“This is not my Fatherland, but a strange country——”
“You are here for the Fatherland——”
“I have six children in Russia. The Fatherland is not feeding them. My field is not ploughed.”
The talk had crackled; it had required but a few seconds; Luban had done it all for Fallows to see and hear—but Fallows was very far from observing the pose of that weakling. The Ploughman held him heart and soul—as did the infallible and instantly unerring truth of his words. The world’s poor, the world’s degraded, had found its voice.
The man was white with truth, like a priest of Melchizedek.
Luban must have broken altogether. Fallows, listening, watching the Ploughman with his soul, did not turn.... Now the man’s face changed. The lips parted strangely, the eyelids lifting. Whiteness wavered between the eyes of the Ploughman and the eyes of Duke Fallows. Luban’s pistol crashed and the man fell with a sob.
Fallows was kneeling among the soaked roots of the millet, holding the soldier in his arms:
“Living God, to die for you—you, who are so straight and so young.... Hear me—don’t go yet—I must have your name, Brother.... Luban did not know you—he is just a little sick man—he didn’t know you or he wouldn’t have done this.... Tell me your name ... and the place of your babes, and their mother.... Oh, be sure they shall be fed—glad and proud am I to do that easy thing!... You have shown me the Nearer God.... They shall be fed, and they shall hear! The world, cities and nations, all who suffer, shall hear what the Ploughman said—the soul of the Ploughman, who is the hope of the world.... You have spoken for Russia.... And now rest—rest, Big Brother—you have done your work.”
The soldier looked up to him. There had been pain and wrenching, the vision of a desolated house. Now, his eyes rested upon the American. The shadow of death lifted. He saw his brother in the eyes that held him—his brother, and it seemed, the Son of Man smiled there behind the tears.... He smiled back like a weary child. Peace came to him, lustrous from the shadow, for lo! his field was ploughed and children sang in his house.