The Copy-Cat and Other Stories Part 25

"Edward," he said, "sometimes I believe that the greatest thing a man's friends can do for him is to drive him into a corner with G.o.d; to be so unjust to him that they make him understand that G.o.d is all that mortal man is meant to have, and that is why he finds out that most people, especially the ones he does for, don't care for him."

Hayward looked solemnly and tenderly at the other's almost rapt face.

"You are right, I suppose, old man," said he; "but what did they do?"

"They called me in there about a week ago and gave me an awful talking to."

"About what?"

Jim looked at his friend with dignity. "They were two women talking, and they went into little matters not worth repeating," said he. "All is-they seemed to blame me for everything I had ever done for them, and for everything I had ever done, anyway. They seemed to blame me for being born and living, and, most of all, for doing anything for them."

"It is an outrage!" declared Hayward. "Can't you see it?"

"I can't seem to see anything plain about it," returned Jim, in a bewildered way. "I always supposed a man had to do something bad to be given a talking to; but it isn't so much that, and I don't bear any malice against them. They are only two women, and they are nervous.

What worries me is, they do need things, and they can't get on and be comfortable unless I do for them; but if they are going to feel that way about it, it seems to cut me off from doing, and that does worry me, Edward."

The other man stamped. "Jim Bennet," he said, "they have talked, and now I am going to."

"You, Edward?"

"Yes, I am. It is entirely true what those two women, Susan Adkins and Mrs. Trimmer, said about you. You ARE a door-mat, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself for it. A man should be a man, and not a door-mat.

It is the worst thing in the world for people to walk over him and trample him. It does them much more harm than it does him. In the end the trampler is much worse off than the trampled upon. Jim Bennet, your being a doormat may cost other people their souls' salvation. You are selfish in the grain to be a door-mat."

Jim turned pale. His child-like face looked suddenly old with his mental effort to grasp the other's meaning. In fact, he was a child--one of the little ones of the world--although he had lived the span of a man's life. Now one of the hardest problems of the elders of the world was presented to him. "You mean--" he said, faintly.

"I mean, Jim, that for the sake of other people, if not for your own sake, you ought to stop being a door-mat and be a man in this world of men."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to go straight to those nieces of yours and tell them the truth. You know what your wrongs are as well as I do. You know what those two women are as well as I do. They keep the letter of the Ten Commandments--that is right. They attend my church--that is right. They scour the outside of the platter until it is bright enough to blind those people who don't understand them; but inwardly they are petty, ravening wolves of greed and ingrat.i.tude. Go and tell them; they don't know themselves. Show them what they are. It is your Christian duty."

"You don't mean for me to stop doing for them?"

"I certainly do mean just that--for a while, anyway."

"They can't possibly get along, Edward; they will suffer."

"They have a little money, haven't they?"

"Only a little in savings-bank. The interest pays their taxes."

"And you gave them that?"

Jim colored.

"Very well, their taxes are paid for this year; let them use that money.

They will not suffer, except in their feelings, and that is where they ought to suffer. Man, you would spoil all the work of the Lord by your selfish tenderness toward sinners!"

"They aren't sinners."

"Yes, they are--spiritual sinners, the worst kind in the world. Now--"

"You don't mean for me to go now?"

"Yes, I do--now. If you don't go now you never will. Then, afterward, I want you to go home and sit in your best parlor and smoke, and have all your cats in there, too."

Jim gasped. "But, Edward! Mis' Adkins--"

"I don't care about Mrs. Adkins. She isn't as bad as the rest, but she needs her little lesson, too."

"Edward, the way that poor woman works to keep the house nice--and she don't like the smell of tobacco smoke."

"Never mind whether she likes it or not. You smoke."

"And she don't like cats."

"Never mind. Now you go."

Jim stood up. There was a curious change in his rosy, child-like face.

There was a species of quickening. He looked at once older and more alert. His friend's words had charged him as with electricity. When he went down the street he looked taller.

Amanda Bennet and Alma Beecher, sitting sewing at their street windows, made this mistake.

"That isn't Uncle Jim," said Amanda. "That man is a head taller, but he looks a little like him."

"It can't be Uncle Jim," agreed Alma. Then both started.

"It is Uncle Jim, and he is coming here," said Amanda.

Jim entered. n.o.body except himself, his nieces, and Joe Beecher ever knew exactly what happened, what was the aspect of the door-mat erected to human life, of the worm turned to menace. It must have savored of horror, as do all meek and downtrodden things when they gain, driven to bay, the strength to do battle. It must have savored of the G.o.d-like, when the man who had borne with patience, dignity, and sorrow for them the stings of lesser things because they were lesser things, at last arose and revealed himself superior, with a great height of the spirit, with the power to crush.

When Jim stopped talking and went home, two pale, shocked faces of women gazed after him from the windows. Joe Beecher was sobbing like a child.

Finally his wife turned her frightened face upon him, glad to have still some one to intimidate.

"For goodness' sake, Joe Beecher, stop crying like a baby," said she, but she spoke in a queer whisper, for her lips were stiff.

Joe stood up and made for the door.

"Where are you going?" asked his wife.

"Going to get a job somewhere," replied Joe, and went. Soon the women saw him driving a neighbor's cart up the street.

"He's going to cart gravel for John Leach's new sidewalk!" gasped Alma.

"Why don't you stop him?" cried her sister. "You can't have your husband driving a tip-cart for John Leach. Stop him, Alma!"

"I can't stop him," moaned Alma. "I don't feel as if I could stop anything."

Her sister gazed at her, and the same expression was on both faces, making them more than sisters of the flesh. Both saw before them a stern boundary wall against which they might press in vain for the rest of their lives, and both saw the same sins of their hearts.