In the company of this unaffected man of G.o.d, the simple old mountaineer and the equally simple girl only, vanished all the self-conscious reserve and reticence which usually attacks the modern city dweller when called upon to speak of things spiritual and eternal, and which had so often bound Donald's tongue, even when his inner being cried aloud for expression.

"I hardly blame you for your att.i.tude of mind, doctor," began Mr. Talmadge. "Although it is certain that the knowledge of G.o.d starts from Himself a ray of pure white light, the dogmas, creeds and theologies--invented by many men of many minds--have raised between it and our spiritual eyes a gla.s.s clouded with earthly murkiness, through which we now see darkly. Only as mankind grows in spiritual stature, and lifts his head above the clouds, can he hope to see the ray in all its purity and glory."

"Yes, I suppose that's so," a.s.sented Donald. "But I'm afraid that my difficulties lie deeper than the unessential differences in dogma. However, since our little friend is the one who has questions to ask, let her conduct the catechism."

Rose was speechless with embarra.s.sment, but finally managed to say, "I reckon I'm so ignorant, that I can't say the things that are in my heart. Please, Dr. Mac, you ask the reverend the questions and let me just sit and listen. Only don't use too big words, for I want to understand."

"All right, I'll be cross-examiner, but please believe, Mr. Talmadge, that what I may say is not intended to be argumentative, but rather honestly inquisitive. I really would like to find out if any one can reasonably explain some of the many things in religion to the acceptance of which I have been unable to reconcile myself."

"I'll do it gladly, if I can. But, before you begin, let me apologize for what I said in ill-timed jest about doctors being atheists. I suppose that, in one sense, there isn't a more truly religious cla.s.s of men in the world."

"I can't agree to that, either," said Donald.

"Perhaps not, but tell me this. Isn't the structure and functionings of the human body infinitely more wonderful to you, who have made an intimate study of it, than it can be to us who have not?"

"Undoubtedly. It's the most marvellous thing on G.o.d's earth," answered Donald, unthinkingly employing an expression heard in childhood.

"There!" cried Mr. Talmadge. "He's convicted out of his own mouth, isn't he, Rose? 'G.o.d's earth', he says."

"A mere figure of speech," the physician laughed.

"A statement of fact, sir. There are mighty few of you doctors who will not, within your hearts of hearts, agree that a Supreme Being must have designed this earthly temple which we call our body, the world we dwell in, and established the laws that govern both. And, knowing, as none others can, how wonderfully the former is constructed, is not a doctor's appreciation of the Almighty's power bound to be sincere?"

"Granted. But that isn't being religious," Donald protested.

"It is the foundation of all true religion," was the quiet answer.

The physician was still dubious. "Well, perhaps. Still, I doubt if many ministers would agree that merely because a man may believe in a superhuman creative power, he is religious, if, at the same time he says--as I must--that he doesn't and can't subscribe to many of the things which we were taught as children to believe as 'gospel truth.'"

There was the sound of a shocked and troubled "Oh," from Rose, but the minister's composure was in no wise ruffled.

"The trouble is, I imagine, that you have mentally outgrown the willingness to accept certain statements blindly, as children and primitive minds do, and yet have made no really earnest endeavor to lift the veil and look behind it with the intent of finding out if a simple and understandable truth may not lie hidden there."

"But how is one going to get behind a plain statement of what is apparently meant to be fact, such as the description of the creation in Genesis?" demanded Donald, somewhat impatiently. "Science is absolute, and I, for one, know that the Darwinian theory of life, or one substantially like it, is true. Why, a study of human anatomy proves it, even if we did not have conclusive evidence in anthropology and geology. So, in the very first words of the Bible, we start off with a conflict between its tenets, and what human learning shows us to be an indisputable fact."

"Do we?" smiled the minister.

"Don't we?" answered Donald.

Rose sat looking first at one, then at the other, with a puzzled look in her eyes, for it was all Greek to her.

Noticing this, Mr. Talmadge said, "I guess that we've started a bit too strongly for our little listener, but we want her to accompany us from the start," and he briefly, in simple words, outlined the Darwinian theory, which brought an outraged grunt from Big Jerry. Then he turned back to Donald, and said, "Take the story of ... well, say the prodigal son, for an example. Was that the account of real happenings, think you?"

"Of course not. Merely a parable." The other's mind reverted to the one which he himself had preached by letter to little "Smiles."

"The Bible is filled with parables," said Mr. Talmadge, simply. "Why should we regard certain stories as allegories merely, and others as historically accurate statements of fact when they are difficult to credit as such? Especially why should we do so in the face of the obvious fact that the earlier part of the Old Testament is simply tradition, handed down, orally at first, by an intensely patriotic and rather vain race? Sacred tradition it is, to be sure; but that should not deter us from endeavoring to a.n.a.lyze it in the light of reason. Besides, hasn't it ever occurred to you that in a translation from the original Hebrew, some of the finer meanings of the old words are sure to have been lost or distorted?"

"Yes, I suppose that is so."

"As a matter of fact, the Hebrew word 'Yom,' which, in the story of the Creation, has been translated 'day,' also means 'period.' And it is a rather interesting thing, in this connection, that the biblical account mentions an evening to each of the first six 'days,' but not to the seventh, which shows that it isn't finished yet. Science tells us that this last period, since the creation of mankind, has already lasted many thousands of years--although the length of time ascribed to it varies greatly--and this gives us some idea of how long those other 'days' might have been. Besides, in this case, we do not have to be 'finicky' about the meaning of the ancient word, for in the Psalms there is a verse which says that a thousand years in His sight are ..."

"Are but as yesterday," Rose completed the quotation in her gentle voice. "You see, those were G.o.d's days, not ours."

"Well, I'll be ... blessed," said Donald. "It is logical enough, isn't it? The trouble in this case, at least, was that I never consciously tried to reconcile what I regarded as the old and new beliefs."

"But, Mr. Talmadge," Smiles' perplexed voice broke in. "If human beings just developed from a kind of monkey ..."

"The anthropoid ape wasn't exactly a monkey, although he may have looked and acted like one," laughed Donald.

"Well, but how could the Good Book say that G.o.d created man in His own image?"

"Do you remember what Paul said, in his wonderful epistle to the Corinthians? He answered your question when he wrote, 'There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body ... and as we have borne the image of the earthly, so shall we also bear the image of the heavenly.' What does the Bible say that G.o.d is, Rose?"

"'G.o.d is a spirit,'" whispered Smiles, reverently.

"Exactly. And Dr. MacDonald will tell you that 'spirit' comes from a Latin word which means 'breath.' When G.o.d perceived that some of the earth creatures had, according to His plan, developed sufficiently in mind so that they could rule the world, He breathed into them some of His own spirit, and thus created them in His own image--for of course a spirit hasn't form and shape like beings of flesh and blood."

"Hasn't He?" gasped the girl. "Why, there is a picture of Him, like a great big man with long beard, in my Bible."

"Merely symbolic, dear child, and I have always felt that it was a vain symbolism, in both senses of that word. You look them up in your new dictionary to-morrow. In trying hard to picture G.o.d, men have made Him in the likeness of the most wonderful things their eyes had ever seen--themselves--and just increased His size. As for the beard, that is supposed to be a sign of power and strength.

"Of course, in fact, G.o.d isn't a man or even a super-man, but a spirit, combining the spiritual elements of both male and female."

"I reckon I jest hev ter think of er somebody fer ter worship," broke in the hitherto silent Jerry. "Jest something like ther wind air er bit too onsartain fer me."

"And for millions of others," answered the minister quickly. "Of course there isn't the slightest bit of harm in people thinking of Our Heavenly Father as a Being with a form which our eyes might see if they were only given the power to behold heavenly, as well as earthly, things. The conception of the Omnipotent as a physical embodiment has in the past been of incalculable advantage in making an appeal to an aboriginal type of mind, since it really requires some sort of material personification, which it can at least visualize, the conception of which serves as an incentive for well-doing, and a deterrent from evil doing. It is therefore infinitely preferable as a working basis to an unembodied force."

Big Jerry brought a smile to the lips of the other two men by bursting out, "Durned ef I understand. Them words air too powerful ederkated fer me."

"But," said Rose, "what you say kind of frightens me, Mr. Talmadge. If we can't ever see G.o.d, even in Heaven, how can we be sure that He is?"

"Have you ever seen ... love?" queried the minister softly.

"No, sir."

"Yet you know that it is. You've never seen, tasted, touched or smelled thought, but you know that it exists. In the same mysterious way we know, and we shall know more perfectly hereafter, that the Great Spirit--I've always loved that beautiful Indian expression--is."

"Yes," she said, somewhat uncertainly. "I think that I understand. But it's powerful hard to understand how I can be His little child if He isn't a person."

"I don't wonder that it puzzles you, dear. It is hard for even the oldest of us to try to imagine something entirely different from what we have actually seen with our mortal eyes, and we can hardly conceive of a spirit, or even a ghost, as something without some sort of a form, even though it be a very misty one. But the real you isn't the flesh that we can see and touch, but the spirit that dwells inside, and, just as some of your earthly father and mother is in your body, so you have something of G.o.d within you, which was given you at birth. We call it ..."

"My soul."

"Yes. And as that was part of Him you are His child ... so are we all--spiritual children."

"And Jesus? Was He His son in the same way?" whispered the girl.

"Exactly, only to a far greater degree than we can hope to be, for to Him the Heavenly Father gave His spirit in fuller measure than He ever had before to mankind, so that He might set an example to the world and teach us the way we should try to live."

There was silence for a moment, and then Smiles spoke the thought that had been troubling her. "But, Mr. Talmadge, if G.o.d hasn't any body and our spirits are like him, why heaven ..."

Mr. Talmadge sent a glance of smiling appeal at the doctor as though to say, "Now I'm in for it. How can I explain heaven as a spiritual condition?" Aloud he said, "I won't pretend to know just what heaven is like, but, of course, our spirits won't need an earth like this to walk on."

"But," persisted the child, "the Good Book says that there are many mansions there, and golden streets, and also that it is a land flowing with milk and honey."

"So it does, and very likely there are, in the realms of the spirit, things which correspond to those that we have known on earth, but I am quite sure that they are not material things."

"Ef thar haint no real heaven, thar haint no real h.e.l.l," broke in Big Jerry, whose mind had been slowly grasping the meaning of the minister's words. "I reckon thar must be a place uv punishment fer sinners."

Painstakingly, as though explaining to a child, Mr. Talmadge answered, "Mr. Webb, did you ever do something wrong, because of which your conscience troubled you later?"

"Reckon I hev. Reckon I suffered the torments uv the d.a.m.ned fer hit."

"Did you ever burn your hand?"

"Yes, I done thet, too; powerful bad."

"Which caused you the most suffering, your conscience or your hand?"

"I erlows thet my conscience done hit."

"That is the answer to your implied question. G.o.d doesn't need to give us new bodies, and send them into a place of fire and brimstone to punish us for our sins. If the soul suffers, it is in h.e.l.l, even though it may still be in our mortal bodies. That it must suffer, when we do wrong, we know. But, Mr. Webb, I do not think that it is meant to be punishment in the sense of retribution--getting even--so much as it is for correction. You know that men put gold through the fire to purge it of the dross that makes it dim and l.u.s.treless. That is what the fires of the spirit are for; that is why the Bible speaks of h.e.l.l as a place of fire. It is another parable."

"Yes, I see," said Rose, but the old man shook his head, unconvinced. Then the girl asked suddenly, "But why was G.o.d so good as to give us part of Himself and let us make it impure and suffer, Mr. Talmadge?"

"Ah, now you are getting into the depths of religion and I'd rather not discuss that until you have had a chance to think over what we have talked about already. All that I wanted to do to-night was to get both you, and the doctor, to thinking for yourselves. Come and see me, doctor, if you want to continue this discussion. I've got theories on any subject that you may mention, I guess," he laughed. "But I won't count the evening wasted--even leaving out the pleasure I have had--if I have helped to open your eyes, ever so little, to the light."

"Oh, you have ... and mine, too," answered Rose. "I mean to think hard, but if I get very puzzled, I'll come to see you about it. But, anyway, I mean to be G.o.d's little child all my life--as well as a trained nurse. And I mean to help Dr. Mac, always, to be a child of our heavenly Father, too," she added, simply. As Donald arose to bid the minister good-night, his eyes were a little misty, for the girl's unaffected declaration had moved him more deeply than he had ever been moved in his life.

CHAPTER XI.

ADOPTION BY BLOOD.

For a little while Donald lay awake under the eaves in his loft room, but his sleeplessness was the result neither of worry or nervous tension. His mind, indeed, was unusually contented. None of the disturbing thoughts of difficult tasks on the morrow a.s.sailed it; he felt only an unwonted peace and contentment. The impressions left by the evening's talk still swayed and uplifted his soul. Yet, deep within his consciousness, there was a vague realization that it would be long, if ever, before he could hope to pattern his life by the precepts of the man of G.o.d who had so stirred him. Happily, he could not foresee how soon mortal pa.s.sions were to repossess him wholly, to blot out the new spiritual light which was his.

In her little room below, Rose, too, lay awake, her youthful mind teeming with wonderful, new ideas garnered from the seeds sown by the "reverend"; but the insistent call of slumber to her tired, healthy body in time lulled her busy thoughts to rest.

"Oh, Doctor Mac, come quick! Grandpappy's hurted."

Sound asleep, and even then visioning the girl whose terrified voice suddenly wove itself into the figment of his dream, when the first word fell upon his ears, Donald was wide awake, and he was half out of bed before the last was spoken.

He paused only long enough to draw on his hunting breeches and thrust his bare feet into their tramping boots--which left a hiatus of unstockinged muscular calf--hurriedly dropped down the ladder, and in two strides was out of doors.

Near the wood pile stood the old mountaineer, on his countenance expression of mingled pain and chagrin, the latter dominating. His right hand still grasped the keen-edged axe, while Rose stood beside him, clasping his brawny left forearm with both of her small but sinewy hands.

As Donald approached them on the run he noticed that the girl had sacrificed her treasured hair ribbon to make a tourniquet halfway up the old man's arm, and that blood was running down his hand and falling from the finger tips with slow, rhythmical continuity.

"Hit haint nothin' et all, Smiles," Big Jerry was rumbling forth. "Hit air jest er scratch. I don't know how I come fer ter do hit an' I reckon I ought ter be plumb ershamed. Why, Smiles, I been erchoppin' wood fer nigh onter fifty year, an' I haint never chopped myself erfore. Hit war thet tarnation knot. But hit haint nothin', this hyar haint."

"Come over to the well where we can give it a wash," was Donald's curt command, and Big Jerry followed him obediently, while the girl hastened ahead and drew up a bucket full of pure, sparkling, ice-cold spring water. The doctor tipped it unceremoniously over the giant's arm, and, as the already coagulating blood on the surface was washed away, made a hasty examination of the slanting, ugly gash beneath.

"Superficial wound. No artery or major muscle severed," he announced, as though addressing a cla.s.s. "Still, you were right in taking the precaution of applying that tourniquet, Rose. I suppose it was bleeding pretty merrily at first."

"Hit war spoutin' powerful," she answered, in her stress of excitement lapsing into the language of childhood.

"Yes, I suppose so. That is in a way a good thing in such cases, however. It automatically cleanses the wound of any infectious matter. Look, Rose," he added, as though explaining to a clinic, "see how the blood is thickening up into a clot? That is chiefly the work of what we call 'white corpuscles'--infinitely tiny little organisms whose sole purpose in life is to eat up disease germs which may get into the veins, and to hurry to the surface when there is a cut, cl.u.s.ter together and die, their bodies forming a wall against the wicked enemies who are always anxious to get inside the blood for the purpose of making trouble."

"I told ye 'twarnt nothin'," said Big Jerry, not without a note of relief in his voice, however. "A leetle blood-lettin' won't do me no hurt. I'll jest wind a rag eround hit, an' ..."

"Not so fast," laughed Donald. "In all probability 'a rag just wound round it' would do the business, for your blood is apparently in first-cla.s.s condition, with its full share of the red corpuscles; but you might just as well have the benefit of the hospital corps since we are on the ground. The red corpuscles," he added, addressing Smiles, "are the other good little chaps who continually go hurrying through the body, feeding it with oxygen and making it strong. Run into the house and get my 'first aid' kit, from my knapsack, child. You'll remember it when you see it, for I had to dig it out the very first time that I saw you."

The girl hurried cabinwards, fleet as the wind, and, as the two men sat down on a woodpile to wait for her, Donald had an opportunity to take note of his ludicrously inadequate costume.

It seemed little more than a minute before Rose returned with his kit, but it was not brought by a mountain maid. In that almost incredibly short time the child had changed her gingham dress for the immaculate costume of a trained nurse, and the transformation in apparel had been accompanied by one in mien no less noticeable. Dainty and fair as a white wild rose she was, yet seriously businesslike in expression. Donald was startled for a moment. It came to his mind that he was looking upon a vision of the years to come, and the picture caused his heart to beat a little faster; but, although the light of appreciation shone in his eyes, his only comment was, "Are your hands as clean as that dress?"

"Yes, doctor."

"Now how the deuce did she come to use that stereotyped response?" he wondered; then said, aloud, "Then undo that roll of gauze bandage and tear off a piece about six feet long ... be careful! Don't let it touch the ground."

Then he immediately gave his attention to Big Jerry, and smiled with professional callousness as he caught the giant's wince when the antiseptic fluid which he poured on the wound started it smarting.

"Now for your first lesson in the scientific application of a bandage, Smiles," he said.

Very carefully she followed his directions, and at length the split end was tied with professional neatness. But, as his fingers tested the knot, the girl seized one of his hands and exclaimed, with solicitude, "Why, you're hurt, too, Doctor Mac!"

She indicated on one of his fingers a small jagged tear from which the blood was slowly oozing.

"How the d.i.c.kens did I do that?" he demanded in surprise.

"Sliding down the ladder from the loft-room, I reckon. See, there's a piece of splinter in it still."

"Right-o, Miss Detective." He turned to the old man and remarked, "It looks as though your blood and mine had been mixing, this morning. Why not complete the ceremony and make it an adoption by blood; the way they used to do in some of the Indian tribes, you know?" he added, half jestingly, and acting on a sudden impulse. "You can take me into the clan as ... well, as your foster-son."

"Thar haint no clan nowadays, I reckon, but ef yo' wants fer ter be my foster-son I'd shor' be pleased fer ter hev ye es such, lad."

"Great. I feel like 'one of the family' already, and if you will adopt me as a new son--with all the privileges and obligations of one--I'll appreciate it, no joking."

As a pledge of their compact the city and mountain man clasped hands solemnly, while Rose stood by, delightedly smiling her benediction upon their act. "Why," she cried, "that makes me your little foster sister, Doctor Mac. Oh, I'm so glad!"