Chapter 13
“He that is down need fear no fall,He that is low, no pride,”
“He that is down need fear no fall,He that is low, no pride,”
“He that is down need fear no fall,
He that is low, no pride,”
said Lester Knapp aloud to himself. It was a great pleasure to him to be able to say the strong short Saxon words aloud. For years he had been shutting into the cage of silence all the winged beautiful words which came flying into his mind! And beautiful words which you do not pronounce aloud are like children always forced to “be quiet” and “sit still.” They droop and languish.
But before this it would have been too foolish to repeat the lovely lines that came into his mind. What would Harvey Bronson have thought to hear “the army of unalterable law” pronounced in the office of Willing’s Emporium? Lester Knapp smiled to himself at the idea! And if it hadn’t been Harvey Bronson at hand it would have been some one else just as scandalized.
But now there was no one to hear, no one but little Stephen playing with his toy train on the newspapers spread out over the floor. A blessed healing solitude lay about Lester as he sat in his wheel chair in the sunny kitchen peeling a panful of potatoes. Ithad been when he looked down at the gingham apron spread over his paralyzed knees that the song of the little shepherd had come to his mind. A gingham apron on a man! And peeling potatoes!
He supposed that Harvey Bronson would die of shame if anybody put a gingham apron on him and expected him to peel potatoes. And yet there was nobody who talked louder than he about the sacred dignity of the home which ennobled all the work done for its sake—that was forMrs.Harvey Bronson of course!
Lester Knapp smiled again, his slow, whimsical smile which Harvey Bronson especially detested and feared. Then he stopped thinking about his old associate at the office. The lines which had come into his mind brought with them all the world to which they belonged, the strong-hearted, simple, passionate world of the old cobbler-pilgrim. Where were those lines? Towards the end of the book, wasn’t it, just below that quaint marginal note ofMen thrive in the Valley of Humiliation. It was where the pilgrims were going—yes, now he remembered the very words with that exactitude of memory which had been such a golden thing in his life, “They were going along talking and espied a boy feeding his father’s sheep. The boy was in very mean clothes, but of a fresh, well-favored countenance; and as he sat by himself he sang. ‘Hark!’said Mr. Greatheart, ‘to what the shepherd’s boy saith.’ So they harkened.”
Lester Knapp, peeling his potatoes, harkened with them as he said aloud again,
“He that is down need fear no fall,He that is low no pride.He that is humble ever shallHave God to be his guide.I am content with what I haveLittle be it or much....”
“He that is down need fear no fall,He that is low no pride.He that is humble ever shallHave God to be his guide.I am content with what I haveLittle be it or much....”
“He that is down need fear no fall,
He that is low no pride.
He that is humble ever shall
Have God to be his guide.
I am content with what I have
Little be it or much....”
He perceived that Stephen had stopped playing and was looking at him steadily as he said the words aloud. With a flourish of his paring knife he went on, smiling at the little boy, “Then said the guide, ‘Do you hear him? I will dare to say that this boy lives a merrier life and wears more of that herb called heart’s ease in his bosom than he that is clad in silk and velvet!’
“Silk and velvet!” he said with a humorous scorn, lifting a fold of his gingham apron.
“Is it a ’tory?” asked Stephen, coming up beside his father’s chair.
“You bet your life it is a story, a crackajack of a story.”
“Tell it to me,” said Stephen. He leaned both elbows on the arm of the chair, put his round chin in his hands, tipped his head to one side and turned his shining dark eyes up towards his father’s face.
A phrase came to Lester’s mind, the description of the day when Bunyan had first seen the great invisible world henceforth to be his heart’s home, and how it had begun by his seeing in one of the streets of Bedford, “three or four poor people sitting at a door in the sun talking of the things of God.” He and Stephen were poor people too, sitting in the sun—such golden sunshine as came through the window into the quiet room and fell on the head of his little boy.
“Well, Stephen, once upon a time there was a man,” he began, deciding that the rolling off of the burden and the fight with Apollyon were most in Stephen’s line. He wondered if he could find in the old story stuff to interest a modern little boy, and in a moment was carried away by it. What a tale it was! How full of pith and meat and savor!
The potatoes were all peeled before he finished the story of the fight, so that he laid down his paring knife and turned entirely to Stephen as they came to the climax. They had adventured down the terrible Valley of Death and were now in the hand-to-hand combat, cut! slash! forward! back! “Then Apollyon began to gather up close to Christian and wrestling with him, gave him a dreadful fall; and with that, Christian’s sword flew out of his hand!”
He paused dramatically. Stephen’s wide eyes grew wider! His lips were parted. He did notseem to breathe, all his being suspended on his father’s words. It was plain he had forgotten where he was, or who. “Then said Apollyon, ‘I am sure of thee now!’” said Lester, and Stephen shivered.
“But Christian reached out quick, quick and snatched up his sword and ran it deep into that horrible old Apollyon and made him stagger back to get his breath! And then Christian scrambled up on his feet and ran at the dragon, shouting! And with that Apollyon spread out his dragon wings and sped him away and Christian saw him no more.”
Stephen drew a long breath. “Golly!” he said fervently.
“Yes, I should say as much,” agreed his father, pushing his chair over to the stove and dropping the potatoes into the boiling water. How exciting it was, he thought, how absorbing, to see those first impressions of power and courage touch a new human soul. And when it was your own little boy.... To share with him one of the immortal fine things created by the human spirit!
He sat still for a moment, remembering the book, soaking himself in its flavor and color, tasting some of the quaint, posy-like phrases,
“Some things are of that nature as to makeOne’s fancy chuckle while his heart doth ache!”
Harvey Bronson for instance.
And, “Some people are never for religion until it walks with silver slippers in the sunshine.” Was that Mr. Prouty?
Still musing, he wheeled himself into the dining-room and began to set the table for lunch. Through the clicking of the silver, Stephen could hear him say, “His daughter went through the Dark River, singing, but none could understand what she said ... none could understand what she said.”
It sounded like a song to Stephen, although Father was only talking to himself.
When he came out again into the kitchen and began to slice the bacon, he was saying in a loud, strong voice, “So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side! All the trumpets sounded....”
The words rang in Stephen’s ears. He said them over to himself in a murmur as he handled his top absently. “All the twumpets sounded. All the twumpets sounded on the other side.”
After a time he asked, “Father, what’s a twumpet?”
A question from Stephen!
His father turned his head from the frying-pan from which the bacon sent up its thin blue wreaths of smoke. “What’s a trumpet? It’s a great, gleaming brass horn which always, always has been blown where there has been a victory—like this!” Heflung up his arm, holding an imaginary trumpet to his lips, “Taranta! Taranta!” He sounded it out ringingly! “That’s the way they sounded when Mr. Valiant crossed the Dark River.”
“Taranta!” murmured Stephen to himself. “And all the twumpets sounded.”
He sat in the sun on the kitchen floor, looking up at his crippled father frying bacon. For both of them the kitchen was ringing with the bright brazen shout of victory.
Men thrive in the Valley of Humiliation.