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"Thomas Jefferson Brown".
I
There are not many who will remember him as Thomas Jefferson
Brown. For ten years he had been mildly ashamed of himself, and out of
respect for people who were dead, and for a dozen or so who were living,
he had the good taste to drop his last name. The fact that it was only
Brown didn't matter.
"Tack Thomas Jefferson to Brown," he said, "and you've got a name that sticks!"
It had an aristocratic sound; and Thomas Jefferson, with the
Brown cut off, was still aristocratic, when you came to count the red
corpuscles in him. In some sort of way he was related to two dead
Presidents, three dead army officers, a living college professor, and a
few common people. He was legitimately born to the purple, but fate had
sent him off on a curious ricochet in a game all of its own, and changed
him from Thomas Jefferson Brown into just plain Thomas Jefferson
without the Brown.
He was one of those specimens who, when you meet them, somehow
make you feel there are a few lost kings of the earth, as well as lost
lambs. He was what we called a "first-sighter"—that is, you liked him
the instant you looked at him. You knew without further acquaintance
that he was a man whom you could trust with your money, your
friendship—anything you had. He was big, with a wholesome brown face,
blond hair, and gray eyes that seemed always to be laughing and
twinkling, even when he was hungry. He carried about with him a load of
cheerfulness so big that it was constantly spilling over on other
people.
There was a time when Thomas Jefferson Brown had little white
cards with his name on them. That was when he went to college, and his
lungs weren't so good. It was then that some big doctor told him that if
he wanted to live to have grandchildren, the best thing for him to do
was to "tramp it" for a time—live out of doors, sleep out of doors, do
nothing but breathe fresh air and walk. That doctor was Fate, playing
his game behind a pair of spectacles and a bumpy forehead. He saved
Thomas Jefferson Brown, all right; but he turned him into plain Thomas
Jefferson.
For Thomas Jefferson Brown never got over taking his medicine.
He kept on tramping. He got big and broad and happy. Somewhere, perhaps
in a barn, he caught a microbe that made him dislike ordinary work. He
would set to and help a farmer saw wood all day, just for company and
grub; but you couldn't hire him to go into an office, or settle down to
anything steady, for twenty-five dollars a day. He had a scientific name
for the thing that was in him—the wanderlust bug, I think he called it;
and he said it was better than the Chinese lady-bugs that the
government imports to save California fruit.
The nearest Thomas Jefferson ever came to going back to Thomas
Jefferson Brown was when he took a job at braking on the Southern
Pacific. That held him for three, days less than two weeks.
"The wanderlust bug wouldn't stand for it," he explained.
Right after that he struck a farmer's house where the farmer
was sick, almost dying, with three little kids and a frail little woman
trying to keep things up. He worked like ten men for more than a month
on that farm, and when he went away he wouldn't take a cent. That's the
sort of ne'er-do-well Thomas Jefferson was.
He wouldn't beg. He'd go three days without grub, and laugh all
the time. It was mostly in the country and in small villages that he
made his living. He could play seven different kinds of instruments
without any instruments at all. Did it all with his mouth. And the
kids—they went wild over him. In return for his entertainment, Thomas
Jefferson wasn't ashamed to take whatever came to him in the way of odd
nickels and dimes.
Once the manager of a vaudeville house heard him on a street
corner, and offered him a job at fifty a week if he'd sign a contract
for a dozen weeks.
"Good Lord," said Thomas Jefferson, "I wouldn't know what to do with six hundred dollars!"
The next week he was cooking in a lumber-camp for his board. That's Thomas Jefferson—or, rather, that's what he was.
And now we're coming to the girl who killed the bug in Thomas
Jefferson—and rescued the king. She was born swell. She has blue
eyes—the sort that can light up a dark day, and can make your head turn
dizzy when they smile at you. And she's got the right sort of hair to go
with 'em—red and gold and brown all mixed up, until you can't tell
which is which; the sort that makes you wonder if some big artist hasn't
been painting a picture for you, when you see it out in the sunshine.
She comes of a titled family, but she'd want to die to-morrow
if Thomas Jefferson Brown didn't worship her from the tips of her little
toes to the top of her pretty head. She thinks he's a king. And he
is—one of those great, big, healthy kings that nature sometimes grows
when it has half a chance.
II
It's curious how the whole thing happened. Thomas Jefferson
wandered up to Portland at the time we were fitting out a ship for a
whaling cruise. We saw him imitating a banjo for a lot of kids down on
the wharf, and the minute our eyes lit on him—Tucker's and mine—we liked
him. It isn't necessary to go into the details of what happened after
that. Just a week later, when Thomas Jefferson and I were shaking hands
for the last time, a queer sort of look came into his eyes, and he said:
"Bobby, you're the first man I ever knew that makes me feel like crying when you leave me."
He said it just like one of the kids he'd tickled half to death
on the wharf. There was a little jerking in his throat, and there came
into his face a look so gentle that it made me think of a girl.
"Why don't you come along on this cruise with me?" I said.
Thomas Jefferson gave a sudden start, and a queer expression
came into his eyes, as if he saw something out on the sea that had
startled him. Then he laughed. You could hear that laugh of Thomas
Jefferson's three blocks away, and sunshine in winter couldn't bring
more cheer than the sound of it. He looked at me for a moment, and then
said:
"Bobby, I'll go!"
It wasn't forty-eight hours before Thomas Jefferson had a first
mortgage on every soul aboard the "Sleeping Sealer," from the cap'n to
the oiler down in the engine-room. He was able, all right, but you
couldn't have made an able seaman out of him in a hundred years. For all
that, he did the work of three men. The first thing you heard when you
woke up in the morning was his whistle, and the last thing you heard at
night was his laugh or his song. He did everything, from cooking to
telling us why Germany couldn't lick England, and how the United States
could clean up the map of the earth if Congress would spend less money
on job-making bureaus and a little more on war-ships.
Then we discovered what was in the old alligator-skin valise he
carried. It was books. Half the time he didn't have to read to us, but
just talked off the stuff he'd learned by heart. We got to know a lot
before the trip was half begun, just by associating with Thomas
Jefferson Brown—or Thomas Jefferson, as he was then.
We spent three months up about the Spicer Islands, and then
came down toward Southampton Land. Thomas Jefferson was the happiest man
aboard until we caught sight of a coast, and then the change began.
After that he'd get restless whenever land hove in sight.
Six weeks later we came down into Roes Welcome Sound, planning
to get out through Hudson Strait before winter set in. The fact that we
were almost homeward bound didn't seem to affect Thomas Jefferson. I saw
the beginning of the end when he said to me one day:
"Bobby, I've never seen this northern country. It's a big, glorious country, and I'd like to go ashore."
There wasn't any use arguing with him. The cap'n tried it, we
all tried it, and at last Thomas Jefferson prepared to take his leave of
us at Point Fullerton, just eight hundred miles north of civilization,
where there's an Eskimo village and a police station of the Royal
Northwest Mounted. He came to me the day before we were going to take
him ashore, and said:
"Bobby, why don't you come along? Let's chum it, old man, and see what happens."
When he went ashore, the next day, I went with him, and we each
took three months' supply of grub and our pay. From that hour there
began the big change—the change which turned Thomas Jefferson back into
Thomas Jefferson Brown, and which it took a girl to finish.
It came first in his eyes, and then in his laugh. After that he
seemed to grow an inch or two taller, and he lost that careless,
shiftless way which comes of what he called the wanderlust bug. There
wasn't so much laughter in his eyes, but something better had taken its
place—a deeper, grayer, more thoughtful look, and he didn't play those
queer things with his mouth any more.
The police at Point Fullerton hardly had a glimpse of him as
the big, sunny, loose-jointed giant, Thomas Jefferson. He had become a
bronze-bearded god, with the strength of five men in his splendid
shoulders, and a port to his head that made you think of a piece of
sculpture.
"You can't be anything but a man up here, Bobby," he said one
day, and I knew what he meant. "It's not the air, it's not the cold, and
it's not the fight you make to keep life in your body," he added, "but
it's God! That's what it is, Bobby. There's not a sound or a sight up
here, outside of that little cabin, that's human. It's all God—there's
nothing else—and it makes you think!"
III
It was spring when we came down to Fort Churchill, and it was
summer when we struck York Factory. It was the middle of one of those
summer days when strawberries ripen even up there, that the last prop
fell out from under Thomas Jefferson, and he became Thomas Jefferson
Brown. He met Lady Isobel. The title did not really belong to her, for
she was only the cousin of Lord Meton; but Thomas Jefferson Brown called
her that from the first.
It was down close to the boats, where their launch lay, and the
wind had frolicked with Lady Isobel's hair until it rippled about her
face and shoulders like a net of spun gold. She was bareheaded, and he
was bareheaded, and they stared for a moment, her blue eyes flashing
into his gray ones; and then there came into her face a color like rose,
and he bowed, as one of the old-time Presidents might have bowed to a
hair-powdered beauty in the days when the Capitol was young.
That was the beginning, and to his honor be it said that Thomas
Jefferson Brown never revealed that he was a gentleman born, though his
heart was stricken with love at that first sight of Lady Isobel's
lovely face. Lord Meton wanted a man—one who could handle a canoe and
shoulder two hundred pounds of duff; and "Tom" became the man, working
like a slave for a month; but always with the pride and bearing of a
king.
It wasn't difficult to see what was happening. Lord Meton saw,
and understood; but he knew that the proud blood in Lady Isobel was an
invulnerable armor that would protect her from indiscretion. And as for
Thomas Jefferson Brown—
"Bobby," he said, standing up straight and tall, "if she can
only love a gentleman, and not a man, what's the use of playing cards?"
One day, when he had to carry Lady Isobel ashore from a big
York boat, something inside him got the best of his arms, and he held
her tight—so tight that her eyes came down to his with a frightened
look, and he heard a breath come from her that was almost a sob. They
gazed at each other for a moment, and it was then that Thomas Jefferson
Brown told her that he loved her—not in words, but in a way that she
understood.
When he set her down on shore she was as white as death. From
that day she treated him a little coolly—up to the last moment, out on
the bay.
It was a bright, sunshiny day when the three—Lord Meton, Lady
Isobel, and Thomas Jefferson Brown—set off in a big birchbark canoe,
bound for Harrison's Island, a dozen miles out from the mainland. But
you can't tell much about sunshine and calm on Hudson Bay. They're like a
jealous woman's smile, masking something hidden. Four miles out, the
wind came up; midway between the island and the mainland, it was a small
gale. Even at that, Thomas Jefferson Brown would have made it all right
if the beat of the sea hadn't broken a rotten thread under the bow,
letting the birch seam part with a suddenness that sent a little spurt
of water up into Lady Isobel's face.
What? No, this isn't going to have the regulation hero-act end,
in which Thomas Jefferson Brown saves the life of the lady he loves.
It's something different—something that Thomas Jefferson Brown never
guessed at when the water spurted in, and Lady Isobel turned to him with
a little scream, her beautiful blue eyes wide and filled with horror.
"Don't be afraid," he said. "Here, take this jacket and hold it down tight over the seam. We'll reach the island, all right."
Lady Isobel held the jacket over the hole, and Thomas Jefferson
Brown put a strength into his paddle that threatened to crack off the
handle. After a minute or two, he saw a little trickle of water,
beginning to ooze in about the edges of the jacket. He leaned back for
an instant, and signaled Lord Meton to bend over toward him.
"Take off your clothes," he said, so low that Lady Isobel couldn't hear. "Can you swim?"
"Not a stroke," said Lord Meton, and his face went as white as chalk; but it was no whiter than Thomas Jefferson Brown's.
When a birchbark seam begins to part there's no power on earth
that will hold it when the canoe is heavily loaded. A few minutes later,
the water was gushing in by the quart about Lady Isobel's feet. She
fought hard to hold it back. When at last she saw that it was hopeless,
she turned again, to see Lord Meton in his underwear, and Thomas
Jefferson Brown stripped of everything but his shirt and his buckskin
trousers, which don't water-sog. He laughed straight into her face, as
if it was all an amusing joke; and then, suddenly, he began playing that
banjo thing with his mouth.
It was all so strange, with the beat of the sea, the wail of
the wind, and Thomas Jefferson Brown sitting there as if nothing were
happening, that Lady Isobel just stared in astonishment, while the water
gushed in about her. At last he put down his paddle, and stretched out
both hands; and it seemed the most natural thing in the world that her
two hands should come out to meet his.
"Listen," he said, and his eyes were telling her again what
they told her on the day when he brought her in from the York boat.
"You'll do as I tell you, won't you? And you won't be afraid?"
For an instant Lady Isobel looked at Lord Meton, shrinking and
shivering in the stern of the canoe; and then she looked back to the
other man's face, and blue fires seemed to leap into her eyes.
"With you—no, I'm not afraid," she said.
She leaned toward him, nearer and nearer, as the water rose
about them, looking straight into his eyes. They both knew in that
moment that it was the man and the woman who had triumphed, and that for
them the lady and the gentleman were dead.
"I'm not afraid—with you," she said again.
Her lips trembled, and her golden hair swept over his breast,
and Thomas Jefferson Brown bent down and kissed her once upon the mouth.
Then he said, as if he were speaking to a little girl:
"Do not be afraid, and hold to the edge of the canoe when it fills. The wind will carry us to Harrison's Island."
He turned to Lord Meton, and repeated the words; and just then
the birchbark began to settle under them. With one hand gripping the
side, Thomas Jefferson Brown leaped over the sea. Lower and lower
settled the canoe with almost a scream, Lord Meton cried above the wind:
"Good Lord, it won't hold us up!"
For a few moments Thomas Jefferson relieved the canoe of his
weight, and the bark rose again, slowly. Then, with a gasp, he clutched
at the side again, and into Lady Isobel's drenched face, half hid the
wet veil of her shining hair.
"The canoe won't hold us all up," he said trying to smile. "But
it will hold two—you two and the wind is taking it to the island, four
miles to the island, and I may be make it."
He knew that he never could make it; no man could swim so far
in the chill waters of Hudson Bay; but he spoke as if his words were
"I'm going to let go and try. Isobel, my love, will you kiss me?"
She threw one arm about his neck. Meton, clutching with frantic
terror to the canoe saw nothing of what happened, nor did he hear the
sobbing cry of Lady Isobel's heart as she kissed Thomas Jefferson Brown,
once, and then three times, before he dropped back into the sea again.
"Good-by, sweetheart!" he said.
In the eyes that looked up at her, in his eyes in the one last
look of love that he said, "Good-by." Lady Isobel saw the truth, and
stretched out her arm to him.
"Stop! Come back! Take me with you!" she cried. "I want to go with you!"
And there, in the wildness of that sea, four miles from shore,
Thomas Jefferson Brown seemed to heave himself up out of the water, as
if the strength of a thousand swimmers had suddenly come to him. He let
out a cry of triumph, of love, of joy; and he came back and gripped the
canoe again, his gray eyes flashing, his face glowing with a strange
flush.
"You want to go with me?" he said. "Come!"
He held up his arms, and with a cry that wasn't fear Lady
Isobel went into them, while Thomas Jefferson Brown called to Lord
Meton:
"Stick to the canoe! It will take you to the island!"
IV
The shore was a low, dark streak, four miles away—an appalling
distance away; but as she clung lightly to his shoulders, as Thomas
Jefferson Brown told her to do, the horror and the fear of the big sea
went out of Lady Isobel's brave little heart. She put her face down
against his neck, pulled back his wet hair, and kissed him. God bless
all such true hearts, wherever they be!
"We'll make it, Tom—we'll make it!" she told him a hundred times.
He felt the warm caresses of her lips, the thrilling love of her voice, and he knew that she was ready to die with him.
He swam in a strange way—a wonderfully strange way—did Thomas
Jefferson Brown. He stood almost erect in the water, his head and
shoulders clear; and now and then he stopped to rest, and it seemed no
test for him at all to float with the weight of the woman he loved, his
face turned up to her in those moments, her glorious blue eyes devouring
him, her sweet lips kissing him—still kissing him.
He was doing a thing that she knew no other man in the world
could do. She kept telling him so, while the land drew nearer and
nearer, until at last she cried out in joy that she could see the little
bushes along the shore.
"Another mile, Tom!" she said. "Only another mile, and then—"
"And then—" he said.
"And then—life!" she cried. "Life for you and me!"
He went on, seeming to grow stronger as the shore drew nearer.
It was wonderful; but at last, when they came to the beach, he dropped
down like a dead man. Lady Isobel caught his head to her dripping
breast, and rocked him back and forth, sobbing a paean of love and
pride, while far out she saw the canoe and Lord Meton drifting
shoreward.
A few minutes later, Thomas Jefferson Brown went out into the
sea again, until he was not much more than a speck, and brought in the
canoe and Lord Meton, while Lady Isobel stood to her knees in the water,
praising her God that from riches and splendor she had come out into a
wilderness to find such a man as this.
After that, at York Factory, there was nothing left for Thomas
Jefferson Brown to do but to reveal himself, and when Lord Meton
discovered that there ran as good blood through his rescuer's veins as
through his own, he gripped hands with the man who had saved him, and
gave his congratulations cm the spot. But it made no difference to
Isobel. If anything, she was a little disappointed.
Thomas Jefferson Brown arranged to go back with them on their
yacht. The wedding would take place in London, a quiet affair. One day
Isobel and her lover came along hand in hand, and Thomas Jefferson Brown
said to me:
"Bobby, you're going to be best man."
"Not best man," Lady Isobel added, "but second best, Bobby. There's only one best man in the world!"
But I haven't been able to come to the point of this story
yet—the remarkable part of it. Two weeks later, when we were up the
river and our canoe struck a snag, I discovered that Thomas Jefferson
Brown "couldn't swim a stroke!"
"Good Lord!" I said, but waited.
Back at the post, Thomas Jefferson Brown took me into his little room, and said:
"Bobby, you've found that I can't swim, and I'm going to trust
you with a great secret. Love can accomplish miracles; and love did—out
there. For when I let go of the canoe, Bobby, I knew that I was going
straight down to my death. But a wonderful thing happened." He brought a
little map from a drawer. "Look at this map, Bobby. See all those
little marks off Harrison's Island—figures—twos and threes and fives,
and nothing above sixes? That's the depth of water for five miles out
from Harrison's Island, at low tide; and it was low tide when I jumped
from the canoe. That's all, Bobby. I waded ashore. But what would be the
good of saying anything about it when it brought me love like hers?"
Yes, what would be the use? For Thomas Jefferson Brown stepped
out deliberately to go to his death, and found life. He's a hero and a
man, is Thomas Jefferson Brown, even if fate did step in to make heroism
a little easy for him at the time!
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