A modern Saint Christopher; or, The brothers

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

V t

Part I

If the deed is precious for the sake of the thought of which it is the fruit, the thought must vindicate its power by the corresponding deed.

Man, as he is, is not fully revealed till thought is embodied in deed. And when Descartes had said, “/ think , therefore I am,” I cannot but rejoice that Whichcote silently corrected the famous sentence by the more 7nemorable phrase, “/ act, therefore I am .” — Westcott.

T.

f I NHERE is nothing that so speedily suggests mystery as contradiction, whether it be manifested by action, speech, or the mute sign of opposing principles in merely material work. This is especially noticeable in architecture, where markedly conflicting styles will straightway rivet attention, and awaken interest in what otherwise would be nothing more than an ordinary building. And seldom is this statement more strongly verified than in the case of the old Parret House, around which for years there has centred a never-waning curiosity, not only on the part of new-comers, but also among the old residents of the somewhat prosaic village of N . A village that is a fac-simile

of hundreds of villages that are scattered thick as daisies in the grass from New England’s remotest inland boundary to the farthest out-reaching seaport town that studs its coast ; from Maine’s rockbound shore on to the sheltered harbors of Massachusetts and Connecticut. And this wide-spreading area covers acres and acres, diversified by mountains, lesser hills, valleys, and open meadow-lands, dense

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forests and low-lying plains, interspersed by rushing rivers and lakes, some wide and wave-tossed as miniature seas, others calm as the still waters of King David’s psalm.

But all this has not to do with Parret House, and the impression one received from even a passing glance at the dull red of its brick walls, the monotony of which were broken by a goodly array of narrow window-casements, set with the tiny glass panes of a bygone time. “ Window lights ” those bits of glass were called by the country-folk, for the early settlers of New England had a way of poetic nomenclature, while, at the same time, they so steadfastly banished fancy and romance from any recognized place either in their hearts or minds.

Adding to the quaint effect of the many windows were the close, gloomy-looking shutters that guarded them, and which were made of solid, undivided lengths of wood, like box-lids, and painted a green that was no more like the green of nature than the coloring of a gray-coated sparrow is like the brilliant hues of the oriole or blue-bird.

As for the door that led into the northern side of the house, it was one of those inhospitable doors that opened wide its upper half, as though to court conversation, while the lower half, through which entrance was attainable, remained close - barred.

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And yet, spite these sombre details, there was something of picturesqueness about that north-side view. For the slope of the roof, as it extended over the western wing, was a long slant, broken by dormer windows, and the upward-pointing shaft of a high chimney, from which smoke began to float skyward by dawn of spring and mid-summer days, and a full hour before sunrise during the autumn and winter months. And no home whose chimney thus sends upward the curling haze of its fireside smoke, can be utterly destitute of cheer.

Then, too, — and here it is that curiosity begins to waken, — one caught a glimpse of castellated turrets towering up beyond that western wing, and the sight of them was like a sudden annulling of space, and the transferring of some hillside chateau from the land of sunny France into the very heart of bleak New England, — an impression which deepened into a sense of reality by merely passing from the northwestern corner of the house to its southern side, for there, instead of beholding the home of a well-to-do New England Squire, one stood before the vine-wreathed porch of a veritable maisonnette , yet sufficiently imposing in size and ornamentation to merit the title of M. le Comte’s chateau. This effect of reality was enhanced by the flower-bordered walk that led from the garden gate up to the very

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steps of the porch, for those borders were ablaze with gaily-tinted blossoms from May on to November.

There was a grassy field, too, beyond the gate, where, when the sky was clear, sunshine played in changing, golden light through the hours of the livelong day. In this field, when the year’s season was springtime, it was hard to tell which held sway — grass-blades, violets, buttercups, or anemones — for they all grew in a profusion bountiful as the blossoming of their foreign cousins, the far-famed double-leaved violets, narcissus, iris white and blue, and roses pink and yellow.

Hence, as I said, though lacking in the brilliancy of color possessed by the French-born flowerets, they nevertheless made that field seem like a bit of France, even though one did miss the song of the nightingale, “ most musical, most sweet,” with its liquid note that always seems calling for the answering of love. Yes, the melody of the nightingale’s love - language, as it flits from bough to bough among the orange and almond-trees of southern France, is something we New England dwellers must always miss, though we do have song and song-birds.

But, save in an undefined way, one did not much think of the birds, as they noted how nature had

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helped man in conforming that scene to its foreign prototype. For edging the grassy field was a bosquet , through which a winding path led to the bank of a swift-running brooklet, whose waters, as they rippled over the pebbly bed, held a perpetual hint of music. On the bank-sides of the stream grew a wild tangle of alders ; marsh willows ; and dwarf pines, the deep green of their spear-like foliage half-hidden by the clinging tendrils of bitter-sweet, or the more delicate leafage of wild ivy and woodbine. Higher up on the banks, and overtopping the lesser growths, were oak, chestnut, maple, and hemlock, and — not classifying these trees, but merely looking at the interblending of the various shades of green that clothe their boughs in summer, some in dark and sombre, others in light and yellow hues —it was easy to let imagination picture the tinting of olive, magnolia, orange, and almond.

It was easy, also, to wonder if the distant tinkling of a cow-bell heralded the approach of some biown-eyed shepherd or shepherdess, whose shrill voice might at any moment break the reigning quietness by a sharp call to dog, or scattered flock of sheep or goats ; or perchance by the sweeter note of even or matin-song, the echoing “ Ave, Ave Maria/’ that over-and-over repeated canticle so dear to the shepherd youths and maidens of sunny France.

After all this descriptive loitering, you will plainly see why the impression one received of Parret House greatly depended on whether you approached it by the way of the northern or southern entrance.

The two paths of approach were marked by an unlikeness quite as striking, the high-road that led past the north gate being well kept and much travelled. In Colonial days it was the most direct route from the now sturdy capital city, to the rockguarded collegiate town, that so early in our country’s history, set the royal seal of learning, as a pledge of “ high thinking and plain living,” on that well-nigh least State — according to the measure of miles — that claims a star in the flag of our Union. That you may locate Parret House with something of definiteness, I will tell you that it is midway between the two cities to which I have referred. As for the southern, and less-frequented way of approaching the mansion, it was a mere by-road for wood-cutters and charcoal-burners, with their heavily-laden teams — loads that cut deep ruts in the yielding soil, where water-pools lingered long after every equinoctial storm or down-pouring mid-summer shower. And though the width of those ruts was no more than a space spanned by a couple of inches, they caught deep, far-reaching reflections of

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overhanging tree-boughs, and glints of blue sky, broken by the swiftly-passing fleecy cloudlets, that looked like the waving of angels’ wings, mirrored there in the roadside pools.

Ferns and brakes, too, grow high in the deep, mossy glades that edge the way ; and long after the spring blossoms of the hillside and open fields have faded, one may find timid flowerets still in full bloom in those sheltered nooks.

It is strange how flowers, that we are wont to call children of sunshine, love shady places like that ; following one another in the floral calendar from the spring days of opening arbutus buds, on to the last bloom of autumn’s golden-rod and purple aster. A parable of life, verily ; at least so thought the youngest son of Parret House, Nathan, about whom the chief interest of our story centres.

This wood-road was the way by which he liked best to return home, whether the hour were mid-day or toward nightfall, when fireflies flitted in and out among the shadows, like smiles playing amid tears on the faces of little children. And this is Nathan’s thought, also, for he always had a way of thinking a thought into whatever he saw.

But not so, did Victor Parret, the first-born son and heir to all the broad acres of that wide-spread farm, save for the narrow strip of meadow-lands x8 A MODERN SAINT CHRISTOPHER.

and the stretch of forest, which was Nathan’s by right of inheritance. No; Victor was entirely free from any tendency to invest either man or nature with more than the most casual look revealed, and he was content to come and go by the wellkept high-road, for which he paid his yearly tax with never a murmur, so long as the swiftly-revolving wheels of his high-topped chaise encountered no obstructing jolt or rut.

Strange, that the matter of contradictory tastes between the brothers should be manifested in so slight a matter as their choice of a road ; but so it was, and it serves as a type of them from babyhood on to manhood. But before I begin to unwind the tangled story of their contradictory and conflicting lives, I must pause to tell something of their parentage.

The father, French by birth, education, temperament, and taste ; and the mother, whose mind, heart, and physique all proclaimed the Puritan ancestry which was her pride, and hence her danger. For pride always is dangerous, even though it be of so good a thing as birth, education, or religion — this we know from our Lord’s own parable regarding the essence of pride ; I mean the one that records the prayer of him who thanked God that he was “ not as other men.”

II

S I said, if we are to follow the life-story of the Parret brothers, we must first learn something of the characters of their parents, and also of the influences that encompassed their early years. And so I turn the pages of a yellow, time-stained manuscript to find recorded the tale of Adolph Parret’s coming to America, and his meeting with Squire Wolcott’s fair daughter, gentle, sedate Prudence, who straightway won the heart of the impulsive Frenchman. The story of their courtship reads like a page from some old-time love poem, and it is all sweet, fresh, and pure as the song of a lark, or the blossom of a lily.

And if the language seems somewhat quaint and formal, it was after the manner of the times. Then, too, Adolph Parret was a thorough Frenchman in his power of illumining with rosy coloring all that deeply stirred his heart ; thus, every line of that old journal is aglow with admiration for what he termed “ the child-simple soul ” of his love. “ She is true, pure, and tender as a white dove,” — thus he writes; and he pictures “the calm depth of her dark eyes,” and her smile, which he

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calls “ half-holy,” while in her voice there was no hint of the high-pitched tone that sounded like a discordant note in the speech of most of the New Englard women he met.

This is the description of Prudence, as I gather it from those manuscript pages. Does it give, I wonder, any true idea of Prudence Wolcott ? Certainly it suggests a maiden possessed of qualities ready to open into a lovely womanhood. And, in many respects, that was her development, but there were shadows in it, amounting almost — I am forced to use the words — to grave inconsistencies ; for noble, true impulses more than once were vanquished by ignoble in their contest, not with great trials, but by the petty daily annoyances of life. Every woman knows what these are, for they are neither limited by countries or centuries, wealth or poverty ; and seek though we may for the victorious weapon with which to conquer this armed host, none have ever yet found any sure way, save that of strength of will sufficient to yield, first, one’s own will to God’s ; and then to yield it to others, in the details of life which involve, not yielding of principles, but of prejudices; not of truths, but of opinions.

Prudence Wolcott’s marriage with Adolph Parret, from the very beginning held grave danger ; for by education and creed their views were as un-

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like as their birth-lands were unlike in climate and national traits. But those were the days when, in New England, the halo of the courtly, brave champion of their country, the much-loved Marquis de Lafayette, still encircled every Frenchman, and with special radiance centred around a high-born refugee like the young M. le Comte Parret ; who came seeking shelter from the woes of war then devastating his own land, and banishing its nobles by the score. Thus it happened that he speedily won the favor of Squire Wolcott, to whom he brought a letter of introduction from no less a person than the famous Lafayette himself. So, after reading it, the Squire welcomed the young foreigner with warmth, and opened wide his hospitable home and heart as a safe retreat for this stranger from beyond the sea. Yet spite this cordiality of reception, I have never heard satisfactorily explained Squire Wolcott’s yielding to his daughter’s marriage with any but one of his own creed, and a son of his native soil.

But one thing is certain — when consent was granted, it was in no half-way measure; for the Squire blessed the marriage not only with a smile of hearty good-will and words of sound counsel, but also with a substantial gift, for he gave an out-andout deed conveying his north-meadow farm, and the homestead thereon, to his daughter Prudence.

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As for M. le Comte’s own wealth, it seemed boundless to the frugal folk among whom he sought a new home ; and when he died, eight years after the birth of the youngest son, Nathan, he left a sum sufficient to rank the Parret brothers wealthier than any of their neighbors in all that region of country. And added to this, only a brief twelvemonth afterward they fell heir to their mother’s goodly inheritance, which had increased twofold on the death of her father, the Squire. Thus, before either lad had crossed the threshold of their teens, they were assured of the position wealth secures. As to whether they would maintain it by worth of character, that remains to be proved ; but I will not anticipate.

From the time Adolph Parret decided to settle in N , he had used his riches with a lib-

eral hand, and it was no wonder his home was known by the title of Parret House for miles and miles around. It had been his pleasure, too, to transform the southern part of the old homestead into, as near as possible, a likeness to the chateau in southern France where his early days had been spent. But with strange persistence, Prudence, while loving at heart, was resolute in her determination that no foreign element should invade the northern part, or what she termed the front, of the house. Thus

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she stamped a look of contradiction on the merely exterior part of her home, which in the interior was still more evident.

And now a word as to Adolph Parret, those days. I find no journal extract from which to cull it, but there is a portrait hanging over the mantel in the north parlor, which is said to be a striking likeness of his outer man, and which is rarely full of hints of the inner. So marked is the charm of that pictured face, one immediately understands the out-going love of Prudence for the young stranger, even though to a close student there is much in it which tells of one lacking in traits that would make him a life-lasting hero.

It represents a refined, aristocratic man, in age somewhere between twenty-five and thirty ; the upper part of the face decidedly handsome; the eyes dark, and with a look of power in them ; the brow high and broad, and the head well poised. All this gives a certain effect of fineness and finish, though the lower part of the countenance is not so well developed, there being an undefined weakness about it — the lips thin ; and the chin somewhat receding. Nevertheless, as I said, only one possessed of quick intuition, or a well-trained eye, would detect these contradictory elements, which suggest a duality of nature that makes a keen ob-

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server turn from the portrait with a feeling of disappointment, if not actual distrust.

And yet, in justice, one is forced to ask: “ Did those subtle lines about the mouth reveal more than the stamp of nationality ? ” — or were they traced there by the influence of the early training, which in France and Italy, at that time, taught a child first tact and self control, and then, as though of secondary importance, frankness and truth — thus early implanting a certain insincerity and worldly wisdom contrary to the principle that Truth, in word, thought, and deed, is the only sure foundation on which to build up character? It was not till after the birth of their first child that Prudence recognized this lack of entire genuineness in her husband ; but when once her eyes were opened to it, they were never shut again.

But it is not the story of the parents, but of the sons, I am to tell, and already I have hinted enough to give an impression of the influences that would be apt to surround young children whose father and mother viewed life from stand-points so widely different ; and yet they were both fine types of their own nationality, religion, and culture, hence both had power to exert an abiding and formative influence over their sons, even though the lads were so young when they were left orphans.

III

C HARACTER is not ready-made, but created, bit by bit, and day by day.” The truth of this statement we all know, and yet no one has ever yet been able to explain the subtle process by which memory gathers her harvest of life-lasting recollections ; holding some of but trifling importance in a firm clasp, and letting fall ungarnered others of priceless value. But thus it is that the law of the power of “ little things ” asserts itself in the history of our minds and souls ; as it does in the mere matter of material existence.

The mother of the Parret brothers was a woman to heed this truth, and yet with her children, she trampled on its first manifestation, which has to do with a child’s receiving of impressions, while still too young to define them into definite forms. She fondly loved both the little lads, and she had a Puritan sense of justice which forbade the showing of partiality by word or deed ; yet in her inmost heart she knew her affection centred with peculiar tenderness around the elder, Victor. And a child is so quick to read even mute signs, the boy Victor knew this, too, and so did the baby-brother, Nathan, even before he had uttered his first spoken word.

Thus it happened that only a twelvemonth of earthly life taught him that his was a second place in his mother’s heart, and his baby-soul cried out for an equal one. I do not think he ever craved to be first, certainly not with any desire born of rivalship ; it was equality he claimed, with the strength of a strong nature, and this was manifested in other ways than those which had to do with his mother. Even in early childhood it was evident, in his plays, and later in school and college life, in the resolute purpose which made him unwilling to be left behind, whether the race were mental or athletic.

It was a trait to cause suffering, and yet it was a great safeguard to Nathan Parret, for it led him to follow as guide, or accept as master, only those who were leaders in their different pursuits. In home-life, too, it held control, and when a young child, instinctively, he seemed to know — in matters that had to do with mental knowledge and culture — it was from his father he must seek aid ; while for the solving of the moral questions which even then perplexed the boy, he turned to his mother for counsel, and she did not fail to inculcate truth as the key-note of spiritual strength, neither did she fail to enforce the foundation-principles of the doctrines then holding

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sway in New England ; and if some seeds did fall on stony ground, others took root and sprang up, for his mother’s influence was always a power in Nathan’s life. Indeed her only failure, so far as this boy went, was in her undue fondness for his brother; and that increased as the stream of dividing sympathies widened between herself and her husband, till she became almost blind in her love for Victor.

It is a singular fact that some women, morally strong in many other points, will thus weakly centre their affection on one object with an intensity so absorbing that, at last, it fails to distinguish the difference between idealizing and idolizing. And thus love, the most blessed and blessingful of all attributes, becomes perverted into the most harmful. For the affection which makes idols of our loved ones rivets chains about them, keeping them, in a certain way, slaves to our own level ; while the love which idealizes is like a voice urging the loved one to soar up and on, by aspiration and deed, far beyond our level, even to the life which is perfect freedom. You know the freedom I mean ; that held in the Bible verse, “ I walk at liberty, because I keep Thy laws.”

This is why, in the best love, the affection called forth is alwavs for the ideal in advance of the actual,

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for “ the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God but meanwhile, the mount we have to climb

“ Is such, that

At the beginning down below it’s toilsome,

And aye the more one climbs the less it hurts.’*

To return to Prudence and her absorbing love for Victor — certainly, it did clip the wings of the boy’s soul in a hundred ways that only the after-years revealed. And yet by strangers, from childhood on to manhood, he was apt to be thought more winning than Nathan ; and so he was, in personal appearance and easy grace of manner and speech. For he inherited, in feature and figure, and mind too, many of the most attractive characteristics of his parents, that could not fail to please : even though one straightway detected in him other traits that were as contradictory as the contradictions that pervaded his home.

This contradictoriness marked Nathan, also, but in him its outward manifestation was modified by traits so strongly national that the old folk about N were wont to say : “ The lad is Squire Wol-

cott over again ! ” But those old folk only judged from the outside; and if Squire Wolcott could have seen the heart and known the workings of this, his

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2 9

youngest grandson’s, mind, he would hardly have recognized the likeness.

In fact, Nathan was, in many points, very like his father; he possessed the same patience in overcoming difficulties, and the same intense love for nature, and beauty of form and color. But he had not the same versatility of temperament, that seemed to have centred in Victor, whose suppleness of mind, combined \yith something like wariness, was a never-ceasing cause of irritation to straightforward, outspoken Nathan.

It was not that Victor often told an actual false-

f

hood, but rather thati^ he had a facility in giving impressions according to his own wishes, and a ready use of language that could make a wordpicture as easily as the photographer catches a suntype, only with not the same truth of likeness in detail.

Nevertheless, while Nathan was lacking in ease of utterance, and quick imaginings in anticipating events or relating boyish experiences, he was the one most apt to appreciate sentiment, though he was entirely free from sentimentality. And the hazy, dream-like mental atmosphere which often surrounded Victor, and which held a half-real, halfemotional delight for him, Nathan banished from his mind as speedily as the mist of dawn vanishes

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before sunrise; for his idea of enjoyment, as well as his instinctive methods of thought, were both thoroughly after the New England type. Even as a child, he never knew the sunny abandonment to pleasure that marked Victor, for, when most happy, he was always somewhat grave and restrained in expression of delight. It was as though he felt the dignity of the freedom that had cost his country so hard a struggle, and that made the moral nature mean so much to those stalwart men, and brave women whom he called ancestors.

And yet — and here again we are met by a contradiction — his temperament was decidedly poetic, which must always involve feeling through the emotions and imagination, and this he did ; hence his tendency to go to extremes. While another pronounced trait in this hero of our story was, that nothing ever escaped his notice ; for when he was a mere baby-boy, his mother often felt that he read the thought in her mind before it found expression in words.

In appearance he was strikingly like Squire Wolcott. Indeed, it is not often a young face so resembles an older one, for to look at the portrait of the Squire was almost like seeing the boy himself. It hung in the north parlor, opposite the one of Adolph Parret which I have already described, and

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it would be hard to find two portraits more unlike, and yet both possessing individualities so strong and so full of what goes to make a man interesting in character, as well as in features.

At the first glance, the Squire’s would not suggest a handsome man, for in expression it is somewhat too stern, and while the forehead is high, it is slightly receding ; indeed, the whole face is long and thin, the cheek-bones prominent and chin pointed, but, unlike Adolph Parret’s countenance, the lower part is stronger than the upper. In the matter of dress and general bearing, there is also an evidence of different social surroundings, for the formal, stiff propriety that pervaded the details of Squire Wolcott’s costume is quite unlike the elegant nonchalance of the Frenchman’s. And yet, after a second look, though they were only pictures, one felt a sense of trust in the plain man that the other failed to inspire.

But I am hardly fair in calling Squire Wolcott a plain man, with the light shining from his eyes as it does in that picture. Eyes that are large and keen, and singularly beautiful in color ; and it was the eyes that made one at once think of Nathan, for his eyes were the beauty of his face — in that he was like his mother ; and I think it was this similarity of expression that caused the town-people to

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call him “ Nathan Wolcott,” which he keenly resented, for with the peculiar perversity of human nature his family pride centred around the Parrets, and he clung with warmth to his French ancestry. While with Victor it was just the reverse ; for he, though French by name, character, and temperament, held with steadfast loyalty to all that proclaimed his kinship to America.

His father also filled a place in Nathan’s heart that was haloed with an admiration that he in no such full measure accorded to the mother, to whom Victor gave his chief love ; and this admiration and affection for the parent least like himself in principle and entire genuineness, is, to my mind, one of the most contradictory parts of Nathan Parret’s character. Though why should it be, when the impulse to admire our opposite is so universal it has become a fact as well established as that clouds herald rain ?