Jesse's Letter

Mother in Heaven:

Please thank God for me and say I'm grateful. Tell the neighbor angels how little mothers having sons on earth are badly missed and grudged by hungering mortals. Prayers sent to Heaven are answered, but not letters. I reckon no one here could ever write a letter happy enough, so light with joy that it could fly up there. And when I'd a notion to write, in these last years, I knew a heavy letter might reach the wrong address, to make more sorrow in the other place. I've passed the hours writing, times when I had paper, but the stuff I wrote would make no creature happy, except, perhaps, critics, who enjoy to scoff. What can't make happiness is worse than dirt.

In the days when I thought this Jesse person was important, I used to read the Old Testament, which is full human with pride and arrogance of man. But since I learned that this whole world is only a dream from which we shall awake, the New Testament has been my pasturage. Maybe three moons ago, when my ammunition had run out, and my neighbor animals had learned all the little secrets of my traps and snares, there was no food for the earthly part of me, and I wondered what God was going to do about it. Of course I couldn't question about His business, but seeing that likely He intended me to leave my little worries behind, I made a good fire in the cabin, lay down in the bunk, arranged my body to be in decent order in case I left it, and took my Bible to pass away the time.

I suppose I'd dropped off to sleep, when something rough began to happen, jolting me back into the world of fuss. A man in a buckskin shirt and a bad temper, stamping the snow off his moccasins, shaking me by the arm. He was my old friend Iron Dale, a man of the world—which smashed him.

He seemed to be worried, and that, of course, was natural to a man like Iron, lusty and eager, with an appetite for money—whereas poor Polly had done her best to cure him of his dollars. She is like a dutiful scapegoat eager to carry the burdens of all the people, but Iron doesn't understand and would carry rocks to the cliffs rather than have no load in a world of workers. Don't you remember, mother, the lesson of the Labrador, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." He takes away the things which keep us from Him.

But here was Iron jumping about the cabin, busy as a chipmunk, with just the same hurried, funny way of blaspheming. He had to make fire, cook soup, and haul things in from outdoors, while he told me news about a team, a sleigh, a load of stores for me, and his own services paid up six months ahead if I'd let him work on the ranch. He was like a little boy which plays at keeping store, where you've got to pretend to trade, with nary a smile, lest he should see and the whole game turn unreal. So I sat up for soup, which made my loose skin fit me again as I filled. I'd answer to all he did, grave as a constable, playing the game of life just as I used to.

All of us have to play, at trade, at war, at love, at kingdoms and republics. We play at empire without a grin, we play with serious faces at learning and the arts. Yet all the business of men is like a game of children playing on the sands, as though there were no tide to sweep away our footprints.

I played with Iron at being alive, and he got so damned indulgent I could have smacked his face.

When he'd tended the horses, Iron set up a clock upon the shelf, so I might hear the ticking as time passed. He carried in armloads from the sleigh, he opened cases, he spilled out sacks. He showed me maple syrup, try-your-strength cigars, a dandy rifle with plenty ammunition, books, clothes, candy, a piano which plays itself, then garden seeds, and all sorts of things which you'd have honed for in the long ago. The place was like a barter store, piled to the beams with riches wasted on me, who hadn't a neighbor left. Why, even Iron, who used to think for no one but himself, had a kitten for me, warm in his pocket, and forgotten until a case of hardware squashed out its best Sunday scream. Who'd ever think, too, that so small a bundle of fur and claws should have a purr to fill my whole bed with joy. Surely, I loved this world I'd so nearly quit, when after supper Iron loosed a gramophone. The Hudson's Bay man had shown him a special "record" from England, the angel song in Chopin's Marche FunÈbre. We had that first, the very song she used to sing in this cabin, times when I reckoned it a shameful thing for any man to cry.

It was Kate's voice.

Oh, tell God, mother, that I'm very grateful. I heard her voice filling this place which used to be her home. Though my wife and I are parted for all our years—love finds a way.

A week or more had passed, and I'd my strength again. The river had frozen so that we could cross to the hunting grounds beyond, and when we came back our camp was full of meat.

I was once rich, before my wealth of memories went bad and turned to pain. I once had peace or thought so, till I found that there is none for men who keep on growing. But wealth of memories, and peace of mind, and humbleness of spirit are but emptiness, and life is a waste until it is filled with love. Iron's kindness to me, the charity which sent me Kate's voice, the love behind the gift which found me dying—these are the things which saved my soul alive. My life must be filled with love, my hours must be deeds of help for others, there must be no more self in me at all. It would be better to be damned and doing good in hell, than to squander love where it runs waste in Heaven.

The truth is scarce, being winnowed by many preachers, and my grains when I try to eat them, are mostly husks. Iron calls me a coward. But Polly only weighs ninety-eight pounds, and I two hundred, so that I couldn't have managed to feel brave fighting her. Then Iron claims it's not the little woman I ought to fight, but the big evil she did in bringing all our settlers to death or ruin. A woman's whim is light as thistle-down, but thistles choke the pasture unless you fight them, and Christ himself fought to the death against the evils which grew rank around him. I doubt I've been a cowardly sort of Christian.

Was I right to live alone? For if this world's a school, I've been a truant. Can I live for self, while all things done for self are only wasted? My place was in the world working for others.

I'd got so far in thinking my morals needed repairs, when a new thing happened, pointing out the way. O'Flynn rode over burning the trail from the Hundred. My wife is there! Although we may not meet, her love has brought her from England to be near me.

O'Flynn has seen my son, he has spoken with Father Jared, he has come with Kate from England, and he left her nursing at Bolt Taylor's bedside. She is sending Surly Brown from Soda Creek with a cable, to build a new scow, and start the ferry again. Ransome Pollock's to manage the Trevor ranch. Iron's to reopen the Sky-line while she makes his peace with the owners—O'Flynn wants to run the packing. She is finding a doctor to take McGee's practise. Tearful George is to buy an imported stallion, and drift him with a bunch of East Oregon mares to stock my empty pastures. The dead settlement is to live again as though there had been no Polly to rob, ruin, and murder among our pioneers. And then my wife will send young Englishmen to school with me for training.

Stroke by stroke this Mr. O'Flynn comes lashing home the news into my hide, as though I were being flogged. He says he hated me always, but never despised me before as he does now. My wife and I should change clothes, only I'd be too useless for a woman. Iron says the same, and in a most unchristian way I thrashed the pair, knocking their heads together, for putting me too much in the wrong while I wanted my breakfast. They think there's something in my argument.

The news is better for being discussed, and best of all I reckon this man Eure who is to side-track Polly, building a town at the foot of the Hundred Mile Falls. The pines on the high land, too small a trash for lumber, are good enough for pulp to feed a mill, while paper is the plate from which we eat our knowledge. I see the black bush turning into books, the lands in oats or pasture till they're warmed for wheat, and when we come to the rocks there's marble to build colleges for our sons, gold to endow them. The land too poor for any other crop, is best for raising men.

It's only because I'm happy I write nonsense, feeling this night as though I were being cured of all my blindness. I have a sense that though I sit in darkness, my wife is with me, and if my eyes were opened, I should see her. Is it our weakness which gives such strength to love?