Chapter XIV: The Shoe on the Other Foot

The Pilot is a fearless preacher--fearless of blame and violence--and he is the most downright and pugnacious of moral critics. He speaks in mighty wrath against the sins of the camps and the evil-doers of the towns--naming the thieves and gamblers by name and violently characterizing their ways: until it seems he must in the end be done to death in revenge. "Boys," said he, in a bunk-house denunciation, "that tin-horn gambler Jim Leach is back in Deer River from the West with a crooked game--just laying for you. I watched his game, boys, and I know what I'm talking about; _and you know I know!_" Proceeding: "You know that saloon-keeper Tom Jenkins? Of _course_ you do! Well, boys, the wife of Tom Jenkins nodded toward the camps the other day, and, 'Pshaw!' says she; 'what do I care about expense? My husband has a thousand men working for him in the woods!' She meant you, boys! A thousand of you--think of it!--working for the wife of a brute like Tom Jenkins." Again: "Boys, I'm just out from Deer River. I met ol' Bill Morgan yesterday. 'Hello, Bill!' says I; 'how's business?' 'Slow, Pilot,' says he; 'but I ain't worryin' none--it'll pick up when the boys come in with their stake in the spring.' There you have it! That's what you'll be up against, boys, God help you! when you go in with your stake--a gang of filthy thieves like Jim Leach and Tom Jenkins and Bill Morgan!" It takes courage to attack, in this frank way, the parasites of a lawless community, in which murder may be accomplished in secret, and perjury is as cheap as a glass of whiskey.

* * * * *

It takes courage, too, to denounce the influential parishioner.

"You grown-up men, here," Higgins complained to his congregation, "ought to give the young fellows a chance to live decent lives. Shame to you that you don't! You've lived in filth and blasphemy and whiskey so long that maybe you don't know any better; but I want to tell you--every one of you--that these boys don't want that sort of thing. They remember their mothers and their sisters, and they want what's _clean!_ Now, you leave 'em alone. Give 'em a show to be decent. And I'm talking to _you_, Scotch Andrew"--with an angry thump of the pulpit and a swift belligerent advance--"and to _you_, Gin Thompson, sneaking back there in your bunk!"

"Oh, hell!" said Gin Thompson.

The Pilot was instantly confronting the lazy-lying man. "Gin," said he, "you'll take that back!"

Gin laughed.

"Understand me?" the wrathful preacher shouted.

Gin Thompson understood. Very wisely--however unwillingly--he apologized. "That's all right, Pilot," said he; "you know I didn't mean nothin'."

"Anyhow," the preacher muttered, returning to his pulpit and his sermon, "I'd rather preach than fight."

* * * * *

Not by any means all Higgins's sermons are of this nature; most are conventional enough, perhaps--but always vigorous and serviceable--and present the ancient Christian philosophy in an appealing and deeply reverent way. I recall, however, another downright and courageous display of dealing with the facts without gloves. It was especially fearless because the Pilot must have the permission of the proprietors before he may preach in the camps. It is related that a drunken logger--the proprietor of the camp--staggered into Higgins's service and sat down on the barrel which served for the pulpit. The preacher was discoursing on the duties of the employed to the employer. It tickled the drunken logger.

"Hit 'em again, Pilot!" he applauded. "It'll do 'em good."

Higgins pointed out the wrong worked the owners by the lumber-jacks' common custom of "jumping camp."

"Give 'em hell!" shouted the logger. "It'll do 'em good."

Higgins proceeded calmly to discuss the several evils of which the lumber-jacks may be accused in relation to their employers.

"You're all right, Pilot," the logger agreed, clapping the preacher on the back. "Hit the ---- rascals again! It'll do 'em good."

"And now, boys," Higgins continued, gently, "we come to the other side of the subject. You owe a lot to your employers, and I've told you frankly what your minister thinks about it. But what can be expected of you, anyhow? Who sets you a good example of fair dealing and decent living? Your employers? Look about you and see! What kind of an example do your employers set? Is it any wonder," he went on, in a breathless silence, "that you go wrong? Is it any wonder that you fail to consider those who fail to consider you? Is it any wonder that you are just exactly what you are, when the men to whom you ought to be able to look for better things are themselves filthy and drunken loafers?"

The logger was thunderstruck.

"And how d'ye like _that_, Mister Woods?" the preacher shouted, turning on the man, and shaking his fist in his face. "How d'ye like _that_? Does it do _you_ any good?"

The logger wouldn't tell.

"Let us pray!" said the indignant preacher.

Next morning the Pilot was summoned to the office. "You think it was rough on you, do you, Mr. Woods?" said he. "But I didn't tell the boys a thing that they didn't know already. And what's more," he continued, "I didn't tell them a thing that your own son doesn't know. You know just as well as I do what road _he's_ travelling; and you know just as well as I do what you are doing to help that boy along."

Higgins continued to preach in those camps.

* * * * *

One inevitably wonders what would happen if some minister of the cities denounced from his pulpit in these frank and indignantly righteous terms the flagrant sinners and hypocrites of his congregation. What polite catastrophe would befall him?--suppose he were convinced of the wisdom and necessity of the denunciation and had no family dependent upon him. The outburst leaves Higgins established in the hearts of his hearers; and it leaves him utterly exhausted. He mingles with the boys afterward; he encourages and scolds them, he hears confession, he prays in some quiet place in the snow with those whose hearts he has touched, he confers with men who have been seeking to overcome themselves, he writes letters for the illiterate, he visits the sick, he renews old acquaintanceship, he makes new friends, he yarns of the "cut" and the "big timber" and the "homesteading" of other places, and he distributes the "readin' matter," consisting of old magazines and tracts which he has carried into camp.

At last he quits the bunk-house, worn out and discouraged and downcast.

"I failed to-night," he said, once, at the superintendent's fire. "It was awfully kind of the boys to listen to me so patiently. Did you notice how attentive they were? I tell you, the boys are _good_ to me! Maybe I was a little rough on them to-night. But somehow all this unnecessary and terrible wickedness enrages me. And nobody else much seems to care about it. And I'm their minister. And I yearn to have the souls of these boys awakened. I've just _got_ to stand up and tell them the truth about themselves and give them the same old Message that I heard when I was a boy. I don't know, but it's kind of queer about ministers of the gospel," he went on. "We've got two Creations now, and three Genesises. But take a minister. It wouldn't matter to me if a brother minister fell from grace. I'd pick him out of the mud and never think of it again. It wouldn't cost _me_ much to forgive him. I know that we're all human and liable to sin. But when an ordained minister gets up in his pulpit and dodges his duty--when he gets up and dodges the truth--why, bah! _I've got no time for him!_"