Part 2 (1/2)

But a man with ideas, David, must some day rise above adversity. All he needs is a field of action.” He looked across the bare room and out of the door, where the weeds were charging in ma.s.ses against the very threshold; he looked beyond them, above the wall of woods, to a small white cloud drifting in the blue. Young as I was, I saw that in his eyes which told me that could he reach the cloud he might set the heavens afire, but under his hand there lay no task quite worthy of him. ”A field of action--an opportunity,” he repeated meditatively.

”It's hard, David, to have all kinds of ideas and no place to use them.

When a man knows that he has it in him and----”

”Is that why Mr. Shunk calls you the Professor?” I interrupted.

Henderson Blight turned toward me a melancholy smile. ”Yes,” he said.

”They all call me that, David, down in the village. Ask them who the Professor is. They will tell you, a vagrant, a lazy fellow with a gift of talking, a ne'er-do-well with a little learning. Ask Stacy Shunk.

Ask Mr. Pound--wise and good Mr. Pound. He will tell you that ideas such as mine are a danger to the community, that I speak out of ignorance and sin. As if in every mountain wind I could not hear a better sermon than he can give me and find in every pa.s.sing cloud a text to ponder over. They don't understand me at all.”

The Professor drew his little daughter close to him and regarded me fixedly, as though to see if I understood.

”Yes, sir,” I said. ”I will ask them.”

At this matter-of-fact reply his mouth twitched humorously. ”And perhaps you will find that they are right,” he said. ”That's the worst of it. Even dull minds can generate a certain amount of unpleasant truth; that's what sets me on edge against them--when they ask me why I don't carry out some of my fine ideas instead of criticising others.”

”Why don't you?” The question was from no desire to drive my host into a corner, but came from an innocent interest in him and a wish to get at something concrete.

He took no offence at my presumption, but rose slowly, lifted his arms above his head, and stretched himself. Unconsciously he answered my question.

”Had I the last ten years to live over again I would,” he said as he paced slowly up and down the room. ”Perhaps I shall yet. Long ago, when I was home on a little farm with the mountains tumbling down over it, I used to plan getting out in the world and doing something more than to earn three meals a day. It is stupid--the way men make meals the aim of their lives. I wanted something better, but to find it I had to have the means, and means could only be had by the most uncongenial work. So here I find myself on a still smaller farm with the mountains coming down on my very head. It was different with Rufus.”

”Rufus who?” I demanded with the abruptness of an inquisitive youth who was getting at the facts at last.

The Professor halted by my chair. ”My brother Rufus. You see, David, I taught school because it was easy work and gave me time to think.

Rufus was a blockhead. He never had a real idea of any kind, but he could work. When he owned a cross-road store he was as proud as though he had written 'Paradise Lost.' He went to conquer the county town and did it by giving a prize with every pound of tea. He wrote me about it and you might have supposed that he had won a Waterloo. Yet he had his good points. Now if Rufus and I could have been combined, his physical energy with my mental, we should have done something really worth while.”

”Yes, sir--yes, indeed, sir,” I said politely. My conception of the Professor's meaning was very faulty, but I found him engrossing because he talked so fluently and made so many expressive gestures. He, I suspect, was pleased with a sympathetic listener, though one so small.

Laying a hand on my shoulder, he asked: ”David, what are you going to do when you grow up?”

”I am going to be like my father,” I replied.

”Like the distinguished Judge Malcolm?” he exclaimed. ”That's a high ambition--for the valley.” He was standing over me pulling his chin, and from the manner in which he eyed me I believe that he quite approved my choice of a model. Suddenly his arms shot out. ”Try to be more, David. Try to be what Rufus and I combined would have been. Try to work for something better than three meals a day. Wake up, David, before you fall asleep in a land where everybody dozes like the very dogs.”

To enforce his admonition his hands closed on my shoulders; he lifted me from my chair and began to shake me. Being so much in earnest he was rather violent, so that James, now in the doorway, saw me wincing and looking up with a grimace of fright and eyes of pleading.

”Steady there, man,” he cried. He thought that he was just in time to rescue me from torture, and came forward with his whip raised.

”I beg your pardon,” said the Professor, dropping me gently into my chair. ”I didn't mean to hurt you, David. Did I hurt you?”

”Not at all, sir,” I answered, and feeling more at ease with James near I made a dive for my coat and hat.

”Well,” said James, glaring at my host. ”I advise you to keep your hands off anyway, for if I catch you a-hurting of him again--” There was a terrible threat in the eyes and in the upraised b.u.t.t of the whip, but suddenly the manner changed, for James was looking at the bottle on the table and it had a strangely quieting influence on his temper. The blaze died away from his eyes; his voice became soft to meekness; the whip fell limply. ”I might think you'd done it a-purpose, Professor, and you know I allus tries to be friendly.”

”I hardly believe David will complain of my treatment,” returned the Professor. ”You see he came to us all wet and cold from a tumble into the creek.”

James turned to me with wide-opened eyes. ”And I suppose you met a rattler,” he cried.