CHAPTER XXVI
ANOTHER LESSON ON TOBACCO
THE old man had stuck his cob pipe in a pocket and filled his mouth with a chew of tobacco.
He walked by Percy's buggy with the tobacco juice drizzling from the corners of his mouth, and turned down the road toward the house.
Percy finished boring the hole and then returned to the buggy.
"Christ, that old man eats tobacco like a beast!" exclaimed the driver as Percy approached.
"Are you speaking to me?" asked Percy.
"Why, certainly."
"That is not my name, please," admonished Percy, "but I can tell you that I know Him well and that He is my best friend."
"What, old Al Jones?"
"No,—Christ," replied Percy, with a grieved expression plainly discernible.
"Oh," said the driver.
They drove past the Jones residence and out into the field beyond. The house one might have thought deserted except for the well-beaten paths and the presence of chickens in the yard. It was a large structure with two and a half stories. The cornice and window trimmings revealed the beauty and wealth of former days. Rare shrubs still grew in the spacious front yard, and gnarled remnants of orchard trees were to be seen in the rear. A dozen other buildings, large and small, occupied the background, some with the roofs partly fallen, others evidently still in use.
"How old do you suppose these buildings are?" asked Percy of the driver.
"About a hundred years," he replied, "and I reckon they've had no paint nor fixin' since they was built, 'cept they have to give some of 'em new shingles now and then or they'd all fall to pieces like the old barns back yonder."
Percy examined the soil in several places on the Jones farm and on other farms in the neighborhood. They lunched on crackers and canned beans at a country store and made a more extended drive in the afternoon.
"It is a fine soil," Percy said to the driver, as they started for Leonardtown. "It contains enough sand for easy tillage and quick drainage, and enough clay to hold anything that might be applied to it."
"That's right," said the driver. "Where they put plenty of manure and fertilizer they raise tobacco three foot high and fifteen hundred pounds to the acre, but where they run the tobacco rows beyond the manured land so's to be sure and not lose any manure, why the stuff won't grow six inches high and it just turns yellow and seems to dry up, no matter if it rains every day. Say, Mister, would you mind telling me if you're a preacher?"
"Oh, no," replied Percy, "—I am not a preacher, any more than every
Christian must be loyal to the name."
"Well, anyway, I've learned a lesson I'll try to remember. I never thought before about how it might hurt other people when I swear. I don't mean nothing by it. It's just a habit; but your saying Christ is your friend makes me feel that I have no business talking about anybody's friend, any more than I'd like to hear anybody else use my mother's name as a by-word. I reckon nobody has any right to use Christ's name 'cept Christians or them as wants to be Christians. I reckon we'd never heard the name if it hadn't a been for the Christians.
"But I don't have so many bad habits. I don't drink, nor smoke, nor chew; and I don't want to. My father smoked some and chewed a lot, and I know the smell of tobacco used to make my mother about as sick as she could be; but she had to stand it, or at least she did stand it till father died; and now she lives with me, and I'm mighty glad she don't have to smell no more tobacco
"She often speaks of it—mother does; and she says she's so thankful she's got a boy that don't use tobacco. She says men that use tobacco don't know how bad it is for other folks to smell 'em. Why, sometimes I come home when I've just been driving a man some place in the country, riding along like you and I are now, and he a smoking or chewing, or at least his clothes soaked full of the vile odor; and when I get home mother says, 'My! but you must have had an old stink pot along with you to-day.' She can smell it on my clothes, and I just hang my coat out in the shed till the scent gets off from it.
"No, Sir, I don't want any tobacco for me, and I don't know as I'd care to raise the stuff for other folks to saturate themselves with either; and every kid is allowed to use it nowadays, or at least most of them get it. It's easy enough to get it. Why, a kid can't keep away from getting these cigarettes, if he tries. They're everywhere. Every kid has hip pockets full; and I know blamed well that some smoke so many cigarettes they get so they aren't more than half bright. It's a fact, Sir,—plenty of 'em too; and some old men, like Al Jones, are just so soaked in tobacco they seem about half dead. Course it ain't like whiskey, but I think it's worse than beer if beer didn't make one want whiskey later.
"But as I was saying, I feel that I have no business saying things about,—about anybody you call your friend, and I think I'll just swear off swearing, if I can."
"You can if you will just let Him be your friend."
"Well, I don't know much about that," was the slow reply. "That takes faith, and I don't have much faith in some of the church members I know."
"That used to trouble me also," said Percy, "until one time the thought impressed itself upon me that even Christ himself did all His great work with one of the twelve a traitor; and this thought always comes to me now when self-respecting men object to uniting with organized Christianity because of those who may be regarded as traitors or hypocrites, but not of such flagrant character as to insure expulsion from the Church?"
"Do you believe in miracles?" asked the driver.
"Oh, yes," said Percy, "in such miracles as the growth of the corn plant."
"Why, that isn't any miracle. Everybody understands all about that."
"Not everybody," replied Percy. "There is only One who understands it. There is only one great miracle, and that is the miracle of life. It is said that men adulterate coffee, even to the extent of making the bean or berry so nearly like the natural that it requires an expert to detect the fraud; but do you think an imitation seed would grow?"
"No, it wouldn't grow," said the driver.
"Not only that," said Percy, "but we may have a natural and perfect grain of corn and it can never be made to grow by any or all of the knowledge and skill of men, if for a single instant the life principle has left the kernel, which may easily result by changing its temperature a few degrees above or below the usual range. The spark of life returns to God who gave it, and man is as helpless to restore it as when he first walked the earth.
"What miracle do you find hard to accept?" asked Percy.
"How could Jesus know that Lazarus had died when he was on the other side of the mountain?"
"I don't know," Percy replied; "perhaps by some sort of wireless message which his soul could receive. I don't know how, but it was no greater miracle than it would have been then to have done what I did last week."
The driver turned to look squarely at Percy as though in doubt of his sanity, but a kindly smile reassured him.
"Our train coming into Cincinnati ran in two sections," Percy continued, "and the section behind us was wrecked, three travellers being killed and about fifteen others wounded. I was sure my mother would hear of the wreck before I could reach her with a letter, and so I talked with her from Cincinnati over the long distance 'phone, with which we have always had connection since I first went away to college. Yes, I talked with her, and, though separated by a distance three times the entire length of Palestine, I distinctly heard and recognized my mother's voice. Oh, yes, I believe in miracles; but that is a matter of small consequence. The important thing is that we have faith in God and faith in Jesus Christ, his Son."
"Well, that's what troubles me," said the driver. "How's one to get faith?"
"There are two methods of receiving faith," replied Percy. "Faith cometh by prayer." "Yes, Sir, I believe that." "And, faith cometh by hearing." "Hearing what?" "Hearing by the Word of God; hearing those who have studied His Word and who testify of Him; and hearing with an ear ready to receive the truth."