Part 14 (1/2)

”But the children, Doctor. I'm trying to give 'em a better chance than I had or their mother.”

”That's all right, Jennings. But we have to trim our sails to meet life as it is. Your heart leaks, man! You've done what you could for your children. They'll just have to s.h.i.+ft for themselves.”

Tom Jennings drove slowly home. Martha, not knowing the purpose of his visit to town that day, had gone to see Mrs. Taylor, a neighbour. Even Mac was not in the yard to welcome him. He put up his horse, then sat down on the back steps to do the hardest thinking he had ever done.

At first it seemed to him like providence that just recently Tom Belcher had offered to buy the farm. In fact, he was calling him up every day about it. He could sell it to-morrow and then he could move to Greenville. The children were paying part of their expenses. But without his help, two of them at least would have to leave college. What was more, they would have to go to work to help him now. The interest from what he could get for the farm would not keep him going--and farming was the only thing he knew how to do.

But why shouldn't they help him? He had already done for them more than any neighbour had done for his children. True, his greatest ambition would be unrealized. But, as the doctor said, you had to trim your sails in this life. Why should he carry on a fight when he had been stricken?

G.o.d did not expect a crippled man to run a race.

Also, he was frightened for his life. He carried within his body an enemy that might strike him down at any moment. Then, rather pleasantly, he forecast his life in town. He had fought hard, and now he could lay his armour down, and no one would think any the less of him.

And so he sat pondering, thinking first of his children, for whom he had had such high ambitions, then of himself, who would like to live his allotted span, when across the pasture he saw blind Mac coming. It was a hot September afternoon, and he had evidently been to the creek to cool off and to get away from flies. He came steadily along, and though n.o.body was near his tail was gently wagging.

The rear lot gate had been left open so the cattle could go to pasture, and the dog came through the gate and across the barn lot. This brought him to the fence that separated the lot from the yard, and before this fence he stopped and felt about with his foot, tail still wagging. Tom Jennings did not speak but watched him with queer emotions.

Having located the fence the blind dog backed off, looked up as if trying to see, started to spring, hesitated, started again, and finally leaped. His front paws hooked over the top plank, and he pulled himself up, remained balanced another moment, then jumped into the yard. It was as neatly done as if he were not blind. Tail still wagging, he came across the yard.

But Martha had forgotten at last: in the middle of the yard was a chicken coop she had recently moved there. Tom started to call out a warning, then for some queer reason did not. Over the unexpected obstacle the dog stumbled and came near falling. He let out no cry. He simply went to the coop, felt it, as if to locate it for the future, then came on toward the house. His head was bowed, though, as if with that shame he seemed always to feel when because of his affliction he happened to have an accident. But his tail was still wagging.

”Mac!” It broke from the man.

The blind dog raised his head and whiffed the air. Then he located his master and came toward him. He laid his head on Tom Jennings's knee, and Tom Jennings laid his big hard hand on the blind dog's head.

”G.o.d struck you!” he said hoa.r.s.ely, ”an' you never give up. G.o.d put out yo' eyes, and still you do your work. An' you're only a dumb brute, an'

I was made in the image of G.o.d!”

The rural telephone in the hall suddenly gave his ring, and he rose and went into the house.

”Yes--I've decided, Tom,” he said. ”I ain't goin' to sell the farm.”

After that there came, perforce, a change in Jennings's method of farming. Years ago Frank had besought him to diversify his crops, to study his soil, to take advantage of the information the agricultural college and the Government were so glad to send.

But to the older Jennings thinking had always been harder than physical toil. Brought up right after the Civil War in a section left poverty-stricken, he could just read and write--that was all; for when he was twelve his service between the plough handles had begun, and there he had served ever since.

Now, from necessity, he began to think and plan. He asked the agricultural college for information, and they sent not only pamphlets but a representative from an experiment station to consult with him and advise him. He sold a bit of land and bought farm machinery. He built a tenant house and installed help. And all the time Frank (who did not know of the leaking heart) also advised him by letters, and when he came home in the summer, helped wonderfully--both by hard work and by mental initiative.

No great prosperity followed. But Tom Jennings did a shade better than he had done before, and the children stayed at college. Not even Martha knew the extent of what the doctor had told him that day. Only to Mac did he talk freely.

”When yo' eyes was put out, ol' codger, you whetted yo' nose,” he would say; ”and when my muscles lost their engine power I whetted my ol' rusty brain.”

His children all did well at college. Frank finished an academic course (Tom and Martha saw him graduate), then went off to a medical college.

Mary, the older girl, was studying library work; the younger girl had come to no conclusion yet. The three of them came home in summer for at least part of the season, and always came at Christmas. They brought with them a different atmosphere--the atmosphere of a wider world. But the girls helped the mother in the kitchen and Frank advised with the father about the farm. There was no feeling of shame on one side, or of apology on the other. It was the kind of thing that has happened on thousands of American farms.

Sometimes at night Tom spoke of his children to Martha: ”They are goin'

to pa.s.s us by, Mother. They are goin' to amount to more than we have.”

And then he would go to the window and raise the sash.