Jonathan

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Title:     Jonathan
Author: Francis Hopkinson Smith [More Titles by Smith]

He was so ugly,--outside, I mean: long and lank, flat-chested, shrunken, round-shouldered, stooping when he walked; body like a plank, arms and legs like split rails, feet immense, hands like paddles, head set on a neck scrawny as a picked chicken's, hair badly put on and in patches, some about his head, some around his jaws, some under his chin in a half moon,--a good deal on the back of his hands and on his chest. Nature had hewn him in the rough and had left him with every axe mark showing.

He wore big shoes tied with deer hide strings and nondescript breeches that wrinkled along his knotted legs like old gun covers. These were patched and repatched with various hues and textures,--parts of another pair,--bits of a coat and fragments of tailor's cuttings. Sewed in their seat was half of a cobbler's apron,--for greater safety in sliding over ledges and logs, he would tell you. Next came a leather belt polished with use, and then a woolen shirt,--any kind of a shirt,--cross-barred or striped,--whatever the store had cheapest, and over that a waistcoat with a cotton back and some kind of a front, looking like a state map, it had so many colored patches. There was never any coat,--none that I remember. When he wore a coat he was another kind of a Jonathan,--a store-dealing Jonathan, or a church-going Jonathan, or a town-meeting Jonathan,--not the "go-a-fishin'," or "bee-huntin'," or "deer-stalkin'" Jonathan whom I knew.

There was a wide straw hat, too, that crowned his head and canted with the wind and flopped about his neck, and would have sailed away down many a mountain brook but for a faithful leather strap that lay buried in the half-moon whiskers and held on for dear life. And from under the rim of this thatch, and half hidden in the matted masses of badly adjusted hair, was a thin, peaked nose, bridged by a pair of big spectacles, and somewhere below these, again, a pitfall of a mouth covered with twigs of hair and an underbrush of beard, while deep-set in the whole tangle, like still pools reflecting the blue and white of the sweet heavens above, lay his eyes,--eyes that won you, kindly, twinkling, merry, trustful, and trusting eyes. Beneath these pools of light, way down below, way down where his heart beat warm, lived Jonathan.

I know a fruit in Mexico, delicious in flavor, called Timburici, covered by a skin as rough and hairy as a cocoanut; and a flower that bristles with thorns before it blooms into waxen beauty; and there are agates encrusted with clay and pearls that lie hidden in oysters. All these things, somehow, remind me of Jonathan.

His cabin was the last bit of shingle and brick chimney on that side of the Franconia Notch. There were others, farther on in the forest, with bark slants for shelter, and forked sticks for swinging kettles; but civilization ended with Jonathan's store-stove and the square of oil-cloth that covered his sitting-room floor. Upstairs, under the rafters, there was a guest-chamber smelling of pine boards and drying herbs, and sheltering a bed gridironed with bed-cord and softened by a thin layer of feathers encased in a ticking and covered with a cotton quilt. This bed always made a deep impression upon me mentally and bodily. Mentally, because I always slept so soundly in it whenever I visited Jonathan,--even with the rain pattering on the roof and the wind soughing through the big pine-trees; and bodily, because--well, because of the cords. Beside this bed was a chair for my candle, and on the floor a small square plank, laid loosely over the stovepipe hole which, in winter, held the pipe.

In summer mornings Jonathan made an alarm clock of this plank, flopping it about with the end of a fishing-rod poked up from below, never stopping until he saw my sleepy face peering down into his own. There was no bureau, only a nail or so in the scantling, and no washstand, of course; the tin basin at the well outside was better.

Then there was an old wife that lived in the cabin,--an old wife made of sole leather, with yellow-white hair and a thin, pinched face and a body all angles,--chest, arms, everywhere,--outlined through her straight up and down calico dress. When she spoke, however, you stopped to listen,--it was like a wood sound, low and far away,--soft as a bird call. People living alone in the forests often have these voices.

Last there was a dog,--a mean, sniveling, stump-tailed dog, of no particular breed or kidney. One of those dogs whose ancestry went to the bad many generations before he was born. A dog part fox,--he got all his slyness here; and part wolf, this made him ravenous; and part bull-terrier, this made him ill-tempered; and all the rest poodle, that made him too lazy to move.

The wife knew this dog, and hung the bacon on a high nail out of his reach, and covered with a big dish the pies cooling on the bench; and the neighbors down the road knew him and chased him out of their dairy-cellars when he nosed into the milk-pans and cheese-pots; and even the little children found out what a coward he was, and sent him howling home to his hole under the porch, where he grumbled and pouted all day like a spoiled child that had been half whipped. Everybody knew him, and everybody despised him for a low-down, thieving, lazy cur,--everybody except Jonathan. Jonathan loved him,--loved his weepy, smeary eyes, and his rough, black hair, and his fat round body, short stumpy legs, and shorter stumpy tail,--especially the tail. Everything else that the dog lacked could be traced back to the peccadillos of his ancestors,--Jonathan was responsible for the tail.

"Ketched in a b'ar-trap I hed sot up back in thet green timber on Loon Pond Maountin' six year ago last fall, when he wuz a pup," he would say, holding the dog in his lap,--his favorite seat. "I swan, ef it warn't too bad! Thinks I, when I sot it, I'll tell the leetle cuss whar it wuz; then--I must hev forgot it. It warn't a week afore he wuz runnin' a rabbet and run right into it. Wall, sir, them iron jaws took thet tail er his'n off julluk a knife. He's allus been kinder sore ag'in me sence, and I dunno but he's right, fur it wuz mighty keerless in me. Wall, sir, he come yowlin' hum, and when he see me he did look saour,--no use talkin',--jest ez ef he wuz a-sayin', 'Yer think you're paowerful cunnin' with yer b'ar-traps, don't ye? Jest see what it's done to my tail. It's kinder sp'ilt me for a dog.' All my fault, warn't it, George?" patting his head. (Only Jonathan would call a dog George.)

Here the dog would look up out of one eye as he spoke,--he hadn't forgotten the bear-trap, and never intended to let Jonathan forget it either. Then Jonathan would admire ruefully the end of the stump, stroking the dog all the while with his big, hairy, paddle-like hands, George rooting his head under the flap of the party-colored waistcoat.

One night, I remember, we had waited supper,--the wife and I,--we were obliged to wait, the trout being in Jonathan's creel,--when Jonathan walked in, looking tired and worried.

"Hez George come home, Marthy?" he asked, resting his long bamboo rod against the porch rail and handing the creel of trout to the wife. "No? Wall, I'm beat ef thet ain't cur'us. Guess I got ter look him up." And he disappeared hurriedly into the darkening forest, his anxious, whistling call growing fainter and fainter as he was lost in its depths. Marthy was not uneasy,--not about the dog; it was the supper that troubled her. She knew Jonathan's ways, and she knew George. This was a favorite trick of the dog's,--this of losing Jonathan.

The trout were about burnt to a crisp and the corn-bread stone cold when Jonathan came trudging back, George in his arms,--a limp, soggy, half-dead dog, apparently. Marthy said nothing. It was an old story. Half the time Jonathan carried him home.

"Supper's ready," she said quietly, and we went in.

George slid out of Jonathan's arms, smelt about for a soft plank, and fell in a heap on the porch, his chin on his paws, his mean little eyes watching lazily,--speaking to nobody, noticing nobody, sulking all to himself. There he stayed until he caught a whiff of the fragrant, pungent odor of fried trout. Then he cocked one eye and lifted an ear. He must not carry things too far. Next, I heard a single thump of his six-inch tail. George was beginning to get pleased; he always did when there were things to eat.

All this time Jonathan, tired out, sat in his big splint chair at the supper-table. He had been thrashing the brook since daylight,--over his knees sometimes. I could still see the high-water mark on his patched trousers. Another whiff of the frying-pan, and George got up. He dared not poke his nose into Marthy's lap,--there were too many chunks of wood within easy reach of her hand. So he sidled up to Jonathan, rubbing his nose against his big knees, whining hungrily, looking up into his face.

"I tell ye," said Jonathan, smiling at me, patting the dog as he spoke, "this yere George hez got more sense'n most men. He knows what's become of them trout we ketched. I guess he's gittin' over the way I treated him to-day. Ye see, we wuz up the East Branch when he run a fox south. Thinks I, the fox'll take a whirl back and cross the big runway; and, sure enough, it warn't long afore I heard George a-comin' back, yippin' along up through Hank Simons' holler. So I whistled to him and steered off up onto the maountin' to take a look at Bog-eddy and try and git a pickerel. When I come daown ag'in, I see George warn't whar I left him, so I hollered and whistled ag'in. Then, thinks I, you're mad 'cause I left ye, an' won't let on ye _kin_ hear; so I come along hum without him. When I went back a while ago a-lookin' for him, would yer believe it, thar he wuz a-layin' in the road, about forty rod this side of Hank Simons' sugar maples, flat onto his stummick an' disgusted an' put out awful. It wuz about all I could do ter git him hum. I knowed the minute I come in fust time an' see he warn't here thet his feelin's wuz hurt 'cause I left him. I presaume mebbe I oughter hollered ag'in afore I got so fer off. Then I thought, of course, he knowed I'd gone to Bog-eddy. Beats all, what sense some dogs hez."

I never knew Jonathan to lose patience with George but once: that was when the dog tried to burrow into the hole of a pair of chipmunks whom Jonathan loved. They lived in a tree blanketed with moss and lying across the wood road. George had tried to scrape an acquaintance by crawling in uninvited, nearly scaring the little fellows to death, and Jonathan had flattened him into the dry leaves with his big, paddle-like hands. That was before the bear-trap had nipped his tail, but George never forgot it.

He was particularly polite to chipmunks after that. He would lie still by the hour and hear Jonathan talk to them without even a whine of discontent. I watched the old man one morning up beneath the ledges, groping, on his hands and knees, filling his pockets with nuts, and when he reached the wood road, emptying them in a pile near the chipmunk's tree, George looking on good-naturedly.

"Guess you leetle cunnin's better hurry up," he said, while he poured out the nuts on the ground, his knees sticking up as he sat, like some huge grasshopper's. "Guess ye ain't got more 'n time to fill yer cubbud,--winter's a-comin'! Them leetle birches on Bog-eddy is turnin' yeller,--that's the fust sign. 'Fore ye knows it snow'll be flyin'. Then whar'll ye be with everything froze tighter'n Sampson bound the heathen, you cunnin' leetle skitterin' pups. Then I presaume likely ye'll come a-drulin' raound an' want me an' George should gin ye suthin to git through th' winter on,--won't they, George?"

"Beats all," he said to me that night, "how thoughtful some dogs is. Hadn't been fer George to-day, I'd clean forgot them leetle folks. I see him scratching raound in the leaves an' I knowed right away what he wuz thinkin' of."

Often when I was sketching in the dense forest, Jonathan would lie down beside me, the old flop of a hat under his head, his talk rambling on.

"I don't wonder ye like to paint 'em. Thar hain't nothin' so human as trees. Take thet big hemlock right in front er yer. Hain't he led a pretty decent life? See how praoud an' tall he's growed, with them arms of his'n straight aout an' them leetle chillen of his'n spraouting up raound him. I tell ye them hemlocks is pretty decent people. Now take a look at them two white birches down by thet big rock. Ain't it a shame the way them fellers hez been goin' on sence they wuz leetle saplin's, makin' it so nothin' could grow raound 'em,--with their jackets all ragged an' tore like tramps, an' their toes all out of their shoes whar ther roots is stickin' clear of the bark,--ain't they a-ketchin' it in their ole age? An' then foller on daown whar thet leetle bunch er silver maples is dancin' in the sunlight, so slender an' cunnin',--all aout in their summer dresses, julluk a bevy er young gals,--ain't they human like? I tell ye, trees is the humanest things thet is."

These talks with me made George restless. He was never happy unless Jonathan had _him_ on his mind.

But it was a cluster of daisies that first lifted the inner lid of Jonathan's heart for me. I was away up the side of the Notch overlooking the valley, my easel and canvas lashed to a tree, the wind blew so, when Jonathan came toiling up the slope, a precipice in fact, with a tin can strapped to his back, filled with hot corn and some doughnuts, and threw himself beside me, the sweat running down his weather-tanned neck.

"So long ez we know whar you're settin' at work it ain't nat'ral to let ye starve, be it?" throwing himself beside me. George had started ahead of him and had been picked up and carried as usual.

When Jonathan sat upright, after a breathing spell, his eye fell on a tuft of limp, bruised daisies, flattened to the earth by the heel of his clumsy shoe. There were acres of others in sight.

"Gosh hang!" he said, catching his breath suddenly, as if something had stung him, and reaching down with his horny, bent fingers, "ef thet ain't too bad." Then to himself in a tone barely audible,--he had entirely forgotten my presence,--"You never had no sense, Jonathan, nohow, stumblin' raound like er bull calf tramplin' everything. Jes' see what ye've gone an' done with them big feet er yourn," bending over the bruised plant and tenderly adjusting the leaves. "Them daisies hez got jest ez good a right ter live ez you hev."

* * * * *

I was almost sure when I began that I had a story to tell. I had thought of that one about Luke Pollard,--the day Luke broke his leg behind Loon Mountain, and Jonathan carried him down the gorge on his back, crossing ledges that would have scared a goat. It was snowing at the time, they said, and blowing a gale. When they got half way down White Face, Jonathan's foot slipped and he fell into the ravine, breaking his wrist. Only the drifts saved his life. Luke caught a sapling and held on. The doctor set Jonathan's wrist last, and Luke never knew it had been broken until the next day. It is one of the stories they tell you around the stove winter evenings.

"Julluk the night Jonathan carried aout Luke," they say, listening to the wind howling over the ledges.

And then I thought of that other story that Hank Simons told me,--the one about the mill back of Woodstock caving in from the freshet and burying the miller's girl. No one dared lift the timbers until Jonathan crawled in. The child was pinned down between the beams, and the water rose so fast they feared the wreckage would sweep the mill. Jonathan clung to the sills waist-deep in the torrent, crept under the floor timbers, and then bracing his back held the beam until he dragged her clear. It happened a good many years ago, but Hank always claimed it had bent Jonathan's back.

But, after all, they are not the things I love best to remember of Jonathan.

It is always the old man's voice, crooning his tuneless song as he trudges home in the twilight, his well-filled creel at his side,--the good-for-nothing dog in his arms; or it is that look of sweet contentment on his face,--the deep and thoughtful eyes, filled with the calm serenity of his soul. And then the ease and freedom of his life! Plenty of air and space, and plenty of time to breathe and move! Having nothing, possessing all things! No bonds to guard,--no cares to stifle,--no trains to catch,--no appointments to keep,--no fashions to follow,--no follies to shun! Only the old wife and worthless, lazy dog, and the rod and the creel! Only the blessed sunshine and fresh, sweet air, and the cool touch of deep woods.

No, there is no story--only Jonathan.

[The end]
Francis Hopkinson Smith's short story: Jonathan

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