A Perilous Proposal (11 page)

“What wuz dat?”

“It was what they did about it, Jake. That's what makes folks different—not that some people have a hard life and some have an easy one, or that one man's white and another's black, that one man's poor and one man's rich, or that one man's a slave and another's free. In one way, I saw that none of that makes much difference.”

“Wha'chu mean? Seems ter me dat'd make
all
da difference.”

“Maybe not, Jake. Maybe it doesn't make as much difference as you think. What I saw was that folks decide what they're going to do when the hard things come. And
that's
what makes the difference—what they decide to do. When the whippings come, what are you going to do? And life can send invisible whippings that I reckon hurt in their own way just as much as those a slave gets. Some folks get angry and they blame everybody else they can think of. Others don't.”

“I reckon dat's so, all right.”

“There's a lot of angry people in the world, Jake—lots and lots of angry people. Some are angry down inside where nobody sees. Others you can tell just from looking at them. I've seen a lot of folks with anger inside them, Jake. It's not pleasant to see. Anger's not a pretty thing. It makes people miserable inside. Then there's other folks that get sad and discouraged at all the hardships that come in their lives. Maybe they don't get angry, but they go around being sad and miserable and letting people know it. They want people to feel sorry for them, and that's not too pretty to see either.”

“So what did you do w'en you wuz eleben?”

“Well, it didn't come to me all at once, that's only when it began. But eventually I decided I wasn't going to get sad or angry and let either of those things eat me up inside. I didn't want people feeling sorry for me and I didn't want to be angry inside. I said to myself,
Look here, Duff
, I said,
you think your life is hard, well, lots of other folks' lives are hard too. Some of them are even harder than yours! So you quit feeling so sorry for yourself like you've got it so bad. You're alive, aren't you? You're healthy and strong, aren't you? You don't have it nearly so bad as you think. No matter what you've been through, life can be a pretty good thing if you'll let it
. And then I made my choice, Jake.”

“What wuz dat?”

“I decided that I didn't want to let my own hurts make me into a selfish person. I wanted to be a better person, not a sad or angry or discouraged person. So that's when I decided that I was going to spend my life trying to do good things for other folks, especially folks with pains and the marks of invisible whippings down inside them. I began looking at folks I met just a little different. I said to myself,
Maybe that man or that woman or that little boy or girl . . . maybe they've got hurts inside. Maybe there's something that's paining them in a way I can't see. And maybe I can help a bit
. That's when I decided that I'd keep my eye out for folks that might need a helping hand or a kind word, and that maybe I could help make their lives just a little bit easier and happier.”

He paused briefly. “So that's why, Jake. You got the marks of real whips on your back. You've had some hurts and pains in your life. So I figure that maybe God sent me along to help make your life just a little better. I made my choice about what kind of person I wanted to be. Maybe I can help you make yours.”

Jake asked nothing further. He had enough to think about for one day. After another minute or two, Micah rose and returned to his repairs on the horse stalls.

Not wanting to risk a fire in the barn, or make their presence more visible outside than was necessary, water, jerky, and cold biscuits were all they ate and drank that day. But the following morning Micah ventured to build a small fire out of sight behind the barn, and the fresh coffee and bacon from it considerably picked up their spirits. Jake's injuries, however, made even a simple task like trying to sit up to eat or drink excruciatingly painful.

Helping him get to the woods to do his necessaries about midmorning, Micah glanced toward the house. From an upper window he saw Mrs. Dawson watching them.

Later that day he heard the barn door open. There stood the farmer's wife. In the thin light Micah saw a sheepish and somewhat anxious look on her face.

“I . . . I just baked some bread,” she said, glancing behind her. “I thought you might like a loaf.”

“That is very kind of you, Mrs. Dawson,” said Micah, walking toward her with a smile. “It smells delicious. Thank you very much.”

She nodded, struggled to smile as he took it from her, then hurried away. Micah was sure her husband knew nothing of her errand of kindness. From the frightened look on her face, it was clear that he would not be pleased if he found out about it.

T
HE
O
RDER OF
T
HINGS

14

T
HE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS PASSED ALMOST LIKE A
dream for Jake Patterson. He slept and woke, ate what he could, dozed, woke again, drank, hobbled with Micah's help outside a time or two to do his necessaries, then eased back down onto his bed of straw again to wake and doze again. Sometimes he lay awake thinking. Surprisingly, he found that being alone with Micah Duff presented him with much to think about. And slowly the minutes and hours and eventually days passed like a blur. Since his legs were generally all right except for a few bruises, the trips to the woods became easier and easier and he walked around a little more each day. But moving and shifting his position, even just a few inches, remained painful, not only from his ribs but from the blows that had been delivered to his stomach and back and chest, and even his head, by Sergeant Billings.

Sometimes Jake talked to Micah, sometimes he just lay watching him putter about the barn fixing things and tidying it up. In later years, Jake Patterson always looked back on these few days as the season of his life when he began to come awake. The deeper part of him . . . the real him, the thoughtful him, the spiritual part of him—what folks might call his soul. Jake didn't realize it yet. Most people don't realize when
they begin to come awake. It's only later, when they look back, that they can see that things were happening to poke at the sleepiness of their soul to make it wake up. That's how it was for Jake. He was still young and at an age when most people's souls are still mostly asleep. All through life, situations and circumstances poke at people's souls, trying to make them uncomfortable enough to realize that they're asleep. Some people wake up when they grow into adulthood. Other people never wake up no matter how long they live.

“What do you think, Duff?” Jake asked one time. “You think I'll eber be a free man like you?”

“That depends on what you mean, Jake.”

“I mean, duz you think I'll eber be free instead ob a slave?”

“There's all kinds of freedom and all kinds of slavery.”

“Dere you go agin sayin' da most out ob da way things so's I don't know what you's talkin' 'bout!”

Micah laughed. “You know more than you think you know, Jake,” he said. “You just gotta figure out what you know.”

“So what you talkin' 'bout wiff dat different kinds er freedom talk?”

“There's freedom inside and outside,” replied Duff. “There's lots of men like me who are free on the outside but aren't free inside. They aren't free from themselves. There are also lots of slaves like you who are really free on the inside because they've discovered what life means. That's the only kind of freedom that really matters in the end.”

“Dere you go talkin' riddles agin, Duff!”

It's not easy to describe what one person does for another. It's not always in outward ways, in things that are actually said. It's the small experiences that add up to a different way of looking at things. That's what Micah Duff did for Jake—he helped him look at things different, and to see and understand things that most folks never look at.

Like when he was chopping some wood one day to add to the Dawsons' woodpile, Micah stopped and picked up two chunks of the pine, looked at them back and forth, then turned to Jake.

“What do these two pieces of wood remind you of, Jake?” he said, holding them toward him in his hands.

“Dey jes' look like two pieces ob wood ter me.”

“They're more than that, Jake. When God made the two trees that these two pieces came from, He put meaning inside those trees. Did you know that God put meaning into everything He made?”

“Guess I neber thought 'bout it afore.”

“Well, think about it, Jake. You gotta think about it. We're supposed to think about it. Whenever we look around us, we're supposed to find out the meaning God put into the things we see. That's the only way to figure out what life means. We've got to figure out the meaning God put into the things around us.”

“So what dose two bits er wood in yo hands—what dey mean, Duff? Dey don't look like dey mean nuthin'. Dey jes' wood, dat's all.”

“Just wood—I reckon you're right, Jake. But wood with God's meaning inside it.—Look, here's a piece with straight grain running from top to bottom, straight and even and true. But look at this other piece. It's full of knots. Its grain is all twisted and gnarled and going all kinds of directions. When I look at these two pieces of wood, Jake, I see two people. I see a person who's straight and true and good. I see a person who, when he tells you something, you know it's right because his word is as straight and true as he is inside. He's a person whose grain is straight. But when I look at this other chunk of wood, I see a person who is all twisted up, whose inside is full of knots. He's a pretty confused person who doesn't know which direction he wants to grow and doesn't know what kind of person he wants to be. That's why his grain is growing in
so many directions, because he's all mixed up inside. You ever know a gnarled-up person, Jake, who looked like this piece of wood?”

“I don't know, Duff.”

“I have. I don't doubt this man whose farm we're staying at is pretty gnarled up inside. He's full of a lot of things going a lot of different directions in him, making knots in his character. So is his daughter, if she lied about what you did. What kind of person tells lies, Jake? A person who's twisted up inside, and whose grain doesn't run straight and true.”

Duff turned around, set the two chunks on the chopping block, then brought the ax down first on one, then the other, until they were split into smaller pieces, then tossed them into the woodbox and continued on. For a while the sound of the ax and the splitting wood was the only sound to be heard. Then Jake spoke up again from where he lay.

“How'd you git ter be such a deep thinker, Duff?” he said. “Sumtimes you remin' me of a preacher. You eber been a preacher, Duff?”

Micah laughed like Jake had never heard him.

“I'm no preacher, that's for sure!”

“You sounds like one ter me.”

“I suppose I am a thinker,” Duff went on. “But everybody's got a brain. It's just that some folks put theirs to use. That's another thing I decided after I was eleven, that I wanted to use the brain God gave me. Everybody thinks, Jake. Some people don't point their brains in directions that do them any good. They just think about things that are gone the next day, like smoke from that fire out there cooking our supper. Their thoughts just go up and are gone.”

“Yeah, I reckon I can see dat, all right.”

“I decided that I ought to spend my time thinking about things that mattered. That's when I began to think about myself and whether the grain in my life was straight and true, or all knotted up.”

“Dat soun's like mighty big things fo sum eleben-year-old boy ter be thinkin' 'bout. I shore neber did. I neber eben wud er thought 'bout none ob dis now effen it weren't fo you. What made you think 'bout such things, Duff?”

“I didn't think about them all when I was eleven. That's just when it started. That's when I met an old man who took care of me for a spell. He taught me how to think.”

“What kind er man? A colored man?”

“No, a white man. A mysterious fellow with a big beard who kept to himself. But he happened along when I was in a bad fix. He helped me maybe a little bit like I'm helping you, Jake, though in a different way. He helped me begin thinking and understanding life and God and the order of things and fitting in with that order.”

“I ain't shore what you mean by dat, Duff,” said Jake.

“What exactly?”

“Da order ob things . . . what you mean by dat?”

“I just mean life and God and how things work and how you and I fit into them,” replied Duff. “I'll explain it to you like the old man explained it to me. He said that there were two kinds of people in the world—those who were content and at peace with themselves, and those who weren't. The first kind were usually happy and were the kind of people you liked to be with. But the second kind were selfish and mixed up inside.”