CAUGHT ON THE CLIFF by Rev. Edward A. Rand

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 10, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 35.

CAUGHT ON THE CLIFF.

By Rev. Edward A. Rand

OH, how the blue mountain tops rose up about the valley in which nestled the little red schoolhouse! And back of the building—this educational sugar box—sat on a little rise of ground two boys. School was out, and they were at liberty, Mill Janvrin and Arthur Hamilton. So they watched the calm, shadowy mountain tops, and waited for Job Dennett, a third boy, who was expected to come along a path leading round Gray Mountain and along the crest of "the Cliff," and then down to the schoolhouse. It was Mill Janvrin who had an appointment with Job Dennett, but he had not yet told Arthur the nature of the expected interview. The two watchers patiently eyed the slope of Gray Mountain, and one would occasionally say, "Do you see that Job Dennett yet?" The other would reply, "Not a sign of him yet."

Mill Janvrin had a singular interest in Arthur Hamilton. Mill was a warm-hearted boy, but his manners had needed refining, his dress was untidy, his spirit without ambition, when one Monday morning Arthur Hamilton appeared at the little red building as a scholar. He had come from the outside world to pass a few months with his uncle, the miller in this little mountain world. Arthur was a new and fascinating leaf in the book of life, whose pages Mill had been turning. He was a handsome boy, gentlemanly, neat, generous.

"I like that boy," Mill told himself.

Why, he could not say. It is the hardest thing in the world at times to say why we like some people, while others attract us as little as icebergs. They may interest us; we never love them.

It was singular to notice how Arthur silently influenced Mill. Arthur had a set of neat although inexpensive neckties; very soon Mill's bare red throat blossomed out in a brilliant bow. Mill's hair sometimes had suggested a haystack just turned up by a pitchfork; one morning he showed a head that was in as tidy a condition as Arthur's carefully brushed locks. Arthur wore shoes brightly polished; Mill got down to shoe reform finally, having begun with what one boy called his "upper works," and Mill's shoes were no longer red but black.

Mill's changes that began on the outside worked within. He saw that Arthur sometimes read his Bible in school; it was not very long before Mill slyly began to look within the dusty covers of his Testament. Singular, is it not, how silently we influence one another?

There was a boy in school, though, who was very differently influenced by him, and that was Job Dennett, the boy now expected any moment by way of that path along the crest of the Cliff.

"The upstart!" said Job, eyeing Arthur.

"Dandy!" "Ristercrat!" "Chap in store clothes!" were some of the titles with which Arthur was labeled by Job.

Criticism did not stop here. It became very annoying. Arthur, though, kept something which is lost very easily,—his temper. He took Job's banter and sneers good naturedly, and sometimes turned the laugh on Job very dexterously.

Milton Janvrin—did I say that his first name in full was Milton? He always had written it "Mill Janvrin," but since knowing Arthur Hamilton he would sometimes write it out "Milton." Then he remembered that this had a preface, "John;" and how grand that looked, "John Milton Janvrin," carefully expanded on the old school slate. I too am feeling the influence of Arthur, and let me say Milton.

Milton was indignant to see and hear Job in his treatment of Arthur.

"I'll tell you what, Arthur, give that boy a thrashing. It will take the nonsense out of him," declared Milton, "and make him behave."

Arthur only laughed.

"Never mind, Mill. I will get ahead of him yet, and it will be better than a thrashing." But how, when, where?

The days slipped by. Arthur was not "getting ahead," apparently.

"I can't wait any longer," Milton told himself. "I'll lick that boy, and it will do him good."

He had therefore invited Job Dennett to a "fight" at night behind the schoolhouse.

"I'll come," promised Job. "I must go up to my pasture first to start the cows home."

"I'll wait for you. It is all on account of Arthur Hamilton, the way you've treated him."

"I'll be there," said Job, grinning.

But why did not Job appear? It was tiresome, this waiting behind the schoolhouse.

Milton preferred to wait alone, but he could not seem to get rid of Arthur. He wondered if Arthur could possibly know of the intended "fight."

"Anyway, he shan't stop it," resolved Milton.

The two boys were sitting on the thick grass with which the ground was upholstered, when Arthur suddenly sprang to his feet, and shouted: "Look, look! Over there, on the side of the Cliff!" Then he leaped away, and was soon crossing the road, beyond which was a pasture stretching up to the Cliff.

"Oh! I see," said Milton, looking one moment. "It is Job. He—he—he is below the top of the Cliff, and he is waving his red cap. Yes, that is Job. He wants us. What is to pay? I can't lick him up there."

Then he sped down into the road, sprang across it, and proceeded to make just as good time as possible across the pasture.

Yes, Job Dennett did want those two boys. He was in a very perilous situation.

The Cliff was a precipice with an almost perpendicular face. Directly, vertically, up and down its stony side, no climber ever had gone. A number of sure-footed boys had, however, diagonally scaled it, starting at a lower or left-hand corner, creeping along several shelves projecting from the Cliff, supported by bushes growing here and there, and then went crawling up, up, and across to a right-hand corner. No boy, though, had ever been known to start at that upper corner, and then work his way down across the face of the Cliff to that left-hand lower corner.

It is sometimes said that "what goes up must come down," but no venturesome and successful cliff-scaler had ever attempted to prove the truth of the saying in this case. This going down the Cliff was too dizzy an experiment, the boys had said. However, Job Dennett thought he would attempt it, and, making a "short cut" to the pasture below, save a little time in his journey to the fight behind the schoolhouse. He had gone but a short distance when he looked down, grew dizzy, and would have fallen headlong had he not caught at the limbs of a stout bush.

At the same time he swung over upon his back. There he lay, clinging for life to that bush, his feet just touching a slight projection in the side of the cliff. That foothold afforded him some support. He dared not trust his entire weight to it; for he could feel a suspicious movement, as of yielding rock, beneath his feet. He did not dare to change his position; for to what could he change?

What could he possibly do? Was Mill Janvrin behind the schoolhouse? If Job, clinging with one hand, should wave his red cap with the other, then, he argued, "Mill may see it."

The waving of the red cap had been noticed.

Soon Job heard steps. Someone was hurrying over the path up the slope of Gray Mountain, and then was running along the top of the Cliff. There came a very friendly voice: "Job? Job? Here, let me get hold of your hand. Oh, dear, I can't reach it! Wait a minute; I'll stand by you."

How long a minute that was! Stretched upon the ground, Arthur, looking down, called again: "Here, Job, I've made a big knot in the sleeve of my jacket. There, that will reach you. Don't be afraid!" Other steps were now heard.

"Good! Here comes Mill Janvrin. All right, Mill. Job is clinging to my jacket sleeve I let down to him. He grips good. Now, Mill, take hold of this other end of my jacket. Together, now! Pull, boy! I've got my feet all right—don't worry about me; get them round that pine behind me. I'll work back after we have pulled. That's it. Now, all-to-gether!" While Milton Janvrin was tugging furiously away, he turned a pitifully appealing face up to the blue sky stretched above the mountains, thought of his Testament in the red schoolhouse, said several prayers, and kept pulling. Slowly Job Dennett came up into a safe place. There was no fight behind the schoolhouse that afternoon. None was needed to "make Job Dennett behave;" for if ever a boy acted as if he had received a very beneficial thrashing, it was Job.

"Arthur has done what he said," thought Milton Janvrin. "His way was better."—Sunday School Times.