accepted 
 their errors and their troubles cheerfully, and left 
 the talking to their manager. There could be but 
 one result; slowly the college boys began to forge 
 ahead. Therei was something about this strange 
 thing which silenced the crowd. Without realizing 
 it, they were looking upon another toy performance 
 
THE CHILD 133 
 
 of the principle which lay at the bottom of the hill 
 problem, for this little band of trained and in- 
 spired college boys, cheerful and loyal, represented, 
 in a way, the forces which had been able to gain the 
 mastery of business and politics. 
 
 The child saw all this, and felt it, sitting between 
 Uncle Hiram and Hen Bingham, and he must have 
 shown something in his face out of the ordinary which 
 appealed td Hen, for he leaned across to his old com- 
 rade during one exciting point of the game when the 
 child's ears had been momentarily absorbed by his 
 eyes, and gave voice to his sentiment. 
 
 "Hiram, keep your eye on that child, watch him. 
 He's taking it all in, and I'll bet he's got it all 
 pictured up inside of his head so it will stay there 
 as long as he lives. I'll bet that child will work this 
 thing out some day into- something a good deal 
 bigger, and don't you forget it." 
 
 Hen Bingham probably never read a word of Em- 
 erson, and would not know the famous lecture on 
 "Intellect" if he found it out in his barn, which is all 
 the greater argument to prove the truth of the old 
 saying that, "great minds run in the same chan- 
 nel," for in my copy of Emerson's Essays I have 
 found the following: — 
 
 "In every man's mind some images, words and 
 facts remain, without effort on his part to imprint 
 them, which others forget — and afterwards these il- 
 lustrate to him important laws. All our progress is 
 an unfolding, like the vegetable bud * * * * 
 Trust the instinct to the end, though you can ren- 
 der no reason . It is vain to hurry it. By trusting 
 to the end, it shall ripen into truth, and you shall 
 know why you believe." 
 
 At the beginning of the ninth inning the college 
 boys were four runs ahead, and the corn planters 
 were at the point of going to pieces. They had begun 
 to blame each other, and to feel a sort of mild 
 
184 THE CHILD 
 
 terror for these strange invisible forces which seemed 
 to be playing ball against them. Just when they 
 were ready to give up the struggle, fate came to their 
 rescue for a moment, at least. The college catcher, 
 apparently sure of the game, reached out for a wide 
 ball, which might just as well have gone by him 
 without trouble. The boy reached for it, dropped it, 
 and held up his hand for the game to stop. He had 
 broken his finger and was out of the game. The only 
 substitute available was put in, but he was nervous 
 and untried, and the corn planters resumed their at- 
 tack, spurred on by the yells of the crowd. The cap- 
 tain of the nine hit the ball along the base line like 
 a cannon shot. The third baseman stopped it, but it 
 stopped him as well, knocking him completely over 
 and twisting his leg, and then went on to do as much 
 damage as it could. Three men came in, and the corn 
 planters were one run ahead, with two out. The 
 manager of the college nine came running up for 
 reinforcements. 
 
 "Can you lend me a player to finish the game?" 
 It seemed to be all over, for even organization 
 must give way when the cogs are broken off. The 
 corn planters thought they might as well do a com- 
 plete job, so they unanimously pointed to Bill King 
 as the substitute. From his appearance you could 
 hardly find in a day's journey a less appropriate man 
 to represent a college. Bill stood there, a bony and 
 freckled giant, with a pleasant face and big brown 
 eyes that were almost too good-natured to see their 
 way through the hard places of life. He had on a 
 brown flannel shirt, and a pair of blue overalls, with 
 wide straps over his shoulders. In his hand he car- 
 ried a tremendous bat which he had manufactured 
 himself, whittling it out of a small tree and polish- 
 ing it down with glass. Bill was a baseball "discard," 
 the joke of the county. With all his giant strength 
 and his great war club, he never could hit the ball, 
 
THE CHILD 135 
 
 but always struck out, or weakly tapped it at the 
 end of his hat, or close up to his fingers. Surely 
 here was a promising substitute for the corn planters 
 to offer. There was nothing else to do, so Bill went 
 down to right field, and the game went on. Man after 
 man went to bat and hit that ball, until the bases were 
 full, and joy overflowed from the crowd, for there 
 seemed but one possible end to the game. And the 
 crowd yelled louder than ever when, with the bases 
 full, there came to bat the best batter on the team, 
 usually good for a home run in a pinch. He made a 
 tremendous swing at the first ball pitched and caught 
 it fairly at the end of his bat. You have, no doubt, 
 witnessed the scene that followed. There were four 
 runners straining every nerve to reach the home plate, 
 the crowd on its feet screaming and waving hands, 
 throwing hats into the air, and the white ball speed- 
 ing gracefully through space, far down beyond the 
 players. As two men came in, the shouts of triumph 
 changed to a roar of laughter, for down in right 
 field Bill King, the baseball joke, his long legs work- 
 ing like a gigantic blue fly, and his great hands held 
 up above him, was running for the ball. One of the 
 straps of his overalls slipped from his shoulder as he 
 ran. On his record it was the most foolish chase a 
 man could make, yet in some way, I know not how, as 
 the ball seemed to be passing over his head, Bill 
 'stretched his arms, and the white globe settled in his 
 hand, and Bill grasped it with all the muscle which 
 twenty years of milking had put into his fingers and 
 wrist, for he knew that in that grasp he was to milk 
 out at last the golden glory of reputation. You may 
 have heard a cheer die down in the throat of a howl- 
 ing crowd. It is a melancholy ending of what started 
 life as a note of joy . 
 
 Still the corn planters were ahead. They called it 
 an "accident," "never could do it again," "just dumb 
 luck," "couldn't catch it in ten years," and then the 
 
136 THE CHILD 
 
 crowd, silent once more, sat down to wait for the 
 end; yet could it be that the ghost of an apprehen- 
 sion sat down with them? The end came in a climax, 
 the most exciting that a ball player can know. There 
 were three on bases, and two out, when Bill King 
 came to bat. I doubt if there were three in all that 
 crowd who ever expected him to hit that ball, for this 
 was one of the few occasions when even Bill King's 
 wife doubted his ability. For here was the discard, 
 tried and found wanting, the untrained giant who had 
 so often failed them at just such a crisis. Yet could 
 this confident man be the same Bill King? He did 
 not come to the base like one who feels that he is 
 walking up to repeat a certain failure; he came 
 swinging his bat as though it were a great war club. 
 It reminded the child of a story he had heard of a 
 giant who had pulled up a tree by the roots, trimmed 
 it with his hands and passed on to battle. 
 
 "Got a little cocky since he catched that ball," 
 said Hen Bingham. "He can't hit nothin' but the 
 air." 
 
 Bill tightened the straps to his overalls, spat on 
 his hands, and then squatted down to rub them in 
 the sand to make sure of a good grip. His hat was 
 off, and the thick muscles of his forearms stood out 
 in great bunches as he gripped his bat. For Bill 
 King, though the rest of them did not know it, did not 
 stand at the home base alone. A few of those invisible 
 companions who march with the trained and the in- 
 spired, were there with him. 
 
 The child had been a "discard" and a failure, too, 
 and he had a fellow feeling for Bill King. It is no 
 wonder that the silence which followed the roar of 
 laughter was broken up by a clear, little chirpy voice. 
 "I hope you'll hit it, Uncle Bill ! Hit it hard.' 
 
 And Bill King never forgot that grain of sym- 
 pathy which was put in the balance against the ton 
 of ridicule at his hour of trial. 
 
THE CHILD 137 
 
 The pitcher waved his hand at the crowd with 
 that gesture which we all understand to mean — "See 
 me end this thing right here. It's a shame to do it, 
 of course. I wish I had some one of my size, but we 
 must get it over." 
 
 He sent in as swift a ball as he knew how to throw, 
 right over the base, for Bill never had touched it be- 
 fore and, of course, he could not now. But Bill swung 
 at it, not the awkward jab they had expected, but 
 a clean, wide swing, with power to it. The most sur- 
 prised man on the field was the catcher. He expected 
 to receive that ball in his hands, and toss it back with 
 one of those ornamental flourishes which ball play- 
 ers affect, but the ball never got to his hands. There 
 nas a crack like a fence picket striking against a 
 barndoor, and that ball went sailing far over the 
 woods to the swamp. They never found it. It may 
 be that thousands of years hence certain humans then 
 living will find a petrified ball and wonder what it 
 .represents. I do riot know about that, but I do 
 know that could one who looked upon some of the 
 great triumphs of olden days come back to make com- 
 parisons, he would be likely to disqualify them all be- 
 side the way Bill King's blue overalls flared around 
 those bases. For the discard and failure and joke 
 had made good in some mysterious way, and in all 
 the range of emotions, there is nothing quite equal 
 to the joy which comes to a misfit, when through 
 the training of his powers, or some awakening am- 
 bition, he comes up from slavery to stand with head 
 erect among his fellows. 
 
 The college boys rushed at Bill, and tried to carry 
 him off the field, but his bulk and weight were against 
 it. "Hold on, boys," said the honest soul, "I done 
 my share, and put in the beef, but here's the man as 
 put in the brains. He won the game as much as I 
 did." 
 
 He put his hand on the shoulder of a little man 
 
138 THE CHILD 
 
 with thin gray hair, and wearing great spectacles, 
 who stood leaning on his stick. It is not often that 
 a hero is willing to split up his honors, but honest 
 Bill King paid tribute to brains in the person of 
 Prof. Benson. There he stood, not an impressive- 
 looking person, this mild and shabby little man, yet 
 in our records he stands for that strange mysterious 
 thing which men call education. I do not know 
 how this little man wandered away from libraries 
 and from lectures up into the hills to live, but he 
 came. He was, in his way, another discard from the 
 great game of life, and perhaps that was why he 
 and Bill King had been thrown together, and per- 
 haps why he could not reach the strong and resolute 
 farmers who felt in their hearts that they did not 
 need a failure to help them. But Bill and the Pro- 
 fessor knew that each had the thing which the other 
 lacked ; yet they knew that only the older man could 
 hand his gift to the younger. Mind what I say 
 there, you younger people in the strength and pride 
 of your youth; no one can give out of his physical 
 strength to another. It is only the wealth of the 
 mind and the heart which may be passed along. The 
 Professor had taught Bill King how to aim with his 
 bat, and that was all there was to it. On every 
 stick is a point which in mechanics is called the center 
 of moment. There the balance comes, and the full 
 force of a blow will center. You may know this by 
 taking the stick in your hands and striking it on 
 the fence at different points along the way. You 
 finally find one point on the stick where your fingers 
 are not tingled with the blow, and where all the 
 weight of the stick and the force of your hand go into 
 it. Bill King had been hitting blindly at the ball 
 anywhere; he might as well have had nothing in 
 his hand, for all that the force of his arm was organ- 
 ized. The Professor had found the center of power 
 of Bill King's bat. There was a big black spot to 
 
THE CHILD 139 
 
 mark this point. Bill had learned to aim with his 
 great club, that was all there was to it, a little sprig 
 of science grafted upon his strength. Yet it made 
 all the difference in the world to Bill. Of course, I 
 know it is easy to say that this was an accident or 
 a mere chance, yet if Bill had failed to hit the ball 
 at all, you would have felt justified in claiming that 
 the Professor's science was a fake, and of very little 
 value, but as Bill happened to hit as he did, we have 
 the same privilege of claiming that the Professor's 
 teaching was a success. 
 
 "Well, boys, do I get back on the nine or not?" 
 Strange, how that little chip out of the stored-up 
 knowledge of the world had made the discard and 
 joke master of the situation, for there was only one 
 answer to his question. I have spent more time than 
 I should over this ball game, because the child needed 
 this experience to make the entire foundation of this 
 little tale clear. You will see that the time is com- 
 ing, if it be not here now, when country people must 
 cooperate in some way. They cannot do this unless 
 they follow the example of Denmark in a large way, 
 and also the example of these ball players in a 
 smaller way. There must be sentiment or spirit for 
 their work and for their homes to tie them together; 
 there must be submission to fair authority, and there 
 must be knowledge to enable them to aim with their 
 bat. 
 
 The thing which impressed the child most, was 
 the way the discard or failure made good, and he 
 made good by following the advice of another failure 
 or discard out of another walk of life. It looked 
 as if there might be a fair place in this world for 
 anyone, if he could, learn that thing which he could 
 do best, or learn how to make the most possible out 
 of his powers. And when a man learns that lesson 
 thoroughly, the worst part of his battle has been 
 won. At the post office after the ball game, Uncle 
 
140 THE CHILD 
 
 Hiram found a letter from Jim Turner. Jim had 
 bought out a small grocery store. He found a man 
 who had developed a fair business at a street corner, 
 but now wanted to sell. That man's wife was home- 
 sick for the country, and neither of them liked to 
 live in town, so they were going back to father's 
 farm, and Jim, a man who had just got away from 
 the farm, could buy the business at a bargain. It 
 was only a readjustment, a square human peg had 
 been trying to fit himself into a round hole. It was 
 better that a round peg should trade his square hole 
 for the other. Jim closed his letter in a half joking 
 way. "Why don't you revive that Hill Country 
 Produce Company and invest in a success? That 
 investment in a failure certainly paid." No one 
 thought of this a second time except the child, and 
 he kept it in his mind. 
 
 As usual, the movement to control the milk situa- 
 tion failed. There was an organization down to the 
 school districts, and for a time it looked like suc- 
 cess. At the supreme test of destroying milk rather 
 than shipping it, the units of the organization 
 crumbled and the power was gone. Some few dairy- 
 men were tempted to ship their milk when a little 
 higher price was offered. Others were in debt, and 
 could not risk the loss of even the pittance they re- 
 ceived. Others could not find the heart to hold up 
 the city customers. There was one man -who formerly 
 ran a milk wagon in a town, with milk sent in from 
 a farm four miles away. There came a great storm 
 one Winter, which made the roads impassable, and 
 this man could not get his milk to deliver. He re- 
 membered that, so when they blamed him for ship- 
 ping milk when the orders were to hold it back, this 
 man said: 
 
 "All through them three days of blizzard I had 
 women come begging and praying for milk to keep 
 their babies alive. I hear that every time you talk 
 
THE CHILD 141 
 
 about shutting off the whole supply. It might get 
 the Milk Exchange, but I hate to kill babies in order 
 to get them." A faint-hearted soldier you will say, 
 but he had a big family of little ones of his own, 
 who lined up at his table three times a day. 
 
 At any rate, the plan had failed, and all over the 
 hill country district meetings were held to see what 
 could be done next. Some twenty farmers met at 
 Hiram Bently's* house the week after the ball game- 
 It was not a good-natured crowd, for if anything 
 will make a poor loser, it is constant and repeated 
 defeat when you know you have the power which 
 ought to mean victory. There were bitter criticisms 
 and hot disputes, and the meeting would have broken 
 up past all mending, if some one had not noticed 
 Dr. Greenway's big brown horse jogging up the road 
 That man was on his feet at once. 
 
 "I move we ask Dr. Greenway to make a speech." 
 
 No need to put any such motion ; a couple of men 
 ran out and stopped the horse and tied him. With 
 many good-natured protests Dr. Greenway came in. 
 I think it a good thing for any community to have 
 what I may call the critic and the antidote. The 
 antidote I will call some, man who can stand good- 
 naturedly more than his share of ridicule or abuse- 
 It is a relief to most of us to talk to such a person 
 at times, and feel that he knows after all that it is 
 merely talk. I bid you beware, however, how you 
 touch, ever so lightly, the tender spot which these 
 "antidotes" carry in their lives. Their crude and 
 awkward anger is fearful to behold when started 
 over some ridiculously simple thing. The critic is 
 the man whose kindly character enables him to say 
 without offense truths which would be bitterly re- 
 sented in others. Dr. Greenway was the kindly 
 critic of that community. He went right to the 
 heart of the matter. 
 
 "The trouble is that we try to do too much at 
 
142 THE CHILD 
 
 once. Somehow it is like a boy trying to make a 
 snowball out of dry, frozen snow. It will not stick 
 like damp snow will. We make our plans and they 
 look right, but I am afraid we forget that there is 
 no hope for them unless the little units can be held 
 together. We do not break at the front when we 
 go to pieces, but when our big plans crumble, they 
 do this far back on the farms between man and man. 
 Perhaps we get a little selfish, each man getting as 
 dry as the frozen snow in the boy's snowball, so that 
 we cannot stick. I do not think we are ready for 
 these great big schemes yet. We ought to begin at 
 the other end. Pick up little pieces, form our small 
 organization, learn how to combine in a neighbor- 
 hood among ourselves, and then try to combine these 
 smaller organizations. We need to be drilled. No 
 one likes to be drilled, least of all a farmer. It has 
 always been so. During the Revolution there was 
 almost a mutiny among Washington's soldiers over 
 this very thing. Old Baron Steuben came over from 
 Germany to help, and day after day he drilled and 
 drilled and drilled those farmers until they hated 
 him. They went to Washington with their trouble. 
 
 " 'See here, General, we came here to fight, not to 
 play and march around like boys.' 
 
 " 'But you are learning to fight.' 
 
 " 'We know how to fight now. We can shoot a 
 squirrel out of the top of a tree with a bullet. We 
 know now how to fight as well as anybody. This 
 German with his Order arms, and Present arms, 
 cannot show us how to fight.' 
 
 " 'If you know how, why do you always break out 
 in the open field before the British? You can fight 
 man against man, but we cannot end this war until 
 we learn how to fight together. Go back and learn 
 how.' 
 
 "They went back, but it was a wonder Steuben 
 was not killed before Winter was over, for they 
 
THE CHILD 143 
 
 drilled and drilled, and drilled again. First he had 
 them in squads, then in companies, and then in regi- 
 ment. Finally the British left Philadelphia and 
 marched for New York. Washington chased them, 
 and at Monmouth, as the world knows, Baron Steu- 
 ben was vindicated, for those Yankee farmers stood 
 up like a wall and fought. They had learned to 
 fight together. Drilling had taught them that their 
 only safety was in touching the elbow of the next 
 man. When the British officers saw them do that, 
 they knew that King George never could conquer 
 America, for man to man the American soldier was 
 superior, and when they got so that they could fight 
 together they could stand off the world. Now I 
 think our farmers must learn the same lesson. We 
 must drill in little companies before we can hope to 
 handle big operations." 
 
 I think Dr. Greenway was the only man who could 
 have said these things to that sullen and disap- 
 pointed company. It was true, you know it, and so 
 did they, but the truth is often a painful thing to 
 touch. As it was, one big red-bearded farmer was 
 on his feet with a half sneer. 
 
 "That's all right, but what of it? What good 
 will it do us? What small organization that you 
 tell about can we form that will amount to anything? 
 What would you do right now?" 
 
 In his heart Dr. Greenway knew there was no 
 answer to the question. As he glanced about the 
 room, his eyes fell upon the eager face of the child 
 who sat beside Hiram in the corner. The doctor 
 thought he saw a chance to end the discussion with' 
 good humor, so he pointed to the child. 
 
 "Well, as we old fellows are long on advice, let's 
 see what the children have to say. They will have 
 no prejudice anyway. Now what would you do, 
 my boy?" 
 
 The child chirped up in his clear little voice: 
 
144 THE CHILD 
 
 "I'd go and get Uncle Jim Turner to sell our stuff 
 for us, and all play fair." 
 
 Well, it relieved the situation at least. There was 
 & snort from the red-bearded man. 
 
 "What rot that is. Jim Turner is a failure; he 
 can't run a farm, much less sell goods." 
 
 But Bill King had a kindly feeling for failures, 
 after that ball game. Bill was no public speaker, 
 but he reached oyer and patted the child on the 
 shoulder, and made an expressive speech of two 
 words, "Me, too." 
 
 The man who went right to the point, as usual, 
 was Carl Schmitt, 
 
 "Gentlemens, dot vas a goot broposition. Dr. 
 Greenway he vas right in vat he say about Baron 
 Steuben. Dot man vas all right, he vas German. 
 Hine Bingham, and them odder soldiers vat vas 
 here know how it vas. We go marching out mit 
 battle, und dem guns begin to shoot out, und every 
 man himself he say, I wish I could run away. But 
 he reach out his arm, und by his right was Hine 
 Bingham, mit his left vas Hirem Bently, und he 
 say dem men vas just so scared like me. But they 
 vill feels my elbow mit odders, und dey say, I vill 
 not run till Carl Schmitt do. Und the consequence 
 vas that while we are all scared mit ourselves, we 
 goes marching on because they vas all there. Und 
 so, gentlemens, I moof you dot we organize the Hill 
 Country Broduce Gumpany for the purpose of sell- 
 ing so much of the stuff vot is raised as Jim Turner 
 can handle. Und I moof you that the officers of 
 that gumpany be Hirem Bently, bresident; Hine 
 Bingham, secretary; Carl Schmitt, treasurer, und 
 the child, vice-bresident. Those vat vas in favor of 
 dot motion says aye!" 
 
 Most of them were too much surprised to vote, 
 but Bill King, the child, and a few others voted, and 
 Carl Schmitt declared it carried. 
 
THE CHILD 145 
 
 "Now, Sen, I appoint Hirem Bently und Carl 
 Schmitt a gummittee by two, to look the matter 
 up, und the meeting vas now adjoined." 
 
 Of course, there was nothing legal about this, but 
 no protests were made, and the meeting broke up. 
 Most of the farmers regarded it as a very good joke, 
 especially electing the child as an officer. Per- 
 haps this was the best way to end a meeting which 
 promised to make trouble and bad feeling. Most 
 of them went home laughing at the new company. 
 Carl Schmitt remained. 
 
 "Hirem, dere vas someding in dis. It vas the 
 right vay to beat them schnides what robs us, for 
 mit dis Jim Turner we haff only von hand mit der 
 bag. Of course, he vas not able to handle all of the 
 milk, but giff him the chance, und he takes many 
 things. Too much milk vas the trubble by dis coun- 
 try enervay. We raise more things and do better 
 if ve sell them, vat?" 
 
 Hiram had little faith in the plan, but there was 
 no escaping from Carl Schmitt. He was as bad as 
 Baron Steuben in his drill. So the'next day Hiram 
 and Carl started for Brownsville, and the child went 
 with them. Jim Turner had a good store and was 
 building up a fair trade. His stock was not large, 
 but he had learned wisdom from his farm experi- 
 ence, and he kept part of his capital in hand. It 
 was a good location. Two blocks away there was 
 a large school, and off in another direction a com- 
 munity of mill hands. Jim fell in with the plan at 
 once. He showed them his figures, and explained 
 how produce was brought to the city. Great quan- 
 tities of food were sent from this very section to 
 markets hundreds of miles away, and then sent back 
 to Brownsville, so as to make extra freight for the 
 railroads. To convince Hiram, Jim called them into 
 the store where two women were buying goods. 
 
146 THE CHILD 
 
 "Mrs. Brown, would you like to buy your Win- 
 ter's supply of apples and potatoes in a lump?" 
 
 "That would suit me exactly ; I want four bar- 
 rels of potatoes and two of apples." 
 
 "Would you buy real country sausage if you 
 could get it?" 
 
 "Indeed I would. I wish we could get some like 
 what they made in the hill country when I was a 
 girl. They sell what they call country sausage here, 
 but we all know it's made right in the city." 
 
 There was more to it, but it convinced Hiram. He 
 never knew of this before. At Carl's suggestion he 
 wrote to the Colonel and asked advice about form- 
 ing their little company. The child listened to it 
 all, and particularly to an old man, one of the 
 loungers who came to the store to pass his time. 
 This man was out of the hill country, too. His boy 
 was killed in the war, and he had held to his farm 
 until rheumatism and lack of good help had chased 
 him away to the city. Now he spent most of his time 
 figuring out what might have happened if things 
 had been different. As a rule that is profitless busi- 
 ness, except, where it keeps an idle man out of mis- 
 chief, but this man had figured out one important 
 thing. In all his forty years he had -sold barely five 
 hundred dollars worth of produce at retail; all the 
 rest had gone along the* way where those hands 
 were reaching out. The old man's figures clearly 
 proved that he* had helped support three* families be- 
 side his own from his farm, each one of them hand- 
 ling more cash than he did, and each one able to 
 make better bargains for* all they bought, except 
 food. Now the old man was asking people to tell 
 him what would have been the history of the hill 
 country if only one of these families had been cut 
 ,out, and the part they extracted sent back to the 
 farm. 
 
 "But you must advertise," he said. "You can 
 
THE CHILD 147 
 
 sell anything by advertisin'. The only bet I ever 
 made was about advertisin'. I said a man could sell 
 anything he had by stickin' up a sign in front of his 
 house. A feller livin' way back on a side road said 
 you couldn't, and I bet five dollars he could sell any- 
 thing he had by so doin'. All he had to sell was a 
 white and black dog, yet I bet him. He stuck up a 
 sign, 'Dog for sale.' First came along a farmer 
 and saw the sign. He drove on a laifin so you could 
 hear him a mile, 'Wants to sell a white and black 
 dog, haw, haw, haw." He stopped everybody to 
 tell about that fool back yonder that had a dog to 
 sell. It went all over the country, something new. 
 In four days a woman from the next county drove 
 over and bought the dog. Wanted one for the 
 boy; and thought there must be something uncom- 
 mon about a dog that everybody was talkin' about. 
 Advertisin' is the surest thing to bet on, but I ain't 
 seen my five dollars yet." 
 
 Everybody laughed at the old man's joke except 
 the child. The idea of making a white and black 
 dog the most popular subject for discussion in an en- 
 tire county appealed to the child's imagination. He 
 had begun to see that some of the greatest successes 
 which had passed before his vision were made by fail- 
 ures or discards when they were given opportunity 
 or right place. That white and black dog that the 
 old man told about would have been little more* than 
 a nuisance among the hill farmers, born to blush un- 
 seen and keep it up until he died. Yet to that 
 woman's boy he might mean the finest dog in the 
 world; equal, perhaps, to old Shep. I am glad that 
 the child began his business life by trying to find 
 values in waste or discarded products, for just as 
 manufacturers grow rich at utilizing the wastes in 
 their ash heaps or tank waters, so a farmer may 
 save his farm by hunting a cash value for the things 
 which have been thrown away. The child went to 
 
148 THE CHILD 
 
 sleep that night, wondering what there was on Uncle 
 Hiram's farm that would fairly represent that white 
 and black dog. His little mind ran the round of 
 the farm discards, and always seemed to end its 
 journey at Ike Barber's cider mill. He finally fell 1 
 asleep hearing the crunch of the grinder as the old 
 horses traveled their monotonous journey on the 
 sweep power. 
 
 They say you can judge a farmer by the horses 
 he drives, or a book agent by the hat he wears, 
 but I hope a grocer's character is not to be de- 
 cided by the apples he sells, or tries to sell. Jim 
 Turner, like the rest of them, had a barrel of scarred 
 and speckled fruit, which would have been instantly 
 repudiated by the tree which bore them. I think 
 the love of an apple is one of the most enduring 
 things in nature. If any food product were served 
 up in such discarded specimens as the apples most 
 middle-class grocers handle, its use would be for- 
 gotten in a generation. But while there is a square 
 inch of acid flesh around the worm-hole and the 
 core, the apple hunger lingers. The child saw a 
 woman come in and buy a peck of these cider apples, 
 for Uncle Hiram was sending just such fruit to Bee 
 Barber's mill. Back on the farm there was no sale 
 except for the best, and many a good specimen went 
 to the cows or in the vinegar. Here, then, was the 
 white and black dog which the old man had told 
 about. 
 
 Jim Turner's horse and wagon stood in front of 
 the store with a load of goods which were to be de- 
 livered. It was the same old limping gray, for Jim 
 had brought him along rather than have him abused. 
 The limp was not so bad, for somehow a horse, like 
 a man, seems to think he must carry his feet with 
 a little more style when he leaves the country for the 
 city pavement. It ought to be the other way, as the 
 evidence of a thank-offering for the privilege of get- 
 
THE CHILD 149 
 
 ting away from brick and stone. But men, and 
 some horses, are peculiar. Jim loaded his wagon 
 and invited the child to go along. By. some mis- 
 take a box of the worst of those apples went on the 
 load. The child saw it after they started, and 
 thought of the advertisement of the white and 
 black dog. 
 
 After delivering most of their goods they drove 
 through that community of mill workers. The street 
 was lined with little houses, all built after the same 
 plan. Women stood at many of the doorways, and 
 crowds of children played in the street. Jim had his 
 eye on this trade. The mills were running full time, 
 and the workers were drawing good wages. They 
 spent their money freely, but Jim had hardly known 
 how to make a start. They stopped in front of one 
 house, and while Uncle Jim went inside, the child 
 sat in the wagon studying a group of children who 
 were playing in the street. Children are good 
 judges of character. In many cases I would accept 
 their judgment before that of a skilled lawyer. 
 These little sharp-faced, black-eyed foreigners some- 
 how made the child think of the middleman, and 
 yet they were different, too. I do not think the 
 child realized it then, but these fierce-looking little 
 creatures were and still are middlemen, standing in 
 a way between their parents and the good and the 
 bad things which America has to offer. It is true 
 that many adult foreigners at that time knew little 
 or nothing of the language or habits or the ideals of 
 their adopted country. They did their work, and 
 drew their money ; but their language, their thinking 
 and their mental habits were all of the old country. 
 Their children attended the public schools, and 
 studied and thought in English, yet practically all 
 that the older people knew of America, her history, 
 or public ideals and her hopes, came to them through 
 the children. They were little mental middlemen 
 
150 THE CHILD 
 
 who, not wholly unlike the little middleman at Ike 
 Barber's cider mill, were pulling knowledge through 
 the straw of opportunity. The child did not know 
 this, nor did he know as his eye fell on that box of 
 apples that he could use these little middlemen in 
 an advertising campaign. 
 
 "Uncle Jim," he said, as Jim Turner came back 
 to the wagon, "let me give these boys some apples? 
 We will send you a lot more." 
 
 Jim could not object, so the child picked out a 
 handful of the apples and called: 
 
 "Hello, boys! have an apple." 
 
 The effect of the first handful which he threw out 
 frightened him. The children ran at the wagon like 
 a pack of young wolves. From every corner and 
 alley they came, sharp-eyed and eager, with little 
 hands like bird claws held up to catch the apples 
 which the child threw out. Here were your true 
 apple eaters, the real thing at a pleasant business. 
 Cores, stems, worm-holes and specks all disappeared. 
 Your theorists who talk so learnedly about the value 
 of the apple in the human diet might nibble 
 daintily around the core and reject an apple 
 entirely with a worm-hole in it. These were prac- 
 tical apple lovers, however, and stem, core and all 
 disappeared as if by magic. They had hardly begun 
 to get a fair taste before the box was empty. When 
 Jim Turner finally drove away, a shouting mob of 
 these little middlemen followed the wagon far down 
 the street. Five blocks away Jim and the child 
 looked back to see the crowd of children still watch- 
 ing them, and the doorways lined with women. 
 
 "They don't get many apples, do they Uncle 
 Jim?" 
 
 "They got some to-day, sure." 
 
 "But they can't go and get one every time they 
 want it, and up where we live apples rot on the 
 ground, or Ike Barber grinds them up. Suppose 
 
THE CHILD 151 
 
 them boys had a barrel of apples in the cellar, how 
 long would it last?" 
 
 "No longer than they could get to it." 
 "Then why can't you sell apples to their 
 mothers ?" 
 
 "They won't buy, rather have bananas." 
 There you have it again, the belief that cus- 
 tomers are satisfied to import products for thousands 
 of miles, rather than buy those grown near at hand. 
 It is only a question of education, and the farmer 
 or producer must be the teacher. Yet the child was 
 not satisfied. The more he thought of it the more 
 it seemed a shame to let good apples rot or be ground 
 up, when these children twenty-five miles away were 
 crazy for them. Jim Turner could not see anything 
 in his plan, nor could Hiram see any good to follow 
 throwing out apples to a crowd of howling chil- 
 dren, but the child found a stout friend in the old 
 farmer who had sold the dog. This advertising ex- 
 pert told them how the manufacturers of new kinds 
 of food gave away thousands of packages before they 
 could sell enough to pay for the paper used as 
 wrappers. Carl Schmitt sat smoking his pipe in 
 silence. 
 
 "What do you think, Uncle Carl?" 
 "Vot you mean by dot unkel, vot?" 
 "Why every good man is a father or an uncle, 
 ain't he?" 
 
 "But vot about dem oder kind of men?" 
 "Oh, they are just mister — or nothing." 
 "Veil, I think he vas, or ought to be enervay. 
 Vot I tink? I tink we try him. I come back mit a 
 team in three days, may be. Ve bring some apples 
 und try him." 
 
 There was no arguing with Carl Schmitt. He had 
 the decision long before you started. It was settled 
 that they were to ship part of a carload of produce 
 to Jim Turner, and Carl would drive to the city 
 
152 THE CHILD 
 
 to help distribute it. It was a momentous thing, that 
 first shipment of the Hill Country Produce Com- 
 pany. About a dozen farmers contributed, most of 
 them with very little faith in the scheme, and per- 
 haps they showed their lack of faith by the lack of 
 quality. Carl Schmitt loaded his wagon and put on 
 four barrels of apples. They were a little better 
 than most that went to Ike Barber, yet there would 
 have been no sale for them at home. And Carl in- 
 sisted upon taking the child along with him. So the 
 treasurer and vice-president started hopefully on 
 their way The vice-president had no contribution 
 except a big jack-o'-lantern, which he had carved out 
 of a yellow pumpkin. Jim Turner put a candle be- 
 hind this hideous face and stood it in front of his 
 store that night. At least a dozen men on their way 
 home stopped to look at it, and went on thinking of 
 old barefoot days back among the hills. A manu- 
 facturer finally paid a dollar for it, so that his in- 
 valid boy might know something of what father 
 used to do years and years ago. 
 
 The next morning Jim Turner and the child put 
 a barrel of the cider apples on the wagon and drove 
 through the mill village. The child expected to hand 
 these apples out, but before he had given a dozen the 
 wagon was surrounded by a crowd fed from every 
 doorway and alley. Two big boys climbed up on the 
 wheels, and in the struggle the barrel was upset and 
 the apples rolled over the street. Then there was 
 a wild scramble, and before Jim and the child could 
 realize it, every apple was picked up. Several chil- 
 dren, with great, bulging pockets, ran home with 
 their prize. Others sat in a long row on the curb- 
 stone and ate down their fruit to the center of the 
 worm-hole, and then came swarming around the 
 wagon for more. Jim was actually afraid they would 
 tip his wagon over and he was glad to drive off, sat- 
 isfied that he had all the advertising he wanted. And 
 
THE CHILD 153 
 
 I doubt if Jim Turner would ever have gone back 
 if the child had not teased him to try just once 
 more. The next day they took two barrels. The 
 same crowd greeted them, and when the fruit was 
 poured out, Jim fully expected to see both horse and 
 wagon upset. A policeman came running up to drive 
 the crowd back, and he advised Jim not to try this 
 again. And then Jim Turner said he had enough 
 and he would not repeat it. Carl hauled the load 
 from the station, and then he and the child drove 
 home with his wagon filled with feed, for it was pos- 
 sible to buy cheaper in Brownsville than it was at 
 home. 
 
 Jim Turner did not go near that neighborhood 
 again for three days, but at last he had to deliver 
 some goods. As he entered the street three women 
 left their doors and came out on the sidewalk to wait 
 for him. One of them carried in her hand part of 
 a bed slat, and she was more familiar with the art 
 of making a base hit with this bed slat than Bill 
 King was, even after the ball game. Poor Jim's 
 heart sank, for how was he to know that this sug- 
 gestive weapon was intended for the woman's own 
 offspring rather than for him? As Jim reached them 
 the woman stopped him. 
 
 "Vos you der man vot bringed dem apples?" 
 
 There was nothing for Jim to do but admit it. 
 We may pardon him if for one brief moment he felt 
 like applying that bed slat to the child. 
 
 "Voll, you make trubble, plendy trubble. Dem 
 children, dey giff me und der farder no shleep or rest 
 by day und night. Dey say all der vile, apple, 
 apple ; vhy we don't haff apple, ve vant apple. You 
 make plendy trubble, you man. How much is dem 
 apples? I buy dem." 
 
 Dr. Greenway stopped that afternoon at the 
 Bently farm to deliver a telegram which the operator 
 in town had given him. It was the first time in fif- 
 
154 THE CHILD 
 
 teen years that one of these yellow envelopes had 
 come to Hiram. He opened it with something of 
 awe, and this is what he read: 
 
 "Send at once, fifteen barrels of those apples, 
 
 "James Turner." 
 
 Before the week was over Jim Turner had sold the 
 Winter's supply of potatoes and cabbage to twenty- 
 five families in the mill town. Long years after this 
 happened black-eyed Jennie Turner came upon this 
 telegram among Hiram's papers. She had it framed 
 as a wedding reminder for the child, and underneath 
 it there always hung the picture of a black and 
 white dog. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 You may have noticed that thus far in these records 
 every day we have described has been fair and pleas- 
 ant. To tell you the truth I have purposely selected 
 the cheerful days ; for who would not do so if he had 
 the chance in life? Of course, it rains in the hill coun- 
 try, and people are at times gloomy and depressed, 
 just as they are elsewhere . I have kept as far away 
 from bad weather and gloom as I could. Why not 
 regard them as we would contagious mental diseases? 
 The closer you get to them in thought or descrip- 
 tion, the worse off you are. Bad days have finally 
 come to the Hill Country Produce Company ; and if 
 you want bad weather, you would have been quite 
 satisfied with the night in late October when it seemed 
 as if this new plan of " co-operation had gone to join 
 the ghosts of the older business failures. The bare- 
 armed trees out by the road, stripped of their beauty 
 and power, seemed to be shaking their fists in impo- 
 tent rage at the storm. There was a strip of rough 
 gutter over the kitchen that had worked loose. It 
 rapped from time to time against the eaves, and the 
 wind whistled or roared through the spout. Great 
 raindrops came splashing at the windows. Off in the 
 distance you could just see the faint glimmer of the 
 lights in two farmhouses, and realize that there, too, 
 was the spirit of depression. It was no night to be 
 outdoors, but an ideal one to be inside before the fire, 
 happy and contented, with the comfortable feeling 
 that every human and brute on the farm has a warm 
 bed and a full supper. The fire was roaring in the 
 fireplace. The child lay before it with his head 
 against Shep's shoulder. Joe Burgess had been ditch- 
 ing before the rain started, and his boots were wet 
 
156 THE CHILD 
 
 through. Joe had filled them with hot oats to absorb 
 the inside moisture, and they stood before the fire 
 steaming in the heat. Mother was reading in her big 
 black book. It looked at the moment as if the 
 key to this story had become a little rusty, but we 
 are not to scour it up yet. Hiram was studying the 
 fire, much as we found him when this little tale started. 
 It would make any man think hard to realize that 
 while every animal on his farm was comfortable, the 
 Hill Country Produce Company was open to the 
 weather, with the wind and rain of opposition tearing 
 it apart. The hardest of all was the thought that, 
 in spite of all their hopes, it was going along the 
 same road over which their plans always walked to 
 destruction. 
 
 Hiram went over the whole story as he sat before 
 his fire. The Colonel had thought the scheme a 
 good one. He had drawn up a simple form of agree- 
 ment for a small stock company. He advised Hiram 
 to limit the membership at first to a few who would 
 hang together. "Get old soldiers, if you can," 
 wrote the Colonel. "They have been trained to 
 fight together, and they have a common sentiment, 
 which at the last call is all that can save you. Make 
 it so that some of these men can pay for their stock 
 in produce. You cannot get them in any other way. 
 It always happens that a few members of such a 
 company must do the work and take the risk. 
 
 The Colonel also advised them to pay their ship- 
 pers only the regular wholesale price when the ship- 
 ment was made. "Hold back the rest," he said, 
 "and pay it out twice or four times a year, in the 
 form of what the English people call the 'divi' and 
 do not pay this at so much per share, but in pro- 
 portion to the amount of goods which each man has 
 shipped. The plan of paying this surplus by shares 
 of stock compels the workers to pay a premium to 
 the drones, and capital gets too large a share. When 
 
THE CHILD 157 
 
 it is known that the man who sells the most goods 
 and thus makes most business will get most of 
 this 'divi,' they will all work to bring in business. 
 This is the principle which has made co-operation 
 successful in England; without it there would have 
 been failure." 
 
 The greater the lawyer, the more he can see into 
 these little things. The Colonel had put them all 
 into the agreement. You would have thought he 
 was organizing some great corporation by the way 
 he planned for them. 
 
 "The basis of your scheme is right. In some way 
 you have struck the foundation of real prosperity 
 for your farmers. They must have a fairer share of 
 what they produce, and something more of the busi- 
 ness of manufacturing or preparing what they 
 grow, or the drift will be more and more into the 
 towns and the cities. That means lower values for 
 farm lands and a lower standard of living, or else 
 going in debt for a better one, and in the end serfs 
 or slaves, one or the other. In the end the individual 
 farmer will find that he cannot compete with the big 
 combinations of capital when they turn their atten- 
 tion to producing food. You and I, Hiram, can re- 
 member when the hills were full of httle factories, 
 and little shops at every water power. They have 
 all been taken away, absorbed by the great manu- 
 facturers. In like manner will come the tendency 
 for great corporations and for the great railroad 
 companies to take up land and produce food on a 
 large and cold-blooded plan. By cold-blooded I mean 
 that farming will be done by such people with as little 
 regard for sentiment and home feeling, as cloth is now 
 produced in our great factories. The only way that 
 I see for our farmers to stand up against this in the 
 future is for them to form organizations in which 
 they can work together and still preserve their man- 
 hood and individual character. I need not tell you, 
 
158 THE CHILD 
 
 Hiram, what it will mean for the children now grow- 
 ing up on the farms, should the time come when by 
 means of the lower classes of foreign labor the rail- 
 roads and great corporations are able to produce 
 food which our cities will call for. 
 
 "Just now the towns and cities are full of people 
 who want to deal directly with the farmers, but they 
 do not know how to do it, and before you know it 
 the sentiment which now carries these people back to 
 the old farm will have died out. I can remember the 
 time when the people refused to buy the cheaper 
 goods made in the large factories, and insisted upon 
 receiving the class of goods which were made in those 
 little five-men shops back among the hills, but now 
 that spirit has entirely passed away, and the feeling 
 for the old-time farm food will go in like manner 
 unless your farmers can keep it alive. Your boy 
 talks of having people come to him. They will gladly 
 do it, if they know how. If the farmers wait for the 
 town people to organize for buying, they will be at a 
 permanent disadvantage. If the farmers will organ- 
 ize for selling, they can dominate the situation, and 
 add at least twenty-five per cent to what they now 
 receive, without injuring any useful or honest hand- 
 ler. Your little plan has all the possibilities of suc- 
 cess, and also all those of failure. If this Turner is 
 honest and industrious he can sell more than you 
 people can produce, and he will turn back to you 
 more than you have ever received before. Do not 
 try to cheat him, and do not let him cheat his cus- 
 tomers. Make a uniform pack of your goods, and do 
 not spoil your reputation by shipping culls hidden 
 under a fair cover. Be just as careful about this as 
 you would in drawing a check on the bank when you 
 knew you did not have funds to meet it. Above all 
 things do not let this little business stop. Keep it 
 going, if you have to sell gravel and take in washing, 
 for both of these things are entirely honorable. I 
 
THE CHILD 159 
 
 know human nature, and I have no doubt that some 
 of your members will quit at a pinch. If they do, 
 work all the harder yourself and say nothing, for if 
 you stop such a business it is dead. If you can keep 
 it going it will live and carry a spirit which will not 
 let it die." 
 
 Carl Schmitt and Hiram went through the district 
 and secured, with much argument, fifteen members. 
 There were just five old soldiers. Most of the others 
 regarded the thing as something of a joke, until Jim 
 Turner telegraphed for more apples. Then they came 
 in and agreed to pay for their stock in produce. I wish 
 that it were possible for me to write the record of a 
 model company that rolled on to success as easily as 
 a ship sliding down into the water. If I were writing 
 that novel, I should have some of these men develop- 
 ing over night the most wonderful business ability, 
 but we are not writing a novel, but giving the plain 
 records of quite ordinary people, and they started 
 with a series of blunders. They were all new at the 
 business, and to begin with they started shipping to 
 Jim Turner just as they did to commission men in 
 the city. Anything went into the package in the 
 hope that the commission man would be fooled and 
 pay an extra price for second-class goods. The os- 
 trich with his head in the sand, imagining that the 
 hunter cannot see him, is a very wise bird compared 
 with the farmer who thinks he is going to fool a 
 commission man into paying him extra price for 
 culls. For a time Jim handled these goods without 
 trouble or complaint. It seemed as if every kind of 
 food could be sold in Brownsville. He had sold a 
 Winter's supply of apples and potatoes to many fam- 
 ilies at good prices, and this very prosperity at the 
 start was what began the trouble. 
 
 One day Captain Storms drove into Hiram's yard. 
 
 "Say, Hiram, I hear you are doing mighty well 
 
160 THE CHILD 
 
 with this company. I can figure out a big chance to 
 make a barrel of money." 
 
 "No," said Hiram cautiously, "I don't think there 
 is any barrel of money in it. We can get a little 
 more for our stuff, but that is all there is to it." 
 
 "Hiram, you're blind. Don't you know these 
 farmers by this time? They'll queer the whole 
 thing within six months. They'll work off all their 
 culls on you, and then sue you for damages because 
 they don't get twice as much as the top price. The 
 thing is dead sure to fall apart like a rope of sand, 
 and you know it. You can't get farmers to agree on 
 anything except raw politics, but right now while 
 the thing is booming is our time to make a barrel 
 of money." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "Make me a statement of what this fool Turner 
 is getting for that stuff. Pad it out a little, and 
 make a big •showing. I'll do the rest. Then issue 
 a lot of new stock in your company. Get hold of a 
 big block of it, and leave it at the bank. I'll circle 
 around amongst the farmers and tell them on the 
 quiet what big things you are doing. I'll tell 'em 
 that if they hurry they can possibly get one or two 
 shares apiece of this good thing, but not to say a 
 word about it out loud. They'll all run to the bank, 
 and John will sell 'em a couple of shares on the 
 quiet. While the thing is warm, this is the nicest 
 little scheme we have had in Grant County for five 
 years." 
 
 The old soldier looked at him for a moment, try- 
 ing to grasp the full meaning of this proposition. 
 
 "Sam Storms, what do you take me for, a 
 traitor?" 
 
 Sam did not quite like the look on Hiram's face, 
 any more than Hen liked it on the memorable day, 
 when Sunday finally came in the middle of the week. 
 He got his lines firmly in hand and glanced about 
 
THE CHILD 161 
 
 him to see if there was a clear way to drive out of 
 the yard. 
 
 "Well, Hiram, heretofore I haven't taken you 
 for a fool, though when you started this baby game 
 of a company, I had my doubts unless you were 
 working up a nice scheme. I have offered you a 
 chance to make some money. If you would rather 
 lose it and let these cusses rob you of your nerve 
 and your time, all right. That ain't my fault." 
 
 "You take your dirty chance and yourself out of 
 my yard. I'll lose all I have got before I play Judas 
 on my friends. I am going to live and die in this 
 neighborhood, and I want my neighbors to come and 
 look at me for the last time, so they never can say 
 Hiram played Judas." 
 
 This was not the same thing as saying that present 
 company could hardly pass that examination, but 
 close to it. The Captain's eyes narrowed a little, but 
 you lose oftener than you gain in politics by talking. 
 He drove out of the yard and back to town, glancing 
 behind him now and then, and shrugging his shoulders. 
 The black horse standing in the barnyard and sol- 
 emnly watching them, did not realize that he had been 
 looking upon another one of those toy performances, 
 a part of the drama of business life down where the 
 hands beckon along the way to the city. For the 
 foul proposition which Captain Storms made in 
 Hiram Bently's yard was but the malignant spirit 
 of the larger swindles which have robbed widows and 
 orphans and cursed our public life. Will you stop 
 for a moment and think how happier and freer our 
 people would have been to-day if these larger swindles 
 could have been shut off at the beginning by larger 
 Hiram Bently's ? 
 
 Hiram had no illusions as to the possibilities of a 
 quarrel with Captain Storms. He saw that worthy 
 glance back and shrug his shoulders. Catiline's ora- 
 tion on being banished from Rome contained more 
 
162 THE CHILD 
 
 fireworks in the way of oratory, but there were places 
 in Grant County where Captain Storms' shrug could 
 excite more fear. Some half mile down the road the 
 Captain met the red-bearded farmer who had an- 
 swered Dr. Greenway at the meeting. This man had 
 taken one share of stock to be paid in produce. 
 
 "Well, John," said the Captain, "what's this I 
 hear about a company you have formed?" 
 
 "Well, we got tired of feeding them middlemen on 
 cream, so we organized. Looks like a good thing, 
 with one man betwixt us and them folks in town." 
 
 "So it does, John, so it does. I hear they have 
 started one over in Sumpter County, and it let the 
 farmers work off a lot of truck they couldn't sell 
 any other way. Them fellows in town will eat any- 
 thing, if you make 'em think the stuff is right from 
 the dear old farm they used to know. Like enough 
 father raised cain with them with a stick, but to hear 
 'em talk everything was lovely in boyhood days. 
 Over in Sumpter County they sent the culls to their 
 agent, and sold the best they had to other buyers, 
 and it worked fine. Why don't you try this Turner 
 with your milk?" 
 
 No man could say from this that Captain Storms 
 was making any effort to injure the Hill Country 
 Produce Company. On the evidence of his exact 
 words he was helping it, yet suppose you said the 
 same thing, varied somewhat to fit different types of 
 human nature, to half a dozen farmers who had no 
 interest in this new company except what they might 
 get out of it, what would you expect? Just exactly 
 what happened. About half the members began to 
 ship Jim Turner the poorest collection of culls, I 
 think, that ever reached Brownsville. A good deal 
 of it was mixed in with first-class goods, but more 
 came as culls, plain and undisguised. It looked as if 
 .they had taken those Sumpter County farmers as 
 their model. Very likely the trade in cull apples 
 
THE CHILD 163 
 
 which the child started had something to do with it. 
 I have known farmers who said they became prosper- 
 ous through eating at home what they could not sell. 
 This is a form of prosperity which proves in the end 
 as hollow-hearted as a big overgrown potato. Chil- 
 dren brought up on that doctrine can hardly be 
 blamed for chasing after the good things which have 
 gone from home. Other farmers seem to think that 
 they may decide what the consumer should buy, and 
 the condition it should be in. No one can dictate 
 arbitrarily what another shall take, unless he have a 
 monopoly or patent. The farmers are further re- 
 moved from a monopoly than any industrial class 1 
 ever heard of. Many of them might secure what 
 amounts to a patent if they would, but the impossible 
 way which never gets anywhere in the market is to 
 ship culls, or to think you can tell your customers 
 what they ought to buy or eat. At any rate the 
 curse of the cull both disguised, and defiantly open 
 fell upon the Hill Country Produce Company. 
 
 You can hardly believe it, but the cull microbe 
 even got into the brain of Hiram Bently for a mo- 
 ment. He was making up a crate of eggs. Hen 
 Bingham had partly filled it, and Hiram was to finish. 
 That day the child had found under the barn a nest 
 of twelve eggs which a Plymouth Rock had stolen. 
 The poet tells us about the superior quality of stolen 
 fruit, but he did not refer to hen fruit. If on the 
 average five hundred hours are required to hatch a 
 live chicken from an egg, and a hen sits on that egg 
 forty-eight hours, to what extent does it become a 
 chicken? I cannot imagine any more damaging place 
 for the figuring of that problem than at a breakfast 
 table in Brownsville, just after some man has taken 
 the egg in his hand and delivered a pleasant lecture on 
 his delight at having fresh-laid eggs just as they 
 did on the farm when he was a boy. 
 
 Hiram knew that as well as you and I, but he did 
 
164 THE CHILD 
 
 want to fill that crate, and so he concluded he would 
 take the risk just once. So he actually had his hands 
 on those stolen eggs when the child came into the 
 shed and caught him at it. They stood and looked 
 at each other, the man with his hands full of eggs 
 which he knew were a shame to him, and the clean- 
 hearted child. 
 
 "Oh! don't, Uncle Hiram, don't! Uncle Jim 
 trusts you, and he won't never look at them eggs. 
 He don't trust some of them other men, but he does 
 trust you, and you will spoil Uncle Jim's trade." 
 
 Now put yourself in Hiram's place for a moment. 
 lYou know that this child holds you to be the soul of 
 honor, the model man, the strong character which 
 knows no moral weakness. You also know, ah! how 
 well in your heart, that the child has raised a false 
 idol, yet though you would not admit it the dearest 
 ambition of your life is that he may continue to wor- 
 ship that idol. Here you are, and the child has 
 caught you in an act of meanness, so petty and fool- 
 ish as to have absolutely no excuse. What would 
 you do? Some men come to judgment overjivery small 
 things. The judgment seat for Hiram Bently was 
 just a stolen nest of eggs, but it answered the pur- 
 pose. Hiram looked at the child for a moment, and 
 then without a word put those eggs in a basket and 
 carried them to the pasture fence. Then he threw 
 them one by one with all his power out into the pas- 
 ture. Hiram's arm was stiff, and when he was a boy 
 ball playing was not popular, and he had no chance 
 to practice, but who will, say that when he threw 
 those eggs he did not put the evil one out at first 
 base? Some of those eggs might well have been used 
 for cake or pie, and mother reproved him for the 
 waste, but my experience is that when you put Satan 
 behind you, he may push you just where you should 
 not go. Far better keep him out in front, with your 
 eye on him where you can pelt him ; for when Hiram 
 
THE CHILD 165 
 
 threw those eggs he did more than square himself 
 with the child. He drove off the stage an actor who 
 was ruining the performance. 
 
 That was true, for the curse of the cull was eating 
 to the heart of the Hill Country Produce Company. 
 For a time Jim Turner did his best to handle the 
 stuff that was sent him. He and Mary sorted and 
 repacked, and did their best to make at least one 
 first-class grade, for they were attracting some of the 
 best trade in Brownsville, and it was a nightmare to 
 honest Jim Turner, this fear that by some chance 
 these poor culls might by accident be sent to the 
 people he was trying so hard to please. Barrels 
 and barrels of produce were sent him which never 
 should have left the farm at all. You see the Hill 
 Country Produce Company started wrong, without 
 the power to establish a definite standard and en- 
 force it. There never should have been a case of 
 eggs or a barrel of apples shipped without being 
 overhauled and packed by Hiram, or some man he 
 could trust. It is only in that way that a farmer or 
 a farm organization can obtain one of those patents 
 which will protect them in the market. They all 
 shipped just as they had done to the commission 
 men, without order or uniformity. The fact is that 
 neither Hiram nor Carl nor Jim realized at first what 
 would follow. Jim managed to get rid of what they 
 sent him by selling in the mill town, but he quickly 
 saw that a company could not live on the reputation 
 of such a trade. There were several large dealers in 
 Brownsville. They watched the experiment closely, 
 to see if the venture was likely to grow large enough 
 to warrant them in killing it off. One day Mary 
 heard two of them discussing it. 
 
 "It won't amount to anything. It's mostly a bum 
 trade with bum goods. Some of those farmers are 
 working off their trash. Let's send a man down there 
 and buy up what they are holding back. Pay them 
 
166 THE CHILD 
 
 a little extra and clean them out, then this fool thing 
 won't run over winter." 
 
 One day, without warning, Jim received five cans 
 of milk. He had no milk trade, but he sold a few 
 quarts to his customers, and finally got rid of the 
 rest to a hotel at a low price. Then he telegraphed 
 to the shippers not to send any more, but when the 
 train came in there were six cans more. He could not 
 handle it. The regular milk dealers controlled the 
 trade and shut him off at every point. The result was 
 that four cans spoiled. Then Jim took the train and 
 went down to the hill country to explain. He met 
 three angry farmers who accused him of stealing their 
 milk. They had been told to ship their milk to him. 
 Who told them they could not definitely state, but 
 they had heard that he could sell anything and get 
 more than they were receiving, so they tried him out. 
 You see Captain Storms was making headway after 
 all. Jim tried to explain that he could sell butter, 
 but was not fixed so as to handle milk to advantage. 
 But these men felt they had been cheated and the 
 trouble grew. 
 
 It could hardly have come at a worse time. The 
 business started so well that Jim Turner saw, as he 
 thought, great things in it. There could be no ques- 
 tion about the prices he was getting, and the future 
 seemed secure. Then a little of the bread he had 
 thrown upon the waters floated back into harbor in 
 the shape of a rich plum cake, for Bill out in that 
 western town recovered his health and found work 
 which paid him so well that he was able to send back 
 the money Jim had given him. Next to Jim's place 
 was a small drygoods store. The proprietor died, and 
 the goods were sold at auction. Jim thought he saw 
 his chance to branch out into a little wholesale trade 
 for the company, so he assumed the unexpired lease 
 of that store, and had it connected with his own. 
 Then he induced Hiram and Carl and Hen Bingham 
 
THE CHILD 167 
 
 to agree to use some of the reserve funds of the 
 company for advertising. Jim knew this would bring 
 trade and increase sales. The others hesitated. This 
 was a new business to them, but Jim felt so sure that 
 they consented. According to the agreement among 
 them the officers of the company, with one other mem- 
 ber, were to make a board of directors. The red- 
 bearded farmer was elected to serve with them. In 
 truth Hiram and Carl did not consult him at all when 
 they agreed to spend this money for advertising. You 
 see the whole thing was running at loose ends, as such 
 things do, and it was time to tighten it up. 
 
 The tightening came with a jerk. Those milk ship- 
 pers went through the district with their grievances, 
 but the thing which really lanced the head of the 
 trouble was mother's sausage. You may consider 
 sausage as rather blunt material for cutting a business 
 organization apart, but probably you never tasted 
 any of this brand, and furthermore the sausage had 
 the aid of Nancy Bingham's sharp tongue. 
 
 No one makes genius. It steps unexpectedly out 
 of the great unknown, shuts its eyes, and touches 
 people at random. Some women without training 
 can take a handful of ribbons and a feather and trim 
 a hat so that every passerby will turn and look at it, 
 and go on with a new sense of beauty in his heart. 
 Another woman will put the same ribbons together 
 so as to shock those who are unfortunate enough to 
 see the combination. Some men will take five hun- 
 dred words and put them together so as to fire your 
 soul, and you can never forget them. Others will 
 take the five hundred words and exactly the same 
 theme and put you to sleep. Mother could not write 
 poems, but she could make sausage, so that it con- 
 tained something of the same spirit which genius put 
 on the hat, or into the poem. Emerson made many, 
 guesses at truth like the rest of us. Some of them 
 
168 THE CHILD 
 
 still remain guesses, and wide at that, but this one 
 was true from the beginning. 
 
 "As all men have some access to primary truth, so 
 all have some art of power or connection in their head, 
 but only in the artist does it descend into the hand." 
 
 When they killed the first pig that Fall, some of the 
 sausage had gone to Jim Turner as an experiment. 
 By a fortunate chance he got some of it on the table 
 of that manufacturer who had bought the child's 
 jack o' lantern. This man ate two pieces, and as he 
 called for the third he looked across the table at his 
 wife. 
 
 "Julia, I haven't tasted anything like that for 
 
 years. It's just like mother used No, Julia, I 
 
 won't get off that hoary-headed old thing. I don't 
 honestly believe my mother was a better house-keeper 
 than my wife is, but mother lived up in the hill coun- 
 try. There is something about the air up there. 
 That sausage tastes like a clover field in June. Make 
 one here out of the same sage and meat, and you can 
 taste the smoke that hangs over this town. 
 
 What is a piece of sausage to a great manufac- 
 turer? One of the greatest things in life when he can 
 eat three pieces and never think of a doctor all day 
 long. This man talked of that sausage to half a 
 dozen of his friends, and before he was done he was 
 bragging about it. The result was that Jim Turner 
 sent another telegram, ordering fifty pounds more at 
 once. The farmer with the red beard brought the 
 telegram out, and he waited to hear it read. 
 
 "I can help on that," he said. "The woman has 
 just made up a batch of sausage." 
 
 Nothing could stop him ; he drove home and in half 
 an hour they saw him coming back with a big stone 
 crock in his wagon. 
 
 "The woman didn't want to let it come. Said she 
 knows she can't make sausage alongside of Mis? 
 
THE CHILD 169 
 
 Bently, but I brought it right here. Now we'll ship 
 this right to Jim Turner." 
 
 That was where the Hill Country Produce Com- 
 pany began to crack. I knew a man once, a master 
 at putting words together, who was offered five cents 
 a word for a story. They offered him that and 
 more, because they knew that his words came from 
 him like drops of blood, so that there could not be 
 too many. He had a friend full of dry, meaningless 
 writing, who wrote about as one would sift coal ashes, 
 and this man made him a proposition. 
 
 "I will write the story. You pay me two cents a 
 word. Then you sign your name to it, and make 
 three cents a word for a scratch of your pen." It 
 was a blundering, unintentional insult to the literary 
 man, but not half so galling as this idea of counter- 
 feiting mother's sausage. Still, I think the crack 
 in the ship could have been plugged up if Nancy 
 Bingham had not been on hand. A little diplomacy 
 might have closed it up, yet perhaps it was just as 
 well after all that they struck a rock right there. 
 No, we want to keep unneighborly things out of 
 these records, so what is the use of our quoting 
 Nancy's opinion of John Gleason and his wife's saus- 
 age. Why should we put into the enduring type 
 the statements, some of them plainly teviden;t as 
 truth, which John made about Nancy? The end 
 came, as it often does, when Nancy found herself 
 talked to a standstill. 
 
 "Hen Bingham, are you going to stand here and 
 have your wife talked to thisaway?" 
 
 To the credit of Hen Bingham, be it said that he 
 pulled his coat and came on the run from the barn. 
 You might think that a man so nosed about and 
 browbeaten as Hen Bingham was, would rather enjoy 
 seeing the czar of his household get what had so fre- 
 quently fallen to him. If you really think so, I can 
 only say that you are a very dull or drowsy student 
 
170 THE CHILD 
 
 of human nature. In spite of the color of his beard, 
 John Gleason did not wait to grapple with Hen. 
 "I will see you later," he said, and off he drove, 
 the stone crock jolting about in his wagon; and he 
 did see them later, and so did the hideous head of 
 the thing which, with its twin brother, graft, has 
 done so much to eat up the hopes of co-operative 
 societies. This is the spirit of counterfeiting and 
 inferior packing, or what we have called the curse of 
 the cull. It had to come sooner or later, as it always 
 does, and as it turned out the sausage proposition 
 was the fattest place for it to strike. 
 
 John Gleason did see them later. He went around 
 and found half a dozen disgruntled members, and 
 then he demanded a meeting of the company. Hiram 
 called it, and through the mud of that dreary Fall 
 day, sullen and resentful, John Gleason rallied his 
 forces. Here was still another toy performance of 
 childish folly you will say, for grown-up men do not 
 quarrel over fifty pounds of sausage. The match is a 
 small thing compared with the great fire it may 
 kindle. You may in your time have started a conflict 
 over less than ten pounds of sausage when you 
 thought the reputation of your family was at stake. 
 Hen Bingham and Carl Schmitt came ahead of the 
 rest. Here was a majority of the executive commit- 
 tee and Carl fired the first gun. 
 
 "I moof you dot hereafter no goods vas to be 
 shipped by dis gumpany to Jim Turner mitout it 
 vas examined und certified by the bresident, Hirem 
 Bently, und he vas hereby authorized to trow out 
 all gulls und schnide goods vot in his judgment it vas 
 not mit our interest to ship." 
 
 Secretary Hen Bingham duly recorded this reso- 
 lution, and he also recorded what took place at the 
 meeting. But you and I have no wish to see good 
 neighbors at their quarrels. When we stop to think 
 what the word neighbor means, or ought to mean in 
 
THE CHILD 171 
 
 the country, we cannot bring ourselves to go to Hen 
 Bingham's record book and try to relate some of the 
 things that were said and done. For quarrels be- 
 tween good neighbors are like bad weather and 
 gloom. Let us drop them and hope that they may 
 not come our way. There were two troubles, one was 
 the money held back by Jim Turner for distribution 
 as a "divi." These men had received for their goods 
 just about what they would have brought if sent to 
 commission men. Jim had sold the goods for more, 
 and would pay the balance in a lump sum later, but 
 some of these farmers were suspicious. Who can 
 blame them, for had not every man who had tried 
 to organize them before got more -than his share out 
 of it, and left them with the debt? Hiram showed 
 them the agreement they had signed and explained 
 how it would work, but they declared that they had 
 been cheated. Then they wanted to know where the 
 money was, and Hiram told them how it had been 
 voted to use part of it for advertising to increase 
 the business. Then they accused him of robbery, but 
 the climax came when Hen read Carl Schmitt's 
 resolution. 
 
 Now, you and I know that when we go, dollar in 
 hand, to buy goods, we intend, if possible, to exer- 
 cise the privilege of selection. We know what we 
 want, and how we want it, and unless the seller has 
 a complete monopoly, we will make our own choice. 
 I would rather have my sugar weighed out of a bar- 
 rel for me as I used to buy it, but the sugar trust 
 has a monopoly and decrees that I must buy it in a 
 package and pay a good profit on the package be- 
 sides. If farmers had a monopoly of potatoes or 
 apples or eggs, they might say in imitation of the 
 sugar trust, "That's good enough for the city peo- 
 ple. I know what they need, and they have got to 
 take it in this way." The farmers have no such 
 
172 THE CHILD 
 
 monopoly, however, thus they cannot force the con- 
 sumers to buy just what they send. While the con- 
 sumer is free to select, he will make his own choice 
 whenever he has the price. Looking at it as reason- 
 able men we ought to see that one man of good 
 judgment will be more likely to suit the consumer's 
 taste in packing or selecting, than fifteen men, each 
 with a special opinion of what is suitable. And it 
 also seems reasonable that the man who comes close 
 to the consumers and has a chance to see what they 
 want and how they talk, would be more likely to 
 satisfy them, than the fifteen others who do not know 
 the habits of the consumer. It seems reasonable to 
 us as we sit talking about it, and yet our good 
 friends in Hiram's house that day fought out the old 
 endless battle over a false and worn-out so-called 
 independence. For say what you will, that is what 
 it means when a man stubbornly refuses to submit 
 to fair authority and throw a small coin of his own 
 independence into the hat in order to raise a fund 
 to pay for a little freedom. 
 
 There was one man who lived down by the school- 
 house and thus far had said little. Now he came 
 forward. 
 
 "Do I understand from that readin' that we can't 
 ship no eggs, no apples, no nothin' till Hiram Bently 
 fingers them over? Is that right?" 
 
 "Dot vas eggsactly right, Reuben," answered Carl 
 Schmitt. 
 
 "Well, how close does he finger them? Might as 
 well settle it right now. I've got half a case of eggs 
 in my wagon. Run 'em right through, Hiram, and 
 see what goes through your fingers." 
 h It was a challenge which must be met. Hen Bing- 
 ham produced an egg tester. They adjourned to the 
 shed, and Hiram brought out a lamp. It was late 
 afternoon and the sky was dull and gray. Reuben 
 brought in his eggs and they all gathered around. 
 
THE CHILD 173 
 
 "I want to say, before we begin," said obstinate 
 Reuben, "that I tested every one of them eggs. I 
 stood inside the barn and held them up to a knot- 
 hole in broad daylight." 
 
 It was clear from the egg tester that these eggs 
 ought to be put in three grades. They would all 
 pass for some purpose, but only a few of them were 
 what we call "strictly fresh." Hiram and Hen 
 sorted them out by grade. The pile of firsts was 
 small enough. Reuben watched them, sometimes 
 looking through the tester himself. 
 
 "Well, gents, if that is a sample of it, here is 
 where I get out of the game. Any one of them eggs 
 is good enough for me, and therefore good enough 
 for them people in town. Count me right out of this 
 thing. No more for me." 
 
 The fact is that Reuben's wife had scolded him 
 that morning for holding these eggs so long; but, of 
 course, there was no use in quoting her opinion to 
 business men. Reuben packed his eggs and carried 
 them back to his wagon. 
 
 "I've quit, no more for me." 
 
 "Me, too," said his neighbor on the south, "you 
 done us up good. Now run it yourselves." 
 
 It was hard to see good neighbors stamping off 
 to their teams in anger and driving away without even 
 a nod, to spread the news that the Hill Country 
 Produce Company had cracked apart. There seemed 
 to be nothing of it left except the five old soldiers, 
 the child and Bill King. Then a hard rain had 
 come, not washing away the bitterness of that meet- 
 ing, but rather soaking it in. 
 
 Of .course, I know very well that some critic will 
 say right here that this was no way to organize and 
 conduct such a company. I know it. Hiram and his 
 friends ought to have known better. You may also 
 say that it is not fair to state that farmers ever act 
 in any such way. Let it be understood that I am 
 
174 THE CHILD 
 
 not trying to tell you how to run such a company, nor 
 am I describing a model enterprise. That might prob- 
 ably come in a novel, which I am not writing. I am 
 simply telling you what plain, ordinary humans did — 
 very ordinary men, with human faults and failings 
 like you and me. No one ever learned how to do 
 it save through hard experience. This is one of the 
 things not learned from books. You might have done 
 it better, I have no reason to doubt it; but I doubt 
 my own ability to do much better with it under the 
 circumstances. As for the other criticism, I will ask 
 you, as man to man, if you have not known in your 
 time people who acted in much the same way. I 
 judge them not harshly. At heart they are sound 
 and true as we shall see. They have been deceived 
 and cheated and disappointed time and again, and I 
 do not count it strange that their suspicions were 
 aroused. Had any neighborly service been needed, 
 they would have dropped all their feeling to render 
 it. They could not yet put sentiment into their 
 business combination. That was all there is to it. 
 
 You can understand from all this how Hiram 
 Bently felt that dismal night as he sat before the 
 fire. The child roused at last and drew his little 
 chair up beside Hiram. 
 
 "Ain't going to give up, are ye, Uncle Hiram?" 
 "It looks pretty bad, sonny; looks as if we would 
 lose some money. We have sent away about all we 
 raised. What would you do?" 
 
 "I don't know, Uncle Hiram, but I wouldn't quit. 
 You know what the Colonel said." 
 "I know, but what can we sell now?" 
 "I don't know, Uncle Hiram, but I wouldn't quit. 
 It's terrible to quit working. Teacher told us about 
 a man that came out of jail and wanted to be honest. 
 He went off to a new place and somebody lent him 
 the money to start a tailor shop. Two days went by 
 and nobody came with a job, and the man knew if he 
 
THE CHILD 175 
 
 stood still doing nothing any longer, he would break 
 down and go back where he was before. So he took an 
 old coat and sat in the window and ripped that coat 
 apart and sewed it together again. Anything to 
 keep his hands busy. He ripped that coat all apart 
 four times and sewed it together. People passed by 
 and saw him at it and thought he was full of work 
 so they came in and give him more than he could do. 
 I wouldn't quit, Uncle Hiram. I don't know what 
 we can sell, but I'd scrape the farm awful hard and 
 find something." 
 
 And the officers of the Hill Country Produce Com- 
 pany, up against the curse of the cull, were to find 
 what manufacturers have long since discovered, that 
 there is often greater profit in saving the scrapings 
 than in the rest of the factory. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 You will have noticed by this time that the Hill 
 Country Produce Company was run by what we call 
 a close corporation. We are taught to condemn that 
 principle when it operates in large concerns to de- 
 prive stockholders of their rights, or to control a 
 business for selfish purposes. Yet it is true that no 
 enterprise in which men combine for business can be 
 made successful unless a few strong characters take 
 charge of its affairs and dominate them. To attempt 
 to run a co-operative business as one would run an 
 ideal republic, each member to have an equal share 
 in administration, would ruin it from the start. It 
 would ruin a home, which is the ideal co-operative so- 
 ciety, if father and mother gave up their parental 
 authority and permitted untried children to dictate 
 the home policy. In many large enterprises the close 
 corporation which controls it might welcome such a 
 crack as came to the Hill Country Produce Com- 
 pany. They could reorganize it, buy out the dis- 
 gruntled members for little or nothing, and then 
 through various schemes work off the stock at a 
 great profit. We are now to see the opposite of this 
 piratical policy ; something not of the golden dollar, 
 but rather of the golden rule. For it is always pos- 
 sible for the strong men of a close corporation to 
 guard the rights of their brothers and play fair. 
 Hen Bingham, Carl Schmitt and Hiram Bently had 
 no wish to cheat their neighbors. They hoped rather to 
 prove that a cooperative company might be made to 
 help them all. They were to live their lives out 
 among their neighbors ; and while they had made mis- 
 takes at starting, they still had an ambition to show 
 
THE CHILD 177 
 
 these neighbors that by being honest and fair the 
 enterprise would still go on. 
 
 The next morning came clear and bright, and be- 
 fore eight o'clock Carl Schmitt drove into the yard. 
 If any of you think this old soldier was ready for 
 retreat I want you to correct that opinion at once. 
 He began talking before his horse stopped. 
 
 "Hirem, you remember dot day ven our regiment 
 vas detailed to defend dem brestvorks mit der hill, 
 yot?" 
 
 Hiram remembered it well, but who could ever stop 
 Carl Schmitt, or who wanted to. 
 
 "Veil, we vas firing avay ven der enemy opened up 
 mit a new kind of shell. Veil, der noise dem shells 
 made was someding awful der air in. Dem men vas 
 good soldiers, but how I vas not know, dem shells 
 mit dot big noise throw dem soldiers mit a panic, 
 vot? I look me around und see dem soldiers throw 
 down mit the guns und run, oh! so fast avay. Dere 
 vas der Colonel und me, und you und Heine Bing- 
 ham, and may be a dozen more vat shtay, und effery 
 one of us ve vanted to run. Veil, ve had bin ordered 
 to defend dot blace till reinforcements came out. Off 
 the fire quit the enemy knows we vas not dere, und 
 dey occupy der blace. So the Colonel, he say ve 
 keep it up vat? Heine Bingham und two odders dey 
 loaded dem guns und der rest of us fired dem, oh, so 
 fast, dot it looked like dem brestvorks vas still occu- 
 pied. Veil, in ten, fifteen minutes may be, dem 
 odder soldiers see dot ve keep him going, und back 
 dey come mit drees und fours, und take up the 
 guns dey throwed avay. Veil, der result vas dey 
 all vas in blace vat vas alife. Den der General he 
 comes up mit his men und dot blace vas safe. Veil, 
 ve vas in just another blace like dot. Dem vas goot 
 men vat goes avay, but dey find someding new, und 
 vas not used mit him. Veil, ve vas left here like ve 
 vas before, und ve vill keep on mit the firing till dem 
 
178 THE CHILD 
 
 goot neighbors und men see dot ve vas not run, und 
 dey come back. Ve vos keep firing, ain't it?" 
 
 "But what can we fire with, Carl? You and I 
 have sent all our potatoes, and so has Bill King. 
 What can we ship?" 
 
 "Veil, ve find someding, und der hunting for some- 
 ding vill may be strike someding else vot we know not 
 now. In dot great city dem people eat many dings. 
 How ve know vat ve haff here till ve learn und 
 scrape, vat? Und now you put on your good clothes 
 und go mit me. Ve go und consult mit Jim Turner 
 right avay, und the child goes, too, mit goot luck." 
 
 No one ever stopped Carl Schmitt. To get in his 
 way was to be run over in such a good-natured but 
 impressive way that you forgot your bruises, picked 
 yourself up and followed him. Mother demurred 
 at taking the child, but Carl said he brought good 
 luck, and remembering the sale of those cull apples, 
 they let him go. They found Jim Turner with his 
 new store empty and the rent due. The advertise- 
 ments in the city papers were bringing people every, 
 hour, for Jim had offered to sell the Winter's sup- 
 ply of potatoes at a wholesale figure. It was a new 
 and popular thing, and dozens of people with good 
 cellars were ready to buy one barrel of potatoes for 
 each adult of the family. There was no reasonable 
 limit to this trade, yet there was hardly a potato 
 left in the store. There was a small shipment com- 
 ing from Carl, but that would clean up all that the 
 loyal members of the company could supply, for the 
 five old soldiers and Bill King had sent what they 
 had freely, while the others had held back to see how 
 the thing worked. While they were talking a woman 
 came in and ordered three barrels of potatoes and 
 three pounds of "that sausage." Another came, 
 ordering two barrels. 
 
 "It's a shame to see this thing slip right through 
 our hands," said Jim. 
 
THE CHILD 179 
 
 "Veil, it vas not slip mit our hands. Dere is 
 odder people vot raise potatoes, yes? Veil, ve go 
 buy dem. If ve cannot vork mit our hands, ve make 
 der money vork for us, vat?" 
 
 "But where is the money," said cautious Hiram. 
 
 "Right in der bank. Ve goes und get credit right 
 now. Dis vas part of der fighting ve had. In dem 
 old days ve fired dem guns avay. Now ve fire mit 
 our credit." 
 
 You may think I am getting into the wild im- 
 probabilities of a novel, but this unbeatable German 
 brought Hiram Bently to a bank where they obtained 
 fair credit for the money they wanted. Carl found 
 a German butcher who came from the little town in 
 the Rhine Valley, which they both knew so well, and 
 this man indorsed them. Then Carl and Hiram went 
 down to Sumpter County and bought a carload of 
 potatoes. They paid thirty-five cents a bushel, and 
 it cost about five cents to ship them to Brownsville. 
 Jim Turner sold them all at $2.75 a barrel, or at the 
 rate of $4 in smaller lots. And while Carl and Hiram 
 were playing the part of middlemen in Sumpter 
 County, the Brownsville produce dealers sent a buyer 
 into Grant County, for the time had come to crush 
 out the Hill Produce Company by clearing up all its 
 resources. This man appeared at Hen Bingham's, 
 but Nancy quickly informed him that she did not 
 intend to help pay for his high hat and cigar if the 
 other farmers did want to. Some of the other farm- 
 ers evidently were interested in that high hat, for 
 when he offered forty cents for potatoes, some of the 
 crop was sold. 
 
 This potato business not only showed Carl and 
 Hiram the power of capital, but it opened their eyes 
 to a new and more prosperous kind of farming, for 
 in Sumpter County the farmers were getting more 
 and more away from exclusive milk production. 
 There were good-sized henhouses on most farms, 
 
180 THE CHILD 
 
 orchards and here and there a patch of small fruits. 
 There were good-sized potato fields where farmers 
 used modern machinery to advantage. Thus, while 
 there was almost as much milk produced as formerly, 
 the farmers were not tied in slavery to a cow's tail, 
 but had half a dozen sources of profit besides milk. 
 This showed everywhere in greater independence 
 which came from a better supply of cash. Go down 
 into Sumpter County to-day, and you will find still 
 greater improvement. There are telephones in the 
 houses, more and more fruit and farm crops, and 
 even great auto trucks that roll up and down over the 
 hills and into town with their loads of produce, 
 crushing, as they go, the fingers on those thieving 
 hands which still try to reach out and grab their 
 share. That is what is being done to-day. These 
 records are written of a time wherein on a good many 
 farms, if a boy had told his dream of seeing men 
 flying in the air, or gasoline wagons puffing their way 
 at lightning speed along the common roads, he would 
 have been taken out behind the barn and sharp 
 measures taken to drive away the evil spirit which 
 had somehow come into him. 
 
 As for capital, Carl and Hiram quickly saw there 
 was more profit in buying potatoes at thirty-five 
 cents, and selling them for $2.75 in Jim Turner's 
 store, than in selling for the neighbors and dividing 
 up all profits. That was where money both talked 
 and worked, for the merchant and so-called business 
 men were enabled to obtain credit to buy and sell, 
 while the farmer could not obtain credit to produce 
 or handle. While Carl and Hiram and Jim saw all 
 this, to their everlasting credit be it said they never 
 dreamed of taking advantage of their neighbors. As 
 Carl said, "dem vas goot men, but dey find some- 
 ding new," and they wanted those neighbors to have 
 a fair share. We may all see that a business of 
 merely buying and selling farm produce would not 
 
THE CHILD 181' 
 
 permanently improve any neighborhood; such im- 
 provement could only come through home develop- 
 ment, finding new products to sell and keeping the 
 useless middlemen's share at home, for you can see 
 without trouble that even if Carl and Hiram had 
 induced their neighbors to put up their money and 
 buy and sell through Jim Turner's store, the result 
 would not have been true co-operation. It was far 
 better in every way that what they sold should, if 
 possible, come out of their own farms. 
 
 And now you will surely say, we have got this man 
 cornered at last. We have got him, for no one ever 
 outside of a novel heard of any such altruistic no- 
 tions about a farmer. You are wrong, as usual, for 
 you do not know the strong neighborly feeling which 
 most country people have. There are thousands of 
 farmers who feel just exactly this way about their 
 neighbors. Thus far their training and conditions 
 have not fitted them to give full expression to it. In 
 the future such men will acquire the patience and the 
 experience to solve this biting problem of the hills. 
 Hiram Bently was a good man and a good neighbor, 
 but I have no thought that he would ever have gone 
 into a company of this kind had it not been for the 
 child. 
 
 It is all well enough to buy and sell potatoes in 
 order to help out, but in order to prosper the Hill 
 Country Produce Company had to find something at 
 home to sell. They could not handle the milk to ad- 
 vantage. What else could be found? There were 
 a few eggs and chickens, but it was not a poultry 
 section, and you know perfectly well how a hen re- 
 gards her business during the Winter in the average 
 farm henhouse. She is usually less productive and 
 much less comfortable than the hibernating wood- 
 chuck in his warm burrow. Jim Turner said sausage. 
 With cold weather coming he knew he could develop 
 a great trade. But Hiram demurred. 
 
182 THE CHILD 
 
 "But making sausage isn't farming." 
 
 "Veil," answered Carl, "vat vas farming enervay? 
 It vas making food und fibre, der most useful busi- 
 ness in der vorld. Vot vas der matter mit farming? 
 Veil, der farmer does just der ruff part of der work, 
 und gets nothing but der bark, may be off of der 
 price dey vas paid here. These odder men get der 
 rest of der stick. Most of der money und der pleas- 
 ant dings about business goes mit der man vot 
 handles und prepares vot der farmer produces, yes? 
 Veil, you raise potatoes mit much vork und many 
 trubles. You get may be half cent vor a pound, und 
 von potato vas just like anoder. Neither der man 
 nor der potato vas able to haff people say about him 
 dot man he haff got a patent of nature. But you 
 und Mis' Bently make der fine sausage und get may 
 be fifteen cents mit a pound, und people say dot 
 sausage haff mit it someding like a great poem vot 
 compels us to come back und read it ofer und ofer. 
 Vas it not goot farming to raise und make dem dings 
 vot compel the people to talk like dot, vot?" 
 
 I have listened to an entire course of lectures in 
 agriculture at a great college which had less of the 
 real germ of things than this argument of Carl's. 
 It convinced Hiram, for he bought a good-sized saus- 
 age grinder, and took it back to the farm so that he 
 might help on the heavy work. 
 
 While Carl and Hiram were in Sumpter County 
 the child stayed with Jim Turner. Little Jennie 
 Turner was just starting at school, and the child 
 went along as a visitor. He played with the o'ther 
 children and watched them as they went by Jim 
 Turner's store. It did not take him long to observe 
 what every countryman notices when he comes toi 
 town, the peculiar influence of cash. That is one 
 of the things which impresses and dazzles young 
 country people when they first go to town. At home 
 there is little cash. Few farmers carry much of it 
 
THE CHILD 183 
 
 about, but somehow money seems to pile up in the 
 towns. People work for cash wages, and they are 
 paid regularly, and the young people have it in their 
 pockets. The young countryman does not and can- 
 not figure out the real meaning of this, but that easy 
 and apparent money dazzles him. At home the child 
 carried his dinner in a little basket or pail. As for 
 money, he hardly knew what it looked or felt like. 
 Should some one give him a dime or a penny, it was 
 promptly put into a toy bank which stood in the 
 kitchen beside the clock. Yet most of these school 
 children seemed to have money in their pockets, and 
 many of them were expected to spend ten or fifteen 
 cents each day for a light lunch. The child saw some 
 of them at a little cigar store where they bought 
 peanuts or candy or soda water. Still more patron- 
 ized a bakery shop, where tough and indigestible pies 
 and cake were sold. One of these children treated 
 the child to a piece of squash pie. It was a tasteless, 
 putty-like mass, dumped into a rind of hard, cling- 
 ing pastry. It made the child homesick as he 
 thought of the squash pie that mother put into his 
 little basket at home. Strange it was, but we may 
 look for power in unexpected places, and that soggy 
 baker's pie proved one of the front wheels of the car 
 upon which the Hill Country Produce Company ran 
 on to victory. That night while JW Turner was 
 working over his books, the child came and stood be- 
 side him. 
 
 "Uncle Jim, how many children are in that 
 school?" 
 
 Jim guessed at it. "About six hundred." 
 "How many of them buy their lunch at noon?" 
 "Perhaps one hundred and fifty, or a little more." 
 "If they spend ten cents a piece every day, how 
 much would that be?" 
 "About fifteen dollars." 
 "Well, Uncle Jim, why don't you put some tables 
 
184 THE CHILD 
 
 in that new store and sell our pies and milk and 
 baked apples, like we have at home to them chil- 
 dren?" 
 
 Jim Turner laid down his pen and stared at the 
 child. Could there be anything in this? He had 
 never thought of it. It was possible that here was 
 a chance to help tide them over the Winter. Before 
 he could answer, the child was talking again. 
 
 "Uncle Jim, didn't you say that our sausage was 
 bringing you trade in other things ?" 
 
 It was true, for Jim Turner had made that sau- 
 sage a "leader," and without question wealthy people 
 who bought it were coming to his store for other 
 goods. 
 
 "Now, Uncle Jim, I bet our squash and apple 
 pies would do the same. You don't know how good 
 they are. Every child that eats a piece will go right 
 home and tell his mother about them." 
 
 You remember how the child told Uncle Hiram 
 he would stay on the farm and make people come 
 over the hills to him? Well, he was doing it. Why 
 should we quarrel about the magnet used to attract 
 these people, and care whether it be pie Or sausage 
 or what not? Hiram could see very little in the plan. 
 It looked to him very childish. 
 
 "It isn't farming," he said. "A sausage factory is 
 bad enough, but a bakery is worse yet." 
 
 "Veil," said Carl Schmitt, "not ven it vas dot kind 
 of a bakery." 
 
 But the child went quietly out and bought one of 
 those tough pies from the bakery which the school 
 children were buying, and he gave it to Uncle Hiram 
 to eat. That sort of an argument always beats mere 
 words. There were two other things which set Hiram 
 to thinking. When he got back from Sumpter 
 County a man called at the store with a proposition. 
 
 "I see this sausage you are sending down is mak- 
 ing a hit. I think we can get together and make a 
 
THE CHILD 185 
 
 nice little bunch of money. It costs too much to 
 make sausage the way you do. I can make it cheaper 
 here, and we can sell a whole lot of it. We will make 
 up a nice package with your picture or your wife's 
 on it, and a little signed guarantee from you. Let 
 Turner handle it, and I'll bet there will be a small 
 fortune to it. I'll pay you for your name and your 
 wife's picture." Hiram stared at this man, but he 
 could not feel angry somehow, for the man was per- 
 fectly sincere and was offering what he thought was 
 a fair proposition. He could not see any dishonesty 
 in any such thing, for it was being done in business 
 right along. If a man was willing to sell sausage, 
 why not sell his name, too? To this very day I doubt 
 if that man understands just why Hiram would not 
 enter the deal. 
 
 The other thing was better. A man came into the 
 store one night to buy a can of tomatoes. 
 
 "I wish I could get some of the real stuff our folks 
 used to put up at home. That sausage of yours is 
 all right, but we ought to have some old-fashioned 
 buckwheat cakes out of the real old-fashioned flour." 
 
 "I have got some right here," said Jim Turner, 
 reaching for a package of a famous brand of buck- 
 wheat. 
 
 "Oh! no, that's all right for people who never 
 lived up in the hill country, but we want the old- 
 fashioned flour they used to grind in those little 
 country mills. Where can I get it?" 
 
 "You can get it right here next week," said Hiram 
 Bently, for at last he was learning the game. To be 
 sure, that was not farming, but any one could see 
 that selling buckwheat flour would pay better than 
 selling whole buckwheat to the mill. Jim Turner 
 had some paper sacks printed, and Carl and Hiram 
 went home and had their buckwheat ground at the 
 mill. They filled these sacks in Hiram's shed, and 
 shipped them to Brownsville, where Jim Turner made 
 
186 THE CHILD 
 
 bill country buckwheat a feature of his advertising. 
 
 The child did not refer to the pies again until they 
 were nearly home. 
 
 "Uncle Hiram, are you going to let Uncle Jim sell 
 them pies?" 
 
 "Why, sonny, I am afraid it will be too much 
 work for mother." 
 
 But as Hiram opened the kitchen door, a woman 
 who was strange to the child jumped up from her 
 chair and hugged the old soldier, greatly to his em- 
 barrassment. It was his only sister, a widow who had 
 not visited them for three years. She and mother 
 were like sisters, and they both saw in this pie and 
 sausage proposition a chance for a little business 
 which would give Aunt Hannah a home with them. 
 And stay she did, and the way those happy women 
 worked in that pleasant farm kitchen through the 
 Winter proves to-day the most beautiful and endur- 
 ing part of the solid foundation of the Hill Country 
 Produce Company. 
 
 Jim Turner put tables and chairs in that vacant 
 store, and he sent a card signed "Yours respectfully, 
 James Turner, grocer," to the parents who sent chil- 
 dren to that school. He told them that he had 
 opened a little lunch room where the children could 
 get real country food. First there came several of 
 the teachers to spy out the land. Jim treated them 
 to a great chunk cut from a squash pie which had 
 come out of mother's oven the day before. They 
 looked with longing eyes at the rest of the pie. Then 
 the children came in droves. They bought pie and 
 milk and apples and doughnuts, and then they 
 bought candy in the store. As the child expected, 
 these little folks were good drummers for trade. One 
 of them went home and told her mother about the 
 awful nice apple pie she had for lunch. That 
 woman's husband was one of those unfortunate 
 critics who hold their mother up as an impossible 
 
THE CHILD 1871 
 
 model for their wife. At any rate this woman had 
 never been able to reach mother-in-law's high stand- 
 ard, so she came and bought a pie. At dinner that 
 day her husband after eating two pieces, forgot him- 
 self long enough to say it was the best he ever tasted, 
 and he looked across the table at his wife with a 
 new admiration. 
 
 Of course, you will say these are very poor and 
 petty details; think of discussing the business possi- 
 bilities of a piece of pie when there are so many) 
 great things in the world which these people might 
 have done. Do you know that the tallest and the 
 most expensive building yet erected in New York 
 City is being paid for out of the profits of five and 
 ten-cent stores? That is true, and if you say that 
 the sale of stock in that property helped finance it, 
 so much the more remarkable, for that means confi- 
 dence, — confidence in the profit of half a cent on 
 each small article. All I know is that the sausage 
 and the pies which mother and Aunt Hannah (with 
 Hiram and Joe Burgess on the grinder) turned out 
 that Winter, kept the Hill Country Produce Com- 
 pany going in the right way. They could have kept 
 it alive buying and selling as a commission company, 
 but that was not the way. It must become a cooper- 
 ative company, handling the goods that are produced 
 right in their district, if it is to do its proper work. 
 And they certainly did scrape the farm. Somebody 
 asked Captain Storms in the post office one day 
 how that baby business of selling, truck was getting 
 along. 
 
 "Oh! they're still grinding. Not much left but a 
 sausage factory. They'll be making sauerkraut 
 next." 
 
 Carl Schmitt heard it, and he went home and 
 helped his wife make a barrel of kraut. They 
 shipped it, and it is a fact that Jim Turner sold it 
 in the mill town at a far greater profit than anjj 
 
188 THE CHILD 
 
 milk farmer was obtaining for his milk. And they 
 kept the little company going. They shipped buck- 
 iwheat flour, apples, cider, apple sauce, and what- 
 ever they could scrape up or buy in the district. 
 Carl found a man back on the hills with a lot of 
 honey. They bought it and bottled it themselves 
 under a good label. Jim developed a good Winter 
 trade in poultry, and Hen Bingham and Bill King 
 picked up chickens on the back farms and brought 
 them to Hiram's, where they were fattened. Hen 
 and Joe Burgess became experts at killing and dress- 
 ing. They pulled and they worked in every way 
 to keep that little company on its feet. It was the 
 happiest and most prosperous Winter that our 
 friends ever knew, and the best of it all was the way 
 the neighbors finally came back. 
 
 At first Jim Turner had no thought of doing more 
 than supplying lunch for those school children. One 
 day a man he had known in New England walked 
 into the store, hunting for a job. He and his wife 
 were stranded in the town, and work at his trade 
 was slack. This man suggested that they enlarge 
 the lunch business a little, with his wife to do the 
 cooking. His plan was to have just one single 
 farmer's meal, buckwheat cakes, fried eggs or fried 
 sausage, fried potatoes, apple sauce, doughnuts and 
 coffee, nothing else. Mary had too much to do to 
 attend to the lunch room, so Jim agreed, and his 
 friends went to work. The novelty of the scheme 
 made it a success from the start. One day there 
 walked into the room at noon a big, man with a red 
 beard, with his small and black-eyed wife beside him. 
 Jim's friend did not know that here was John Glea- 
 son, who had knocked the first plank out of the Hill 
 Country Produce Company. In due time Jim Turner 
 had sent to all the members the "divi" that was due 
 them. It was not large with most of them, but did 
 you ever stop to think that the angel of peace would 
 
THE CHILD 189 
 
 leceive a far more enthusiastic welcome if she could 
 flourish good money in a place of the usual olive 
 'branch? So John and his wife had come to town to 
 eee how things were going. John was hungry, and 
 he ate two solid dinners right there, to the outward 
 mortification but inward joy of his wife. When he 
 finished he gave a great sigh of satisfaction, and 
 then went around to the other store where Jim 
 Turner was waiting on a customer. 
 
 "Jim Turner," he roared in his great voice, "I 
 never did think you amounted to much, but I'll be 
 dogged if that dinner aint the nearest to real home 
 cooking that I ever eet." 
 
 John selected his verb with great care so as to be 
 as forcible as possible, and yet not offend polite 
 society, and Jim Turner understood. 
 
 Next day, as mother took an apple pie out of the 
 oven, she glanced through the window, and saw John 
 Gleason and his wife drive into the yard. In the 
 wagon behind them was a small hog, carefully 
 wrapped in white cloth. There was one good thing 
 about John, he came right to the point, especially 
 when his wife was behind him. 
 
 "Mis' Bently, the woman says bygones is by- 
 gones, and that suits me. The woman wanted me 
 to bring over this here hog to help make sassage. 
 I have got some potatoes left, and the woman can 
 supply eggs and some butter, and pot cheese, none 
 better. We will send them along and let you and 
 Hiram run 'em over before they go. I see you're 
 right about that. I was down to Brownsville, and 
 I heard a feller there say if Mis' Bently will fill 
 a bag with hoss feed and put her name and picture 
 on it, them folks will eat it and smack their chops 
 over it. I says, says I, all talk, say what you are 
 going to, and then I'll tell you how it is. When 
 they all got done, I says, says I, the only reason 
 
190 THE CHILD 
 
 they would eat it is because they know darn well 
 Mis' Bently wouldn't never put her picture on no 
 such stuff." 
 
 And mother blushed to the rim of her spectacles, 
 for I doubt if in all the annals of gallantry any 
 woman ever received a more sincere compliment than 
 that. 
 
 And now, my faithful friends, here we are at the 
 end of our little story. I told you we should end 
 right where we began, at Hiram Bently's fire. It 
 is the annual meeting of the Hill Country Produce 
 Company. They are all here, and their wives have 
 come along too. They overflow the sitting room out 
 into the kitchen, where if we looked we could find a 
 full supply of those famous squash pies, ready to 
 be eaten when the men have finished their business. 
 Of course, these pies are worth good money in 
 Brownsville, -but nothing is too good for an occasion 
 like this. Every member of the company has raised 
 larger side 'crops than ever before, and to that extent 
 is less the slave of the cow, while the cow herself is 
 more of a queen. 
 
 Jim Turner has sold all they sent him, and prices 
 have averaged one-third larger than the buyers paid, 
 or that they have received before; and Jim is here 
 with his wife. He has just passed out little colored 
 slips of papers to the members, for this is the day 
 of the "divi." It is a good one, and those pieces of 
 paper are good as gold at the Brownsville Bank, 
 and but for this company that gold would be in the 
 pockets of the middlemen. Carl Schmitt has nomi- 
 nated Hiram and Hen and himself, as usual, and 
 there was unanimous approval, and now Carl clears 
 his throat for his most impressive speech. 
 
 "Gentlemens, you may have noticed dot I made 
 no nomination mit vice bresident. Veil, last year 
 dere vas some what sayed dis vas a baby concern, 
 
THE CHILD 191 
 
 because of the person vot vas elected. But my goot 
 friends we haff learned someding. Ve could not haff 
 had a better vice bresident under dem circumstances 
 vot vas come out. Ve older people vas sometimes 
 get shtale und shtand shtill. Ve forget dot ve vas 
 once children und dot allways the vuture vas a blace 
 vhere children will boss der job. Und derefore it 
 vas der influence und der eggsample mit children 
 vot gifF us new ideas, vot? Und derefore, gentle- 
 mens, I nominate for der office of vice bresident, der 
 child vonce more." 
 
 Well, sir, if ever there was an election double 
 clinched and riveted securely, it was that of the vice- 
 president of the Hill Country Produce Company. 
 Bill King came over and patted that officer on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 "When you get a little bigger sonny, we will send 
 you to the agricultural college to learn something 
 for us, and pass it around. Each one of us will 
 raise an acre of potatoes and lump it all in to pay 
 for your schooling." 
 
 "No," criticised John Gleason, "don't do that. 
 Them scientific fellers up there would squeeze all the 
 sense out of him and put in science instead, and we 
 aint got no use for that." 
 
 "But I didn't mean Agriculture, I mean what they 
 know that's worth while. Them fellers may know 
 it, but they can't make common folks understand it. 
 I want the child to go and get it and then come back 
 here and tell it to us simple, pass it on so as we can 
 know what it is all about." 
 
 "Then he'd be a middleman, Bill Thought you 
 hated a middleman." 
 
 "So I do when both ends run into his v stummick. 
 I want one with his heart connected." 
 
 It may be that in the future I shall try to tell 
 about this, and the struggle the child had as a 
 student between the forces of science and those of 
 
192 THE CHILD 
 
 sense and religion. But now let us bid our good 
 friends goodby. It does your heart good to see them 
 shake hands and start for home, so hopeful and 
 happy and full of good feeling, for the future is 
 bright and clear. They have finally found some- 
 thing of that strange mysterious thing which binds 
 men and neighborhoods and States together. 
 
 And now we are left with the Bentlys before their 
 fire. There is a new one, Aunt Hannah. She sits 
 there beaming upon them. Hiram is a little grayer, 
 but you would think to look at him that he had 
 grown younger by five years. Old Shep is in his 
 place, and he is showing liis age more than ever. 
 The child has grown, but the one figure in that group 
 which has not changed is mother's. Perhaps that is 
 because the big black book which she holds contains 
 the one great unchangeable truth, keeping youth 
 and hope in the world. She is tracing along the 
 page with her finger just as she did that night which 
 we now remember so well. And now we may find 
 the key. So we look over her shoulder and read as 
 the firelight blazes up and lights the page: 
 
 "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the 
 leopard shall lie down with the kid ; and the calf and 
 the young lion and the fading together; end a little 
 child shall lead them."