Two years have passed since the great flood in the river, which is still told about with wonder by those who witnessed it, and Tug Whittle is now living in the detached building at The Locks, which was occupied so long by Mrs. Wedge, that worthy lady having long since taken a room in the main house.
Little Ben, released from his hard work at Quade's, is growing steadily worse, in spite of the kindness shown him by Mrs. Dorris and Mrs. Wedge. A victim of too much work is little Ben; but he is as mild and gentle as ever, and spends his days, when he is able, in wandering about the yard, and keeping out of the way, for he cannot forget the time when every hand was against him.
Mr. Whittle has become an industrious man during the two years, and is as devoted to Mrs. Dorris and her little child as it is possible for a man to be. The day after Tug's return to the Bend from his tramp to the lower country, he called on Mrs. Dorris, and related his story as he related it to Silas Davy, and going into the little detached house after its conclusion, he did not come out again for two days and nights; and it was supposed that he was making up for lost sleep. After his appearance he was fed by Mrs. Wedge, and at once began to make himself useful around the place. In a little while they learned to trust him, and he soon took charge of everything, conducting himself so well that there was never any reason for regretting the trust reposed.
Allan Dorris had died possessed of several farms in the adjoining neighborhood, and these Mr. Whittle worked to so much advantage, with the aid of tenants on each, that in a financial way Mrs. Dorris got on very well; for Mr. Whittle wanted nothing for himself except the privilege of serving her as he did.
Very often he was absent from The Locks for weeks at a time, looking after the farm affairs, and he seldom visited his mistress except to give accounts of his stewardship, which were always satisfactory. He had been heard to say that it was his fault that she was a widow; therefore he did not care to see her except when it seemed to be necessary, for her modest grief gave him such pangs of remorse that he wanted to take the musket, which he still retained in times of peace, and make away with himself. Therefore he spent much of his time in managing her affairs, which called him out of town; and he became known as a tremendous worker,—to rival his record as a loafer, Mr. Whittle himself said; but Silas Davy knew, and even the people admitted it, that he was greatly devoted to his young mistress, and that he had no other aim in life than to make her as comfortable as possible in her widowed condition.
Occasionally he came to town, on an errand, after nightfall, and returned to the country before day, as little Ben had done, and usually they only knew he had been around the house at all by something he had left for their surprise in the morning. If he found anything in the country he thought would please Mrs. Dorris or little Ben, he went to town with it after his day's work on the farm, and left his bed in the detached house before day to return.
Besides the harm he had done Mrs. Dorris, the wrong he had done his son was on his mind a great deal, and he avoided the boy whenever it was possible. He was ashamed to look into his face, though he was always doing something to please him. His rough experience on the farm had forever ruined the boy's health, and his father was continually expecting to be summoned from the field to attend his funeral.
Tug was still rugged and rough, and unsociable with those with whom he came in contact in the field or on the road, but he loved those in The Locks, from Mrs. Dorris down to the baby, with a devotion which made him a more famous character than he had ever been as a vagrant. He had become scrupulously honest and truthful, as well as industrious; and those who marvelled at the change were told by the wiser heads that Tug had something on his mind which he was trying to relieve by good works.
Silas Davy no longer had reason to regret that he was unable to buy little Ben a suit of clothes, for little Ben was well clothed now, and comfortably situated, except as to his cough; but in other respects the clerk had not changed for the better.
He was still employed at the hotel, and still heard the boarders threaten to move to Ben's City; for Davy's Bend continued to go slowly down the hill. He still heard Armsby boast of his fancy shots, and of his triumphs in the lodge; and, worst of all, he still heard patient Mrs. Armsby complain of overwork, and knew that it was true.
He occasionally went to The Locks to see Mr. Whittle,—usually on Sunday evening, when that worthy was most likely to be at home,—and as we come upon them now, to take a last look at them, it is Sunday evening, and Tug and Silas are seated on a rude bench, in front of the detached house, with little Ben between them.
"I have come to the conclusion, Mr. Davy,"—Tug is wonderfully polite recently, and no longer refers to his companion by his first name,—"I have come to the conclusion that there is only one way to get along; it is expressed in a word of four letters—work. Busy men do not commit great crimes, and they know more peace than those who are idle; therefore the best way to live is to behave yourself. I don't know whether I can behave myself enough from now on to do any good, or not; but I intend to try."
"I think you can, Tug," Davy replied. "You have been very useful during the past two years."
"But I have been very useless during the past forty and odd," Mr. Whittle continued, looking at little Ben as though he were evidence of it. "I have changed my mind about everything, with one exception, within a few years,—except that I do not believe a certain person is good, I have no opinion now that I had a year ago,—but on this I will never change. My acquaintance with Dorris and his wife has taught me a good many things which I did not know before. His bravery taught me that bravery comes of a clear conscience, and his wife's goodness and devotion teach me to believe that a dead man is not so bad off, after all. Did you know that she expects to meet her husband again?"
Tug waved his hand above his head, intended as an intimation that Mrs. Dorris expected to meet her husband in heaven, and looked at Silas very gravely, who only nodded his head.
"She seems toknowit," Tug continued, "and why should I dispute her? How much more do I know than Annie Dorris? By what right do I say that she is wrong, and that I am right? She is good enough to receive messages, but I am not; and it has occurred to me that I had better be guided by her. I have never been converted, or anything of that kind, but I have felt regret for my faults. I have done more than that. I have said aloud, as I worked in the fields, 'I'm sorry.' I have frequently said that,—may be only to myself, but may be to the winds, which are always hurrying no one knows where. Who knows where they may carry the sound when a wicked man says, sincerely, 'I'm sorry?'"
Sure enough, who knows? May it not be to heaven?
"I have heard her play hymns on the organ which I felt must be songs of hope, the words of which promised mercy, for they sounded like it, and she does not play them for amusement; I believe it is her offering for the peace of Allan Dorris, and a prayer could not go farther into heaven than her music. I have known her to go to the church with the little baby, and I should think that when the Lord hears the music, and looks down and sees Annie Dorris and the child, He would forget a great deal when Dorris comes before Him."
Silas had heard the music, too, and he agreed that if it could have been set to words, they would have been "Mercy! Mercy!"
"I am too old a crow to be sentimental," Tug said again, "but I have felt so much better since I have been working and behaving myself that I intend to keep it up, and try and wipe out a part of my former record. If I should go to sleep some night, and not waken in the morning as usual to go away to work, very good; but if I should waken in a strange place, I should like to meet Allan Dorris, and hear him say, 'Tug, I have reason to know that erring men who have ever tried to do right receive a great deal of consideration here; you have done much toward redeeming yourself.'"
Silas was very much surprised to hear his companion talk in this manner, and said something to that effect.
"I am surprised myself," Tug answered, "but the devotion of Annie Dorris to the memory of her husband has set me to thinking. The people believe that Allan Dorris was buried in The Locks' yard, by Thompson Benton, but I know that his iron coffin still stands in the room where you saw it. I think his clay feels grateful for the favor, for it has never been offensive like ordinary flesh. The lid has been shut down never to be opened again, but when I last looked under it, I saw little except what you might find in the road,—dust."
The chill of the evening air reminds them that it is time for little Ben to go in, but the two men remain outside to look at the sunset.
"The people of this town," Mr. Whittle continued, after the boy had disappeared, "are greatly amused over the statement that when an ostrich is pursued, it buries its head in the sand and imagines that it is hid. I tell you that we are a community of ostriches; I occasionally put a head into the sand myself, and so do you and all the rest of them. When little Ben is near me, I try to cause him to forget the years I neglected him, by being kind, but he never looks at me with his mild eyes that I do not fear he is thinking: You only have your head in the sand, and there is so much of you in sight that I remember Quade. Therefore I keep out of his way whenever I can. Do you think his cough is any better?"
"I am afraid not, Tug," Silas replied. "I was thinking to-day that it is growing steadily worse."
Tug looked toward the setting sun and the church, and the solemn tones of the organ came to them; Annie Dorris was playing the hymn the words of which seemed to be "Mercy! Mercy!"
"Word will be sent to you some day," Tug said, as if the music had suggested it, "that little Ben is—" he paused, and shivered, dreading to pronounce the word—"worse. I wish you would get word to me some way, without letting any one know it; I want to go away somewhere. Then you can come out for me, and tell them on your return that I could not be found. It is bad enough for me to look at him now; I could never forget my sin toward him were I to see him dead. Of course you will go with him to the cemetery, with Mrs. Dorris and Mrs. Wedge and Betty; and I would like to have the baby at poor Ben's funeral, for he thinks so much of it, but it will be better for me to stay away, though I want them to think it accidental. When I return, you can show me the place, and on my way to and from the town I will stop there and think of the hymn which Mrs. Dorris plays so much."
The sun is going down, and it seems to pause on the hill to take a last look at the town. Perhaps it is tired of seeing it from day to day, and will in future travel a new route, where objects of more interest may be seen. Anyway, it lingers on the hill, and looks at the ragged streets and houses of the unfortunate town down by the river, which is always hurrying away, as if to warn the people below to avoid Davy's Bend, where there is little business, and no joy.
When its face is half obscured by the hill, the sun seems to remember The Locks, with whose history it has been familiar, and looks that way. So much shadow has gathered around it already from the woods across the river that objects are no longer to be distinguished: nothing but the huge outlines. At last the sun disappears behind the hill, but a friendly ray comes back, and looks toward The Locks until even the church steeple disappears; and Davy's Bend, and The Locks, with its sorrow and its step on the stair, are lost in the darkness.
Howells pronounces it "this remarkable novel ... uncommonly interesting."
Mark Twain finds the style "simple, sincere, direct, and at the same time so clear and so strong."
TheSpringfield Republicanfinds in it "a distinct flavor of its own ... the freshness and strangeness of the prairie life."
TheChicago Inter-Oceanfinds it "the most dramatic of our American novels ... a drama of direct appeal."
"There runs through the story a vein of pathos that is absolutely pitiful, and makes one think of 'The Mill on the Floss'.... It is a strong, stern, matter-of-fact book. Some of its pages stand out from their sad background of reality like one of Salvato Rosa's pictures.... Many of the situations are as dramatical as any of Bret Harte's."—St. Joseph Gazette.
"Incomparably the best novel of the year, judged from any standard.... There is a grace, a sympathetic and tender feeling, a delicious sense of humor, that make the book remarkable.—Brooklyn Union.