Peace Shall Destroy Many (27 page)

Carlo’s bark, as he leaped into the cutter, jerked Thom from his thoughts. They were home: Nance was stopping at their yard-gate. He shushed Carlo, who was avidly trying to tickle his face, as Pete clambered out and pushed through the snow to open the gate. Thom, mind falling upon some less cheering aspects of the afternoon, thought, I must find out what he’s
thinking. He looked so grimly watchful. The air in that cabin must have been dreadful for him. Perhaps I should have asked the quartet only to school, but I wanted the Mackenzies to hear us. They like to sing so much. Well, it’s too late now to consider. But I have to find out before he goes home and tells his father who knows what. It’s so strange to Pete. As he chirruped Nance to move ahead, Thom forced his mind to turn from the widening gulf of apprehension.

Pete leaned his weight against the gate-pole, slipped the wire over it and climbed back under the cutter’s blankets. He said, “It’s later than we figured. Guess I’ll go home right away—do the chores.”

Thom, eyes unseeing on Carlo’s open-mouthed smile, answered while groping for an opening, “It is later than usual. The folks should be home soon from Lepps’. Did yours go visiting today?”

“No. They’re home every Sunday—since Elizabeth died.”

Nance stopped before the house at the spot where Hal always halted her when he drove home from school. As Carlo hurled himself out and raced a madly happy circle around horse and cutter, Thom said quietly into the deepening dusk, “Perhaps they should visit a bit—forget a little—”

Pete said slowly, folding back the blankets and stepping to the snow, “Oh, they’ll probably go visiting again.” He added abruptly, as if forced to confide, “Papa wanted to last Sunday, but Mom just all of a sudden cried so hard—”

Thom, reaching to unhook a trace, spoke quickly over Pete’s painful hesitation, “I really want to thank you, Pete, for coming today. The kids don’t say much but I know they liked it from the way they listened. Adds
that extra bit. And Mrs. Mackenzie said it was nice.”

Pete’s wan smile was reflected in his voice as Thom led Nance from between the shafts. “You know how I always want to sing. Good if they liked it.”

Fine granules of snow began to drift as they plodded across the yard to the barn, Nance’s nose gently insistent against Thom’s back. He put out one leg and neatly flipped Carlo into a roll in the snow. The black dog leaped up and at him in ecstasy. Trying with one hand to calm the frantic friendliness, Thom said to Pete, as if nonchalantly, “What did your father say when you told him you were going to sing with us at Mackenzies’ this afternoon?”

Pete returned nothing for a moment as they turned the corner of the horse-barn and Thom pushed up the catch to swing open the frost-creaking door. The animal warmth lapped gently against them standing in the co
ld. Thom stood aside, flipped the halter-shank over Nance’s hame and she stepped carefully across the door-jamb and swung into the darkness of her stall. Pete said slowly, as the two men followed her into the low black doorway, “Guess that’s partly why I didn’t say much now coming back. I just told him I was going to see you. Don’t think he would have liked it—otherwise.”

“Oh.” Thom was glad Pete could not discern his face in the gloom as he pulled the door tight against the cold. He said in a sort of parenthesis, digesting, “I’ll get your Prince out—soon as I get Nance fixed.”

“Okay.”

He reached out his hand for Nance and, mindful of his Sunday coat, pushed into her narrow stall. He tied the slipknot and turning, spoke over her withers into the encouraging darkness, fingers swift on the icy harness-buckles. “What did you think of the class?”

The quiet familiar voice said, oddly careftil, “Well, if you held it in the school all the time—”

Thom interrupted, “I told you it was because of the cold. They have to go so far every day to school that—” he caught his over-protest and wrong direction. That was not really the basic reason. “I’m sorry. Shouldn’t butt in.”

“That’s okay.” After a moment, “I don’t really know, I guess. Why do you teach them? What’s the point? Papa says there’s enough for everyone to be busy in our own church. You could teach our children. Why—” The shrug was evident.

“There are plenty of teachers in our Sunday School for our children. They’ve taught for years. All I’ve done in our church is sing in the choir and make the opening twice at Young People’s. Once in a while we sing a quartet. Is that usefulness? I’ve been a church member for three years. These kids never heard the complete Bible once.” Thom unbuckled Nance’s collar and pulled it down with his left hand.

Pete said from the far side of the aisle, “You’ll have more to do soon, don’t worry.”

“What?” Thom pushed his right arm under the harness and dragged it from Nance’s sweated body as he stepped from the stall. “What is there for all of us to do? We’ve got plenty of workers. But these poor kids haven’t a single Christian interested in them. And I’m a Christian now—I can’t sit around waiting to grow old.” He moved past Pete’s silent presence and straddled collar and harne
ss unerringly over their pegs in the known darkness.

“There’s no need to be in such a rush—”

Thom swung around to Pete, whose form was now just barely perceptible in the last stray light from the tiny frosted window. “Why don’t you say the real reason?”

“All right.” Pete’s voice was abruptly hard. “What do you want to do with them—teaching them Bible stories?”

“I want those children, and their parents—Mrs. Mackenzie was interested today—to become Christians.”

“I thought that was why you wanted to have the class there so much. Okay. And then what?”

Thom skirted now, “What do you mean, what? They learn to live like Christians—probably join the church—”

“What church?” relentlessly.

“Well, there’s only one church in Wapiti—I guess—”

“But you can’t. They can’t join our church.” The words hung in the darkness a moment. “They don’t live like us. You were in that cabin all afternoon—and she had even tried to clean up a bit. They’re like—and they speak Cree and English. You know they could never become members of our Mennonite Church. Look what happened to Herman. They’re just not like us.”

“You know what you’re saying, Pete? We sing mightily, ‘It Is Well with My Soul’ and let our neighbours die as heathen because they eat moose-mea
t instead of borscht for Sunday dinner!”

“Aw Thom, don’t get mad so quick. You know it’s true what I’m saying.”

Thom turned wearily to the stall for Pete’s horse. “Whoa boy, easy there.” Hand soothing he stepped beside Prince and reached down to the loosened saddle-cinch. He said, “I’m not mad.” The situation was quite beyond a superficial emotion. For he knew exactly what Pete meant; he had been puzzling these many nights about making the Bible lessons more understandable for the children while respectfully avoiding the sure knowledge. There is nothing I can do with them,
after. Once, last summer, he had faced it; but not again. And once, just a week ago, he had sensed that if he continued just a little longer, the second Razin girl, Laura, would stay behind to talk to him. He h
ad ended the class abruptly; he was fully conscious now that he
had been sidestepping the goal he was labouring towards. And his unconsidered enthusiasm about Hal coming to the class—Pete spoke into his thoughts.

“Thom, our people could not accept a half-breed into our church. Can you honestly imagine such a thing?”

Thom, his fingers clenching on the hard-leather cinch, did not counter that question. He could not. With a quick heave he tightened the cinch, slid the stirrup down and stretched for the halter shank. His mind groped, blindly, for some handhold to start him up this wall of known impossibility. “Have you ever thought of why God has spared us from military service? According to Canada’s law, you and I should be in France right now.” He backed Prince into the aisle and Pete’s hand met his on the rope. “Why are we still here?”

Pete returned, fumbling for the bridle hung from the saddle-horn, “Because we believe what our fathers taught—”

Thom interrupted, concerned now beyond the words’ momentary jostle of his memory, “So you say. But is that a good enough reason—our fathers? Other fat
hers have taught differently. Why should we listen to ours?”

“Because our fathers got it from the Bible.”

“All right. The Bible also teaches ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ That means, if you’re concerned about your own salvation, be concerned about his t
oo. How can we avoid that?”

Pete had Prince bridled but paused as he t
urned to the door. “It also says we are to remain separated fr
om the world. ‘What has light to do with darkness?’ Thom,” he continued as
the other was about to urge a question, “you can argue till tomorrow and logically you’ll be perfectly right. But you can’t change people with perfect logic. You know that as well as I. You know that the Mackenzies and the Labrets just could not join our church. It’s impossible. And Papa said last week once, as he was talking about your class, that you’ll only make things worse than ever. Instead of them caring nothing, as they do now, your going there all the time, maybe even helping them to believe they’re Christians, would only show up the difference between them and us so much more clearly. Only bitter feelings could come of it. And we’ve lived peacefully beside them for many years. You saw that cabin today. Don’t tell me you liked it. Maybe years from now they’ll have changed—but not now. Why don’t you end it now at Christmas? Papa says you don’t know into what impossible problems you’re heading.”

Thom could not even marvel at Pete’s long speech. He said, battered, “Why did you come today then, if you feel like this?”

Pete’s hand clasped his shoulder, “Man, because I’m your friend. And I wanted to see what Papa said for myself. And he’s right, Thom. Think about it—what we saw today.”

Thom said nothing. He was tiredly thinking, quite beside the point, First time I’ve ever known Pete to check his father’s opinion with facts. Odd.

Pete pushed open the door and led Prince from the barn. Thom followed them into the whiter darkness of the raw winter, closing the door behind him.
Snow sifted against his face. Carlo trotted up from behind a hay-stack in the corral and rubbed against his leg. Pete said, having mounted, “Our quartet should sing for them on Christmas Sunday afternoon. The twins will like it. They never think much. And Papa will say it’s okay—a sort of farewell program.”

Thom looked up at him, black against the gloomy sky. “Thanks for everything, Pete. And for telling me what you think.”

“Right. I’m late for chores already. See you tomorrow in the hay-meadow.” He flicked his reins and cantered from the yard. His shape vanished into the black spruce that had long since swallowed the sun.

After a long moment Thom trudged heavily round the barn up the path to the house. At the narrow lane dug through the drift swirled beyond the slab fence, Carlo dropped a pace behind him. The shaggy cat, curled on the heater woodblocks piled on the step, meowed at him forlornly, then spat as fiercely as the dog sprang lightly toward her. Thom murmured, “Carlo, behave yourself. That’s okay Mietzy, I’ll go milk right away. Just wait a minute.” He buffed her head with his heavy mitt, lifted the latch and stepped into the dark silent house. Standing on the hooked-rag rug at the door, he stuffed his mittens into his coat pockets, unbuckled and stepped out of his overshoes. He moved towards the faint outline of the cupboard, found the match-box behind the curtain, and with a flare the match he struck burst into light. Holding it aloft, he reached the kerosene lamp down from the cupboard-top, lit it, and set it on the kitchen table. He lifted the lid of the firegrate in the stove and let the spent match fall. He stared a mom
ent into the stove. Abruptly he shook his head, turned, rummaged in the wood-box and, turning back, pushed two pieces among the barely glowing embers of the grate.

He closed the lid. Before the table again, he took off his coat and fur hat and placed them carefully beside the weathered catalogue lying opened at the electric trains, where Hal must have been dreaming. He took the lamp and climbed up
the narrow protesting stairs. Undressing, reaching for his chore clothes, he thought, A typical, smooth, Block plan. The Deacon’s training is bearing fruit.

He sat on the bed and pulled on heavy socks. At last it stares me in the face. Pastor Lepp could not do anything for Herman; there’s not even time to write Joseph. I have to make a choice. Suddenly the dreadful responsibility of being a man and being morally required to make a choice, either this way or that, thrust upon him. Whatever a man does, he is held responsible. He alone. Overwhelmed, he shuddered. Who would ever choose to be a man, if given such a choice. Why, being a man and having a choice, had he not chosen, like Pete, to walk the sure guarded path of the fathers? He knew why, but strangely he had to think hard for a moment to recall the weightiness of his former arguments.

Within two weeks he must decide again.

He took the lamp and went downstairs. He pulled on his worn jacket, lit the lantern with a wood-splinter, fitted the milk-pails together, turned down the lamp and, holding the pails in one arm, went outside. It was snowing more heavily now, the flakes falling in silver diagonals through the yellow pool of lantern light. He could hear the approaching ring of Star and Duster’s harness just beyond
the north knoll. As he pulled open the door to the cow-barn and the shaggy cat slipped in between his legs, he thought, At least I know one thing certainly. It would not make any difference even if the Mennonites of Wapiti spoke only English. Language one can learn, but love—but he did not want to think that.

The cows, struggling ponderously to their feet, stretched and turned their heads dumbly towards him as he stood, head bowed, in the aisle.

E
IGHT
M
ILE
L
AKE
shone stark white. Here and there scattered bulges of hay-stacks shored up the snow
; all else was swept drifts from border to far border of frozen poplars. Sunlight gl
inted in warmthless irony.