A Far Country | Page 8

him--if I leaped into that stream, could God save me? He was
shocked. Miracles, he told me, didn't happen any more.
"When did they stop?" I demanded.
"About two thousand years ago, my son," he replied gravely.
"Then," said I, "no matter how much I believed in God, he wouldn't
save me if I jumped into the big kettle for his sake?"
For this I was properly rebuked and silenced.
My boyhood was filled with obsessing desires. If God, for example,
had cast down, out of his abundant store, manna and quail in the desert,
why couldn't he fling me a little pocket money? A paltry quarter of a
dollar, let us say, which to me represented wealth. To avoid the
reproach of the Pharisees, I went into the closet of my bed-chamber to

pray, requesting that the quarter should be dropped on the north side of
Lyme Street, between Stamford and Tryon; in short, as conveniently
near home as possible. Then I issued forth, not feeling overconfident,
but hoping. Tom Peters, leaning over the ornamental cast-iron fence
which separated his front yard from the street, presently spied me
scanning the sidewalk.
"What are you looking for, Hugh?" he demanded with interest.
"Oh, something I dropped," I answered uneasily.
"What?"
Naturally, I refused to tell. It was a broiling, midsummer day; Julia and
Russell, who had been warned to stay in the shade, but who were
engaged in the experiment of throwing the yellow cat from the top of
the lattice fence to see if she would alight on her feet, were presently
attracted, and joined in the search. The mystery which I threw around it
added to its interest, and I was not inconsiderably annoyed. Suppose
one of them were to find the quarter which God had intended for me?
Would that be justice?
"It's nothing," I said, and pretended to abandon the quest--to be
renewed later. But this ruse failed; they continued obstinately to search;
and after a few minutes Tom, with a shout, picked out of a hot crevice
between the bricks--a nickel!
"It's mine!" I cried fiercely.
"Did you lose it?" demanded Julia, the canny one, as Tom was about to
give it up.
My lying was generally reserved for my elders.
"N-no," I said hesitatingly, "but it's mine all the same. It was--sent to
me."
"Sent to you!" they exclaimed, in a chorus of protest and derision. And
how, indeed, was I to make good my claim? The Peterses, when
assembled, were a clan, led by Julia and in matters of controversy,
moved as one. How was I to tell them that in answer to my prayers for
twenty-five cents, God had deemed five all that was good for me?
"Some--somebody dropped it there for me."
"Who?" demanded the chorus. "Say, that's a good one!"
Tears suddenly blinded me. Overcome by chagrin, I turned and flew
into the house and upstairs into my room, locking the door behind me.
An interval ensued, during which I nursed my sense of wrong, and it

pleased me to think that the money would bring a curse on the Peters
family. At length there came a knock on the door, and a voice calling
my name.
"Hugh! Hugh!"
It was Tom.
"Hughie, won't you let me in? I want to give you the nickel."
"Keep it!" I shouted back. "You found it."
Another interval, and then more knocking.
"Open up," he said coaxingly. "I--I want to talk to you."
I relented, and let him in. He pressed the coin into my hand. I refused;
he pleaded.
"You found it," I said, "it's yours."
"But--but you were looking for it."
"That makes no difference," I declared magnanimously.
Curiosity overcame him.
"Say, Hughie, if you didn't drop it, who on earth did?"
"Nobody on earth," I replied cryptically....
Naturally, I declined to reveal the secret. Nor was this by any means the
only secret I held over the Peters family, who never quite knew what to
make of me. They were not troubled with imaginations. Julia was a
little older than Tom and had a sharp tongue, but over him I exercised a
distinct fascination, and I knew it. Literal himself, good-natured and
warm-hearted, the gift I had of tingeing life with romance (to put the
thing optimistically), of creating kingdoms out of back yards--at which
Julia and Russell sniffed--held his allegiance firm.

II.
I must have been about twelve years of age when I realized that I was
possessed of the bard's inheritance. A momentous journey I made with
my parents to Boston about this time not only stimulated this gift, but
gave me the advantage of which other travellers before me have
likewise availed themselves--of being able to take certain poetic
liberties with a distant land that my friends at