From: Arden Town (1913; Unpublished MS)
Author: Scott Nearing
Published:
Will Evans sat in front of a bright little fire, talking earnestly with two men. All three rose as the new-comers entered.
“Thanks, Will,” said one of the men.
“You’ve helped us a lot on that,” added the other.
“Don’t talk of it,” rejoined Will Evans. “Good-night,” and the men were gone.
“Well, chilluns,” he turned to Ruth Wade and Fred Allen, “has the night become less lovely?”
“Somewhat, I think, Mr. Evans, since your niece has come inside.” Fred Allen said the words chiefly because he usually said some such thing under similar circumstances. They were no sooner uttered than he was profoundly sorry, though the shade of disapproval on Ruth Wade’s face was but momentary. It was succeeded by a whimsical twinkle. She remembered his familiarity with social life and forgave him.
“When a man talks like that,” said Ru.th Wade slowly, “he needs—Arden.”
“Yes,” joked Will Evans, “compliments and snobs are both barred or reformed—reformed I guess is a better word. Any compliment, you know, can be changed into a decent remark by the application of a little surgery. ‘Set ye down, my dears, and have a warm,’ as Mrs. Cratchitt said one cold Christmas morning.”
They drew their chairs around the slip of a fire that was crackling on the hearth. For several minutes no one spoke. Will Evans was resting his elbows- on the arms of his chair, and gazing dreamily at the mantle. Fred Allen leaned slightly forward and looked intently into the fire. Ruth Wade glanced from one to the other, contrasting them. Will Evans was past middle life. His hair was gray, his eyes deep-sunken. The lines around his mouth looked like the scars left by a knife. Fred Allen was young in comparison. His face was clean and smooth, and his glance was still sharp with the energy of early manhood.
“We open all of the windows, we are uncomfortably warm, yet we have a fire,” said Will Evans at last. “Did you ever think, little Ruth, what sacrifices we are willing to make for the things we love?”
Ruth Wade laughed gayly.
“Dear old Uncle, always moralizing,” she said gently. “However,” she admitted, after a moment’s pause, “you are right, as usual. I guess if it came to a test I would give my right hand for that dog of ours. As for you—you would divide your last blanket with a horn that had been out in the wet.”
Will Evans opened his mouth to speak.
“Excuse me, Uncle,” exclaimed Ruth Wade, contritely, “I meant to say that you would gladly give the whole blanket and your mattress into the bargain.”
“She’s a dear little girl, Mr. Allen,” said Will Evans, reaching over and patting Ruth on the knee, “but she does go on very foolishly at times.”
Fred Allen turned from his contemplation of the fire and studied Will Evans’s face for an instant.
“Mr. Evans,” he said slowly, “do you really believe that the world is getting better?”
“Child alive! How should a simple village man like me be able to answer such a question?”
“I’ll tell you why I am asking. I had never given the matter a second thought until last month when Miss Wade annihilated my intellectual breastworks, and took the fortress by storm. I really had some pretty definite convictions until she made her assault, but after the six days of continued bombardment, accompanied each day by charges of unheard of ferocity, I must admit myself rather disastrously routed.”
“Mr. Allen,” said Will Evans, “your hand. I had, and by the grace of heaven, I think I still have some convictions; but, believe me, I am permitted to hold them only because they are strictly in accord with the theories of this young crusader.”
“Uncle Will! The very idea,” protested Ruth Wade. “You will persuade Mr. Allen that I am a Harpie.”
“My dear,” rejoined Will Evans, “set your mind at rest. Mr. Allen has clearly formed his opinions, free of any interference on my part. He speaks out of the realm of acrid experience.”
“Still,” continued Fred Allen, in the same thoughtful tone, “I am not sure that Miss Wade has not convinced me. During the last three weeks I have been looking over my factory. Miss Wade, yesterday I paid a bill of eight hundred and forty dollars for repairs to a fire escape. You see how expensive our acquaintance has already proved? We repaired the old one and decided to let it stand; but when I returned from the shore, I had it rebuilt.”
“That is splendid,” said Ruth Wade, intensely.
“You see, I am in earnest with my question, Mr. Evans,” Fred Allen continued. “Heretofore, I have accepted the scriptural saying that ‘All men are liars,’ and acting up to the letter of the text, I have assiduously practiced this universal human profession. Since Miss Wade battered down my intrenchments, I have been looking around me just enough to convince myself that a certain number of men are very decent after all.”
“People always come to that conclusion,” said Ruth Wade quietly. “If you are looking for red, you will never see blue at all.”
“Let’s go back a bit,” said Will Evans. “You asked me if the world was getting better. I don’t know. The whole thing is so big and complex, and my life is so small a part of the great whole, that I cannot tell; but of one thing I am sure—the average person, if given a chance, will be a pretty decent chap.”
“What do you mean by a chance? Haven’t we all a chance?”
“Well, let’s see, do you believe that every boy has a chance to be president of the United States?”
“Of course he has—at least I have always thought so.”
“Now listen,” continued Will Evans, pointing his finger playfully at Fred Allen’s waistcoat, “the average man of twenty-five will see six presidential elections; that is, in the course of his lifetime, he will have six possible chances to be elected president. At each of these elections there are twenty-four million other men old enough to be eligible. For each of these elections, one man will have one chance in twenty-four million to be elected president, and in the whole series of six, he will have one chance in four million to be elected. How much money would you put up, Mr. Allen, if the probabilities were four million to one against you?”
“I never thought of it that way,” said Fred Allen.
“You see,” pursued Will Evans, “that isn’t a chance, at least it isn’t a real chance. There is more coming yet,” he added, laughing. “If that able and aspiring portion of the feminine world which is striving to secure for itself the right to participate in political affairs finally succeeds—” he tweaked the end of Ruth Wade’s little finger—“and makes up its mind to be after the office of president, your chances will be cut in two again.” They all laughed, and Ruth Wade had begun a remonstrance when her uncle interrupted,—“You know it’s true, now let me have the last word, like a dear woman. When I say that people will be decent if they have a chance, I mean that their surroundings must be such as to develop their bodies and minds, and to give them an ample opportunity to exercise the spirit of creative beauty with which everyone is, to a certain extent, endowed.”
“And that is what they cannot do now,” put in Ruth Wade. “The schools develop neither their bodies nor their aesthetic powers.”
“Do you see what I mean, Mr. Allen?” asked Will Evans.
“But how can you prove that what you say is true?”
“I can’t prove it. I simply believe it.”
“Why?”
“Because, after watching people for many years, I am convinced that they usually do the thing which they consider to be right, unless the odds are very heavy against them.”
“But don’t they often make mistakes?” protested Fred Allen.
“Of course, but a mistake is the result of ignorance and bad judgment. We all make mistakes; but I honestly believe that, given enough to eat and a decent place to live, the average person will do what he considers the right thing. Of course his training may be atrociously bad, and he may have the haziest of ideas about his duties to his fellow men; but I insist that from the time when he gets a fair chance, his mistakes will be errors, not deliberate wrong-doing.”
“How strange that sounds,” murmured Fred Allen. “Yet perhaps, after all, you’re right about it.”
“No, that isn’t strange,” said Ruth Wade, “that is Arden.”
“Mr. Allen,” said Will Evans, “there is just one principle which guides us here. We believe in men and women. You will be surprised to see how they respond to this belief.”
Fred Allen rested both elbows on his knees and sank his chin in his hands. “Your premises startle a city man,” said he, “but they sound like the thing that I’ve been looking for all my life.”
A dying tongue of flame flickered and disappeared. Save for the white moonlight that sifted through the trees, the room was dark. Will Evans rose and stirred the fire. I must go to work, boys and girls,” he said.
“And I,” said Ruth Wade slowly, “must go home and pack.”
Fred Allen started. “Pack,” he exclaimed.
“Yes, I have an opportunity to take Sunday breakfast with two of the cleverest artists in New York. I must go over early to-morrow.”
“When will your grace visit our colony again, fair Coz?” asked Will Evans.
“Sunday night, Uncle. You may expect me for the camp fire. Good-night,” and she disappeared through the open door.
“Miss Wade,” cried Fred Allen, “can’t I see you home?”
He stepped quickly to the door, but she was lost in the shrubbery.
“Too late,” Will Evans laughed, “that bird flies swiftly.”
“And beautifully,” answered Fred Allen.
“Can I give you a book? I have a number here.”
“No, I think that, with your permission, I will go straight to bed. When I am in the country, I like to see the early sun strike the dewdrops.”
“An excellent idea. Good-night,” and they parted.
When Fred Allen reached his room, he sat down in front of the open window, and looked out at the white patches of moonlight that lay between the dark tree shadows. Except for the song of the crickets and katydids, the night was solemnly still. Off to the right was the path which Ruth Wade must have taken to reach her cottage.
“He is a man after my own heart,” he said half aloud. “Yes, he is very like his niece.”
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