"Well, yes, I do—'bout the same way as some other things—air, an' light, an' food, an' money, for instance. Anythin' that helps folks to make the most of their opportunities can be a means of grace; when it isn't, the folks themselves are the trouble. Reckon nobody'll dispute that about good things. But when it comes to things that ain't popular,—like floods, an' light'nin'-strokes, an' malary,—well, folks don't seem to see it in the same light, and they suspect the malary most, 'cause it's far an' away the commonest. I've been laughed at so often for my notions on the subject that I've got hardened to it, an' don't mind standin' it again."
"Oh, Caleb! Please don't say that! You don't believe I would laugh at anything you're earnest about, do you?"
"Well, I don't really b'lieve you would, an' I'm much 'bliged to you for it. You see, my idee is this. You remember what's said, in one of the psalms, about they that go down to the sea in ships, and what happens to them when a big wind comes up—how they are at their wit's end, because they're in trouble too big for them to manage, so they have to call unto the Lord?—somethin' that sailors ain't b'lieved to be given to doin' over an' above much, judgin' by their general conversation as set down in books an' newspapers. Well, malary's like the wind, an' the spirit that's compared with it; you can't tell where it's comin' from, or when, or how long it's goin' to stay, or what it'll do before it goes. It puts a man face to face with his Maker, an' just when the man can't put on airs, no matter how hard he tries. I think anythin' that kicks a man into seein' his dependence on heaven is a means of grace, even if the man's too mean to take advantage of it. When a man's shakin' with a chill that's come at him on the sly, as a chill always does, an' finds all his grit an' all the doctor's medicine can't keep him from shakin'—snatches him clean away from his own grip, which is the awfullest feelin' a man can have—"
"You're entirely right about it, Caleb," said Grace, with a shudder.
"Thank you, but 'taint only the shake. It's not knowin' how the thing is goin' to come out, or how helpless it's goin' to make one, or in what way it's goin' to upset all his plans an' calculations—why, it teaches absolute dependence on a higher power, an' 'tisn't only folks that make most fuss 'bout it in church that feels it. After one gets that feelin', he's lots more of a man than he ever was before. I think malary has been the makin' of human nature out West here, an' in some parts of the East too. Why, do you know that almost every one of our greatest Presidents was born or brought up in malary-soaked country? Washington was, I know; for I had chills all over his part of Virginia, in war time, an' more'n a hundred thousand other men kept me comp'ny at it. Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, was some of the other Presidents that knowed malary better than they afterwards knowed their own Cabinets. As to smaller men, but mighty big, nevertheless—all the big cities of the land's full of 'em. Look up the record of a city's great business man, an' I'm told you'll find he never was born an' raised there, but in the back country somewhere, generally out West, an' nine times in ten can tell you more 'bout his ager spells than you care to hear. Still, such cases don't bear on the subject o' means o' grace, though they come from the same causes. Out in these parts malary does more'n ministers to fill the churches. So long as men feel first-rate, they let the church alone mighty hard, but just let 'em get into a hard tussle with malary an' they begin to come to meetin'. The worse it treats 'em, the more they come, which is just what they need. That's the way the church got me; though that ain't particularly to the p'int, for one swaller don't make a summer. But I've been watchin' the signs for twenty year, an' I'm not gettin' off guess-work when I say that malary's been one of the leadin' means o' grace in this great Western country, an' of pretty much ev'rythin' else that's worth havin'; the states that have most of it produce more good people to the thousan' than any other states, besides more great men, an' great ideas, an' first-class American grit. Now you can laugh if you feel the least bit like it."
"I don't, Caleb. But do answer me one question. If malaria has done so much good, and is doing it, do you think it ought to be preserved,—say as an American institution?"
"Well," said Caleb, "ev'rythin' an' ev'rybody, from Moses an' manna to Edison an' electricity, has had a mission, an' when the work was done, the mission took a rest an' gave somethin' else the right o' way. When malary's accomplished its mission, I, for one, would like to assist in layin' it away. I think I'm entitled to a share in the job, for malary an' me has been powerful close acquaintances for a mighty long time."
