Irving Bacheller

“ Youth and its grace and color were gone from us, yet I saw in her that beauty “which maketh the face to shine.”
Our love lay as a road before and behind us. Long ago it had left the enchanted gardens and had led us far, and was now entering the City of Faith and we could see its splendor against the cloud of mystery beyond. Our souls sought each other in the silence and were filled with awe as they looked ahead of them and, at last, I understood the love of a man for a woman. ”

“ It made me break the silence, and I said:
“There's a thing that puzzles me—the cruelty that is in all God's creation. It's a great slaughter-house, and everything that lives has the stain of blood upon it.”
“It all teaches us that death ain't o' much account,” said Uncle Eb. “It looks like cruelty, an' most of us think it a curse. Death is a wonderful blessin'—that's the way it looks to me. Why, Bill Brower, ye've died twice already. Fust the child, then the boy, an' each time ye wove a new body. ”

“ The only wealth, and foes the only debt.
In life and Nature read the simple plan:
Be kind, be just, and fear not God or man.
School's out.
I passed through the door—not eagerly, as when I had been a boy, but with feet paced by sober thought—and I felt like one who had “improved his time,” as they used to say.
We rode in silence on our way to Hillsborough, as the dusk fell.
“The end o' good things is better'n the beginning,” said Uncle Eb, as we got out of the carriage.
III
NE more scene from that last year, and I am done with it. ”

“ Now
“All the world's a school,
And all the men and women merely scholars.
It has its teachers, grades, and many classes;
Its trustees, honors, torts, and punishments.
Its books are three: Nature, history,
And revelation teaching holy truth:
That men are brothers and must learn to
love.”
“And you are one of its teachers,” said Uncle Eb.
“I'm only a humble student,” said the poet. “Think what we've learnt in a hundred years. That little Devil, who rode across Europe killing an' burning an' spreading terror until they stopped him at Waterloo, he taught us a great lesson. ”

“ We're like two boys who've been away to school. When we get home they're goin' to be glad to see us. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye!”
So the old man left us, and we sat watching him as he crossed the brook and slowly mounted the green uplands.
“Purty good fishin' when Jed Feary's around,” said Uncle Eb, as we slowly made our way to the edge of the woods. “Growin' old, ain't he?—say, if his body fitted his soul what do ye s'pose we'd think o' him? I dunno but we'd
feel like gittin' on our knees when he come around. ”

“ Slowly he left us. The candle trembled in his hand, and flickering shadows fell upon us. He stopped in the open door. We knew well what thought was in his mind as he whispered back to us:
“Merry Chris'mas—ev'ry year.” Soon I went to his room. The door was open. He had drawn off his boots and was sitting on the side of his bed. I did not enter or speak to him, as I had planned to do; for I saw him leaning forward on his elbows and wiping his eyes, and I heard him saying to himself:
“Eb Holden, you oughter be 'shamed, I declare. ”

“ I blame the fish more'n I do the folks.
“That 'swallered pole' was a kind of a magic wand round here in Faraway. Ye could allwus fetch a laugh with it. Sometimes I think they must 'a' lost one commandment, an' that is: Be happy. Ye can't be happy an' be bad. I never see a bad man in my life that was hevin' fun. Let me hear a man laugh an' I'll tell ye what kind o' metal there is in him. There ain't any sech devilish sound in the world as the laugh of a wicked man. It's like the cry o' the swift, an' you 'member what that was.”
Uncle Eb shook with laughter as I ”

“ Now, ye see, when a witch puts her bridle on any one it always turns him into a hoss, an' a witch's hoss can go right thro' the side of a house without makin' a hole in it, an' can jump over trees an' hills an' travel like the wind. ”

“ I'm thinkin' o' my immortal soul.'
“'Man's soul is like his stummick,' says I. 'It ain't healthy 'less he can fergit it. Come an' have some fun.'.rdquo; We rode in silence until Uncle Eb went on:
“He seemed to think that God was a kind of a bully, an' that he loved to make men cowards. It don't seem likely to me. I don't b'lieve He meant toil fer a curse nuther. I couldn't be happy 'less I had suthin' to do. Seems 's 'o' them who wrote down the plans o' the Almighty made a mistake now an' then, an' it ain't no wonder if they
did. ”

“ He spoke, laughingly, of a symphony concert to which we had taken him.
“I'll never fergit the man with a p'inter,” he said, his head noddin with amusement. “How he could toss the music! It was like spreadin' hay.” Again his cheery voice, after a moment of silence: “No more meat! Hope Brower, if you don't eat yer dinner, you'll be put to bed.”
After dinner I gathered up my tackle.
“I dunno,” Uncle Eb remarked.
“Great day for fishing,” I insisted.
The team arrived, a lively pair of Morgan mares. Uncle Eb came out
of the house in rubber boots, with his overcoat upon his arm. ”

“ We old folks are a good deal like poor Lem. We toddle around in our old clo's an' are a leetle bit afraid of 'em. It would be lucky for us if we could meet a bear. I'd like to go down to the brook there on the run jest as I used to. ”

“ An' the witch grew sick o' him, an' said she wanted a better hoss, an' give him a cut an' turned him loose in the sky. An' ev'ry night fer years he galloped over the house-tops as if he was tryin' to find suthin, an' when I went to bed I used to hear him whinny way up in the dark, an' it sounded suthin' like this:”
Here he whinnied like the witch's horse, and went on:
“Keep on the ground, Dave, an' mind yer elders, 'cause a boy that has his own head is apt to get it caught in the witch's bridle. Same way with a
man, 'less he takes advice ev'ry day from the great Father of all. ”

“ They's witches ev'rywhere, an' they're always lookin' fer a hoss to ride.”
“See here,” said he, as soon as he discovered us, “you must all come out an' look at my garden.”
“They want to rest,” Elizabeth objected.
“No; we'd rather go with Uncle Eb,” said Hope, and we followed him to the garden.
“Godfrey cordial! hear the birds!” Uncle Eb went on, as we took the path that crossed an edge of the clover meadow. “Lot of 'em been gettin' married, I guess. Don't do a thing but sing an' laugh an' holler—like a lot o' boys an' gals.”
His strength had failed since we saw
him last. ”

“ No man can be perfect, specially when he takes holt o' so big a job. Prob'ly it was purty hot where they lived, an' work didn't agree with 'em. Now it looks to me as if that fust family couldn't 'a' been very happy without a thing to do. ”

“ That little brook has done a lot fer us. It took our thoughts off the hard work, and helped us fergit the mortgage, an' taught us to laugh like the rapid water. It never owed us anything after the day Mose Tupper lost his pole. Put it all together, I guess I've laughed a year over that. 'Bout the best payin' job we ever done. Mose thought he had a whale, an' I don't blame him. Fact is, a lost fish is an awful liar. A trout would deceive the devil when he's way down out o' sight in the ”