The time spent at the camp is, in one aspect of it, a course of training, a cumulative storage of energy, financial and physical, against a future expenditure in the sudden outburst of a grand carouse.
It has been interesting to notice what have appeared to be the instinctive precautions of the men. There seems to be an established custom of great strength that prohibits the keeping of spirits in camp. And gambling is strangely infrequent. I have heard hints of memorable epochs, when, like an epidemic, gambling has swept the camp with fearful force, and there is a wholesome fear of its return. I was struck with this one night, when, without apparent warning, the customary "High, Low, Jack and the Game" gave place to poker, and an excited crowd stood round the table and watched; and Fitz-Adams had to go up to the office to bring down wages due to the players. But the outbreak spent itself without becoming epidemic this time, and you could feel the relief among the men when "Phil the Farmer" and "Irish Mike" agreed to stand their loss of about ten dollars each, and not continue the game.
"High, Low, Jack" is invariable after supper, and lends itself with singular sociability to the pleasure of the men. There is but onepack of cards, and only one table in the lobby. A four-handed game is begun immediately after supper, the opposite men playing partners. A game is not long; and at its end the beaten partners give place to a new pair, and this course continues until all the members of the crew have had a hand.
* * * * * * * *
In looking over this chapter I see that I have drawn a very inadequate picture of Fitz-Adams. A hard swearer he certainly is, but Black Bob was right in assuring me that there is more ignorance than malice in his habitual maledictions.
First of all, Fitz-Adams is an admirable workman. To any department of the work of lumbermen he can lend a hand of highest efficiency. And his, in a marked degree, are the manual skill and resourceful ingenuity which are characteristic of the men. Only Fitz-Adams is exceptional in these particulars, like Old Man Toler. With them this manual skill, for instance, is like the sure touch of a master handicraftsman.
One morning, while at work with Old Man Toler, I openly admired his handling of an axe. Toler was standing on a log which obstructedour way, and which he was about to cut in two. He drew the axe-blade up the side of the log between his feet. "Do you see that scratch?" he said, and then he swung the axe above his head, and brought it down with a sweeping stroke. The blade entered the bark exactly where the scratch had been. Five times running, Toler performed this feat, never missing his mark by the fraction of an inch, and then he turned to me. "I've used an axe so long, Buddy," he said, "that I can split hairs with a good one now."
But even more than a thorough woodsman, Fitz-Adams is a superb overseer. Under his shrewd foresight and direction, the whole work of the crew is urged forward with resistless energy. He knows exactly what each man is doing, and whether or not the work is well done.
His planning of the work and his effective organizing and directing toward its accomplishment are, no doubt, his strongest points; but dramatically considered, although he is perfectly unconscious of the effect, he shows to greatest advantage when he is personally leading the crew in an attack upon a difficult situation. All his powers are well in evidence then, and not least of all his power of speech. You haveactual sight at such times of one of Carlyle's heroes, a "captain of industry," to whom there are no insurmountable difficulties, no "impossibilities," but who brings order out of chaos, by the sheer force of indomitable energy.
With this high efficiency his ignorance is in striking contrast. He can write his name, and there his educational equipment ends. His helplessness in the presence of figures is as pathetic and quite as serious as is Sam the Book-keeper's. But Fitz-Adams is a young man, barely thirty, I should say. Almost his earliest memory is that of being a mule-driver in one of the mines near Wilkesbarre. From this he went to picking slate in a breaker. Now he is a jobber, employing a large crew, and undertaking contracts which involve considerable sums of money. There has been offered to him, and it is still open, the position of overseer in a far larger enterprise than his own, where, personally, he would run none of the business risk; but he has confided to me that he does not dare to accept the place owing to his lack of even elementary education. In this connection he once asked me whether I thought that he might yet go to school. I did think so with emphasis, and I gave him so many reasons for this opinion, andcited so many examples of men as old as he and older who were at school, that he really warmed to it as a practicable plan.
* * * * * * * *
The rain stopped hours ago, and it is turning very cold, and snow has begun to fall. Fitz-Adams got back from English Centre long before dinner, and there is evidence that he has not been drinking. I have consulted him on the matter of leaving, and he has urged me to stay, and has offered me permanent employment; but he says that, if I must be off, and am bent on going westward, I would better get as far as Hoytville as soon as possible, else I may run the risk of encountering roads blocked with snow. Then, for the first time, he introduced the subject of wages, and asked me what I thought was "right." I said that before coming to the camp, I had worked for a farmer, and had been given seventy-five cents a day and my keep; and I added that, if this rate of wage seemed fair to him, it would suit me perfectly. He agreed at once, and now I am a capitalist. Soon I shall set out for Hoytville, which is, I judge, a matter of two or three hours' walk from here. Fitz-Adams has given me careful directions about the road, and has shown thedeepest interest in my plan of getting West, and has urged me to write to him.
The crew are all gone to work, and I shall not see them. They were off as soon as the storm slackened. All were keen to go, and so be spared the misery of a day of enforced idleness, all except "Old Pete," and he is past being keen. He is over sixty, and has a strongly marked Celtic face, deeply furrowed with the lines of age and pain. He works with the crew, but in camp he sits alone on the bench opposite the stove, with the overalls and shirts hanging over him. When not at work he sits there hour after hour, his large, muscular frame bent forward, and his elbows resting on his knees, and there he endures, in the dumb agony of animal pain, the torment of rheumatism in his legs. He seldom speaks, and never of his sufferings—only sometimes in comically sententious response to something that has interested him. And the men let him alone, knowing by a true intuition that he prefers it so.
After the rain let up I happened to pass through the lobby as the men were starting for their work. Old Pete was the last to move. I watched him rising slowly to his feet. In spite of him, his face drew the picture of the hideous pain he bore, but through it shone the clearcourage of a man, and his eyes reflected the grim humor of a thought that touched his native sense, and he smiled as he said:
"We don't have to work; we can starve."
* * * * * * * *
I have spent three Sundays in the woods. On the first I fled cravenly into the forest, hugging a book from out my pack, and the hours flew swiftly along the pages. The second Sunday was another glorious autumn day. By that time I had won a modest place in camp, and could hold up my head with due respect among the men. I asked several of them whether there was any church service at English Centre. They thought that there was, but they would take no stock at all in my plan of discovery.
Alone I set out for the village. There was perfect quiet in the mountains, no sound of axe or saw, nor crash of falling trees, nor rumble of bark-wagons; only the tuneful flow and splash of the run, which caught the living sunlight, and flashed it back in radiance through the flushing air, that quivered in the ecstasy of buoyant life. The fire of life flamed in the glowing hues of autumn, and burned with white heat in the hoar-frost which clung to the shaded crevices in the rocks, and along the blades of seared grass, and on the fringe of fallen leaves. And I was free,as free and careless as the mountain-stream, and before me was a blessed day of rest!
Every foot of the road was strangely familiar, but the familiarity lay in an intimate association with some distant past, as of earliest childhood. There was the camp by the dam, and there the Irishman's cabin, where the cow was still munching straw, and the sow wallowing in the mire. Then I came to the fork in the road, where one way led to Wolf's Run. It was a lifetime since I had gone up that way, feeling as cocky as a wedding-guest, and soon had come down again "a sadder and a wiser man." I felt like another Rip Van Winkle as I re-entered the village, but the marvel lay in there being no change at all, except in the Sunday calm which now possessed the place.
The post-office is in a private house, and I knocked in some uncertainty of being able to get my letters; but the postmistress gave them to me with obliging readiness, and with them a cordial invitation to attend the Sunday-school, which, she said, was the only service of that morning. Her invitation was more welcome than she knew, for it was the first of its kind to reach me as a proletaire.
I read my letters, and then went to the church, which stands at the end of the village street.The service was beginning. As superintendent the postmistress was in charge. There were no men present. About thirty women and girls, and half a dozen boys, made up the school. The conduct of the service I thought intensely interesting. The superintendent was entirely at home in her place, and she valued the opportunity.
When the classes grouped themselves for the study of the lesson, a teacher was lacking. I was asked to take the place, and was startled at finding myself in charge of a class of village belles. What their feeling toward the arrangement was, I could only guess; but it was clear that they were not accustomed to being taught by an unshaven, unshorn woodsman, in rough clothes, and boots covered with patches. But the lesson was in my favor; it was the incident of the washing of the disciples' feet at the last Passover. I soon forgot my embarrassment in the interest of the text, and in an atmosphere of serious study.
Last Sunday I went again to the Sunday-school, and I had my former class to teach. Some preparation had been possible during the week, and the hour passed successfully. Among the announcements was one of a prayer-meeting to be held that night.
I reached the church at the hour of the evening service. I opened the door, and there sat a crowded congregation in waiting. The back seats on both sides of the aisle were solid ranks of men, lumbermen, and teamsters, and tannery hands, many of them in their working-clothes. There were women and children scattered through the pews farther up, and some boys had overflowed upon the pulpit steps, but most of the company were men.
There was no one in the minister's seat, but the postmistress was in place at the organ, and as I entered, she nodded to me in evident expectation of my joining her. I walked forward, and she stepped out into the aisle to meet me.
"It's time to begin," she said, quietly.
"Is your minister not come yet?" I asked.
"Oh, you're going to speak to-night, you know."
I did not know. For an instant I knew only that there was a cold, hard grip upon my heart which seemed to hold it still, and that in my brain there had begun a mad dance of all that I ever thought I knew. But from out the turmoil a sane thought emerged: "This is a company of working-people who are come to hear a fellow-workman speak to them about ourdeepest needs." In another moment I was cooler, and a strange, unreasoning peace ensued.
I asked the postmistress to select some hymns. She handed me a list, chosen with perfect knowledge of those which the congregation most enjoyed. The people were soon singing, thinly at first; but the familiar melody spread, and carried with it a sense of solidarity, in which self was merged and lost, and the swelling sound rolled on, deepening with the voices of the men. Soon it recalled college-chapel, with the students in a mood to sing, and "Ein' Feste Burg" mounting in the majesty of that deep-toned hymn, until the vaulted ceilings rock, and the archangels above the chancel seem to join in the splendid volume of high praise!
But more helpful to me than the singing was the sight of familiar faces. Black Bob stood towering like another Saul above the mass of men; and at his side was one of our teamsters who lives in the village, and with whom I had often loaded bark. Near the door—I was not quite sure at first, but there could be no mistake—near the door was Fitz-Adams, and not far from him Long-nosed Harry and Phil the Farmer stood together.
I was trembling when I began to speak, trembling with awful fear, a fear that was yet asolemn joy; for I had vision then of human hearts hungering to be fed, and, as a sharer in their need, I knew that it was given to me to point them to the Bread of Life.
I could speak to them now, for with greater clearness I could see these fellow-workers as they were—strong, brave men who win the mastery which comes to those who clear the way for progress, giving play, in their natural living, to the forces which make men free, and growing strong in heart and in the will to do, as they grow strong of arm and catch the rough cunning of their trade; men of many races, yet meeting on the common ground of men all free and under equal chance to make their way; knowing no differences but those of personality, and winning their places in the crew, each man according to his kind, and his rewards according to his skill.
Such were they in their outward lives, the physical life within them growing in living ways, and making them the true, efficient workmen that they were. But of the inner life that makes us men, that life wherein we act from choice, and must "give account of the deeds done in the body," that range of action which we call moral, where conscience speaks to us in words of command, there they knew no mastery atall, and, least of all, the mastery of the moralist.
To them God was a moral ruler, dwelling afar from the daily life of men, and righteousness was a slavish obedience to His laws, and religion a mystic somewhat which was good for women and children and weak men.
And yet deep in their own hearts was their supremest need. Life as they knew it brought to them no satisfaction for its craving want. It was not so in other things; they knew their work; and in the overcoming of its difficulties, they had felt the fierce joy of conquest. But confronted with temptations, the difficulties of their inner life, there they had no strength; and lust and passion mastered them, and left their real desire unsatisfied. Here, in respect of mastery, they were slaves, and as regards life, they were dead, having only the need of life.
There, then, was their want; it was for Life, abundant, victorious Life.
And now I could speak to them of God; of Him "who is not far from every one of us, for in Him we live, and move, and have our being;" the living God who reveals Himself in all life, and who became incarnate in the Son of Man, and who speaks to us in human words which go straight to our seeking hearts: "I am the way,the truth, and the life." "I am come that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly." "The words that I speak unto you, they are life."
"Strong Son of God!" whose living words quicken us from the death of sin and set us free. By whose grace we are "renewed in the whole man after His image, and enabled, more and more, to die unto sin and live unto righteousness." Who was "made sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness." Whose death was not a reconcilement of God to us, but was "God in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." Whose Gospel is the glad tidings of this reconciliation, and we are become "ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God."
And then we prayed, confessing our sinful state, our bondage, our death in sin, and pleading that we might be "transformed by the renewing of our minds, that we might prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God."
* * * * * * * *
Now that I am on the eve of leaving Fitz-Adams's Camp, I cannot hide from myself my eagerness to go. I have real regrets; for while two weeks and as many days do not constitute a long period, yet time is purely relative, and I shall have a livelier memory of the camp and of certain of the men, and a keener interest in them, than I have for places and men with whom my association has been much longer.
But of the feelings of which I am conscious at leaving, I am surprised at the intensity of the longing to know what has happened during the three weeks, nearly, since I have seen a newspaper from the great world. I thought little of it as the days passed, but now I am all aglow with desire for news about the progress of the campaigns in New York and Massachusetts and Ohio. And then the last word from abroad had piqued one's curiosity to the utmost as to possible results. Mr. Smith, the leader of the House of Commons, I know is dead; and as I was leaving Williamsport for the woods, I saw upon the bulletin-boards the announcement of Mr. Parnell's sudden death; but of the political effect of these events no word has reached me. Has Mr. Balfour or Mr. Goschen succeeded to the leadership of the House? And if Mr. Balfour became the First Lord of the Treasury, doeshe retain the Chief Secretaryship for Ireland? And has the death of Mr. Parnell brought about a reunion between Parnellites and. M'Carthyites, or is the breach as hopeless as ever?
It will be intensely interesting to find answers to these questions and to many more; but after all I am sincerely sorry to leave the camp, and as I go up now to say good-by to Fitz-Adams, who is in his office, it is with the knowledge that I am parting from a man whom it is an inspiration to have known.
The Works The East
The Works The West