The Cure's Christmas Gift

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Title:     The Cure's Christmas Gift
Author: Cy Warman [More Titles by Warman]

"A country that is bad or good,
Precisely as your claim pans out;
A land that's much misunderstood,
Misjudged, maligned and lied about."

When the pathfinders for the New National Highway pushed open the side door and peeped through to the Pacific they not only discovered a short cut to Yokohama, but opened to the world a new country, revealing the last remnant of the Last West.

Edmonton is the outfiling point, of course, but Little Slave Lake is the real gateway to the wilderness. Here we were to make our first stop (we were merely exploring), and from this point our first portage was to the Peace River, at Chinook, where we would get into touch once more with the Hudson's Bay Company.

Jim Cromwell, the free trader who was in command of Little Slave, made us welcome, introducing us ensemble to his friend, a former H.B. factor, to the Yankee who was looking for a timber limit, to the "Literary Cuss," as he called the young man in corduroys and a wide white hat, who was endeavoring to get past "tradition," that has damned this Dominion both in fiction and in fact for two hundred years, and do something that had in it the real color of the country.

At this point the free trader paused to assemble the Missourian. This iron-gray individual shook himself out, came forward, and gripped our hands, one after another.

The free trader would not allow us to make camp that night. We were sentenced to sup and lodge with him, furnishing our own bedding, of course, but baking his bread.

The smell of cooking coffee and the odor of frying fish came to us from the kitchen, and floating over from somewhere the low, musical, well modulated voice of Cromwell, conversing in Cree, as he moved about among his mute and apparently inoffensive camp servants.

The day died hard. The sun was still shining at 9 P.M. At ten it was twilight, and in the dusk we sat listening to tales of the far North, totally unlike the tales we read in the story-books. Smith the Silent, who was in charge of our party, was interested in the country, of course, its physical condition, its timber, its coal, and its mineral possibilities. He asked about its mountains and streams, its possible and impossible passes; but the "Literary Cuss" and I were drinking deeply of weird stories that were being told quite incautiously by the free trader, the old factor, and by the Missourian. We were like children, this young author and I, sitting for the first time in a theatre. The flickering camp fire that we had kindled in the open served as a footlight, while the Gitch Lamp, still gleaming in the west, glanced through the trees and lit up the faces of the three great actors who were entertaining us without money and without price. The Missourian was the star. He had been reared in the lap of luxury, had run away from college where he had been installed by a rich uncle, his guardian, and jumped down to South America. He had ridden with the Texas Rangers and with President Diaz's Regulators, had served as a scout on the plains and worked with the Mounted Police, but was now "retired."

All of which we learned not from him directly, but from the stories he told and from his bosom friend, the free trader, whose guests we were, and whose word, for the moment at least, we respected.

The camp fire burned down to a bed of coals, the Gitch Lamp went out. In the west, now, there was only a glow of gold, but no man moved.

Smith the Pathfinder and our host the free trader bent over a map. "But isn't this map correct?" Smith would ask, and when in doubt Jim would call the Missourian. "No," said the latter, "you can't float down that river because it flows the other way, and that range of mountains is two hundred miles out."

Gradually we became aware that all this vast wilderness, to the world unknown, was an open book to this quiet man who had followed the buffalo from the Rio Grande to the Athabasca where he turned, made a last stand, and then went down.

When the rest had retired the free trader and I sat talking of the Last West, of the new trail my friends were blazing, and of the wonderfully interesting individual whom we called the Missourian.

"He had a prospecting pard," said Jim, "whom he idolized. This man, whose name was Ramsey, Jack Ramsey, went out in '97 between the Coast Range and the Rockies, and now this sentimental old pioneer says he will never leave the Peace River until he finds Ramsey's bones.

"You see," Cromwell continued, "friendship here and what goes for friendship outside are vastly different. The matter of devoting one's life to a friend or to a duty, real or fancied, is only a trifle to these men who abide in the wilderness. I know of a Chinaman and a Cree who lived and died the most devoted friends. You see the Missourian hovering about the last camping-place of his companion. Behold the factor! He has left the Hudson Bay Company after thirty years because he has lost his life's best friend, a man who spoke another language, whose religion was not the brand upon which the factor had been brought up in England; yet they were friends."

The camp fire had gone out. In the south we saw the first faint flush of dawn as Cromwell, knocking the ashes from his pipe, advised me to go to bed. "You get the old factor to tell you the story of his friend the cure, and of the cure's Christmas gift," Cromwell called back, and I made a point of getting the story, bit by bit, from the florid factor himself, and you shall read it as it has lingered in my memory.

When the new cure came to Chinook on the Upper Peace River, he carried a small hand-satchel, his blankets, and a crucifix. His face was drawn, his eyes hungry, his frame wasted, but his smile was the smile of a man at peace with the world. The West--the vast, undiscovered Canadian West--jarred on the sensitive nerves of this Paris-bred priest. And yet, when he crossed the line that marks what we are pleased to call "civilization," and had reached the heart of the real Northwest, where the people were unspoiled, natural, and honest, where a handful of Royal Northwest Mounted Police kept order in an empire that covers a quarter of a continent, he became deeply interested in this new world, in the people, in the imperial prairies, the mountains, and the great wide rivers that were racing down to the northern sea.

The factor at the Hudson's Bay post, whose whole life since he had left college in England had been passed on the Peace River, at York Factory, and other far northern stations over which waved the Hudson's Bay banner, warmed to the new cure from their first meeting, and the cure warmed to him. Each seemed to find in the other a companion that neither had been able to find among the few friends of his own faith.

And so, through the long evenings of the northern winter, they sat in the cure's cabin study or by the factor's fire, and talked of the things which they found interesting, including politics, literature, art, and Indians. Despite the great gulf that rolled between the two creeds in which they had been cradled, they found that they were in accord three times in five--a fair average for men of strong minds and inherent prejudices. At first the cure was anxious to get at the real work of "civilizing" the natives.

"Yes," the factor would say, blowing the smoke upward, "the Indian should be civilized--slowly--the slower the better."

The cure would pretend to look surprised as he relit his pipe. Once the cure asked the factor why he was so indifferent to the welfare of the Crees, who were the real producers, without whose furs there would be no trade, no post, no job for the ruddy-faced factor. The priest was surprised that the factor should appear to fail to appreciate the importance of the trapper.

"I do," said the factor.

"Then why do you not help us to lift him to the light?"

"I like him," was the laconic reply.

"Then why don't you talk to him of his soul?"

"Haven't the nerve," said the factor, shaking his head and blowing more smoke.

The cure shrugged his shoulders.

"I say," said the florid factor, facing the pale priest. "Did you see me decorating the old chief, Dunraven, yesterday?"

"Yes, I presume you were giving him a pour boire in advance to secure the greater catch of furs next season," said the priest, with his usual sad yet always pleasant smile.

"A very poor guess for one so wise," said the factor. "Attendez," he continued. "This post used to be closed always in winter. The tent doors were tied fast on the inside, after which the man who tied them would crawl out under the edge of the canvas. When winter came, the snow, banked about, held the tent tightly down, and the Hudson's Bay business was bottled at this point until the springless summer came to wake the sleeping world.

"Last winter was a hard winter. The snow was deep and game scarce. One day a Cree Indian found himself in need of tea and tobacco, and more in need of a new pair of trousers. Passing the main tent one day, he was sorely tempted. Dimly, through the parchment pane, he could see great stacks of English tweeds, piles of tobacco, and boxes of tea, but the tent was closed. He was sorely tried. He was hungry--hungry for a horn of tea and a twist of the weed, and cold, too. Ah, bon pere, it is hard to withstand cold and hunger with only a canvas between one and the comforts of life!"

"Oui, Monsieur!" said the cure, warmly, touched by the pathos of the tale.

"The Indian walked away (we know that by his footprints), but returned to the tent. The hunger and the cold had conquered. He took his hunting-knife and slit the deerskin window and stepped inside. Then he approached the pile of tweed trousers and selected a large pair, putting down from the bunch of furs he had on his arms to the value of eight skins--the price his father and grandfather had paid. He visited the tobacco pile and helped himself, leaving four skins on the tobacco. When he had taken tea he had all his heart desired, and having still a number of skins left, he hung them upon a hook overhead and went away.

"When summer dawned and a clerk came to open the post, he saw the slit in the window, and upon entering the tent saw the eight skins on the stack of tweeds, the four skins on the tobacco, and the others on the chest, and understood.

"Presently he saw the skins which the Indian had hung upon the hook, took them down, counted them carefully, appraised them, and made an entry in the Receiving Book, in which he credited 'Indian-cut-the-window, 37 skins.'

"Yesterday Dunraven came to the post and confessed.

"It was to reward him for his honesty that I gave him the fur coat and looped the big brass baggage check in his buttonhole. Voila!"

The cure crossed his legs and then recrossed them, tossed his head from side to side, drummed upon the closed book which lay in his lap, and showed in any number of ways, peculiar to nervous people, his amazement at the story and his admiration for the Indian.

"Little things like that," said the factor, filling his pipe, "make me timid when talking to a Cree about 'being good.'"

* * * * *

When summer came, and with it the smell of flowers and the music of running streams, the factor and his friend the cure used to take long tramps up into the highlands, but the cure's state of health was a handicap to him. The factor saw the telltale flush in the priest's face and knew that the "White Plague" had marked him; yet he never allowed the cure to know that he knew. That summer a little river steamer was sent up from Athabasca Lake by the Chief Commissioner who sat in the big office at Winnipeg, and upon this the factor and his friend took many an excursion up and down the Peace. The friendship that had grown up between the factor and the new cure formed the one slender bridge that connected the Anglican and the Catholic camps. Even the "heathen Crees" marvelled that these white men, praying to the same God, should dwell so far apart. Wing You, who had wandered over from Ramsay's Camp on the Pine River, explained it all to Dunraven: "Flenchman and Englishman," said Wing. "No ketchem same Glod. You--Clee," continued the wise Oriental, "an' Englishman good flend--ketchem same Josh; you call 'im We-sec-e-gea, white man call 'im God."

And so, having the same God, only called by different names, the Crees trusted the factor, and the factor trusted the Crees. Their business intercourse was on the basis of skin for skin, furs being the recognized coin of the country.

"Why do you not pay them in cash, take cash in turn, and let them have something to rattle?" asked the cure one day.

"They won't have it," said the factor. "Silver Skin, brother to Dunraven, followed a party of prospectors out to Edmonton last fall and tried it. He bought a pair of gloves, a red handkerchief, and a pound of tobacco, and emptied his pockets on the counter, so that the clerk in the shop might take out the price of the goods. According to his own statement, the Indian put down $37.80. He took up just six-thirty-five. When the Cree came back to God's country he showed me what he had left and asked me to check him up. When I had told him the truth, he walked to the edge of the river and sowed the six-thirty-five broadcast on the broad bosom of the Peace."

And so, little by little, the patient priest got the factor's view-point, and learned the great secret of the centuries of success that has attended the Hudson's Bay Company in the far North.

And little by little the two men, without preaching, revealed to the Indians and the Oriental the mystery of Life--vegetable life at first--of death and life beyond. They showed them the miracle of the wheat.

On the first day of June they put into a tiny grave a grain of wheat. They told the Blind Ones that the berry would suffer death, decay, but out of that grave would spring fresh new flags that would grow and blow, fanned by the balmy chinook winds, and wet by the dews of heaven.

On the first day of September they harvested seventy-two stalks and threshed from the seventy-two stalks seven thousand two hundred grains of wheat. They showed all this to the Blind Ones and they saw. The cure explained that we, too, would go down and die, but live again in another life, in a fairer world.

The Cree accepted it all in absolute silence, but the Oriental, with his large imagination, exclaimed, pointing to the tiny heap of golden grain: "Me ketchem die, me sleep, byme by me wake up in China--seven thousand--heap good." The cure was about to explain when the factor put up a warning finger. "Don't cut it too fine, father," said he. "They're getting on very well."

That was a happy summer for the two men, working together in the garden in the cool dawn and chatting in the long twilight that lingers on the Peace until 11 P.M. Alas! as the summer waned the factor saw that his friend was failing fast. He could walk but a short distance now without resting, and when the red rose of the Upper Athabasca caught the first cold kiss of Jack Frost, the good priest took to his bed. Wing You, the accomplished cook, did all he could to tempt him to eat and grow strong again. Dunraven watched from day to day for an opportunity to "do something"; but in vain. The faithful factor made daily visits to the bedside of his sick friend. As the priest, who was still in the springtime of his life, drew nearer to the door of death, he talked constantly of his beloved mother in far-off France--a thing unusual for a priest, who is supposed to burn his bridges when he leaves the world for the church.

Often when he talked thus, the factor wanted to ask his mother's name and learn where she lived, but always refrained.

Late in the autumn the factor was called to Edmonton for a general conference of all the factors in the employ of the Honorable Company of gentlemen adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay. With a heavy heart he said good-bye to the failing priest.

When he had come within fifty miles of Chinook, on the return trip, he was wakened at midnight by Dunraven, who had come out to ask him to hurry up as the cure was dying, but wanted to speak to the factor first.

Without a word the Englishman got up and started forward, Dunraven leading on the second lap of his "century."

It was past midnight again when the voyageurs arrived at the river. There was a dim light in the cure's cabin, to which Dunraven led them, and where the Catholic bishop and an Irish priest were on watch. "So glad to see you," said the bishop. "There is something he wants from your place, but he will not tell Wing. Speak to him, please."

"Ah, Monsieur, I'm glad that you are come--I'm weary and want to be off."

"The long traverse, eh?"

"Oui, Monsieur--le grand voyage."

"Is there anything I can do for you?" asked the Englishman. The dying priest made a movement as if hunting for something. The bishop, to assist, stepped quickly to his side. The patient gave up the quest of whatever he was after and looked languidly at the factor. "What is it, my son?" asked the bishop, bending low. "What would you have the factor fetch from his house?"

"Just a small bit of cheese," said the sick man, sighing wearily.

"Now, that's odd," mused the factor, as he went off on his strange errand.

When the Englishman returned to the cabin, the bishop and the priest stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. Upon a bench on the narrow veranda Dunraven sat, resting after his hundred-mile tramp, and on the opposite side of the threshold Wing You lay sleeping in his blankets, so as to be in easy call if he were wanted.

When the two friends were alone, the sick man signalled, and the factor drew near.

"I have a great favor--a very great favor to ask of you," the priest began, "and then I'm off. Ah, mon Dieu!" he panted. "It has been hard to hold out. Jesus has been kind."

"It's damned tough at your time, old fellow," said the factor, huskily.

"It's not my time, but His."

"Yes--well I shall be over by and by."

"And those faithful dogs--Dunraven and Wing--thank them for--"

"Sure! If I can pass," the factor broke in, a little confused.

"Thank them for me--for their kindnesses--and care. Tell them to remember the sermon of the wheat. And now, good friend," said the priest, summoning all his strength, "attendez!"

He drew a thin, white hand from beneath the cover, carrying a tiny crucifix. "I want you to send this to my beloved mother by registered post; send it yourself, please, so that she may have it before the end of the year. This will be my last Christmas gift to her. And the one that comes from her to me--that is for you, to keep in remembrance of me. And write to her--oh, so gently tell her--Jesus--help me," he gasped, sitting upright. "She lives in Rue ---- O Mary, Mother of Jesus," he cried, clutching at the collar of his gown; and then he fell back upon his bed, and his soul swept skyward like a toy balloon when the thin thread snaps.

When the autumn sun smiled down on Chinook and the autumn wind sighed in by the door and out by the open window where the dead priest lay, Wing and Dunraven sat on the rude bench in the little veranda, going over it all, each in his own tongue, but uttering never a word, yet each to the other expressing the silence of his soul.

The factor, in the seclusion of his bachelor home, held the little cross up and examined it critically. "To be sent to his mother, she lives in Rue ---- Ah, if I could have been but a day sooner; yet the bishop must know," he added, putting the crucifix carefully away.

The good people in the other world, beyond the high wall that separated the two Christian Tribes, had been having shivers over the factor and his fondness for the Romans; but when he volunteered to assist at the funeral of his dead friend, his people were shocked. In that scant settlement there were not nearly enough priests to perform, properly, the funeral services, so the factor fell in, mingling his deep full voice with the voices of the bishop and the Irish brother, and grieving even as they grieved.

And the Blind Ones, Wing and Dunraven, came also, paying a last tearless tribute to the noble dead.

When it was all over and the post had settled down to routine, the factor found in his mail, one morning, a long letter from the Chief Commissioner at Winnipeg. It told the factor that he was in bad repute, that the English Church bishop had been grieved, shocked, and scandalized through seeing the hitherto respectable factor going over to the Catholics. Not only had he fraternized with them, but had actually taken part in their religious ceremonies. And to crown it all, he had carried, a respectable Cree and the Chinese cook along with him.

The factor's placid face took on a deep hue, but only for a moment. He filled his pipe, poking the tobacco down hard with his thumb. Then he took the Commissioner's letter, twisted it up, touched it to the tiny fire that blazed in the grate, and lighted his pipe. He smoked in silence for a few moments and then said to himself, being alone, "Huh!"

"Ah, that from the bishop reminds me," said the factor. "I must run over and see the other one."

When the factor had related to the French-Canadian bishop what had passed between the dead cure and himself, the bishop seemed greatly annoyed. "Why, man, he had no mother!"

"The devil he didn't--I beg pardon--I say he asked me to send this to his mother. He started to tell me where she lived and then the call came. It was the dying request of a dear friend. I beg of you tell me his mother's name, that I may keep my word."

"It is impossible, my son. When he came into the church he left the world. He was bound by the law of the church to give up father, mother, sister, brother--all."

"The church be--do you mean to say--"

"Peace, my son, you do not understand," said the bishop, lifting the little cross which he had taken gently from the factor at the beginning of the interview.

Now the factor was not in the habit of having his requests ignored and his judgment questioned.

"Do you mean to say you will not give me the name and address of the dead man's mother?"

"It's absolutely impossible. Moreover, I am shocked to learn that our late brother could so far forget his duty at the very door of death. No, son, a thousand times no," said the bishop.

"Then give me the crucifix!" demanded the factor, fiercely.

"That, too, is impossible; that is the property of the church."

"Well," said the factor, filling his pipe again and gazing into the flickering fire, "they're all about the same. And they're all right, too, I presume--all but Wing and Dunraven and me."

[The end]
Cy Warman's short story: Cure's Christmas Gift

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