Chapter II: Part 2

"I have always been a good deal interested to find out what became of Judas Iscariot who betrayed Him. He wasn't a fisherman like Peter and he was harder still to work on. I know some of the ministers have got rid of him, by tossing him over board and letting him drown in perdition. But the Lord God that went after the sheep would a some day heared the moaning of Judas and a-gone to his rescue, seems though. If the Lord could work a miracle on Peter couldn't He some time, some how do it on Judas? He must a had some beginning points on him some wheres."

"I tell you the Lord has plenty a chances to work miracles if He wishes, right round here. There's Rascal Moore. He ain't been converted yet."

"_Rascal_ Moore, did you say, Jim?" I interrupted.

"Well that wasn't the name his mother gave him, but she didn't know he would take all his father's bad points and add a few more evil ways. She named him, Pascal. But Rascal fits him better and everybody knows him by that name, and I have to think twice to remember he ever had another name.

"Rascal has done more to hurt the salt-fish business than any fisherman I know. He manages to get hold of the most ornery, two-cent fish there are in the sea. These fish have a hankering for Rascal, I guess, and they scoot straight for his nets. When he gets 'em, he never cleans well and he always hurries the curing, and he is none too particular about either counting or weighing. He'll sell a little cheaper or lie a little stronger and get rid of 'em, usually to an exporter and they go perhaps to Naples and they're so poor, the folks who buy them never want any more Newfoundland cod-fish. The government ought not to wait for the Lord to punish Rascal, they should get after him right away.

"Rascal has other sins to account for. Everybody feels, though they don't hardly dare say so, that he killed his wife, and he's so mean he's never married since. If there's been a piece of deviltry carried out anywheres within fifty miles of St. John's that he hasn't had a part in, I have yet to learn o' the fact.

"I say to convert Rascal Moore would be a real miracle. And it will be done and I would be glad to see it done on short order. I know it can be done, for I have seen other folks as mean, ornery and selfish as Rascal come meekly to the judgment seat, I have seen 'em rise outen their old selves and become new and clean as a sunshiny morning after the air has been washed in a fog. I have seen so much done by the Lord on His own account and working thru the hands of His servants that I never doubt that Rascal Moore will be made right.

"Yes, sir, I believe in miracles and I see them every day. Brown earth a-turning into blades and blossoms, in some wonderful way that He planned. No less wonderful I see bad men becoming good men; sick men becoming well men; and they that have been under the heels of sin and slavery standin' up on their own feet. When I can't explain something I still feel it is happening under the law and it's another of His miracles."

V

"I ASKED FOR FISH"

My business in St. John's had been brought to a conclusion and it was time that I crossed to Port-aux-Basques and made my way thru Nova Scotia and back into the States. There was only one reason for my staying, and that was the chance of seeing a little more of Harbor Jim and perhaps learning a little more of his philosophy.

So it happened that again I was in the little fisherman's cottage and Mrs. Jim was brewing tea for me, for she never permitted even an inquirer to come to her door without his cup of tea. I put a question to Jim that fortunately set him to talking about prayer. I had expected to draw out a fish story but I found him launching into an account of his belief in prayer and his ventures in talking with His Father.

"What was the best catch you ever had, Jim?" I questioned him.

"It was last April and it come in direct answer to prayer," Jim answered promptly and without the least embarrassment.

"In answer to prayer?" I said, and the tone of surprise was in my voice.

"Why not," said Jim. "You believe in prayer, I suppose, then why limit it. I needed a big catch. I'd had to paint the house and there had been many expenses and I had to have a big catch to tide things over. You will remember that the Bible takes for granted folks will pray for fish, for it says:

"'If ye ask for fish will he give you a stone.'

"No, the man that asks for fish and asks right gets fish and the man that asks for bread gets bread. It doesn't matter what you want, prayer will fetch it. You remember He said:

"'Ye shall ask _what ye will_ in my name and I will give it you.'

"I don't pretend to set myself up to judge of what the parsons should or shouldn't do. I am more or less an ignorant man, so far as schools go, though I have read a heap since I was converted, and what's more important, I have looked and thought a good deal. And I've looked in more'n one direction. Old Mr. Squibbs who used to live out to Heart's Delight was an odd stick. His wife died and he took to livin' alone and he got kinder warped. He built him a house with only one window and he always had only the one view when he looked out. Thinks I, some folks are like old Mr. Squibbs, they have only one window and looking out o' that window they see only a few things and no wonder they're often a little lackin' in the loft. But I've tried to keep all the windows of my mind and soul open and to let the light in and to look out on all sides. The result o' all this lookin' and a thinkin' is that some parsons and some folks, parsons is folks, though they are commonly reckoned in a different class, don't understand the nature o' prayer. They take it the Lord has got kinder out o' touch with the doings of His children, and it's up to them to let the Lord on to the situation. I have heared some prayers in churches that sounded like a newspaper recounting the happenings. Strikes me they must have a queer notion of the Lord, to think He don't know what's happening to His own created children.

"There's other prayers appear rather impudent. They tell the Lord just what He ought to do. Who are we, poor creatures on the earth, who can't see back of us, or before us, but a very little way and then only when it's a clear sky, who are we that we should rise up in our conceit and tell the Lord what He had better do. It's turning the boat round and headin' it the wrong way. We are to ask Him what He wants us to do. We are to come to Him not to give knowledge but to get wisdom.

"Parson Curtis called me impudent because I asked the Lord for a mess o' fish, and a big mess, too. But I don't agree with the parson on this matter. I don't know why we shouldn't ask Him for what we think we need, but there's a right and a wrong way of asking. Mind you I didn't presume to tell the Lord how to send them or where. I just left it in His hands. I prayed something like this:

"'Kind Father, we were talking over blessings last night and I mentioned a good many that You had sent us; and then when I'd finished sayin' my thanksgivings, I asked that You make it possible for me to find a mess o' fish and a good-sized one. Now I know You'll say no, if it's best, and I'll not murmur or complain; but if it seems to You to be best, You'll know the way to send them and when it's best. It's all in Your hands and I'm not dictating to You, Father. But I want You to know that we are needing fish and that I'm a-goin' to keep my eyes open and my boat trim and my hooks and sinkers right and my nets all mended, and I'll be waitin' for the Word.'

"That's just about the way I pray. I am not afraid to come boldly to the throne of grace. He would never find fault with my grammar, for doesn't He encourage the little folks to talk with Him. Sure, that's just what it is talking with Him. When we talk to one another, it's conversation; when we talk to ourselves, it's thinking; and when we talk to God, it's praying.

"I never yet have told the Lord how to do anything, or how to fetch my gifts. For since all things and all powers and all means are in His hands, He doesn't need to be told. I most likely wouldn't know the best way for transporting His gifts. I have to ask humbly and faithfully and then to keep the doors open, so's whoever He sends will find me ready and waitin' to receive.

"Then again, I seldom pray for an easy time or a smooth sea. I want to be strong and I don't mind wrestling like Jacob with the strange one, so long's I come out the winner. I don't mind if the sea is ruffled, or the waves mount, or the wind lashes the sails, so long as I know He has an eye on me and keeps me. I have found that if He sends me extra work, He always sends along extra strength, and the blessed part of it is that the strength comes at just about the time the work does.

"I pray sometimes for health for my body, but I am much more likely to pray for the health of soul. For I dread sickness of soul, more'en I do sickness of my body. It is far harder to get rid of selfishness than to get over a stomach-ache. I'd rather see my little Clara sick with the measles than to see her developing dishonesty."

"How long does it usually take the Lord to answer your prayers," I asked, and not jocularly, but in the hope of finding out what results had come to Jim as a result of his sincere prayers.

"How long does it take before it rains, do you know? Can you tell when the frost will take my cabbages or the snow heap up my door-way? Neither can I tell when the Lord will send what I ask. He knows better than I do. He knows the value of delays, and how long to try my patience. I wouldn't say He hurried, for the more I come to know of Him, the more I find it true that He has taken time to do most things He has done. You can get an idea of how He works by looking at this earth that He took so long to fix up for us. As I've told you before, I think the Lord loves to surprise us children and often He sends a blessing when we are least expecting it and the answer comes on a dark, stormy day when it's like a ray of sunshine breaking thru a cloud.

"I talk over all my needs with Him, but I don't devote all my praying to myself. I've done quite a lot of praying for Rascal Moore, and some day the Lord will surprise Rascal and me and he'll be converted. Of course I pray for my own wife and my own little girl and I pray for Bob McCartney and I also remember Spotty, my dog. If I had a cow, which I haven't just now, I'd pray for her. They are God's offspring, and they were planned by Him and they need His care to provide fresh green and abundant water. It's a responsibility for which we need help, the caring for the other children."

"You are wandering away from your fish story," I reminded him. "What about that big catch? How did it happen?"

"It was very simple. I went out to the fishing grounds. It would have been asking too much of the Lord to have demanded that He send them ashore. I went where I'd be likely to find fish. And when I got to the grounds, I heared a voice say, 'Let your nets down on the starboard side.' And I did as He told me and I had the best catch of the season."

VI

LIVIN' ALONG

Several months had passed without a word from Harbor Jim, when one morning going thru a batch of mail, that was given over to business matters, I came upon a rather soiled envelope that was post-marked "St. John's." I was quite sure that it was from Jim and I pushed aside the communications from firms that offered me oil stock and a fortune and the letters of others who were suing for favors of one kind and another and turned with the relish of a boy to read the message from my friend. I am willing that you should read it, but I have made some corrections in spelling and a few in grammar, that you may read it about as he would have read it aloud, about, I think, as he intended it to read.

"Dear One,

"It's a long time since we've seen you on the flakes. It's a long time since we've read the word o' the Lord together beside the evening lamp. I'm not thinking of coming to New York to see you. I know I have been invited manys the time, but I'm not risking a leg yet in your full streets. It's gettin' bad enough in St. John's with all the autos a-whisking down Water St. It's a fine thing that we can send a message up there to you. It was a kind Father that made it possible for us to get acquainted with each other as well as with Him. I often think of the Master's ideas on the subject. You remember He told us if we really got acquainted with our brothers we should know the Father, and without that acquaintance we couldn't really know Him.

"There ain't no great thing happened to tell of. I've just been livin' along. Eatin' and sleepin' every day and fishin' most days. But I've been prayin' every day and a receivin' of replies day by day. The Lord's been with me all the way. Yes, just as much as though I could write you of a great, sudden happening. There's a good many folks I find who recognize the Lord's doings in the big, flashing things of life and forget Him altogether except at them special times. It's rare that I sit up with a corpse, which I often do, without hearing a confession about the Lord's hand and the Lord's doing in the coming of the stroke; but it's most likely that same man who is very conscious and pitiful didn't have much thought or dealings with the Lord till his sorrows come upon him.

"Now the Lord is in the Valley of the Dark Times and He's on the Bright Height of Victory, but He's also along the Common Way, the level road that makes up the every day's travel. That's what I used to forget and that's what I'm beginning to remember and it makes heap a different in your knowledge o' life itself and the joy you get outen it.

"There's countless folks know He never fails in time o' need, but I'm one who finds that He never fails at any time and that every day is a day o' need.

"It may be I've met the wrong kind o' folks some of the journey, but I've found a good many that make a heap a trouble just out o' living. They remind me o' Martha who got so fussed up doing common housework she couldn't understand the need o' spiritual house-keeping at all. Folks don't seem to have time enough to live their lives easily. They start off with a hitch and they break down afore they get very far. Seems though they thought there want goin' to be another life after this one and they'd got to do all eternity's work in this little span o' time. Don't seem reasonable and natural to expect a man to do the work o' two worlds in one. The Lord don't expect it neither.

"The Lord Jesus had about the biggest task on hand that any man ever had. His job was to save the world. He had only three years for His ministry and if he had lived as some of the folks hereabouts are livin' He would have so consumed Himself with worry and fret that He would a died with a fever afore the first year was over. One thing I note as I read His story is that He moved majestic like He had time to do what needed to be done. I guess it's the things that we could get on with out that take the most time and gender the most worry.

"There's always time enough to do what the Lord intended to be done in this life, else He wouldn't have assigned it. He wouldn't run His universe on a leisurely and comfortable plan, if He expected us to wear ourselves out hustling. I take it He counts a thousand years are as one day not only for Himself but as well for us children. Thinkin' of His plan kinder takes the fever outen your veins, kinder makes you understand what His Son meant about the peace that passeth understandin'.

"Effie is the same as ever. She's just livin' along, same's I. The children are doin' well at school. Bob McCartney was over night afore last. His boy has got the rheumatics, but I guess tain't nothin' permanent. The government is thinkin' o' takin' over the railroad again. Our railroad has had a hard time and it's been found fault with a good deal, but it's got an iron constitution and I guess it can stand it. As I told you once, it's all the railroad we've got and it's a powerful lot bettern no railroad.

"I am thinkin' often these days of little Peter. I can think now without swallowin' hard and I'm beginnin' to get comfort instead of trouble when I think. I have been thinking about the conditions o' life over there. Sometime when your down here I'll talk with you about the Heaven Home, but it would take too long to write it out and then I don't knows you would be interested. Any how it would come out easy with your kind o' questions. I like you, but I do think your about the hardest questioner I ever knowed.

"Respectfully yours, that's how letters are signed when a man writes you for fish or bait or somethin', but I don't see why it ain't proper for a friend, for certain we ought to respect our friends, and the fact we can respect 'em makes us the more sure their friends.

"Jim."

"P. S. I saw Bob McCartney last night. He was lookin' well and had his behaviour (silk-hat) on. He had been to a party."

VII

THE HEAVEN HOME

When again the good fortune brought me to Newfoundland and led me out to the fisherman's cottage, I did not forget Jim's promise to tell me of his observations concerning the future life. We had, thru our increasing friendship, come to understand each other. I had learned when to keep silent and I knew Jim's moods and when to intrude would be the height of ingratitude and when to enter would be the act of an accepted friend.

The reading of the Book had been finished for the evening and there was yet a half hour before my friend would count it his time to retire. "How about the Heaven Home, I think that is what you called it," I asked, and Jim, without parleying, was ready to speak freely in answer.

"Yes," he said, "I like the word home, as applied to it. I couldn't think of Peter as wantin' to stay in a mansion. In the Comfort Chapter in John, I've always read the word 'home' in place of 'mansion.' The parsons tell me that there are some mistakes in the translatin' o' the Good Book, and I am sure that it's a mistake here. There ain't enough comfort in the thought of a mansion for most of us common run o' folks, and it was for us that He come and told of this life and the life to come.

"I'm sure it's a home. I think it must have in it things that match up with what we got here. I don't see how we could feel at home without something like tables and chairs. We had a parson one time who knew all about it over there, accordin' to his tell. He told us about the crowns and harps and the golden streets and the singin' that went on all the day long. But I callate no Lander would care for such a life as that, and if that's what it's like there's precious few of us 'uns over there.

"Now if it's a home as I think it must be since the Father has planned it, there must be homelikeness there. There must be somethin' that corresponds to tables and chairs and all the little things that go to makin' up a real home, else how could a man be happy over there, who had just left a happy home here. I'm not sayin' we shall always need them things, but I am a sayin' that in the very next life we must have things we are used to for a spell till we get to the point where we don't need them, but somethin' else. Sounds sensible to me to think that way.

"You remember that after the Lord was dead and Peter was plumb worn out and discouraged; there didn't seem to be no hope nowheres; he decided to go fishin'. I callate there are times when a man would rather go salmon fishing than to do anything else in the world, provided he knows what good salmon fishin' is. Now for these fishermen about the only thing the Lord can do, if He wants to make 'em happy as He promised to do, is to give 'em a chance at fishin'.

"I wouldn't be at all surprised some morning in Heaven to be trailin' along the bank o' some good stream fishin' and lookin' up sudden to see the Lord there a fishin' too.

"You smile, but why not? Do you think the Father is so foolish as to drop us down in a strange place where we don't understand and we don't know what to do. Does it appear to you that the Lord would take a little fellow like Peter and send him around with a harp. I'll tell you what Peter would want to do, he would want to jump rain barrels so as he would know how to jump ice pans when he got older.

"What good would it do to take any little fellow outen the primary school and put him right into college. It wouldn't do him or the college one particle of good. It would be a sheer waste for everybody concerned. I think the Father is wiser than that, and it's always kinder amused me and somewhat disgusted me that the parsons have imagined heaven to be so teetotally different from this life.

"I've seen so much of His wisdom here, I can't come to think that He's working blind and foolish over there. Will I know little Peter, sure I will, or it wouldn't be heaven. Then his new little body must look like the present one, only stronger and it won't hurt it so much when he pinches it.

"He'll get into the place that fits for him, not because he's sent, but because he just naturally goes where he belongs. And as it is with little Peter so it will be with every one. Perhaps by this time he has seen the Christ, for the kingdom is always found quicker by a child than by a grown man. Children see things that we older folks find it hard to see."

"How about Rascal Moore?" I asked.

"Just now he's taken his cat and dog and he's gone to the woods.[2] Mebbe there a stick will hit him and knock a little sense into him. He's by no means hopeless. I've seen worse ones than he is get sense afore they died. But you mean what would become of him if he went just as he is. Well, there must be sufferin' for the likes o' him. You can't, and I find the Lord Himself don't, seem to make a sinner into a saint all of a sudden. He may wake him up sudden and start him, but it takes time to get him rounded off. He'll go where he belongs just as the others; and if for a while he belongs in an uncomfortable, painful place why there's where he'll go. I never could see the sense in trying to think that everybody would go right off to one same place and be in heaven. There's too much difference in folks; there's the converted and the unconverted; there's the sinners and the saints; and though you put 'em in the same place, it wouldn't be the same place for them. It don't seem probable to me either that they can't never change their places when they get over there. There's a good deal o' changin' here, so there's likely to be over there.

"There are changes in the earth homes, there'll be changes in the heaven homes. And it will be well so long as the changes are for the better. I can't think that will always be the case, howsomever, for it ain't the case here. But gradual I'm expectin' conditions will improve and the handicaps are less over there. With the help o' Moses, Isaiah and the prophets and saints we ought to get on at a fair pace. A tremendous lot o' mothers is over there; they've been a goin' out one by one for a terrible long spell, makes me dizzy when I get to thinkin' o' some o' these subjects. Mothers don't loaf so long as there's chance to help kids, an' I'm callating that they'll do some pretty good work along lines o' convertin' over there.

"I expect to hear the baccaloo[3] over there and I'd rather hear a baccaloo than a nightingale or a lark for it would seem more like home. That's the big thing and the Lord ain't likely to disappoint me or any one who is lookin' for a home over there.

"The heaven home is a good sight nearer than most folks think. The journey is short and it's only our poor sight and our hearin' that has made it so far away. I know Peter's often near me while I'm at work and it's a comfortable feeling, not a scarey one to think he's liable to be around most any time and I must be on my guard not to let slip any string o' words that would be bad for him to hear. It chucks a fellow up to feel that he must be on his best for the little fellow sees and knows. I want to be such a father as he'll respect. It must be mighty oncomfortable for some folks when they get over there, for some folks don't do no growing after they lose their loved ones and how in sank they expect to be fit company for their folks when they themselves get over there is more'n I can tell.

"Because there's homes there don't in no way interfere with it's bein' a beautiful place. It don't have to have golden harps to make it worth while. There's probably rivers that are prettier than 'ourn, and there must be pink calmia, fox-gloves and sweet william, pansies, tea-bushes and a good many others that I don't happen to think of. There must be places in heaven that look like Deer Lake, Gaff Topsail, Kelligrews and Brigus. Mebbe there's places in heaven like New York, too, though from what you say it will need some changin' to be kept as a heaven city.

"I don't want you to think that I'm a gump[4] because of these ideas, but to me they've been a good deal of comfort and whenever I get to doubting at all about things over there I just recall it's a home and I settle back content."

[2] Gone to a lumber camp.

[3] A loon.

[4] A very foolish person.

VIII

CHRISTMAS WITH JIM'S FRIENDS

There was the calendar right before me on the wall, with figures big enough to mentally hit me and hit hard, and I should have remembered that the road of the year had turned toward Christmas. But before me was an unfinished news article that even a hungry and insistent stomach did not seem able to push to a conclusion. Beyond my desk out of the window I looked now and then down upon the hurrying throng who were making their way across City Hall Park to Brooklyn Bridge. It was the hour when you do not know whether to call it day or night. It was indescribable in another way,--it was either misting or raining. I suppose a Scotchman would have called it mist and an Irishman rain. I think that any one looking out that night would have found it hard to see in the gray view anything suggestive of Christmas. I turned from the wet view to my unfinished work only to be again interrupted.

A Western Union boy burst into my office with a telegram. It was from St. John's and I wondered as I tore it open if anything had happened to Harbor Jim. It was short and for once the operators had apparently followed the author's spelling.

come fur chrismus cant take no fur an answer no how biggest
an best you or yourn hev ever seed come jim

A few days afterward a long letter came enforcing and elaborating the invitation. Jim wrote that he was already at work upon a Christmas that would eclipse anything New York had ever had. He had taken the idea out of a city paper that I had sent him a year before and had developed it and he wouldn't care to go forward with it, unless I could be there.

That is how it happened that a few days before Christmas, on the last steamer that would get me there in time, I was steaming into St. John's Harbor. Our boat was sheathed with ice and as in the morning we came thru the Narrows there were knobs of ice floating around us. The hills were white and the brown stone now and then stuck thru where the snow had lost its footing.

Landing I found the people in furs and the sleighs making merry music with their bells. A fellow agreed to drive me out to Jim's for two dollars and a half and I went in his sleigh, he called it, but in New England it would have more properly have been called a pung.

Jim almost literally wrapped me in his arms and outdid himself in the cordiality of his welcome.

"How's fishing, Jim?" I asked when the first greetings were over and I had my feet up in front of the stove.

"Fishin', why land o' Goshen, this ain't no time for fishin'. There ain't but one thing on my mind an' that is Christmas. Don't you see what we are a' doin'?"

A kettle of oil was on the stove and the dipping of half grown candles had been recently finished. On the floor were half a hundred full grown candles.

Jim could talk only of Christmas. "I've been thinkin'," he said, "that if there should ever be a second coming of the Lord or He should send another Son to His people He couldn't pick out a better place than this. Suppose it was to be another birth. I callate this land has just as good a chance as Palestine and hereabouts is as fittin' a place as Bethlehem. Look out there at the snow! Makes you think o' a baby's blankets, it's so white and clean and pretty. Our nights man't have stars as brilliant as that one greater star of the first Christmas mornin', but I don't believe they have flyin' lights[5] like 'ourn. I hev noticed that the Lord tries to be as impartial as He can and since He sent His Son to the East last time, if ever He should send again why I think He'd be likely to send Him somewhere hereabouts. You remember the Son liked fishin' an' He'd be delighted with Newfoundland."

The door opened and Bob McCartney walked in.

"What's the matter, Bob; what you got your good behavior[6] on fur?" asked Jim as his friend entered.

"Ain't the occasion worth it? You sed yourself that it was to be the biggest Christmas the Landers ever hed; and I'd like to know if we aren't in a way celebratin' now while we're gettin' ready."

"Who's coming to this Christmas, Jim?" I asked, taking my turn at a question.

"Well, everybody in this town, quite a mess o' folk from St. John's and Quidi Vidi. Some from Brigus, Kelligrews and Heart's Ease. Aunt Saray Bailey is a' comin' from Nancy Jobble.[7] It's such a general invitation that they ain't no definite countin' no how, but their comin'. Everybody that meets anybody hereabouts and nowadays jes' says are you a' comin' to Jim's fur Christmas."

Gradually by prying questions I found out what Jim was planning to do. He had been extremely interested in the account I had sent him of the illuminated tree in Madison Square, and had resolved to have the trees on a neighboring hill-top all illuminated where they stood. In place of electric lights he was engaged in making tallow candles by hand.

The day before Christmas, Mrs. Jim was up very early and when I came down to breakfast she greeted me with this:

"Got to make a biler full o' tea this morning fur the Decoratin' Committee will be here shortly."

"Yes," added Jim, "they'll be here shortly and then we'll be a carryin' out Christmas. Up your way they fetch it _in_, but we're a goin' to carry it out, good and proper, this year."

The first arrival was Bob, who had caught the full contagion of Jim's spirit, and the second was Parson Curtis.

"Hello, Pa'son Curtis," said Jim as he ushered in his guest. "Did you come to look on or to work?"

"Put me in among the workers, Jim," replied the parson.

"That's right, Pa'son," Jim spoke with heartiness. "I like a pa'son that ain't a mite afraid o' work. I callate that our Lord was one o' the greatest workers this world ever seed, and it's a good thing fur those who are a takin' His place to be up in the front row o' workers. Here's a bag o' candles and here's a coil o' wire. You can take 'em up the hill and begin hitchin' 'em to the tallest tree. You can begin on the low branches an' when the younger fellows get here we'll let 'em shinney up to the taller branches."

By eight o'clock, fifty men and boys were at work, many of them bringing their own donation of candles, and each time that Jim saw more candles coming he beamed, for it meant more trees could be included in the scheme.

With banter, jest and story the work of attaching the candles went on thru the morning and at noon we went back to Jim's for dinner. We all knew what to expect and we were not disappointed, when with keen appetites, we crowded the little house and waited our turn for a hot plate of brewse. It's Newfoundland's distinctive dish and salt fish and pork never tasted better than that noon after our climbing up in the trees.

Walking back to finish our work in the afternoon I said to Jim:

"It strikes me it is a little unfortunate that the hill we are decorating has no tall spruce on top. The trees are well arranged on the slopes but the top of the hill itself hasn't a tree on it!"

"That's what pleases me about it. That's why I selected it, because it leaves room for the Candles of the Lord," answered Jim. "There on the top is where the Light o' the World will shine out tonight. When we get the rest of the work done we'll place it."

An hour later Jim came dragging a sled with a huge candle, four feet high, at least, and it was carefully erected in the centre of the open place on the hill. At three o'clock the work was finished and Jim addressed the workers:

"Thank you all. We'll knock off for a spell. Those that lives near can go home. Those that lives too far will find plenty at my house. Be back every one of you an hour before sunset. The sun won't wait for any o' ye and if you don't get here the lightin' will go on jes' the same, but I wants you all to be here, sure."

They began to arrive before the appointed time, but I waited within until it began to grow dark, then I stepped to the door and watched the multitude coming up from the valley. I remember once I went out with the crowds and climbed Mt. Rubidoux in California on an Easter morning. A little in advance of the larger contingent I stood and watched them coming up out of the darkness of the roads below into the growing light of the mountain top and the new day. I thought of that experience again as I watched them coming along the road to climb the hill and keep Christmas Eve with Jim. Only in this instance the picture was reversed and I saw them coming out of the light into the gathering darkness of the night.

There were many from St. John's who had come out for the lark of it. Men that worked along Water St. and Dock St. Girls from the stores came in little groups full of tickles and nudging one another as things happened to meet their fancy. Women in black were in the crowd who had been before along a sorrowful way and turned to make this journey that they might find light. Some of them plainly showed by their demeanor that they were conscious of the fact that Christ was the best part of Christmas.

Boys were in the throng, many of them swaggering along with sticks, copying the manner of English soldiers who feel their importance when on furlough. Little girls tripped along, some of them singing a little Christmas song that begins

"I saw three ships come sailing in,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day."

The chatter of the many voices did not altogether drown their childish voices and they rose like bird notes above the rushing winds of a forest.

It was slippery walking and now and then some one would fall, but a hand would be reached out to them and they would again go on with a laugh. Everywhere was the glitter. That is what the Newfoundlanders call the spectacle of a snow and icegirt earth. During the day many of our hands had been nearly frozen because of the ice on the trees and they were festooned and sheathed with ice where their branches were a little out of the wind and it had not stripped them of snow during the recent storm. It was a white, shining world, softened by a waning light.

Now the fellows who had been appointed had been at work some time with torches and as we looked up tree after tree put on a garland of jewels and stood forth resplendent for the feast. Parson Curtis had lit the first torch from the Candle of the Lord, as Jim called the big candle on the hill-top, and each torch had been lit from his.

Murmurs ran thru the crowd as the scene grew more beautiful with the lighting of more trees and the deepening of the night shadows. It was now quite dusky, but the snow kept the light so that we could see the workers finishing the lighting.

When all was ready, standing beside the Candle of the Lord, Jim spoke:

"Brothers in Christ, we all are that tonight. I am glad you have come to celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Pa'son Curtis will lead us in prayer."

Jim knelt in the snow and the great company followed his example. The prayer was short and Jim was ready to announce the singing of the first of the Christmas hymns, when some one I didn't know made his way thru the crowd, and waiving all formalities, touched Jim on the arm and spoke hurriedly:

"Rascal Moore's took sick. He's got a ketch in his glutch[8] and the Missus wants you to come over right now to sit up with him. She can't manage him no how and she's sent for you."

I was standing beside Jim, watching now his face and now the lights. I looked squarely at him now and thought of the weeks of preparation that he had gone thru and how like some rare flower that blossoms only in the night it had unfolded petal by petal before his delighted eyes. I thought, too, of Rascal Moore, who had so long been living up to his name. It seemed unfair indeed to ask him to go now on this Christmas Eve that he had planned for and was making so successful. Let any one else go if they would, but surely not Jim.

"Tell 'em I'm on my way," was all he said to the messenger, and he moved along as he spoke.

Turning to me he said, what made me feel that he was still human, and without these words I think I must have doubted it. "It would have been a little easier if it had a' been Bob instead of Rascal."

The program began, though Jim was leaving and had turned his back on it all. Will Cunningham, whose tenor voice often led in the little church, started the Christmas hymn "Holy Night, Peaceful Night," and the crowd sang. The female voices seemed in preponderance and I fancied the men all thru the crowd were doing what the few around me were doing, heaping choice epithets upon Rascal Moore.

Jim was yet to see more of his Christmas trees. He may have forgotten it, but his friends remembered that Rascal Moore's place was just about at the foot of the hill and some one started taking off the candles from the trees that were a little beyond and decorating those that were in the direct line toward the Moore house. There were so many hundreds the work was speedily performed. The candles were re-lit and by seven o'clock there was a row of lighted trees extending straight down the hill to the Moore house and at the top of the hill the big candle could now be distinctly seen against the black back-ground of the night.

It may be the angels are a little nearer on Christmas Eve and they decided to add to the wonderful beauty of that night for which Jim had worked and prayed. For now the northern lights came, adding great plumes of light, flashing across the sky in a glory burst of light.

"It's the dead men playing. Come to earth, they have, for Christmas Eve," explained Bob.

When all was ready some one knocked at the Moore door and brought Jim to the porch and he stood bare-headed looking up the wonderful avenue of light to the top of the hill. Then he lifted his eyes from the earth lights and the black crowd to the sky.

"The heavens declare the glory of God," Jim spoke quietly, but many could hear his words. "Mebbe little Peter is here tonight playing in the heavens and joinin' us in our songs. The Lord of Joy has come again!"

"What did you leave us for, Jim?" some one in the crowd shouted.

The hundreds stood waiting for Jim's answer. It was a hush of expectancy, such as fitted that holy night.

Jim answered slowly, measuring his words:

"I heard my Father calling and I went to answer Him!"

[5] Northern Lights.

[6] A silk hat.

[7] Lance du Diable.

[8] A sore throat.

IX

HONEY-MOONING ON THE FLAKES

Jim lapsed into silence and his wife, laying down her mending, poked the fire and soon had tea brewing. The Landers are tea drinkers like the English.

"It's a beautiful story, sir, and we often live it over again," Mrs. Jim said as she poured the tea. I noted the flow-blue china and, answering my query, she said:

"It was my grandfather's. He brought it from England sixty years ago. Of course we're awful careful of it, but we use it, for Jim says the only way to have plenty is to use what you have. We always keep a pot handy and there's always a ready chair, for many a time a neighbor drops in and we wouldn't want to let them go on without a cup o' tea,--a cup o' kindness, Jim calls it."

"Now, I've read books," continued Jim, "and they always end just where they really should begin. When in the book story they decide to get married, then they stop short. If I should ever write a story, which I ain't likely to do, with my little learnin', I'd not stop there, but I'd let that end only the first chapter and I'd let the story go on with its joy and sorrow and its hope and its fear and the problems big and little; the blessings so rare that follow along even as they do in real life.

"If I'm not tiring you, I'd be glad to give you another half chapter afore we all quit and turn in for the night."

Jim put down his empty tea cup with a smack of appreciation at his wife's proper brewing and deliberately cut off a fresh slice of tobacco and crushed it into the bowl of his pipe, and I knew that for at least a half hour, the story would go on, the story that was so real to him and now so fascinating to me.

"Bein' both of us very sure, and the Lord havin' given the sign o' His good pleasure, there beyond Brigus, we didn't wait long afore we were hitched up.

"We begun right here in this house and we started right in here the first night and we went to work on the flakes the next morning. We didn't go off no where's for a honey-mooning.

"I reckon there's no place a real woman would rather go at that time than to the new home where her life is agoin' to be lived, and that vacationing then ain't best for either. In any case we never thought a travelling, for you see the cod was running well and 'twas the height of the season and we had to fill the flakes, while we could.

"A man and a woman who gets married has to get acquainted and adjusted one to the other and there's no better place for learnin' to conform than right where they are agoin' to live and raise their children.

"Course a couple can just pretend for a spell there ain't any work to be done, but there is, and I reckon the sooner they face it, the better for all concerned. If you're agoin' to cut bait, there's no use standin' round dreadin' it.

"When I was a boy we used to have in our house a religious book with pictures of saints in it and every blessed one on' 'em had a ring around their head, halos, I think they call 'em; now I callate that a home ought to have some kind of a halo over it and it's easier to get it fastened on just right when your startin' married life and if you don't get it on then, like's not you'll never have a real home but just a house for feeding and sleeping.

"We got the halo fixed on, eh, Effie," and the fisherman's eyes confirmed his words.

"So, next morning we put on our fishin' clothes and went out on the flakes. We'd clean fish for a spell and then we'd split and spread for a spell. Now I know from the standin' point o' city folks fishin' clothes ain't very scrumptious to look at and they are kinder soused with smell, but our clothes didn't interfere none with our honeymoon.

"Her dress was kinder faded blue, but I always liked blue. It's heaven's color and often the sea borrows it, and that morning it made her cheeks more wonderful pink than I'd seen 'em before.

"There was a kind of down-right, deep-seated satisfaction to both of us in feeling we was at work; both of us a doin' what needed to be done and a sharin' of the burdens or the joys which ever you wants to call 'em. For I have found that some folks get their joys and burdens mixed up and don't seem to know one from 'tother till it's too late and they wake up with a start when they can't change 'em.

"Sharin', I said, and that's a word we set out to understand when we commenced an' with us it's always been a big word ever since.

"After breakfast that first morning we went to the flakes, I took out my wallet and said to her: 'There's no sense of my carryin' this round when you are more likely to need it than I. I'll leave it here behind the clock and when you need money, it's yours and bein' yours you don't have to give any account of it 'cept to your own conscience. More properly speakin' it's 'ourn, for now we're married there ain't no longer yourn or mine, but 'ourn.'

"I callate that if a man can trust a woman to bring up his children, trust her with his house and his reputation and his disposition, he ain't no cause to fear to trust her with his wallet.

"Bob McCartney always says a woman ought to have an allowance, but I tell him too much book-keeping is bad for a married couple and then how's a man able to judge the amount of an allowance anyhow. I guess most women earn more'n an allowance, and a sharin' always seems bigger than an allowance.

"I've heared folks liked honey-moons 'cause they got away from pryin' eyes, but I want you to know that our honeymoon want never once interrupted. The neighbors see we had work to do and they had theirs and we both of us did it. The children of the neighbors was often round with us then, but they made us think of 'ourn that was to come, in the favor of the Lord. And if when I helped her along from plank to plank, I held her hand a little longer than absolutely necessary, who was to care.

"There's been no decided change in the years; we've been honey-mooning along just about the same. Course with the children she had more to do in doors, but she's always managed, if there was an extra run o' fish to come to the flakes and help me over the rush; and if one o' the kids was sick or anything extra come, why I've always toted the load for her."

During the last few sentences Jim was watching the clock intently and as he spoke the last sentence, he crossed the little room and began winding the clock. I looked up and there, sticking out from behind the clock, was a worn, brown wallet. Evidently he was still living up to his habit of sharing.

"It's time all decent folks was in bed," he said. "We done want to ape the city folks."

So bidding them good night I went out into the night. The rain had ceased and there were fast hurrying clouds breaking up and I could see the moon high over the spruces. I felt my way along the road back to St. John's.

X

JIM AND HIS BOOK