A Certain Rich Man

by William Allen White

The boy gazed after her a moment, wondering if he should follow her, but while he waited she was gone, and he heard her lock the door after her. Then he limped down the road in a kind of swoon of joy. Sometimes he tried to whistle—he tried a bar of Schubert's "Serenade," but consciously stopped. Again and again under his breath as loud as he dared, he called the name "Ellen" and stood gazing at the moon, and then tried to hippety-hop, but his limp stopped that. Then he tried whistling the "Miserere," but he pitched it too high, and it ran out, so he sang as he turned across the commons toward home, and that helped a little; and he opened the door of his home singing, "How can I leave thee—how can I bear to part?" The light was burning in the kitchen, and he went to his mother and kissed her. His face was aglow, and she saw what had happened to him. She put him aside with, "Run on to bed now, sonny; I've got a little work out here." And he left her. In the sitting room only the moon gave light. He stood at the window a moment, and then turned to his melodeon. His hands fell on the major chord of "G," and without knowing what he was playing he began "Largo." He played his soul into his music, and looking up, whispered the name "Ellen" rapturously over and over, and then as the music mounted to its climax the whole world's mystery, and his personal thought of the meaning of life revelled through his brain, and he played on, not stopping at the close but wandering into he knew not what mazes of harmony. When his hands dropped, he was playing "The Long and Weary Day," and his mother was standing behind him humming it. When he rose from the bench, she ran her fingers through his hair and spoke the words of the song, "'My lone watch keeping,' John, 'my lone watch keeping.' But I think it has been worth while."

Then she left him and he went to bed, with the moon in his room, and the murmur of waters lulling him to sleep. But he looked out into the sky a long time before his dream came, and then it slipped in gently through the door of a nameless hope. For he wished to meet her in the moon that night, but when they did meet, the white veil of the falling waters of the dam blew across her face and he could not brush it away. For one is bold in dreams.

A little after sunrise the next morning John rode away from his mother's door, on one of his horses, leading the other one. He was going up the hill to get Bob Hendricks, and the two were to ride to Lawrence. He had been promised work, carrying newspapers, and the Yankee in him made him believe he could find work for the other horse. As the boy turned into Main Street waving his mother good-by, he saw the places where he and Ellen Culpepper had stopped the night before, and they looked different some way, and he could not realize that he was in the same street.

As he climbed the hill, he passed General Ward, working in his flower garden, and the man sprang over the fence and came into the road, and put his hand on the horse's bridle, saying, "Stop a minute, John: I just wanted to say something." He hesitated a moment before going on: "You know back where I came from—back in New England—the name of John Barclay stands for a good deal—more than you can realize, John. Your father was one of the first martyrs of our cause. I guess your mother never has told you, but I'm going to—your father gave up a business career for this cause. His father was rich—very rich, and your grandfather was set on your father going into business." John looked up the hill toward the Hendricks home, and Ward saw it, and mistook the glance for one of impatience. "Johnnie," said the man, his fine thin, features glowing with earnestness, "Johnnie—I wish I could get to your heart, boy. I want to make you hear what I have to say with your soul and not with your ears, and I know youth is so deaf. Your grandfather was angry when your father entered the ministry and came out here. He thought it was folly. The old man offered to give fifty thousand dollars to the Kansas-Nebraska cause, and that would have sent a good many men out here. But your father said no. He said money wouldn't win this cause. He said personal sacrifice was all that would win it. He said men must give up themselves, not their money, to make this cause win—and so he came; and there was a terrible quarrel, and that is why your mother has stayed. She had faith in God, too—faith that her life some way in His Providence would prove worth something. Your father and mother, John, believed in God—they believed in a God, not a Moloch; your father's faith has been justified. The death he died was worth millions to the cause of liberty. It stirred the whole North, as the miserable little fifty thousand dollars that Abijah Barclay offered never could have done. But your mother's sacrifice must find its justification in you. And she, not your father, made the final decision to give up everything for human freedom. She has endured poverty, Johnnie—" the man's voice was growing tense, and his eyes were ablaze; "you know how she worked, and if you fail her, if you do not live a consecrated life, John, your mother's life has failed. I don't mean a pious life; God knows I hate sanctimony. But I mean a life consecrated to some practical service, to an ideal—to some actual service to your fellows—not money service, but personal service. Do you understand?" Ward leaned forward and looked into the boy's face. He took hold of John's arm as he pleaded, "Johnnie—boy—Johnnie, do you understand?"

The boy answered, "Yes, General—I think I get your meaning." He picked up his bridle, and Ward relaxed his hold on the boy's arm. The man's hand dropped and he sighed, for he saw only a boy's face, and heard a boy's politeness in the voice that went on, "Thank you, General, give my love to Miss Lucy." And the youth rode on up the hill.

In a few minutes the boys were riding down the steep clay bank that led to the new iron bridge across the ford of the Sycamore, and for half an hour they rode chattering through the wood before they came into the valley and soon were Climbing the bluff which they had seen the night before from the Culpepper home. On the brow of the bluff Bob said, "Hold on—" He turned his horse and looked back. The sun was on the town, and across on the opposite hill stood the colonel's big house with its proud pillars. No trees were about it in those days, and it and the Hendricks house stood out clearly on the horizon. But on the top of the Culpepper home were two little figures waving handkerchiefs. The boys waved back, and John thought he could tell Ellen from her sister, and the night and its joy came back to him, and he was silent.

They had ridden half an hour without speaking when Bob Hendricks said, "Awful fine girls—aren't they?"

"That's what I've always told you," returned John.

After another quarter of a mile Bob tried it again. "The colonel's a funny old rooster—isn't he?"

"Well, I don't know. That day at the battle of Wilson's Creek when he walked out in front of a thousand soldiers and got a Union flag and brought it back to the line, he didn't look very funny. But he's windy all right."