WORK ON A NATIONAL FOREST 



399 



bv putting into his soul a passionate 

 desire for some larger thing. Nor can 

 we ever help another until we learn 

 how to take help from him. 



I know a splendid ranger, great and 

 joyous, who once said of his super- 

 visor : "He makes me feel as if I was 

 going to be on trial for my life pretty 

 soon, with just a hair of prejudice 

 against me in the mind of the court." 

 It was said at a camp-fire ; it drifted 

 wide, and came to be the final judg- 

 ment of the mountains. Somehow the 

 "personal equation" had been cast out 

 of the balances, you see, and when that 

 falls to the ground there is very little 

 left. 



I heard of a ranger once, who said to 

 his superior officer, 'T like this new 

 work of mine so much better than what 

 I used to do." 



"Yes," said the officer, "all of us are 

 delighted w'ith your success." 



"It was the best thing I ever did, to 

 ask you to change me out of grazing 

 into timber. You know that time you 

 came along under these sugar pines, 

 about midnight, and tumbled into my 

 tent, and we had breakfast by star- 

 light, and we talked of when we were 

 boys, you in Maine and me in Cali- 

 fornia? Then we talked about the 

 work, and I was some worried because 

 people was saying I was doin' things 

 badly (but I never telled you how I 

 felt). Then somehow we began to talk 

 about timber, and it come to me sudden- 

 like that I belonged there." 



'T remember all about it, Jim ; and I 

 thought then what a good suggestion 

 you had made." 



The officer rode away a little later, 

 and as he looked back to the tent, he 

 thought to himself : "How good it is 

 that amongst us we were able to tune 

 that harp without breaking a string ; 

 not one is even frayed. It was worth 

 the trouble." 



Only the blue-eyed wife of that old 

 officer, who had been a ranger him- 

 self, and an inspector and a supervisor 

 and many things besides, knew how 

 slowly, patiently, for weeks on end, he 

 had dropped into that grazing ranger's 

 mind some seeds of the thought that 

 3 



while it was better fun to work in tim- 

 ber, he had really been a pretty decent 

 grazing man, and gained friends for the 

 Service, and was truly making the 

 transfer himself. 



"Now, why did you take all that 

 trouble?" she had once asked, a little 

 anxious lest her man should not have 

 enough sleep. "It is the first duty of a 

 subordinate, surely, to do what he is 

 told to do." 



"That is true," he replied. 'Tt is 

 dead easy to force an issue. But what 

 we must have is the highest possible 

 loyalty of the man to the Service, paid 

 for not in coin of the realm, but in as 

 absolute a loyalty of the Service to 

 the individual. The Service must never 

 destroy, nor in the slightest degree in- 

 jure, even for an hour, the honorable 

 self-respect of the least of its faithful 

 servants. If it often does that, the ax 

 is laid at the root of the tree." 



"Yes; I know that your personnel 

 reports have cost you more thought 

 than all else put together." 



"Certainly ; for the divine 'personal 

 equation' is the best thing there is in 

 human nature. Yield to it, use it, guide 

 it, until out of each separate tempera- 

 ment you get the pure flame of that 

 unquestioning loyalty that knows itself 

 honored and understood." 



"But Jim often did poorly as a graz- 

 ing ranger, and you never told him so." 



"He did the very best he knew how, 

 for several years, openly and eagerly. 

 He did many things so well that the 

 memory of them will long remain. It 

 is a part of my business to carry every 

 honest ranger over such hard places." 



"I can hardly understand that." 



"Because the Service had justly ac- 

 cepted responsibility for him, on the 

 whole, for several years. It was merely 

 a question of getting him where he 

 could do better work for the Service 

 which he loved utterly. Even if it had 

 been worse^ no truly wise official could 

 run the risk of taking away from him 

 all that gave him value — his self- 

 respect." 



"But how about his temperamental 

 faults and blunders?" 



"All of us have those. There are 



