The Calling of Dan Matthews | Page 8

he watched the boy there was, on
the face of the old physician, that look of half envy, half regret.
In addition to his training at the little country school, Dan's mother was
his constant teacher, passing on to her son as only a mother could, the
truths she had received from her old master, the Shepherd. But when
the time came for more advanced intellectual training the choice of a
college was left to their friend. The Doctor hesitated. He shrank from
sending the lad out into the world. He foolishly could not bear the
thought of that splendid nature coming in touch with the filth of life as
he knew it. "You can see," he argued gruffly, "what it has done for me."
But Sammy answered, "Why, Doctor, what is the boy for?" And Young
Matt, looking away over Garber where an express train thundered over
the trestles and around the curves, said in his slow way, "The brush is
about all cleared, Doctor. The wilderness is going fast. The boy must
live in his own age and do his own work." When their friend urged that
they develop or sell the mine in the cave on Dewey Bald, and go with

the boy, they both shook their heads emphatically, saying, "No, Doctor,
we belong to the hills."
When the boy finally left his mountain home for a school in the distant
city, he had grown to be a man to fill the heart of every lover of his race
with pride. With his father's powerful frame and close-knit muscles,
and the healthy life of the woods and hills leaping in his veins, his
splendid body and physical strength were refined and dominated by the
mind and spirit of his mother. His shaggy, red-brown hair was like his
father's but his eyes were his mother's eyes, with that same trick of
expression, that wide questioning gaze, that seemed to demand every
vital truth in whatever came under his consideration. He had, too, his
mother's quick way of grasping your thoughts almost before you
yourself were fully conscious of them, with that same saving sense of
humor that made Sammy Lane the life and sunshine of the countryside.
"Big Dan," the people of the hills had come to call him and "Big Dan"
they called him in the school. For, in the young life of the schools, as in
the country, there is a spirit that names men with names that fit.
Secretly the Doctor had hoped that Dan would choose the profession so
dear to him. What an ideal physician he would make, with that clean,
powerful, well balanced nature; and above all with that love for his race,
and his passion to serve mankind that was the dominant note in his
character. The boy would be the kind of a physician that the old Doctor
had hoped to be. So he planned and dreamed for Dan as he had planned
and dreamed for himself, thinking to see the dreams that he had failed
to live, realized in the boy.
It was a severe shock to the Doctor when that letter came telling him of
Dan's choice of a profession. For the first time the boy had
disappointed him, disappointed him bitterly.
Seizing his fishing tackle the old man fled to the nearest stream. And
there gazing into the deep, still waters, where he had cast his hook, he
came to understand. It was that same dominant note in the boy's life,
that inborn passion to serve, that fixed principle in his character that his
life must be of the greatest possible worth to the world, that had led

him to make his choice. With that instinct born in him, coming from
the influence of the old Shepherd upon his father and mother, the boy
could no more escape it than he could change the color of his brown
eyes.
"But," said the Doctor to his cork, that floated on the surface in a patch
of shadow, "what does he know about it, what does he really know?
He's been reading history--that's what's the matter with him. He sees
things as they were, not as they are. He should have come to me, I
could have--" Just then the cork went under. The Doctor had a bite. "I
could have told him," repeated the fisherman softly, "I--" The cork
bobbed up again--it was only a nibble. "He'll find out the truth of
course. He's that kind. But when he finds it!" The cork bobbed
again--"He'll need me, he'll need me bad!" The cork went under for
good this time. Zip--and the Doctor had a big one!
With fresh bait and his hook once more well down toward the bottom
the Doctor saw the whole thing clearly, and so planned a