Dorian

CHAPTER NINE.

Do­ri­an was twen­ty-​one years old, and his moth­er had planned a lit­tle par­ty in hon­or of the event. The in­vit­ed guests were Un­cle Zed, Bish­op John­son and wife, the teach­er of the dis­trict school, and Car­lia Duke. These ar­rived dur­ing the dusk of the evening, all but Car­lia. They lin­gered on the cool lawn un­der the col­ored glow of the Chi­nese lanterns.

Mrs. Trent re­al­ized that it would be use­less to make the par­ty a sur­prise, for she had to have Do­ri­an's help in hang­ing out the lanterns, and he would nec­es­sar­ily see the un­usu­al ac­tiv­ity in front room and kitchen. More­over, Do­ri­an, un­like Un­cle Zed, had not lost track of his birth­days, and es­pe­cial­ly this one which would make him a full-​fledged cit­izen of these Unit­ed States.

The lit­tle par­ty chat­ted on gen­er­al top­ics for some time un­til Mrs. Trent, in big white apron, an­nounced that sup­per was ready, and would they all come right in. Mrs. Trent al­ways served her re­fresh­ments at the reg­ular sup­per time and not near mid­night, for she claimed that peo­ple of reg­ular habits, which her guests were, are much bet­ter off by not hav­ing those habits bro­ken in­to.

“Are we all here?” she asked, scan­ning them as they passed in. “All but Car­lia,” she an­nounced. “Where's Car­lia?”

No one knew. Some­one prof­fered the ex­pla­na­tion that she was usu­al­ly late as she had so many chores to do, at which the Bish­op's wife shook her head know­ing­ly, but said noth­ing.

“Well, she'll be along present­ly,” said Mrs. Trent. “Sit down all of you. Bish­op, will you ask the bless­ing?”

The host­ess, wait­ress, and cook all com­bined in the ca­pa­ble per­son of Mrs. Trent, sat at the ta­ble with her par­ty. Ev­ery­thing which was to be served was on the ta­ble in plain sight, so that all could nice­ly guage their eat­ing to var­ious dish­es. When all were well served and the eat­ing was well un­der way, Mrs. Trent said:

“Broth­ers and sis­ters, this is Do­ri­an's birth­day par­ty. He has been a mighty good boy, and so--”

“Moth­er,” in­ter­rupt­ed the young man.

“Now, you nev­er mind--you be still. Do­ri­an is a good boy, and I want all of you to know it.”

“We all do, Sis­ter Trent,” said the Bish­op; “and it is a good thing to some­times tell a per­son of his wor­thi­ness to his face.”

“But if we say more, he'll be un­com­fort­able,” re­marked the moth­er, “so we had bet­ter change the sub­ject. The crops are grow­ing, the weath­er is fine, and the neigh­bors are all right. That dis­pos­es of the chief top­ics of con­ver­sa­tion, and will give Un­cle Zed a chance. He al­ways has some­thing worth lis­ten­ing to, if not up his sleeve, then in his white old head. But do not hur­ry, Un­cle Zed; get through with your sup­per.”

The old man was a light eater, so he fin­ished be­fore the oth­ers. He looked smil­ing­ly about him, not­ing that those present were ea­ger to lis­ten. He took from his pock­et a num­ber of slips of pa­per and placed them on the ta­ble be­side his plate. Then he be­gan to talk, the oth­ers leisure­ly fin­ish­ing their dessert.

“The oth­er evening,” he said, “Do­ri­an and I had a con­ver­sa­tion which in­ter­est­ed us very much, and I think it would in­ter­est all of us here. I was telling him my ex­pe­ri­ence in my search for God and the plan of sal­va­tion, and I promised him I would read to him some of the things I found. Here is a def­ini­tion of God which did not help me very much.” He picked up one of the slips of pa­per and read: “'God is the in­te­grat­ed har­mo­ny of all po­ten­tial­ities of good in ev­ery ac­tu­al and pos­si­ble ra­tio­nal agent.' What do you think of that?”

The lis­ten­ers knit­ted their brows, but no one spoke. Un­cle Zed con­tin­ued: “Well, here is a lit­tle more. Per­haps this will clear it up: 'The great­est of selves, the ul­ti­mate Self of the uni­verse, is God.... My God is my deep­er self and yours too. He is the self of the uni­verse, and knows all about it.... By De­ity we mean the all-​con­trol­ing con­scious­ness of the uni­verse, as well as the un­fath­omable, all un­know­able, and un­know­able abyss of be­ing be­yond'.”

Un­cle Zed care­ful­ly fold­ed his pa­pers and placed them back in his pock­et. He looked about him, but his friends ap­peared as if they had had a vol­ley of Greek fired at them. “Well” he said, “why don't some of you say some­thing?”

“Please pass the pick­les,” re­spond­ed Mrs. Trent.

When the mer­ri­ment had ceased, un­cle Zed con­tin­ued: “There is some truth in these def­ini­tions. God is all that which they try to ex­press, and vast­ly more. The trou­ble is these men talk about the at­tributes of God, and con­found these with the be­ing and per­son­al­ity of the Great Par­ent. I may de­scribe the scent of the rose, but that does not de­fine the rose it­self. I can­not sep­arate the rose from its col­or or form or odor, any more than I can di­vorce mu­sic from the in­stru­ment. These vague and in­com­plete def­ini­tions have had much to do with the un­be­lief in the world. Tom Paine wrote a book which he called the 'Age of Rea­son' on the premise that rea­son does away with God. Isn't that it, Do­ri­an?”

“All ag­nos­tic writ­ers seem to think that there is no rea­son in re­li­gion, and at times they come pret­ty near prov­ing it too,” replied Do­ri­an.

“That is be­cause they base their ar­gu­ments on the re­li­gions of the world; but the re­stored gospel of Je­sus Christ rests large­ly on rea­son. Why, I can prove, con­trary to the gen­er­al­ly ac­cept­ed opin­ion, by rea­son alone that there must be a God.”

“We shall be glad to hear it,” said the school teach­er. The eat­ing was about over, and so they all sat and lis­tened at­ten­tive­ly.

“We do not need to quote a word of scrip­ture,” con­tin­ued Un­cle Zed. "All we need to know is a lit­tle of the world about us, a lit­tle of the race and its his­to­ry, and a lit­tle of the oth­er worlds out in space, all of which is open to any­body who will seek it. The rest is sim­ply a lit­tle con­nect­ed thought. Rea­son tells me that there can be no lim­its to time or space or in­tel­li­gence. Time al­ways has been, there can be no end to space, and in­tel­li­gence can­not cre­ate it­self. Now, with lim­it­less time and space and in­tel­li­gence to work with, what have we? The hu­man mind, be­ing lim­it­ed, can­not grasp the lim­it­less; there­fore, we must make ar­bi­trary points of be­gin­ning and end­ing. Now, let us project our thought as far back in­to du­ra­tion as we can--count the pe­ri­ods by any think­able mea­sure­ments, years, cen­turies, ages, aeons, any­thing you please that will help. Have we ar­rived at a point when there is no world, no life, no in­tel­li­gence? Cer­tain­ly not. Some­where in space, all that we see here and now will be seen to ex­ist. Go back from this point to a pre­vi­ous pe­ri­od, and then count back as far as you wish; there is yet time and space and in­tel­li­gence.

"There is an eter­nal law of progress which holds good al­ways and ev­ery­where. It has been op­er­at­ing all through the ages of the past. Now, let us take one of these In­tel­li­gences away back in the far dis­tance past and place him in the path of progress so that the eter­nal law of growth and ad­vance­ment will op­er­ate on him. I care not whether you ap­ply the re­sult to In­tel­li­gences as in­di­vid­uals or as the race. Giv­en time enough, this end­less and eter­nal ad­vance­ment must re­sult in a state of per­fec­tion that those who at­tain to it may with truth and pro­pri­ety be called Gods. There­fore, there must be a God, yes, many Gods liv­ing and reign­ing through­out the lim­it­less re­gions of glo­ri­fied space.

"Here is cor­rob­ora­tive ev­idence: I read in the Doc­trine and Covenants, Sec­tion 88: 'All king­doms have a law giv­en; and there are many king­doms; for there is no space in the which there is no king­dom; and there is no king­dom in which there is no space, ei­ther a greater or a less­er king­dom. And un­to ev­ery king­dom is giv­en a law; and un­to ev­ery law there are cer­tain bounds al­so and con­di­tions.'

"There is a hymn in our hymn book in which W.W. Phelps ex­press­es this idea beau­ti­ful­ly. Let me read it:

'If you could hie to Kolob, In the twin­kling of an eye, And then con­tin­ue on­ward, With that same speed to fly.

'Do you think that you could ev­er, Through all eter­ni­ty, Find out the gen­er­ation Where Gods be­gan to be?

'Or see the grand be­gin­ning Where space did not ex­tend? Or view the last cre­ation, Where Gods and mat­ter end?

'Me­thinks the Spir­it whis­pers: No man has found “pure space,” Nor seen the out­side cur­tains, Where noth­ing has a place.

'The works of God con­tin­ue, And worlds and lives abound; Im­prove­ment and pro­gres­sion Have one eter­nal round.

'There is no end to mat­ter, There is no end to space, There is no end to spir­it, There is no end to race.

'There is no end to virtue, There is no end to might, There is no end to wis­dom, There is no end to light.

'There is no end to union, There is no end to youth, There is no end to priest­hood, There is no end to truth.

'There is no end to glo­ry, There is no end to love, There is no end to be­ing, Grim death reigns not above.'

“The Lat­ter-​day Saints have been ad­verse­ly crit­icized for hold­ing out such as­tound­ing hopes for the fu­ture of the hu­man race; but let us rea­son a lit­tle more, be­gin­ning near­er home. What has the race ac­com­plished, even with­in the short span of our own rec­ol­lec­tion? Man is fast con­quer­ing the forces of na­ture about him, and mak­ing these forces to serve him. Now, we must re­mem­ber that du­ra­tion ex­tends ahead of us in the same lim­it­less way in which it reach­es back. Give, then, the race to­day all the time nec­es­sary, what can­not it ac­com­plish? Ap­ply it again ei­ther to an in­di­vid­ual or to the race, in time, some would at­tain to what we con­ceive of as per­fec­tion, and the term by which such be­ings are known to us is God. I can see no oth­er log­ical con­clu­sion.”

The chairs were now pushed back, and Mrs. Trent threw a cloth over the ta­ble just as it stood, ex­plain­ing that she would not take the time from her com­pa­ny to de­vote to the dish­es. She in­vit­ed them in­to Do­ri­an's lit­tle room, much to that young man's un­easi­ness.

His moth­er had ti­died the room, so it was pre­sentable. His pic­ture, “Sun­set in Marsh­land” had been low­ered a lit­tle on the wall, and di­rect­ly over it hung a pho­to­graph of Mil­dred Brown. To Do­ri­an's ques­tion­ing look, Mrs. Trent ex­plained, that Mrs. Brown had sent it just the oth­er day. Do­ri­an looked close­ly at the beau­ti­ful pic­ture, and a strange feel­ing came over him. Had Mil­dred gone on in this eter­nal course of progress of which Un­cle Zed had been speak­ing? Was she still away ahead of him? Would he ev­er reach her?

On his study ta­ble were a num­ber of books, birth­day presents. One was from Un­cle Zed's pre­cious store, and one--What? He picked it up--“David Cop­per­field.” He opened the beau­ti­ful vol­ume and read on the fly leaf: “From Car­lia, to make up a lit­tle for your loss.” He re­mem­bered now that Car­lia, some time be­fore, had asked him what books were in the pack­age which had gone down the canal at the time when he had pulled her out of the wa­ter. Car­lia had not for­got­ten; and she was not here; the sup­per was over, and it was get­ting late. Why had she not come?

The par­ty broke up ear­ly, as it was a busy sea­son with them all. Do­ri­an walked home with Un­cle Zed, then he had a mind to run over to Car­lia's. He could not for­get about her ab­sence nor about the present she had sent. He had nev­er read the sto­ry, and he would like to read it to Car­lia. She had very lit­tle time, he re­al­ized, which was all the more rea­son for his mak­ing time to read it to her.

As ev­ery coun­try boy will, at ev­ery op­por­tu­ni­ty, so Do­ri­an cut cross­lots to his ob­jec­tive. He now leaped the fence, and struck off through the mead­ow up in­to the corn field. Mr. Duke had a big, fine field that sea­son, the grow­ing corn al­ready reach­ing to his shoul­der. The night was dark, save for the twin­kling stars in the clear sky; it was still, save for the soft rustling of the corn in the breeze.

Do­ri­an caught sight of a light as of a lantern up by the ditch from which the wa­ter for ir­ri­gat­ing was turned in­to the rows of corn and pota­toes. He stopped and lis­tened. A tool grat­ed in the grav­el­ly soil. Mr. Duke was no doubt us­ing his night turn at the wa­ter on his corn in­stead of turn­ing it on the hay-​land as was the cus­tom. He would in­quire of him about Car­lia.

As he ap­proached the light, the scrap­ing ceased, and he saw a dark fig­ure dart in­to the shel­ter of the tall corn. When he reached the lantern, he found a hoe ly­ing in the fur­row where the wa­ter should have been run­ning. No man ir­ri­gates with a hoe; that's a wom­an's tool. Ah, the se­cret was out! Car­lia was 'tend­ing' the wa­ter. That's why she was not at the par­ty.

He stood look­ing down in­to the shad­ows of the corn rows, but for the mo­ment he could see or hear noth­ing. He had fright­ened her, and yet Car­lia was not usu­al­ly afraid. He be­gan to whis­tle soft­ly and to walk down in­to the corn. Then he called, not loud­ly, “Car­lia”.

There was no re­sponse. He quick­ened his steps. The fig­ure ran to an­oth­er shel­ter. He could see her now, and he called again, loud­er than be­fore. She stopped, and then dart­ed through the corn in­to the more open pota­toe patch. Do­ri­an fol­lowed.

“Hel­lo, Car­lia,” he said, “what are you do­ing?”

The girl stood be­fore him, bare­head­ed, with rough dress and heavy boots. She was pant­ing as if with fright. When she caught a full sight of Do­ri­an she gave a lit­tle cry, and when he came with­in reach, she grasped him by the arm.

“Oh, is it you, Do­ri­an?”

“Sure. Who else did you think it was? Why, you're all of a trem­ble. What are you afraid of?”

“I--I thought it was--was some­one else. Oh, Do­ri­an, I'm so glad it is you!”

She stood close to him as if wish­ing to claim his pro­tec­tion. He in­stinc­tive­ly placed his arm about her shoul­ders. “Why, you sil­ly girl, the dark won't hurt you.”

“I'm not afraid of the dark. I'm afraid of--Oh, Do­ri­an, don't let him hurt me!” There was a sob in her voice.

“What are you talk­ing about? I be­lieve you're not well. Are your feet wet? Have you a fever?” He put his hand on her fore­head, brush­ing back the dark, towsled hair. He took her plump, work-​rough­ened hand in his big­ger and equal­ly rough one. “And this is why you were not to my par­ty,” he said.

“Yes; I hat­ed to miss it, but fa­ther's rheuma­tism was so bad that he could not come out. So it was up to me. We haven't any too much wa­ter this sum­mer. I'd bet­ter turn the wa­ter down an­oth­er row; it's flood­ing the corn.”

They went to the lantern on the ditch bank. Do­ri­an picked up the hoe and made the prop­er ad­just­ment of the wa­ter flow. “How long will it take for the wa­ter to reach the bot­tom of the row?” he asked.

“About fif­teen min­utes.”

“And how many rows re­main?”

Car­lia count­ed. “Twelve,” she said.

“All right. This is a small stream and will on­ly al­low for three rows at a time. Three in­to twelve is four, and four times fif­teen is six­ty. It is now half past ten. We'll get through by twelve o'clock easy.”

“You'd bet­ter go home. I'm all right now. I'm not afraid.”

“I said we will get home. Sit down here on the bank. Are you cold?” He took off his coat and placed it about her shoul­ders. She made no ob­jec­tions, though in truth she was not cold.

“Tell me about the par­ty,” she said.

He told her who were there, and how they had missed her.

“And did Un­cle Zed preach?”

“Preach? O, yes, he talked mighty fine. I wish I could tell you what he said.”

“What was it about?”

“About God,” he an­swered rev­er­ent­ly.

“Try to tell me, Do­ri­an. I need to know. I'm such a dunce.”

Do­ri­an re­peat­ed in his way Un­cle Zed's ar­gu­ment, and he suc­ceed­ed fair­ly well in his pre­sen­ta­tion of the sub­ject. The still night un­der the shin­ing stars added an im­pres­sive set­ting to the telling, and the girl close by his side drank in hun­gri­ly ev­ery word. When the wa­ter reached the end of the rows, it was turned in­to oth­ers, un­til all were ir­ri­gat­ed. When that was ac­com­plished, Do­ri­an's watch showed half past eleven. He picked up the lantern and the hoe, and they walked back to the house.

“The par­ty was quite com­plete, af­ter all,” he said at the door. “I've en­joyed this lit­tle af­ter-​af­fair as much as I did the par­ty.”

“I'm glad,” she whis­pered.

“And it was won­der­ful­ly good of you to give me that present.”

“I'm glad,” she re­peat­ed.

“Do you know what I was think­ing about when I opened the book and saw it was from you?”

“No; what?”

“Why, I thought, we'll read this book to­geth­er, you and I.”

“Wouldn't that be fine!”

“We can't do that now, of course; but af­ter a while when we get more time. I'll not read it un­til then.... Well, you're tired. Go to bed. Good night, Car­lia.”

“Good­night, Do­ri­an, and thank you for help­ing me.”

They stood close to­geth­er, she on the step above him. The lamp, placed on the kitchen ta­ble for her use, threw its light against the glass door which formed a back­ground for the girl's rough­ened hair, soiled and sweat-​stained face, and red, smil­ing lips.

“Good­night,” he said again; and then he leaned for­ward and kissed her.