But here was Iron jumping about the cabin, busy as a chipmunk, with just the same hurried, funny way of blaspheming. He had to make fire, cook soup, and haul things in from outdoors, while he told me news about a team, a sleigh, a load of stores for me, and his own services paid up six months ahead if I'd let him work on the ranch. He was like a little boy which plays at keeping store, where you've got to pretend to trade, with nary a smile, lest he should see and the whole game turn unreal. So I sat up for soup, which made my loose skin fit me again as I filled. I'd answer to all he did, grave as a constable, playing the game of life just as I used to.
All of us have to play, at trade, at war, at love, at kingdoms and republics. We play at empire without a grin, we play with serious faces at learning and the arts. Yet all the business of men is like a game of children playing on the sands, as though there were no tide to sweep away our footprints.
I played with Iron at being alive, and he got so damned indulgent I could have smacked his face.
When he'd tended the horses, Iron set up a clock upon the shelf, so I might hear the ticking as time passed. He carried in armloads from the sleigh, he opened cases, he spilled out sacks. He showed me maple syrup, try-your-strength cigars, a dandy rifle with plenty ammunition, books, clothes, candy, a piano which plays itself, then garden seeds, and all sorts of things which you'd have honed for in the long ago. The place was like a barter store, piled to the beams with riches wasted on me, who hadn't a neighbor left. Why, even Iron, who used to think for no one but himself, had a kitten for me, warm in his pocket, and forgotten until a case of hardware squashed out its best Sunday scream. Who'd ever think, too, that so small a bundle of fur and claws should have a purr to fill my whole bed with joy. Surely, I loved this world I'd so nearly quit, when after supper Iron loosed a gramophone. The Hudson's Bay man had shown him a special "record" from England, the angel song in Chopin's Marche Funèbre. We had that first, the very song she used to sing in this cabin, times when I reckoned it a shameful thing for any man to cry.
It was Kate's voice.
Oh, tell God, mother, that I'm very grateful. I heard her voice filling this place which used to be her home. Though my wife and I are parted for all our years—love finds a way.
A week or more had passed, and I'd my strength again. The river had frozen so that we could cross to the hunting grounds beyond, and when we came back our camp was full of meat.
I was once rich, before my wealth of memories went bad and turned to pain. I once had peace or thought so, till I found that there is none for men who keep on growing. But wealth of memories, and peace of mind, and humbleness of spirit are but emptiness, and life is a waste until it is filled with love. Iron's kindness to me, the charity which sent me Kate's voice, the love behind the gift which found me dying—these are the things which saved my soul alive. My life must be filled with love, my hours must be deeds of help for others, there must be no more self in me at all. It would be better to be damned and doing good in hell, than to squander love where it runs waste in Heaven.
The truth is scarce, being winnowed by many preachers, and my grains when I try to eat them, are mostly husks. Iron calls me a coward. But Polly only weighs ninety-eight pounds, and I two hundred, so that I couldn't have managed to feel brave fighting her. Then Iron claims it's not the little woman I ought to fight, but the big evil she did in bringing all our settlers to death or ruin. A woman's whim is light as thistle-down, but thistles choke the pasture unless you fight them, and Christ himself fought to the death against the evils which grew rank around him. I doubt I've been a cowardly sort of Christian.
Was I right to live alone? For if this world's a school, I've been a truant. Can I live for self, while all things done for self are only wasted? My place was in the world working for others.