Treasure Valley Part 27

"Well, get him to read to you about Paul; he had some wonderful adventures on the sea. And there's a better story than that there, about some people who were nearly shipwrecked, and a Man on board saved them. And how do you think He did it? Why, He got up and stopped the storm and the waves."

The child nodded. "Daddy read us that one night," he said.

So the Book remained in John McIntyre's shanty, and often, when some other story was finished, the boy would bring it out. The books of Esther and Daniel, the tales of Samson and Gideon, and the wonderful stories of the Savior Himself, all had to be gone over again and again.

And one night John McIntyre read of love's great sacrifice, when the skies grew dark and the earth trembled with the agony of Calvary.

Tim lay on the floor, staring up at the reader. John McIntyre's sorrowful voice had brought home to him some inkling of the stupendousness of that tragedy.

"What did they kill Him for?" he demanded sharply. "He never did anything bad, did He?"

"No." John McIntyre's voice was almost inaudible.

"Couldn't He have stopped them if He had wanted to?"

"Yes," hesitatingly.

"Why didn't He, then?" scornfully.

Why? There had been a day when John McIntyre could have given a ready answer. He would have told the boy it was G.o.d's love and man's great need that held the Savior there; but he had long ceased to believe in that love, and he was silent.

Tim waited a while, and then tried another question. "Where is Jesus now? Is He in Heaven?"

"I suppose so--yes."

"That's where our mother is--an' your boys, too, eh?"

"I suppose so," faltered the man.

"Were they very bad boys?" asked Tim in an awed whisper.

"No." The answer was almost fierce.

"Oh, then they'll be in Heaven for sure, won't they?"

"Yes."

"Are you _dead_ sure?"

"Yes, sure." The man drew a deep breath as he answered.

The boy lay silent, evolving a new question. It came at last.

"Say! all boys and girls have to have mothers, don't they?"

"Yes."

"Then your boys must 'a' had one, too, eh?"

"Yes."

"Is--is she in Heaven, too?"

"Yes, she is." John McIntyre spoke with a defiant firmness that startled the boy.

"You're dead sure about that, ain't you?" he inquired, half admiringly.

"Yes. If there's a heaven, she's there, even if no one else is."

"But ain't there one?" cried Tim eagerly. It would be rather nice to shock Miss Scott on Sunday with the news that there was no such place, backed up by an authority like John McIntyre.

"Yes, there is." The answer was long in coming, but when it did come it sounded final.

Tim was slightly disappointed. "Well," he argued at last, "I guess there oughter be, anyhow, for good people like Mammy and Daddy Sawyer and Dr. Allen and Mr. Scott--eh?"

"I suppose so."

"Why, daddy read about it one night in the Bible. It was a city, he said--aw, shucks! I'd rather it was the country. But it had gold streets, and was all pearls and diamonds and things. Say! find it, will you?"

So the next reading was of the New Jerusalem, the city that had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of G.o.d did lighten it, and the Lamb was the light thereof.

"For there shall be no night there." When John McIntyre came to those words his voice broke, and he closed the Book quickly, as though it hurt him. He had not shed a tear since that day when he and Mary laid their last child in the grave; and a far deeper sorrow had come upon him since; but something shone in his eyes now as he turned his back to the light.

For some minutes Tim lay staring into the fire, and wondering. It was a wild winter night, and the storm came wailing across the Drowned Lands, and shook the old door of the little cabin. But its sorrow-laden notes, that always found an echo in the winter of John McIntyre's lonely heart, spoke to him of something new and wonderful--of that other land where there would be "no more death, neither sorrow nor crying."

"It must be an awful pretty place," Tim ventured at last, rather wistfully. "Say!"--he looked up eagerly--"d'ye s'pose it 'ud be nicer'n Nova Scotia?" His companion did not answer, and he went on: "Our mother's there, 'cause she was good; but if our father's dead, he ain't."

John McIntyre looked down at the child, and Tim nodded his head emphatically. "Oh, but I know he ain't," he said with firm conviction.

"He was so awful bad. Don't you mind I told you? He cheated a lot of other folks, an' got all their money, an' then he ran away, for fear they'd put him in jail. The last time I seen him he come to give ole Mother c.u.mmins money for keepin' us. She was drunk that night, and I sneaked out o' bed an' listened, an' he didn't give her 'nough, an' she yelled at him, an' she says, 'Joseph Symonds, you're a----'

Wha--what's the matter?"

John McIntyre had leaned forward in his chair and was glaring at the boy. "That name!" he cried. "What was your father's name?"

"Symonds--Joseph Symonds," repeated the child, staring. "That's our name, too, an' Joey was called after him."

"Was Fair Hill the place you were born in?"

"Yes. How did you know? It was right beside the ocean----" He paused. The look in John McIntyre's face alarmed him. "Ye--ye ain't goin' to get sick again, are ye?"

He arose and came nearer, and the man drew back, with a gesture of loathing. "Your--father--was Joseph Symonds!" he repeated, dazed.

Tim had a fashion, when he was very much interested in anything his friend was saying, of seizing a b.u.t.ton of the man's coat and twisting it. He took hold of it now, and turned it around and around, gazing at him wonderingly.

"Yes; did ye know him?" he asked, innocently eager.

John McIntyre's clenched hands relaxed. His first impulse had been to hurl far from him the offspring of the scoundrel who had been his ruin.

But one look into the boy's inquiring eyes, gazing at him in perfect faith, rendered him powerless. He let his hand fall heavily upon Tim's shoulder, and holding him back, stared into his wondering face. Line by line he traced resemblances, hitherto unnoticed, to the man he had hated. There was the same pointed chin, the same cunning droop of the eyes. And yet, oh, miracle of love! those very hated features now formed the one thing in the world to which his heart clung. He was overcome by a feeling of utter impotence. Hitherto, his strength had lain in his relentless hatred; and now, what had become of it? It was gone--transformed into another feeling infinitely more potent.

Something of the all-conquering force of love--the impossibility of escape from it--was borne in upon John McIntyre's soul. For an instant the veil of mystery that shrouded human suffering seemed to grow transparent, and behind it shone Divine Love in the agony of Calvary.

Inevitable, all-pervading, like the voice of the Apocalypse thundering from heaven, it spoke: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending."