The original article by Justin Taylor

CNN’s coverage of Justin Taylor’s article

An overview and initial thoughts by Jason Boyett

Initial thoughts by Rachel Held Evans

Kevin DeYoung’s reasoning as to why Matthew 18 does not apply to Rob Bell

Matthew Paul Turner – “How to survive Rob Bell’s new book release?”

An argument that love does indeed win

Al Mohler on Rob Bell and the assumed content of his book

Jim Hamilton asserts hell glorifies God and Bell is trying to rob God of glory

Scot McKnight writes that the book should actually be read before it is reviewed

Ben Witherington promotes waiting for Bell’s book, and condemns Piper’s condemnation

Mark Galli (Christianity Today) reviews Christian views on heaven and hell

Orthodoxy vs. Heresy: a power game

Stephen Lamb writes about what Rob Bell has said and written in the past

The New York Times sums it all up

There is no simple three step program that will guarantee success; but, at the same time, blind hope is seldom a pathway to success. Success takes planning, hard work, flexibility, and is different for every person an situation. For this reason there has been a glut of leadership books put on the market in the last few decades. In Obstacles Welcome Ralph de la Vega recognizes suggests a framework that can be used to guide a leader to plan for success.

Ralph de la Vega is the President & CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. He began life as a Cuban national and, at a young age, was sent by his parents to the United States. De la Vega made the trip on his own and spent much of his childhood with relatives in Florida. Some of the most illuminating and motivating passages of Obstacles Welcome are the stories of de la Vega’s life as an immigrant, as a student, as an engineer, and as a businessman. A straight biography of de la Vega’s life would be a fascinating read and I hope that this book is someday written.

For de la Vega the first steps for success are to “Dream Big” and “Believe in Yourself”; without these factors success will not be achieved. However, de la Vega points out that merely Dreaming Big is not a plan for success. The Big Dream and self belief must be supported by four pillars: you must plan for success, take risks, recognize opportunities, and overcome the inevitable obstacles. It is this last pillar from which comes the name Obstacles Welcome. One of de la Vega’s key points is that obstacles are the game changers that will allow success. In fact, without the obstacle success may not be achievable.

The four pillars of success must be grounded in six principles in order to stay upright. These principles are teamwork, attitude, integrity, vision, credibility, and excellence.

None of the ideas presented in Obstacles Welcome are new or groundbreaking, but de la Vega does present them in a compelling manner and within an integrated framework. The framework is an excellent starting point for anyone looking to formulate a plan for their organization.

The only negative comment I have regarding Obstacles Welcome is that it often felt scattered. Part of that is the nature of the subject; as previously stated, there is no three step program that will guarantee success. However, the book felt like it could have benefited from more time in the outlining phase. The stories from de la Vega’s life were also too spread out. As someone not familiar with his life it was often difficult to remember some of the experiences he had previously written about then referred to later on.

Overall, Obstacles Welcome is a fine read and would be beneficial for someone new to leadership looking to develop a strategic plan for their organization.

Book Description from Thomas Nelson

Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, shares the lessons learned in business and in life along the journey from Cuba to Corporate America.

Ralph de la Vega arrived in the United States from Cuba in 1962. He was alone. He was scared. He was 10. Separated from his parents by Cuban authorities just moments before they were to board a plane to Miami, de la Vega was baptized early—and abruptly—in the waters of adversity. But while the boy would never have chosen such circumstance, it’s the man who can look back and say he would not have changed it.

In Obstacles Welcome, de la Vega recounts his journey as a young Cuban immigrant to president and Chief Executive Officer of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. De la Vega takes readers behind the scenes of the Internet revolution and chronicles the incredible obstacles intrinsic to successfully merging the largest wireless operations in U.S. history—those of Cingular Wireless and AT&T Wireless.

Here Burns My Candle is the story of one wealthy family’s struggle as live in Scotland during the Jacobite rebellion. A widow is living with her two sons and their wives. Against their mother’s wishes the sons join the rebellion. The entire family is forced to live with the consequences.

I am most definitely the wrong demographic for this historical romance. ***SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW*** The only reason I requested a copy of this book was because it was marketed as a Scottish retelling of the book of Ruth; that is an interesting idea. Unfortunately, this 454 page tome is a retelling of only the first chapter of Ruth. My understanding is that the story is continued in additional books.

I am not a fan of the historical romance genre because, typically, nothing happens. That is also my complaint with this book; there is a lot of pretty scenery, but nothing happens. It was with great difficulty that I pushed my way through the last half of the story.

If the entire series were condensed down to one book the size of Here Burns My Candle, then I could probably get on board. That would be a great story. As for this book, there is just too little story spread over too many pages for me to recommend this book. That being said, this book was not written for me. Those who enjoy historical romance will probably enjoy this book.

Book Description from Random House

Lady Elisabeth Kerr is a keeper of secrets. A Highlander by birth and a Lowlander by marriage, she honors the auld ways, even as doubts and fears stir deep within her.

Her husband, Lord Donald, has secrets of his own, well hidden from the household, yet whispered among the town gossips.

His mother, the dowager Lady Marjory, hides gold beneath her floor and guilt inside her heart. Though her two abiding passions are maintaining her place in society and coddling her grown sons, Marjory’s many regrets, buried in Greyfriars Churchyard, continue to plague her.

One by one the Kerr family secrets begin to surface, even as bonny Prince Charlie and his rebel army ride into Edinburgh in September 1745, intent on capturing the crown.

A timeless story of love and betrayal, loss and redemption, flickering against the vivid backdrop of eighteenth-century Scotland, Here Burns My Candle illumines the dark side of human nature, even as hope, the brightest of tapers, lights the way home.

In A Million Miles in a Thousand Years writer Donald Miller explores what it is that makes up a good story and then applies these insights to his life.

While looking to become a better writer, and working on a screenplay for a movie, Miller goes with a friend to a Robert McKee writing seminar. After 36 hours of lecture Miller asks his friend what a story actually is and his friend replies, “a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.” Miller uses this basic framework as he continues his writing; but, then wonders if this same framework can be used to explore his life. Miller asks the question “am I living a good story?” The rest of the memoir focuses on Miller defining his character, what he wants, and learning to embrace the inevitable conflict so it can be overcome.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years forces its reader to explore their own life and ask some basic questions: what kind of story am I living? What changes need to be made so I can be living a good story? How can I move my story toward and through conflict? How does God interact with our story? What are the stories we are writing our loved ones into?

Ultimately, Miller writes, “a story is based on what people think is important, so when we live a story, we are telling people around us what we think is important.”

Miller’s writing style is pleasant and affable; kind of like sitting on a porch and listening to a friend. His self-aware and self-deprecating nature keeps the book from becoming too narcissistic (a danger for any memoir). The writing may have benefited had it gone through another round of tightening, but the free-flowing nature of the narrative is part of the charm of the book.

There are stories and ideas in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years that will capture anyone’s attention and imagination. This is the perfect book to read if you are searching for something, but need a little push to fully know what that something is.

This quick read would be beneficial to any creative person, and is a book I imagine I will come back to for a second read in the next nine to fifteen months.

What is my character? What do I want? What are my obstacles? Is my life telling a good story?

Book Description from Thomas Nelson

Full of beautiful, heart-wrenching, and hilarious stories, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details one man’s opportunity to edit his life as if he were a character in a movie.

Years after writing a best-selling memoir, Donald Miller went into a funk and spent months sleeping in and avoiding his publisher. One story had ended, and Don was unsure how to start another.

But he gets rescued by two movie producers who want to make a movie based on his memoir. When they start fictionalizing Don’s life for film–changing a meandering memoir into a structured narrative–the real-life Don starts a journey to edit his actual life into a better story. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years details that journey and challenges readers to reconsider what they strive for in life. It shows how to get a second chance at life the first time around.

In 2003, Shannon O’Dell felt that he was called to leave his youth pastor position at a large church in a large city and pastor a small rural church. Once in leadership O’Dell met opposition to change and so undertook an effort to recreate the church to his vision. After many of the original church members left, the church grew and joined together with another church down the road. The church now has a focus on reaching people through satellite locations.

The more irritated I become with a book the more I tend to write in its margins; my copy of this book is littered with margin notes. O’Dell paints himself as savior of the rural church. He repeatedly speaks of what the rural church needs to learn (pp 38, 47, 63, 85), while failing to describe what the rural church has taught him. O’Dell repeatedly stereotypes and condescends to the rural church making presumptuous statements such as:

• Too many rural pastors I know have little vision, if any. (p 54)
• I’m also not talking about the milquetoast prayers of most local churches that are little more than cop-outs (p 64)
• There are very few churches that are preaching the pure gospel of life transformation. (p 82)
• Most rural churches are controlled by a handful of families. They don’t represent God’s family…Persistent tradition and generational claims on the church building are what drive them. (p 83)
• We cannot let our vision become enslaved by the fear of someone who probably hasn’t led anyone to Christ in decades, anyway. (p 84)

Ultimately, O’Dell is creating a church that is only able to function under his direct leadership. There is little or no concern for building up the leadership qualities of the individuals in the church, or planning for a future in which he is not a part. Throughout the book, O’Dell seems to substitute his leadership skills for the role of the Holy Spirit.

O’Dell consistently twists scripture to conform to his opinions. The most blatant example is on page 114. While arguing against the value of seminary education for pastors, O’Dell writes: “No one in the New Testament Church was educated.” He uses Acts 4:13 as validation of this statement. Unfortunately Acts 4:13 is speaking only of Peter and John, it reads: “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus.” O’Dell further contends that the word translated ordinary, idiwtai, means “idiot” because the Greek word shares the root from which we get our English word “idiot”. Nowhere in Greek literature does idiwtai mean idiot. It means unskilled or untrained; someone who has not yet obtained knowledge. This is just one example of O’Dell’s misuse of scripture (cf 93, 97, 132).

I wanted this book to be good. I wanted a strong tool with which to build up the rural churches in our country in order that they might reach the world for Christ. There were portions of this book which I found useful; however, these passages were so small and scattered that they do not compensate for the book’s failures. I cannot recommend this book to anyone in any circumstance. In a few years, when O’Dell is more able to express what he has learned along with what he has to teach, I hope he will be able to write a more useful book

Book Description from New Leaf

Without meaningful change, thousands of rural churches won’t survive the next decade. *A vital guide for every deacon, elder, and pastor wanting to bring their rural church back to the business of changing lives *No-cost solutions for staffing challenges, upgrading the worship, and generating teams of volunteers *Innovative strategies for growth through transformed lives, relevance in meeting needs, and creating active evangelism in your community

If you aren’t transforming lives, then the church has no impact. Pastor Shannon O’Dell reveals the need for relevancy and shares a powerful mission for rural churches in reaching the unchurched and lost in their communities. Now, learn the strategies and biblical guidance that turned a church of 30 into a multi-campus church of several thousand with a national and global outreach. Experience the blueprint for transforming into effective, dynamic, and thriving churches which give God the very best!

Learn to add VALUE to your ministry goals: Vision, Attitude, Leadership, Understanding, and Excellence. Discover how your marriage reflects the state of your faith and your relationship with God.

‘No fear of it,’ says I. ‘He don’t seem to be much of a home body. But we’ve got to fix up some plan about the ransom. There don’t seem to be much excitement around Summit on account of his disappearance; but maybe they haven’t realized yet that he’s gone. His folks may think he’s spending the night with Aunt Jane or one of the neighbours. Anyhow, he’ll be missed to-day. To-night we must get a message to his father demanding the two thousand dollars for his return.’

Just then we heard a kind of war-whoop, such as David might have emitted when he knocked out the champion Goliath. It was a sling that Red Chief had pulled out of his pocket, and he was whirling it around his head.

I dodged, and heard a heavy thud and a kind of a sigh from Bill, like a horse gives out when you take his saddle off. A niggerhead rock the size of an egg had caught Bill just behind his left ear. He loosened himself all over and fell in the fire across the frying pan of hot water for washing the dishes. I dragged him out and poured cold water on his head for half an hour.

By and by, Bill sits up and feels behind his ear and says: ‘Sam, do you know who my favourite Biblical character is?’

‘Take it easy,’ says I. ‘You’ll come to your senses presently.’

‘King Herod,’ says he. ‘You won’t go away and leave me here alone, will you, Sam?’

I went out and caught that boy and shook him until his freckles rattled.
‘If you don’t behave,’ says I, ‘I’ll take you straight home. Now, are you going to be good, or not?’

‘I was only funning,’ says he sullenly. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt Old Hank. But what did he hit me for? I’ll behave, Snake-eye, if you won’t send me home, and if you’ll let me play the Black Scout to-day.’

‘I don’t know the game,’ says I. ‘That’s for you and Mr. Bill to decide. He’s your playmate for the day. I’m going away for a while, on business. Now, you come in and make friends with him and say you are sorry for hurting him, or home you go, at once.’

I made him and Bill shake hands, and then I took Bill aside and told him I was going to Poplar Cove, a little village three miles from the cave, and find out what I could about how the kidnapping had been regarded in Summit. Also, I thought it best to send a peremptory letter to old man Dorset that day, demanding the ransom and dictating how it should be paid.

‘You know, Sam,’ says Bill, ‘I’ve stood by you without batting an eye in earthquakes, fire and flood–in poker games, dynamite outrages, police raids, train robberies and cyclones. I never lost my nerve yet till we kidnapped that two-legged skyrocket of a kid. He’s got me going. You won’t leave me long with him, will you, Sam?’

‘I’ll be back some time this afternoon,’ says I. ‘You must keep the boy amused and quiet till I return. And now we’ll write the letter to old Dorset.’

Bill and I got paper and pencil and worked on the letter while Red Chief, with a blanket wrapped around him, strutted up and down, guarding the mouth of the cave. Bill begged me tearfully to make the ransom fifteen hundred dollars instead of two thousand. ‘I ain’t attempting,’ says he, ‘to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection, but we’re dealing with humans, and it ain’t human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat. I’m willing to take a chance at fifteen hundred dollars. You can charge the difference up to me.’

So, to relieve Bill, I acceded, and we collaborated a letter that ran this way:

Ebenezer Dorset, Esq.:

We have your boy concealed in a place far from Summit. It is useless for you or the most skilful detectives to attempt to find him. Absolutely, the only terms on which you can have him restored to you are these: We demand fifteen hundred dollars in large bills for his return; the money to be left at midnight to-night at the same spot and in the same box as your reply–as hereinafter described. If you agree to these terms, send your answer in writing by a solitary messenger to-night at half-past eight o’clock. After crossing Owl Creek, on the road to Poplar Cove, there are three large trees about a hundred yards apart, close to the fence of the wheat field on the right-hand side. At the bottom of the fence-post, opposite the third tree, will be found a small pasteboard box.

The messenger will place the answer in this box and return immediately to Summit.

If you attempt any treachery or fail to comply with our demand as stated, you will never see your boy again.

If you pay the money as demanded, he will be returned to you safe and well within three hours. These terms are final, and if you do not accede to them no further communication will be attempted.

TWO DESPERATE MEN.

I addressed this letter to Dorset, and put it in my pocket. As I was about to start, the kid comes up to me and says:

‘Aw, Snake-eye, you said I could play the Black Scout while you was gone.’

‘Play it, of course,’ says I. ‘Mr. Bill will play with you. What kind of a game is it?’

‘I’m the Black Scout,’ says Red Chief, ‘and I have to ride to the stockade to warn the settlers that the Indians are coming. I ‘m tired of playing Indian myself. I want to be the Black Scout.’

‘All right,’ says I. ‘It sounds harmless to me. I guess Mr. Bill will help you foil the pesky savages.’

‘What am I to do?’ asks Bill, looking at the kid suspiciously.

‘You are the hoss,’ says Black Scout. ‘Get down on your hands and knees. How can I ride to the stockade without a hoss?’

‘You’d better keep him interested,’ said I, ’till we get the scheme going. Loosen up.’

Bill gets down on his all fours, and a look comes in his eye like a rabbit’s when you catch it in a trap.

‘ How far is it to the stockade, kid? ‘ he asks, in a husky manner of voice.

‘Ninety miles,’ says the Black Scout. ‘And you have to hump yourself to get there on time. Whoa, now!’

The Black Scout jumps on Bill’s back and digs his heels in his side.
‘For Heaven’s sake,’ says Bill, ‘hurry back, Sam, as soon as you can. I wish we hadn’t made the ransom more than a thousand. Say, you quit kicking me or I ’11 get up and warm you good.’

I walked over to Poplar Cove and sat around the postoffice and store, talking with the chawbacons that came in to trade. One whiskerand says that he hears Summit is all upset on account of Elder Ebenezer Dorset’s boy having been lost or stolen. That was all I wanted to know. I bought some smoking tobacco, referred casually to the price of black-eyed peas, posted my letter surreptitiously and came away. The postmaster said the mail-carrier would come by in an hour to take the mail on to Summit.

When I got back to the cave Bill and the boy were not to be found. I explored the vicinity of the cave, and risked a yodel or two, but there was no response.

So I lighted my pipe and sat down on a mossy bank to await developments.

In about half an hour I heard the bushes rustle, and Bill wabbled out into the little glade in front of the cave. Behind him was the kid, stepping softly like a scout, with a broad grin on his face. Bill stopped, took off his hat and wiped his face with a red handkerchief. The kid stopped about eight feet behind him.

‘Sam,’ says Bill, ‘I suppose you’ll think I’m a renegade, but I couldn’t help it. I’m a grown person with masculine proclivities and habits of self-defence, but there is a time when all systems of egotism and predominance fail. The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All is off. There was martyrs in old times,’ goes on Bill, ‘that suffered death rather than give up the particular graft they enjoyed. None of ‘em ever was subjugated to such supernatural tortures as I have been. I tried to be faithful to our articles of depredation; but there came a limit.’

‘What’s the trouble, Bill?’ I asks him.

‘I was rode,’ says Bill, ‘the ninety miles to the stockade, not barring an inch. Then, when the settlers was rescued, I was given oats. Sand ain’t a palatable substitute. And then, for an hour I had to try to explain to him why there was nothin’ in holes, how a road can run both ways and what makes the grass green. I tell you, Sam, a human can only stand so much. I takes him by the neck of his clothes and drags him down the mountain. On the way he kicks my legs black-and-blue from the knees down; and I’ve got two or three bites on my thumb and hand cauterized.

‘But he’s gone’–continues Bill–’gone home. I showed him the road to Summit and kicked him about eight feet nearer there at one kick. I’m sorry we lose the ransom; but it was either that or Bill Driscoll to the madhouse.’

Bill is puffing and blowing, but there is a look of ineffable peace and growing content on his rose-pink features.

‘Bill,’ says I, ‘there isn’t any heart disease in your family, is there?’

‘No,’ says Bill, ‘nothing chronic except malaria and accidents. Why?’

‘Then you might turn around,’ says I, ‘and have a look behind you.’

Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down plump on the ground and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my scheme was to put the whole job through immediately and that we would get the ransom and be off with it by midnight if old Dorset fell in with our proposition. So Bill braced up enough to give the kid a weak sort of a smile and a promise to play the Russian in a Japanese war with him as soon as he felt a little better.

I had a scheme for collecting that ransom without danger of being caught by counterplots that ought to commend itself to professional kidnappers. The tree under which the answer was to be left–and the money later on–was close to the road fence with big, bare fields on all sides. If a gang of constables should be watching for any one to come for the note they could see him a long way off crossing the fields or in the road. But no, sirree! At half-past eight I was up in that tree as well hidden as a tree toad, waiting for the messenger to arrive.

Exactly on time, a half-grown boy rides up the road on a bicycle, locates the pasteboard box at the foot of the fencepost, slips a folded piece of paper into it and pedals away again back toward Summit.

I waited an hour and then concluded the thing was square. I slid down the tree, got the note, slipped along the fence till I struck the woods, and was back at the cave in another half an hour. I opened the note, got near the lantern and read it to Bill. It was written with a pen in a crabbed hand, and the sum and substance of it was this:

Two Desperate Men.

Gentlemen: I received your letter to-day by post, in regard to the ransom you ask for the return of my son. I think you are a little high in your demands, and I hereby make you a counter-proposition, which I am inclined to believe you will accept. You bring Johnny home and pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and I agree to take him off your hands. You had better come at night, for the neighbours believe he is lost, and I couldn’t be responsible for what they would do to anybody they saw bringing him back.

Very respectfully,
EBENEZER DORSET.

‘Great pirates of Penzance!’ says I; ‘of all the impudent–’

But I glanced at Bill, and hesitated. He had the most appealing look in his eyes I ever saw on the face of a dumb or a talking brute.

‘Sam,’ says he, ‘what’s two hundred and fifty dollars, after all? We’ve got the money. One more night of this kid will send me to a bed in Bedlam. Besides being a thorough gentleman, I think Mr. Dorset is a spendthrift for making us such a liberal offer. You ain’t going to let the chance go, are you?’

‘Tell you the truth, Bill,’ says I, ‘this little he ewe lamb has somewhat got on my nerves too. We’ll take him home, pay the ransom and make our get-away.’

We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that his father had bought a silver-mounted rifle and a pair of moccasins for him, and we were going to hunt bears the next day.

It was just twelve o’clock when we knocked at Ebenezer’s front door. Just at the moment when I should have been abstracting the fifteen hundred dollars from the box under the tree, according to the original proposition, Bill was counting out two hundred and fifty dollars into Dorset’s hand.

When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home he started up a howl like a calliope and fastened himself as tight as a leech to Bill’s leg. His father peeled him away gradually, like a porous plaster.

‘How long can you hold him?’ asks Bill.

‘I’m not as strong as I used to be,’ says old Dorset, ‘but I think I can promise you ten minutes.’

‘Enough,’ says Bill. ‘In ten minutes I shall cross the Central, Southern and Middle Western States, and be legging it trippingly for the Canadian border.’

And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Bill was, and as good a runner as I am, he was a good mile and a half out of summit before I could catch up with him.

There was a town down there, as flat as a flannel-cake, and called Summit, of course. It contained inhabitants of as undeleterious and self-satisfied a class of peasantry as ever clustered around a Maypole.

Bill and me had a joint capital of about six hundred dollars, and we needed just two thousand dollars more to pull off a fraudulent town-lot scheme in Western Illinois with. We talked it over on the front steps of the hotel. Philoprogenitiveness, says we, is strong in semi-rural communities therefore, and for other reasons, a kidnapping project ought to do better there than in the radius of newspapers that send reporters out in plain clothes to stir up talk about such things. We knew that Summit couldn’t get after us with anything stronger than constables and, maybe, some lackadaisical bloodhounds and a diatribe or two in the Weekly Farmers’ Budget. So, it looked good.

We selected for our victim the only child of a prominent citizen named Ebenezer Dorset. The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser. The kid was a boy of ten, with bas-relief freckles, and hair the colour of the cover of the magazine you buy at the news-stand when you want to catch a train. Bill and me figured that Ebenezer would melt down for a ransom of two thousand dollars to a cent. But wait till I tell you.

About two miles from Summit was a little mountain, covered with a dense cedar brake. On the rear elevation of this mountain was a cave. There we stored provisions.

One evening after sundown, we drove in a buggy past old Dorset’s house. The kid was in the street, throwing rocks at a kitten on the opposite fence.

‘Hey, little boy!’ says Bill, ‘would you like to have a bag of candy and a nice ride?’

The boy catches Bill neatly in the eye with a piece of brick.

‘That will cost the old man an extra five hundred dollars,’ says Bill, climbing over the wheel.

That boy put up a fight like a welter-weight cinnamon bear; but, at last, we got him down in the bottom of the buggy and drove away. We took him up to the cave, and I hitched the horse in the cedar brake. After dark I drove the buggy to the little village, three miles away, where we had hired it, and walked back to the mountain.

Bill was pasting court-plaster over the scratches and bruises on his features. There was a fire burning behind the big rock at the entrance of the cave, and the boy was watching a pot of boiling coffee, with two buzzard tailfeathers stuck in his red hair. He points a stick at me when I come up, and says:

‘Ha! cursed paleface, do you dare to enter the camp of Red Chief, the terror of the plains?’

‘He’s all right now,’ says Bill, rolling up his trousers and examining some bruises on his shins. ‘We’re playing Indian. We’re making Buffalo Bill’s show look like magic-lantern views of Palestine in the town hall. I’m Old Hank, the Trapper, Red Chief’s captive, and I’m to be scalped at daybreak. By Geronimo! that kid can kick hard.’

Yes, sir, that boy seemed to be having the time of his life. The fun of camping out in a cave had made him forget that he was a captive himself. He immediately christened me Snake-eye, the Spy, and announced that, when his braves returned from the warpath, I was to be broiled at the stake at the rising of the sun.

Then we had supper; and he filled his mouth full of bacon and bread and gravy, and began to talk. He made a during-dinner speech something like this:

‘I like this fine. I never camped out before; but I had a pet ‘possum once, and I was nine last birthday. I hate to go to school. Rats ate up sixteen of Jimmy Talbot’s aunt’s speckled hen’s eggs. Are there any real Indians in these woods? I want some more gravy. Does the trees moving make the wind blow? We had five puppies. What makes your nose so red, Hank? My father has lots of money. Are the stars hot? I whipped Ed Walker twice, Saturday. I don’t like girls. You dassent catch toads unless with a string. Do oxen make any noise? Why are oranges round? Have you got beds to sleep on in this cave? Amos Murray has got six toes. A parrot can talk, but a monkey or a fish can’t. How many does it take to make twelve?’

Every few minutes he would remember that he was a pesky redskin, and pick up his stick rifle and tiptoe to the mouth of the cave to rubber for the scouts of the hated paleface. Now and then he would let out a warwhoop that made Old Hank the Trapper, shiver. That boy had Bill terrorized from the start.

‘Red Chief,’ says I to the kid, ‘would you like to go home?’

‘Aw, what for?’ says he. ‘I don’t have any fun at home. I hate to go to school. I like to camp out. You won’t take me back home again, Snake-eye, will you?’

‘Not right away,’ says I. ‘We’ll stay here in the cave a while.’

‘All right!’ says he. ‘That’ll be fine. I never had such fun in all my life.’

We went to bed about eleven o’clock. We spread down some wide blankets and quilts and put Red Chief between us. We weren’t afraid he’d run away. He kept us awake for three hours, jumping up and reaching for his rifle and screeching: ‘Hist! pard,’ in mine and Bill’s ears, as the fancied crackle of a twig or the rustle of a leaf revealed to his young imagination the stealthy approach of the outlaw band. At last, I fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed that I had been kidnapped and chained to a tree by a ferocious pirate with red hair.

Just at daybreak, I was awakened by a series of awful screams from Bill. They weren’t yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, or yawps, such as you’d expect from a manly set of vocal organs–they were simply indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see ghosts or caterpillars. It’s an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak.

I jumped up to see what the matter was. Red Chief was sitting on Bill’s chest, with one hand twined in Bill’s hair. In the other he had the sharp case-knife we used for slicing bacon; and he was industriously and realistically trying to take Bill’s scalp, according to the sentence that had been pronounced upon him the evening before.

I got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again. But, from that moment, Bill’s spirit was broken. He laid down on his side of the bed, but he never closed an eye again in sleep as long as that boy was with us. I dozed off for a while, but along toward sun-up I remembered that Red Chief had said I was to be burned at the stake at the rising of the sun. I wasn’t nervous or afraid; but I sat up and lit my pipe and leaned against a rock.

‘What you getting up so soon for, Sam?’ asked Bill.

‘Me?’ says I. ‘Oh, I got a kind of a pain in my shoulder. I thought sitting up would rest it.’

‘You’re a liar!’ says Bill. ‘You’re afraid. You was to be burned at sunrise, and you was afraid he’d do it. And he would, too, if he could find a match. Ain’t it awful, Sam? Do you think anybody will pay out money to get a little imp like that back home?’

‘Sure,’ said I. ‘A rowdy kid like that is just the kind that parents dote on. Now, you and the Chief get up and cook breakfast, while I go up on the top of this mountain and reconnoitre.’

I went up on the peak of the little mountain and ran my eye over the contiguous vicinity. Over toward Summit I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the dastardly kidnappers. But what I saw was a peaceful landscape dotted with one man ploughing with a dun mule. Nobody was dragging the creek; no couriers dashed hither and yon, bringing tidings of no news to the distracted parents. There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view. ‘Perhaps,’ says I to myself, ‘it has not yet been discovered that the wolves have borne away the tender lambkin from the fold. Heaven help the wolves!’ says I, and I went down the mountain to breakfast.

When I got to the cave I found Bill backed up against the side of it, breathing hard, and the boy threatening to smash him with a rock half as big as a cocoanut.

‘He put a red-hot boiled potato down my back,’ explained Bill, ‘and then mashed it with his foot; and I boxed his ears. Have you got a gun about you, Sam?’

I took the rock away from the boy and kind of patched up the argument. ‘I’ll fix you,’ says the kid to Bill. ‘No man ever yet struck the Red Chief but what he got paid for it. You better beware!’

Our position beneath the shelter of the skiff was utterly devoid of comfort; it was narrow and damp, tiny cold drops of rain dribbled through the damaged bottom; gusts of wind penetrated it. We sat in silence and shivered with cold. I remembered that I wanted to go to sleep. Natasha leaned her back against the hull of the boat and curled herself up into a tiny ball. Embracing her knees with her hands, and resting her chin upon them, she stared doggedly at the river with wide-open eyes; on the pale patch of her face they seemed immense, because of the blue marks below them. She never moved, and this immobility and silence–I felt it–gradually produced within me a terror of my neighbour. I wanted to talk to her, but I knew not how to begin.

It was she herself who spoke.

“What a cursed thing life is!” she exclaimed plainly, abstractedly, and in a tone of deep conviction.

But this was no complaint. In these words there was too much of indifference for a complaint. This simple soul thought according to her understanding–thought and proceeded to form a certain conclusion which she expressed aloud, and which I could not confute for fear of contradicting myself. Therefore I was silent, and she, as if she had not noticed me, continued to sit there immovable.

“Even if we croaked … what then…?” Natasha began again, this time quietly and reflectively, and still there was not one note of complaint in her words. It was plain that this person, in the course of her reflections on life, was regarding her own case, and had arrived at the conviction that in order to preserve herself from the mockeries of life, she was not in a position to do anything else but simply “croak”–to use her own expression.

The clearness of this line of thought was inexpressibly sad and painful to me, and I felt that if I kept silence any longer I was really bound to weep… And it would have been shameful to have done this before a woman, especially as she was not weeping herself. I resolved to speak to her.

“Who was it that knocked you about?” I asked. For the moment I could not think of anything more sensible or more delicate.

“Pashka did it all,” she answered in a dull and level tone.

“And who is he?”

“My lover… He was a baker.”

“Did he beat you often?”

“Whenever he was drunk he beat me… Often!”

And suddenly, turning towards me, she began to talk about herself, Pashka, and their mutual relations. He was a baker with red moustaches and played very well on the banjo. He came to see her and greatly pleased her, for he was a merry chap and wore nice clean clothes. He had a vest which cost fifteen rubles and boots with dress tops. For these reasons she had fallen in love with him, and he became her “creditor.” And when he became her creditor he made it his business to take away from her the money which her other friends gave to her for bonbons, and, getting drunk on this money, he would fall to beating her; but that would have been nothing if he hadn’t also begun to “run after” other girls before her very eyes.

“Now, wasn’t that an insult? I am not worse than the others. Of course that meant that he was laughing at me, the blackguard. The day before yesterday I asked leave of my mistress to go out for a bit, went to him, and there I found Dimka sitting beside him drunk. And he, too, was half seas over. I said, ‘You scoundrel, you!’ And he gave me a thorough hiding. He kicked me and dragged me by the hair. But that was nothing to what came after. He spoiled everything I had on–left me just as I am now! How could I appear before my mistress? He spoiled everything … my dress and my jacket too–it was quite a new one; I gave a fiver for it … and tore my kerchief from my head… Oh, Lord! What will become of me now?” she suddenly whined in a lamentable overstrained voice.

The wind howled, and became ever colder and more boisterous… Again my teeth began to dance up and down, and she, huddled up to avoid the cold, pressed as closely to me as she could, so that I could see the gleam of her eyes through the darkness.

“What wretches all you men are! I’d burn you all in an oven; I’d cut you in pieces. If any one of you was dying I’d spit in his mouth, and not pity him a bit. Mean skunks! You wheedle and wheedle, you wag your tails like cringing dogs, and we fools give ourselves up to you, and it’s all up with us! Immediately you trample us underfoot… Miserable loafers’”

She cursed us up and down, but there was no vigour, no malice, no hatred of these “miserable loafers” in her cursing that I could hear. The tone of her language by no means corresponded with its subject-matter, for it was calm enough, and the gamut of her voice was terribly poor.

Yet all this made a stronger impression on me than the most eloquent and convincing pessimistic bocks and speeches, of which I had read a good many and which I still read to this day. And this, you see, was because the agony of a dying person is much more natural and violent than the most minute and picturesque descriptions of death.

I felt really wretched–more from cold than from the words of my neighbour. I groaned softly and ground my teeth.

Almost at the same moment I felt two little arms about me–one of them touched my neck and the other lay upon my face–and at the same time an anxious, gentle, friendly voice uttered the question:

“What ails you?”

I was ready to believe that some one else was asking me this and not Natasha, who had just declared that all men were scoundrels, and expressed a wish for their destruction. But she it was, and now she began speaking quickly, hurriedly.

“What ails you, eh? Are you cold? Are you frozen? Ah, what a one you are, sitting there so silent like a little owl! Why, you should have told me long ago that you were cold. Come … lie on the ground … stretch yourself out and I will lie … there! How’s that? Now put your arms round me?… tighter! How’s that? You shall be warm very soon now… And then we’ll lie back to back… The night will pass so quickly, see if it won’t. I say … have you too been drinking?… Turned out of your place, eh?… It doesn’t matter.”

And she comforted me… She encouraged me.

May I be thrice accursed! What a world of irony was in this single fact for me! Just imagine! Here was I, seriously occupied at this very time with the destiny of humanity, thinking of the re-organisation of the social system, of political revolutions, reading all sorts of devilishly-wise books whose abysmal profundity was certainly unfathomable by their very authors–at this very time. I say, I was trying with all my might to make of myself “a potent active social force.” It even seemed to me that I had partially accomplished my object; anyhow, at this time, in my ideas about myself, I had got so far as to recognise that I had an exclusive right to exist, that I had the necessary greatness to deserve to live my life, and that I was fully competent to play a great historical part therein. And a woman was now warming me with her body, a wretched, battered, hunted creature, who had no place and no value in life, and whom I had never thought of helping till she helped me herself, and whom I really would not have known how to help in any way even if the thought of it had occurred to me.

Ah! I was ready to think that all this was happening to me in a dream–in a disagreeable, an oppressive dream.

But, ugh! it was impossible for me to think that, for cold drops of rain were dripping down upon me, the woman was pressing close to me, her warm breath was fanning my face, and–despite a slight odor of vodka–it did me good. The wind howled and raged, the rain smote upon the skiff, the waves splashed, and both of us, embracing each other convulsively, nevertheless shivered with cold. All this was only too real, and I am certain that nobody ever dreamed such an oppressive and horrid dream as that reality.

But Natasha was talking all the time of something or other, talking kindly and sympathetically, as only women can talk. Beneath the influence of her voice and kindly words a little fire began to burn up within me, and something inside my heart thawed in consequence.

Then tears poured from my eyes like a hailstorm, washing away from my heart much that was evil, much that war, stupid, much sorrow and dirt which had fastened upon it before that night. Natasha comforted me.

“Come, come, that will do, little one! Don’t take on! That’ll do! God will give you another chance … you will right yourself and stand in your proper place again … and it will be all right…”

And she kept kissing me … many kisses did she give me … burning kisses … and all for nothing…

Those were the first kisses from a woman that had ever been bestowed upon me, and they were the best kisses too, for all the subsequent kisses cost me frightfully dear, and really gave me nothing at all in exchange.

“Come, don’t take on so, funny one! I’ll manage for you to-morrow if you cannot find a place.” Her quiet persuasive whispering sounded in my ears as if it came through a dream…

There we lay till dawn…

And when the dawn came, we crept from behind the skiff and went into the town… Then we took friendly leave of each other and never met again, although for half a year I searched in every hole and corner for that kind Natasha, with whom I spent the autumn night just described.

If she be already dead–and well for her if it were so–may she rest in peace! And if she be alive … still I say “Peace to her soul!” And may the consciousness of her fall never enter her soul … for that would be a superfluous and fruitless suffering if life is to be lived…

Having sold during the first few days every part of my costume without which it was still possible to go about, I passed from the town into the quarter called “Yste,” where were the steamship wharves–a quarter which during the navigation season fermented with boisterous, laborious life, but now was silent and deserted, for we were in the last days of October.

Dragging my feet along the moist sand, and obstinately scrutinising it with the desire to discover in it any sort of fragment of food, I wandered alone among the deserted buildings and warehouses, and thought how good it would be to get a full meal.

In our present state of culture hunger of the mind is more quickly satisfied than hunger of the body. You wander about the streets, you are surrounded by buildings not bad-looking from the outside and–you may safely say it–not so badly furnished inside, and the sight of them may excite within you stimulating ideas about architecture, hygiene, and many other wise and high-flying subjects. You may meet warmly and neatly dressed folks–all very polite, and turning away from you tactfully, not wishing offensively to notice the lamentable fact of your existence. Well, well, the mind of a hungry man is always better nourished and healthier than the mind of the well-fed man; and there you have a situation from which you may draw a very ingenious conclusion in favour of the ill fed.

The evening was approaching, the rain was falling, and the wind blew violently from the north. It whistled in the empty booths and shops, blew into the plastered window-panes of the taverns, and whipped into foam the wavelets of the river which splashed noisily on the sandy shore, casting high their white crests, racing one after another into the dim distance, and leaping impetuously over one another’s shoulders. It seemed as if the river felt the proximity of winter, and was running at random away from the fetters of ice which the north wind might well have flung upon her that very night. The sky was heavy and dark; down from it swept incessantly scarcely visible drops of rain, and the melancholy elegy in nature all around me was emphasised by a couple of battered and misshapen willow-trees and a boat, bottom upwards, that was fastened to their roots.

The overturned canoe with its battered keel and the miserable old trees rifled by the cold wind–everything around me was bankrupt, barren, and dead, and the sky flowed with undryable tears… Everything around was waste and gloomy … it seemed as if everything were dead, leaving me alone among the living, and for me also a cold death waited.

I was then eighteen years old–a good time!

I walked and walked along the cold wet sand, making my chattering teeth warble in honour of cold and hunger, when suddenly, as I was carefully searching for something to eat behind one of the empty crates, I perceived behind it, crouching on the ground, a figure in woman’s clothes dank with the rain and clinging fast to her stooping shoulders. Standing over her, I watched to see what she was doing. It appeared that she was digging a trench in the sand with her hands–digging away under one of the crates.

“Why are you doing that?” I asked, crouching down on my heels quite close to her.

She gave a little scream and was quickly on her legs again. Now that she stood there staring at me, with her wide-open grey eyes full of terror, I perceived that it was a girl of my own age, with a very pleasant face embellished unfortunately by three large blue marks. This spoilt her, although these blue marks had been distributed with a remarkable sense of proportion, one at a time, and all were of equal size–two under the eyes, and one a little bigger on the forehead just over the bridge of the nose. This symmetry was evidently the work of an artist well inured to the business of spoiling the human physiognomy.

The girl looked at me, and the terror in her eyes gradually died out… She shook the sand from her hands, adjusted her cotton head-gear, cowered down, and said:

“I suppose you too want something to eat? Dig away then! My hands are tired. Over there”–she nodded her head in the direction of a booth–”there is bread for certain … and sausages too… That booth is still carrying on business.”

I began to dig. She, after waiting a little and looking at me, sat down beside me and began to help me.

We worked in silence. I cannot say now whether I thought at that moment of the criminal code, of morality, of proprietorship, and all the other things about which, in the opinion of many experienced persons, one ought to think every moment of one’s life. Wishing to keep as close to the truth as possible, I must confess that apparently I was so deeply engaged in digging under the crate that I completely forgot about everything else except this one thing: What could be inside that crate?

The evening drew on. The grey, mouldy, cold fog grew thicker and thicker around us. The waves roared with a hollower sound than before, and the rain pattered down on the boards of that crate more loudly and more frequently. Somewhere or other the night-watchman began springing his rattle.

“Has it got a bottom or not?” softly inquired my assistant. I did not understand what she was talking about, and I kept silence.

“I say, has the crate got a bottom? If it has we shall try in vain to break into it. Here we are digging a trench, and we may, after all, come upon nothing but solid boards. How shall we take them off? Better smash the lock; it is a wretched lock.”

Good ideas rarely visit the heads of women, but, as you see, they do visit them sometimes. I have always valued good ideas, and have always tried to utilise them as far as possible.

Having found the lock, I tugged at it and wrenched off the whole thing. My accomplice immediately stooped down and wriggled like a serpent into the gaping-open, four cornered cover of the crate whence she called to me approvingly, in a low tone:

“You’re a brick!”

Nowadays a little crumb of praise from a woman is dearer to me than a whole dithyramb from a man, even though he be more eloquent than all the ancient and modern orators put together. Then, however, I was less amiably disposed than I am now, and, paying no attention to the compliment of my comrade, I asked her curtly and anxiously:

“Is there anything?”

In a monotonous tone she set about calculating our discoveries.

“A basketful of bottles–thick furs–a sunshade–an iron pail.”

All this was uneatable. I felt that my hopes had vanished… But suddenly she exclaimed vivaciously:

“Aha! here it is!”

“What?”

“Bread … a loaf … it’s only wet … take it!”

A loaf flew to my feet and after it herself, my valiant comrade. I had already bitten off a morsel, stuffed it in my mouth, and was chewing it…

“Come, give me some too!… And we mustn’t stay here… Where shall we go?” she looked inquiringly about on all sides… It was dark, wet, and boisterous.

“Look! there’s an upset canoe yonder … let us go there.”

“Let us go then!” And off we set, demolishing our booty as we went, and filling our mouths with large portions of it… The rain grew more violent, the river roared; from somewhere or other resounded a prolonged mocking whistle–just as if Someone great who feared nobody was whistling down all earthly institutions and along with them this horrid autumnal wind and us its heroes. This whistling made my heart throb painfully, in spite of which I greedily went on eating, and in this respect the girl, walking on my left hand, kept even pace with me.

“What do they call you?” I asked her–why I know not.

“Natasha,” she answered shortly, munching loudly.

I stared at her. My heart ached within me; and then I stared into the mist before me, and it seemed to me as if the inimical countenance of my Destiny was smiling at me enigmatically and coldly.

Brantain sat in one of these shadows; it had overtaken him and he did not mind. The obscurity lent him courage to keep his eves fastened as ardently as he liked upon the girl who sat in the firelight.

She was very handsome, with a certain fine, rich coloring that belongs to the healthy brune type. She was quite composed, as she idly stroked the satiny coat of the cat that lay curled in her lap, and she occasionally sent a slow glance into the shadow where her companion sat. They were talking low, of indifferent things which plainly were not the things that occupied their thoughts. She knew that he loved her—a frank, blustering fellow without guile enough to conceal his feelings, and no desire to do so. For two weeks past he had sought her society eagerly and persistently. She was confidently waiting for him to declare himself and she meant to accept him. The rather insignificant and unattractive Brantain was enormously rich; and she liked and required the entourage which wealth could give her.

During one of the pauses between their talk of the last tea and the next reception the door opened and a young man entered whom Brantain knew quite well. The girl turned her face toward him. A stride or two brought him to her side, and bending over her chair—before she could suspect his intention, for she did not realize that he had not seen her visitor—he pressed an ardent, lingering kiss upon her lips.

Brantain slowly arose; so did the girl arise, but quickly, and the newcomer stood between them, a little amusement and some defiance struggling with the confusion in his face.

“I believe,” stammered Brantain, “I see that I have stayed too long. I—I had no idea—that is, I must wish you good-by.” He was clutching his hat with both hands, and probably did not perceive that she was extending her hand to him, her presence of mind had not completely deserted her; but she could not have trusted herself to speak.

“Hang me if I saw him sitting there, Nattie! I know it’s deuced awkward for you. But I hope you’ll forgive me this once—this very first break. Why, what’s the matter?”

“Don’t touch me; don’t come near me,” she returned angrily. “What do you mean by entering the house without ringing?”

“I came in with your brother, as I often do,” he answered coldly, in self-justification. “We came in the side way. He went upstairs and I came in here hoping to find you. The explanation is simple enough and ought to satisfy you that the misadventure was unavoidable. But do say that you forgive me, Nathalie,” he entreated, softening.

“Forgive you! You don’t know what you are talking about. Let me pass. It depends upon—a good deal whether I ever forgive you.”

At that next reception which she and Brantain had been talking about she approached the young man with a delicious frankness of manner when she saw him there.

“Will you let me speak to you a moment or two, Mr. Brantain?” she asked with an engaging but perturbed smile. He seemed extremely unhappy; but when she took his arm and walked away with him, seeking a retired corner, a ray of hope mingled with the almost comical misery of his expression. She was apparently very outspoken.

“Perhaps I should not have sought this interview, Mr. Brantain; but—but, oh, I have been very uncomfortable, almost miserable since that little encounter the other afternoon. When I thought how you might have misinterpreted it, and believed things” —hope was plainly gaining the ascendancy over misery in Brantain’s round, guileless face—”Of course, I know it is nothing to you, but for my own sake I do want you to understand that Mr. Harvy is an intimate friend of long standing. Why, we have always been like cousins—like brother and sister, I may say. He is my brother’s most intimate associate and often fancies that he is entitled to the same privileges as the family. Oh, I know it is absurd, uncalled for, to tell you this; undignified even,” she was almost weeping, “but it makes so much difference to me what you think of—of me.” Her voice had grown very low and agitated. The misery had all disappeared from Brantain’s face.

“Then you do really care what I think, Miss Nathalie? May I call you Miss Nathalie?” They turned into a long, dim corridor that was lined on either side with tall, graceful plants. They walked slowly to the very end of it. When they turned to retrace their steps Brantain’s face was radiant and hers was triumphant.

Harvy was among the guests at the wedding; and he sought her out in a rare moment when she stood alone.

“Your husband,” he said, smiling, “has sent me over to kiss you. ”

A quick blush suffused her face and round polished throat. “I suppose it’s natural for a man to feel and act generously on an occasion of this kind. He tells me he doesn’t want his marriage to interrupt wholly that pleasant intimacy which has existed between you and me. I don’t know what you’ve been telling him,” with an insolent smile, “but he has sent me here to kiss you.”

She felt like a chess player who, by the clever handling of his pieces, sees the game taking the course intended. Her eyes were bright and tender with a smile as they glanced up into his; and her lips looked hungry for the kiss which they invited.

“But, you know,” he went on quietly, “I didn’t tell him so, it would have seemed ungrateful, but I can tell you. I’ve stopped kissing women; it’s dangerous.”

Well, she had Brantain and his million left. A person can’t have everything in this world; and it was a little unreasonable of her to expect it.