0,49 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
Ralph Connor's "The Major" is a compelling exploration of personal sacrifice and moral courage set against the backdrop of World War I. Written in a straightforward yet evocative style, the narrative intricately weaves themes of duty, faith, and the human spirit, highlighting the psychological complexities faced by soldiers. Connor adeptly employs rich character development and vivid imagery to illustrate the trials of military life and the inner struggles of those caught in the throes of war, capturing the zeitgeist of early 20th-century literature that sought to address the ethical dilemmas faced by humanity during tumultuous times. Born Charles William Gordon, Ralph Connor was a Canadian novelist and Presbyterian minister whose deep faith and commitment to social justice profoundly shaped his literary voice. Connor lived through the emotional upheavals of the Great War, which informed his poignant writing about heroism and sacrifice. His own experiences and observations offered him a unique perspective on the effects of war, particularly on the moral integrity of individual soldiers, as well as society's broader responsibility in times of conflict. "The Major" is essential reading for those seeking to understand the complexities of soldierly virtue amidst the chaos of war. Connor's ability to blend gripping narrative with profound philosophical questions invites readers to reflect on the nature of courage and commitment. This book is not only a tribute to those who served but also a timeless contemplation on the moral challenges that persist in any era of conflict. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
Ähnliche
The Major
Table of Contents
Introduction
At its core, The Major probes how authority rooted in conscience is tested when public responsibility presses against the claims of private life.
Written by Ralph Connor, the pen name of Canadian author and Presbyterian minister Charles William Gordon, The Major belongs to the current of early twentieth-century popular fiction that joined social drama with moral reflection. Published in the 1910s, it reflects an era preoccupied with citizenship, character, and communal obligation. Readers encounter a world shaped by civic ideals and by the reformist energies that marked the period. While unmistakably a work of narrative entertainment, it participates in a broader conversation about how leaders emerge, how communities cohere, and what costs attend the exercise of influence.
Without disclosing later developments, the novel sets its stage around a figure emblematic of command and responsibility, using that presence to magnetize both admiration and scrutiny. The opening movement introduces a community attentive to reputation, where decisions carry social consequence and private motives rarely remain private for long. The atmosphere is one of gathering pressure rather than spectacle, inviting readers to watch how ordinary scenes—meetings, conversations, domestic moments—acquire weight. The experience promised is not a battlefield chronicle so much as a study of character under strain, observed in the corridors of civic life and the quiet rooms where conscience speaks.
Connor’s style is accessible and forthright, favoring clear lines of action, brisk pacing, and a voice shaped by pulpit-trained cadences. He pairs dialogue-driven scenes with descriptive passages that situate readers in the textures of everyday life—streets, workplaces, parlors—and he keeps the moral stakes legible without reducing people to emblems. The mood alternates between earnestness and uplift, with occasional touches of humor that humanize rather than distract. Readers can expect a narrative that moves decisively from one challenge to the next, building momentum through social encounters and reflective pauses rather than through elaborate subplots or experimental technique.
Themes central to the book include duty, integrity, and the demanding art of leadership in close-knit communities. The Major considers how trust is earned, how it can fray, and what reconciliation requires when competing loyalties intersect. It asks what kind of strength truly serves the common good: command that insists, or service that persuades. Faith—understood as both personal conviction and public ethic—threads through these questions, not as ornament but as a measure of motive. The novel’s interest lies less in victory over opponents than in the interior victories that enable just action: patience, courage, humility, and steadfastness.
Contemporary readers may recognize the book’s concerns in debates about institutional credibility, civic polarization, and the responsibilities that accompany influence. The Major refracts these issues through period settings and manners, offering a historical vantage point from which to consider perennial dilemmas: How should power be used? What do communities owe their most vulnerable members? When does compromise honor principle, and when does it betray it? In showing the personal cost of public service, the novel invites reflection on burnout, resilience, and the sustaining role of shared purpose—questions as urgent now as when early twentieth-century audiences first encountered them.
Approached today, The Major offers a dual reward: a window into the moral imagination of early twentieth-century popular literature and a character-driven narrative that invites careful, sympathetic reading. Those drawn to historical fiction, Canadian writing, or faith-inflected social drama will find a clear, steady voice attentive to the textures of ordinary life and the pressures that define it. Above all, the book proposes that leadership is less a title than a discipline practiced in small decisions that accumulate into public consequence—a claim the story explores with earnestness and narrative verve, while leaving space for readers to weigh its questions for themselves.
Synopsis
Ralph Connor’s The Major opens in a small Canadian community at the outset of the First World War, when everyday routines give way to uncertainty and shared purpose. The narrative introduces a capable, steady figure who rises to informal leadership as neighbors grapple with enlistment, supply drives, and the moral weight of duty. Civic leaders, clergy, and families negotiate practical needs and patriotic hopes, establishing the novel’s focus on character under pressure. The early chapters present town life in careful detail, depicting class, faith, and generational ties while hinting at the looming transformation that military service and distance will bring to those who answer the call.
As mobilization advances, volunteers gather at local depots, and the protagonist’s reliability becomes a binding force among recruits. He puts order to confusion, mediating between discipline and compassion, and his competence attracts official notice. Farewell scenes emphasize community solidarity, while private conversations reveal fears, promises, and expectations for a swift return. The narrative underscores the rapid shift from civilian rhythms to military schedules, uniforms, and commands. By the time the contingent departs, a clear center of gravity has formed around the emerging officer, whose peers and superiors increasingly look to him for judgment, calm, and the practical wisdom needed to guide inexperienced men.
Training camp sequences chart the recruits’ progress from awkward squads to cohesive platoons. The story tracks drills, inspections, and the slow mastery of fieldcraft, mapping how routine instills confidence without erasing individuality. Friendships take shape across lines of region and class, and small frictions test patience and pride. The central figure sets a tone of fairness, shaping accountability and care into a workable ethic. Letters home link barracks life to kitchen tables and prayer meetings, sustaining morale on both sides of the ocean. A quiet courtship thread develops, not as melodrama, but as a reminder that hope persists beyond parades, mud, and early morning reveille.
The unit embarks for Europe by convoy, facing seasickness, drills on deck, and new layers of instruction upon landing in Britain. The text notes contrasts between training grounds and the industrial landscape that feeds the war effort. As the men prepare for the front, the officer refines his leadership, working with medical staff, chaplains, and logisticians to balance readiness with rest. The transfer to the line introduces the trenches: narrow fire steps, duckboards, and the constant background of artillery. Shock gives way to adaptation as the narrative adopts a measured pace, highlighting procedures, rotations, and the small acts that keep men steady under unrelenting strain.
Early operations involve patrols, wiring parties, and the blunt lessons of bombardment. The Major’s task is to read ground, pace risk, and keep communication reliable in confused conditions. He evaluates reports, enforces precautions, and shields his men from avoidable exposure without dulling their initiative. The book emphasizes practical details, from rations to map references, while preserving a clear sense of human stakes. Loss and fatigue are present but not sensationalized. A developing test of judgment arrives as orders tighten and objectives escalate, pushing the unit beyond familiar routines. The chapter sequence edges toward a critical engagement, foregrounding preparation and mutual trust rather than revealing outcomes.
Interleaved chapters return to the home front, where families, civic groups, and churches convert anxiety into organized support. Women assume leadership in relief efforts, factories adapt to new demands, and debates over conscription, sacrifice, and fairness surface without drowning out cooperation. News travels by letter, bulletin, and rumor, shaping expectations and fears. The figure of the Major remains a unifying presence at a distance, his steadiness reflected in the tone of the town’s committees and gatherings. As scarcity and grief accumulate, the narrative shows resilience embedded in ordinary acts, tracing how communities hold their shape through habit, shared work, and a vocabulary of faith and neighborly obligation.
A larger offensive reframes the story’s scale, joining the unit to a broader plan that calls for exact timing and disciplined movement. The Major must translate abstract orders into workable tasks, balancing doctrinal objectives with ground truth. Counsel from veteran noncommissioned officers and cooperation with adjacent units become crucial. Administrative burdens multiply: replacements arrive, stores are short, and the clock compresses judgment. The novel highlights a leadership ethic that values preparation, clear signals, and quiet presence more than heroics. Without disclosing the operational result, the chapters center on choices under pressure that define both personal character and the character of the team assembled around it.
After the offensive, the narrative shifts to billets, hospitals, and roads behind the line, where endurance is measured by recovery and reflection. Men write, clean kit, and absorb the uneven tempo of warfare. The Major visits the wounded, completes reports, and advocates for supplies, training adjustments, and leave. A brief return home, or the possibility of it, underscores the distance between civilian order and military necessity. Conversations turn to purpose, justice, and the burden of command. The book continues to link front and home through parallel concerns, suggesting that repair begins before peace is declared, in habits of care that resist exhaustion and bitterness.
The closing movement gathers these strands into a sober affirmation of service shaped by community ties. The Major’s influence, built through consistent duty and attention to others, remains the novel’s anchoring thread. While avoiding exact outcomes for individuals or campaigns, the narrative presents war as a crucible that clarifies responsibilities rather than erasing ordinary virtues. The book’s message emphasizes disciplined courage, mutual accountability, and the sustaining force of faith and civic fellowship. It concludes on a note of earned hope, recognizing losses while asserting that integrity, once formed in common labor, can outlast crisis and guide the work of rebuilding.
Historical Context
Ralph Connor’s The Major is set against the upheavals of the First World War era (1914–1918), moving between Canadian communities—often prairie towns oriented to Winnipeg, Calgary, and the wheat belt—and imperial military spaces in Britain and France. The atmosphere is one of brisk mobilization and moral urgency: recruiting meetings in church halls, training grounds like Valcartier Camp in Quebec and Shorncliffe in Kent, and the discipline of the Canadian Expeditionary Force before embarkation to the Western Front. The novel’s social world reflects Presbyterian parish life, civic boosterism, and the wartime economy, where duty, temperance, and imperial loyalty frame personal decisions about service, sacrifice, and leadership.
The outbreak of war in August 1914 catalyzed Canada’s rapid mobilization. Under Minister of Militia Sam Hughes, the government assembled the First Contingent—about 32,000 men—at Valcartier, near Quebec City, within weeks. Troops sailed to Britain in October 1914 for training on Salisbury Plain, with reinforcement depots later centered at Shorncliffe. The early war emphasized volunteerism, patriotic fundraising, and the coordination of churches and civic groups to support soldiers. The Major mirrors this moment by dramatizing calls to service, the conferral of rank as a moral as well as military trust, and the convergence of local identities into a broadly imperial Canadian purpose.
The Canadian Corps’ baptism of fire at the Second Battle of Ypres (April–May 1915) shaped national memory. When German forces released chlorine gas near Gravenstafel and St. Julien, Canadian units improvised countermeasures and held portions of the line amid heavy casualties—over 6,000 Canadian casualties in the engagement. This episode became emblematic of endurance under sudden, modern horror. The Major channels this legacy by stressing stoic leadership, the strain on junior and field officers, and the dawning recognition that industrialized warfare demanded new forms of discipline, coordination, and care for traumatized men returning to parishes and towns.
The Somme (September–November 1916) and Vimy Ridge (April 9–12, 1917) were decisive in forging the Canadian Corps’ reputation. At the Somme—Courcelette, Regina Trench, and Ancre Heights—Canada suffered roughly 24,000 casualties while learning hard lessons in combined arms. At Vimy, all four Canadian divisions, under Lt.-Gen. Julian Byng with divisional leaders including Arthur Currie, captured the ridge through meticulous planning, tunneling, and the creeping barrage; casualties totaled about 10,600, including 3,598 killed. The Major reflects this transition to professionalism: preparation replaces bravado, promotion connotes responsibility under fire, and victory is measured against grievous loss and duty to the ranks.
Passchendaele (October–November 1917) tested the Corps in appalling mud and attrition. General Arthur Currie anticipated losses of 16,000; actual Canadian casualties reached roughly 15,600 in seizing Passchendaele village by November 6. The battle underscored the human cost of set-piece offensives and the moral calculus borne by commanders. The Major resonates with these tensions, exploring the burden of rank—the eponymous major’s obligations to men, the weight of orders amid imperfect information, and the uneasy balance between obedience to imperial strategy and the pastoral impulse, rooted in churches at home, to safeguard life and dignity wherever possible.
The Conscription Crisis of 1917 exposed fissures in Canadian society. Prime Minister Robert Borden’s Military Service Act (August 29, 1917) imposed compulsory service amid dwindling volunteers, while the Wartime Elections Act (September 1917) extended the federal franchise to female relatives of soldiers and disenfranchised many deemed “enemy aliens.” The Union government’s December 1917 victory did not end strife; the Quebec City “Easter Riots” (March 28–April 1, 1918) left four dead and scores injured. The Major engages this turmoil through characters negotiating duty, conscience, and community pressures, depicting how parishes and families wrestled with loyalty, language, and the ethics of compelling service.
Wartime moral reform blended the Social Gospel with temperance and women’s mobilization. Provinces enacted prohibition—Manitoba (1916), Alberta (1916), Saskatchewan (1916), Ontario (1916), Nova Scotia (1916), New Brunswick (1917), British Columbia (1917)—and the federal government instituted national wartime prohibition in 1918. Women’s political rights advanced through the Wartime Elections Act (1917) and federal suffrage in 1918, building on provincial victories such as Manitoba (January 1916) and Alberta (April 1916). Churches and chaplains organized relief, comforts, and moral welfare. The Major reflects this matrix of reform: Presbyterian ethics shape officers’ conduct, women’s civic labor sustains communities, and sobriety is framed as patriotic discipline in wartime.
As social and political critique, the book interrogates the costs of imperial war on local communities, exposing class privilege, recruitment inequities, and the emotional toll that patriotic rhetoric can conceal. It questions the justice of policies that fracture families—conscription, wartime disenfranchisement—while praising forms of leadership accountable to ordinary soldiers. By dramatizing temperance and Social Gospel ideals alongside battlefield necessity, it critiques profiteering, moral laxity, and the casual sacrifice of lives to prestige. The Major thus frames rank as service rather than status, urging a civic ethic responsive to grief, cross-class solidarity, and the ethical limits of state and empire in crisis.
The Major
CHAPTER I
THE COWARD
Spring had come. Despite the many wet and gusty days which April had thrust in rude challenge upon reluctant May, in the glory of the triumphant sun which flooded the concave blue of heaven and the myriad shaded green of earth, the whole world knew to-day, the whole world proclaimed that spring had come. The yearly miracle had been performed. The leaves of the maple trees lining the village street unbound from their winter casings, the violets that lifted brave blue eyes from the vivid grass carpeting the roadside banks, the cherry and plum blossoms in the orchards decking the still leafless trees with their pink and white favours, the timid grain tingeing with green the brown fields that ran up to the village street on every side—all shouted in chorus that spring had come. And all the things with new blood running wild in their veins, the lambs of a few days still wobbly on ridiculous legs skipping over and upon the huge boulders in farmer Martin's meadow, the birds thronging the orchard trees, the humming insects rioting in the genial sun, all of them gave token of strange new impulses calling for something more than mere living because spring had come.
Upon the topmost tip of the taller of the twin poplars that flanked the picket gate opening upon the Gwynnes' little garden sat a robin, his head thrown back to give full throat to the song that was like to burst his heart, monotonous, unceasing, rapturous. On the door step of the Gwynnes' house, arrested on the threshold by the robin's song, stood the Gwynne boy of ten years, his eager face uplifted, himself poised like a bird for flight.
“Law-r-ence,” clear as a bird call came the voice from within.
“Mo-th-er,” rang the boy's voice in reply, high, joyous and shrill.
“Ear-ly! Remember!”
“Ri-ght a-way af-ter school. Good-bye, mo-ther, dear,” called the boy.
“W-a-i-t,” came the clear, birdlike call again, and in a moment the mother came running, stood beside the boy, and followed his eye to the robin on the poplar tree. “A brave little bird,” she said. “That is the way to meet the day, with a brave heart and a bright song[1q]. Goodbye, boy.” She kissed him as she spoke, giving him a slight pat on the shoulder. “Away you go.”
But the boy stood fascinated by the bird so gallantly facing his day. His mother's words awoke in him a strange feeling. “A brave heart and a bright song”—so the knights in the brave days of old, according to his Stories of the Round Table, were wont to go forth. In imitation of the bird, the boy threw back his head, and with another cheery good-bye to his mother, sprang clear of the steps and ran down the grass edged path, through the gate and out onto the village street. There he stood first looking up the country road which in the village became a street. There was nothing to be seen except that in the Martin orchard “Ol' Martin” was working with his team under the trees which came in rows down to the road. Finding nothing to interest him there, he turned toward the village and his eyes searched the street. Opposite the Gwynnes' gate, Dr. Bush's house stood back among the trees, but there was no sign of life about it. Further down on the same side of the street, the Widow Martin's cottage, with porch vine covered and windows bright with flowers, hid itself under a great spreading maple. In front of the cottage the Widow Martin herself was busy in the garden. He liked the Widow Martin but found her not sufficiently exciting to hold him this spring morning. A vacant lot or two and still on the same side came the blacksmith's shop just at the crossroads, and across the street from it his father's store. But neither at the blacksmith's shop nor at the store across from it was there anything to awaken even a passing interest. Some farmers' teams and dogs, Pat Larkin's milk wagon with its load of great cans on its way to the cheese factory and some stray villagers here and there upon the street intent upon their business. Up the street his eye travelled beyond the crossroads where stood on the left Cheatley's butcher shop and on the right McKenny's hotel with attached sheds and outhouses. Over the bridge and up the hill the street went straight away, past the stone built Episcopal Church whose spire lifted itself above the maple trees, past the Rectory, solid, square and built of stone, past the mill standing on the right back from the street beside the dam, over the hill, and so disappeared. The whole village seemed asleep and dreaming among its maple trees in the bright sunlight.
Throwing another glance at the robin still singing on the treetop overhead, the boy took from his pocket a mouth-organ, threw back his head, squared his elbows out from his sides to give him the lung room he needed, and in obedience to a sharp word of command after a preliminary tum, tum, tum, struck up the ancient triumph hymn in memory of that hero of the underground railroad[1] by which so many slaves of the South in bygone days made their escape “up No'th” to Canada and to freedom.
“Glory, glory, hallelujah, his soul goes marching on.” By means of “double-tongueing[2],” a recently acquired accomplishment, he was able to give a full brass band effect to his hymn of freedom. Many villagers from door or window cast a kindly and admiring eye upon the gallant little figure stepping to his own music down the street. He was brass band, conductor, brigadier general all in one, and behind him marched an army of heroes off for war and deathless glory, invisible and invincible. To the Widow Martin as he swung past the leader flung a wave of his hand. With a tender light in her old eyes the Widow Martin waved back at him. “God bless his bright face,” she murmured, pausing in her work to watch the upright little figure as he passed along. At the blacksmith's shop the band paused.
The conductor graduated the tempo so as to include the rhythmic beat of the hammer with the other instruments in his band. The blacksmith looked, smiled and let his hammer fall in consonance with the beat of the boy's hand, and for some moments there was glorious harmony between anvil and mouth organ and the band invisible. At the store door across the street the band paused long enough simply to give and receive an answering salute from the storekeeper, who smiled upon his boy as he marched past. At the crossroads the band paused, marking time. There was evidently a momentary uncertainty in the leader's mind as to direction. The road to the right led straight, direct, but treeless, dusty, uninviting, to the school. It held no lure for the leader and his knightly following. Further on a path led in a curve under shady trees and away from the street. It made the way to school longer, but the lure of the curving, shady path was irresistible. Still stepping bravely to the old abolitionist hymn, the procession moved along, swung into the path under the trees and suddenly came to a halt. With a magnificent flourish the band concluded its triumphant hymn and with the conductor and brigadier the whole brigade stood rigidly at attention. The cause of this sudden halt was to be seen at the foot of a maple tree in the person of a fat lump of good natured boy flesh supine upon the ground.
“Hello, Joe; coming to school?”
“Ugh,” grunted Joe, from the repose of limitless calm.
“Come on, then, quick, march.” Once more the band struck up its hymn.
“Hol' on, Larry, it's plenty tam again,” said Joe. The band came to a stop. “I don' lak dat school me,” he continued, still immersed in calm.
Joe's struggles with an English education were indeed tragically pathetic. His attempts with aspirates were a continual humiliation to himself and a joy to the whole school. No wonder he “no lak dat school.” Besides, Joe was a creature of the open fields. His French Canadian father, Joe Gagneau, “Ol' Joe,” was a survival of a bygone age, the glorious golden age of the river and the bush, of the shanty and the raft, of the axe and the gun, the age of Canadian romance, of daring deed, of wild adventure.
“An' it ees half-hour too queek,” persisted Joe. “Come on hup to de dam.” A little worn path invited their feet from the curving road, and following their feet, they found themselves upon a steep embankment which dammed the waters into a pond that formed the driving power for the grist mill standing near. At the farther end of the pond a cedar bush interposed a barrier to the sight and suggested mysterious things beyond. Back of the cedar barrier a woods of great trees, spruce, balsam, with tall elms and maples on the higher ground beyond, offered deeper mysteries and delights unutterable. They knew well the cedar swamp and the woods beyond. Partridges drummed there, rabbits darted along their beaten runways, and Joe had seen a woodcock, that shyest of all shy birds, disappear in glancing, shadowy flight, a ghostly, silent denizen of the ghostly, silent spaces of the forest. Even as they gazed upon that inviting line of woods, the boys could see and hear the bluejays flash in swift flight from tree to tree and scream their joy of rage and love. From the farther side of the pond two boys put out in a flat-bottomed boat.
“There's big Ben and Mop,” cried Larry eagerly. “Hello, Ben,” he called across the pond. “Goin' to school?”
“Yap,” cried Mop, so denominated from the quantity and cut of the hair that crowned his head. Ben was at the oars which creaked and thumped between the pins, but were steadily driving the snub-nosed craft on its toilsome way past the boys.
“Hello, Ben,” cried Larry. “Take us in too.”
“All right,” said Ben, heading the boat for the bank. “Let me take an oar, Ben,” said Larry, whose experience upon the world of waters was not any too wide.
“Here, where you goin',” cried Mop, as the boat slowly but surely pointed toward the cedars. “You stop pulling, Ben. Now, Larry, pull around again. There now, she's right. Pull, Ben.” But Ben sat rigid with his eyes intent upon the cedars.
“What's the matter, Ben?” said Larry. Still Ben sat with fixed gaze.
“By gum, he's in, boys,” said Ben in a low voice. “I thought he had his nest in one of them stubs.”
“What is it—in what stub?” inquired Larry, his voice shrill with excitement.
“That big middle stub, there,” said Ben. “It's a woodpecker. Say, let's pull down and see it.” Under Mop's direction the old scow gradually made its way toward the big stub.
They explored the stub, finding in it a hole and in the hole a nest, the mother and father woodpeckers meanwhile flying in wild agitation from stub to stub and protesting with shrill cries against the intruders. Then they each must climb up and feel the eggs lying soft and snug in their comfy cavity. After that they all must discuss the probable time of hatching, the likelihood of there being other nests in other stubs which they proceeded to visit. So the eager moments gaily passed into minutes all unheeded, till inevitable recollection dragged them back from the world of adventure and romance to that of stern duty and dull toil.
“Say, boys, we'll be late,” cried Larry, in sudden panic, seizing his oar. “Come on, Ben, let's go.”
“I guess it's pretty late now,” replied Ben, slowly taking up his oar.
“Dat bell, I hear him long tam,” said Joe placidly. “Oh, Joe!” cried Larry in distress. “Why didn't you tell us?”
Joe shrugged his shoulders. He was his own master and superbly indifferent to the flight of time. With him attendance at school was a thing of more or less incidental obligation.
“We'll catch it all right,” said Mop with dark foreboding. “He was awful mad last time and said he'd lick any one who came late again and keep him in for noon too.”
The prospect was sufficiently gloomy.
“Aw, let's hurry up anyway,” cried Larry, who during his school career had achieved a perfect record for prompt and punctual attendance.
In ever deepening dejection the discussion proceeded until at length Mop came forward with a daring suggestion.
“Say, boys, let's wait until noon. He won't notice anything. We can easily fool him.”
This brought no comfort to Larry, however, whose previous virtues would only render this lapse the more conspicuous. A suggestion of Joe's turned the scale.
“Dat woodchuck,” he said, “he's got one hole on de hill by dere. He's big feller. We dron heem out.”
“Come on, let's,” cried Mop. “It will be awful fun to drown the beggar out.”
“Guess we can't do much this morning, anyway,” said Ben, philosophically making the best of a bad job. “Let's go, Larry.” And much against his will, but seeing no way out of the dilemma, Larry agreed.
They explored the woodchuck hole, failing to drown out that cunning subterranean architect who apparently had provided lines of retreat for just such emergencies as confronted him now. Wearied of the woodchuck, they ranged the bush seeking and finding the nests of bluejays and of woodpeckers, and in a gravel pit those of the sand martens. Joe led them to the haunts of the woodcock, but that shy bird they failed to glimpse. Long before the noon hour they felt the need of sustenance and found that Larry's lunch divided among the four went but a small way in satisfying their pangs of hunger. The other three, carefree and unconcerned for what the future might hold, roamed the woods during the afternoon, but to Larry what in other circumstances would have been a day of unalloyed joy, brought him only a present misery and a dread for the future. The question of school for the afternoon was only mentioned to be dismissed. They were too dirty and muddy to venture into the presence of the master. Consequently the obvious course was to wait until four o'clock when joining the other children they might slip home unnoticed.
The afternoon soon began to lag. The woods had lost their first glamour. Their games grew to be burdensome. They were weary and hungry, and becoming correspondingly brittle in temper. Already Nemesis was on their trail. Sick at heart and weighted with forebodings, Larry listened to the plans of the other boys by which they expected to elude the consequences of their truancy. In the discussion of their plans Larry took no part. They offered him no hope. He knew that if he were prepared to lie, as they had cheerfully decided, his simple word would carry him through at home. But there the difficulty arose. Was he willing to lie? He had never lied to his mother in all his life. He visualised her face as she listened to him recounting his falsified tale of the day's doings and unconsciously he groaned aloud.
“What's the matter with you, Larry?” inquired Mop, noticing his pale face.
“Oh, nothing; it's getting a little cold, I guess.”
“Cold!” laughed Mop. “I guess you're getting scared all right.”
To this Larry made no reply. He was too miserable, too tired to explain his state of mind. He was doubtful whether he could explain to Mop or to Joe his unwillingness to lie to his mother.
“It don't take much to scare you anyway,” said Mop with an ugly grin.
The situation was not without its anxieties to Mop, for while he felt fairly confident as to his ability to meet successfully his mother's cross examination, there was always a possibility of his father's taking a hand, and that filled him with a real dismay. For Mr. Sam Cheatley, the village butcher, was a man of violent temper, hasty in his judgments and merciless in his punishment. There was a possibility of unhappy consequences for Mop in spite of his practiced ability in deception. Hence his nerves were set a-jangling, and his temper, never very certain, was rather on edge. The pale face of the little boy annoyed him, and the little whimsical smile which never quite left his face confronted him like an insult.
“You're scared,” reiterated Mop with increasing contempt, “and you know you're scared. You ain't got any spunk anyway. You ain't got the spunk of a louse.” With a quick grip he caught the boy by the collar (he was almost twice Larry's size), and with a jerk landed him on his back in a brush heap. The fall brought Larry no physical hurt, but the laughter of Joe and especially of big Ben, who in his eyes was something of a hero, wounded and humiliated him. The little smile, however, did not leave his face and he picked himself up and settled his coat about his collar.
“You ain't no good anyway,” continued Mop, with the native instinct of the bully to worry his victim. “You can't play nothin' and you can't lick nobody in the whole school.”
Both of these charges Larry felt were true. He was not fond of games and never had he experienced a desire to win fame as a fighter.
“Aw, let him alone, can't you, Mop?” said big Ben. “He ain't hurtin' you none.”
“Hurtin' me,” cried Mop, who for some unaccountable reason had worked himself into a rage. “He couldn't hurt me if he tried. I could lick him on my knees with one hand behind my back. I believe Joe there could lick him with one hand tied behind his back.”
“I bet he can't,” said Ben, measuring Larry with his eye and desiring to defend him from this degrading accusation. “I bet he'd put up a pretty fine scrap,” continued Ben, “if he had to.” Larry's heart warmed to his champion.
“Yes, if he had to,” replied Mop with a sneer. “But he would never have to. He wouldn't fight a flea. Joe can lick him with one hand, can't you, Joe?”
“I donno. I don' want fight me,” said Joe.
“No, I know you don't want to, but you could, couldn't you?” persisted Mop. Joe shrugged his shoulders. “Ha, I told you so. Hurrah for my man,” cried Mop, clapping Joe on the back and pushing him toward Larry.
Ben began to scent sport. He was also conscious of a rising resentment against Mop's exultant tone and manner.
“I bet you,” he said, “if Larry wanted to, he could lick Joe even if he had both hands, but if Joe's one hand is tied behind his back, why Larry would just whale the tar out of him. But Larry does not want to fight.”
“No,” jeered Mop, “you bet he don't, he ain't got it in him. I bet you he daren't knock a chip off Joe's shoulder, and I will tie Joe's hand behind his back with his belt. Now there he is, bring your man on. There's a chip on his shoulder too.”
Larry looked at Joe, the little smile still on his face. “I don't want to fight Joe. What would I fight Joe for?” he said.
“I told you so,” cried Mop, dancing about. “He ain't got no fight in him.
Ben looked critically at Larry as if appraising the quality of his soul. “Joe can't lick you with one hand tied behind his back, can he, Larry?”
“I don't want to fight Joe,” persisted Larry still smiling.
“Ya, ya,” persisted Mop. “Here, Joe, you knock this chip off Larry's shoulder.” Mop placed the gauge of battle on Larry's shoulder. “Go ahead, Joe.”
To Joe a fight with a friend or a foe was an event of common occurrence. With even a more dangerous opponent than Larry he would not have hesitated. For to decline a fight was with Joe utterly despicable. So placing himself in readiness for the blow that should have been the inevitable consequence, he knocked the chip off Larry's shoulder. Still Larry smiled at him.
“Aw, your man's no good. He won't fight,” cried Mop with unspeakable disgust. “I told you he wouldn't fight. Do you know why he won't fight? His mother belongs to that people, them Quakers, that won't fight for anything. He's a coward an' his mother's a coward before him.”
The smile faded from Larry's lips. His face which had been pale flamed a quick red, then as quickly became dead white. He turned from Joe and looked at the boy who was tormenting him. Mop was at least four years older, strongly and heavily built. For a moment Larry stood as though estimating Mop's fighting qualities. Then apparently making up his mind that on ordinary terms, owing to his lack in size and in strength, he was quite unequal to his foe, he looked quickly about him and his eye fell upon a stout and serviceable beechwood stake. With quiet deliberation he seized the club and began walking slowly toward Mop, his eyes glittering as if with madness, his face white as that of the dead. So terrifying was his appearance that Mop began to back away. “Here you, look out,” he cried, “I will smash you.” But Larry still moved steadily upon him. His white face, his burning eyes, his steady advance was more than Mop could endure. His courage broke. He turned and incontinently fled. Whirling the stick over his head, Larry flung the club with all his might after him. The club caught the fleeing Mop fairly between the shoulders. At the same time his foot caught a root. Down he went upon his face, uttering cries of deadly terror.
“Keep him off, keep him off. He will kill me, he will kill me.”
But Larry having shot his bolt ignored his fallen enemy, and without a glance at him, or at either of the other boys, or without a word to any of them, he walked away through the wood, and deaf to their calling disappeared through the cedar swamp and made straight for home and to his mother. With even, passionless voice, with almost no sign of penitence, he told her the story of the day's truancy.
As her discriminating eye was quick in discerning his penitence, so her forgiveness was quick in meeting his sin. But though her forgiveness brought the boy a certain measure of relief he seemed almost to take it for granted, and there still remained on his face a look of pain and of more than pain that puzzled his mother. He seemed to be in a maze of uncertainty and doubt and fear. His mother could not understand his distress, for Larry had told her nothing of his encounter with Mop. Throughout the evening there pounded through the boy's memory the terrible words, “He is a coward and his mother is a coward before him.” Through his father's prayer at evening worship those words continued to beat upon his brain. He tried to prepare his school lessons for the day following, but upon the page before his eyes the same words took shape. He could not analyse his unutterable sense of shame. He had been afraid to fight. He knew he was a coward, but there was a deeper shame in which his mother was involved. She was a Quaker, he knew, and he had a more or less vague idea that Quakers would not fight. Was she then a coward? That any reflection should be made upon his mother stabbed him to the heart. Again and again Mop's sneering, grinning face appeared before his eyes. He felt that he could have gladly killed him in the woods, but after all, the paralysing thought ever recurred that what Mop said was true. His mother was a coward! He put his head down upon his books and groaned aloud.
“What is it, dear?” inquired his mother.
“I am going to bed, mother,” he said.
“Is your head bad?” she asked.
“No, no, mother. It is nothing. I am tired,” he said, and went upstairs.
Before she went to sleep the mother, as was her custom, looked in upon him. The boy was lying upon his face with his arms flung over his head, and when she turned him over to an easier position, on the pillow and on his cheeks were the marks of tears. Gently she pushed back the thick, black, wavy locks from his forehead, and kissed him once and again. The boy turned his face toward her. A long sobbing sigh came from his parted lips. He opened his eyes.
“That you, mother?” he asked, the old whimsical smile at his lips. “Good-night.”
He settled down into the clothes and in a moment was fast asleep. The mother stood looking down upon her boy. He had not told her his trouble, but her touch had brought him comfort, and for the rest she was content to wait.
CHAPTER II
A FIGHT FOR FREEDOM
The village schoolhouse was packed to the door. Over the crowded forms there fell a murky light from the smoky swinging lamp that left dark unexplored depths in the corners of the room. On the walls hung dilapidated maps at angles suggesting the interior of a ship's cabin during a storm, or a party of revellers, returning homeward, after the night before, gravely hilarious. Behind the platform a blackboard, cracked into irregular spaces, preserved the mental processes of the pupils during their working hours, and in sharp contrast to these the terribly depressing perfection of the teacher's exemplar in penmanship, which reminded the self-complacent slacker that “Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.”
It was an evangelistic meeting. Behind the table, his face illumined by the lamp thereon, stood a man turning over the leaves of a hymn book. His aspect suggested a soul, gentle, mild and somewhat abstracted from its material environment. The lofty forehead gave promise of an idealism capable of high courage, indeed of sacrifice—a promise, however, belied somewhat by an irresolute chin partly hidden by a straggling beard. But the face was sincere and tenderly human. At his side upon the platform sat his wife behind a little portable organ, her face equally gentle, sincere and irresolute.
The assembly—with the extraordinary patience that characterises public assemblies—waited for the opening of the meeting, following with attentive eyes the vague and trifling movements of the man at the table. Occasionally there was a rumble of deep voices in conversation, and in the dark corners subdued laughter—while on the front benches the animated and giggling whispering of three little girls tended to relieve the hour from an almost superhuman gravity.
At length with a sudden acquisition of resolution the evangelist glanced at his watch, rose, and catching up a bundle of hymn books from the table thrust them with unnecessary energy into the hands of a boy who sat on the side bench beside his mother. The boy was Lawrence Gwynne.
“Take these,” said the man, “and distribute them, please.”
Lawrence taken thus by surprise paled, then flushed a quick red. He glanced up at his mother and at her slight nod took the books and distributed them among the audience on one side of the room while the evangelist took the other. As the lad passed from bench to bench with his books he was greeted with jocular and slightly jeering remarks in undertone by the younger members of the company, which had the effect of obviously increasing the ineptitude of his thin nervous fingers, but could not quite dispel the whimsical smile that lingered about the corners of his mouth and glanced from the corners of his grey-blue eyes.
The meeting opened with the singing of a popular hymn which carried a refrain catchy enough but running to doggerel. Another hymn followed and another. Then abruptly the evangelist announced,
“Now we shall have a truly GREAT hymn, a hymn you must sing in a truly great way, in what we call the grand style, number three hundred and sixty-seven.”
Then in a voice, deep, thrilling, vibrant with a noble emotion, he read the words:
They sang the verse, and when they had finished he stood looking at them in silence for a moment or two, then announced solemnly:
“Friends[4], that will not do for this hymn. Sing it with your hearts. Listen to me.”
Then he sang a verse in a deep, strong baritone.
“Now try.”
Timidly they obeyed him.
“No, no, not at all,” he shouted at them. “Listen.”
Again with exquisitely distinct articulation and in a tone rich in emotion and carrying in it the noble, penetrating pathos of the great words in which is embodied the passion of that heart subduing world tragedy. He would not let them try it again, but alone sang the hymn to the end. By the spell of his voice he had gripped them by the heart. The giggling girls in the front seat sat gazing at him with open mouths and lifted eyes. From every corner of the room faces once dull were filled with a great expectant look.
“You will never sing those words as you should,” he cried, “until you know and feel the glory of that wondrous cross. Never, never, never.” His voice rose in a passionate crescendo.
After he had finished singing the last great verse, he let his eyes wander over the benches until they rested upon the face of the lad on the side bench near him.
“Aha, boy,” he cried. “You can sing those words. Try that last verse.”
The boy stared, fascinated, at him.
“Sing the last verse, boy,” commanded the evangelist, “sing.”
As if impelled by another will than his own, the boy slowly, with his eyes still fastened on the man's face, threw back his head and began to sing. His voice rose, full, strong, in a quaint imitation in method of articulation and in voice production of the evangelist himself. At the third line of the verse the evangelist joined in great massive tones, beating time vigorously in a rallentando.
The effect was a great emotional climax, the spiritual atmosphere was charged with fervour. The people sat rigid, fixed in their places, incapable of motion, until released by the invitation of the leader, “Let us pray.” The boy seemed to wake as from a sleep, glanced at his mother, then at the faces of the people in the room, sat down, and quickly covered his face with his hands and so remained during the prayer.
The dramatic effect of the singing was gradually dispelled in the prayer and in a Scripture reading which followed. By the time the leader was about to begin his address, the people had almost relapsed into their normal mental and spiritual condition of benevolent neutrality. A second time a text was announced, when abruptly the door opened and up the aisle, with portentous impressiveness as of a stately ocean liner coming to berth, a man advanced whose presence seemed to fill the room and give it the feeling of being unpleasantly crowded. A buzz went through the seats. “The Rector! The Rector!” The evangelist gazed upon the approaching form and stood as if incapable of proceeding until this impressive personage should come to rest. Deliberately the Rector advanced to the side bench upon which Larry and his mother were seated, and slowly swinging into position calmly viewed the man upon the platform, the woman at the organ, the audience filling the room and then definitely came to anchor upon the bench.
The preacher waited until this manoeuvre had been successfully accomplished, coughed nervously, made as if to move in the direction of the important personage on the side bench, hesitated, and finally with an air of embarrassment once more announced his text. At once the Rector was upon his feet.
“Will you pardon me, sir,” he began with elaborate politeness. “Do I understand you're a clergyman?”
“Oh, no, sir,” replied the evangelist, “just a plain preacher.”
“You are not in any Holy Orders then?”
“Oh, no, sir.”
“Are you an ordained or accredited minister of any of the—ah—dissenting bodies?”
“Not exactly, sir.”
“Then, sir,” demanded the Rector, “may I ask by what authority you presume to exercise the functions of the holy ministry and in my parish?”
“Well—really—sir, I do not know why I—”
“Then, sir, let me tell you this will not be permitted,” said the Rector sternly. “There are regularly ordained and accredited ministers of the Church and of all religious bodies represented in this neighbourhood, and your ministrations are not required.”
“But surely, sir,” said the evangelist hurriedly as if anxious to get in a word, “I may be permitted in this free country to preach the Gospel.”
“Sir, there are regularly ordained and approved ministers of the Gospel who are quite capable of performing this duty. I won't have it, sir. I must protect these people from unlicensed, unregulated—ah—persons, of whose character and antecedents we have no knowledge. Pray, sir,” cried the Rector, taking a step toward the man on the platform, “whom do you represent?”
The evangelist drew himself up quietly and said, “My Lord and Master, sir. May I ask whom do you represent?”
It was a deadly thrust. For the first time during the encounter the Rector palpably gave ground.
“Eh? Ah—sir—I—ah—ahem—my standing in this community is perfectly assured as an ordained clergyman of the Church of England in Canada. Have you any organisation or church, any organised Christian body to which you adhere and to which you are responsible?”
“Yes.”
“What is that body?”
“The Church of Christ—the body of believers.”
“Is that an organised body with ordained ministers and holy sacraments?”
“We do not believe in a paid ministry with special privileges and powers,” said the evangelist. “We believe that every disciple has a right to preach the glorious Gospel.”
“Ah, then you receive no support from any source in this ministry of yours?”
The evangelist hesitated. “I receive no salary, sir.”
“No support?”
“I receive no regular salary,” reiterated the evangelist.
“Do not quibble, sir,” said the Rector sternly. “Do you receive any financial support from any source whatever in your mission about the country?”
“I receive—” began the evangelist.
“Do you or do you not?” thundered the Rector.
“I was about to say that my expenses are paid by my society.”
“Thank you, no more need be said. These people can judge for themselves.”
“I am willing that they should judge, but I remind you that there is another Judge.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the Rector with portentous solemnity, “there is, before whom both you and I must stand.”
“And now then,” said the evangelist, taking up the Bible, “we may proceed with our meeting.”
“No, sir,” replied the Rector, stepping upon the platform. “I will not permit it.”
“You have no right to—”
“I have every right to protect this community from heretical and disingenuous, not to say dishonest, persons.”
“You call me dishonest?”
“I said disingenuous.”
The evangelist turned toward the audience. “I protest against this intrusion upon this meeting. I appeal to the audience for British fair play.”
Murmurs were heard from the audience and subdued signs of approval. The Rector glanced upon the people.
“Fair play,” he cried, “you will get as will any man who appears properly accredited and properly qualified to proclaim the Gospel, but in the name of this Christian community, I will prevent the exploitation of an unwary and trusting people.”
“Liberty of speech!” called a voice from a dark corner.
“Liberty of speech,” roared the Rector. “Who of you wants liberty of speech? Let him stand forth.”
There followed a strained and breathless silence. The champion of free speech retreated behind his discretion.
“Ah, I thought so,” said the Rector in grim contempt.
But even as he spoke a quiet voice invaded the tense silence like a bell in a quiet night. It was Mrs. Gwynne, her slight girlish figure standing quietly erect, her face glowing as with an inner light, her eyes resting in calm fearlessness upon the Rector's heated countenance.
“Sir,” she said, “my conscience will not permit me to sit in silence in the presence of what I feel to be an infringement of the rights of free people. I venture very humbly to protest against this injustice, and to say that this gentleman has a right to be heard.”
An even more intense silence fell upon the people. The Rector stood speechless, gazing upon the little woman who had thus broken every tradition of the community in lifting her voice in a public assembly and who had dared to challenge the authority of one who for nearly twenty years had been recognised as the autocrat of the village and of the whole countryside. But the Rector was an alert and gallant fighter. He quickly recovered his poise.
“If Mrs. Gwynne, our good friend and neighbour, desires to address this meeting,” he said with a courteous and elaborate bow, “and I am sure by training and tradition she is quite capable of doing so, I am confident that all of us will be delighted to listen to her. But the question in hand is not quite so simple as she imagines. It is—”
“Liberty of speech,” said the voice again from the dark corner.
The Rector wheeled fiercely in the direction from which the interruption came.
“Who speaks,” he cried; “why does he shrink into the darkness? Let him come forth.”
Again discretion held the interrupter silent.
“As for you—you, sir,” continued the Rector, turning upon the evangelist, “if you desire—”
But at this point there was a sudden commotion from the opposite side of the room. A quaint dwarfish figure, crippled but full of vigour, stumped up to the platform.
“My son,” he said, grandly waving the Rector to one side, “allow me, my son. You have done well. Now I shall deal with this gentleman.”
The owner of the misshapen body had a noble head, a face marked with intellectual quality, but the glitter in the large blue eye told the same tale of mental anarchy. Startled and astonished, the evangelist backed away from the extraordinary creature that continued to advance upon him.
“Sir,” cried the dwarf, “by what right do you proclaim the divine message to your fellowmen? Have you known the cross, have you felt the piercing crown, do you bear upon your body the mark of the spear?” At this with a swift upward hitch of his shirt the dwarf exposed his bare side. The evangelist continued to back away from his new assailant, who continued vigorously to follow him up. The youngsters in the crowd broke into laughter. The scene passed swiftly from tragedy to farce. At this point the Rector interposed.
“Come, come, John,” he said, laying a firm, but gentle, hand upon the dwarf's shoulder. “That will do now. He is perfectly harmless, sir,” he said, addressing the evangelist. Then turning to the audience, “I think we may dismiss this meeting,” and, raising his hands, he pronounced the benediction, and the people dispersed in disorder.
With a strained “Good-night, sir,” to the evangelist and a courteous bow to Mrs. Gwynne, the Rector followed the people, leaving the evangelist and his wife behind packing up their hymn books and organ, their faces only too clearly showing the distress which they felt. Mrs. Gwynne moved toward them.
“I am truly grieved,” she said, addressing the evangelist, “that you were not given an opportunity to deliver your message.”
“What a terrible creature that is,” he exclaimed in a tone indicating nervous anxiety.
“Oh, you mean poor John?” said Mrs. Gwynne. “The poor man is quite harmless. He became excited with the unusual character of the meeting. He will disturb you no more.”
“I fear it is useless,” said the evangelist. “I cannot continue in the face of this opposition.”
“It may be difficult, but not useless,” replied Mrs. Gwynne, the light of battle glowing in her grey eyes.
“Ah, I do not know. It may not be wise to stir up bad feeling in a community, to bring the name of religion into disrepute by strife. But,” he continued, offering his hand, “let me thank you warmly for your sympathy. It was splendidly courageous of you. Do you—do you attend his church?”
“Yes, we worship with the Episcopal Church. I am a Friend myself.”
“Ah, then it was a splendidly courageous act. I honour you for it.”
“But you will continue your mission?” she replied earnestly.
“Alas, I can hardly see how the mission can be continued. There seems to be no opening.”
Mrs. Gwynne apparently lost interest. “Good-bye,” she said simply, shaking hands with them both, and without further words left the room with her boy. For some distance they walked together along the dark road in silence. Then in an awed voice the boy said:
“How could you do it, mother? You were not a bit afraid.”
“Afraid of what, the Rector?”
“No, not the Rector—but to speak up that way before all the people.”
“It was hard to speak,” said his mother, “very hard, but it was harder to keep silent. It did not seem right.”
The boy's heart swelled with a new pride in his mother. “Oh, mother,” he said, “you were splendid. You were like a soldier standing there. You were like the martyrs in my book.”
“Oh, no, no, my boy.”
“I tell you yes, mother, I was proud of you.”
The thrilling passion in the little boy's voice went to his mother's heart. “Were you, my boy?” she said, her voice faltering. “I am glad you were.”
Hand in hand they walked along, the boy exulting in his restored pride in his mother and in her courage. But a new feeling soon stirred within him. He remembered with a pain intolerable that he had allowed the word of so despicable a creature as Mop Cheatley to shake his faith in his mother's courage. Indignation at the wretched creature who had maligned her, but chiefly a passionate self-contempt that he had allowed himself to doubt her, raged tumultuously in his heart and drove him in a silent fury through the dark until they reached their own gate. Then as his mother's hand reached toward the latch, the boy abruptly caught her arm in a fierce grip.
“Mother,” he burst forth in a passionate declaration of faith, “you're not a coward.”
“A coward?” replied his mother, astonished.
The boy's arms went around her, his head pressed into her bosom. In a voice broken with passionate sobs he poured forth his tale of shame and self-contempt.
“He said you were a Quaker, that the Quakers were cowards, and would never fight, and that you were a coward, and that you would never fight. But you would, mother, wouldn't you? And you're not a real Quaker, are you, mother?”
“A Quaker,” said his mother. “Yes, dear, I belong to the Friends, as we call them.”
“And they, won't they ever fight?” demanded the boy anxiously.
“They do not believe that fighting with fists, or sticks, or like wild beasts,” said his mother, “ever wins anything worth while.”
“Never, mother?” cried the boy, anxiety and fear in his tones. “You would fight, you would fight to-night, you would fight the Rector.”
“Yes, my boy,” said his mother quietly, “that kind of fighting we believe in. Our people have never been afraid to stand up for the right, and to suffer for it too. Remember that, my boy,” a certain pride rang out in the mother's voice. She continued, “We must never be afraid to suffer for what we believe to be right. You must never forget that through all your life, Larry.” Her voice grew solemn. “You must never, never go back from what you know to be right, even if you have to suffer for it.”
“Oh, mother,” whispered the boy through his sobs, “I wish I were brave like you.”
“No, no, not like me,” whispered his mother, putting her face down to his. “You will be much braver than your mother, my boy, oh, very much braver than your mother.”
The boy still clung to her as if he feared to let her go. “Oh, mother,” he whispered, “do you think I can be brave?”
“Yes, my boy,” her voice rang out again confident and clear. “It always makes us brave to know that He bore the cross for us and died rather than betray us.”
There were no more words between them, but the memory of that night never faded from the boy's mind. A new standard of heroism was set up within his soul which he might fail to reach but which he could never lower.
