On being discharged from the hospital Brush set out again on that long swing of the pendulum between Kansas City and Abilene, Texas, that was his work. At Abilene he waited his turn in the halls of Simmons University, McMurray College, and Abilene Christian College. He visited Austin College at Sherman, Baylor College at Belton, and Baylor University at Waco. He visited Daniel Baker College and Howard Payne College at Brownwood; he visited the Texas Teachers College at Denton, Rice Institute at Houston, Southwestern University at Georgetown, and Trinity University at Waxahachie. He looked in at Delhart and Amarillo. He went down to San Antonio to see Our Lady of the Lake and to Austin to place an algebra at St. Edward’s University. Returning through Oklahoma, he visted the state university at Norman, the Baptist University at Shawnee, the college at Chickasha, the Agricultural and Mechanical College at Stillwater. He digressed into Louisiana and called at Pineville and Ruston; he spent a solitary Christmas in Baton Rouge. Arkansas tempted him to Arkadelphia and Clarksville and Onachita. And everywhere on his journeys he selected certain high schools in strategic positions where the employment of his textbooks could serve as influential examples for smaller schools in the neighborhood.
Many unusual adventures befell him during these weeks. Of the great number we select three that illustrate certain stages in his education.
On the train that carried him from Waco to Dallas he occupied himself with reading a second-year algebra that had recently been placed upon the market by a rival publishing-house. Such reading held for Brush an element of suspense. He lived in fear lest some other firm bring out a better series of textbooks than those issued by Caulkins and Company, a contingency that would greatly impair the energy and serenity of his sales talk. He knew that his books were the best books obtainable, because he had himself read them, done all the problems, verified the answers, translated the sentences, and compared the methods with the methods employed by all the rival books in good standing. At this moment he was discovering with considerable relief that Dr. Ryker of the Worcester, Massachusetts, high schools was fumbling badly with the problem of rendering negative fractions comprehensible to fifteen-year-old boys and girls; that Dr. Ryker had no skill in contriving attractive and stimulating problems about racing airplanes and the hands of clocks; and that Dr. Ryker had all too clearly helped himself to the superior inspirations of Dr. Caulkins. Brush was deep in these matters when he heard a voice say:
“Young man, have you ever thought seriously about the great facts of life and death?”
He looked up to see leaning over him a tall unshaven man of fifty, wearing a soiled linen suit. A handkerchief was stuffed into the band of his collar and his cuffs were protected by black cotton guards. He had a white-and-yellow waterfall mustache and black steely eyes.
“Yes,” said Brush.
The man removed a newspaper from beside Brush and sat down. “Are you right with God—this very minute?” he asked, putting his arm along the back of the seat in front of him and his nose very close to Brush’s face.
“Yes,” said Brush, beginning to blush violently, “I try to be.”
“Oh, my boy,” said the other, with a strong vibrato and an odor of decaying teeth, “you can’t answer that question as quickly as that. No one can. Being saved,—oh, my boy!—isn’t as easy as being vaccinated. It means wrestling. It means fighting. It means going down on your knees.” He took hold of the lapel of Brush’s suit and fingered it disparagingly. “I can see that you’re still entangled with the world’s snares and shows. Boy, do you touch liquor?”
“No.”
“Do you use filthy tobacco?”
“No.”
The man lowered his voice. “Do you frequent loose women?”
“No,” said Brush, expelling the poisoned air from his nose.
“Do you indulge in lascivious thoughts?”
Brush coughed.
“Yes, sir,” cried the man. “‘Let him who thinketh he stand, beware lest he fall.’ The trouble with you is you’re puffed-up. You’re stiff-necked. Do you know the Good Book?”
“I study it.”
“What’s Romans five one?”
“‘Therefore, being justified through faith, we have peace with God, through—”
“No. No, it’s not.”
“I . . . I think it is.”
“No. By faith. . . . Therefore, being justified by faith. . . .”
“Yes, I guess it is.”
“You guess it is,” said the other, producing a Bible and striking Brush sharply on the knee with it. “Is that the way to talk about God’s word? You guess it is?—Philippians three thirteen?”
“‘Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do . . .’”
“Yes, go on.”
“‘Forgetting the things which are behind . . .’”
“‘Those things.’”
“‘And reaching forth to those things which are before, I press toward the mark . . .’”
“I didn’t ask for the fourteenth verse. Brother, you don’t know it. You think you know it. You guess you know it. The trouble with you is you’re shallow. You haven’t even begun yet. Oh, brother, I’ve had great experience with suffering, sinning men and women, and I want to tell you it’s not enough to say that you’ve been saved.”
Brush’s eyes began guardedly to look about him for another seat. The man raised his voice and waved his arms about:
“I’ve been in the vineyard twenty-five years, wrestling with the devil. Yes, the world’s full of suffering, sinning brothers and sisters. But there’s a way to peace and mercy. Why don’t you take it? Why don’t you stretch out your hand and take it, instead of sitting around in city clothes like a Pharisee . . .”
The man had now risen and was addressing the car. Brush started to edge out by his knees. “Running away from conscience, eh? Can’t face it, eh? You’d rather sit there and pass for perfect, I know.”
Voices from the back of the car broke in on him. “Aw, shut up! Go to sleep!”
“Brethren, fire and sword can’t frighten me as long as I have a message.”
Brush took another seat and opened the algebra. He was blushing and his heart was beating quickly. The evangelist, under a gathering storm of resentment from his fellow passengers, continued to harangue the car, using Brush as an example of moral cowardice. He began striding up and down the aisle, retorting to the jeers of his listeners. Brush, furiously biting the inner sides of his cheeks, finally rose and, taking the evangelist’s arm, firmly directed him to a seat.
“You don’t do any good making them mad,” he said, and sitting down by the aisle, penned the other in beside the window. The evangelist continued with fiery eyes to fling some charges over his shoulder, but the controversy died down and he fell to muttering and grumbling to himself.
At last Brush said, “May I ask you some questions?”
“Brother, I’m here to help you.”
“Have you a church somewhere?”
“No, brother, I’m a wandering witness for the Lord.”
“Do you set up a tent?”
“No. I help my laboring brothers out. I use their churches. I take services for them.”
“What do you—what do you live on?”
The other turned and peered at him with great displeasure. “What kind of a question is that? Brother, that’s none of your business.”
Brush stared gravely back at him.
“However,” continued the other, “I’ll tell you. The Lord doesn’t neglect his workers. No, sir-reee, no, sir. He touches the hearts of people here and there, sometimes one place, sometimes another. Money? What’s money? Brother, I don’t believe in money. Matthews six twenty-five. This minute, boy, I have one dollar between me and the birds of the air,” he said, emptying his pockets and producing two dollar bills, a clergyman’s railroad pass, and a soiled letter addressed to the Reverend James Bigelow. “Two dollars between me and the fowls of the air. But am I afraid? No. I live by faith and prayer. Psalms thirty-seven twenty-five.”
“Have you a family?”
“Yes, boy, I have a noble wife and six fine children.”
It seemed, however, that Dr. Bigelow’s wife had found it best to take a place as laundress in a Dallas hotel. At first it appeared that the six children were doing well in school. But gradually it came out that the oldest two boys had run away, another had joined the navy, and that one daughter was bedridden; that left two children doing well in school.
Dr. Bigelow’s assurance was considerably diminished under Brush’s questioning. When they arrived at Dallas, Brush gave him ten dollars and, with lowered eyes, shook hands with him and took his leave.
Another adventure of this order took place at Fort Worth. Brush was taking an evening stroll through the residential section of the city, preparatory to settling down at the Public Library over the Encyclopædia Britannica, when he noticed a sign in the window of a faded brick apartment-house: “Spiritualistic Readings. Mrs. Ella McManus, medium. Tuesday and Friday evenings or by appointment. Fifty cents.” It was a Friday evening. Brush wandered about the house for a time, hesitating. Around the corner, in another window of what appeared to be the same apartment, he saw a card that read: “Varicose Veins Reduced: Consultation Free.” Finally he decided to go in. He was ushered into an overfurnished parlor in which a number of women were already seated. Mrs. McManus introduced herself; she was a short, stout woman with an air of importance and bad temper. After a prolonged conversation about the weather the company adjourned to the dining-room and sat down about the table, holding hands. The lights were turned off and a gramophone played “The Rosary.” Presently Mrs. McManus began to shudder violently, and an Indian chief named Standing Corn addressed the company through her lips. He gave a stirring description of the next world, following it with some words to earthbound spirits exhorting them to courage and patience. He rapped on the table at command, threw a tambourine across the room and caused a picture to fall from the wall. He then offered to answer any questions put to him. Mrs. McManus had already secured the names and birthdays of the visitors, and now required to hold in her hand some object belonging to each of the questioners. She took the wrist watch of the woman at Brush’s right, a Mrs. Caufman, and clutching it passionately to her bosom, gave her messages of the most convincing nature, referring by name to a host of departed relatives, giving the hiding-places of lost objects, and offering advice on intimate matters. The next interview was of a more general nature. A widow wished for a few words from her husband. The message was comforting in the extreme, but the widow wept the whole time so heartbrokenly that she was scarcely able to muster sufficient voice to return thanks to Chief Standing Corn and Mrs. McManus.
Brush sat with lowered head and furrowed brow.
Mrs. McManus asked: “Have you a question to put tonight, Mr. Brush, across the veil that separates but for a time the living and the dead?”
Brush hesitated. Then he said, “I’d like to speak to Dwight L. Moody.”
There was a long pause. It was broken by Mrs. McManus intermittently assuming a voice even farther in the bass than that employed by Chief Standing Corn. Mr. Moody said that he was happy. “‘Oh, so happy. Where I am all is peace. Peace like the world cannot give.’ What would you like to ask Mr. Moody?”
Brush gazed darkly before him and did not answer.
“I have another message from Mr. Moody for you. He says: ‘Take care of your health.’ And he seems to wish to send you a word about some one you love . . . I think it’s a woman. . . . Yes, it is, and her name begins with an M—an M, I think. Do you know who that would be?”
“No.”
“Well, perhaps it’s an R. It will come more clearly directly. He says do nothing hasty just now. Especially the money way. Save, or put away in very conservative investments, he says. And wait. He says—I know our other friends here won’t mind my repeating this personal word—there’s a certain woman that’s come into your life lately . . . rather on the blond side, I should say. . . . You should find out slowly whether she’s a true friend or not. He says to be cautious in all letters you write. Now he’s gone. No! he says to keep up your courage. He’s waiting for you up yonder. It won’t be long, he says, because up there fifty years is like a minute.”
“If that was anybody,” said Brush, somberly, “it wasn’t the Moody I meant. I meant Dwight L. Moody.”
“I hope Chief Standing Corn didn’t make an error,” said Mrs. McManus, a little sharply. “Of course, there are thousands of the dead by the name of Moody.”
The telephone rang in the parlor.
“Will you answer the phone, Mrs. Caufman,” said Mrs. McManus, dreamily, “and ask the party to call later?”
“Mrs. McManus is in the spirit world,” reported Mrs. Caufman. “and asks that you call later.” Then after a pause, in a lowered voice: “Not now! Anyway, not now! Don’t y’understand? . . . First lukewarm, then cold. Yes. And massage downward, not up; down. Yes. Yes.” Then returning to her chair, Mrs. Caufman said, deferentially, “The gentleman says he will call later, Mrs. McManus.”
Brush sat up straight.
At the close of the meeting the others brought out their half-dollars and were emotionally thanking Mrs. McManus, when Brush said:
“I can’t pay you for this evening, Mrs. McManus.”
“What do you mean you can’t pay me?” asked Mrs. McManus, turning very red and marching toward him.
“I mean: I have the money and everything, but I can’t pay you for something you haven’t earned. If you tell me the name of some church you go to, I’ll send the money to that church, but I can’t give it to you.”
“Now wait a minute,” she replied, going to the door, shutting it firmly, and standing with her back to it. “Girls, I want you to wait a minute and hear this with me.”
“I can’t pay you for a fraud, Mrs. McManus. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Did you say I was a fraud?”
“Well, Mrs. McManus . . . you know you are. I couldn’t help hearing Mrs. Caufman at the telephone. That showed she was an old friend of yours. And all that about Dwight L. Moody. I couldn’t pay you for that.”
Mrs. McManus turned coldly to Mrs. Caufman. “Cora,” she said, “phone for the police. Mr. Brush, if you try to leave the room I’ll scream so the whole house’ll be in here. . . . One minute, Cora, I’ll phone, myself. It’s too late to get out of it now, young man. I’ll sue you. I’ll sue you for everything you’ve got. I thought you were phoney, sitting there with that . . . that pie face of yours. I thought it was funny, a man of your type coming to a meeting like this, instead of tending to your own business. The minute you came in that door, I said to myself you were phoney. You and your Moodys! Well, it’s the last time you’ll insult me.”
“I want you to call the police, Mrs. McManus,” said Brush, “so they can warn other people against being given wrong ideas.”
Mrs. McManus flung open the door majestically. “Now go!” she cried, “and never put your silly head in my door again. Girls, I want you to look at this man closely. If ever you see him again interfering with anybody, I don’t care who it is, I want you to have him arrested. Look at him well! Do you see him?”
“Yes,” said the terrified girls.
“Here I am doing a good work . . . as best I can, to the limit of my abilities . . . and that doubter, that atheist,—for that’s what he is, an atheist. . . .”
Still Brush did not go. He stood in the doorway, lost in deep thought, his eyes resting on Mrs. McManus. At last he slowly put his hand in his pocket and drew out half a dollar.
“I guess I’d better give you this, after all,” he said, slowly, “since I stayed. But I don’t see how you can do it, Mrs. McManus. What I don’t see is, what goes on in your head while you’re making up these things. I mean, I don’t understand how people can tell lies for long at a time. . . . I guess it’s just human . . .”
“I don’t want your money!” screamed Mrs. McManus.
Brush laid the money on the table and continued talking, half to himself, “I’ve got a lot to learn yet, I see.”
He said good night to each of the ladies by name and took a long walk through the suburbs of Fort Worth, thinking the matter over.
The third adventure took place in a small town in Arkansas, Pekin. Brush called in the evening on a family, the Greggs, whom he had met on a previous trip. He arrived just as the younger members of the family were setting out to attend a church social. He accepted their cordial invitation to go with them, and he and Louise Gregg started off, stopping on the way to pick up a former English teacher of Louise’s in the grade schools, a Miss Simmons. Miss Simmons turned out to be a vivacious elderly lady, given to more affectations than Brush could have wished. Their destination lay on the other side of the railroad tracks, and crossing the waste of rails, they could see the brightly lighted windows and wide-open door of the Sunday-school rooms. It was a bright moonlight night and the three of them stopped among the switches to admire the red and green signal lights in the near and far distance and to catch the sound of some singing voices that were approaching along the ties.
“Let’s go along,” said Miss Simmons. “It’s those Cronin boys.”
The Cronin boys recognized their former teacher and began inserting into their song a muffled version of an obscene nickname that had been attached to her for thirty years.
“Good evening, Bill. Good evening, Fred and Jarvis,” said Miss Simmons.
They returned a mock deferential “Good evening, Miss Simmons,” but, suddenly aware of their recent release from the long and hated years of schooling, they grew bolder and began in falsetto to address one another as Miss Simmons, with the epithet, and with the invention of new material.
Brush walked over to them and in a changed voice said, “You fellows have got to apologize for that.”
“Who says so?” asked Bill Cronin, putting his hand in his belt.
Miss Simmons called: “Oh, Mr. Brush! Oh, Mr. Brush! D-don’t speak to them. The Cronin boys have always been impolite, rude boys.”
“I do,” said Brush. “You apologize to Miss Simmons right now.”
Bill Cronin made a further remark, and Brush with a wide sweep of his arm struck him behind his left ear and knocked him down. The other two drew back a few steps and stared at their brother. Bill groaned and twisted on the tracks. Then rose on all fours.
“Apologize to Miss Simmons, all three of you,” said Brush.
Bill Cronin mumbled an apology and the other two joined in.
Brush rejoined his companions. “I’m sorry about that,” he said.
Miss Simmons was hysterical. “I think they’re terrible. They always were terrible. . . . I think I must sit down.”
Whereupon she sat down on the tracks. Brush fanned her with his hat. Over his shoulder he looked at the Cronins.
Bill was sitting on the ground. His brothers were leaning over him, whispering. Finally they lifted him up, and supporting him between them they guided him unsteadily toward the town.
“I’m all right now,” said Miss Simmons.
“Are you sure?” asked Brush.
“Oh yes, I’m all right now.”
“Then if you’ll excuse me, I’ll . . . be back in a few minutes,” said Brush.
He caught up with the Cronins, who had sat down to rest on the platform of the freight station.
“How do you feel?” he asked. “I didn’t mean to hurt you bad.”
They were silent, avoiding his earnest glance.
“I don’t believe in hitting people,” he continued. “Do you think you’re hurt any?. . . . Did it give you a headache?”
There was another silence. Bill Cronin grunted and put his feet on the ground; the other two put their shoulders under his arms and the three began hobbling off.
“After all,” continued Brush, “that was a pretty dirty thing you said about Miss . . . Miss What’s-her-name. You know you oughtn’t to do that. Won’t you shake hands, Cronin?”
Bill Cronin, with bent head, mumbled something, and the march continued.
Brush called out: “If there’s any doctor bills, I’d like to pay them. You can get my address from Louise Gregg.”
When Brush entered the Sunday-school rooms he was met with great acclaim. Miss Simmons had fainted away on her arrival and the whole story had been retold many times. Everyone was talking at once: “It’s time someone gave those boys a lesson. . . . They’re just the biggest rowdies in town. . . . He’s been sent to the penitentiary once already and now he ought to go again.”
Brush accepted the tributes in silence. His face had turned very red. The minister could not put the chivalrous act out of his mind. An hour later, during the refreshments, he made a speech, calling attention to the qualities in George Brush of a “true gentleman.” He concluded by saying:
“Mr. Brush, won’t you say a few words to us?”
Brush, deeply troubled, stood up and fixed his gaze on a light at the end of the room. He was thinking so hard that he seemed to forget where he was. At last he said:
“If I can help it, I don’t like to contradict anything that a minister says . . . but I’ve been thinking about what happened out on the tracks, and I ought to say to you all that I’m sorry I did it. I’m really a pacifist and I don’t believe in striking anybody. In the first place, it’s too easy. And now that I hear that the Cronin boy has been to the penitentiary, I feel still worse about it.”
“But—but, Mr. Brush! The man was rude to Miss Simmons. I understand that what he said was almost an insult.”
Brush kept his eye on the light and said, slowly: “It’s a hard thing to think clearly about. . . . I guess we ought to have let him insult her. You see, Mr. Forrest, the theory is this: if bad people are treated kindly by the people they insult, why, then they start thinking about it and then they become ashamed. . . . That’s the theory. That’s Gandhi’s theory.”
Mr. Forrest said, sharply: “When a lady’s insulted, Mr. Brush, it’s no time for a gentleman to talk about theories. You know what we think of Southern womanhood down here. We don’t agree with you.”
Brush brought his eyes back from the distance and fixed them on the minister.
“Well, I think the world’s in such a bad way that we’ve all got to start thinking all over again,” he said, with mounting force. “I think all the ideas that are going around now are wrong. I’m trying to begin all over again at the beginning.” He turned to Louise Gregg, and said: “I’ve hit somebody today and I’m not fit to be here, so I’ll say good-by, Louise. I guess I’d better go.”
He took his hat off the rack in the hall, and crossing to the middle of the railroad tracks, he stood for a long while at the scene of the crime, thinking.