Peace Shall Destroy Many (28 page)

Thom slipped the oat-bag cords over the horses’ heads, drew the heavy blankets off, and hurled them all high on the towering hay-load. He scrambled up, arranged the blankets about him on the packed hay, and chirruped to the team. The big geldings strained for a moment; he swung them sideways and, with a snap, the runners broke free of the frost and they creaked from the stack. Just beyond the enclosure he remembered with a grunt, halted, dropped from his comfortable perch, and plowed around the load to fasten the gate. Not that it prevented much: snow buried a corner of the fence and the wild-horse herds could flounder over to the stack if they were desperate enough. But one did not leave a gate gaping.

Then he was up and they were treading the narrow trail
they had broken after the blizzard, the sleigh-tracks now packed solid and high above the wind-wasted meadow. A flock of snow-buntings swept by in waves and, squinting in the dazzle, he followed their flight. He could not understand how, living on frozen seed from bush and stack, the tiny creatures survived, thick-feathered though the
y were. Winter was deadly cruel. Really, the whole cycle of the seasons was an endless battle to retain existence. The buntings stored nothing against the winter: they merely found out if they had the hardihood to survive. Man also—perhaps man even had a spiritual winter. If a man stored nothing—or perhaps the wrong kind of food—but he could not carry through the analogy as his hands numbed in his mitts. Besides, there was always the secure hope of coming spring. He looped the reins about the pole thrust up before him and clapped his arms about his body. The blood quickened, but the cold clamped viciously on his face. Pulling the parka lower, he rubbed his nose against his shoulder.

The team drew the ponderous sleigh across the rocky ridge that ran out into the lake-flat; the southern half of the meadow glistened before him. A man forked hay rapidly from the open Block stack. Pete had hauled one load that morning; Thom could not for a moment understand why they should drive themselves so mercilessly on a stiffening day, but the colder it was, the harder the Blocks worked. They had results for their efforts.

A black dot in the wide world, he drove down the track toward home. When almost opposite the stack, he made out that it was the Deacon himself loading the rack. Thom gauged the sun: the afternoon was early. Perhaps—at the thought he halted the horses, flung blankets over them, and
walked across the hard-driven patterns of snow. The team perked its ears as he approached. He called,

“Hello, Mr. Block!”

The other glanced up from his labour. “Oh, hello, Thom.” He paused, leaning on his fork, then reached for the hay-knife, continuing in Low German. “Got your load finished?”

“Yes,” with a run Thom scrambled up on the low bench of the stack. “We only haul one load a day—that’s enough for the horses—and for me. Here, let me cut.”

“Thanks. I’ve got the other team. Tomorrow’s Friday and Pete can’t haul very well and do all the chores too.” The older man, working in a wool jacket, his parka draped on the rack-pole, dug up great hunks of packed hay effortlessly and laid them tightly on the basket-rack. Thom cut down a layer and waited, propped on the knife-handle, a glow of camaraderie involuntarily quickening in him. Even pitching hay, Block was so decisive, every motion precisely purposeful! In a few moments the loose hay was forked away; Thom shifted to cut again when the Deacon said,

“Wait a minute. I was going to have some coffee. Want a bit?”

“Yes! It’s cold standing, even in the sunlight.”

Block leaned over, dug a rock-warmed stone crock out from under the hay-covered blankets at the side of the rack. They squatted in the lee of the stack, where the sun smiled feebly warm on the open hay of the cut, and passed the coffee between them.

Thom ventured, the coffee glowing in his stomach, “Mr. Block, I want to ask you what you think of my Bible class. Pete told me—last Sunday afternoon—some things. I wonder if you would—” He suddenly could not proceed for even as he
spoke he wondered why he asked. He knew where Block stood; what was there to explain
? And, somehow, his words were faintly gaining the “you-have-the-answer-tell-me-and-I’ll-do-it” tinge that always caught him in his small-child feeling before the Deacon. Thom dropped his glance.

Block lowered the crock and passed it, staring slit-eyed across the white expanse to the ridge bristling black pine and poplar into the dead-blue sky. As the older man turned to speak, Thom knew startlingly, as by intuition, that every man in Wapiti community had, at some time or another, felt compelled to come to Block about his problems. There was more than competence or common-sense in this man. Thom shook his head to clear his thoughts. Block was saying, in High German,

“Let’s look at the principles involved in what you are doing. Once they’re settled, the details will fall into place. Now: every person on earth, generally speaking, lives in the way he has learned from his fathers. We live as ours taught us, the breeds as theirs. Each generation changes only slightly. If a people find something that they know is important, that way of acting or thinking will persist for generations, if care is taken by the parents to teach their children.”

Thom, alert now, interrupted, “But we don’t live like our parents. They lived in villages and had their barns built in one with their houses and—”

“Those are the outward things. They don’t matter. Why should we live in villages here in the bush where fields are small and we would have to drive miles every day to work? Why should I not buy a tractor if it helps my farming, or a radio to tell me the meat pr
ices and the weather forecast? Those are outward matters that change as men invent better ways of handling nature. I wear an Eskimo parka because it
keeps me warm in this cold. These outward matters should change, but the great matters of moral and spiritual discipline have been laid down once and for all in the Bible and our fathers have told us how we should act according to them. They cannot change.”

Thom hunched forward; Block continued rapidly across the question on his face. “That’s why we have to remain apart from the world. And that includes the breeds, who are culturally and morally backward. They—the world—has been trained by its fathers to despise the things we hold precious: cleanliness, frugality, hard work, moral decency, peacefulness. Look at the filth and laziness that Moosomins—or Mackenzies—live in. You can barely stand in the doorway, such a frightful stench pours out at you. We have to know about the evil of the world—that’s why no one objects to having a radio, if the parents are clear what type of program they turn on for their children (and not many are fit to listen to)—but we have to know about evil just enough to be repelled by it and be happy to live our secluded lives. We are not of this world, the Bible says. We have to live separated to prepare ourselves for the world that is coming. Our knowledge and attitude therefore creates a certain distance between us and—the breeds, for example. It is right that it do so.”

“Joseph writes too that all people live by traditions, but does this—”

Block, drawing the cork to pass the coffee, looked up at Thom sharply, “Do you write to Joseph Dueck?”

“Yes, I do.” Thom felt a flick of pride that the Deacon’s look could not rouse his conscience.

Block considered him soberly for a moment, then said, as if more carefully, “You have to watch what he says. He’s a very
clever man—too clever. He wants to work everything out with his brain. Certain things cannot be done with brain power; objects of belief cannot be affected by logic. But he’s right if he said most people live by the tradition they have received. But here is the difference. Most do not care if they break the tradition because to them it is not an absolute standard of right and wrong. In Rome, they sheepishly follow the Romans. But our fathers found the correct way of acting. Through the years, this action has developed into our culture. If we do not follow them in their way, then we stand in grave danger of losing our eternal salvation. That is why we are so rigid about certain matters in the church. The Russians around our villages in Russia had traditional ways of acting too, but when they came to Canada and once knew about acting differently, they let the old way slide because the new way suited better here. But we hold that our actions are eternally important; our fathers found the right moral and spiritual action. Therefore we withdraw from the influence of the outside world and train up our children in seclusion where they can learn the correct way unhindered. We want nothing from the world—either the English or the breeds. They will merely ruin the training of our children. Other Mennonite churches in Canada, not sheltered as we are in Wapiti, have many more problems. Especially in city churches the devil lures many young people from our teachings. More than enough men at the Conference have wept as they told me.”

A faint whiff of the lost summer wafted to Thom as, rising, they stirred the dry hay. He began cutting another layer, momentarily unable to penetrate the forceful thinking. Then it caught. He probed, “Children must always be told what to believe?”

Block paused his forking, then continued, speaking as he did so, “Yes. How will they know what to believe if they are not told? I’ll tell you something. My father was a huge man who did not care what he did, as long as the church elders did not protest. He never told me a single thing of what I should or should not do. As long as I didn’t annoy him, I could do as I pleased. That was the trouble with my youth—I was taught no control or moral principles. And that’s why when I was bigger—apparently a good upright member of the church—I still did not really know what Christianity and the beliefs of our fathers were, even though I thought sincerely I did. Then, a terrible thing happened.” The Deacon said nothing for several minutes, then rushed on, “There, when in that upheaval my life was changed at last, I resolved that no child of mine should ever be forced through that agony of having acted in spiritual ignorance. They were going to have a better chance—be taught clearly, protected from the filthy lawlessness of the world, the straight narrow way to Heaven.”

The Deacon, beyond himself, unworking, leaned intensely towards the youth, his bushy eyebrows bent in a black crescent. Only when he was through the burst of his emotions did his falsity strike home. He had protected Elizabeth?—from a bad marriage, but not a shameful death. He wheeled quickly from Thom, unable to bear the young man’s glance levelled at him from under
the brush of parka fur. As he threw the forkful of hay on the load, he was praying, Father, give me grace to keep quiet—that I do not lie outwardly more than is necessary—for the sake of people such as this. Sinkingly he knew he need say nothing, ever, and yet his whole life would be one long-drawn perjury. But his action had been right! Elizabeth
had weakened, miserably; what good could now come of exposing her sin? He could not know how God would judge his living lie; and sometimes at night, fleetingly, the fear hooked him.

Far away, Thom spoke, “But it’s impossible for me not to speak this truth to my neighbour, if I hold to it myself.”

Block interrupted, recovering quickly, “But we do speak of it. Your own brother in India—”

“Yes. And how much could he do here at home with the half-breeds you’re objecting to? They know no more about—”

Teaching throbbed strongly through Block. “I know why you’ve tried these Bible lessons with them. It’s a noble effort, but be realistic about it, as David was years ago. Will our church gain more members for God’s kingdom by doing everything in English and trying to get all those mixed people to join in our services, or will we gain more by secluding ourselves from their influence, preaching in a language only our Mennonites understand and carefully training our young people in the ways of peace? The answer is obvious. Some Mennonite churches have tried English services: they gained no English and merely lost many Mennonites who could not understand. Those churches that did gain a few members did so by sacrificing ethical standards. Soon a church member could do this,
do that—no one really knew if anything was right or wrong. Don’t you see, Thom? We must be concerned about
our
people, and then we can present an unblemished front to the world.”

“But—”

“Listen. In a compromise it is truth that suffers. Always. In some communities members of our church have tried to bridge the gap between ourselves and other people—gaps that should never be bridged. You,” the Deacon looked calmly at
Thom, and the other, drawn, was compelled to glance up, “are, with that Bible class, trying to do the same thing. More is involved than you, in your young missionary zeal, have any notion. Our fathers always said that they had to maintain a certain distance between themselves and ungodly people. So must we. Your brother took a long time to learn this here in Wapiti—you couldn’t possibly know what happened here six or seven years ago—but he knows he can do mission work in India now only because there is a strong, unblemished church community at home supporting him. You will undermine this community completely by trying to bring breeds—and Indians naturally follow—into it. They are basically different from us—qualitatively. No matter what you do for them, on the whole they remain children. Once you’ve lived long enough you’ll know experience as a rough but effective teacher. Give a breed ten dollars and he becomes as irresponsible as a lunatic!” Block caught himself. In his drive to out-front Thom on his own ground, the example had slipped from him unthought. The Deacon would have given almost anything to recall it as Thom, leaning on the hay-knife, returned quickly,

“I don’t think Herb Unger is any better than Louis. One look in his house, or barn, shows that. How can you make such a difference—”

Block, letting his fork fall to the hay, could not allow him to continue. “Herb’s had a hard youth and hasn’t been handled too well. Basically, he’s rebelling against his Christian home. But he still goes there and I’m convinced he will some day become a Christian and then we’ll welcome him into the church. But to have breeds members of our church? Can you imagine it? They’re not the stuff.” In the clarity of the evidence, the Deacon gestured with his fork and bent back to his work.