Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0141/01414.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 16KB | 271 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01414}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Life On The Mississippi
Chapter LIV}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{time
boy
boys
attention
dutchy
knew
lem
moment
myself
never}
$Date{1917}
$Log{}
Title:       Life On The Mississippi
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1917

Chapter LIV

Past And Present

     Being left to myself, up there, I went on picking out old houses in the
distant town, and calling back their former inmates out of the moldy past.
Among them I presently recognized the house of the father of Lem Hackett
(fictitious name).  It carried me back more than a generation in a moment, and
landed me in the midst of a time when the happenings of life were not the
natural and logical results of great general laws, but of special orders, and
were freighted with very precise and distinct purposes - partly punitive in
intent, partly admonitory; and usually local in application.

     When I was a small boy, Lem Hackett was drowned - on a Sunday.  He fell
out of an empty flatboat, where he was playing.  Being loaded with sin, he
went to the bottom like an anvil.  He was the only boy in the village who
slept that night.  We others all lay awake, repenting.  We had not needed the
information, delivered from the pulpit that evening, that Lem's was a case of
special judgment - we knew that, already.  There was a ferocious thunder-storm
that night, and it raged continuously until near dawn.  The wind blew, the
windows rattled, the rain swept along the roof in pelting sheets, and at the
briefest of intervals the inky blackness of the night vanished, the houses
over the way glared out white and blinding for a quivering instant, then the
solid darkness shut down again and a splitting peal of thunder followed which
seemed to rend everything in the neighborhood to shreds and splinters.  I sat
up in bed quaking and shuddering, waiting for the destruction of the world,
and expecting it.  To me there was nothing strange or incongruous in Heaven's
making such an uproar about Lem Hackett.  Apparently it was the right and
proper thing to do.  Not a doubt entered my mind that all the angels were
grouped together, discussing this boy's case and observing the awful
bombardment of our beggarly little village with satisfaction and approval.
There was one thing which disturbed me in the most serious way: that was the
thought that this centering of the celestial interest on our village could not
fail to attract the attention of the observers to people among us who might
otherwise have escaped notice for years.  I felt that I was not only one of
those people, but the very one most likely to be discovered.  That discovery
could have but one result: I should be in the fire with Lem before the chill
of the river had been fairly warmed out of him.  I knew that this would be
only just and fair. I was increasing the chances against myself all the time,
by feeling a secret bitterness against Lem for having attracted this fatal
attention to me, but I could not help it - this sinful thought persisted in
infesting my breast in spite of me.  Every time the lightning glared I caught
my breath, and judged I was gone.  In my terror and misery I meanly began to
suggest other boys, and mention acts of theirs which were wickeder than mine,
and peculiarly needed punishment - and I tried to pretend to myself that I was
simply doing this in a casual way, and without intent to divert the heavenly
attention to them for the purpose of getting rid of it myself.  With deep
sagacity I put these mentions into the form of sorrowing recollections and
left-handed sham- supplications that the sins of those boys might be allowed
to pass unnoticed - "Possibly they may repent." "It is true that Jim Smith
broke a window and lied about it - but maybe he did not mean any harm.  And
although Tom Holmes says more bad words than any other boy in the village, he
probably intends to repent - though he has never said he would.  And while it
is a fact that John Jones did fish a little on Sunday, once, he didn't really
catch anything but only just one small useless mudcat; and maybe that wouldn't
have been so awful if he had thrown it back - as he says he did, but he
didn't.  Pity but they would repent of these dreadful things - and maybe they
will yet."

     But while I was shamefully trying to draw attention to these poor chaps -
who were doubtless directing the celestial attention to me at the same moment,
though I never once suspected that - I had heedlessly left my candle burning.
It was not a time to neglect even trifling precautions.  There was no occasion
to add anything to the facilities for attracting notice to me - so I put the
light out.

     It was a long night to me, and perhaps the most distressful one I ever
spent.  I endured agonies of remorse for sins which I knew I had committed,
and for others which I was not certain about, yet was sure that they had been
set down against me in a book by an angel who was wiser than I and did not
trust such important matters to memory.  It struck me, by and by, that I had
been making a most foolish and calamitous mistake, in one respect; doubtless I
had not only made my own destruction sure by directing attention to those
other boys, but had already accomplished theirs!  Doubtless the lightning had
stretched them all dead in their beds by this time!  The anguish and the
fright which this thought gave me made my previous sufferings seem trifling by
comparison.

     Things had become truly serious.  I resolved to turn over a new leaf
instantly; I also resolved to connect myself with the church next day, if I
survived to see its sun appear.  I resolved to cease from sin in all its
forms, and to lead a high and blameless life forever after.  I would be
punctual at church and Sunday-school; visit the sick; carry baskets of
victuals to the poor (simply to fulfil the regulation conditions, although I
knew we had none among us so poor but they would smash the basket over my head
for my pains); I would instruct other boys in right ways, and take the
resulting trouncings meekly; I would subsist entirely on tracts; I would
invade the rum shop and warn the drunkard - and finally, if I escaped the fate
of those who early become too good to live, I would go for a missionary.

     The storm subsided toward daybreak, and I dozed gradually to sleep with a
sense of obligation to Lem Hackett for going to eternal suffering in that
abrupt way, and thus preventing a far more dreadful disaster - my own loss.

     But when I rose refreshed, by and by, and found that those other boys
were still alive, I had a dim sense that perhaps the whole thing was a false
alarm; that the entire turmoil had been on Lem's account and nobody's else.
The world looked so bright and safe that there did not seem to be any real
occasion to turn over a new leaf.  I was a little subdued during that day, and
perhaps the next; after that, my purpose of reforming slowly dropped out of my
mind, and I had a peaceful, comfortable time again, until the next storm.

     That storm came about three weeks later; and it was the most
unaccountable one, to me, that I had ever experienced; for on the afternoon of
that day, "Dutchy" was drowned.  Dutchy belonged to our Sunday-school.  He was
a German lad who did not know enough to come in out of the rain; but he was
exasperatingly good, and had a prodigious memory.  One Sunday he made himself
the envy of all the youth and the talk of the admiring village, by reciting
three thousand verses of Scripture without missing a word: then he went off
the very next day and got drowned.

     Circumstances gave to his death a peculiar impressiveness.  We were all
bathing in a muddy creek which had a deep hole in it, and in this hole the
coopers had sunk a pile of green hickory hoop-poles to soak, some twelve feet
under water.  We were diving and "seeing who could stay under longest." We
managed to remain down by holding on to the hoop- poles.  Dutchy made such a
poor success of it that he was hailed with laughter and derision every time
his head appeared above water.  At last he seemed hurt with the taunts, and
begged us to stand still on the bank and be fair with him and give him an
honest count - "be friendly and kind just this once, and not miscount for the
sake of having the fun of laughing at him." Treacherous winks were exchanged,
and all said, "All right, Dutchy - go ahead, we'll play fair."

     Dutchy plunged in, but the boys, instead of beginning to count, followed
the lead of one of their number and scampered to a range of blackberry bushes
close by and hid behind it.  They imagined Dutchy's humiliation, when he
should rise after a superhuman effort and find the place silent and vacant,
nobody there to applaud.  They were "so full of laugh" with the idea that they
were continually exploding into muffled cackles.  Time swept on, and presently
one who was peeping through the briers said, with surprise:

     "Why, he hasn't come up yet!"

     The laughing stopped.

     "Boys, it's a splendid dive," said one.

     "Never mind that," said another, "the joke on him is all the better for
it."

     There was a remark or two more, and then a pause.  Talking ceased, and
all began to peer through the vines.  Before long, the boys' faces began to
look uneasy, then anxious, then terrified.  Still there was no movement of the
placid water.  Hearts began to beat fast, and faces to turn pale.  We all
glided out silently, and stood on the bank, our horrified eyes wandering back
and forth from each other's countenances to the water.

     "Somebody must go down and see!"

     Yes, that was plain; but nobody wanted that grisly task.

     "Draw straws!"

     So we did - with hands which shook so that we hardly knew what we were
about.  The lot fell to me, and I went down.  The water was so muddy I could
not see anything, but I felt around among the hoop-poles, and presently
grasped a limp wrist which gave me no response - and if it had I should not
have known it, I let it go with such a frightened suddenness.

     The boy had been caught among the hoop-poles and entangled there,
helplessly.  I fled to the surface and told the awful news.  Some of us knew
that if the boy were dragged out at once he might possibly be resuscitated,
but we never thought of that.  We did not think of anything; we did not know
what to do, so we did nothing - except that the smaller lads cried piteously,
and we all struggled frantically into our clothes, putting on anybody's that
came handy, and getting them wrong side out and upside down, as a rule.  Then
we scurried away and gave the alarm, but none of us went back to see the end
of the tragedy.  We had a more important thing to attend to: we all flew home,
and lost not a moment in getting ready to lead a better life.

     The night presently closed down.  Then came on that tremendous and
utterly unaccountable storm.  I was perfectly dazed; I could not understand
it.  It seemed to me that there must be some mistake.  The elements were
turned loose, and they rattled and banged and blazed away in the most blind
and frantic manner.  All heart and hope went out of me, and the dismal thought
kept floating through my brain, "If a boy who knows three thousand verses by
heart is not satisfactory, what chance is there for anybody else?"

     Of course I never questioned for a moment that the storm was on Dutchy's
account, or that he or any other inconsequential animal was worthy of such a
majestic demonstration from on high; the lesson of it was the only thing that
troubled me; for it convinced me that if Dutchy, with all his perfections, was
not a delight, it would be vain for me to turn over a new leaf, for I must
infallibly fall hopelessly short of that boy, no matter how hard I might try.
Nevertheless I did turn it over - a highly educated fear compelled me to do
that - but succeeding days of cheerfulness and sunshine came bothering around,
and within a month I had so drifted backward that again I was as lost and
comfortable as ever.

     Breakfast-time approached while I mused these musings and called these
ancient happenings back to mind; so I got me back into the present and went
down the hill.

     On my way through town to the hotel, I saw the house which was my home
when I was a boy.  At present rates, the people who now occupy it are of no
more value than I am; but in my time they would have been worth not less than
five hundred dollars apiece.  They are colored folk.

     After breakfast I went out alone again, intending to hunt up some of the
Sunday-schools and see how this generation of pupils might compare with their
progenitors who had sat with me in those places and had probably taken me as a
model - though I do not remember as to that now. By the public square there
had been in my day a shabby little brick church called the "Old Ship of Zion,"
which I had attended as a Sunday- school scholar; and I found the locality
easily enough, but not the old church; it was gone, and a trig and rather
hilarious new edifice was in its place.  The pupils were better dressed and
better looking than were those of my time; consequently they did not resemble
their ancestors; and consequently there was nothing familiar to me in their
faces.  Still, I contemplated them with a deep interest and a yearning
wistfulness, and if I had been a girl I would have cried; for they were the
offspring, and represented, and occupied the places, of boys and girls some of
whom I had loved to love, and some of whom I had loved to hate, but all of
whom were dear to me for the one reason or the other, so many years gone by -
and, Lord, where be they now!

     I was mightily stirred, and would have been grateful to be allowed to
remain unmolested and look my fill; but a bald-summited superintendent who had
been a towheaded Sunday-school mate of mine of that spot in the early ages,
recognized me, and I talked a flutter of wild nonsense to those children to
hide the thoughts which were in me, and which could not have been spoken
without a betrayal of feeling that would have been recognized as out of
character with me.

     Making speeches without preparation is no gift of mine; and I was
resolved to shirk any new opportunity, but in the next and larger Sunday-
school I found myself in the rear of the assemblage; so I was very willing to
go on the platform a moment for the sake of getting a good look at the
scholars.  On the spur of the moment I could not recall any of the old idiotic
talks which visitors used to insult me with when I was a pupil there; and I
was sorry for this, since it would have given me time and excuse to dawdle
there and take a long and satisfying look at what I feel at liberty to say was
an array of fresh young comeliness not matchable in another Sunday-school of
the same size.  As I talked merely to get a chance to inspect, and as I strung
out the random rubbish solely to prolong the inspection, I judged it but
decent to confess these low motives, and I did so.

     If the Model Boy was in either of these Sunday-schools, I did not see
him.  The Model Boy of my time - we never had but the one - was perfect:
perfect in manners, perfect in dress, perfect in conduct, perfect in filial
piety, perfect in exterior godliness; but at bottom he was a prig; and as for
the contents of his skull, they could have changed place with the contents of
a pie, and nobody would have been the worse off for it but the pie.  This
fellow's reproachlessness was a standing reproach to every lad in the village.
He was the admiration of all the mothers, and the detestation of all their
sons.  I was told what became of him, but as it was a disappointment to me, I
will not enter into details.  He succeeded in life.