Toward the Gulf Part 7

Wait! Wait a minute.

FLORENCE

Dinah, call a cab!

SIR GALAHAD

I met Hosea Job on Randolph Street Who said to me: "I'm going for the train, I want you with me."

And it happened then My mind was hard, as muscles of the back Grow hard resisting cold or shock or strain And need the osteopath to be made supple, To give the nerves and streams of life a chance.

Hosea Job was just the osteopath To loose, relax my mood. And so I said "All right"--and went.

Hosea was a man Whom nothing touched of danger, or of harm.

His life was just a rare-bit dream, where some one Seems like to fall before a truck or train-- Instead he walks across them. Or you see Shadows of falling things, great buildings topple, Pianos skid like bulls from h.e.l.lish corners And chase the oblivious fool who stands and smiles.

The buildings slant and sway like monstrous searchlights, But never touch him. And the mad piano Comes up to him, puts down its angry head, Runs out a friendly tongue and licks his hand, And lows a symphony.

By which I mean Hosea had some money, and would sign A bond or note for any man who asked him.

He'd rent a house and leave it, rent another, Then rent a farm, move out from town and in.

He'd have the leases of superfluous places Cancelled some how, was never sued for rent.

One time he had a fancy he would see South Africa, took ship with a load of mules, First telegraphing home from New Orleans He'd be back in the Spring. Likewise he went To Klondike with the rush. I think he owned More kinds of mining stock than there were mines.

He had more quaint, peculiar men for friends Than one could think were living. He believed In every doctrine in its time, that promised Salvation for the world. He took no thought For life or for to-morrow, or for health, Slept with his windows closed, ate what he wished.

And if he cut his finger, let it go.

I offered him peroxide once, he laughed.

And when I asked him if his soul was saved He only said: "I see things. I lie back And take it easy. Nothing can go wrong In any serious sense."

So many thought Hosea was a nut, and others thought, That I was just a nut for liking him.

And what would any man of business say If he knew that I didn't ask a question, But simply went with him to take the train That day he asked me.

And the train had gone Five miles or so when I said: "Where you going?"

Hosea answered, and it made me start-- Hosea answered simply, "We are going To see Sir Galahad."

It made me start To hear Hosea say this, for I thought He was now really off. But, I looked at him And saw his eyes were sane.

"Sir Galahad?

Who is Sir Galahad?"

Hosea answered: "I'm going up to see Sir Galahad, And sound him out about re-entering The game and run for governor again."

So then I knew he was the man our fathers Worked with and knew and called Sir Galahad, Now in retirement fifteen years or so.

Well, I was twenty-five when he was famous.

Sir Galahad was forty then, and now Must be some fifty-five while I am forty.

So flashed across my thought the matter of time And ages. So I thought of all he did: Of how he went from faith to faith in politics And ran for every office up to governor, And ran for governor four times or so, And never was elected to an office.

He drew more bills to remedy injustice, Improve the courts, relieve the poor, reform Administration, than the legislature Could read, much less digest or understand.

The people beat him and the leaders flogged him.

They shut the door against his face until He had no place to go except a farm Among the stony hills, and there he went.

And thither we were going to see the knight, And call him from his solitude to the fight Against injustice, greed.

So we got off The train at Alden, just a little village Of fifty houses lying beneath the sprawl Of hills and hills. And here there was a stillness Made lonelier by an anvil ringing, by A plow-man's voice at intervals.

Here Hosea Engaged a horse and buggy, and we drove And wound about a crooked road between Great hills that stood together like the backs Of elephants in a herd, where boulders lay As thick as hail in places. Ruined pines Stood like burnt matches. There was one which stuck Against a single cloud so white it seemed A bursted bale of cotton.

We reached the summit And drove along past orchards, past a field Level and green, kept like a garden, rich Against the coming harvest. Here we met A scarecrow man, driving a scarecrow horse Hitched to a wobbly wagon. And we stopped, The scarecrow stopped. The scarecrow and Hosea Talked much of people and of farming--I Sat listening, and I gathered from the talk, And what Hosea told me as we drove, That once this field so level and so green The scarecrow owned. He had cleaned out the stumps, And tried to farm it, failed, and lost the field, But raged to lose it, thought he might succeed In further time. Now having lost the field So many years ago, could be a scarecrow, And drive a scarecrow horse, yet laugh again And have no care, the sorrow healed.

It seemed The clearing of the stumps was scarce a starter Toward a field of profit. For in truth, The soil possessed a secret which the scarecrow Never went deep enough to learn about.

His problem was all stumps. Not solving that, He sold it to a farmer who out-slaved The busiest bee, but only half succeeded.

He tried to raise potatoes, made a failure.

He planted it in beans, had half a crop.

He sowed wheat once and reaped a stack of straw.

The secret of the soil eluded him.

And here Hosea laughed: "This fellow's failure Was just the thing that gave another man The secret of the soil. For he had studied The properties of soils and fertilizers.

And when he heard the field had failed to raise Potatoes, beans and wheat, he simply said: There are other things to raise: the question is Whether the soil is suited to the things He tried to raise, or whether it needs building To raise the things he tried to raise, or whether It must be builded up for anything.

At least he said the field is clear of stumps.

Pa.s.s on your field, he said. If I lose out I'll pa.s.s it on. The field is his, he said Who can make something grow.

And so this field Of waving wheat along which we were driving Was just the very field the scarecrow man Had failed to master, as that other man Had failed to master after him.

Hosea Kept talking of this field as we drove on.

That field, he said, is economical Of men compared with many fields. You see It only used two men. To grub the stumps Took all the scarecrow's strength. That other man Ran off to Oklahoma from this field.

I have known fields that ate a dozen men In country such as this. The field remains And laughs and waits for some one who divines The secret of the field. Some farmers live To prove what can't be done, and narrow down The guess of what is possible. It's right A certain crop should prosper and another Should fail, and when a farmer tries to raise A crop before it's time, he wastes himself And wastes the field to try.

We now were climbing To higher hills and rockier fields. Hosea Had fallen into silence. I was thinking About Sir Galahad, was wondering Which man he was, the scarecrow, or the farmer Who didn't know the seed to sow, or whether He might still prove the farmer raising wheat, Now we were come to give him back the field With all the stumps grubbed out, the secret lying Revealed and ready for the appointed hands.

We pa.s.sed an orchard growing on a knoll And saw a barn perked on a rocky hill, And near the barn a house. Hosea said: "This is Sir Galahad's." We tied the horse.

And we were in the silence of the country At mid-day on a day in June. No bird Was singing, fowl was cackling, cow was lowing, No dog was barking. All was summer stillness.

We crossed a back-yard past a windla.s.s well, Dodged under clothes lines through a place of chips, Walked in a path along the house. I said: "Sir Galahad is ploughing, or perhaps Is mending fences, cutting weeds." It seemed Too bad to come so far and not to find him.

"We'll find him," said Hosea. "Let us sit Under that tree and wait for him."

And then We turned the corner of the house and there Under a tree an old man sat, his head Bowed down upon his breast, locked fast in sleep.

And by his feet a dog half blind and fat Lay dozing, too inert to rise and bark.

Hosea gripped my arm. "Be still" he said.

"Let's ask him where Sir Galahad is," said I.

And then Hosea whispered, "G.o.d forgive me, I had forgotten, you too have forgotten.

The man is old, he's very old. The years Go by unnoticed. Come! Sir Galahad Should sleep and not be waked."

We tip-toed off And hurried back to Alden for the train.

ST. DESERET

You wonder at my bright round eyes, my lips Pressed tightly like a venomous rosette.

Thus do me honor by so much, fond wretch, And praise my Persian beauty, dulcet voice.

But oh you know me, read me, pa.s.sion blinds Your vision not at all, and you have pa.s.sion For me and what I am. How can you be so?