Dorian

CHAPTER FIVE.

Do­ri­an's high school days in the city be­gan that fall, a lit­tle late be­cause he had so many things to set right at home; but he soon made up the lost time, for he was a stu­dent not afraid of hard work. He walked back and forth the three miles. Mrs. Brown of­fered him a room at her large city res­idence, but he could not ac­cept it be­cause of his dai­ly home chores. How­ev­er, he oc­ca­sion­al­ly called on the Brown's who tried to make him feel as much at home as they did at Green­street.

Nev­er be­fore were days so per­fect to Do­ri­an, nev­er be­fore had he so en­joyed the fleet­ing hours. For the first week or two, he was a lit­tle shy, but the meet­ing each morn­ing with boys and girls of his own age and min­gling with them in their stud­ies and their recre­ations, soon taught him that they were all very much alike, just hap­py, care­free young peo­ple, most of them try­ing to get an ed­uca­tion. He soon learned, al­so, that he could eas­ily hold his own in the class work with the bright­est of them. The teach­ers, and stu­dents al­so, soon learned to know this. Boys came to him for help in prob­lems, and the younger girls chat­tered about him with laugh­ing eyes and toss­ing curls. What a won­der it was! He the sim­ple, plain­ly-​dressed coun­try boy, big and awk­ward and ug­ly as he thought him­self to be, be­com­ing a per­son of some im­por­tance. And so the days went all too swift­ly by. Con­trary to his younger boy­hood's ex­pe­ri­ence, the clos­ing hour came too soon, when it was time to go home to moth­er and chores and lessons.

And the moth­er shared the boy's hap­pi­ness, for she could see the added joy of liv­ing and work­ing which had come in­to his life by the added op­por­tu­ni­ties and new en­vi­ron­ment. He fre­quent­ly dis­cussed with his moth­er his lessons. She was not well post­ed in the knowl­edge de­rived from books, and some­times she mild­ly re­sent­ed this new­er learn­ing which he brought in­to the home and seemed to in­trude on her old-​es­tab­lished ideas. For in­stance, when the cold win­ter nights came, and Do­ri­an kept open his bed­room win­dow, the moth­er protest­ed that he would “catch his death of cold.” Night air and drafts are very dan­ger­ous, es­pe­cial­ly if let in­to one's bed­room, she held.

“But, moth­er, I must have air to breathe,” said Do­ri­an, “and what oth­er kind of air can I have at night? I might store a lit­tle day-​air in my room, but I would soon ex­haust its life-​giv­ing qual­ities at night. You know, moth­er,” he went on in the as­sur­ance of his new­ly ac­quired knowl­edge, “I guess the Lord knew what He was about when He en­veloped the earth with air which press­es down near­ly fif­teen pounds to the square inch so that it might per­me­ate ev­ery pos­si­ble nook and cor­ner of the globe.” Then he went on to ex­plain the won­der­ful pro­cess of blood pu­rifi­ca­tion in the lungs, and demon­strat­ed to her that the breath is con­tin­ual­ly throw­ing off foul mat­ter. He did this by breath­ing in­to a fruit jar, screw­ing on the lid for a lit­tle while, and then hav­ing the nose make the test.

“Some bed rooms I've gone in­to smell just like that,” he said.

"Here, moth­er is a clip­ping from a mag­azine. Lis­ten:

“'Of all the mar­vels of God's work­man­ship, none is more won­drous than the air. Think of our all be­ing bathed in a sub­stance so del­icate as to be it­self un­per­ceived, yet so dense as to be the car­riage to our sens­es of mes­sages from the world about us! It is nev­er in our way; it does not ask no­tice; we on­ly know it is there by the good it does us. And this exquisite­ly soft, pure, yield­ing, un­seen be­ing, like a beau­ti­ful and benef­icent fairy, brings us bless­ings from all around. It has the skill to wash our blood clean from all foul­ness. Its weight keeps us from tum­bling to pieces. It is a reser­voir where the wa­ters lie stored, un­til they fall and glad­den the earth. It is a great-​coat that soft­ens to us the heat of the day, and the cold of the night. It car­ries sounds to our ears and smells to our nos­trils. Its move­ments fill Na­ture with cease­less change; and with­out their aid in waft­ing ships over the sea, com­merce and civ­iliza­tion would have been scarce pos­si­ble. It is of all won­ders the most won­der­ful.'”

At an­oth­er time when Do­ri­an had a cold, and con­se­quent­ly, a loss of ap­petite, his moth­er urged him to eat more, say­ing that he must have strength to throw off his cold.

“What is a cold?” he smil­ing­ly asked.

“Why, a cold is--a cold, of course, you sil­ly boy.”

“What does it do to the ac­tiv­ities of the body?”

“I'm not a doc­tor; how can I tell.”

“All moth­ers are doc­tors and nurs­es; they do a lot of good, and some things that are not so good. For in­stance, why should I eat more when I have a cold?” She did not re­ply, and so he went on: “The body is very much like a stove or a fur­nace; it is burn­ing ma­te­ri­al all the time. Some­times the clink­ers ac­cu­mu­late and stop the draft, both in the hu­man as well as the iron stove. When that hap­pens, the sen­si­ble thing to do is not to throw in more fu­el but to clean out the clink­ers first.”

“Where did you get all that wis­dom, Do­ri­an?”

“I got it from my text book on hy­giene, and I think it's true be­cause it seems so rea­son­able.”

“Well, last night's talk led me to be­lieve that you would be­come a philoso­pher; now, the trend is more to­ward the doc­tor; to­mor­row I'll think you are study­ing law.”

“Oh, but we are, moth­er; you ought to hear us in our civ­il gov­ern­ment class. We have or­ga­nized in­to a Congress of the Unit­ed States, and we are go­ing to make laws.”

“You'll be elect­ed Pres­ident, I sup­pose.”

“I'm one of the can­di­dates.”

“Well, my boy” she smiled hap­pi­ly at him, “I hope you will be elect­ed to ev­ery good thing, and that you will fill ev­ery post with hon­or; and now, I would like you to read to me from the 'La­dy of the Lake' while I darn your stock­ings. Your fa­ther used to read the sto­ry to me a long, long time ago, and your voice is very much like his when you read.”

And thus with school and home and ward du­ties the win­ter passed. Spring called him again to the fields to which he went with new zeal, for life was open­ing to him in a way which life is in the habit of do­ing to the young of his age. Mil­dred Brown and her moth­er were in Cal­ifor­nia. He heard from her oc­ca­sion­al­ly by way of post­cards, and once she sent him one of her sketch­es of the ocean. Car­lia Duke al­so was not for­got­ten by Mil­dred. Do­ri­an and Car­lia met fre­quent­ly as neigh­bors will do, and they of­ten spoke of their mu­tu­al friend. The har­vest was again good that fall, and Do­ri­an once more took up his stud­ies at the high school in the city. Car­lia fin­ished the grades as Do­ri­an com­plet­ed his sec­ond year, and the fol­low­ing year Car­lia walked with Do­ri­an to the high school. That was no great task for the girl, now near­ly grown to young wom­an­hood, and it was com­pa­ny for both of them. Dur­ing these walks Car­lia had many ques­tions to ask about her lessons, and Do­ri­an was al­ways pleased to help her.

“I am such a dunce,” she would say, “I wish I was as smart as you.”

“You must say 'were' when you wish. I were as smart as you,” he cor­rect­ed.

“O, yes: I for­got. My, but gram­mar is hard, es­pe­cial­ly to a girl which--”

“No--a girl who; which refers to ob­jects and an­imals, who to per­sons.”

Car­lia laughed and swung her books by the strap. Do­ri­an was not car­ry­ing them that day. Some­times he was ab­sent­mind­ed re­gard­ing the lit­tle cour­te­sies.

The snow lay hard packed in the road and it creaked un­der their feet. Car­lia's cheeks glowed red­der than ev­er in con­tact with the keen win­ter air. They walked on in si­lence for a time.

“Say, Do­ri­an, why do you not go and see Mil­dred?” asked Car­lia, not look­ing at him, but rather at the east­ern moun­tains.

“Why? Is she not well?”

“She is nev­er well now. She looks bad to me.”

“When did you see her?”

“Last Sat­ur­day. I called at the house, and she asked about you--Poor girl!”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You are very smart in some things, but are a stupid dunce in oth­er things. Mil­dred is like an an­gel both in looks and--ev­ery­thing. I wish I was--were half as good.”

“But how am I such a dunce, Car­lia?”

“In not see­ing how much Mil­dred thinks of you.”

“Thinks of me? Mil­dred?”

“She just loves you.”

Car­lia still looked straight ahead as though fear­ful to see the ag­ita­tion she had brought to the young man; but he looked at her, with cheeks still aflame. He did not un­der­stand Car­lia. Why had she said that? Was she just teas­ing him? But she did not look as if she were teas­ing. Silent­ly they walked on to the school house door.

But Do­ri­an could not for­get what Car­lia had said. All day it in­trud­ed in­to his lessons. “She said she loves me” he whis­pered to his heart on­ly. Could it be pos­si­ble? Even if she did, what fi­nal good would come of it? The dis­tance be­tween them was still too great, for he was on­ly a poor farmer boy. Dear Mil­dred--his heart did not chide him for think­ing that--so frail, so weak, so beau­ti­ful. What if she--should die! Do­ri­an was in a strange state of mind for a num­ber of days. He longed to vis­it the Brown home, yet he could not find ex­cuse to go. He could not talk to any­body about what was in his mind and heart, not even to his moth­er with whom he al­ways shared his most hid­den thoughts.

One evening he vis­it­ed Un­cle Zed, os­ten­si­bly, to talk about a book. Un­cle Zed was deep in the study of “Nat­ural Law in the Spir­itu­al World” and would have launched in­to a dis­cus­sion of what he had found, but Do­ri­an did not re­spond; he had oth­er thoughts in mind.

“Un­cle Zed,” he said, “how can I be­come some­thing else than a farmer?”

The old man looked ques­tion­ing­ly at his young friend. “What's the mat­ter with be­ing a farmer?” he asked.

“Well, a farmer doesn't usu­al­ly amount to much, I mean in the eyes of the world. Farm­ers seem to be in a dif­fer­ent class from mer­chants, for ex­am­ple, or from bankers or oth­er more gen­teel work­ers.”

“Lis­ten to me, Do­ri­an Trent.” Un­cle Zed laid down his book as if he had a se­ri­ous task be­fore him. “Let me tell you some­thing. If you haven't done so be­fore, be­gin now and thank the Lord that you be­gan life on this globe of ours as a farmer's child and boy. What­ev­er you do or be­come in the fu­ture, you have made a good be­gin­ning. You have al­ready laid away in the way of con­cepts, we may say, a gen­er­ous store of na­ture's rich­es, for you have been in close touch with the earth, and the life which teems in soil and air and the wa­ters. Pity the man whose child­ish eyes looked out on noth­ing but paved streets and brick walls or whose young ears heard noth­ing but the harsh rum­ble of the city, for his ear­ly con­cep­tions from which to in­ter­pret his lat­er life is ar­ti­fi­cial and there­fore large­ly un­true.”

Un­cle Zed smiled up in­to the boy's face as if to ask, Do you get that? Do­ri­an would have to have time to as­sim­ilate the idea; mean­while, he had an­oth­er ques­tion:

“Un­cle Zed, why are there class­es among mem­bers of our Church?”

“Class­es? What do you mean?”

“Well, the rich do not as­so­ciate with the poor nor the learned with the un­learned. I know, of course, that this is the gen­er­al rule in the world, but I think it should be dif­fer­ent in the Church.”

“Yes; it ought to be and is dif­fer­ent. There are no class­es such as you have in mind in the Church, even though a few un­think­ing mem­bers seem to im­ply it by their ac­tions; but there is no re­al class dis­tinc­tion in the Church of Je­sus Christ of Lat­ter-​day Saints, on­ly such that are based on the do­ing of the right and the wrong. Char­ac­ter alone is the stan­dard of clas­si­fi­ca­tion.”

“Yes, I see that that should be true.”

“It is true. Let me il­lus­trate: The pre­sid­ing au­thor­ity in the Church is not hand­ed down from fa­ther to son, thus fos­ter­ing an aris­to­crat­ic ten­den­cy; al­so this au­thor­ity is so wide-​spread that any­thing like a ”rul­ing fam­ily“ would be im­pos­si­ble. In a town where I once lived, the own­er of the bank and the town black­smith were called on mis­sions. They both were as­signed to the same field, and the black­smith was ap­point­ed to pre­side over the banker. The banker sub­mit­ted will­ing­ly to be di­rect­ed in his mis­sion­ary labors by one who, judged by world­ly stan­dards, was far be­neath him in the so­cial scale. I know a shoe­mak­er in the city who is a teach­er in the the­olog­ical class of his ward, whose mem­ber­ship con­sists of mer­chants, lawyers, doc­tors, and the like. Al­though he is poor and earns his liv­ing by mend­ing shoes, he is great­ly re­spect­ed for his good­ness and his knowl­edge of Scrip­tural sub­jects and doc­trine.”

“So you think--that a young fel­low might--that it would not be wrong--or fool­ish for a poor man to think a lot of--of a rich girl, for in­stance.”

Un­cle Zed peered at Do­ri­an over his glass­es. The old man took him gen­tly by the shoul­ders. Ah, that's what's back of all this, he thought; but what he said was:

“My boy, Emer­son said, 'Hitch your wag­on to a star,' and I will add, nev­er let go, al­though the rocks in the road may bump you bad­ly. Why, there's noth­ing im­pos­si­ble for a young man like you. You may be rich, if you want to; I ex­pect to see you learned; and the Priest­hood which you have is your as­sur­ance, through your dili­gence and faith­ful­ness, to any heights. Yes, my boy; go ahead--love Mil­dred Brown all you want to; she's fine, but not a bit fin­er than you.”

“Oh, Un­cle Zed,” Do­ri­an some­what protest­ed; but, nev­er­the­less, he went home that evening with his heart singing.