Higgins Part 8

Subsequently Higgins preached in those camps.

XVI

THE WAGES OF SACRIFICE

One asks, Why does Higgins do these things? The answer is simple: Because he loves his neighbor as himself--because he actually _does_, without self-seeking or any pious pretence. One asks, What does he get out of it? I do not know what Higgins gets. If you were to ask him, he would say, innocently, that once, when he preached at Camp Seven of the Green River Works, the boys fell in love with the singing.

_Jesus, Lover of My Soul_, was the hymn that engaged them. They sang it again and again; and when they got up in the morning, they said: "Say, Pilot, let's sing her once more!" They sang it once more--in the bunk-house at dawn--and the boss opened the door and was much too amazed to interrupt. They sang it again. "All out!" cried the boss; and the boys went slowly off to labor in the woods, singing, _Let me to Thy bosom fly!_ and, _Oh, receive my soul at last!_--diverging here and there, axes and saws over shoulder, some to the deeper forest, some making out upon the frozen lake, some pursuing the white roads--all pa.s.sing into the snow and green and great trees and silence of the undefiled forest which the Pilot loves--all singing as they went, _Other refuge have I none; hangs my helpless soul on Thee_--until the voices were like sweet and soft-coming echoes from the wilderness.

Poor Higgins put his face to the bunk-house door and wept.

"I tell you, boys," he told us, on the road from Six to Four, "it was _pay_ for what I've tried to do for the boys."

Later--when the Sky Pilot sat with his stockinged feet extended to a red fire in the superintendent's log-cabin of that bitterly cold night--he betrayed himself to the uttermost. "Do you know, boys," said he, addressing us, the talk having been of the wide world and travel therein, "I believe you fellows would spend a dollar for a dinner and never think twice about it!"

We laughed.

"If I spent more than twenty-five cents," said he, accusingly, "I'd have indigestion."

Again we laughed.

"And if I spent fifty cents for a hotel bed," said he, with a grin, "I'd have the nightmare."

That is exactly what Higgins gets out of it.

Higgins gets more than that out of it: he gets a clean eye and sound sleep and a living interest in life. He gets even more: he gets the trust and affection of almost--almost--every lumber-jack in the Minnesota woods. He wanders over two hundred square miles of forest, and hardly a man of the woods but would fight for his Christian reputation at a word. For example, he had pulled Whitey Mooney out of the filth and nervous strain of the snake-room, and reestablished him, had paid his board, had got him a job in a near-by town, had paid his fare, had taken him to his place; but Whitey Mooney had presently thrown up his job (being a lazy fellow), and had fallen into the depths again, had asked Higgins for a quarter of a dollar for a drink or two, and had been denied. Immediately he took to the woods; and in the camp he came to be complained that Higgins had "turned him down."

"You're a liar," they told him. "The Pilot never turned a lumber-jack down. Wait till he comes."

Higgins came.

"Pilot," said a solemn jack, rising, when the sermon was over, as he had been delegated, "do you know Mooney?"

"Whitey Mooney?"

"Yes. Do you know Whitey Mooney?"

"You bet I do, boys!"

"_Did--you--turn--him--down?_"

"You bet I did, boys!"

"_Why?_"

Higgins informed them.

"Come out o' there, Whitey!" they yelled; and they took Whitey Mooney from his bunk, and tossed him in a blanket, and drove him out of camp.

Higgins is doing a hard thing--correcting and persuading such men as these; and he could do infinitely better if he had more money to serve his ends. They are not all drunkards and savage beasts, of course. It would wrong them to say so. Many are self-respecting, clean-lived, intelligent, sober; many have wives and children, to whom they return with clean hands and mouths when the winter is over. They all--without any large exception (and this includes the saloon-keepers and gamblers of the towns)--respect the Pilot. It is related of him that he was once taken sick in the woods. It was a case of exposure--occurring in cold weather after months of bitter toil, with a pack on his back and in deep trouble of spirit. There was a storm of snow blowing, at far below zero, and Higgins was miles from any camp. He managed, however, after hours of plodding through the snow, to reach the uncut timber, where he was somewhat sheltered from the wind. He remembers that he was then intent upon the sermon for the evening; but beyond--even trudging through these tempered places--he has forgotten what occurred. The lumber-jacks found him at last, lying in the snow near the cook-house; and they carried him to the bunk-house, and put him to bed, and consulted concerning him. "The Pilot's an almighty sick man," said one. Another prescribed: "Got any whiskey in camp?" There was no whiskey--there was no doctor within reach--there was no medicine of any sort. And the Pilot, whom they had taken from the snow, was a very sick man. They wondered what could be done for him. It seemed that n.o.body knew. There was nothing to be done--nothing but keep him covered up and warm.

"Boys," a lumber-jack proposed, "how's this for an idea?"

They listened.

"We can pray for the man," said he, "who's always praying for us."

They managed to do it somehow; and when Higgins heard that the boys were praying for him--_praying_ for him!--he turned his face to the wall, and covered up his head, and wept like a fevered boy.

THE END