“Pardon me, miss, but you’ve a half dollar sticking out of your ear.”
Emma was perfectly amazed to have Dr. Hearty reach out and pluck a half dollar quite painlessly out of her ear. It was a very nimble half dollar indeed; for after it had disappeared under a silk handkerchief, it suddenly popped up again in old man Toomey’s beard, was once more lost in Dr. Hearty’s stovepipe hat, and finally came to light in the youngest Hooper boy’s pocket.
“And now,” said Dr. Hearty, “a little local talent, my friends. My able assistant, Miss Emma, will now favor us with her bird-call imitations.”
Emma was as much astonished as when Dr. Hearty found a half dollar in her ear, but she wasn’t frightened.
“This is the robin’s early-morning song,” she said, pursing up her lips. “This is the bobolink…. This is the redwing….”
When she had finished they all applauded. Even the blacksmith stopped working on the axle to clap his hands, and Emma found herself making a curtsy just like a regular actor.
“And now, again, my friends,” said Dr. Hearty, “to demonstrate to you the salubrious properties of my Marvelous Cure-All, I should like you to witness its remarkable effect on a poor old man.”
In a moment the spotted dog, dressed in a small pair of trousers, with spectacles on his nose, came walking around the caravan on his hind legs. He appeared to be in great distress and presently lay down as if at death’s door. Dr. Hearty felt his pulse and asked him various questions concerning his health, to which the little dog replied with barks and dismal whines. When all seemed lost, a sip of Dr. Hearty’s Cure-All miraculously restored him to health and vivacity—to the extreme delight of Emma and the little boys.
“I’d like a bottle of that myself,” said Mr. Hooper. “Have you et, Dr. Hearty?”
“No,” said Dr. Hearty, “but I’d admire to do so. Will you trade me some supper for a bottle of Cure-All?”
He began a lively tune
“Step right over to the store, doctor, an’ we’ll do business.”
“My able assistant is also unfed,” said the doctor.
“That’s all right,” said Mr. Hooper. “Come right in, Emma. I’ll feed ye both.”
The store was mellow with lamplight. Emma sat on a cracker barrel and Dr. Hearty leaned on a counter beside her. Crackers and cheese had never tasted finer. It was a rare meal and spiced with magic, for Dr. Hearty seemed as clever at extracting crackers from people’s ears as he had been with half dollars. Crackers came out of the lamp chimney and disappeared mysteriously into flour sacks, and gingersnaps materialized out of thin air.
It was a lovely evening, full of adventure. But at last the axle was mended and Emma knew that she must be on her way home.
“Come in to Eau Galle tomorrow, Emma,” said Dr. Hearty, “and I’ll let you do your bird imitations for all the people.”
Emma smiled and shook her head.
“My mother couldn’t spare me off another day, I guess.”
“Well, anyway, here’s a parting gift,” said the doctor, “and thank you kindly for helping me get out of the mudhole.”
He held out a shiny new bottle of Dr. Hearty’s Marvelous Cure-All.
Emma took it with reverence and awe.
“I don’t seem to need much medicine,” she said, “but I’ll always keep it just like this to remember you by.”
It was cool and fresh walking home in the starlight with so many things to think about and the wonderful bottle clutched under her arm.
When she was almost at the little lane that turned down between the Woodlawns’ and the Nightingales’ places, she heard Mr. Woodlawn’s wagon come rattling along behind her.
“Oh, Emma, whatever happened to you?” cried the girls. “But it’s just as well you didn’t come. What do you think? There wasn’t any show at all!”
“Do tell!” said Emma, turning in at the lane. “I’m real sorry that you didn’t get to see the show!”
Behind the barn a whippoorwill gave out its wistful cry, and Emma answered it.
SEVEN
The Circuit Rider’s Story
“Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days,” said Mr. Tanner. “Put your faith in prayer. The Lord will provide.”
Mr. Tanner was not in church; he was not preaching a sermon. But, having delivered himself of three good texts, he stretched his long legs toward the Woodlawns’ fire and prepared to tell a story.
“I was brought up on those three texts,” Mr. Tanner continued. “You see, my father was a circuit rider before me. There were a passel of us young ones, and we grew up in the worst kind of poverty; but, when we thought that we should have to go to bed hungry for lack of food to put in our mouths, the Lord was always sure to provide.”
Warren looked at Mr. Tanner’s brown, rugged face and asked timidly, “Could you see Him? Did He come Himself?”
It was not a strange question, for Mr. Tanner made heaven seem close and eternal punishment yawn as near by as the root cellar. He made the Lord seem a friendly person who might walk in at any moment with loaves and fishes in His hands.
“How would you answer that one, Mr. Ward?” inquired the circuit rider.
Mr. Ward was a pale, slender young man with a diffident smile. The Woodlawns all looked at him now to see what he would say. For Mr. Ward was to be the new preacher, the one who would live in Dunnville in a house of his own all the year round instead of riding the circuit. Tomorrow he would preach his first sermon in the schoolhouse, and after that the people of the town were planning to build him a church with lumber from the mill at Eau Galle. It was a sign that the town was growing. When they had a church of their own and a regular preacher instead of a circuit rider, it meant that pioneer days were almost over.
Mr. Ward had said very little that evening, but now he answered Warren’s question about the Lord.
“I don’t guess Mr. Tanner saw the Lord Himself. God has mysterious ways of making provision for those who love Him. He has all kinds of messengers.”
“I will tell you a story,” said Mr. Tanner.
Tom and Caddie and Warren moved closer to the fire and to Mr. Tanner’s long legs. It was not so much to be near the warmth of the fire on the first chilly evening of autumn as it was to be near the source of the story. They did not want to miss a word. Stories were as rare and delightful as apples or peppermint candy.
“As I was saying just now, my father was a circuit rider like myself. His circuit was back East in a section that’s pretty well civilized now. But in those days it was as much a frontier as Wisconsin has been since I came here.”
“Were there Indians there?” Caddie asked.
“Yes. there were, Caroline Augusta,” said Mr. Tanner. “If you’ll just be patient, I’ll come to the Indians as soon as possible.”
The children breathed a sigh of contentment, and Warren hitched his stool a trifle closer until his chin almost rested on Mr. Tanner’s knee.
“My father had a little homestead in the woods with a Jog cabin on it where we children lived with our mother the year round while Father was away riding his circuit and bringing the word of God to distant settlements. I could tell you more than one story about our struggles there: how we boys did man’s work before we were in our ‘teens; how hostile Indians came, threatening to burn us out; and how my mother kept them at bay with Father’s old blunderbuss, although she hadn’t an ounce of ammunition for it. She deceived those savages, but it was a deception which I have always felt the Lord forgave her. Yes, I could tell you of a dozen instances when we were on the point of starvation; but I’ll tell you just one, to answer Warren’s question about how the Lord provides.”
Mr. Tanner paused and cleared his throat, and Father took that opportunity to put another chunk of wood upon the fire; for it looked as if the story might outlast the sticks which were already blazing.
“But why should you be near starvation, Mr. Tanner?” Tom asked. “Didn’t you have good crops? Didn’t th
ey pay your father anything?”
“Maybe you don’t know what a circuit rider’s life is like, Tom. He has no fixed salary. People give him what they think he’s worth, and if the folks in one settlement feel poor, that year, they say, ‘Oh, well, the folks at the next settlement up the river will pay him. It’s no concern of ours.’ And maybe the folks up the river say, ‘He probably got paid at the last place down-river. It’s not our responsibility.’ No, a circuit rider’s life is not all as pleasant as a Saturday evening at the Woodlawns’. As to our crops, it was my mother and us six little children who had to hew a farm out of the wilderness while my father was away preaching God’s word. Maybe you see now why the Lord himself sometimes had to look after us.”
“I guess I do,” said Tom.
“Tell about the Indians,” urged Hetty, a little tired already of all this talk about a preacher’s livelihood.
“Well, we had more trouble with our Indians than you have had here. Even your massacre scare was nothing to some of the things we went through. But the trouble lay not so much with the Indians themselves as with a few of the white men who had brought Satan with them into the wilderness instead of the Lord God.”
Warren was opening his mouth to ask if Mr. Tanner had seen Satan, but the circuit rider went right on speaking without giving him an opportunity.
“Most of these renegade whites were fur traders; and instead of giving the Indians honest goods in exchange for their furs, they gave them liquor—’firewater,’ the Indians called it. It was a shameful but a not uncommon sight to see a drunken Indian staggering along a forest trail or through the streets of one of the settlements. Fired by strong drink, the savage nature of the Indian broke forth and he was likely to commit any crime or folly. For that reason we very greatly feared the Indians in our region.
“Now one cold winter evening, with snow lying white on the icy ground, it happened that my father was riding home through the forest after an absence of several months. On the way he fell in with a settler of the neighborhood, and they were both glad of the company; for men did not ride abroad much after dark. Ordinarily my father would have stopped before dark at a settler’s cabin, but, being so near his own home, he continued on. The two men had to pass near an Indian encampment on the way, and the settler was afraid and wished to go the long way round.
“‘No,’ my father said. ‘If you are afraid, pray. When you have cast your troubles on the Lord, you will have no fear.’
“Well, no doubt they prayed well; for they passed through the Indian encampment without fear and without difficulty, the Indians only looking at them with dark, forbidding faces.
“‘My friend, you see how easy it becomes,’ said my father.
“‘Right you are, Parson,’ replied the farmer, ‘but I wouldn’t go back through that Indian camp again for a hogshead of salt pork and a dozen sugar loaves.’
“They rode on in silence for perhaps a mile, their horses sometimes floundering in deep snow, sometimes slipping on bare ice. The breath of their mouths whitened the dark air like smoke.
“‘A man would soon freeze on a night like this, did he not keep moving,’ said the settler over his shoulder, for he was riding ahead.
“‘Aye, you are right,’ said my father.
“As he spoke, the settler’s horse suddenly shied at something dark which lay beside the trail.
“The man rode hurriedly by, calling back to my father, ‘Take care! There’s a dead Indian by the wayside.’
“‘Dead?’ said my father. ‘How do you know?’
“He drew in his horse’s bridle rein and prepared to dismount.
“‘In God’s name, Parson Tanner, you’re not going to get down off your horse on a night like this for a dirty Indian, are you? He may be lying in wait to stab you or, if he is dead, the other savages may find you with him and kill you too.’
“But my father got down and tethered his horse, saying to himself, ’They looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him he had compassion on him …’
“‘I don’t know what you are mumbling, Parson,’ said the settler, ‘but I beg you not to stop now in these woods on such a night.’
“Still my father would not be dissuaded. He knelt beside the Indian and found that he was still breathing, but that he was in a drunken stupor from the white man’s firewater. Another half-hour lying in that bitter cold and he would freeze to death, nor ever wake again in this world.
“‘There is only one thing to do,’ said my father, ‘and that is to lift him up before me on my saddle and carry him back to the encampment, where his friends can look out for him.’
“‘Parson!’ cried the settler. ‘And you so mad against strong drink! Leave the fellow, I tell you.’ Twill be one less bad Indian.’
“‘Come here,’ said my father, ‘and give me a hand with him.’
“Well, grumbling all the way, the farmer came back and helped my father lift the unconscious savage and lay him across my father’s saddle, and back they went the long dark way to the unfriendly encampment.
“The Indians looked at my father in astonishment as he rode among them again; but when they realized that he had saved one of their number from death, their scowling faces grew less hostile.
“It was late that night when my father reached our cabin. But we children heard him and came helter-skelter out of our makeshift beds.
“‘Pap, have you brought us something to eat?’
“‘The sorghum and salt are used up, Pappy, and there’s only a few handfuls of meal. Mother said you’d bring it all with you when you came, and money for new shoes too.’
“My father sat down by the table, and he looked played out with his long journey.
“‘Get back to your beds, young ones,’ Mother said. ‘Can’t you see he’s tired out?’
“I think already she must have known what we found out the next day, that his pockets were as empty as when he had left us in the early fall.
“Well, it’s hard to go hungry and without shoes in the wintertime. In summer you don’t need shoes and there are berries and nuts and wild plums in the woods even if the crops are poor. But winter is a bitter time. My poor father was not even a very good hunter and game was scarce that year. Later we boys grew into mighty hunters, as clever to stalk a deer and catch him with an arrow to his heart as any Indian lad. But that winter we were little fellows and the cold and hunger bit into us.
“That winter for the first and the last time I heard my mother question my father’s way of life.
“‘It’s not right, Tanner,’ she said. ‘It’s not right for the Lord to come before a man’s family. If you weren’t off doing the Lord’s business instead of staying at home and attending to your own, your little children would have food in their mouths and shoes on their feet and decent clothes on their backs. And all these people you go and preach to, do they care enough about you to put two bits into the collection plate? No, indeed! Oh, Parson Tanner is a right good exhorter, no doubt; but when it comes to paying him anything, let someone else do it. The Lord will provide!’
“My mother said it with bitter sarcasm in her voice.
“My father continued to sit by the empty table, looking very stern and pale, his eyes resting on the floor.
“‘Yes, Elsa,’ he said in his quiet voice, ‘I still believe it. The Lord will look after His own.’
“It went on so for a few days more, and we were all hungry and crying and at odds with one another. My mother had made some thin gruel—which satisfied none of us—out of the last of the meal and, after we had eaten it, she stood in front of our father with her hands on her hips.
“‘And now what?’ says she. ‘Don’t tell me again that the Lord will provide!’
“I had never seen my father angry before then. Something like blue lightning flashed out of his eyes.
“‘Elsa,’ he said, ‘you’ve made too free with the Lord’s name of lat
e. Get down on your knees, all of you! I’m going to pray.’
“We didn’t hesitate a minute. Even my mother got down awkwardly onto her knees, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron.
“‘Oh, Lord God,’ my father prayed, ‘there are so many other people in this world who need Thy help that it seems kind of selfish to call Thy attention to us. But we’re here in the wilderness alone, and it’s been a hard winter. Oh, Almighty Lord, forgive us if we beseech Thee to look down upon us here and see our necessity. Forgive us if we have faltered in our faith in Thee. O Lord, provide for us in some way until spring comes and we can provide for ourselves. Amen.’
“Whether from weakness or from some inner realization of the majesty of that moment, we all stayed on our knees after he had ceased praying. And, while we were still kneeling there, we heard a horse’s hoofs coming along the hard frozen track into the clearing. We children were suddenly frightened. Not one of us moved except Mother, who turned her head with a strange look of expectancy in her eyes.
“The horse’s hoofs stopped at the door and there was a shuffling of moccasined feet in the entryway. I felt my hair prickle on top of my head where my scalp lock grew. Still not one of us moved.
An Indian stalked in
“The latch clicked off the hasp, and the door was thrust open and banged back against the wall. An Indian stalked in. On his shoulder he had a haunch of venison, which he flung down upon the bare table. He fumbled an instant in a little buckskin pouch he wore at his belt and brought out a small round yellow piece, which he clinked down beside the fresh meat. Our father rose like a person in a dream.
“‘You’re the man I found lying in the woods that night,’ he said, as if he were talking to himself.
“‘White fella good man,’ the Indian said gravely. ‘Me give ’um gift.’
“At that he turned and stalked out, mounted his pony, and rode away among the trees. We cried our thanks after him, but our voices only echoed in the empty woods. We never saw him again.”
Caddie Woodlawn's Family Page 6
