Burned Bridges - Bertrand W. Sinclair (best ereader for academics txt) 📗
- Author: Bertrand W. Sinclair
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Of The World He Seemed To Have Nothing To Give That Was Of Any Value.
Chapter 3 (In Which Mr. Thompson Begins To Wonder Painfully) Pg 31
He Was, At The Same Time, Discovering In Himself Personal Needs To Which
He Had Never Given A Thought, Sordid Everyday Necessities The
Satisfaction Of Which Had Always Been At Hand, Unquestioned, Taken For
Granted Much As One Takes The Sun And The Air For Granted. His Meals Had
Been Provided. His Bed Had Been Provided. The Funds Which Had Clothed
And Educated Him And Trained Him For The Ministry Had Been Provided, And
Likewise His Transportation To The Scene Of His Endeavors. How, He Had
Not Known Except In The Vaguest Way, He Had Not Particularly Inquired,
Any More Than The Child Inquires The Whence And The Why Of Luscious
Berries He Finds Growing Upon A Bush In The Garden.
Not Until He Was Torn By The Roots Out Of The Old, Ordered Environment
And Flung Headlong Into An Environment Where Cause And Effect Are Linked
Close Did He Consider These Things. Materially He Was Getting A
First-Hand Lesson In Economics--And Domestic Science Of A Sort!
Spiritually He Was A Little Bit Aghast, Amazed That The Almighty Did Not
Personally Intervene To Save A Man From His Own Inefficiency. He Began
To Grasp The Hitherto Unnoted Fact That Meals And A Bed And Fires And
Clothes And All The Other Stark Necessities Involved Labor Of The Hands,
Skilful Exercise Of The Thought-Function.
If This Was So, He, Wesley Thompson, Twenty-Five Years Of Age And A
Minister Of The Gospel, Was Deeply In Debt--Unless He Denied The Justice
Of Giving Value For Value Received. He Had Received Much; He Had
Returned Nothing Except Perfunctory Thanks. And What Had He To Give?
Even To Him, Transcendent As Was His Faith That The Glory Of Man Was But
The Reflected Glory Of God, That Faith Was Not A Commodity To Be
Bartered.
He Did Not Think These Things In These Terms. He Found Himself Becoming
Involved In A Maze Of Speculation, In Which He Could Only Grope Feebly
For Words To Define The Unrest That Was In Him.
While He Sat At His Small Table Of Rough-Hewn Boards With His Scorched,
Unappetizing Biscuits, Ill-Cooked Potatoes And Bacon, And A Pot Of Tea
That He Could Never Brew To His Liking (And Mr. Thompson, From A
Considerable Amount Of Juggling Afternoon Teacups, Had Acquired A Nice
Taste In That Beverage) He Saw Tommy Ashe And Sophie Carr Pass Along One
Edge Of His Clearing, A Cluster Of Bright-Winged Ducks Slung Over
Tommy's Shoulder, Their Voices Floating Across To Him As If They Came
Down A Long Corridor. They Disappeared Toward Lone Moose Through The
Timber, And Mr. Thompson Sat Brooding Over His Lonely Meal Until He
Realized With A Start That His Mind Was Concentrating Upon Sophie Carr
With A Disturbing Insistence.
The Plague Of Mosquitoes Had Somewhat Abated. In The Early Morning And
For A Time In The Evening, And Also When Rain Dampened The Atmosphere,
These Pests Still Kept A Man's Hands Busy Warding Them Off. But Through
The Dry Heat Of The Day He Could Go Abroad In Reasonable Comfort.
So Now Mr. Thompson Washed Up His Dishes In A Fashion To Make The Lips
Of A Careful Housekeeper Pucker In Disdain, Clapped On His Broken-Rimmed
Straw Hat And Sallied Forth.
He Was Full Of An Earnest Desire To Do Good, As He Defined Doing Good.
He Had Come Here For That Purpose, Backed By An Organization For Just
Such Good Work. This Evangelical Fire Burned Strong In Him Despite The
Chapter 3 (In Which Mr. Thompson Begins To Wonder Painfully) Pg 32Crude Shifts He Was Put To, The Loneliness, The Perplexities And Trials
Of The Spirit. Just As An Educated Humanitarian Coming Upon An
Illiterate People Would Gladly Banish Their Illiteracy, So Thompson Was
Resolved To Banish What He Deemed The Spiritual Darkness Of These
Primitive Folk. Holding As He Did To The Orthodoxy Of Sin And Salvation,
Of A Literal Heaven And A Nebulous Sort Of Hell, He Deemed It His
Business To Show Them With Certainty The Paths That Led To Each.
But He Could Not Reach Them Unless He Could Speak Their Tongue, He Could
Not Gather Them About Him In The Open Meadow As The Man Of Galilee
Gathered His Disciples About Him. The Climate Was Against That Simple
Procedure. Therefore He Postulated Two Things As Necessary To Make A
Beginning--To Learn The Tribal Language And To Build A Church.
He Was Making An Attempt At Both, And Making Little More Progress Than
He Made In The Culinary Art. Only A Naturally Vigorous Stomach Enabled
Him To Assimilate The Messes He Cooked Without Suffering Acute
Indigestion. Likewise Only A Naive Turn Of Mind Enabled Him To Ward Off
Mental Indigestion In His Struggles With The Language. Whatever The
Defects Of His Training For What He Considered His Life Work, He Had
Considerable Power Of Application. He Might Get Discouraged, But He Was
Not A Quitter. He Kept Trying. This Took The Form Of Studying The
Athabascan Gutturals With The Aid Of Lachlan's Second Son, A Boy Of
Eighteen. For An Hour In The Forenoon And The Same In The Evening He
Struggled With Pronunciations And Meanings Like A Child Learning The
Alphabet, Forgetting, Like The Child, A Good Deal Of It Between Lessons.
And He Had Begun Work On A Log Building Twenty By Thirty Feet, That Was
To Be A Meeting-House.
He Did Not Get On With This Very Fast. He Laid His Foundation In The
Edge Of The Timber To Lessen The Distance His Material Must Be Moved.
He Had To Fell Trees, To Lop Off The Branches, And Cut The Trunks To
Proper Length, Then Roll Them With Infinite Effort To Their Proper Place
In The Structure. He Could Only Gather How A Log Building Could Be
Erected By Asking Lachlan, And By Taking The Lone Moose Cabins For His
Model. And He Was A Fearful And Wonderful Axeman. His Log Ends Looked As
If Chewed By A Beaver, Except That They Lacked The Beaver's Neatness Of
Finish. His Feet Suffered Manifold Hairbreadth Escapes From The Sharp
Blade. He Could Never Guess Which Way A Tree Would Fall. For A Week's
Work He Had Got Two Courses Of Logs Laid In Position.
He Did Not Allow His Mind To Dwell On The Ultimate Outcome Of This Task,
Because He Was Uneasily Aware That Lone Moose Was Smiling Slyly Behind
Its Brown Hand At Him And His Works. In His Mind There Was Nothing For
It But A Church. He Had Tried One Sunday Service At Lachlan's House,
With Lachlan Senior To Interpret His Words. The Indians Had Come.
Indeed, They Had Come En Masse. They Packed The Room He Spoke In, Big
And Little, Short, Chunky Natives, And Tall, Thin-Faced Ones, And The
Overflow Spilled Into The Kitchen Beyond. The Day Was Very Hot, The Roof
Low, The Windows Closed. There Was A Vitiation Of The Atmosphere That
Was Not Helped By A Strong Bodily Odor, A Stout And Sturdy Smell That
Came Near To Sickening Mr. Thompson. He Was Extraordinarily Glad When He
Got Outside. That Closeness--To Speak Mildly--Coupled With The Heavy,
Copper-Red Faces, Impassive As Masks, Impersonally Listening With
Scarcely A Flicker Of The Eye-Lids, Made Thompson Forswear Another
Attempt To Preach Until He Could Speak To Them In Their Own Tongue And
Chapter 3 (In Which Mr. Thompson Begins To Wonder Painfully) Pg 33Speak To Them In A Goodly Place Of Worship Where A Man's Thoughts Would
Not Be Imperiously Distracted By A Pressing Need Of Ventilation.
Coming Now To The Site He Had Chosen, He Stood For A Moment Casting An
Eye Over The Scene Of His Undertaking. The Longer He Looked At It The
More Of An Undertaking It Seemed. He Had Heard Lachlan Speak Of Two Men
Felling Trees And Putting Up A Sixteen-Foot Cabin Complete From
Foundation To Ridgelog In Three Days. He Did Not See How It Could Be
Done. He Was Thoroughly Incredulous Of That Statement. But He Did Expect
To Roof In That Church Before The Snow Fell. Its Walls Would Be
Consecrated With Sweat And Straining Muscles. It Would Be A Concrete
Accomplishment. The Instinct To Create, The Will To Fashion And Mold, To
See Something Take Form Under His Hands, Had Begun To Stir In Him.
Axe In Hand, He Set To Work. He Had Learned The First Lesson Of Manual
Labor--That A Man Cannot Swing His Arms And Breathe Deeply If His Body
Is Swaddled In Clothes. His Coat Came Off And His Vest And His Hat, All
Slung Across A Fallen Tree. Presently, As He Warmed Up, His Outer Shirt
Joined The Discarded Garments.
Stripped For Action In A Literal Sense He Did Not In The Least Conform
To The Clerical Figure. He Was The Antithesis Of Asceticism, Of
Gentleness, Of Spiritual And Scholarly Repose. He Was Simply A Big Man
Lustily Chopping, Red In The Face From His Exertions, Beads Of Sweat
Standing Out On Brow And Cheek, His Sturdy Neck All A-Glisten With
Moisture. Under His Thin, Short-Sleeved Undershirt His Biceps Rippled
And Played. The Flat Muscle-Bands Across His Broad Chest Slackened And
Tightened As His Arms Swung. For Mr. Thompson Had Been Fashioned By
Nature In A Generous Mood. He Was Not A Heroic Figure, But He Was Big
And Built As A Man Should Be, Deep In The Chest, Flat-Backed, Very
Straight When He Stood Erect. He Had Escaped The Scholarly Stoop. If His
Muscles Were Soft They Were In A Fair Way To Become Hardened.
He Was More Or Less Unconscious Of All This. He Had Never Thought Of His
Body As Being Strong Or Well-Shaped, Because He Had Never Used It, Never
Pitted His Strength Against The Strength Of Other Men, Never Worked,
Never Striven. It Had Never Been Necessary For Him To Do So. He Had Been
Taught That Pride Of That Sort Was Sinful, And He Had Accepted The
Teaching Rather Too Literally.
Already A Curious Sort Of Change Was Manifesting In Him. His Blue Eyes
Had A Different Expression Than One Would Have Observed In Them
During--Well, During The Period Of His Theological Studies, Shall We
Say, When The State Of His Soul And The State Of Other People's Souls
Was The Only Consideration. One Would Have Been Troubled To Make Out Any
Pronounced Personality Then. He Was Simply A Studious Young Man With A
Sanctimonious
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