Chapter XXXI: Awakening

Ratke was in no great pain, physical or mental, as Manie led him from the scene of the fire. The repeated blows which he had received had deadened sensation, and he had neither concern for the present nor anxiety for the future. At intervals he passed his palm across his brow, generally repeating the act before he dropped his hand.

His face and hands were blistered in places, and his hair adhered to his head in singed clusters, his eyes were inflamed, and the lashes burned nearly off.

"You are badly burned. Uncle James," said Manie, who was crying. "How it must hurt you."

"No," answered the major, "I am past suffering. All that can hurt me is thinking. Sluggishness has come to my relieve. Do not make me talk or think."

Jake Sheppard's house was a small, one story building, which lay between the church and the Ratke farm. Back of it was a log stable, and east of it a diminutive shop in which its previous owner, a blacksmith, had worked. When it was reached by the Ratkes, some chairs were already in it, and dishes and furniture were approaching near by in a wagon.

Manie went to the residence of Holmes for remedies to apply to her uncle's burned face and hands. She bathed them in oil and arranged a shade for his eyes. He did not seem to appreciate her kindness, although he submited to it without a word of opposition or comment.

"Miss Grippin," said Daggett, coming to the back door of their new residence, "the men all want to do something for you. We're going to get up a pile of wood. If anybody else offers you any wood, you tell 'em you've got enough already spoke for, will you?"

"I will," returned Mrs. Grippin. "Thank you, Mark."

Daggett retreated a few steps, and motioned Mrs. Grippin to follow him. "How is he?" he asked, pointing toward the room where the major was.

"I'm afraid he will never be any better," said Mrs. Grippin. "He is losing his mind. He don't realize much of anything that is going on. He can understand when we talk right to him, but if we don't, he wont pay any attention."

"Boys," said Daggett, as he joined his fellow-workmen, who were in front of the house, "you go over to the woods. I'll skip up and see Miss Green. I know she'll sell me a tree or two."

Daggett purchased three fallen trees of Mrs. Green and proceeded across to the woods, which were in sight of the smouldering farmhouse which was now deserted by spectators.

"This won't be a quarter enough," he said to Sheppard. "We can buy the rest of some one else cheaper that we can of her, though."

The men worked with a will, as though to atone for their neglect of duty while in the major's service. Strange to say, the most active and efficient of them all was Archer. He pulled an end of a cross-cut saw with such energy that Daggett, Sheppard and Brown were successively obliged to desist from working with him.

"You chop, Will," said Daggett, "there can't no man saw with you."

Archer snatched an ax and hurried to the top of the tree, where he struck off limb after limb, trimmed them and chopped them into stove-wood with astonishing rapidity.

"What's Phleet Takum a pokin' round that fire for?" said Jake.

"Philetus stood by the edge of the ruins which marked the site of Ratke's dwelling. He had a rake with which he reached as far as possible, systematically dragging the ashes and bringing to him whatever he could conveniently pull. A pack of dogs was scouring about the yard.

"Git out o' that, you thief," yelled Jake. Immediately after, the men in chorus set up a prolonged yell. The startled Takum, followed by his dogs, made swiftly for the woods, and he was not seen again by his neighbors for two days.

"My faithful men," said the major after the wood was hauled, "my faithful men, and I did not even thank them." For a week he mourned that he had not expressed to them his gratitude.

Let us pause in our account of Ratke's experience to note some events in the history of the neighborhood which is connected with our narrative.

Sparks, who had offered a considerable reward for the recovery of Madge T. was rejoiced when a detective found his property in New York. He was soon in possession of the valuable beast, the speed of which he took special pains to improve.

Nora, whose singular demeanor at any other time would have been commented upon, declared that she could not longer stay in Jefferson. A few days after the family was settled in Sheppard's house, she went to live with her aunt in Ohio.

The day after the fire a telegram for Montcalm came to Break o' Day, stating that his mother was dead and naming the date of her funeral. In the burying-ground by Green's orchard they placed the son in whom she had trusted.

Could he have arisen from his resting-place and stood upright, he might have viewed the house in which he had lost his peace of mind and his hope of eternity. Had he taken two steps, he would have been above the body of his victim. If withdrawing his gaze from the spot beneath which lay the disfigured forehead and cloven brain, he had turned it to the right would have rested on the cottage which sheltered Ratke, whose lethargic, nearly-demented condition of mind he had helped to produce.

One night Jake Sheppard, who was something of a hunter, was cooning in Mrs. Green's woods when he was guided by his dog to a tree which had a large hollow. Ordinarily Jake was not a rigid respecter of the law. He procured an ax and chopped down the tree as speedily as possible, that he might secure the game before his unwarranted cutting of the timber was discovered. As the fall of the tree did not frighten the coon from his refuge, Jake cut into the body, which in that place was but a shell. He was both surprised and chagrined when the ax struck a metallic substance which took from it a deep nick.

"What blamed fool has been a-stuffin' an auger in here?" he exclaimed, pulling the designated tool from its place of secretion. His astonishment increased as he drew out some clothes and, lastly, a long pocket-book, which, upon examination, he saw contained a large roll of bills. He thought at once of the robbery in July, and, forgetting the coon, started for Mrs. Green's house. Owing to the deafness of Mrs. Green and the timidity of William Henry Harrison, who never quite recovered from his terror of the midnight visitor by whom his master had been slain, Sheppard was some time in securing an answer to his knocks and calls. Mrs. Green, however, was at last aroused by the half-wit, who broke the fastening to her bedroom door and entered her room for protection, Jake went to her window, made known his errand, and was admitted to the house. The only reward which he received from the widow was forgiveness for his depredation in her timber. Shortly after this event he called at the cottage by the church and left an envelope directed to the major. The envelope contained fifty dollars in currency and a badly spelled note which stated that Sheppard was going away from the neighborhood and begged that Ratke would accept the money as a token of regard.

The major rallied in part from the stupor which chained him in the few days succeeding the fire. He made an auction, and sold his personal property. When Taylor was taken away by a Jackson horseman, who bought him for four hundred dollars, Ratke with sadness watched the handsome animal, trotting behind the owner's sulky as he was led up the road. He paid first his hired men, with the exception of Sheppard, who could not be found. The remainder of his money he distributed among his creditors, who were numerous. Most of them were content to allow him time for his fortunes to mend, but a few gave warning that, unless payment was speedily made, they would cause him trouble. This insulting language revived a portion of his old-time spirit. He wrote them letters, stating his intention to liquidate every dollar of his indebtedness, but affirming his resolution not to pay a cent of costs for legal proceedings. "Those who would be first," he said, "should be last."

Ratke sought work and found it.

His former hired men saw him coming home night after tight, stoop-shouldered and listless. They took a job of grubbing from Holmes for twelve dollars and told him to let it to Ratke for twenty, and they would make up the difference to him. They instructed him also to say nothing of their connection with the affair to Ratke, who, should he be made aware of it, would be certain to refuse the charity. The major accepted Holmes's offer and labored with all his strength at the grubbing.

Manie, on applying in several districts for a position as teacher, found that the fall terms of country schools were almost invariably conducted by those who had been engaged in the spring. She then obtained a place to work in the family of Osborne.

The habits of Ratke had changed with the circumstances which surrounded him. He was silent, but apparently not thoughtful. No longer in his moments of leisure did he sit with his left leg thrown over the arm of his rocking-chair, his chin resting on his hand, and his elbow on his knee. No longer did he speculate or philosophize. He seemed to be again sinking, with his grief forgotten, into a gradual and peaceful decline. When he talked, which was seldom, it was concerning business matters; and his former force of delivery was entirely wanting. All that seemed to attract his special notice was the absence of Manie, who came home every Saturday night and remained until Monday morning. He would sometimes ask what day of the week it was, and on receiving an answer would sit silent some minutes and then repeat his question. Mrs. Grippin, who feared that he was going into insanity or idiotcy, longed to hear again the tiresome theories which she had once detested. With the hope of seeing him once more at his studies, she borrowed a work on physics and some scientific journals, which she placed where she imagined they would come under his observation, but her ruse was unavailing. He did not notice them until they were alluded to by his sister, when he picked them up, apparently without interest, and threw them down with a sigh.

Manie, although she was obliged to do all the work in the family of Osborne, who had seven children and one hired man, on being informed of her uncle's dangerous apathy came home every night and returned in the morning. Ratke showed the first pleasure which he had exhibited for weeks. No matter how tired he was, when he had finished his toil for the day, he walked up the road to meet her. His object was not to talk, nor did it seem to be to hear her, for he was an indifferent listener. Satisfied with her presence, he desired no exchange of words. His instinct to be near her was like that of the dog which silently follows his master, or that of the dying horse which, when turned loose that he may have room to struggle, totters back to breathe his last in his familiar stall. Years before, he had told her stories while she had sat on his knee and combed his hair. Now he had childishly asked her to do again as she had done then. She humored his whim, and it was seldom that he had to remind her of his wish.

Mrs. Green, who wailed until after seeding to thresh her grain, one day dispatched William Henry Harrison to secure Ratke's assistance. The next morning the major with his pitchfork appeared early at the house of his old enemy. He was given a place on the bundle stack, but through the intervention of his friend, Jim Turner, he was allowed the easy duty of holding bags. At noon Jim was obliged to leave on account of a previous promise which he had made to Osborne.

William Henry Harrison, Sparks and Wingscheut were on the straw-stack. Throughout the forenoon the halfwit had worked by the carrier, in the language of Wingscheut, "vith his mouth vite open ketchin, all te chaff." After dinner the major noticed the poor fellow toiling away in the same uncomfortable place. "Sparks," he shouted, "why don't you go up and change with him?"

"I don't have to," replied Sparks.

"Come down here, William Henry Harrison," called Ratke, "I will change with you. You can hold bags."

The major took the position which had been occupied by the half-wit, who slid down the stack and was buried in the litterings at the bottom, from which he soon emerged. Sparks motioned to the feeder, with whom, on the night of the expedition to Wallace's, the major had quarreled over the disposition of the horse-thieves in case they were captured. The driver, in turn, received the signal from the feeder, the horses bent their heads and tugged, the machine sang more loudly, and every man about it bestirred himself anew. The straw rolled in great masses up the carrier, to the head of which a suffocating cloud of dust was borne by the wind.

The major, whose temper and dignity were aroused, stood at his post, too proud to ask for relief. The straw gathered in a wall behind him, and Wingscheut lazily or purposely let it fall back, so that he was obliged to pitch back large quantities of it the second time. At each one of the huge forkfuls which he had to take his body trembled, and he wondered how much longer he could endure the strain. Most of the hands were busily occupied, and those who were not bestowed little sympathy on the old man in his weakness so heroically and pitifully trying to keep up an appearance of strength. He was at the point of exhaustion, when the threshing was finished and the machine suspended motion. Without waiting for his supper or his coat and vest, which, of course, he had stripped off, he went away from the barn-yard, his breathing difficult, his eyes blinded and his face blackened with dirt.

"Guess Jerusalem got about enough," said the Oakville man, loud enough for Ratke to hear, "I ain't sorry neither. It ain't any worse for him to work than it is for me."

"This ain't makin' wagons," remarked Sparks.

The words rankled deep in the majors breast, as with his pitchfork on his shoulder he went slowly home. He was hurt most by the grim satisfaction with which Sparks spoke of his downfall. On his farm, surrounded by his books and his inventions, he could smile at riddles; but now, removed from his defenses, he could not endure it.

Mrs. Gnppin had gone to visit Mrs. Boyle, with whom she expected to stay that night. Manie, who had finished her work for Osborne, received her uncle with expressions of pity. She brought some water and washed the dirt from his face and neck. While she was combing the chaff from his hair, a constable came to serve a summons on him in behalf of the Empire Machine Company.

"The completion of disgrace," said Ratke, after the man had gone. "I cannot pay them. Judgment will be rendered against me, and I must have it thrown in my teeth that my promises are lies. How much more! Oh, God, how much more can I endure!"

"Let me comb the chaff from your hair," said Manie.

"No," answered the major, taking his hat and going out of the house. He went straight to the little blacksmith shop and stood before it. The sun, now a reddish ball, stripped of its fiery spikes, seemed lying in a slight depression of the landscape, as if it had rolled thither from one of the declivities between which it rested. Its latest rays were permitted to fall on Ratke by the parting of a strip of cloud, which was drawn asunder like curtains on a stage. The major's gaze rested longest on the buildings which had been erected on his former farm. The windows of the house threw back among the apple trees, by which it was partly hidden, the rays of the sun, whose splendid reflections glimmered like wondrous lanterns among the branches. From Green's woods, which were red and yellow in the cloak of fall, came the voice of William Henry Harrison, who was calling the cows. A night-hawk swept high over the major's head, carrying its mournful cry over his desolated and rebuilded homestead.

He opened the door of the shop and entered. Inside were a few tools which had been left by the blacksmith who had previously owned the lot. These were a workbench, an anvil, two saw-horses and two hammers. The blacksmith evidently had worked some in wood; and, in fact, such was the case, for he had been exorbitant in his charges, and his trade afforded him but a meager subsistence. On the workbench was Ratke's one-man saw, which was badly rusted. Taking a hammer, the major loosened the saw-blade from the frame and fastened it with a strap to a strong hickory pole, the upper part of which he nailed firmly to the wall. He tied a small rope to the other end of the saw and pulling it until the stiff pole bent far back, he made it fast to a ring in the opposite wall, leaving the saw stretched horizontally within about two feet of the floor. His next movement was to place nearly under the saw a saw-horse on which he rested his head so that his throat was within a few inches of the sharp saw-teeth. Satisfied that the arrangements for suicide were complete, he arose to take his farewell of terrestrial things.

Once more he stepped out into the cool evening air. The sun had disappeared, and its light had ceased to tint the clouds along the western horizon, but it was reflected from the stray patches which were moving slowly near the zenith.

"Ah," he said, "the cloud at the horizon is as red as the one at the zenith. It does not appear so to me, because I am not in a proper position to see its brilliancy. If the light of merit has fallen on me and my inventions, the world has not been in a situation to recognize it."

To no purpose had his philosophy been neglected; at the last hour it persistently returned, demanding that he should harbor it for a brief space before he and it took their final separation. It mingled with his every observation; it asserted itself in the arrangement of the machine for his destruction.

He prepared for a last look at earth, which twilight was plunging in partial obscurity.

"Oh, Trace, Trace!" he exclaimed, as his eyes fell on the graveyard, "why did you shatter my faith in you? It was you that first broke my old heart, and it has been cracking and crumbling ever since. I would I were with you, and Nature, not my hand, had sent me there."

Resolutely he went inside the shop. He would see no more the fair landscape in its autumnal beauty; he was hearing for the last time the night-hawk, the solemn notes of which were a fitting preliminary to the approaching tragedy. In the morning, or, perhaps, that night, they would find him with his throat hacked and, it might be, entirely cut in twain. He crawled under the saw and rested his head on the saw-horse. He raised a scythe to strike a blow which would allow the hickory spring to pull the saw across his throat.

Some one jerked him back, tipping over the saw-horse. Manie's arms were about his neck, her face close to his, her soothing voice in his ear. After pulling him gently away she struck the rope with the scythe. The vicious force with which the spring propelled the saw showed how deadly an implement of destruction the major had planned.

"What made you interrupt me?" cried the major. "The world has no use for James Ratke! Wherever I am, I am in the way. I am refuse in the economy of Nature, refuse which her creatures abhor, but which she will not remove. I will remove myself! Go away, Manie! Go away, I tell you!"

"Uncle James, Uncle James," pleaded Manie, "do not act so! Come into the house."

"You, too, have become my enemy," said Ratke. "No friend of mine would like to prolong my wretched existence. I thought that I had suffered until I had no further capacity for suffering, but sensation only slept. It racks me now as it racked me before my mind fell into torpidity, when I sat on the log watching my burning wagon. Oh, Manie I Must I, must I fall into that stupor again? Must I, my God! Must I see my mind, like my fortunes, waste away, leaving me a wreck and a wretch indeed?"

"Trust in God," said Manie. "He can rescue you from any trouble."

"God!" echoed the major, "God has deserted me utterly; utterly, utterly," he added with an accent of incescribable despair. "Where is my farm on which I prided myself? Where are my horses and cattle? Where are my books, which were my study and my comfort? Where are my inventions, which I would have given my life to save? Where is Trace, the trusted son of my comrade, whom I loved better than myself? His mutilated body is in that graveyard! He died in destroying my all! If I could forget! If I only could! 'The waters are come in unto my soul.'"

"Come in," said Manie, pulling him toward the door.

The major went passively to the house, where Manie induced him to be seated. "'The Lord will not cast off forever,'" she said, "'but, though he cause grief yet will he have compassion, according to the multitude of his mercies.'"

"You talk of consolation," replied Ratke, rising from his chair and striding restlessly about the room. "There is no consolation for me. 'The sorrows of death compass me.' I will not take my wretched life to-night, because I could take only the bodily part. I would I could place those saw teeth against my soul! I would annihilate myself, for I could meet annihilation firmly. This old body I can bring to the grave, but I cannot touch the after life. No. I must keep this sensation, sensation which gives me no pleasure, only pain, eternal pain, I am like an old harp which was once an instrument of melody, but which now yields the harshest of sounds. Mirth, pleasure, rest, they are for me neither now nor in eternity!"

"You have no reason to be so hopeless," said Manie. "God has promised to help those who trust in Him. 'Whoso hearkeneth unto Me shall dwell safely and shall be quiet from fear of evil.'

"'He hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither hath He hid his face from him. But when he cried unto Him, He heard.'"

"What have I rendered unto Him in my prosperity," said Ratke, "that He should help me now? I never openly acknowledged Him. When wealth and friends were mine, I depended on my own resources with little solicitude for God's assistance. I said, 'I will get wisdom;' and that wisdom I worshipped. Now, when all my persecutors have overtaken me between the straights, he has left me to be extricated by my wisdom."

"You have fulfilled part of the Lord's requirements," said Manie. "'Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house, when thou seest the naked that thou cover him?'"

"It was not enough," answered the major, "or I should have support in this hour. He laughs at my calamity. 'He hath thrown down and hath not pitied.' 'He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.' I might call, but he would not answer. Oh, Manie, how can I live? 'My heart is like wax!'"

"You will feel better to-morrow," said Manie. "When I am teaching school, we shall have more money. We will pay up these little debts, and how much comfort we will take, reading our books and studying together. We will get some tools in the shop for you. Uncle James, and you can work at your inventions as you used to do."

"I shall never know comfort again," said Ratke. "Is it nothing to lose one's entire possessions, to see perishing what one prizes more than property, to see wealth, position, friendships, aspirations, all shivered in succession, and the ruins heaped in ashes on one's head? My neighbors who have given me financial help laugh at me. They sneer at my Jerusalem wagon and crack jokes about my one-man saw. I cannot endure it. I shall die or go insane. 'The pains of hell have got hold upon me.'"

"'The sorrows of hell compassed me about,'" said Manie. "'The snares of death prevented me. In my distress I called on the Lord and my cry came before him, even unto his ears.'"

"My sighs are many, and my heart is faint," said the major. "There is anguish in reflection. Lure me into forgetfulness by song, Manie."

"Shall I sing one which John composed?" asked Manie.

"Anything," answered Ratke. "Sit close by me."

The room was quite dark, for Manie had not yet lighted a lamp. She seated herself by Ratke, who had ceased his violent pacing of the floor. The scene through which she had passed put a tremulous pathos into her voice.

"A minstrel sang often Euterpa's gay song Where the board of the feast was outspread, Where the floor of the hall 'neath a great courtly throng Bent and swayed to the dancers' light tread. Sweet notes which were welcomed, applauded and famed Came from the musicians' skilled art. Their melody all except pleasure disclaimed; It mixed with the revel where mirth was untamed, But it touched not a comfortless heart.

'Hits fame and his fortune all perished away. Those who in his prosperous days Were loudest in flattery scoffed at his lay. And hushed was their liberal praise. He thought of his laurels, whose life was so brief, In his gloomy and utter despair No hand was extended to give him relief. 'My burden,' he faltered, in accents of grief, 'Is greater than I can bear.'

"He bowed low his head and he threw down his lyre In a hall where its music had rung. He felt that forever had left him that fire With which in his youth he had sung. Oh, deep was the anguish that swept o'er him then When no solace his broken heart propped; He mused on his trouble, remote from all men; But mournfully from its mute corner again He picked up the lyre he had dropped.

"Out on the wide world the sad measure was borne, And the healing of pain was its goal. It came from a bosom by misery torn; It raised many a low-smitten soul. Then woe left its sack-cloth forgotten and smiled; The transgressor bent on his knee; And men from the shades of their crimes were beguiled; 'Lord, now it is plain,' said the minstrel, a child; 'I know why Thou chastenest me.'"

"Comb my hair, Manie," said the major. "Sit on my knee and comb my hair. Let me think that these are the olden days, that you are a little girl, that I have not lost my place, that I still have hope for my inventions. Oh, this is luxury! What a soothing power there is in the comb."

Manie, who was crying under cover of the darkness, tenderly combed and brushed his hair.