The Uncalled by Paul Laurence Dunbar — Free Audiobook

1 01 - Chapter 1 11:37

The Uncalled by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Chapter One. It was about six o'clock of a winter's morning. In the eastern sky, faint streaks of gray had come, and were succeeded by flashes of red crimson-cloaked heralds of the coming day. It had snowed the day before, but a warm wind had sprung up during the night, and the snow had partially melted, leaving the earth showing through in ugly patches of yellow clay, and sooty mud, half despoiled of their white mantle, though with enough of it left to stand out in bold contrast to the bare places, the houses loomed up, black, dripping, and hideous. Every once in a while the wind caught the water as it trickled from the eaves and sent it flying abroad in a chill, unsparkling spray.

The morning came in, cold, damp, and dismal. At the end of a short, dirty street in the meanest part of the small Ohio town of Dexter stood a house more sagging and dilapidated in appearance than its disreputable fellows. From the foundation the walls converged to the roof, which seemed to hold its place less by virtue of nails and rafters than by faith. The whole aspect of the dwelling, if dwelling it could be called, was as if Conscious of its own meanness, it was shrinking away from its neighbors and into itself. A sickly light gleamed from one of the windows. As the dawn came into the sky, a woman came to the door and looked out. She was a slim woman, and her straggling, dusty colored hair hung about an unpleasant, sallow face.

She shaded her eyes. With her hand as if the faint light could hurt those cold steel-gray orbs. It's morning, she said to those within. I'll have to be going along to get my man's breakfast. He goes to work at six o'clock, and I ain't got a thing cooked in the house for him. Some of the rest, you all have to stay and lay her out. She went back in and closed the door behind her. Law, Miss Warren, you ain't a-going already. Why, there's everything to be done here yet. Margaret's to be laid out, and this house has to be put into some kind of order before the undertaker comes. I should like to know what else I'm a going to do, Miss Austen. Charity begins at home. My man's got to go to work, and he's got to have his breakfast.

"'There's cares for the living as well as for the dead, I say, and I don't believe in trying to be so good to them that's gone that you forget them that's with you.' Mrs. Austin pinched up her shriveled face a bit more as she replied, "'Well, somebody ought to stay. I know I can't, for I've got a terrible big washin' waitin' for me at home, and it's been two nights since I've had any sleep to speak of watchin' here.' and Purdy near broke down. "'That's just what I've been a-saying,' repeated Mrs. Warren. "'There's cares for the living as well as for the dead. You'd ought to take care o'yourself first thing you know you'll be flat o' your own back.' A few of the women joined their voices in the general protest against staying.

It was for all the world as if they had been anxious to see the poor woman Out of the world, and now that they knew her to be gone, had no further concern for her. All had something to do, either husbands to get off to work, or labors of their own to perform. A little woman with a weak voice finally changed the current of talk by saying, Well, I guess I can stay. There's some cold things at home that my man can get, and the children'll get off to school by themselves. All understand. That's right, Melissa Davis said, a hard-faced woman who had gone on about some work she was doing without taking any notice of the clamorous deserters. And I'll stay with you. I guess I've got about as much work to do as any of you, she added, casting a cold glance at the women who were now wrapped up and ready to depart.

And I wasn't so much of a friend of Margaret's. As some of you, neither, but on an occasion like this I know what duty is. And Miss Hester Prime closed her lips in a very decided fashion. Oh, well, some folks is so well off in money and time that they can afford to be liberal with a poor creature like Margert. Even if they didn't have nothing to do with her before she died. Miss Prime's face grew sterner as she replied, Margert Brent wasn't my kind during life. And that I make no bones o'-sayin' here and now, but when she got down on the bed of affliction, I done what I could for her along with the best o' you. And you, Mandy Warren, that's seen me here day in and day out, ought to be the last one to deny that.

Furthermore, I didn't advise her to leave her husband, as some people did, but I did put in a word and help her to work so's to try to keep her straight afterwards, though it ain't for me to be a bragging about what I done, even to offset them that didn't do nothing. This parting shot told, and Mrs. Warren flared up like a wax. Light, it's a wonder your old tracks and the help you give her didn't keep her sober sometimes. If I couldn't keep her sober, I wasn't one of them that set and took part with her when she was getting drunk. Sh-sh, broke in Mrs. Davis. If I was you, too, I wouldn't go on that way. Margert's dead and gone now, and what's past is past. Poor soul, she had a hard enough time almost to drive her to destruction, but it's all over now, and we ought to put her away, as peaceful as possible.

The women, who had all been in such a hurry, had waited at the prospect of an altercation, but seeing it about to blow over, they bethought themselves of their neglected homes and husbands, and passed out behind the still irate Mrs. Warren, who paused long enough in earshot to say, "'I hope that spiteful old maid'll have her hands full.'" The scene within the room which the women had just left was anything but an inviting one. The place was miserable dirty. Margaret had never been a particularly neat housewife, even in her well days. The old rag carpet which disfigured the floor was worn into shreds and blotched with grease, for the chamber was cooking and dining, as well as sleeping room. A stove, red with rust, struggled to send forth some heat.

The orly black kerosene lamp showed a sickly yellow flame through the grimy chimney. On a pallet in one corner lay a child sleeping, On the bed, covered with a dingy sheet, lay the stark form out of which the miserable life had so lately passed. The women opened the blinds, blew out the light, and began performing the necessary duties for the dead. Anyhow, let her body go clean. Before her maker, said Miss Hester Prime severely. Don't be too hard on the poor soul, Miss Hester returned Mrs. Davis. She had a hard time of it, I knowed, Margarit, when she wasn't so low down as in her last days. She oughtn't never to a left her husband. Oh, if you'd a knowed him as I did, Miss Hester, you wouldn't never say that.

He was a brute. Sich Beaton's as he used to give her when he was in liquor, you never heared tell of. That was hard, but as long as he was a husband, he was a protection to her name. True enough, protection is a good dish, but a Beaton's a purty bitter sauce to take with it. I wonder what's ever become of Brent's. Lord knows no one ain't heerd hidin' er hair o him since he went away from town. People thought that he was a hangin' around, tryin' to git a chance to kill Mag after she got her divorce from him, but all at once he packed off without sayin' a word to anybody. I guess he's drunk himself to death by this time. When they had finished with Margaret, the women set to work to clean up the house.

The city physician who had attended the dead woman In her last hours had reported the case for County Burial, and the undertaker was momentarily expected. We'll have to get the child up and get his palate out of the way, so the floor can be swept. A body hates to wake the poor little motherless dear. Perhaps after all, the child is better off without her example. Yes, Miss Hester, perhaps, but a mother after all is a mother. Even sich as one is this. Even sich A one as this. Mrs. Davis bent over the child and was about to lift him. When he stirred, opened his eyes, and sat up of his own accord, he appeared about five years of age. He might have been a handsome child, but hardship and poor feeding had taken away his infantile plumpness, and he looked old and haggard even beneath the grime on his face.

The kindly woman lifted him up and began to dress him. "'I want my mamma,' said the child. Neither of the women answered. There was something tugging at their heartstrings that killed speech. Finally, the little woman said, I don't know if we did right to let him sleep through it all, but then it was such a horrible death. When she had finished dressing the child, she led him to the bed and showed him his mother's face. He touched it with his little grimy finger, and then as if young as he was, the realization of his bereavement had fully come to him. He burst into tears. Miss Hester turned her face away, but Mrs. Davis did not try to conceal her tears. She took the boy up in her arms and comforted him the best she could.

"'Don't cry, Freddy,' she said. "'Don't cry. Mama's restin.' "'If you don't care, Miss Prime, I'll take him over home and give him some breakfast and leave him with my oldest girl, Sophie. She can stay out of school today. I'll bring you back a cup of tea, too. That is, if you ain't afeared.' "'Afeared o' what?' exclaimed Miss Prime, turning on her. Well, you know Miss Hester being left alone. Ah, some people air funny about. I'm no fool, Melissa Davis. Take the child and go on. Miss Hester was glad of the chance to be sharp. It covered the weakness to which she had almost given way at sight. Of the child's grief, she bustled on about her work when Mrs. Davis was gone, but her brow was knit into a wrinkle of deep thought.

A mother is a mother after all, she mused aloud. Even sich a one.

2 02 - Chapter 2 11:02

For haste, for unadulterated dispatch, commend me to the county burying. The body politic is busy and has no time to waste on an inert human body. It does its duty to its own interest, and to the pauper dead, when the body is dropped with all celerity, into the ground. The county is philosophical. It says, poor devil, the world was unkind to him. He'll be glad to get out of it. We'll be doing him a favor to put him at the earliest moment, out of sight and sound and feeling of the things that wounded him. Then, too, the quicker the cheaper. And that will make it easier on the taxpayers. This letter is so comforting, so the order is written, the funeral is rushed through, and the county goes home to its dinner, feeling well satisfied with itself.

So potent are the consolations of philosophy at so many hundreds per year. To this general order, poor Margaret's funeral proved no exception. The morning after her decease she was shrouded and laid in her cheap pine-coffin to await those last services which, in a provincial town, are the mead of saint and sinner alike. The room in which she lay was very clean, unnaturally so from the attention of Miss Prime. Clean muslin curtains had been put up at the windows, and the one cracked mirror which the house possessed had been Covered with white cloth. The lace, like carpet, had been taken off the floor, and the boards had been scrubbed white. The little stove in the corner, now cold, was no longer red with rust.

In a tumbler, on a little table at Margaret's Head, stood the only floral offering that gave a touch of tenderness to the grim scene. A bunch of homegrown scarlet and white geraniums, some woman had robbed her wintered room, Of this bit of brightness for the memory of the dead, the perfume of the flowers mingled heavily with the faint odor which pervades the chamber of death, an order that is like the reminiscence of sorrow. Like a spirit of order, with solemn face and quiet tread, Miss Hester moved about the room, placing one thing here, another there, but ever doing or changing something, all with maidenly neatness. What a childish fancy this is of humanity's, tiptoeing and whispering in the presence of death, as if one by an incautious word or a hasty step might wake the sleeper from such deep repose.

The service had been set for two o'clock in the afternoon. One or two women had already come in to sit, but by half-past one the general congregation began to arrive. and to take their places. They were mostly women. The hour of the day was partially responsible for this, but then men do not go to funerals anyway, if they can help it. They do not revel, like their sisters, in the exquisite pleasure of sorrow. Most of the women had known pain, and lost themselves, and came with ready sympathy, willing, nay, anxious, to be moved to tears. Some of them came dragging by one-hand children, dressed stiffly, uncomfortably, and ludicrously, a medley of soiled ribbons, big collars, wide bows, and very short knickerbockers.

The youngsters were mostly curious and ill-mannered, and ever and anon one had to be slapped by its mother into sniveling decorum. Mrs. Davis came in with one of her own children, and leading the dead woman's boy by the hand, at this a buzz of whispered conversation began. "'Poor little dear,' said one, as she settled the bow more securely under her own boy's sailor collar. "'Poor little dear, he's all alone in the world.' "'I never did see in all my life sich a young child look so sad,' said another. "'Hm,' put it in a third.' In this world, poor motherless children has plenty of reason to look sad, I tell you. She brushed the tears off the cheek of her little son, whom she had slapped a moment before she was tender now.

One woman bent down and whispered into her child's ear as she pointed with one cotton-gloved finger, See, Johnny, see, little Freddy, there. He ain't got no mother no more. Poor little Freddy, ain't you sorry for him? The child nodded and gazed with open-eyed wonder at little Freddy, as if he were of a new species. The curtains stirred by the blast through the loose windows flapped dismally, and the people drew their wraps about them, for the fireless room was cold. Steadily, insistently, the hive-like drone of conversation murmured on. "'I wonder who's a-goin' to preach the funeral?' asked one. Oh, Mr. Simpson of the Methodist Church, of course she used to go to that church years ago, you know, before she backslid.

That's just what I've allus said about people that falls from grace. You know the last state of that man is worse than the first. Ah, that's true enough. It's a putting your hand to the plowshare and then turning back. I wonder what the preacher'll Have to say for her it's a mighty hard case to preach about. I'm wondering, too, what he'll say and where he'll preach her. Well, it's hard to tell. You know, the Methodists believe that there's salvation to be found between the stirrup and the ground. It's a mighty comfort in doctrine, too. And then they do say that she left some dying testimony, though I ain't never here tell the straight of it. He can't preach her into heaven, of course. After her life, leastways it don't hardly seem like it would be right and proper.

Well, I don't think he can preach her into hell, neither. After a woman has gone through all that poor Margaret has, it seems to me, that the Lord ought to give her some consideration, even if men don't. I do declare, Celie Matthews, with your free-thinkin' and free-speakin, you're put nigh a infidel. No, I ain't no infidel neither, but I ain't one of them that sings when all thy mercies, O my God, and thinks of the Lord as if he was a great big cruel man. Well, I don't neither, but sh-sh. The woman's declaration of principle was cut short by the entrance of the minister, the Reverend Mr. Simpson. He was a tall, gaunt man in a coat of rusty black, His hair, of an indeterminate color, was slightly mixed with gray.

A pair of bright gray eyes looked out from underneath bushy eyebrows. His lips were close-set. His bony hands were large and ungainly. The Reverend Mr. Simpson had been a carpenter before he was called. He went immediately to the stand where lay the Bible and hymn-book. He was followed by a man who had entered with him, a man with soft eyes and a kindly face. He was as tall as the pastor and slender, but without the other's gauntness. He was evidently a church official of some standing. With strange inappropriateness, the preacher selected and gave out the hymn, Sister, thou wast mild and lovely, gentle as the summer's breeze. With some misgivings it was carried through in the wavering trouble of the women and the straggling bass of the few men.

Then the kindly-faced man, whom the preacher addressed as brother Hodges, knelt and offered prayer. The supplication was very tender and childlike. Even by the light of faith he did not seek to penetrate the veil of divine intention, nor did he throw his javelin of prayer straight against the deity's armor of eternal reserve. He left all to God, as a child lays its burden at its father's feet, and many eyes were moist as the people rose from their knees. The sermon was a noisy and rather inconsequential effort. The preacher had little to say, but he roared that little out in a harsh, unmusical voice, accompanied by much slapping of his hands and pounding of the table. Towards the end he lowered his voice and began to play upon the feelings of his willing hearers, and when he had won his meed of sobs and tears, when he had sufficiently probed old wounds and made them bleed afresh, When he had conjured up dead sorrows from the grave, when he had obscured the sun of heavenly hope with the vapors of earthly grief, he sat down satisfied.

The people went forward, some curiously, some with sympathy, to look their last on the miserable dead. Mrs. Davis led the weeping child forward and held him up for a last gaze on his mother's face. The poor geraniums were wiped and laid by the dead hands, and then the undertaker glided in like a stealthy black-garmented ghost. He screwed the pine-top down, and the coffin was borne out to the hearse. He clucked to his horses and with Brother Hodges and the preacher in front, and Mrs. Davis, Miss Prime, and the motherless boy behind the little funeral train moved down the street towards the graveyard—a common but pathetic spectacle. Mrs. Warren had remained behind to attend to the house. She watched the short procession out of sight.

I guess Margot didn't have no linen worth having, she said to herself, but I'll just look, and look she didn't, but without success, in disappointment and disgust she went out and took the streamer. of dusty black and dingy white crepe from the door where it had fluttered, and bringing it in, laid it on the empty trestles that the undertaker might find it when he came for them. She took the cloth off the mirror, and then with one searching look around to see that she had missed nothing worth taking, she went out, closing and locking the door behind her. "'I guess I'm as much entitled to anything Mag had as anyone else,' said Mrs. Warren.

3 03 - Chapter 3 16:26

By common consent, and without the formality of publication or proclamation, the women had agreed to meet on the day After the funeral for the purpose of discussing what was best to be done with the boy, Fred. From the moment that Mrs. Davis had taken charge of him, he had shown a love for her and confidence in her care that had thoroughly touched that good woman's heart. She would have liked nothing better than to keep him herself But there were already five hungry little Davises, and any avoidable addition to the family was out of the question. To be sure, in the course of time there were two more added to the number, but that was unavoidable, and is neither here nor there. The good woman sat looking at the boy the night after his mother.

had been laid away. He sat upon the floor among her own children, playing in the happy forgetfulness of extreme youth. But to the mother's keen eye there was still a vague sadness in his bearing. Involuntarily the scene and conditions were changed, and instead of poor Margaret, She herself had passed away, and was lying out there in a new-made grave in bleak and dreary woodland. She thought how her own bairns would be as motherless and forlorn as the child before her, and yet not quite either, for they had a father who loved them in his own quiet, undemonstrative way. This should have consoled her in the sorrows she had conjured up, but like a woman she thought of the father helpless and lonely when she had gone, with the children huddled cheerlessly about him, and a veil of tears came between her and the youngsters on the floor.

With a great rush of tenderness she went and picked the motherless boy up and laid his head. on her breast. Poor Freddy, she said. I wish you could stay here all the time and play with the other little ones. The child looked up at her with wondering eyes. I can stay till Mama comes back, he answered. But, Freddy, dear, Mama won't come back any more. She's... The woman hesitated. She's in heaven. I want my mamma to come back, moaned the child. I don't want her to stay in heaven. But you mustn't, cried Freddy, and some day you can go and see mamma. The child's curiosity got the better of his grief, he asked. Is heaven far, Miss Davis? Yes, dear, awful far, she answered, but she was wrong. Heaven is not far from the warm heart and tender hands of a good woman.

The child's head drooped, and he drowsed in her arms. Put him to bed, Melissa, poor little fellow, said her husband in husky tones. He had been listening and watching them around the edge of his paper. The child slept on while the woman undressed him and laid him in the bed. On the morrow, the women dropped in one by one until a half-dozen or more were there to plan the boys' future. They were all poor, and most of them had families of their own, but all hoped that there might be some plan devised whereby Margaret's boy might find a refuge without going to the orphan's asylum. An institution which is the detestation of women. Mrs. Davis, in expressing her feelings, expressed those of all the others.

I hate so to think of the poor little feller going to one o them children's homes, the boys going around in them their drab clothes o theirs. All us look like prisoners to me, and they ain't much better off. And then— Children do learn so much weakness in them places from the older ones put in another. Oh, as for that matter, he'll learn devilment soon enough anywhere, snapped Mrs. Warren, with that audacious father of his before him. I wouldn't take the child by no means, though his mother and me was friends, for blood's bound to tell, and with sich blood as he's got in him. I don't know what he'll come to, and I'm sure I don't want to be a raisin' no gallus birds. The women felt rather relieved that Mrs.

Warren so signally washed her hands of Freddy. That was one danger he had escaped. The woman in question had, as she said, been a close friend of Margaret's, and as such an aider in her habits of intemperance, It had been apprehended that her association with the mother might lead her to take the child. I'd like to take Freddy myself. Mrs. Davis began again, but with my five, and John out of work half the time. Another mouth to feed and another pair of feet to cover would mean a whole lot. Though I do think that if I was dead and my children was sent to that miserable orphan's home, I'd turn over in my grave. It's a pity we don't know some good family that ain't got no children. That'd take him and bring him up as their own son, said a little woman who took the harsh side.

Sitch people ain't growin' on trees. No place about Dexter, Mrs. Warren sniffed. Well, I'm sure I've read of sich things. If the child was in a book, it'd happen to him, but he ain't. He's a flesh and blood youngster and a living in Dexter. You couldn't give us no idee what to do, could you, Miss Austin? Lord love you, Miss Davis. I've jest been a settin' here. Purdy nigh a-thinkin' my head off, but I ain't seen a gleam o light yet. You know how I feel in just how glad I'd be to do something, but then my man growls about the three we've got. That's just the way with my man, said the little woman who took her ideas of life from the literature in the harsh side. He always says that poor folks oughtn't to have so many children.

Well, it's a blessing that Margaret... Didn't have no more, for goodness knows it's hard enough disposin' of this one. Just then a tap came at Mrs. Davis's door, and she opened it to admit Miss Hester Prime. "'I'm ruther lay gettin' here,' said the newcomer, "'but I've been a neglectin' my work, so in the last couple of days that I've had a power of it to do to-day to catch up.' "'Oh, we're so glad you've come,' said one of the women. Maybe you can help us out of our fix. We're in such a fix about little Freddy. We don't want to send the poor little dear to the children's home, broke in another. It's such an awful place for young children, and they do look so pitiful, and learn so much wickedness.

And as is the manner of women in council, they all began talking at once, Pouring into the newcomer's ears all the suggestions and objections, hopes and fears, that had been made or urged during their conference. Do it all, Miss Hester listened, and there was a soft glow on her face the while, but then she had been walking, which may account for the flush. The child, all unconscious that his destiny was being settled, was playing with two of the little Davises at the other end of the room. The three days of good food, good treatment, and pleasant surroundings had told on him, and he looked less forlorn and more like the child that he was. He was clean, his brown eyes were sparkling with amusement, and his brown hair was brushed up into the damp roach, so dear to a woman's heart.

He was thus a far less forbidding sight than on the morning of his mother's death, when dingy and haggard he rose from his dirty palate. As she listened to the varied remarks of her associates, Miss Hester allowed her eyes to wander to the child's face, and for a moment a tenderer expression grew about her lips, but in an instant it was gone. And as if she had been near committing herself to folly, she made amends by drawing her countenance into more than its usually severe lines. Mrs. Warren, who was always ready with a stave, and who had not forgotten her encounter two days ago, spoke up with a little malicious laugh, Miss Hester ain't got no family. Mibby she might take the child. Peers like she ought to be fond o children.

Mrs. Davis immediately came to the rescue. We don't expect no sich thing of Miss Hester. She's never been around children, and don't know nothing about taking care of them, and boys ae are hard to manage anyhow. Oh, I should think Miss Esther could manage most anything, was the sneering rejoinder. The women were aghast at such insolence they didn't know what the effect might be on Miss Prime. They looked at her in alarm. Her cold, grey eye impaled Mrs. Warren for an instant only, and then paying no more attention to her, she said quietly, I was thinking this whole matter. Over while I was finishing up my work to come here, and says I to myself, now there's Melissie Davis. She's the very one that'd be a mother to that child, says I, and she'd bring him up right as a child should be brought up.

I don't know no more mannerly, nice-appearing children in this neighborhood, or the whole town, for that matter, than Melissie's. Oh, Miss Hester faltered Mrs. Davis. But Miss Prime went on, unheeding the interruption. Thinks I'm Alyssie's got a houseful already, and she can't take another. Then you comes into my mind, Miss Austen, and says I. Law me, she's got three or so, and is young yet. She'll have her hands full to look after her own family. Well, I thought of you all. And some of you have families, and some of you have to go out for days' work, and then there's some people's hands I wouldn't want to see the child fall into. This was an annihilating glance in Mrs. Warren's direction. You know what the Bible says about the sins of the father?

Well, that child needs proper raising. So in this way the Lord showed it to me that it was my duty. to take up the burden myself. First there was an absolute silence of utter astonishment, and then, oh, Miss Hester, broke from a full chorus of voices. You don't really mean it, Miss Hester, said Mrs. Davis. I do that, but I want you all to understand that it ain't a matter of pleasure or desire with me. It's duty. If I see a chance to save a soul from perdition and don't take it, I'm responsible myself to the Lord for that soul. The women were almost too astounded to speak. Mrs. Warren, not less than the rest of them. She had made her suggestion in derision, and here it was being acted upon in sober earnest.

She was entirely routed. "'No, Melissa, if there ain't no one that disagrees with me, you might as well pack up what few things the child has, and I'll take him along.' "'No one objected, and the few things were packed up. Come, Freddy,' said Mrs. Davis, tremulously. "'Get on your hat.' The child obeyed. "'You're a-goin' to be Miss Hester's little boy, now. You must be good.' Miss Prime held out her hand to him. But the child drew back, and held to his protestress's skirt. A hurt expression came into the spinster's face. It was as if the great sacrifice she was making was being belittled and rejected by a child. Mrs. Warren laughed openly. "'Come, Freddy. Be nice now, dear. Go with Miss Hester.

I want to stay with you,' cried the child. Poor little dear, chorused the women. But Miss Davis can't keep the little boy. Now he must go with Miss Prime, and sometimes he can come and see Miss Davis and play with John and Harriet. Won't that be nice? I want to stay with you. Come, Frederick, said Miss Prime. Go now, like a good boy, repeated Mrs. Davis. Here's a copper for you. Take it in your little hand. That's a man. Now kiss me good-bye. Kiss, John, and Harriet. The child, seeing that he must go, had given up resistance, and doing as he was bidden, took Miss Prime's hand sobbingly. Some of us do not learn so soon to bow to the inevitable. "'Good-bye, ladies. I must give back to my work,' said Miss Hester.

"'Good-bye, good-bye, Miss Hester,' came the echo. The moment the door closed behind her and her charge, There was a volley of remarks. Oh, I do hope she'll be good to him. I wonder how she'll manage him. Poor child, he didn't want to go at all. Who would have thought it of Miss Hester? I wish I could have kept him myself, said Mrs. Davis, tearfully. It hurt my heart to see him cling to me so. Never, you mind, Melissa Davis. You've done your whole duty as well as you could. Mrs. Warren rose and put her shawl over her head. Preparatory to going. As for my part, she said, I'd a rather seen that child in the children's home. Devilment or no devilment than where he is. He won't dare to breathe from this hour on.

The women were silent for a moment, and then Mrs. Davis said, Well, Miss Hester's well meanin'.

4 04 - Chapter 4 15:21

Chapter Four at the top of the mean street on which Margaret's house was situated, and looking down upon its meaner neighbors in much the same way, that its mistress looked upon the denizens of the street, stood Miss Prime's cottage. It was not on the mean street, it would have disdained to be, but sat exactly facing it, in prim watchfulness over the unsavoury thoroughfare, which ran at right angles. The cottage was one and a half storeys in height, and the upper half storey Had two windows in front that looked out like a pair of accusing eyes. It was painted a dull lead color. In summer, the front yard was filled with flowers, hollyhocks, bachelor's buttons, sweet-william, and a dozen other varieties of blooms.

But they were planted with such exactness and straightness that the poor flowers looked cramped and artificial, And stiff as a party of angular ladies dressed in bombazine. Here was no riot, nor abandon in growth. Everything had its place, and stayed therein, or was plucked up. I just can't abide to see flowers growing every which way, Miss Prime used to remark. Fur all the world, like a neighborhood with different people's children, traipsin' through everybody else's house. Everything in order is my motto. Miss Hester had nearly arrived at her fortieth milestone, and she affected the paradox of looking both younger and older than her age. Younger because she had always taken excellent care of herself, Her form had still much of the roundness of youth, and her step was sprightly and firm.

She looked older than her age because of the strong lines in her face, the determined set of her lips, and the general air of knowledge and self-sufficiency which pervaded her whole being. Throughout her life she had sacrificed everything to duty, whether it was the yearning of her own heart, or the feelings of those who loved her. In the world about her she saw so much of froth and frivolity that she tried to balance matters by being especially staid and stern herself. She did not consider that in the see-saw of life it takes more than one person to toss up the weight of the world's wickedness. Her existence was governed by rigid rules from which she never departed. It is hard to explain just what Miss Hester's position was.

Among the denizens of the poorer quarter, she was liked and disliked, admired, and feared she would descend upon her victims with unasked counsel and undesired tracts. Her voice was a trumpet of scathing invective against their shiftlessness, their untidiness, and their immorality. But her hand was as a horn of plenty in straitened times, and her presence in sickness was a comfort. She made no pretence to being good-hearted. In fact, she resented the term as applied to herself. It was all duty with her. Up through the now-dismantled garden to the prim cottage, she led the boy Fred. The child had not spoken a word since he had left the house of his friend. His little heart seemed to be suddenly chilled within him.

Miss Hester had been equally silent. Her manner was constrained and embarrassed. She had indeed tried to find some words of soothing and encouragement to say to the child such as she had heard Melissa Davis use, but she could not. They were not a part of her life's vocabulary. Several times she had essayed to speak, but the sentences that formed in her mind seemed so absurd and awkward that she felt them better unsaid. It is true that every natural woman has the maternal instinct, but unless she has felt the soft face of a babe at her breast, and looked down into its eyes as it drew its life from her life, she can know nothing of that free-masonry of womanhood which by some secret means too deep and subtle for the knowledge of outsiders wins the love of childhood.

It is not so with men, because the childish mind does not demand so much of them, even though they be fathers. To be convinced look about you and see how many more bachelors than maids are favorites with children. Once within the house Miss Esther was At an entire loss as to what to do with her charge, she placed him in a chair, where he sat disconsolately. She went to the bookshelves and laid her hand upon Pilgrim's Progress. Then she reflected that Freddy was just five years old, and she allowed a smile to pass over her face, but her perplexity instantly chased the expression away. How on earth am I a-goin to do any work? She asked herself. I'm sure I can't set down and tell that child's stories all the time, as I've heared tell of folks doing.

What shall I do with him? She had had a vague idea that the time of children was taken up in some way. She knew, of course, that they had to be washed and dressed, that they had to eat three times a day, and after all to sleep. But what was to be done with them in the meantime? "'Oh!' sighed the poor woman, if he was only old enough to go to school. The wish was not entirely unmotherly, as motherhood goes in these days, for it is not an unusual thing for mothers to send their babes off to kindergarten as soon as they begin to babble, in order to be relieved of the responsibility of their care. But neither wishes nor hopes availed. It was a living, present situation with which—' Miss Hester had to grapple.

Suddenly she bethought herself that children liked pictures, and she secured from the shelf a copy of the Bible-looking-glass. This she opened and spread out on the child's knees. He glanced at it a moment or two, and then began to turn the leaves, his eyes riveted on the engravings. Miss Hester congratulated herself and slipped out to work. The thought came to her, of course, That the novelty of Bible-looking-glasses couldn't remain forever, but she put the idea by in scorn. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. The book was good while it lasted. It entertained the child and gave him valuable moral lessons. This was the woman's point of view. To Fred there was no suggestion of moral lessons.

It was merely a lot of very fine pictures. And when Miss Prime had gone, he relaxed some of his disconsolate stiffness, and entered into the contemplation of them with childish zest. His guardian, however, did not abandon her vigilance, and in a few minutes she peeped through the door from the kitchen where she was working to see how her charge got on. The sight which met her eyes Mater nearly dropped the cup which she held in her hand and with which she had been measuring out flour for a cup-cake. With the book spread out before him, Freddy was lying flat on his stomach on the floor, with his little heels contentedly kicking the air. His attitude was the expression of the acme of childish satisfaction.

Miss Prime's idea of floors was that they were to be walked on. Scrubbed, measured, and carpeted. She did not remember, in all the extent of her experience, to have seen one used as a reading-desk before, but she withdrew without a word. The child was quiet, and that was much. About this time, any one observing the cottage would have seen an old-fashioned phaeton to which a plump old nag was hitched, driven up to the door, and halted, and a man alight and enter at the gate. If the observer had been at Margaret's funeral, he would instantly have recognized the man as the Reverend Mr. Simpson's assistant, Mr. Hodges. The man walked deliberately around to the kitchen, and tapping at the door opened it without ceremony, and went in, calling out, Miss Hester, Miss Hester, I'm a-runnin' right in on you.

I do declare, Lifflet Hodges, you do beat all for droppin' in on a body at unexpected times. Well, I guess you're right. My coming's a good deal like the second coming of the son of man, Molby. I guess you're right. To Miss Prime, Ella Follett Hodges was always unexpected, although he had been dropping in this way before her mother and father died, twenty years gone. Well, I low, L'Volet, that you've heared the news. There ain't no grass grows under the feet of the talkers in this town, I tell you. Near me, a body can't turn around. With us settin' whole forest of tongues a-waggin every which way. Oh, well, Miss Hester, we got to low that to your sex. The women folks must talk. My sex? It ain't my sex only.

I know plenty o' men in this town who air bigger gossips than the women. I'll warrant you didn't git this piece o' news from no woman. Well, maybe I didn't, but I cuck'late the want no man there to git it fust-hand. Oh, I'll be bound. Some of the women had to go and tell a man the first thing. Some women can't get along without the men. And then again, some of them can. Miss Hester, some of them can. You'd just as well start at and say what you want to say without a beating about the bush. I know just as well as I know I'm a living that you've come to tell me that I was a fool for taking this child. Live a let. Don't pretend I know it. Oh, no, Miss Hester, I wouldn't. Das do nothin like that, you know.

He that calleth his brother a fool is in danger o hell-fire, and I low the Lord don't make it no easier when it happens to be a sister. No, Miss Hester, you know your own business best, and you've got along this fur without being guided by people. I guess you'll get through. But a child, Miss Hester, don't you think that it's a little bit rescue? Rescue? I don't see why. The child ain't a-goin to eat me or burn the house down. No, no, none of that. I don't mean that at all, but within you see, you ain't never had no—that is, you ain't had much expirance in the bringing up of children, especially boys. Much? I ain't had none, but I've been brought up. That's true, that's true, and a mighty good job your mother made of it, too.

I don't know of no espry or sterner woman around here at your age. "'At my age, Lifflet, you do talk as if I was about fifty. Well, if I do, I ain't a-saying what I want to say, so I'd better hush. Where is the little fellow?' For answer, Miss Prime pushed the door open, and bade him peep. Freddy was still upon the floor, absorbed in his book. The man's face lighted up. He pulled the door to long enough to say. I tell you, Miss Esther, that boy's a-goin to make a great reader, or a speaker, or somethin. Just look how wrapped up he is in that book. Well, I do hope and pray to goodness that he'll make somethin better than his father ever made. Evvie, don't under your train, and it'll be because there ain't nothin in him.

Come here, Freddy, called Hodges, pushing the door open. And holding out his hand with a smile, the child got up from the floor and came and put his hand in the outstretched one. "'Well, I declare,' exclaimed Miss Hester, "'I tried my level best to get that child to make up with me, and he wouldn't. It's just like I say, Miss Hester, you ain't never had no experience in raising children.' "'And how many have you ever raised, Le Follett?' The bachelor acknowledged defeat. by a sheepish smile, and turned again to the child. You want to go a-riding in my buggy, Freddy? Yes, sir, said the child unhesitatingly. All right, Uncle Lith. I'll take him out for a while. Get his hat in. Wrap him up, Miss Hester, so Jack Frost can't catch him.

The man stood smiling down into the child's face, the boy smiling back, tightened his grasp on the big hand. They were friends from that moment. Ella, Philip, Hodges, and Fred. They went out to the old Phaeton, with Miss Prime's parting injunction, ringing after them, "'Don't keep that child out in the cold too long, Liffelet, and bring him back here, Groopy.' "'Oh, now, don't you trouble yourself, Miss Hester. Me and Freddy Air a-goin to git along all right. We ain't a-goin to freeze, Air wee Freddy boy. Ah, not by a long shot. Not if Uncle Liff knows hisself.' All the time the genial man was talking, he was tucking the lap-robes snugly about the child and making him comfortable. Then he clucked to the old mare, and they rattled away.

There was a far-away look in Miss Prime's eyes, as she watched them till they turned the corner and were out of sight. I never did see such a man as Liffelet Hodges. Why, a body'd think that he'd been married and raised a whole houseful of children. He's worse'n an old hen, and it's marvellous the way. Frederick took to him. Everybody calls the child Freddy. I must learn to call him that. It will make him feel more homelike, though it does sound foolish. She went on with her work, but it was interrupted every now and then by strange fits of abstraction and reverie, an unusual thing for this bustling and practical spinster. But then there are few of us, but have had our hopes and dreams, and would be unfair to think that Miss Hester was an exception, for once she had broken through her own discipline, and in her own kitchen was spending precious moments and dreams, and all because a man and a child had rattled away in a rickety buggy.

5 05 - Chapter 5 10:49

V. The Uncalled.

"'Goodness, gracious, Miss Smith!' exclaimed Mrs. Martin, rushing excitedly into the house of her next-door neighbor. "'You'd ought to seen what I seen jest now.' Do tell Miss Martin what on airth was it. Oh, I'm sure you'd never guess in the wide wide world, and I'm jest as sure that I ain't a-goin to pester my head trying to, so go on and tell me what it was. Lawsy me, what next'll happen, and what does things mean anyhow? I can't tell you fer my part. I hain't heerd what things air yit. Mrs. Smith was getting angry. My, Miss Smith, don't git so impatient. Give me time to git my breath. It'll be enough when I do tell you to take away your breath, just like it did mine. Sally Martin, you do beat off for keepin a body on the hooks.

Tain't my fault, Miss Smith, I declare. I'm too astonished to speak. You know I was a standin' in my window, not a thinkin' nor expectin' nothin', just like any person would, you know. Yes, yes, go on. I was jest a-looking down the street, careless, when who should I see drive up to Miss Prime's door, and hitch his hoss, and go in for brother Lifflet Hodges. Well, sakes of life, Sally Martin, I hope you ain't a-considerin that strange. Why, you could a-seen that very same sight any time these fifteen years. But wait a minute till I tell you I ain't done yet by no means. The strange part ain't come. I thought I'd just wait at the window and see how long Brother Hodges would stay. Not that it was any of my business, of course, or that I wanted to be a spying on anybody, but sort of for curiosity, you know.

Certainly, said Mrs. Smith, feelingly. She could sympathize with such a sentiment. Well, after a while he come out a smilin' as pleasant as a basket o'chips, and I liked to fell through the winder, fur he was a leadin' by the hand. Who do you suppose? I ain't got a mortal idea who, said Mrs. Smith, unless it was Miss Hester, and they're married at last. No, indeed, twasn't her. It was that little Brent boy that his mother died the other day. Sally Martin, what'er you a tellin' me? It's the gospel truth, Melvinie Smith, as sure as I'm a sitting here. Now, what does it mean? The good Lord's only knows leaving that little Brent boy. If it wasn't you a sitting there telling me this, Miss Martin, I wouldn't believe it.

You don't suppose I just as took him to raise, do you? How in the name of mercy is he going to raise any child when there ain't no women folks about his house, except an old Marrier, and she's so blind and room-a-ticky that she can scarcely get about? Well, what's he a-doin with the child, then? That's just what I'm a-goin to find out. I'm a-goin down to Miss Prime's. Lend me your Shaw Malvini. You ain't never goin to dare to ask her air you. You just trust me to find things out without giving myself away. I won't never let her know what I want right out, but I'll talk it out of her. What a woman you air, Sally Martin, said Mrs. Smith admiringly. But do hurry back and tell me what she says. I'm just dyin to know.

"'I'll be back in little or no time, because I can't stay nohow.' Mrs. Martin threw the barred shawl over her head and set off down the street. She and her friend were not dwellers on the mean street, so they could pretend to so nearly an equal social footing with Miss Prime as to admit of an occasional neighborly call. Through the window Miss Prime saw her visitor approaching, and a grim smile curved the corners of her mouth. "'Come in for news?' muttered the spinster. She'll get all she wants before she goes, but there was no trace of suspicion in her manner as she opened the door at Mrs. Martin's rap. Hey, oh, Miss Esther, busy as usual, I see. Yes, indeed, people that try to do their duty ain't got much time for rest in this world.

No, indeed, it's dig, dig, dig, and work, work, work. Take off your shawl and sit down, Sally. It's a wonder you don't take your death a cold or git plumbful o neuralgy, a-running around in this weather with nothing but a shawl over your head. Law, Miss Esther, they say that worthless people's hard to kill. It ain't all as true, though, for there was poor Margaret Brayne. She wasn't worth much but mine. She went out like a match. Yes, but matches don't go out until their time, if they're... Held down right, and it's just so with people. That's true enough, Miss Esther. Was you to Margrit's funeral? Oh, yes, I went. Did you go out to the cemetery? Enfant! Did she look natural, just as natural as one could expect after a hard life and a hard death.

Poor Margrit, Mrs. Martin sighed. There was a long and embarrassed silence. Miss Prime's lips were compressed, and she seemed more aggressively busy than usual. She bustled about as if every minute were her last one. She brushed off tables, set chairs to rights, and tried the golden brown cupcake with a straw to see if it were done. Her visitor positively writhed with curiosity and discomfiture. Finally she began again. Margrit only had one child, didn't she? Yes, that was all. Poor little lamb. Motherless children has a hard time of it. Indeed, most of em do. Do you know what's become of the child, Miss Hester? Yes, I do, Sally Martin, and you do too, or you wouldn't be a settin' there beatin' about the bush askin' me all these questions.

This sudden outburst gave Mrs. Martin quite a turn, but she exclaimed, I declare to goodness, Miss Hester, I ain't heerd a livin' thing about it, only she checked herself, but a relentless hostess caught at the word and demanded, Only what, Miss Martin? Well, I seen brother Liffelet. Hodge's takin' him away from here in his buggy. And so you come down to see what was what, eh? So's you could be the first to tell the neighborhood. Now, Miss Hester, you know that I ain't one of them that talks, but I do feel such an interest in the poor motherless child, and when I seen Brother Hodges had taken him away, I thought perhaps he was a-going to take him to Ray's. Well, Brother Hodges ain't a-going to take him to Ray's.

Mercy's sakes, Miss Hester, don't get mad. But who is? I am, that's who. Miss Prime, what here you a-sayin? You're surely don't mean it. What can you do with a child? I can train him up in the way he ought to go, and keep him out of other people's houses in the street. Well, of course, that's something, said Mrs. Martin weakly. Something, why, it's everything. The visitor had now gotten the information for which she was looking, and was anxious to be gone. She was absolutely bursting with her news. Well, I must be going, she said, replacing her shawl, and standing in embarrassed indecision. Only run in for a minute. I hope you ain't got no hard feelings at my inquisitiveness. Not a bit of it.

You wanted to know, and you come and ask. That's all. I hope you'll get along all right with the child. I shan't stop at hoping. I shall take the matter to the Lord in prayer. Yes, he knows best. Good-bye, Miss Hester. Good-bye, Sally. Come in again. The invitation sounded a little bit sarcastic, and once more the grim smile played about Miss Prime's mouth. "'I low,' she observed to herself as she took the cake from the oven for the last time, tried it and set it on the table. "'I low that I did give Sally Martin one turn. I never did see sich a woman fur prying into other folks business.' Swift are the wings of gossip, and swift were the feet of Mrs. Sally Martin, as she hurried back to tell the news to her impatient friend, who listened speechless with enjoyment and astonishment.

"'Who would have thought you could ha talked it out of her so?' she gasped. Oh, I let her ride along till she told me everything," said Mrs. Martin, with a complacency which, remembering her reception, she was far from feeling. Shortly after her departure, and while no doubt reinforced by Mrs. Smith, she was still watching at the window, Lifflet Hodges drove leisurely up to the door again. "'Well, Freddy,' he said as he helped the child to a light, "'we've had a great time together. We've—' An' we ain't frozen neither. I told Miss Prime that she needn't be afeard. Don't drop your jumpin' jack now, and be careful, and don't get your hands on your apron, cause they're kinda sticky. Miss Hester'd take our heads off if we come back dirty.

The child's arms were full of toys—a jumping jack, a climbing monkey, a pop-gun, and the etceteris of childish amusement, and his pockets and cheeks bulged with candy. La, exclaimed Miss Prime when she saw them. What on earth have you been a-buying that child? Jemple and Jacks and such things, they a bit a good septin to litter up a house and put lightness in children's minds. Freddy, what's that on your apron? Goodness me, and look at them hands, Candy. Lifflet, Hodges, I did give you credit for better judgment than this. Candy is the cause of more aches and pains than poison, and some of it's really colored with arsenic. How do you expect a child to grow up healthy and with sound teeth when you feed him on candy?

Now, Miss Esther, now, now, now, I don't want to be interferin with your business, but it's just like I said before, and I will stick to it. You ain't never had no experience in raisin' children. They can't get along just on meat and bread and jam. They need candy, and—ah, candy, and such things. Mr. Hodges ended lamely, looking rather guiltily at the boys' bulging pockets. A little bit ain't a-goin' to hurt, no child. Livilet, I've got a duty to perform towards this motherless child, and I ain't a-goin to let no foolish notions keep me from performin it. Miss Esther, I'm a-trying to follow him. That was a father to the fatherless, and a husband to the widow. Strange, that was made only to the widow, and I've got something of an idea, a duty myself.

You may think I'm purty presumptuous, but I've took a notion into my head to kind of help along a raisin, Freddy. I ain't—I Going to question your authority or nothing, but I thought maybe you'd lend me the child once in a while to kind of lighten up that old lonesome place of mine. I know that Freddie won't object. Oh, Lifflet, you do go along. I scarcely know whether you air a man or a child sometimes. There is one that says except you become as a little child. Lifflet, will you go long home? I s'pect I'd better be gettin' along. Good-bye, Freddy. Be a good boy, and someday I'll take you up to my house and let you ride old Bessful round. Good-bye, Miss Hester, and as he passed out to his buggy, he whistled tenderly something that was whistled when he was a boy.

6 06 - Chapter 6 22:01

The life of one boy is much like that of another. They all have their joys and their griefs, their triumphs and their failures. Their loves and their hates, their friends and their foes, much as men have them in that maturer life, of which the days of youth are an epitome. It would be rather an uninteresting task, and an entirely thankless one, to follow in detail the career of Frederick Brent as he grew from childhood to youth, But in order to understand certain traits that developed in his character, it will be necessary to note some, at least, of the circumstances that influenced his early life. While Miss Prime grew to care for him in her own unemotional way, she had her own notions of how a boy Should be trained, and those notions seemed to embody the repression of every natural impulse.

She reasoned thus, Human beings are by nature evil. Evil must be crushed. Ergo, everything natural must be crushed. In pursuance of this principle, she followed out a deliberate course of restriction, which Had it not been for the combating influence of Elephalete, Hodges would have dwarfed the mental powers of the boy and cramped his soul beyond endurance. When he came of an age to play marbles, he was forbidden to play, because it was, to Miss Hester's mind, a species of gambling. Swimming was too dangerous to be for a moment considered. Fishing, without necessity, was wanton cruelty. Flying kites was foolishness and a waste of time. The boy had shown an aptitude at his lessons that had created in his guardian's mind some ambition for him, and she held him down to his books with rigid assiduity.

He was naturally studious, but the feeling that he was being driven Made his tasks repellent, although he performed them without outward sign of rebellion while he fumed within. His greatest relaxations were his trips to and from his old friend Hodges. If Miss Prime crushed him, this gentle soul comforted him and smoothed out his ruffled feelings. It was this influence that kept him From despair, away from his guardian, he was as if a chain that galled his flesh had been removed, and yet he could not hate Miss Hester, for it was constantly impressed upon him that all was being done for his good, and the word duty was burned like a fiery cross upon his heart and brain. There is a bit of the pagan, In every natural boy, and to give him too much to reverence taxes his powers until they are worn and impotent by the time he reaches manhood.

Under Miss Hester's tutelage, too many things became sacred to Fred Brent. It was wicked to cough in church, as it was the sacrilege to play with a hymn-book. His training was the Apotheosis of the non-essential. But after all, there is no rebel-like nature. She is an iconoclast. When he was less than ten years old, an incident occurred that will in a measure indicate the manner of his treatment. Miss Prime's prescription for making a good boy was two parts punishment. Two parts, admonition, and six parts, prayer. Accordingly, as the watchful and sympathetic neighbors said, she and that poor child fairly lived in church. It was one class-meeting night, and as usual the boy and his guardian were sitting side by side at church.

It was the habit of some of the congregation To bring their outside controversies into the classroom under the guise of testimonies or exhortations, and there to air their views, where their opponents could not answer them. One such was Daniel Hastings. The trait had so developed in him that whenever he rose to speak, the question ran around. I wonder who Dan'l's a-goin to rake over the coals now. On this day he had been having a tilt with his old-time enemy, Thomas Donelson, over the advent into dexter of a young, homoeopathic doctor. With characteristic stubbornness, Danel had held that there was no good in any but the old-school medical men, and he sneered at the idea of anybody's being cured with sugar, as he contemptuously termed The pellets and powders affected by the new school.

Thomas, who was considered something of a wit, and who sustained his reputation by the perpetration of certain time-worn puns, had replied that other hogs were sugar-cured, and why not, Dannel? This had turned the laugh on Hastings, and he went home from the corner grocery, where the men were congregated, in high Dajon. Still smarting with the memory of his defeat, when he rose to speak that evening, he cast a glance full of unfriendly significance at his opponent, and launched into a fiery exhortation on true religion. Some folks' religion, he said, is like sugar, all sweetness and no power. But I want my religion like I want my medicine. I want it strong. And I want it bitter. So's I'll know I've got it.

In Fred Brent, the sense of humor had not been entirely crushed, and the expression was too much for his gravity. He bowed his head and covered his mouth with his hand. He made no sound, but there were three pairs of eyes that saw the movement. Miss Primes, Elophilette Hodges. And the Reverend Mr. Simpson's. Miss Prime's gaze was horrified. Mr. Simpson's stern. But in the eye of Mr. Hodges there was a most ungodly twinkle. When Daniel Hastings had finished his exhortation, which was in reality an arraignment of Thomas Donelson's medical heresies, and sat down, the Reverend Mr. Simpson arose, And bending an accusing glance upon the shrinking boy began. I perceive on the part of some of the younger members of the congregation a disposition towards levity.

The house of God is not the place to find amusement, and never see young people deriding their elders without thinking of the awful lesson taught by the Lord's judgment upon those wicked youths Whom the she-bears devoured. I never see a child laughing in church without trembling in spirit for his future. Some of the men whom I have seen in prison, condemned to death for a life of confinement, have begun their careers just in this way, showing disrespect for their elders and for the church. Beware young people who think you are smart and laugh and titter in the sanctuary. There is a prison waiting for you. There is a hell yawning for you. Behold, there is death in the pot. With a terrible look at the boy, Mr.

Simpson sat down. There was much craning of necks and gazing about, but few in the church would have known. To whom the pastor's remarks were addressed, had not Miss Prime, at their conclusion, sighed in an injured way, and, rising with said lips, led the culprit out, As a criminal is led to the scaffold. How the boy suffered as with flaming face he walked down the aisle to the door, the cynosure of all eyes. He saw in the faces about him the accusation of having done a terrible thing, something unheard of, and more wicked than he could understand. He felt revolted, childless he was, at the religion that made so much of his fault. Inwardly, he vowed that he would never get religion, or go into a church, when he was big enough to have his own way.

They had not gone far when a step approached them from behind, and a left-flet. Hodges joined them. Miss Prime turned tragically at his greeting and broke out. Don't reproach me, Lifflet. It ain't no trainin' a mine. That's purduced a child that laughs at old folks in the Lord's house. Ain't a-goin to reproach you, Miss Hester, never you fear. Ain't a-goin to say a word again, you're trainin. But I just thought I'd ask you not to be too hard on Freddie. You know that Dan'l is kinda trying sometimes even to the gravity of older people, and children will be children. They ain't got the sense, nor, nor, the deceit. To keep a smooth face when they're a-laughin' all in their innards. Miss Prime turned upon him in righteous wrath.

Liffelet, she exclaimed, I think it's enough for this child to struggle against natural sin without encouragin' him by makin' excuses for him. It ain't my intention nor my desire to set a bad example before nobody Especially the young lambs of the flock, but I ain't a-goin to blame Freddy for doin what many another of us wanted to do. Deed and double. That is fine talk for you Liffelet Hodges. You are trusty of the church, and been a class leader, a-holdin' up for sitch on regenerate carryin's on. I ain't a-holdin' up for nothin, Miss Huster, ceptin' nature. And the very couldnt helpidness of the thing altogether. I ain't a boy no more by a good many years, but there's times when I've set under Dan'l Hastings's testimonies, just mortally cramped, to laugh.

And if it's so with a man, how will it be with a poor, innocent child? Ain't a excusin' natural sin in nobody. It wasn't so much Freddy's natural sin as it was Dan'l's. Natural funniness, and there was something very like a chuckle in Liffelet's throat. Liffelet, the devil's been puttin' fleas into your ear, but I ain't a-goin to let you argue me out o'n'en of my subtle convictions, although the old man's put plenty of argument into your head. That's his way of capturin' a soul. Walk on ahead, Frederick, and don't be listenin'. I'll tend to your case later on. It's funny to me, Miss Hester, how it is that Christians know so much more about the devil's ways than they do about the Lord's. They're allus a sayin' the Lord moves in a mysterious way, but they can allus put their finger on the devil.

Liffelet Hodges, that's a slur. Ain't a meanin' it. There's no slur, Miss Hester, but most Christians do seem to have a powerful fondness. For the devil, I notice that they're allus admiring his work and praising up his sharpness, and they'd be monstrous disappointed if he didn't get as many souls as they expect. Well, after all the years that I've been a-working in the church, and a-trying to let my light so shine before the world, I didn't think that you'd be the one to throw out hints about my Christianity, but we all have our burdens to bear, and I'm a-going to bear mine the best I can. and do my duty, whatever comes of it, and Miss Hester gave another sigh of injured rectitude. I see, Miss Hester, that you're jest bent and bound not to see what I mean, so I might as well go home.

I think my mind ain't given way yet, and I believe that I do understand plain words, but I ain't a bearing you no grudge. You've spoke your mind, and it's all right. But I hope there ain't no hard feelings after all these years. Oh, Livlet, it ain't a part of even my poor weak religion to bear hard feelin's towards no one, no matter how they treat me. I'm just trying to bear my cross and suffer for the Lord's sake. But I hope I ain't a-givin you no cross to bear. I ain't never doubted your goodness or your Christianity. I only thought that maybe your methods, your methods—Miss Prime's lips were drawn into a line. She divided that line to say, I know what the scriptures say, if thy right hand defend thee.

Hester, Hester, he cried, stretching out his hands to her. Good night, Brother Hodges, I must go in. She turned and left him standing at the gate, with a hurt look in his face. On going into the house, Miss Hester did not immediately tend to Fred, as she had promised. Instead she left him and went into her own room. Where she remained a while. When she came out her lips were no last set, but her eyes were red. It is hardly to be supposed that she had been indulging in that solace of woman's woes, a good cry. Take off your jacket, Freddy, she said, calmly taking down a switch from over the clothes-press. I'm a-goin to whip you, but remember I ain't a-punishin' you because I'm mad. It's for the purpose of instruction.

It's for your own good. Fred received his dressing-down without a whimper. He was too angry to cry. This, Miss Prime, took as a marker of a special depravity. In fact, the boy had been unable to discover any difference between an instructive and a vindictive whipping. It was perfectly clear in his guardian's mind, no doubt, but a cherry switch knows no such distinctions. This incident only prepared Fred Brent for a further infraction of his guardian's rules the next day. One of Miss Prime's strictest orders had to do with fighting. Whatever the boys did to Fred, he was never to resent it. He must come to her, and she would go to the boy's mother. What an order to give a boy with muscles and fists and nature strong within him, but save for the telling it had been obeyed.

Although it is hard to feel one's self, an unwilling coward, a prig, and the laughing stock of one's fellows. But when, on the day after his unjust punishment, and while still stung by the sense of wrong, one of the petty schoolboy tyrants began to taunt him, he turned upon the young scamp and thrashed him soundly. His tormentor was not more hurt than surprised. Like most of his class, he was a tattler. The matter got to the teacher's ears, and that night Fred carried home an ominous-looking note. In his heart he believed that it meant another application of cherry switch, either instructive or vindictive, but he did not care. He had done the natural thing, and nature rewards us for obeying her laws by making us happy or stoical.

He had gone up in the estimation of his schoolfellows, even the thrashed one, and he felt a reckless joy. He would welcome a whipping. It would bring him back, memories of what he had given Billy Tompkins. Wouldn't Miss Hester be surprised, he thought, if I should laugh out while she is whipping me, and he laughed at the very thought. He was full of pleasure at himself. He had satisfied the impulse within him for once, and it made him happy. Miss Prime read the ominous note, and looked at her charge thoughtfully. Fred glanced expectantly in the direction of the top of the clothes-press. But she only said, "'Go out and get in your kindlin', Freddy. Get your chores done, and then come in to supper.' Her voice was menacingly quiet.

The boy had learned to read the signs of her face too well, to think that he was to get off so easily as this. Evidently he would get it after supper, or Miss Prime had some new refined mode of punishment in store for him. But what was it? He cudgelled his brain in vain as he finished his chores, And at table he could hardly eat for wondering, but he might have spared himself his pains, for he learned all too soon. Immediately after supper he was bidden to put on his cap, and come along. Miss Prime took him by the hand. I'm a-goin' to take you, she said, to beg Willie Tompkins's pardon, for the way you did him. Did the woman know what it meant to the boy? She could not, or her heart would have turned against the cruelty.

Fred was aghast. Beg his pardon. A whipping was a thousand times better. Indeed, it would be a mercy. He began to protest, but was speedily silenced. The enforced silence, however, did not cool his anger. He had done what other boys did. He had acted in the only way that it seemed a boy could act, under the circumstances, and he had expected to be punished, as his fellows were. But this—this was awful. He clenched his hands until the nails dug into the palms. His face was as pale as death. He sweated with the consuming fire of impotent rage. He wished that he might run away somewhere where he could hide and tear things and swear. For a moment only he entertained the thought, and then a look into the determined face of the woman at his side drove the thought away.

To his childish eyes, distorted by resentment, she was an implacable and relentless monster. Who would follow him with punishment anywhere he might go? And now they were at Billy Tompkins's door. They had passed through, and he found himself saying mechanically the words which Miss Prime put into his mouth, while his tormentor grinned from beside his mother's chair. Then after a few words between the women, in which he heard from Mrs. Tompkins, the mysterious words, "'Oh, I don't blame you, Miss Hester. I know that blood will tell.' They passed out, and the grinning face of Billy Tompkins was the last thing that Fred saw. It followed him home. The hot tears fell from his eyes, but they did not quench the flames that were consuming him.

There is nothing so terrible as the just anger of a child, terrible in its very powerlessness. Polyphemus is a giant, though the mountain hold him down. Next morning, when Fred went to school, Billy Tompkins, with a crowd of boys, about, was waiting to deride him. But at sight of his face they stopped. He walked straight up to his enemy and began striking him with all his might. "'She made me beg your pardon, did she?' he gasped. "'Between the blows. Will you take that for it and that?' The boys had fallen back, and Billy was attempting to defend himself. "'Mebby she'll make me do it again tonight. If she does, I'll give you some more of this tomorrow, and every time I have to beg your pardon.

Do you hear?' The boys—' Jeered lustily, and Billy Tomkins, completely whipped and ashamed, slunk away. That night no report of the fight went home. Fred Brent held the master hand. In life it is sometimes God, and sometimes the devil, that comes to the aid of oppressed humanity. From the means, it is often hard to tell whose handiwork are the results.

7 07 - Chapter 7 21:42

When the boy begins to think of a girl instead of girls, he displays the first Budding signs of a real growing manhood. The first passion may be but the enthusiasm of discovery. Sometimes it is not. At times it dies, as fleeting enthusiasms do. Again it lives and becomes a blessing, a curse or a memory. Who shall say that the first half-sweet pang that strikes a boy's heart in the presence of the dear first girl is any less strong, intoxicating, and real to him than that which prompts him to take the full-grown woman to wife? With factitious sincerity, we quote, The boy is father to the man, and then refuse to believe that the qualities, emotions, and passions, of the man are inherited from this same boy, or just the growth, the development of what was embryonic in him.

Nothing is more serious, more pleasant and more diverting withal, than a boy's brooding or exaltation. One is the complement of the other over his first girl. As to a great extent a man is molded by the woman he marries, So, to no less a degree, is a boy's character turned and shaped by the girl he adores. Either he descends to her level, or she draws him up, unconsciously, perhaps, to her own plane. Girls are missionaries who convert boys. Boys are mostly heathens. When a boy has a girl, he remembers to put on his cuffs and collars, And he doesn't put his necktie into his pocket on the way to school. In a boy's life, the having of a girl is the setting up of an ideal. It is the new element, the higher something which abashes the unabashed, and makes John, who caused Henry's nose to bleed, tremble when little Mary stamps her foot.

It is like an atheist's Finding God. The sudden recognition of a higher and purer force against which all that he knows is powerless. Why doesn't John bully Mary? It would be infinitely easier than his former exploit with Henry. But he doesn't. He blushes in her presence, brings her the best apples, out of which heretofore he has enjoined the boys not to take a hog-bite. And even though the parental garden grow none, comes by flowers for her in some way, queer, boyish bouquets, where dandelions press shoulders with spring beauties, daffodils and roses, strange democracy of flowerdom. He feels older and stronger. In Fred's case, the object of adoration was no less a person than Elizabeth Simpson, the minister's daughter.

From early childhood they had seen and known each other at school, and between them had sprung up a warm, childish friendship, apparently, because their ways home lay along the same route. In such companionship the years sped, but Fred was a diffident boy, and he was seventeen, and Elizabeth near the same before he began, to feel those promptings which made him blushingly offer to carry her book for her as far as he went. She had hesitated, refused, and then assented, as is the manner of her sex and years. It had become a subtle thing for them to walk home together, he bearing her burdens, and doing for her any other little service that occurred to his boyish sense of gallantry. Without will of his own, and without returning the favour, he had grown in the Reverend Mr.

Simpson's esteem. This was due mostly to his guardian's excellent work. In spite of his rebellion, training and environment had brought him greatly under her control, and when she began to admonish him about his lost condition spiritually, she had been able to awaken a sort of superstitious anxiety, in the boy's breast. When Miss Prime perceived that this had been accomplished, she went forthwith to her pastor, and unburdened her heart. Brother Simpson said she, I feel that the Lord has appointed me an instrument in his hands for bringing a soul into the kingdom. The minister put the tips of his fingers together, and sighed piously and encouragingly. I've been laboring with Freddy in the spirit.

of Christian industry, and I believe that I have finally brought him to a realizing sense of his sinfulness. H-m-m, said the minister. Bless the Lord for this evidence of the activity of his people. Go on, sister. Freddy has at last come to the conclusion that Hell is his lot unless he flees unto the mountain and seeks salvation. Bless the Lord for this. Now, brother Simpson, I've done my part as fur as the Lord has showed me, except to ask you to come and wrestle with that boy. Let not thy heart be troubled, sister prime, for I will come as you ask me, and I will wrestle with that boy, as Jacob did of old, with the angel. Oh, brother Simpson, I knowed you'd come. I know just how you feel about poor Wanderin' souls, and I'm so glad to have your strong arm and your wisdom a-helpin' me.

I hope, my sister, that the Lord may smile upon my poor labours, and permit us to snatch this boy as a brand from eternal burning. We shall have to labour in the spirit, Brother Sibson, yes, and with the understanding of the truth in our hearts and minds. I'm sure I feel mighty uplifted by coming here to-day. Do come up to dinner Sunday, dear brother Simpson, after preaching. I will come, Sister Prime, I will come. I know by experience the worth of the table which the Lord provides for you, and then at the same season I may be able to sound this sinful boy as to his spiritual state, and to drop some seed into the ground which the Lord has mercifully prepared for our harvest. Good-bye, sister.

Good-bye. I shall not forget. Sunday, after preaching. In accordance with his promise, the Reverend Mr. Simpson began to labor with Fred. With the result of driving him into a condition of dogged revolt, which only Miss Prime's persistence finally overcame, when revival time came round, as sure as death it must come, Fred regularly went to the mourner's bench, Mourned his few days until he had worked himself into the proper state, and then somewhat too coldly, it is true for his anxious guardian, got religion. On the visit next after this which Mr. Simpson paid to Miss Prime, he took occasion to say, Ah, my sister, I'm so glad that you pointed me to that lost lamb of the house of Israel, and I'm thanking the Maker every day that he blessed my efforts to bring the straying one into the fold.

Ah! there is more joy over the one lamb that is found than over the ninety-and-nine that went not astray. Mr. Simpson's parishioner acquiesced, but she had some doubts in her mind as to whose efforts the Lord had blessed. She felt a little bit selfish. She wanted to be the author of everything good that came to Fred, but she did not argue with Mr. Simpson. There are some concessions which one must make to one's pastor. From this time on, The preacher was Fred's friend, implied him, with good advice, in the usual friendly way. But the boy bore it well, for Elizabeth smiled on him, and what boy would not bear a father's tongue for a girl's eyes? The girl was like her mother, dark and slender and gentle.

She had none of her father's bigness or bumptiousness. Her eyes were large, and of a shade that was neither black nor brown. Her hair was very decidedly black. Her face was small and round with the plumpness of youth, but one instinctively felt, in looking at it, that its lines might easily fall into thinness, even pitifulness, at the first touch of woman's sorrow. She was not, or did she look to be a strong girl, but her very weakness was the source of secret delight to the boy, for it made him feel her dependence on him when they were together, and some girlish fear made her cling to his arm. His heart swelled with pride, and of something else that he could not understand and could not have described.

Had any one told him that he was going through the half-sweet, half-painful, timid, but gallant first stages of love, he would have resented the imputation with blushes. His whole training would have made him think of such a thing with terror. He had learned never to speak of girls at home, for any reference to them by him was sure to bring forth from his prime an instant and strong rebuke. was the exclamation that gave his first unsuspecting remarks. Pause. You're a gettin' too fresh. You'd better be a mindin' of your studies instead of thinkin' about girls. Girls ain't a-goin' to make you pass your examination, and besides, you're a gettin' mannish. For boys o your age to be a-talkin' about girls is mannish.

Do you hear, sir? You're a beginin' to feel your keepin' too strong. Don't let me hear no more sitch talk out o you. There never was a manly boy in the world whom the word mannish, when applied to him, did not crush. It is a horrid word, nasty, and full of ugly import. Fred was subdued by it, and so kept silence about his female friends. Happy is the boy who dares at home to pour out his heart about the girls he knows and likes, and thrice unhappy he who through mistaken zeal On the part of misguided parents is compelled to keep his thoughts in his heart and brood upon his little, aproned companions as upon a secret sin. Two things are thereby engendered stealth and unhealth. Iffred escaped certain youthful pitfalls, it was because he was so repressed that he had learned to hide himself from himself, his thoughts from the mind that produced them.

He was a boy, strong and full of blood. The very discipline that had given a gloomy cast to his mind had given strength and fortitude to his body. He was austere because austerity was all that he had ever known, or had a chance of knowing. But too often austerity is but the dam that holds back the flood of potential passion. Not to know the power which rages behind the barricade is to leave the structure weak for a hapless day, when caring all before it. The flood shall break its bonds, and in its fury ruin Fairfield and Smiling Mead. It was well for Fred Brent that the awakening came when it did. In the first days of June, when examinations are over, the annual exhibition done, and the graduating class has marched away, proud in the possession of its diplomas, the minds of all concerned Turned naturally towards the old institution, the school picnic.

On this occasion, parents, join the teachers and pupils for summer days outing in the woods. Great are the preparations for the festal day, and great the rejoicings thereon. For these few brief hours, old men and women lay aside their cares and their dignity, and become boys and girls again. Those who have known sorrow, and who has not, Take to themselves a day of forgetfulness. Great baskets are loaded to overflowing with the viands, dear to the picnickers palate, sandwiches whose corpulence would make their sickly brothers of the railway restaurant wither within the pies and pickles, cheese and crackers, cakes and jams galore. Old horses that, save for this day, know only the market-cart or the Sunday chaise, are hitched up to bear out the merry loads.

Old wagons whose wheels have known no other decoration than the mud and clay of ruddy roads are festooned gaily with cedar wreaths, oak leaves, or the gaudy tissue-paper rosettes, and creak joyfully on their mission of lightness and mirth. On foot, by horse, in wagon or cart, the crowd seeks some neighboring grove, and there the day is given over to laughter, mirth, and song. The children roll and tumble on the sward in the intoxication of swing-turn and ring around a rosy. The young women, with many blushes and shy glances, steal off to quiet nooks with their imploring swains. Some of the elders, anxious to prove that they have not yet lost all their youth and agility, indulge rather awkwardly, perhaps, in the exhausting amusement of the jumping-rope.

A few of the more staid walk apart, In conversation with some favorite pastor who does not decline to take part in the innocent pleasures and crack ponderous jokes for the edification of his followers. Perhaps some of the more daring are engaged in one of the numerous singing plays, such as O La Miss Brown or Swing Candy Two and Two, but these are generally frowned upon. They are too much like dancing, and time has been when some too adventurous church member has been churched. for engaging in one. In such a merry-making was the community which surrounded the high school at Dexter, engaged when the incident occurred which opened Fred's eyes to his own state. Both he and Elizabeth had been in the prize ranks that year, and their friends had turned out in full and made much of them.

Even Elilfit Hodges was there with old Bess, festooned as gaily as the other horses, and both Miss Prime and Mr. Simpson were in evidence. The afternoon of the day was somewhat advanced. The dinner had been long over, and the weariness of the people had cast something of a quietus over the hilarity of their sports. They were sitting about in groups, chatting and laughing, while the tireless children were scurrying about in games of tag-catcher and hide-and-seek. The grove where the festivities were being held was on a hillside which sloped gently to the bank of a small, narrow stream, Usually dry in summer, but now, still feeling the force of the spring freshets and swollen by the rain of the day before, it was rushing along at a rapid rate.

A fence divided the picnic ground proper from the sharper slope of the rivulets bank. This fence the young people had been warned not to pass, and so no danger was apprehended on account of the stream's overflowing condition. But the youngsters at Dexter were no more obedient than others of their age elsewhere. So when a scream arose from several childish voices at the lower part of the hill, everybody knew that some child had been disobeying, and pell-mell the picnickers rushed in the direction of the branch. When they reached the nearest point from which they could see the stream, a terrifying sight met their eyes. A girl was struggling in the shallow but swift water. She had evidently stepped on the sloping bank and fallen in.

Her young companions were running alongside the rivulet, stretching out their hands helplessly to her, but the current was too strong, and try as she would she could not keep her feet. A cry of grief and despair went up from the girls on the bank, as she made one final effort and then fell, and was carried down by the current. Men were leaping the fence now, but a boy who had seen the whole thing from a neighboring hillock was before them. Fred Brent came leaping down the hill like a young gazelle, He had seen who the unfortunate girl was, Elizabeth, and he had but one desire in his heart—to save her. He reached the bank, twenty yards ahead of any one else, and plunged into the water just in front of her, for she was catching and slipping, clinging and losing hope, but floating surely to her death.

He struggled upstream, reached and caught her by the dress. The water tugged at him and tried to throw him over, but he stemmed it, and lifting her up in his arms, fought his way manfully to the bank. Up this he faltered, slipping and sliding in the wet clay, and weak with his struggle against the strong current, but his face was burning, and his blood tingling, as he held the girl close to him, till he gave her unconscious form into her father's arms. For the moment all was confusion, as was natural when a preacher's daughter was so nearly drowned. The crowd clustered around and gave much advice, and some restoratives, some unregenerate, with many apologies and explanations concerning his possession, produced the flask, and part of the whiskey was forced on the girl's throat.

While her hands and face and feet were chafed, she opened her eyes at last, and a fervent thank God burst from her father's lips and called forth a shower of amens. "'I allus carry a little something along in case of emergencies,' explained the owner of the flask as he returned it to his pocket, with a not altogether happy look at its depleted contents. As soon as Fred saw that Elizabeth was safe, he struck her way for home, unobserved and without waiting to hear what the crowd were saying. He heard people calling his name kindly and admirably, but it only gave wings to the feet that took him away from them. If he had thrown the girl in instead of bringing her out, he could not have fled more swiftly or determinedly away from the eyes of people.

Tired and footsore, drenched to the skin and chills till he finally reached home. He was trembling, he was crying, but he did not know it, and had he known, he could not have told why. He did not change his clothes, but crouched down in a corner and hid his face in his hands. He dreaded seeing any one or hearing any person speak his name. He felt painfully conscious of a new self which he thought must be apparent to other eyes. The accident of the afternoon had cast a gloom over the merrymaking, and the picnic breaking up abruptly sent the people scurrying home so that Miss Prime was at the house not far behind her charge. "'Freddie,' she called to him as she entered the house, "'Freddie, where'er you?' And then she found him.

She let him out of the corner, and looked him over with a scrutinizing eye. Freddy Brent, she said sullenly, you've just ruined your suit. He was glad. He wanted to be scolded. But, she went on, I don't care if you have. And you, she broke down, you're a-goin to have another one, for you're a right smart boy, that's all I've got to say. For a moment he wanted to lay his head on her breast and give vent to the sob. which was choking him, but he had been taught neither tenderness nor confidence, so he choked back the sob, though his throat felt dry and hot and strained. He stood silent and embarrassed until Miss Prime recovered herself and continued, but law, child, you'll take your death a cold.

Get out of them weck things and get into bed while I make you some hot tea for the life of me. I never did see sit carryings on. The boy was not sorry to obey. He was glad to be alone. He drank the warm tea and tried to go to sleep, but he could not. His mind was on fire. His heart seemed as if it would burst from his bosom. Something new had come to him. He began to understand and blushed because he did understand. It was less discovery than revelation. His forehead was hot. His temples were throbbing. It was well that Miss Prime did not discover it. She would have given him whorehound to cure. Thought. From the moment that the boy held the form of the girl to his heart he was changed, and she was changed to him.

They could never be the same to each other again. Manhood had come to him in a single instant, and he saw in her womanhood. He began for the first time to really know himself, and it frightened him and made him ashamed. He drew the covers over his head and lay awake, startled, surprised at what he knew himself and mankind to be. To Fred Brent the awakening had come. Early if we would be prudish, not too early if we would be truthful.

8 08 - Chapter 8 18:32

If Fred Brandt had needed anything to increase his consciousness of the new feeling that had come to him, he could not have done better to get it than by Going to see Ella Philip Hodges next day. His war of thought had gone on all night, and when he rose in the morning, he thought that he looked guilty, and he was afraid that Miss Prime would notice it and read his secret. He wanted rest. He wanted to be secure from anyone who would even suspect what was in his heart, but he wanted to see and to talk to someone who better than than his old friend. So he finished his morning's chores and slipped away. He would not pass by Elizabeth's house, but went by alleys and lanes until he reached his destination.

The house looked rather silent and deserted, and Mr. Hodge's old assistant did not seem to be working in the garden, as usual, but after some search the boy found his old friend smoking upon the back porch. There was a cloud upon the usually bright features, and the old man took his pipe from his mouth with a disconsolate sigh as the boy came in sight. "'I'm mighty glad you've come, Freddy,' said he in a sad voice. "'I've been a-wantin to talk to you all the mornin. Sit down on the side of the porch, or get a chair out of the house, if you ruther.' The boy sat down wondering what could be the matter with his friend, and what he could have to say to him. Surely it must be something serious, for the whole tone and manner of his companion indicated something of import.

The next remark startled him into sudden suspicion. There's lots of things made me think lots of other things in the last couple of days. You've grown up kinda quick like Freddy, so that a body ain't hardly noticed it, but that ain't no matter. You're a poor purty, Nigh it, and you can understand and appreciate lots of the things that you used to couldn't. Fred sat still with mystery and embarrassment written on his face. He wanted to hear more, but he was almost afraid to listen further. I ain't watched you so close, maybe as I'd Ought to ha done, but when I seen you yist'ay evenin' holdin' that little girl in your arms, I said to myself, I said, Liffel it hadges, Freddy ain't a child no more.

He's growed up, the boy's face was scarlet. Now he was sure that the thoughts of his heart had been surprised, and that this best of friends thought of him as fresh, mannish, or even wicked. He could not bear the thought of it. Again the tears rose in his eyes, usually so free from such evidences of weakness. But the old man went on slowly, in a low, half reminiscent tone, without looking at his auditor to see what effect his words had had. Well, that was one of the things that set me thinking. And then there was another. He cleared his throat and pulled hard at his pipe. Something made him blink. Dust or smoke or tears. Perhaps, Freddy, he half sobbed out. Old Bess is dead. Poor old Bess died last night, a colic.

I'm afeard the drive to the picnic was too much for her. Old Bess dead, cried the boy, grieved and at the same time relieved. Who would have thought it? Poor old girl, it seems like losing one of the family. She was one of the family, said the old man brokenly. She was more faithful than most human beings. The two stood steadily musing the boy as sad as the man. Old Bess was the horse that had taken him. For his first ride that winter morning years ago, when the heart of the child was as cold as the day, Elophilet, Hodges, had warmed the little heart, and in the years that followed man, child, and horse had grown nearer to each other in a queer but sympathetic companionship. Then, as if recalling his mind from painful reflections, the elder man spoke again.

But it ain't no use a worrying over what can't be helped. We was both fond o old Bess, and I know you feel as bad about losing her as I do, but I'm a-going to give her a decent burial, sich as a Christian ought to have, for while the old mare wasn't no professor, she lived the life, and that's more, and most professors do. Yes, sir, I'm a-going to have her buried, no glue man, for me. I reckon you are a— Wantin to know how old Bastion and your a-savin' Lizabeth could run into each other in my mind, but they did. Fur's I see you standin' there a-holdin' the little girl. It come to me sudden like Freddy's grown now, and he'll be havin' a girl of his own purty soon. If he ain't got one now, mebbe it'll be Lizabeth.

The old man paused for a moment, his eyes rested on the boy's fiery face. Tut-tut, he resumed, you ain't ashamed air you, well, what air you a gettin' so red fur? Haven a girl ain't nothin to be ashamed of or skeered about neither. Most people have girls one time or another, and I don't know a nothin that'll make a boy or young man go straighter than to know that his girl's eyes are upon him. Don't be ashamed at all. Fred still blushed, but he felt better, and his face lightened over the kindly words. I didn't finish tellin' you, though, what I started on. I got to thinking yesterday about my young days when I had a girl, and how I used to ride back and forth on the poor old horse, right into this town to see her, and as I drove home from the picnic I talked to the old nag about it, and she whisked her tail and laid back her ears, just like she remembered it all.

It was on old Bess that I rode away from my girl's house after her first know to me, And it seemed then that the animal sympathized with me. First she drooped along and held down her head just like I was a-doing. Many a time after that we rode off that way together, for the girl was set in her ways, and though she confessed to a hankering for me, she wanted to be independent. I think her father put the ID into her head. Fur he was a hard man, and she was his all, his wife bein dead. After a while we stopped talkin about the matter, and I just went and come as a friend. Only pop the question once more, and that was when her father died, and she was left all alone. It was a summer day, warm and cheerful like this, only it was evenin, and we was a settin' out on her front garden walk.

She was a knitin, and I was a whippin the ground, with a switch that I had brought along to touch best up with now and then. I had hitched her out front, and she kept turning her eyes over the fence as if she was as anxious as I was, and that was mighty anxious. Finally, I got the question out, and the girl went all red in a minute. She had been just a purty pink before. Her nitin fell in her lap. First she started to answer, then she stopped and her eyes filled up. I seen she was a-weakening, so I thought I'd push the matter. Come, says I, gentle-like and edging near up to her. Give me my answer. I've been waiting a long time for a yes. With that she grabbed nitin apron and all, and put him to her eyes and rushed into the house.

I knowed she'd gone in to have a good cry and settle her nerves, for that's the way all women folks does, so I knowed it was no use to bother her until it was done. So I walks out to the fence, and throwing an arm over old Bess's back, I told her all about it. Just as I—I'm a tellin' you. She's a-looking at me with her big meltin' eyes and whinnyin' soft like. After a little while the girl come out. She was herself again, but there was a look in her face that turned my heart stone cold. Her voice sounded kind of sharp as she said, "'Lifflet, I've been a-thinkin' over what you said. I'm only a woman, and I come pretty near being a weak one, but I'm all right now. I don't mind telling you that if I was ever going to marry you'd be my choice, but I ain't a-going to have my father's spirit a-thinkin' that I took advantage of his death to marry you.

Good-bye, Lifflet.' She held out her hand to me, and I took it. Come and see me sometimes, she said. I couldn't answer, so I went out and got on old Bess, and we jogged away. It was an awful disappointment, but I thought I would wait and let my girl come around, for sometimes they do, in fact, mostly. But she has never given me a sign to make me think that she has. That was twenty years ago, and I've been waiting faithful ever since, but it seems like she was different from most women, and especially good on holding out. People that was babies then have growed up and buried, and now the old companion that has been with me through all this waiting has left me. I know what it means. It means that I'm old, that years have been wasted, that chances have been lost.

But you have taught me my lesson, Bess. Dear old Bess, even in your last hours you did me a service, and you, Freddie, you have given me the strength that I had twenty years ago, and I'm a-going to try to save what remains of my life. I never felt how alone I was until now. He was greatly agitated. He rose and grasped the boy's arm. "'Come, Freddy,' he said. "'Come on. I'm a-goin again to ask Miss Prime to be my wife.' "'Miss Prime!' exclaimed Fred, aghast. "'Miss Prime was my sweetheart, Freddy, thirty years ago, just like Lisbeth is your'n now. Come along.' The two set out, Hodges stepping with impatient alacrity, and the boy too astounded to speak. It was a beautiful morning at the end of June.

The sense of spring's reviving influence had not yet given way to the full languor and sensuousness of summer. The wind was soft and warm and fragrant. The air was full of the songs of birds and the low droning of early bees. The river that flowed between the green hills and down through Dexter was like a pane of wrinkled glass, letting light and joy even into the regions below. Over the streets and readows and hills lay a half-haze like a veil over the too-dazzling beauty of an eastern princess. The hum of business were in the passing years. Dexter had grown busy. The roar of traffic in the streets all melted into a confused and intoxicating murmur as the pedestrians passed into the residence portion of the town to the cottage where Miss Prime still lived.

The garden was as prim as ever, the walks as straight and well kept. The inevitable white curtains were fluttering freshly from the window, over which a huge matrimony vine drooped lazily and rung its pink and white bells to invite the passing bees. Paused at the gate and heaved a deep sigh. So much depended upon the issue of his present visit. The stream of his life had been flowing so smoothly before. Now, if its tranquility were disturbed, it never could be stilled again. Did he dare to risk so much upon so hazardous a chance? Were it not better to go back home, back to his old habits and his old ease, without knowing his fate? That would at least leave him the pleasure of speculating. He might delude himself with the hope that some day he faltered.

His hand was on the gate, but his face was turned back towards the way he had come. Should he enter or should he go back? Fate decided for him, for at this juncture the door opened, and Miss Hester appeared in the doorway and called out, "'Do come in, Liffelet. What'er you a-standin' out there so long a-studyin' about, for all the world like a bashful boy?' The shot told. He was a bashful boy again, going fearfully, tremblingly, lovingly, to see the girl of his heart. But there was no old Bess to winning encouragement to him from over the little fence. Evie blushed even the scrutinizing eyes. A Miss Prime did not see it, for the bronze laid on his face by summers and winters of exposure, but he felt the hot blood rush up to his face and neck, and the perspiration breaking out on his brow.

He paused long enough to mop his face, and then sang to Fred in a low tone, "'You stay in the garden, my boy, until it's all over.' He opened the gate and entered in the manner of one who leads a forlorn hope through Forest Isles, where an ambush is suspected. The door closed behind him, interested, excited, wondering and fearing, doubting and hoping. Fred remained in the garden. There were but two thoughts in his head, and they were so new and large that his poor boy's cranium had room for no more. They ran in this way. Miss Prime is Uncle Lifflet's girl, and Elizabeth is mine. Within Miss Prime was talking on in her usual decided fashion, while the man sat upon the edge of his chair and wondered how he could break in upon the stream of her talk and say what was in his heart.

At last the lady exclaimed, I do declare, Lefflet, what can be the matter with you? You ain't said ten words since you... Been a-settin' there. I hope you ain't talked yourself entirely out with Fred. It does beat all how you and that boy seem to grow thicker and thicker every day. One'd think for all the world that you told him all your secrets and was afeard he'd tell him by the way you stick by him, and he's just as bad about you. It's amazin'. Fred, he's a wonderful good boy, and he's smart too. They ain't none of em a-goin to throw dust in his eyes in the race of life. I'm sure I've tried to do my duty by him the very best I could, and if he does amount to anything in this world, it'll be through hard labour and mighty careful watchin.

Miss Hester gave a sigh that was meant to be full of solemnity, but that positively reeked with self-satisfaction. But as you say, Le Follet, she went on fretting, the worst boy in the world, nor the dumbest, neither, if I do say it myself. Ain't a sayin, mind you, that he's anything so great or wonderful, but I've got to thinkin' that there's something in him besides original sin, and I should feel that the Lord had been mighty favorin to me if I could manage to draw it out. The fact of it is, Liffelet, I've took a notion in my head about Fred, and I'm a-goin to tell you what it is. I've decided to make a preacher out of him. Hum! Ah, well, Miss Hester, don't you think you'd better let the Lord do that?

Nonsense, Liffelet, you ain't got no insight at all. I believe in people a doing their part and not a shoving everything off on the Lord. The shiftless don't want nothing better than to say that they will leave the Lord to take care of things, and then fold their arms and set down and let things go to the devil. Remember, Brother Hodges, I don't mean that in a profane way, but then because God made the sunlight and the rain, it ain't no sign that we shouldn't prune the vine. Miss Hester's face had flushed up with the animation of her talk, and her eyes were sparkling with excitement. Lifflet looked at her, and his heart leaped. He felt that the time had come to speak. Miss Hester began, and the hat in his hand went round and round nervously.

Lifflet, for goodness sake, do lay your hat on the table. You'll ruin the band of it, and you make me as nervous as a cat. He felt a little dampened after this, but he laid down the offending hat and began again. I've been thinking some myself, Miss Hester, and it's been about you. About me? La Lifflet, what have you been a thinking now? The now sounded as if his thoughts were usually rather irresponsible. It was about you and—and old Bess. About me and old Bess? Bless my soul, man. Will you stop beating about the bush and tell me what on earth I've got to do with your horse? Old Bess is dead. Miss Hester died last night at college. Well, I thought there was something the matter with you. I'm mighty sorry to hear about the poor old creature, but she served you a long while.

That's just what set me a-thinking. She has served me a long while. "'And now she's dead. Do you know what that means, Miss Hester? It means that we're a-gittin' old, you and me. Do you know when I got old Bess? It was now thirty years ago. I used to ride her up to this door and tie her to that tree out there. It was a sapling then, and now she's dead.' The man's voice trembled, and his listener was strangely silent. "'You know on what errands the old horse used to bring me,' he went on. "'But it wasn't to be then.' Hester, he rose, went over to her, and looked down into her, half-averted face, which went red and pale by turns. Hester, ain't we wasted time enough? There was a long pause before.

She lifted her face. He stood watching her with the light of a great eagerness in his eyes. At last she spoke. There was a catch in her voice. It was softer than usual. "'Levelette,' she began, "'I'm right glad you remember those days. I never forgot em myself. It's true you've been a good loyal friend to me, and I thank you for it, but after all these years—' He broke in upon her with something like youthful impetuosity. After all these years,' he exclaimed, "'an endurin' love ought to be rewarded. Hester, I ain't a-goin to take no fur an answer. I've got lots of years of life in me yet. We both have, and I ain't a-goin on with an empty home, and an empty heart no longer.' Liffelet, you ain't a young man no more, and I ain't a young woman, and the Lord, I don't care if I ain't, and I don't believe in shoving everything off on the Lord.

Liffelet, it was a reproach. Hester, this was love. He put his arm around her, and kissed her. You're a-going to say yes, ain't you? You ain't a-going to send me away miserable. You're a-dying to say yes, but you're a-trying to force yourself not to. Don't, he lifted her face as a young lover might. and looked down into her eyes. Is it yes? Well, Lefilet, it appears like you're just so pestered that I've got to say yes. Yes, then, and she returned the quiet but jubilant kiss that he laid upon her lips. After all these years, he said, Sorrow may last for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. It was a long night, but thank the Lord, morning's broke. Then, rising, he went to the door and called joyously, Freddy, come on in.

It's all over. Lifflet, did that boy know what you was a-goin to say? Yes, of course he did. Oh, my, oh, my, well, I've got a good mind to take it all back. Oh, my. And when Fred came in for the first time in her life, Miss Prime was abashed and confused in his presence. But Lifflet had no thought of shame. He took her by the hand and said, Fredie, Miss Hester's consented at last. After thirty years, she's a-goin to marry me. But Miss Hester broke in. Lifflet, don't be a-putting notions in that boy's head. You go away, Fred, right away. Fred went out, but he felt bolder. He went past Elizabeth's house, whistling. He didn't care. He wondered if he would have to wait thirty years for her. He hoped not.

9 09 - Chapter 9 20:51

So great has been our absorption in the careers of Fred Brent, Miss Prime, and Eliphalet Hodges, that we have sadly neglected some of the characters whose acquaintance we made at the beginning of our story. But nature and time have been kinder, or more cruel, if you will. They have neither passed over nor neglected them. They have combined with trouble and hard work to kill one of Fred's earliest friends. Melissa Davis is no more, and the oldest girl, Sophie, supplements her day's work of saleswoman in a dry goods store by getting supper in the evening and making the younger Davises Step around. Mrs. Warren, the sometime friend of Margaret Brent and enemy of Miss Prime, has moved farther out into the suburbs, for Dexter has suburbs now, and boasts electric cars and amusement parks.

Time has done much for the town. Its streets are paved, and the mean street that bore the tumble-down Brent cottage and its fellows has been built up and grown respectable. It and the street where Miss Prime's cottage frowned Down, half-settled away into a quiet residential portion of the town, while around to the east, south and west, and on both sides of the little river that divides the city, roars and surges the traffic of a characteristic middle-west town. Halfway up the hill, where the few aristocrats of the place formerly lived in almost royal luxuriance and seclusion A busy sewing-machine factory has forced its way, and with its numerous chimneys and stacks literally smoked the occupants out.

At their very gates it sits like the commander of a besieging army, and about it cluster the cottages of the workmen in military regularity. Little and neat and trim, they flock there like the commander's obedient host, and such they are, for the sight of them offends the eyes of wealth. So, what with the smoke, and what with the proximity of the poorer classes, wealth capitulates, evacuates, and with robes discreetly held aside, passes by to another quarter, and a new district is born where poverty dare not penetrate. Seated on a hill, where, as is their inclination, they may look down, literally and figuratively, upon the hurrying town, they are complacent again. And the new-comers to the town, the new rich magnates, and the half-rich strugglers who would be counted on the higher level move up and swell their numbers at Dexter View.

Amid all this change, too alone of those we know remain unaltered and unalterable, true to their traditions, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Martin, The two ancient gossips still live side by side, spying and commenting on all that falls within their can, much as they did on that day when Liffelet Hodges took Fred Brent for his first drive behind old Beth's. Their windows still open out in the same old way, whence they can watch the happenings of the street, if there has been any change in them at all. It is that they have grown more absorbed and more keen in following and dissecting their neighbours' affairs. It is to these two worthies, then, that we wish to reintroduce the reader on an early autumn evening some three months after the events narrated in the last chapter.

Mrs. Martin went to her back fence, which was the nearest point of communication between her and her neighbour. Miss Smith, she called, and her confederate came hurrying to the door. Thimble on and a bit of sewing clutched precariously in her apron just as she'd caught it up when the significant call brought her to the back door. "'Oh, you're busy as usual, I see,' said Mrs. Martin. "'It ain't nothin' particular, only a bit o bastin that I was doin.' "'You ain't a-workin' on the machine then, so you might bring your sewing over and take a cup o'-tea with me. Law, now that's so kind o' you, Miss Martin.' I was just thinking how good a cup of tea would taste, but I didn't want to stop to make it.

I'll be over in a minute, just as soon as I see if my front door's locked, and she disappeared within the house, while Mrs. Martin returned to her own sitting-room. The invited knew very well what the invitation to tea meant. She knew that some fresh piece of news was to be related and discussed. The beverage of which she was invited to partake was but a pretext, but neither the one nor the other admitted as much. Each understood perfectly, as by a tacit agreement, and each tried to deceive herself and the other as to motives and objects. There is some subtle tie between tea-drinking and gossip. It is over their dainty cups that women dissect us men and damn their sisters. Some of the quality of the lemon they take in their tea gets into their tongues.

Tea is to talk, what do is to plant. A gentle, nourishing influence which gives to its product much of its own quality. There are two acids in the tea which cultured women take. There is only one in the beverage brewed by commonplace people, but that is enough. Mrs. Martin had taken her tray into the sitting-room, where a slight fire was burning, in the prim parlor-cook, on which the hot water was striving to keep its quality, when Mrs. Smith came in. La, Miss Martin, you do manage to have everything so cosy. I'm sure a little fire in a settin'-room don't feel bad these days. I just thought I'd have to have a fire, replied Mrs. Martin, for I was feelin' right down chilly, though goodness knows a person does burn enough cold in winter without throwin' it away in these early fall days.

Well, the Lord's put it here for our comfort, and I think we're a-doin' his will when we make use of the good things he gives us. "'Ah, but, Miss Smith, there's too many people that goes about the world thinking that they know jest what the Lord's will is, but I have my doubts about them. Though, mind you, I ain't a-mention of no names. No name, no m'lay.' Mrs. Martin pressed her lips and shook her head a combination of gestures that was eloquent with meaning. It was too much for her companion. Her curiosity got the better of her caution. "'Dear me!' she exclaimed. "'What is it now?' "'Oh, nothing of any consequence at all.' It ain't for me to be a-judgin my neighbors or a-talkin about em. I just thought I'd have you over to tea.

You're such good company. Mrs. Smith was so impatient that she had forgotten the sewing, and it lay neglected in a lap. But in no other way did she again betray her anxiety. She knew that there was something new to be told, and that it would be told all in good time. But when gossip has become a fine art, it must be conducted with dignity and precision. Let me see. I believe you take two lumps of sugar and no milk. Mrs. Martin knew perfectly what her friend took. I don't know how this tea is. I got it from the new grocery over at the corner. She tasted it deliberately. It might have drawed a little more. Slowly she stirred it round and round, and then, as if she had drawn the truth from the depths of her cup, she observed, "'This is a queer world, Miss Smith.' Mrs.

Smith sighed a sigh that was appreciative and questioning at once. "'It is, indeed,' she echoed. "'I'm always a-sayin' to myself what a mighty cur'ose world this is.' "'Have you ever got any tea from that new grocery-man?' asked her companion with tantalizing irrelevance. "'No, I hain't never even been in there.' "'Well, this here's middling good, don't you think so?' "'Oh, it's more than middling.' It's downright good. I think I must go into that grocery sometime myself. I was in there to-day, met Miss Murphy. She says there's great goings on up at Miss Prime's. I never shall be able to call her Miss Hodges. You don't tell me. She and Brother Lifflet ain't had a fallen out already, have they?

Though what more could you expect? Oh, no, indeed. It ain't no fallen out, nothing of the kind. Well, what then? What has Miss Hester, I mean Miss Hodges, been doing now? Where will that woman stop? What's she done? Well, you see, do have another cup of tea, and dip yourself to that bread and butter. You see, Freddy Brent has finished at the high school, and they've been wondering what to make him. Well, what'er they are going to make him? His father was a good stonemason, when he was anything. You don't suppose Miss Hester's been sending a boy to school to learn Latin and Greek and Algebrae and sitch to be a stone-mason, do you? Huh, huh," said I to myself as soon as I see her sending him from the common school to high school, says I.

She's got big notions in her head. Oh, no, the father's trade was not good enough for her boy. So thinks Miss Liffelet Hodges. Well, what on earth is she going to make out of him then? Please pass me that sugar. Thank you. You know Mr. Daniels offered him a play, says Clerk, in the same store where Sophie Davis is. It was mighty kind of Mr. Daniels, I think, to offer him the job. Well, didn't he take it? Well, partly he did, and partly he didn't, if you can understand that. Sully Martin, what do you mean? A body has to fairly pick a thing out of you. I mean that she told Mr. Daniels he might work for him half of every day. Half a day? And what's he goin to do the other half? He's a-goin to the Bible Seminary the other half day.

She's a-goin to make a preacher out of him. Mrs. Martin had slowly and tortuously worked up to her climax, and she shot forth the last sentence with a jubilant ring. She had well calculated its effects. Sitting back in her chair, she supped her tea complacently as she contemplated her companion's astonishment. Mrs. Smith had completely collapsed into her seat, folded her arms, and closed her eyes. "'Los a massey!' she exclaimed. "'What next? Old Tom, drunken Tom, swearing and raving.' Tom Brent's boy, a preacher. Then suddenly she opened her eyes and sat up, very erect and alert, as she broke forth. Sallie Martin, what'er you a tellin' me? It ain't possible. It's again nature. A panther's cabane are goin' to be a lamb.

It's downright wicked. That's what I say. And so, says I, to Miss Murphy, them same identical words, says I. Miss Murphy, it's downright wicked. It's a shamin' of the Lord's holy callin' of the ministry. "'And does the young scamp pretend to had a call? No, indeed, he was mighty opposed to it, and so was her husband, but that woman was so set she wouldn't agree to nothing else. He don't pretend to a heared no call, cept in Miss Hester's, and that was a command. I know it's all true for Miss Murphy, while she was just a-listening, lives next door, and heared it all.' And so the two women fell to discussing the question as they had heard it, pro and con, It was all true, as these gossips had it, that Miss Hester had put into execution her half-expressed determination to make a preacher Fred.

He had heard nothing of it until the day when he rushed in. He laid it over the kindly offer of a place in Mr. Daniels's store. Then his guardian had firmly told him of her plan, and there was a scene. You can just tell Mr. Deniers that you can work for him half a day every day, and that you're a-goin to put in the rest of your time at the Bible Seminary. I've made all the arrangements. But I don't want to be a preacher," the boy had retorted with some heat. I'd a good deal rather learn business, and some day start out for myself. It ain't what some of us wants to do in this life. It's what the Lord appoints us to, and it's wicked for you to rebel. I don't know how you can know so much what the Lord means for me to do.

I should think he would give his messages to those who are to do the work. That's right, Freddy Brent. Sass me. Sass me. That's what I've struggled all the best days of my life to raise you for. I'm not sassing you, but—don't you think Hester broke in her husband that maybe there's some truth in what Freddy says. Don't you think the Lord— Kinda whispers what he wants people to do in their own ears. Maybe it wasn't never intended for Freddy to be a preacher. There's other ways of doing good besides a talking from the pulpit. I'd be bound for you, Liffelet. It's a shame you'll go on agin me, after all I've done to make Freddy material fit for the Lord's use. Just think what you'll have to answer for, I hoping this unruly boy to shirk his duty.

I ain't a-goin ag'in you, Hester. You're my wife, and I low at your judd'min. Pretty sound on most things. I ain't a-goin ag'in you at all. But—but—I was just a-wond'rin. The old man brought out the last word slowly, meditatively. He was just a-wond'rin. His wife, though, never wondered. Mind you," she went on, I say to you, Freddy, and to your uncle, Lifflet, too, if he upholds you that it ain't me you're a rebelling against. It's your duty and the will o God that you're a fighting. It's easy enough to rebel against, ma'am, but do you know what you're a doing when you set yourself against the Almighty? Do you want to do that? Yes. came the boy's answer like a flash. He was stung and irritated into revolt, and a torrent of words poured from his lips unrestrained.

I'm tired of doing right. I'm tired of being good. I'm tired of obeying God. Freddy! But over the dam, the water was flowing with irresistible force. The horror of his guardian's face and the terrible reproach in her voice could not check the boy. Everything, he continued, that I— Have ever wanted to do, since I can remember has been bad or against my duty or displeasing to God. Why does he frown on everything I want to do? Why do we always have to be killing our wishes on account of duty? I don't believe it. I hate duty. I hate obedience. I hate everything. And I won't obey. Freddy, be fearful. Don't say anything, Beville. Hurt after your mad spells over. Don't blaspheme the Lord Almighty. Lifflet Hodge's voice was cool and tender and persuasive.

He laid his hand on the boy's shoulder while his wife sat there motionless, white and rigid with horror. The old man's words and his gentle touch had a wonderful effect on the boy. They checked his impassioned outbursts, but his pent-up heart was too full. He burst into tears and rushed headlong from the house. For a time he walked aimlessly on, his mind in a tumult of rage. Then he began to come to himself. He saw the people as they passed him. He had eyes again for the street, and he wondered where he was going. He felt an overwhelming desire to talk to some one and to get sympathy, consolation, and perhaps support. But whither should he turn? If Lifflet Hodges had been at the old house, his steps would naturally have bent in that direction, but this refuge was no longer his.

Then his mind began going over the people whom he knew, and no name so stuck in his fancy as that of Elizabeth. It was a hard struggle. He was bashful. Any other time he would not have done it, but now his great need created in him an intense desperation that made him bold. He turned and retraced his steps towards the Simpson house. Elizabeth was leaning over the gate. The autumn evening was cool. She had a thin shawl about her shoulders. She was humming a song as Fred came up. His own agitation made her seem irritatingly calm. She opened the gate and made room for him at her side. You seem dreadfully warm, she said, and here— I was getting ready to go in because it is so cool. "'I've been walking very fast,' he answered hesitatingly.

"'Don't you think you'd better go in, so as not to take cold?' "'Oh, I don't care if I do take cold.' The speech sounded rude. Elizabeth looked at him in surprise. "'What's the matter with you?' she asked. "'I'm mad. That's what's the matter. Oh, Fred, you shouldn't get mad. You know it's wrong.' He put up his hand as if she had struck him. "'Wrong, wrong, it seems. I can't hear anything else but that word.' Everything is wrong. Don't say any more about it. I don't want to hear the word again. Elizabeth did not know what to make of his words, so she said nothing, and for a while they stood in strained silence. After a while he said, Aunt Hester wants me to be a preacher. I'm so glad to hear that, she returned.

I think you'll make a good one. You, too? He exclaimed resentfully. Why should I make a good one? Why need I be one at all? Oh, because you're smart, and then you've always been good. The young man was suddenly filled with disdain. His anger returned. He felt how utterly out of accord he was with everyone else. Don't you think there is anything else required besides being smart and good? He himself would have blushed at the tone in which he said this. Could he have recognized it? I'm smart because I happened to pass all my examinations. I got through high school at 18. Nearly everyone does the same. I'm good because I have never had a chance to be bad. I've never been out of Aunt Hester's sight long enough.

Anybody could be good that way. But then older people know what is best for us, Fred. And why should they? They don't know what's beating inside of us away down here. The boy struck his breast fiercely. I don't believe they do know half the time what is best, and I don't believe that God intends them to know. I wouldn't talk about it if I were you. I must go in. Won't you come in with me? Not tonight, he replied. I must be off. But Papa might give you some advice. I've had too much of it now. What I want is room to breathe in—once. I don't understand you. I know you don't. Nobody does or tries to. Go in, Lizzy," he said more calmly. "'I don't want you to catch cold, even if I do. Good-night,' and he turned away.

The girl stood for a moment, looking after him. Her eye was moist. Then she pouted, Fred's real cross to-night, and went in. It is one of the glaring sarcasms of life to see with what— Complacency, a shallow woman, skims the surface of tragedy, and thinks that she has sounded the depths. Fred continued his walk towards home. He was thinking. It ran in him that Elizabeth was a good deal of a fool, and then he felt horrified with himself for thinking it. It did not occur to him that the hard conditions through which he had come had made him mentally and spiritually older than the girl. He was thinking of his position, how perfectly alone he stood. Most of the people whom he knew, He would see only blind obstinacy in his refusal to be a minister.

But were one's inclinations nothing? Was there really nothing in the call to preach? So he pondered as he walked, and more and more the hopelessness of his predicament became revealed to him. All his life had been moulded by this one woman's hands. Would not revolt. Now say to the world, I am grown now. I do not need this woman who has toiled. I can disobey her with impunity. I will do so. He went home, and before going in, leaned his head long upon the gate and thought. A listless calm had succeeded his storm of passion. He went in and to bed. At breakfast he seemed almost cheerful, while Mr. Hodges was subdued. His wife had taken refuge in an attitude of injured silence. Aunt Hester, said the young man, apparently without effort.

I was wrong yesterday. I'm sorry. I will do whatever you say, even to being a preacher. Something came up in his throat and choked him as he saw a brightness come into the face and eyes of his beloved Uncle Lyft, but it grew hard and bitter there, as Mrs. Hodges replied. Well, I'm glad the Lord has showed you the errors of your way and brought you around to a sense of your duty to him and to me. Poor, blind, conceited humanity, interpreters of God indeed. We reduce the deity to vulgar fractions. We place our own little ambitions and inclinations before a shrine, and label them divine messages. We set up our Delphian tripod, and we are the priests and oracles. We despise the plans of nature's ruler, and substitute our own.

With our short sight we affect to take a comprehensive view of eternity. Our horizon is the universe. We spy on the divine and try to surprise his secrets or to sneak into his confidence by stealth. We make God, the eternal, a puppet. We measure infinity with a foot rule.

10 10 - Chapter 10 20:19

When Fade is fighting with all her might against a human soul, the greatest victory that the soul can win, is to reconcile itself to the unpleasant, which is never quite so unpleasant afterwards. Upon this principle, Frederick Brant acted instinctively. What with work and study and contact with his fellow-students, he found the seminary not so bad a place after all. Indeed, he began to take a sort of pleasure In his pursuits, the spirit of healthy competition in the school wetted his mind and made him forgetful of many annoyances from without. When some fellow-salesman at the store jibed at him for being a parson, it hurt him, but the wound was healed, and he was compensated when, in debate, he triumphed over the crack speaker of his class.

It was a part of his training to do earnestly and thoroughly what he had to do, even though it was distasteful, and it was not long before he was spoken of as one of the most promising members of the school. Notwithstanding its steady growth toward citydom, Dexter retained many of the traditions of its earlier and smaller days, Among them was that of making the church the center of its social and public life. For this reason the young student came in for much attention on account of his standing in the religious college. Another cause which elicited the praise and congratulations of his friends was his extreme youth, that community which could send out a boy preacher Always deemed itself particularly favored by providence.

Dexter was no exception, and it had already begun to bestow the appellation upon young Brent, much to his disgust. He knew the species, and detested it. It was mostly composed of ignorant and hypocritical young prigs, in whom their friends had seemed to see some especial merit, and had forthwith hoisted them into a position that was As foolish as it was distasteful. They were hailed as youthful prodigies and exploited around the country like a patent medicine or a side-show. What is remarkable at 18 is not so striking at 28, so when their extreme youth was no longer a cause for surprise, the boy preachers settled down into everyday dullness with nothing except the memory of a flimsy fame. To compensate the congregations they bored.

Against this, Frederick Brent fought with all his strength. He refused invitation after invitation to talk or exhort on the plea that he wished to be fully prepared for his work before entering upon it. But his success at school militated against him for the fame of his oratorical powers was gradually but surely leaking out. The faculty recognized and commended it, so he could not hope long to hide behind his plea, although he dreaded the day when it would no longer serve his purpose. Some of the older heads accused him of an unwarranted fear of cowardice even, and an attempt to shirk his evident duty. The truth of it was that these same people wanted to hear him, and then attack his manner. Or his doctrine.

They could not, would not forget that he was the son of old Tom Brent, the drunkard, and of the terrible and the unspeakable Margaret, his wife. They could not forget that he was born and lived the first years of his life on the mean street, when it was a mean street, and when any obstinate old fossil was told of the youth's promise, he would shake his head, and as who should say what good can come out of that Nazareth? But the young man went his way and heeded them not. He knew what they were saying, he knew what they were thinking, even when they held his hand and smiled upon him, and it filled him with a spirit of distrust and resentment, though it put him bravely on his mettle. While he was a man, and in the main manly, sometimes he was roused to anger almost childish, then, although he did not want to be a preacher at all, He wished and even prayed to become a great one, just to convince the old fools who shook their heads over him.

To his ears had crept as such tales will creep some of the stories of his parents' lives, and while he pitied his mother there was a great fierceness in his heart against his father. But as in the old days when Miss Prime's discipline would have turned all within him to hardness and bitterness, Eliphalet Hodges stood between him and despair, so now in this crucial time Elizabeth was a softening influence in his life. As the days came and went, he had continued to go to see her ever since the night when he had stood with her at the gate and felt the bitterness of her lack of sympathy. But all that had passed now, and unconsciously they had grown nearer to each other. There had been a tacit understanding between them until just a few weeks before.

It was on a warm spring evening. He had just passed through her gate and started towards the house when the opening chords to the piano struck on his ear through the open. window and arrested him. Elizabeth had a pleasant little voice, with a good deal of natural pathos in it. As the minister's daughter, the scope of her songs was properly, according to Dexter, rather limited. But that evening she was singing softly to herself a love-song. The words were these. If death should claim me for her own to-day, and softly I should falter from your side. Oh, tell me, loved one, would my memory stay? And would my image in your heart abide? Or should I be as some forgotten dream, That lives its little space, then fades entire?

Should time send o'er you its relentless stream, To cool your heart and quench, for I love's fire? I would not for the world love give you pain, Or ever compass what would cause you grief, And oh, how well I know that tears are vain, But love is sweet, my dear, and life is brief. So if some day before you I should go beyond the sound and sight of song and see, twould give my spirit stronger wings to know that you remembered still and wept for me. She was alone in the room. The song was hardly finished when Brent stepped through the window and laid his hand over hers, where they rested on the keys. "'Why do you sing like that, Elizabeth?' he said tremulously. She blushed and lowered her eyes beneath his gaze, as if she already knew the words that were on his lips, or feared that her soul lay to bear before him.

Why do you think of death? he asked again, imprisoning her hands. It was only my mood. She faltered. I was thinking, and I thought of the song, and I just sang it. Were you thinking of any one in particular, Lizzy? Her head drooped lower until her face was hidden, but she did not answer. A strange boldness had come to him. He went on. I listened as you were singing, and it seemed as if every word was meant for me, Lizzy. It may sound foolish, but I— I love you. Won't you look at me and tell me that I am right in thinking you love me? She half raised her face to his and murmured one word. In it were volumes. He bent down and kissed her. It was the first time he had ever kissed a girl. He did it almost fearfully.

It was a kiss in which reverence struggled with passion. You are to be my little sweetheart now, and I am to be in your thoughts hereafter when you sing. Only we don't want any more such songs as this one. I don't want to remember still and weep for you. I want to have you always by me and work for you. Won't you let me? Elizabeth found her tongue for a moment only, but that was enough for her lover. A happy light gleamed in his eyes. His face glowed. He was transfigured. Love does so much for a man. From that time forward, when he was harassed by cares and trouble, he sought out Elizabeth, and even though he could seldom tell her all that was in his heart, he found relief in her presence. He did not often speak as of his trials to her, for in spite of his love for her, he felt that she could not understand, but the pleasure he found in her company put sweetness into his life and made his burdens easier to bear.

Only once had a little shadow come between them, and the fact that so little a thing could have made a shadow shows in what a narrow, constrained atmosphere the two young people lived. Young Brent still had his half-day position in the store, and when the employees of a rival establishment challenged Daniels's clerks to a game of baseball, he was duly chosen as one of the men to uphold the honor of their house upon the diamond. The young man was not fossilized. He had strengthened the capacity for enjoyment, so he accepted without a thought of wrong. The Saturday came. The game was played. Fred Brent took part, and thereby brought a hornet's nest about his ears. It would scarcely have been so bad, but the young man entered the game with all the zest.

An earnestness of his intense nature, and several times by brilliant playing, saved his side from defeat. In consequence, his name was in the mouth of every one who had seen or heard of the contest. He was going home that evening, feeling pleased and satisfied with himself, when he thought he would drop in a moment on the way and see Elizabeth. He had already got into the house before he saw from her manner that something was wrong, and he wondered what it could be. He soon learned it is only praise that is slow. "'Oh, Fred,' said the girl reproachfully, "'is it true that you have been playing baseball?' "'Baseball, yes, what of it? What are you looking so horrified about? Did you think it was right for you in your position to play?' "'If I had thought it was wrong, I assuredly should not have played,' the young man returned.

"'Everybody is talking about it, and Father says he thinks you have disgraced your calling. Disgraced my calling by playing an innocent game?' But father thinks it is a shame for a man who is preparing to do such work as yours to have people talking about him as a mere ball-player. The blood mounted in hot sarges to the young man's face. He felt like saying, Your father be hanged. But he controlled his anger and said quietly, Elizabeth, don't you ever think for yourself? I suppose I do, Fred, but I've been brought up to respect what my elders think and say. Don't you think that they, as well as we, can be narrow and mistaken? It is not for me to judge them. My part is to obey. You have learned an excellent lesson, he returned bitterly.

That is just the thing. Obey, obey. Well, I will. I will be a stick adult. I will be as unlike what God intended me to be as possible. I will be just what your father and Aunt Hester and you want me to be. I will let them think for me and save my soul. I'm too much an imbecile to attempt to work out my own salvation. No, Elizabeth, I won't not play ball any more. I can imagine the horrified commotion it caused among the angels when they looked down and saw me pitching. When I get back to school, I shall look up the Four Gospels' views on ball-playing. Fred, I don't like you when you talk that way. I won't do that any more either. He rose abruptly. Good-bye, Elizabeth. I'm off. He was afraid to stay, lest more bitter words should come to his lips.

Good-bye, Fred, she said. I hope you understand. The young man wondered as he walked homeward if the girl he had chosen was not a little bit prim. Then he thought of her father and said to himself, even as people would have said of himself, how can she help it with such a father? All his brightness had been dashed. He was irritated, because the thing was so small, so utterly absurd. It was like the sting of a miserable little insect, just enough to smart, and not enough to need a strong remedy. The news of the game had also preceded him home, and his guardian's opinion of the propriety of his action did not tend to soothe his mind. Mrs. Hodges forcibly expressed herself as follows. "'I put baseball playin' right down with dancin' and sichlike.

It ain't no fittin' occupation for any one that's a-goin into the ministry. It's idleness to begin with. It's a waste in the precious time that's been givin' us for a better use. A young man that's a-goin to minister to people's souls. Ought to be consecrated to the work before he begins it. Whoever hear tell of Jesus playing baseball? Among a certain class of debaters, such an argument is always supposed to be clinching unanswerable final. But Mr. Hodges raised his voice in protest. Ain't a-goin to keep still no longer. I don't believe the boy's done a bit of harm. There's lots of things the Lord didn't do that he didn't forbid human beings to do. We ain't none of us, Divine, but you mark my words, Freddy, and I say it right here so's your Aunt Esther can hear me.

Do you mark my words? If you never do nothing worse than what you've been a-doing today, it'll be mighty easy for you to read your title clear to Mansions in the skies. Ah, ah, lifflet, there ain't nothin' so easy as talkin' when Satan's a-promptin' you. There you go, Hester, there you go again, a-pattin' the devil on the back. I lowed the old boy must be tickled to death with all the compliments Christian people givin'. A body to bout as well be complimentin' the devil as to be a countenancein' his works as you air. The old man stopped with a piece halfway to his mouth. Now, just listen at that, Hester Prime. Ain't you ashamed of yourself? Me accountin' a sin wrong, sayin' that to me, and me old enough to be to be well.

I am your husband, anyway. In times of excitement, he was apt to forget this fact for the instant and give his wife her maiden name, as if all that was sharp and her belonged to that prenuptial period. But this storm relieved the atmosphere of its tension. Mrs. Hodges felt better for having spoken her mind, and Mr. Hodges for having answered, while the young man was relieved. By the championship of his elder, and so the storm blew over. It was several days before Brent saw Elizabeth again, but thanks to favoring winds, the sky had also cleared in that direction. It was through such petty calms and storms that Fred passed the days and weeks of his first year at the seminary. Some of them were small annoyances, to be sure, but he felt them deeply, and the sting of them rankled.

It is not to be supposed, because there was no specific outburst, that he was entirely at rest. Vesuvius had slumbered long before Pompey's direful day. His mind was often in revolt, but he kept it to himself, or confided it to only one friend. This friend was a fellow-student at the seminary, a man older than Fred. By some years he had first begun a literary career, but had renounced it for the ministry. Even to him Fred would not commit himself until near the end of the year. Taylor declared his intention of now renouncing the study of theology for his old pursuits. Then Brent's longing to be free likewise drew his story from his lips. Taylor listened to him with the air of one who had been through it all and could sympathize.

Then he surprised his friend by saying, "'Don't be a fool, It's all very nice and easy to talk about, striking out for oneself and all that. I've been through it all myself. My advice to you is to stay here, go through the academic discipline and be a parson. Get into a rut, if you will, for some ruts are safe. When we are buried, Deep. They keep us from toppling over. This may be a sort of weak philosophy I'm trying to teach you, but it is the happiest. If I can save any man from self-delusion, I want to do it. I'll tell you why. When I was at school, some fool put it into my head that I could write. I hardly know how it came about. I began scribbling of my own accord and for my own amusement.

Sometimes I showed the things to my friend who was a fool. He bade me keep on saying that I had talent. I didn't believe it at first, but when a fellow keeps stinging at another with one remark after a while he grows to believe it, especially when it is pleasant. It is vastly easy to believe what we want to believe, so I came to think that I could write, and my soul was fired with the ambition to make a name for myself in literature. When I should have been turning Virgil into English for classroom, I was turning out more or less to form verse of my own, or wrapped in the contemplation of some plot for story or play, but somehow I got through school without a decided flunk. In the meantime, some of my lines had found their way into print, and the little checks I received for them had set my head buzzing with dreams of wealth to be made by my pen.

If we could only pass the pitfalls of that dreaming age of youth, most of us would get along fairly well in this matter-of-fact old world, but we are likely to follow blindly the leadings of our dreams until we run our heads smack into a corner-post of reality. Then we awaken, but in most cases too late. I'm glad to say that my father had the good sense to discourage my aspirations. He wanted me to take a profession, but elated by the applause of my friends, I scorned the idea. What mew my talents up in a courtroom or a hospital never makes me sick when I look back upon it and see what a fool I was. I settled down at home and began writing. Lots of things came back from periodicals to which I sent them, but I had been told that this was the common lot of all writers, and I plotted on, a few things sold just enough to keep my hopes in a state of unstable equilibrium.

Well, it's no use to tell you how I went on in that way for four years, clinging and losing hold, standing and slipping, seeing the prize was C, just as I seemed to grasp it. Then came the awakening. I saw that it would have been better just to go on and do the conventional thing. I found this out too late, and I came here to try to remedy it, but I can't. No one can. You get your mind into a condition where the ordinary routine of study is an impossibility, and you cannot go back and take up the train you have laid. So you keep struggling on, wasting your energy, hoping against hope. Then suddenly you find out that you are and can be only third, or at best second-rate. God, what a discovery it is, how you try to fight it off until the last moment, but it comes upon you surely and crushingly and cut Bruised, wounded, you slip away from the face of the world.

If you are a brave man, you say boldly to yourself, I will eke out an existence in some humble way, and you go away to a life of longing and regret. If you are a coward, you either leap over the parapets of life to hell, or go creeping back and fall at the feet of the thing that has damned you, willing to be third-rate anything, for you are stung with the poison that never leaves your blood. So it has been with me, even when I have found that I... Must choose a calling. I chose the one that gave me most time to nurse the serpent that had stung me. Taylor ceased speaking, and looked a little ashamed of his vehemence. This is your story, Sir Brent, but men differ and conditions differ. I will accept all the misery, all the pain and defeat you have suffered, to be free to choose my own course.

Taylor threw up his hands with a deprecatory gesture. There, he said, it is always so. I might as well have talked to the wind. So the fitful calm in Elizabeth's love had not cured Frederick Brent's heart of its one eating disease, the desire for freedom.

11 11 - Chapter 11 23:13

It was not until early in Brandt's second year at the Bible Seminary that he was compelled to go through the ordeal he so much dreaded. That of filling a city pulpit. The Dexterites had been wont to complain that since the Advent, among them of the Theological School, their churches had been turned into recitation rooms for the raw students. But of old Tom Brent's boy, as they still called him, they could never make this complaint. So as humanity loves to grumble, The congregations began to find fault because he did not do as his fellows did. The rumors of his prowess in the classroom and his eloquence in the society hall had not abated, and the curiosity of his fellow-townsmen had been whetted to a point where endurance was no longer possible.

Indeed, it is open to question whether It was not by connivance of the minister himself, backed by his trustees on one side and the college authorities on the other, that Brent was finally deputed to supply the place of the Reverend Mr. Simpson, who was affected by an indisposition fancied, pretended, or otherwise. The news struck the young man like a thunderbolt. Albeit he had been expecting it. He attempted to make his usual excuse, but the kindly old professor who had notified him smiled into his face, and, patting his shoulder, said, "'It's no use, Brent. I'd go and make the best of it. They are bound to have you. I understand your diffidence in the matter, and knowing how well you stand in class, it does credit to your modesty.'" The old man passed on.

He said he understood, but in his heart, the young student standing there, helpless, hopeless, knew that he did not understand, that he could not. Only he himself could perceive it in all the trying horrors of its details. Only he himself knew fully or could know what the event involved, that when he arose to preach to nine-tenths of the congregation, He would not be Frederick Brandt, student, but old Tom Brandt's boy. He recoiled from the thought. Many a fireside saint had said, Why did not Savonarola tempt the hot plowshares? God would not have let them burn him. Faith is a beautiful thing, but Savonarola had the plowshares at his feet. The children of Israel stepped into the Red Sea before the waters parted.

But then Moses was with them, and what was more Pharaoh was behind them. At home, the intelligence of what Brent was to do was received in different manner by Mrs. Hodges and her husband. The good lady launched immediately into a lecture on the duty that was placed in his hands. But Eliphelet was silent as they sat at the table. He said nothing until after supper was over. And then he whispered to his young friend as he started to his room, "'I know just how you feel, Freddy. It seems that I oughtn't to call you that now, but I low you'll allus be Freddy to me.' "'Don't ever call me anything else, if you please, Uncle Lyft,' said the young man pressing Eliphilet's hand. "'I think I can understand you better than most people,' Mr.

Hodges went on. And I know it ain't no easy text that you've got before you. You've always understood me better than anyone, and I wish you knew what it has meant to me, and that I could thank you somehow. My boy, it's thanks enough to hear them words from you. Now you just calm yourself, and when Sunday comes I don't know, as I'd ought to say it this way, but I mean it all in a Christian spirit. "'When Sunday comes, Freddy, my boy, you just go in and give him fits.' The two parted with another pressure of the hand, and it must be confessed that the old man looked a little bit sheepish when his wife hoped he had been giving Fred good advice. "'You don't reckon, Hester, that I've given any other kind, do you?' "'Not intentionally, Lifflet, but when it comes to advice, there's pints of you.' Mrs.

Hodges seemed suspicious of her husband's capabilities as an adviser. There's sometimes when people a good deal rather have sympathy than advice, and I reckon, according to your way of thinking, this is one of them. Well, I intend to try to do my duty in this matter, as I've tried to do it all along. Hester, your duty'll kill you yet. It's a wonder you don't get tired o lookin it in the face. I ain't a-goin to shirk it, just to live in pleasure and ease. No need o shirkin, Hester, no need o shirkin. But they's some people that wouldn't be content without rowin downstream. And then, mind you, Liffelet, I ain't a-exchangein words with you for that sidleness. But there's others that wouldn't row upstream.

But it weighed in hope for a wind to push him. These impersonalities were as near spatting as Mr. and Mrs. Hodges ever got. Through all the community that clustered about Mr. Simpson's church, and drew its thoughts, ideas, and subjects of gossip therefrom, ran like wildfire the news that at last they were to have a chance to judge of young Brent's merits for themselves. It caused a stir among golden young, And in the days preceding the memorable Sunday, little else was talked of. When it reached the ears of old Daniel Hastings, who limped around now upon two canes, but was as acrimonious as ever, he exclaimed, tapping the ground with one of his sticks for emphasis, what that young Brent preaching in our church, in our minister's pulpit, it's a shame, and he the born son of old Tom Brent, that all the town knows was the worst sin of hereabouts.

I ain't a-goin to go. I ain't a-goin to go. Don't you be afear to go, Dan'l. There ain't no danger that his docterns air a-goin to be as strong as his father's whiskey," said his old enemy. Oh, it's fur the likes o you, Thomas Donelson, to be a-talkin' of docterns and whiskey in the same breath. You never did have no reverence, said the old man testily. And yet, Ennell, I've found doctrines in whiskey give out by the same breath. Mr. Hastings did not think it necessary to notice this remark. He went on with his tirade against the prospective supply. Why can't Elder Simpson preach hisself? I'd like to know, instead of putting up that young upstart to talk to his betters. Why, I mind the time that that— Boy had to be took out at church by the hand for laughin' at me, at me, mind you, the old man repeated, shaking his stick, laughin' at me when I was expoundin' the word.

That's terrible, dan'l, fur as fur as I can recollect. When you're a expoundin' the word, it ain't no laughin' matter. I tell you, Thomas Donelson, the world's a-goin' downhill fast, but I ain't a-goin' to help it along. I ain't a goin' to hear that Brent boy preach. This declaration, however, did not prevent the venerable Denel from being early in his seat on the following Sunday morning, sternly, uncompromisingly critical. As might have been expected, the church was crowded. Friends, enemies, and the merely curious filled the seats and blocked the aisles. The chapel had been greatly enlarged. to accommodate its growing congregation. But on this day it was totally inadequate to hold the people who flocked to its doors.

The Reverend Mr. Simpson was so far recovered from his indisposition as to be able to be present and assist at the service. Elizabeth was there, looking proud and happy and anxious. Mrs. Hodges was in her accustomed place, on the lady's side of the pulpit, She had put new strings to her bonnet, in the honour of the occasion. Her face wore a look of great severity, an unregenerate wag in the back. Part of the church pointed her out to his companions, and remarked that she looked as if she'd spank the preacher if he didn't do well. Poor fellow, if he sees that face he'll break down sure. Opposite in the Amen corner, the countenance of the good Eliphelet, was a study in changing expressions. It was alternately possessed by fear, doubt, anxiety, and exultation.

Sophie Davis sat in a front seat, spick and span, in a new dress which might have been made for the occasion. People said that she was making eyes at her young fellow salesman, though she was older than he. Mrs. Martin and her friend whispered together a little farther back. A short time before the service began, Brent entered by a side door near the pulpit, and ascended to his place. His entrance caused a marked sensation. His appearance was impressive. The youthful face was white, and almost rigid in its lines. Scared to death was the mental note of a good many who saw him, but his step was firm. As Elizabeth looked at him, she felt proud that such a man loved her. He was not handsome. His features were irregular, but his eyes were clear and fearless.

If a certain cowardice had held him back from this ordeal, he was surely not because he trembled for himself. The life he had lived and the battles he had fought had given a compression to his lips that corrected a natural tendency to weakness in his mouth. His head was set squarely on his broad shoulders. He was above medium height, but not loosely framed. He looked the embodiment of string. "'He ain't a bit like his father,' said someone. "'He's like his father was in his best days,' replied another. "'He don't look like he's over-pleased with the business. They say he didn't want to come.' "'Well, I guess it's purty risk you were gittin' up to speak before all these people that's knowed him all his life, and know where and what he come from.

They say to these some pumpkins out at the college.' I ain't much faith in these school-made preachers, but we'll soon see what he can do in the pulpit. We've heared preachers, and we can compare. That's so. We've heared some preachers in our day. He must toe the mark. He may be all right at college, but he's in a pulpit now that has held preachers for sure. A pebble's all right among pebbles, but it looks mighty small, long side of boulders. He's preaching before people now. Why, Brother Simpson himself never would've got a special dispensation to hold the church all these years, if it hadn't been for the people backing him up, and Conference was afraid they'd leave the connection. Well, if this boy's anything, Lord only knows where he gets it, for everybody knows.

The buzz which had attended the young speaker's entrance subsided. As Mr. Simpson rose and gave out the hymn that finished, he ran his eyes. over the front seats of the assembly, and then said, Brother Hastings, lead us in prayer. The old man paused for an instant as if surprised, and then got slowly to his knees. It was a strange selection, but we have seen that this particular parson was capable of doing strange things. In the course of a supplication of some fifteen minutes' duration, Brother Hastings managed to vent his spleen upon the people. and to pay the lord a few clumsy compliments. During the usual special blessing which is asked upon the preacher of the hour, he prayed, O Lord, let not the rar'n horses of his youth run away with thy chariot of eternal truth.

Lord, cool his head and warm his heart, and settle him firm. Grant that he may fully realize where he's a-standin' at, and who he's a-speakin' to. Do thou not let him speak, but speak through him, That thy gospel may be preached to-day, as thy prophets of old preached it. Throughout the prayer, but one thought was running through Frederick Brent's mind, and his heart was crying in its anguish, Oh, my God, my God, why do they hound me so? It is a terrible thing, this first effort before the home people, especially when home has not been kind. When he rose to meet the people's eyes, his face was haggard, And he felt weak, but unflinchingly he swept his eyes over the crowd, and that instant's glance brought before him all the panorama of the past years.

There before him was the sneaking Billy Tompkins, now grown to the maturity of being called Bill. Then there was Dan'l Hastings. Oh, that night years ago, when he had been marched up the aisle with crimson face. In one brief second he lived it all over again, The shame, the disgrace, the misery of it. There, severe critical expectant, sat his guardian, the master hand who had manipulated all the machinery of his life. All this passed through his mind in a flash as he stood there facing the people. His face changed. The haggard look passed away. His eyes kindled, his cheeks mantled. Even in the pulpit, even in the house of God, about to speak, his word, the blood sped hotly through his veins, and anger burned at his heart.

But he crushed down his feelings for the moment, and began in a clear ringing voice, Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again. The lesson he drew from the words was God's recognition of the fallibility of human judgment and the self-condemnation brought about by ignoring the prohibition in the text. By an effort he spoke deliberately at first, but the fire in his heart came out more and more in his words as he progressed. Blinded by our own prejudices, he said, circumscribed by our own ignorance, we dare to set ourselves up. As censors of our fellow-men, unable to see the whole chain of life which God has forged, we take a single link and say that it is faulty.

Too narrow to see his broad plan, we take a patch of it and say, This is not good. There is one who works even through evil that good may come. But we take the sin of our brother, and without seeing or knowing what went before it, or shall come after, condemn him. What false, blind, petty judges we are! You women who are condemning your fallen sisters, you men who are execrating your sinful brothers, if Christ today were to command, let him who is without sin cast the first stone. Look into your own hearts and answer me. How many of you would dare to lift a hand? How many of you have taken the beam out of your own eye before attempting to pluck the mote out of your brothers? O ye pharisaical ones who stand in the public places and thank God that you are not as other men, beware, beware!

The condemnation that surely and inevitably shall fall upon you is not the judgment of Jesus Christ, it is not the sentence of the Father, it is your own self-condemnation, without charity, without forbearance, without love. For with what judgment ye judge? Ye shall be judged. Stand by the wayside, if you will. Draw aside your skirts in the vain-glory of self-righteousness from the passing multitude. Say to each other, if you will, this woman is a sinner, this man is a criminal. Close your eyes against their acts of repentance. Harden your hearts against their pleas for forgiveness. With old mercy and pardon and charity, but I tell you of one who has exalted charity into the highest and best of virtues.

I bring you the message of one whose judgment is tempered by divine love. He is seeing you, he is hearing you, over the parapets of high heaven, The gentle father leans, waiting to take into his soul any breath of human love or charity which floats up to him from this sin-parched world. What have you done to merit his approval? Have you been kind, or have you been hard? Have you been gentle, or have you been harsh? Have you been charitable, or have you hunted out all the evil and closed your eyes to all the good? You have forgotten O ye of little faith, you have forgotten, you without charity, in your hearts, and you who claim to follow Christ, and yet have no love for your fellows. You have forgotten that God is a God of wrath, as well as of love, that Christ hath anger, as well as pity, that he who holds the hyssop of divine mercy holds also the scourge of divine indignation.

You have forgotten that the lash you so love to wield over your brother's back Shall be laid upon your own by him who whipped the money-changers from his temple. Listen, the day shall come when the condemnation you are accumulating against yourselves shall overwhelm you. Stop trying to steal the prerogative of heaven. Judge not. God only is just. The silence throughout the sermon was intense. During the closing words which have been quoted, it was like a presence in the chapel. The voice of the preacher rang out like a clarion. His eyes looked before him as if he saw into the future. His hand was uplifted as if he would call down upon them the very judgment which he predicted. Without more words, he sat down.

No one moved or spoke for an instant. Daniel Hastings let his cane fall upon the floor. It echoed through the silent place with a crash. Some of the women started and half cried out, but the spell was now partly broken. Mr. Simpson suddenly remembered to pray, and the gossips forgot to whisper when their heads were bowed. There were some pale faces in the crowd, and some which the galling of tears had made red. There was in the atmosphere something of the same tense silence that follows a terrific thunderclap, and so the service ended, and the people filed out of church. Silent still. Some few remained behind to shake the preacher's hand, but as soon as the benediction was over, he hurried out the side door, and before any one could intercept him, was on his way home.

But he left a willing substitute. Mrs. Hodges accepted all his congratulations with complacent condescension. "'Dannel,' said Thomas Donelson, as he helped the old man down the church steps, I was mistaken about the doctrines and the whiskey. It was stronger and better, because it was the pure stuff. I ain't got a word to say, said Danil, excepting that a good deal of it was just sass. But he kept mumbling to himself as he hobbled along. Judge not, for you're a piling up sentences on yourself. I never thought of it that way before. No, I never. Brent did not come out of his room to dinner that afternoon. Mrs. Hodges was for calling him, but the old man objected. "'No, Hester,' he said. "'Freddy just wants to be let alone.

He's a feelin' now.' But Liffellet, he ought to know how nice people talked about his sermon. "'I tell you, that was my kind of doctrine. It's wonderful how a child will learn.' Notwithstanding his belief that his young friend wanted to be left alone, the old man slipped into his room, later on, with a cup of tea. The young man sat before the table, his head buried in his hands. Eliphelet set the cup and saucer down, and turned to go, but he paused at the door and said, "'Thank the Lord for the way you give it to him, Freddy.' It was worth a dollar." He would have hurried out, but the young man sprang up and seized his hand, exclaiming, "'It was wrong, Uncle Liv.' It was wrong of me. I saw them sitting about me like jackals waiting for their prey.

I remembered all that I had been and all that I was. I knew what they were thinking, and I was angry, angry. God forgive me. That sermon was preached from as hot a heart as ever did murder. The old man stroked the young one's hair as he would a child's. Never mind, he said. It don't matter what you felt. Between you and him, and I only know you said, and that's all I care about. Didn't you speak about the Lord a-whippin, the money-changers from the temple? Ain't lots of them worse than the money-changers, wasn't it, Christ divine? Ain't you human? Would a body expect you to feel less'n he did? Huh? Just don't you worry. Remember that you didn't hit a head that wasn't in striking distance, and the old man pressed the boy back into his chair and slipped out.

12 12 - Chapter 12 17:51

and his second year slipped quickly. and uneventfully away. He went to and from his duties, silent and self-contained. He did not confide in Mr. Hodges, because his guardians seemed to grow more and more jealous of their friendship. He could not confide in Elizabeth on account of a growing conviction that she did not fully sympathize with him. But his real feelings may be gathered from A letter which he wrote to his friend Taylor, some two months after the events recorded in the last chapter. My dear Taylor, it ran. Time and again I've told myself that I would write you a line keeping you in touch as I promised with my progress. Many times have I thought of our last talk together, and still I think as I thought then that in spite of all your Disadvantages and your defeats, you have the best of it.

When you fail, it is your own failure, and you bear down with you only your own hopes and struggles and ideals. If I fail, there falls with me all the framework of pride and anxiety that has so long pushed me forward and held me up. For my own failure I should not sorrow. My concern would be for the one Who has so carefully shaped me after a pattern of her own? However else one may feel, one must be fair to the ambition of others, even though one is the mere material that is heated and beaten into form on the anvil of another's will. But I am ripe for revolt. The devil is in me, a restrained, quiet, well-appearing devil, but all the more terrible for that. I have at last supplied one of the pulpits here, that of my own church.

The Rev. Mr. Simpson was afflicted with a convenient and adaptable indisposition, which would not allow him to preach, and I was deputed to fill his place. I knew what a trial it would be, and had carefully written out my sermon, but I'm afraid I did not adhere very strictly to the manuscript. I think I lost my head I know I lost my temper, but the sermon was a nine days' wonder, and I've had to refuse a dozen subsequent offers to supply. It is all very sordid and sickening and theatrical. The good old Lowry tried to show me that it was my duty and for my good, but I've set my foot down not to supply again, and so they let me alone now. It seems to me that That one sermon forged a chain which holds me in a position that I hate.

It is a public declaration that I am or mean to be a preacher, and I must either adhere to it or break desperately away. Do you know I feel myself to be an arrant coward? If I had half the strength that you have, I should have been out of it long ago. But the habit of obedience grows strong upon a man. There is but one crowning act to be added to this drama of deceit and infamy, my ordination. I know how all the other fellows are looking forward to it, and how, according to all the prescribed canons, I should view the momentous day. But I am I. Have you ever had one of those dreams where A huge octopus approaches you, slowly but certainly, enfolding you in his arms, entwining his horrid tentacles about your helpless form.

What an agony of dread you feel! You try to move or cry out, but you cannot, and the arms begin to embrace you and draw you towards the great body. Just so I feel about the day of the ceremony that shall take me into the body of which I was never destined to be a member. Are you living in a garret? Are you subsisting on a crust? Happy, happy fellow! But thank God the ordination does not take place until next year, and perhaps in that time I may find some means of escape. If I do not, I know that I shall have your sympathy, but don't express it ever sincerely yours, Brent. But the year was passing, and nothing happened to release him. He found himself being pushed forward at the next term with unusual rapidity, but he did not mind it.

The work rather gave him relief from more unpleasant thoughts. He went at it with eagerness and mastered it with ease. His fellow-students looked on him with envy, but he went on his way unheeding, and worked for the very love of being active until one day he understood. It was nearing the end of the term when a fellow-student remarked to him, "'Well, Brent, it isn't every man that could have done it, but you'll get your reward in a month or so now.' "'What do you mean?' asked Brent. "'Done what?' "'Now, don't be modest,' rejoined the other. "'I'm really glad to see you do it. I have no envy.' "'Really, Barker, I don't understand you.' "'Why, I mean you are finishing two years in one.' "'Oh, pshaw!

It will hardly amount to that.' Oh, well, you will get in with the senior class men. Get in with the senior class? It will be kind of nice a year before your time to be standing in the way of any appointive plums that may happen to fall, and then you don't have to go miles away from home before you can be made a full-fledged shepherd. Well, here is my hand on it anyway. Brent took the proffered hand in an almost dazed condition. It had all suddenly flashed across his mind, the reason for his haste and his added work. What a blind fool he had been. The church conference met at Dexter that year, and they had hurried him through in order that he might be ready for ordination thereat. Alleging illness as an excuse, he did not appear.

At recitation that day, the shock had come too suddenly for him. Was he thus to be entrapped? Could he do nothing? He felt that ordination would bind him forever to the distasteful work. He had only a month in which to prevent it. He would do it. From that day he tried to fall gradually back in his work, but it was too late. The good record, which he had unwittingly piled up, carried him through Lowlands Wolans. The week before conference met Frederick Brent, Residing at Dexter by special request of the faculty was presented as a candidate for ordination. Even his enemies in the community said, Surely there is something in that boy. Mrs. Hester Hodges was delighted. She presented him with his ordination suit, and altogether displayed a pride and pleasure that almost reconciled the young man to his fate.

In the days immediately preceding the event, she was almost tender with him, and if he had been strong enough to make a resolve inimical to her hopes, the disappointment which he knew failure would bring to her would have greatly weakened it. Now, conference is a great event in the circles of that sect of which Corrie Chapel was a star congregation, and the town where it convenes or sets As the popular phrase goes, is an honored place. It takes upon itself an air of unusual bustle. There is a great deal of housecleaning, hanging of curtains and laying of carpets just prior to the time. People from the rural parts about come into town and settle for the week. Ministers and lay delegates from all the churches in the district.

Comprising perhaps half of a large state or parts of two come and are quartered upon the local members of the connection. For two weeks beforehand the general question that passes from one housewife to another is, How many and whom are you going to take? Many are the heart-burnings and jealousies aroused by the disposition of some popular preacher, whom a dozen members of the flock desire to entertain. While the less distinguished visitors must bide their time and be stuck in when and where they may. The big guns of the church are all present, and all the little guns are scattered about them, popping and snapping every time the big gun booms. But of all the days of commotion and excitement, the climax is ordination day, when candidates for the ministry, college students and local preachers are examined, and either rejected or admitted to the company of the elect.

It is common on that day for some old dignitary of the church, seldom a less person than the president of the conference himself, to preach the sermon. Then if the fatted calf is not killed, at least the fatted fowls are, and feasting and rejoicing rule the occasion. This ordination day was no exception. A class of ten stood up before the examining committee and answered the questions put to them. Among them stood Frederick Brent. He wished he tried to fail in his answers and be rejected, even though it meant disgrace. But try as he would, he could not. Force of habit was too strong for him, or was it that some Unseen and relentless power was carrying him on and on against his will. He clenched his hands.

The beads of perspiration broke out on his brow, but ever as the essential questions came to him his tongue seemed to move of its own volition, without command from the brain, and the murmurs of approval told him that he was answering aright. Never did man struggle harder for brilliant success than this one for ignominious failure. Then some whisperer in his consciousness told him that it was over. He felt the laying of hands upon his head. He heard the old minister sing, Behold, even from the lowliest, God taketh his workers. And he felt a flash of resentment, but it was only momentary. He was benumbed. Something seemed to be saying in his mind, Will the old fool never have done? But it did not appear to be himself.

It was afar off and apart from him. The next he knew a wet cheek was laid against his own. It was Aunt Hester. She was crying and holding his hand. Afterwards people were shaking hands with him and offering their congratulations, but he answered them in a helpless, mechanical way, as he had answered the questions. He sat through the sermon. and heard it not, but some interest revived in him as the appointments were being read. He heard the president say, "'It gives me pain to announce the resignation of one who has so long served in the master's vineyard.' But our dear brother Simpson has decided that he is too old for active work, and has asked to be retired. Well, we do this with pain and sorrow for the loss, though we do not wholly lose him."

Of so able a man, we feel that we cannot do better than appoint as his successor in this charge, the young man whom you have all seen so brilliantly enter into the ranks of consecrated workers, the Reverend Frederick Brent. A murmur of approval went round the assembly, and a few open amens broke forth as the unctuous old ecclesiastic sat down. It sounded to the ears of the young preacher like the breaking of waves on a far-off shore, and then the meaning of all that had happened sifted through his benumbed intellect, and he strove to rise. He would refuse to act, he would protest, he would tell them that he did not want to preach. But something held him down. He could not rise. Night went blue and green and purple before him, the church with its sea of faces spun round and round.

His head fell forward. He has fainted, said some one. The excitement has been too much for him. Poor young man, he has been studying too hard, working for this. They carried him out and took him home, and one of the elders offered a special prayer for his speedy recovery, and that, being recovered, he might bear his new responsibilities with becoming meekness. When the young minister came to himself, he was lying on the bed in his own room, and Mrs. Hodges, Elifalette, and a doctor were bending over him. "'He's coming round all right now,' said the medical man. "'You won't need me any longer,' and he departed. "'How are you, Nell? Fred?' asked Mrs. Hodges. The young man closed his eyes again and did not answer.

He had awakened to a full realization of his position, and a dull misery lay at his heart. He wished that he could die then and there, for death seemed the only escape from his bondage. He was bound, irrevocably bound. Poor child! Mrs. Hodges went on. It was awful trying on his nerves. Joy is worse than sorrow sometimes, and then he'd been working so hard. I'd never a-believed he could do it, if brother Simpson hadn't stuck up for it. She knew it then, thought Fred. It was all planned. I don't think you'd better talk, Hester, said her husband in a low voice. He'd seen a spasm pass over the face of the prostrate youth. Well, I'll go out and see about the dinner. Some of the folks I've invited will be coming in purty soon, and others'll be dropping in to inquire how he is.

I do hope he'll be well enough to come to the table. It won't seem hardly like an ordination dinner without the principal person. Just set by him, Liffelet, and give him them drops the doctor left. As soon as he heard the door close behind her, Brent opened his eyes and suddenly laid his hand on the old man's shoulder. You won't let anybody see me, Uncle Liff. You won't let them come in here? No, no, my boy. Not if you don't want em, said the old man. I shall have to think it all over before I see any one. I'm not quite clear yet. I low it was unexpected. Did you know, Uncle Liv? he asked, fixing his eyes upon his old friend's face. I knowed they was a-planning something, but I never could find out what I would have told you.

A look of relief passed over Brent's face, just as Mrs. Hodge has opened the door. "'Here's Elizabeth to see him,' she said. "'Shh,' said the old man with great ostentation, and tiptoeing over to the door he partly drew it to, putting his head outside to whisper, "'He is too weak. It ain't best for him to see nobody now.' He closed the door and turned to his seat. "'It was Elizabeth,' he said. "'Was I right?' For answer the patient arose from the bed and walked weakly over to his side. Tut-tut-tut, freddy," said Eliphalet, hesitating over the name. "'You'd better lay down now. You ain't any too strong yet.' The young man leaned heavily on his chair and looked into his friend's eyes. "'If God had given me such a man as you as a father, or even as a guardian, I would not have been damned,' he said.

"'Shh, shhh, my boy, don't say that. You're going to be all right. You're—you're—' Eliphalet's eyes were moist, and his voice choked here. Rising, he suddenly threw his arms around Fred's neck, crying, "'You are my son. God is give you to me to nurse in the time of your trial.' The young man returned the embrace, and so Mrs. Hodges found them when she opened the door softly and peered in. She closed it noiselessly and withdrew. "'Well, I never,' she said. There was a questioning wonder in her face. "'I don't know what to make of them two,' she added. "'They couldn't have been lovin'er, if they had been father and son.' After a while the guests began to arrive for the dinner. Many were the inquiries and calls for the new minister, but to them all Elaphalet made the same answer.

He ain't well enough to see folks. Mrs. Hodges herself did her best to bring him out or to get him to let some of the guests in, but he would not. Finally her patience gave way, and she exclaimed, "'Well, now, Frederick Brent, you must know that you air the pastor of a church, and you've got to make some sacrifices for people's sake, if you can possibly get up, and I know you can. You ought to come out and show yourself for a little while anyhow. You've got some responsibilities now.'" I didn't ask for them, he answered coldly. There was a set look about his lips. Neither will I come out or see any one. If I'm old enough to be the pastor of a church, I'm old enough to know my will and have it.

Mrs. Hodges was startled at the speech. She felt vaguely that there was a new element in the boy's character since morning. He was on the instant a man. It was as if Clay had suddenly hardened in the potter's hands. She could no longer mold or ply him. In that moment she recognized the fact. The dinner was all that could be expected, and her visitors enjoyed it in spite of the absence of the guest of honor. But for the hostess, it was a dismal failure. After wielding the sceptre for years, it had been suddenly snatched from her hand, and she felt lost and helpless, deprived of her power.

13 13 - Chapter 13 19:51

which the shock would irritate into fatal illness. But even while he thought this, he sneered at himself for the weakness. A weakness, self-confessed, holds the possibility of strength. So in a few days he rallied, and took up the burden of his life again, as before he had found relief in study. Now he stilled his pains and misgivings by a strict attention to the work which his place involved. His was not an easy position for a young man. He had to go through the ordeal of pastoral visits. He had to condole with old ladies who thought a preacher had nothing else to do than to listen to the recital of their ailments. He had to pray with poor and stricken families whose conditions reminded him strongly of what his own must have been.

He had to speak words of serious admonition, To girls nearly his own age, who thought it great fun, and giggled in his face. All this must he do, nor must he slight a single convention. No rules of conduct are so rigid as are those of a provincial town. He who ministers to the people must learn their prejudices, and be adroit enough not to offend them, or strong enough to break them down. It was a great load. to lay on the shoulders of so young a man. But Abbott is everything, and he soon fell into the ways of his office. Writing to Taylor, he said, I'm fairly harnessed now and at work, and although the pulling is somewhat hard, I know my way. It is wonderful how soon a man falls into the cant of his position and learns to dole out the cut-and-dried phrases A ministerial talk like a sort of spiritual phonograph.

I must confess, though, that I am rather good friends with the children who come to my Sunday school. My own experiences as a child are so fresh in my memory that I rather sympathize with the little fellows, and do all I can to relieve the half-scared stiffness with which they conduct themselves in church and the Sunday school room. I wonder why it is we make church such a place of terror. To the young ones, no wonder they quit coming as soon as they can choose. I shock Miss Simpson, who teaches a mixed class terribly, by my freedom with the pupils. She says that she can't do anything with her charges any more, but I notice that her class and the school are growing. I've been at it for several weeks now, and like a promising baby, I'm beginning to take an interest in things.

If I got on with the old children of my flock as well as I do with the young ones, I should have nothing to complain of. But I don't. They know as little as the youngsters, and are a deal more unruly. They are continually comparing me with their old pastor, and it is needless to say that I suffer by the comparison. The ex-pastor himself burdens me with advice. I shall tell him some day that he has resigned, but I am growing diplomatic, and have several reasons for not wishing to offend him, for all which shop, pray forgive me. One of the reasons for not wishing to offend the Reverend Mr. Simpson, of which Brent wrote, was, as may be readily inferred, his engagement to Elizabeth. It had not yet sufficiently become public property, but few of Dexter's observant And forecasting people who saw them together doubted for a moment that it would be a match.

Indeed, some spiteful people in the community who looked on from the outside said that Mr. Simpson never thought of resigning until he saw that he could keep the place in the family. But of course, they were Baptists who said this, or Episcopalians or Presbyterians, some such unregenerate lot. Contrary to the adage, the course of love between the young people did run smooth. The young minister had not disagreed with the older one, so Elizabeth had not disagreed with him, because she did not have to take sides. She was active in the Sunday school and among the young people's societies, and Brent thought that she would make an ideal minister's wife. Every Sunday after church they walked home together, and sometimes he would stop at the house for a meal.

They had agreed that at the end of his first pastoral year they would be married, and both parent and guardian smiled on the prospective union. As his beloved young friends seemed to grow more settled and contented, Ella Philip Hodges waxed more buoyant in the joy of his hale old age, and his wife, all her Ambition satisfied grew more primly genial every day. Brent found his congregation increasing, and heard himself spoken of as a popular preacher. Under these circumstances it would seem that there was nothing to be desired to make him happy, but he was not so, though he kept an unruffled countenance. He felt the repression that his position put upon him. He prayed that, with time it might pass off, but this prayer was not answered.

There were times when, within his secret closet, the contemplation of the dead level of his life as it spread out before him drove him almost to madness. The bitterness in his heart against his father had not abated one jot, and whenever these spasms of discontent would seize him, he was wont to tell himself, I'm fighting old Tom Brent now, and I must conquer him. Thus, nearly a year passed away. And he was beginning to think of asking Elizabeth to name the day. He had his eye upon a pretty little nest of a house, sufficiently remote, from her father's, and he was looking forward to settling quietly down in a home of his own. It was about this time that, as he sat alone one evening in the little chamber, which was his study and bedroom in one, Mr.

Simpson entered an open conversation with him. For some time a rumor which did violence to the good name of Sophie Davis had been filtering through the community, but it had only filtered until the girl's disappearance a day or two before had allowed the gossips to talk openly, and great was the talk. The young minister had looked on and listened in silence. He had always known and liked Sophie, and if what the gossip said of her was true, he pitied the girl. On this particular evening it was plain that Mr. Simpson had come to talk about the affair. After some preliminary remarks he said, "'You have a great chance, dear Brother Brent, for giving the devil in this particular part of the moral vineyard a hard blow.' "'I don't clearly see why now more than before,' returned Brent.

"'Because you were furnished with a living example of the fruits of evil, don't you see?' If there is such an example furnished, the people will see it for themselves, and I should be doing a thankless task to point it out to them. I would rather show people the beauty of good than the ugliness of evil. Yes, that's the milk-and-water new style of preaching. Well, we all have our opinions, to be sure, but I think it rather a good style. Brent was provokingly nonchalant, and his attitude irritated the elder man. We won't discuss that. It will be practical. I came to advise you to hold Sophie Davis up in church next Sunday as a fearful example of evil-doing. You needn't mention any names, but you can make it strong and plain enough.

Brent flushed angrily. Are there not enough texts in here? He asked, laying his hand upon the Bible, that I can cite. And apply, without holding up a poor, weak mortal, to the curiosity, scorn, and derision of her equally weak fellows. But it is your duty as a Christian and a preacher of the Gospel to use this warning. I do not need to kick a falling girl to find examples to warn people from sin, and as for duty, I think that each man best knows his own. Then you aren't going to do it? No, the young man burst forth. I am a preacher of the gospel, not a clerical gossip. Do you mean that I am a gossip? I was not thinking of you. Let me preach for you Sunday. I will not do that either. I will not let my pulpit be debased by anything which I consider so low as this business.

You will not take advice, then? Not such as that. Be careful, Frederick Brent. I gave you that pulpit, and I can take it away. I that know who you are, and what you come from. The whole town knows what you know, so I do not care for that. As for taking my pulpit from me, you may do that when you please. You put it upon me by force, and by force you may take it. But while I am pastor there, I shall use my discretion in all matters of this kind. Sophie's been mighty quiet in her devilment. She doesn't accuse anybody. Maybe you've got more than one reason for shielding her. Brent looked into the man's eyes and read his meaning. Then he arose abruptly and opened the door. I'm not accusing. Go! said the young man hoarsely.

His face was white, and his teeth were hard set. You'll earn some respect for your elders yet if—go! Brent repeated, and he took a step towards his visitor. Mr. Simpson looked startled for a moment, but he glanced back into the young man's face, and then passed hurriedly out of the room. Brent let two words slip between his clenched teeth. The hound. No one knew what had passed between the young pastor and Mr. Simpson. The many mutterings and head-shakings of the latter indicated that all was not right. No one knew. Perhaps that is hardly correct, for on Sunday the sermon over, when Brent looked to find Elizabeth in her usual place whence they walked home together, she was gone. He bit his lip and passed on alone, but it rankled with him that she had so easily believed ill of him.

But he had not seen the last. of the Reverend Mr. Simpson's work. It was the right of five members of the congregation to call a church meeting, and when he returned for service in the evening, he found upon the pulpit the written request for such an assembly to be held on Tuesday night. Heading the list of members was the name of the former pastor, although this was not needed to tell the young man that it was his work. In anger he gave out the notice and went on with his duties. "'Somethin must a-riled you to-night, Fred,' said Eliphalet, when Church was out. "'You give him a mighty stirrin' touch of fire.' "'It minded me a—that old supply sermon.' Brent smiled mirthlessly. He knew that the same feelings had inspired both efforts.

On Tuesday evening he was early at Church, and in the chair, as was the pastor's place. Early as he was he did—' Not much precede Mr. Simpson, who came in followed by a coterie of his choicest spirits. When the assembly had been duly called to order, Brent asked, Will someone now please state the object of this meeting? Mr. Simpson arose. Brothers and sisters, he said, the object of this meeting is a very simple one. From the time that I began to preach in this church, twenty-five years ago, We had purity and cleanness in the pulpit and in the pew. Brent's eyes were flashing. Eliphelet Hodges, who had thought that the extra session was for some routine business, pricked up his ears. Simpson proceeded.

One in this flock has lately gone astray. She has fallen into evil ways. Brother Simpson interrupted Brent. His face drawn and hard with anger. Will you state the object of this meeting? If the pastor is not afraid to wait, he will see that that is what I am doing. Then you are bringing into the church matters that have no business here. We shall see about that. We intend to investigate and see why you refused to hold up as a warning one of the sinners of this connection. We proposed to ask whom you were shielding. A sinner in the pew, or a sinner in the pulpit as well. We propose—Stop! The young man's voice broke out like the report of a rifle. Stop, I say, or as God sees me here in his temple, at his very altar, I will do you violence.

I speak to you not as your pastor, but as a man, not as an accused man, for you dare not accuse me. The church was in a commotion. In all its long history such a scene had never before been enacted within the sacred walls. The men sat speechless, the women shrank far down into their seats. Only those two men, the young and the old, stood glaring into each other's faces. Remember, brethren, said someone recovering himself, that this is the house of God, and that you are preachers of the gospel. I do remember that it is God's house, and for that reason— I will not let it be disgraced by scandal that would stain the lowest abode of vice. I do remember that I am a preacher, and for that reason I will not see the gospel made vindictive.

A scourge to whip down a poor girl, who may have sinned, I know not, but who, if she did, has an advocate with God. Once before in this place have I told you my opinion of your charity and your love. Once before have I branded you as mockeries of the idea of Christianity. Now I say to you, you are hypocrites. You are like carrion birds, who soar high up in the ether for a while, and then swoop down to revel in filth and rottenness. The stent of death is sweet to you. Putritity is dear to you. As for you who have done this work, you need pity. Your own soul must be reeking with secret foulness. To be so basely suspicious. Your own eyes must have cast unholy glances to so soon accuse the eyes of others.

As for the thing which you, my enemy, have intimated here tonight as pastor of this church, I scorn to make defense. But as a man, I say, give such words as those breath again, and I will forget your age and only remember your infamy. I see the heads of some about me here wagging, some that knew my father, I hear their muffled whispers, and I know what they are saying. I know what it is in their hearts. You are saying that it is the old Tom Brent in me, showing itself at last. Yes, it has smoldered in me, long, and I'm glad. I think better of that spirit, because it was waked into life to resent meanness. I would rather be the most roistering drunkard that ever reeled down these streaks than call myself a Christian and corrals over the dead characters of my fellows.

To-night, I feel for the first time that I am myself. I give you back gladly what you have given me. I am no longer your pastor. We are well quit. Even while I have preached to you, I have seen in your heart your scorn and your distrust, and I have hated you in secret. But I throw off the cloak. I remove the disguise. Here I stand, stripped of everything, save the fact that I am a man, and I despise you openly. Yes. Old Tom, drunken Tom, Brent's son, despises you. Go home, go home. There may be work for your stench-loving nostrils there. He stood like an avenging spirit, pointing towards the door, and the people had sat there breathless through it all, rose quietly, and slipped out. Simpson joined them and melted into the crowd.

They were awed and hushed. Only Mrs. Hodges, white as death, And her husband, bowed with grief, remained. A silent party, they walked home together. Not until they were in the house did the woman break down, and then she burst into a storm of passionate weeping, as if the pent-up tears of all her stoical life were flowing at once. Oh, Fred, Fred, she cried between her sobs. I see it all now. I was wrong. I was wrong, but I did it all for the best. The Lord knows I did it for the best. I know you did on Hester, but I wish you could have seen sooner, before the bitterness of death had come into my life. He felt strangely hard and cold. Her grief did not affect him then. Don't take on so, Hester, said the old man, but the woman continued to rock herself to and fro and moan.

I did it for the best, I did it for the best. The old man took her in his arms, and after a while she grew more calm, only her sobs breaking the silence. I shall go away to-morrow, said Brunt. I'm going out into the world for myself. I've been a disgrace to everyone connected with me. Don't say that about yourself, Fred. I ain't a-going to hear it, said Eliphilet. You've just acted as any right-thinking man would a acted. It wouldn't a been right for you to a struck Brother Simpson, but I'm nearer his age and my hands itched to get a hold of him. The old man looked menacing and his fists involuntarily clenched. Lifflet said his wife. I've been a meddling with the business of Providence, and I've got my jest desserts.

I thought I knowed just what he wanted me to do, and I was more ignorant than a child. Forgive me, if you can, Fred, my boy, I was trying to make a good man of you. There's nothing for me to forgive on, Hester. I'm sorry. I've spoiled your plans. I'm glad, for maybe God'll have a chance now to work his own plans, but poor little Elizabeth. Brent's heart heard him, as he heard the familiar name, and he turned abruptly and went to his room. Once there he had it out with himself, but he told himself, if I had the emergency to meet again, I should do the same thing. The next morning's mail brought him a little packet in which lay the ring he had given Elizabeth to plight their trough. I thank you for this, he said.

It makes my way easier.

14 14 - Chapter 14 21:37

The story of the altercation between the young minister and a part of his congregation was well brooded about the town. and all united in placing the fault heavily on the young man's shoulders. As for him, he did not care. He was wild with the enjoyment of his new-found freedom. Only now and again as he sat at the table the morning after and looked into the sad faces of Eliphileth and his guardian, did he feel any sorrow at the turn Matters had taken. In regard to Elizabeth he felt only relief. It was as if a half-defined idea in his mind had been suddenly realized, for some time he had believed her unable either to understand him or to sympathize with his motives. He had begun to doubt the depth of his own feeling for her.

Then had come her treatment of him last Sunday, and somehow while he knew it was at her father's behest, He could not help despising her weakness. He had spent much of the night before in packing his few effects, and all was now ready for his departure as they sat at breakfast. Mrs. Hodges was unusually silent, and her haggard face and swollen eyes told how she had passed the night. All in a single hour she had seen the work of the best part of her life made as naught, And she was bowed with grief and defeat. Frederick Brandt's career had really been her dream. She had scarcely admitted, even to herself, how deeply his success affected her own happiness. She cared for him in much the same way, that a sculptor loves his statue.

Her attitude was that of one who says look upon this work. Is it not fair? I made it myself. It was as much her pride as it was her love that was hurt, because her love had been created by her pride. She had been prepared to say exultingly, look where he came from, and look where he is, and now his defection deprived her forever of that sweet privilege. People had questioned her ability to train up a boy rightly, And she had wished to refute their imputations by making that boy the wonder of the community and their spiritual leader. And just as she had deemed her work safely done, lo, it had come toppling about her ears. Even if the fall had come sooner, she would have felt it less. It was the more terrible because so unexpected, for she had laid aside all her fears and misgivings and felt secure in her achievement.

"'You ain't to eatin' nothin' Hester,' said her husband anxiously. "'Ope you ain't a-feelin' bad this mornin.' He had heard her sobbing all night long, and the strength and endurance of her grief frightened him and made him uneasy, for she had always been so stoical. "'Hadn't you better try and eat one of them buckwheat cakes? Put lots of butter and molasses on it. They are mighty good. If they are so good, why don't you eat yourself? You've been foolin' with half a one.' for the last ten minutes. Indeed, the old man's food did seem to stick in his throat, and once in a while a mist would come up before his eyes. He, too, had had his dreams, and one of them was of many—a happy evening spent with his beloved boy, who should be near him, a joy and comfort in the evening of his life, and now he was going away.

The old man took a deep gulp. at his coffee to hide his emotion. It burned his mouth and gave reason for the moisture in his eye when he looked up at Fred. "'What train are you goin to take, Fred?' he asked. "'I think I'll catch that eight-fifty flyer. It's the best I can get, you know, and best to buell through, too.' "'You have just finally made up your mind to go, have you? Nothing could turn me from it now, Uncle It seems like a shame you ain't got nothin to do down in Cincinnati. I'll find something before long. I'm going to spend the first few days just in getting used to being free. The next moment he was sorry that he had said it, for he saw his guardian's eyes fill. I'm sorry, Frederick, she said with some return to her old asperity.

I'm sorry that I've made your life so hard that you think you have been a slave. I'm sorry that my home has been so unpleasant that you're so powerful glad to get away from it, even to go into a strange city full of wickedness and sin. I didn't mean it that way. Aunt Hester, you've been as good as you could be to me. You've done your duty by me, if anyone ever could. Well, I'm a mighty glad you realize that. So's if you go away and fall into sinful ways, you can't lay none of it to my bringing up. I feel somehow as if I would like to have a go with sin sometime just to see what it is like. Well, I lay you'll be satisfied before you've been in Cincinnati long, for if there ever was living hells on Earth, it's them big cities.

Oh, I've got faith to believe that Fred ain't a-going to do nothing wrong, said Elephalip. Nobody don't know what nobody's a-goin to do under temptation, sich as is layin' in wait for young men in the city, but I'm sure I've done my best to train you right, even if I have made some mistakes in my poor weak way and manner. If I do fall into sinful ways, Aunt Hester, I shall never blame you or your training for it. But you ain't a-goin to do it, Fred. You ain't a-goin to fall into no evil ways. I don't know, Uncle Lyft. I never felt my weakness more than I do now. Then that very feeling will be your strength, my boy. Keep on feeling that way. It'll not be a strength in Cincinnati, not by no means.

There is too many snares and pitfalls there to entrap the weak, Mrs. Hodges insisted. It is one of the defects of a provincial mind that it can never see any good in a great city. It concludes that as many people are wicked, where large numbers of human beings are gathered together, there must be a much greater amount of evil than in a smaller place. It overlooks the equally obvious reasoning that as some people are good, in the larger mass there must be also a larger amount of goodness. It seems a source of complacent satisfaction to many to sit in contemplation of the fact of the extreme wickedness of the world, They are like children who delight in a bluggy story, who gloat over murder and rapine.

Brent, however, was in nowise daunted by the picture of evil, which his guardian painted for him, and as soon as breakfast was over, he got his things in hand ready to start. Buoyant as he was with his new freedom, this was a hard moment for him. Despite the severity of his youthful treatment in Dexter, the plays held all the tender recollections he had, and the room where he stood was the scene of some memories that now flooded his mind, and choked his utterance when he strove to say good-bye. He had thought that he should do it with such a fine grace, He would prove such a strong man, but he found his eyes suffused with tears as he held his old guardian's hand, for in spite of all she had done the best for him that she knew, and she had taken a hard, uncompromising pride in him.

"'I hope you'll get along all right, Frederick,' she faltered forth tearfully. "'Keep out of bad company, and let us hear from you whenever you can. The Lord knows I've tried to do my duty by you.' Poor Eliphilet tried to say something as he shook the young man's hand, but he broke down and wept like a child. The boy could not realize what a deal of sunshine he was taking out of the old man's life. I'll write to you as soon as I'm settled, he told them, and with a husky farewell hurried away from the painful scene. At the gate, the old couple stood and watched him go, swinging down the street towards the station. Then they went into the house and sat long in silence in the room he had so lately left.

The breakfast table, with all that was on it, was left standing unnoticed and neglected—a thing unprecedented in Mrs. Hodge's orderly household. Finally, her husband broke the silence. It appears as if we had just buried someone and come home from the funeral. And that's just what we've done. If we only knowed it, livell it. We've buried the last of the Fred Brent we knowed and raised. Even if we ever see him again, he'll never be the same to us. He'll have new friends to think of and new notions in his head. Don't say that, Hester, don't say that. I can't stand it. He is never going to forget you and me, and it hurts me to hear you talk like that. It don't sound none too pleasant for me, Lifflet, but I've learned to face the truth, and that's the truth if it ever was told.

Well, maybe it's fur the best, then. It'll draw us closer together, and make us more to each other as we journey down to the end. It's our evening, Hester, and we must expect some chilly winds long towards night, but I guess he knows best. He reached over and took his wife's hand tenderly in his, and so they sat on sadly, but gathering peace in the silence and the sympathy until far into the morning. Meanwhile the Eight-Fifty Flyer was speeding through the beautiful Ohio Valley, bearing the young minister away from the town of his birth. Out of sight of the grief of his friends, he had regained all his usual stolid self-possession, Though his mind often went back to the little cottage at Dexter, where the two old people sat, and he may be forgiven, if his memory lingered longer over the image of the man than of the woman, he remembered with a thrill at his heart what Eliphelet Hodges had been to him in the dark days of his youth, and he confessed to himself with a half-shame that his greatest regret was in leaving him.

The feeling with which he had bidden his guardian go by was one not of regret at his own loss, but of pity for her distress. To Elizabeth his mind only turned for a moment to dismiss her with a mild contempt. Something hard that had always been in his nature seemed to have suddenly manifested itself. It is so much better this way, he said, for if the awakening had come later we should have been miserable together. And then his thoughts went forward to the new scenes towards which he was speeding. He had never been to Cincinnati. Indeed, except on picnic days, he had scarcely ever been outside of Dexter. But Cincinnati was the great city of his state, the one towards which adventurous youth turned its steps when real life was to be begun.

He dreaded and yet longed to be there, and his heart was in a turmoil of conflicting emotion as he watched the landscape flip by. It was a clear August day. Nature was trembling and fainting in the ecstasies of sensuous heat. Beside the railway, the trenches, which in spring were gurgling brooks, were now dry and brown, and the reeds, which had bent forward to kiss the water, now leaned over from very weakness, dusty and sickly. The fields were ripening to the harvest. There was in the air the smell of fresh-cut hay, The cornstalk stood like a host, armed with brazen swords to resist the onslaught of that other force, whose weapon was the corn knife. Farther on, between the trees, the much depleted river, sparkled in the sun, and wound its way, now near, now away, from the road, a glittering dragon in an enchanted wood.

Such scenes as these occupied the young man's mind, until amid the shouts of brakemen, the vociferous solicitations of the baggage-man, and a general air of bustle and preparation, the train thundered into the grand central station. Something seized Brent's heart like a great, compressing hand. He was frightened for an instant, and then he was whirled out, with the rest of the crowd, up the platform, through the thronged waiting-room, into the street. Then the cries of the eager men outside of, "'Cab, sir! Cab, sir! Let me take your baggage,' and which way, sir," bewildered him. He did the thing which every provincial does. He went to a policeman, and inquired of him where he might find a respectable boarding-house.

The policeman did not know, but informed him that there were plenty of hotels farther up. With something like disgust, Brent wondered if all the hotels were like those he saw at the station where the guests had to go through the bar-room, to reach their chambers. He shuddered at it, so strong is the influence of habit, but he did not wish to go to a hotel, so carrying his two valises he trudged on, though the hot sun of the mid-afternoon beat mercilessly down upon him. He kept looking into the faces of people who passed him, in the hope that he might see, in one encouragement to ask for the information he so much wanted. But one and all they hurried by, Without even so much as a glance at the dusty traveller.

Had one of them looked at him, he would merely have said mentally, Some country bump can come in to see the sights of town and be bunkoed. There is no loneliness like the loneliness of the unknown man in a crowd. A feeling of desolation took hold upon Brent, so he turned down a side street in order to be more out of the main line of business. It was a fairly respectable quarter. Children were playing about the pavements and in the gutters, while others with pails and pitchers were going to and from the corner saloon, where their vessels were filled with foaming beer. Brent wondered at the cruelty of parents who thus put their children in the way of temptation, and looked to see if the little ones were not bowed with shame, but they all strode stolidly on, With what he deemed an unaccountable indifference to their own degradation.

He passed one place where the people were drinking in the front yard, and saw a mother holding a glass of beer to her little one's lips. He could now understand the attitude of the children, but the fact nevertheless surprised and sickened him. Finally the sign, boarding here, caught his eye. He went into the yard and knocked at the door. A plump German girl opened it. and to his question as to accommodation replied that she would see her mistress. He was ushered into a little parlour that boasted some shabby attempts at finery, and was soon joined by a woman whom he took to be the lady of the house. Yes, Mrs. Jones took boarders. Would he want room and board? Terms? Five dollars per week? Had he work in the city?

No. Well, from gentlemen who were out of work, she always had her money in advance. But would he see his room first? Wondering much at Mrs. Jones's strange business arrangement, Brent allowed her to conduct into a room on the second floor, which looked out on the noisy street. It was not a palatial place by any means, but was not uncomfortable save for the heat, which might be expected anywhere on such a day. He was tired and wanted rest, so he engaged the place and paid the woman then and there. "'You just come off the train, I see. Will you have luncheon at once, Mr.' Brent," said he. "'Yes, I will have some luncheon, if you please. Do you take beer with your luncheon?' No, he said, hesitating, and yet why should he not take beer?

Everybody else did, even the children. Then he blushed as he thought of what his Aunt Hester would think of his even hesitating over the question. She would have shot out a no, as if it were an insult to be asked. So without beer he ate his luncheon and lay down to rest for the afternoon. When one has travelled little, even a short journey is fatiguing. In the evening, Brent met some of the other boarders at supper. There were not many. They were principally clerks in shops or under bookkeepers. One genial young fellow struck up a conversation with Fred, and became quite friendly during the evening. I guess you will go out to the zoo tomorrow, won't you? That is about the first place that visitors usually strike for when they come here.

I thought of getting a general idea of the city first, so that I could go round better before going farther out. Oh, you won't have any trouble in getting around. Just ask folks, and they will direct you anywhere. But everybody seems to be in a hurry, and by the time I open my mouth to ask them, they have passed me. The young clerk, Mr. Perkins by name, thought this was a great joke, and laughed long and loudly at it. I wished, gracious, I could go around with you. I've been so busy ever since I've been here that I have never seen any of the show sights myself, but I'll tell you what I will do. I can steer you around some on Thursday night, that is my night off, and then I will show you some sights that are sights.

The young man chuckled as he got his hat and prepared to return to the shop. Brent thanked him in a way that sounded heavy. and stilted even to his own ears after the other's light pleasantry. "'And another thing,' said Perkins, "'we will go to see the baseball game on Sunday. Cleveland's and the Reds—great game, you know.' It was well that Mr. Perkins was halfway out of the door before he finished his sentence, for there was no telling what effect upon him the flush which mounted to Brent's face and the horror in his eyes would have had." Go to a baseball game on Sunday? What would his people think of such a thing? How would he himself feel there? He, notwithstanding his renunciation of office, a minister of the gospel, he hastened to his room, where he could be alone and think.

The city, indeed, was full of temptations to the young, and yet he knew he would be ashamed to tell his convictions to Perkins, or to explain his horror at the proposition. Again there came to him, as there had come many times before, the realization that he was out of accord with his fellows. He was not in step with the procession. He had been warped away from the parallel of everyday ordinary humanity. In order to still the tumult in his breast, he took his hat and wandered out upon the street. He wanted to see people, to come into contact with them, and so rub off some of the strangeness in which their characters appeared to him. The streets were all alight and alive with bustle. Here a faker with loud voice and market-place eloquence was vending his shoddy wares.

There a drunkard reeled or was kicked from the door of a saloon, whose noiselessly swinging portals closed for an instant only to be reopened to admit another victim, Who e'er long would be treated likewise. A quartet of young negroes were singing on the pavement in front of a house as he passed, and catching the few pennies and nickels that were flung to them from the door. A young girl smiled and beckoned to him from a window, and another who passed laughed saucily up into his face and cried, Ah, there! Everywhere was the inevitable pale, flashing to and fro, sickened, Disgusted, thrown back upon himself, Brent turned his steps homeward again. Was this the humanity he wanted to know? Was this the evil which he wanted to have a go with?

Was Aunt Hester, after all, in the right? And was her way the best? His heart was torn by a multitude of conflicting emotions. He had wondered, in one of his rebellious moods, if, when he was perfectly untrammeled, he would ever pray. But on this night of nights, before he went wearily to bed, He remained long upon his knees.

15 15 - Chapter 15 18:51

He had hated the severe discipline of his youth. and had finally rebelled against it and renounced its results as far as they went materially. This, he had thought to mean his emancipation. But when the hour to assert his freedom had come, he found that the long years of rigid training had bound his volition with iron bands. He was wrapped in a mantle, of habit which he was ashamed to display, and yet could not shake off. The pendulum never stops its swing in the middle of the arc, so he would have gone to the other extreme, and revelled in the pleasures whose very breath had been forbidden to his youth. But he found his sensibilities revolting from everything that did not accord with the old Puritan code by which they had been trained.

He knew himself to be full of capabilities for evil, but it seemed as if some power greater than his held him back. It was Frederick Brent who looked on sin, abstractly, but its presence in the concrete was seen through the eyes of Mrs. Hester Hodges. It could hardly be called the decree of conscience, because so instantaneous was the rejection of evil. that there was really no time for reference to the internal monitor. The very restriction which he had complained of he was now putting upon himself, the very yoke whose burden he hated he was placing about his own neck. He had run away from the sound of right and duty, but had not escaped their power. He felt galled, humiliated, and angry with himself, because he had long seen The futility of blind indignation against the unseen force which impelled him forward in a hated path.

One thing that distressed him was a haunting fear. Of the sights which Perkins would show him on the morrow's night, he had seen enough for himself to conjecture of what nature they would be. He did not want to see more, and yet how could he avoid it? He might plead illness, but that would be a lie, and then there would be other nights to follow, so it would only be a postponement of what must ultimately take place or be boldly rejected. Once he decided to explain his feelings on the subject, but in his mind's eye he saw the half-pitying sneer on the face of the worldly young cityite, and he quailed before it. Why not go? Could what he saw hurt him? Was he so great a coward that he dared not come into the way of temptation?

We do not know the strength of a shield until it has been tried in battle. Metal does not ring true or false until it is struck. He would go. He would see with his own eyes for the purpose of information. He would have his boast about with sin. After this highly valorous conclusion he fell asleep. Then Vax morning found him wavering again, but he put all his troubled thoughts away, and spent the day in sight-seeing. He came in at night, tired and feeling strange and lonesome. Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. We used to say, but all that is changed now, and whom the devil wishes to get, he first makes lonesome. Then the victim is up to anything. Brent had finished his supper when Perkins came in, but he brightened at the young clerk's cheery salute.

Hello there. Ready to go, are you? Been ready all day, he replied with a laugh. It's been pretty slow. Ain't made much out then, seeing the sights of this little village of ours. Well, we'll do better tonight if the people don't see that black tie of yours and take you for a preacher getting facts for a crusade. Brent blushed and bit his lip, but he only said, "'I'll go up and change it while you're finishing your supper. "'Yes, you'd better, or someone will be asking you for a sermon.' Perkins laughed good-naturedly, but he did not know how his words went home to his companion's sensitive feelings. He thought that his haste in leaving the room and his evident confusion were only the evidence of a Greenhorn's embarrassment under raillery.

He really had no idea that his comrade's tie was the badge of his despised calling. Brent was down again in a few minutes, a gray cravat having superseded the offending black, but even now, as he compared himself with his guide, he appeared somber and ascetic. His black Prince Albert coat showed up gloomy and depressive against young Perkins' natty, drab cutaway, relieved by a dashing red tie. From head to foot, the little clerk was light and dapper, and as they moved along the crowded streets, the preacher felt much as a conscious omnibus would feel beside a pneumatic, tired, sulky. You can talk, or you want to, about your Chicago, Perkins was rattling on, but you can bet your life. Cincinnati's the greatest town in the West.

Chicago's nothing but a big, overgrown country town. Everything looks new. and flimsy there to a fellow. But here you get something that's solid. Chicago's pretty swift, too, but there ain't no flies on us either when it comes to the go. Brent thought with dismay how much his companion knew, and felt a passing bitterness that he, though older, had seen none of these things. Ever been in Chicago? asked Perkins. But of course you haven't. This was uttered in such a tone of conviction. that the minister thought his greenness must be very apparent. "'I've never been around much of anywhere,' he said. "'I've been hard at work all my life.' "'Eh, that's so. You don't look like you've done much hard work.

What do you do?' "'I—'—'right,' was the confused answer. Perkins fortunately did not notice the confusion. "'Oh, ho,' he said. "'Do you go in for newspaper work?' "'No, not for newspapers. Oh, you're an author—a regular.' Out and outer. Well, don't you know I thought you were somehow different from most fellows I've met. I never could see how you authors could stay away in small towns, where you hardly ever see anyone and write about people as you do, but I suppose you get your people from books. No, not entirely, replied Brent, letting the mistake go. There are plenty of interesting characters in a small town. Its life is just what the life of a larger city is. Only the scale is smaller. Well, if you're on a search for characters, you'll see some tonight.

That'll be worth putting in your notebook. We'll stop here first. The place before which they had stopped was surrounded by a high, vine-covered lattice fence. Over the entrance flamed forth in letters set with gaslights the words, Myers, Beer Garden, and Variety Hall. Welcome. He could hear the sound of music within. A miserable orchestra and a woman singing in a high, strident voice. People were passing, in and out of the place. He hesitated, and then shaking himself, as if to shake off his scruples, turned towards the entrance. As he reached the door, a man who was standing beside it thrust a paper into his hand. He saw others refuse to take it as they passed. It was only the announcement of a temperance meeting at a neighbouring hall.

He raised his eyes to find the gaze of the man riveted upon him. "'Don't you go in there, young man,' he said. "'You don't look like you was used to this life. Come away. Remember it's the first step.' "'Chuck him,' said Perkins's voice at his elbow. But something in the man's face held him. A happy thought struck him. He turned to his companion and said, in a low voice, "'I think I've found a character here already. Will you excuse me for a while?' Certainly, business before pleasure. Pump him all you can, and then come in. You'll find me at one of the tables on the farther side. Perkins passed on. You won't go in, my young friend, said the temperance man. What is it to you whether I go in or stay out?

asked Brent in a tone of assumed carelessness. I want to keep every man I can from walking the path that I've walked in suffering. As I suffer, he was seized with a fit of coughing. His face was old and very thin, and his hands, even in that hot air, were blue as with cold. I wished you'd go to our meetin' tonight. We've got a powerful speaker there. That'll show you the evils of drink better than I can. Where is this grave meeting? Wren tried to put us near, into his voice, but an unaccountable tremor ruined its effect. He was duly directed to the hall. I may come around, he said carelessly, and sauntered off. Leaving the man coughing beside the door of the beer garden. Given all of his life to the devil, he mused, drunk himself to death, and now seeking to steal into heaven by giving away a few tracts in his last worthless moments.

He had forgotten all about Perkins. He strolled about for a while, and then, actuated by curiosity, sought out the hall where the meeting was being held. It was a rude place in a poor neighborhood. The meeting-room was up two flights of dingy, rickety stairs. Hither Brent found his way. His acquaintance of the street was there before him, and sitting far to the front among those whom, by their position, the young man took to be the speakers of the evening. The room was half full of the moteliest crew that it had ever been his ill-fortune to set eyes on, the flaring light of two lard-oil torches brought out, The peculiarities of the queer crowd in fantastic prominence. There was everywhere an odor of work, but it did not hang chiefly about the men.

The women were mostly little, wheezen-faced creatures whom labor and ill-treatment had rendered inexpressibly hideous. The men were chiefly of the reformed. The bleared eyes and bloated faces of some showed that their reformation must have been of very recent occurrence, While a certain unsteadiness in the conduct of others showed that with them the process had not taken place at all. It was late, and a stuffy little man with a wheezy voice and a very red nose was holding forth on the evils of intemperance, very much to his own satisfaction evidently, and unmistakably to the weariness of his audience. Brent was glad when he sat down. Then there followed experiences, From women whose husbands had been drunkards, and from husbands whose wives had been similarly afflicted.

It was all thoroughly uninteresting and commonplace. The young man, had closed his eyes on suppressing a yawn, had just determined to go home, when he was roused by a new stir in the meeting, and the voice of the wheezy man saying, And now, brothers, we are to have a great treat. We are to hear the story of the California pilgrim, Told by himself. Bless the Lord for his testimony. Go on, my brother. Brent opened his eyes and took in the scene. Beside the chairman stood the emaciated form of his chance acquaintance. It was the man's face, now seen in the clear light, that struck him. It was thin, very thin, and of a deathly pallor. The long gray hair fell in a tumbled mass above the large, hollow eyes.

The cheekbone stood up prominently, and seemed almost bursting through the skin. His whole countenance was full of the terrible, hopeless tragedy of a ruined life. He began to speak. I'll have to be very brief, brothers and sisters, as I haven't much breath to spare. But I will tell you my life simply, in order to warn any that may be in the same way, to change their course. Twenty years ago, I was a hard-working man. In this state, I got along fairly, and had enough to live on, and keep my wife and baby decent. Of course, I took my dram, like the other workmen, and never hurt me. But some men can't stand what others' skin, and the habit commenced to grow on me. I took a spree now and then, and then went back to work, for I was a good hand, and could always get something to do.

After a while, I got so unsteady that nobody would have me. For then on, it was the old story. I got discouraged and drunk all the more. Three years after I began, my home was a wreck, and I had ill-treated my wife, and she was no better than I. Then she got a divorce from me, and I left the town. I wandered from place to place, sometimes working, always drinking, sometimes riding on trains, sometimes tramping by the roadside. Finally, I drifted out to California, and there I spent most of my time until a year ago. I come to see myself. What a miserable being I was. It was through one of your bands of hope. From then I pulled myself up, but it was too late. I'd ruined my health. I started for my old home, talking and telling my story, by the way.

I want to get back there and just let the people know that I have repented, and then I can die in peace. I want to see if my wife and child, here a great fit of coughing, seized him again, and he was forced to sit down. Brent had listened breathlessly to every word. A terrible fear was clutching at his heart. When the man sat down, he heard the voice of the chairman saying, Now let us all contribute what we can to help the brother on his journey. He hasn't far to go. Come forward and lay your contributions on the table here now. Someone sing. Now who's going to help Brother Brent? The young man heard the name. He grasped the seat in front of him for support. He seized his hat, staggered to his feet, and stumbled blindly out of the room and down the stairs.

Drunk, said someone as he passed. He rushed into the street, crying within himself, My God, my God! He hurried through the crowds, thrusting the people right and left, and unheeding the curses that followed him. He reached home and groped up to his room. Awful! murmured Mrs. Jones. He seems such a good young man, but he's been out with Mr. Perkins, and men will be men. Once in his room, it seemed that he would go mad. Back and forth he paced through the floor, clenching his hands and smiting his head. He wanted to cry out. He felt the impulse to beat his head against the wall. My God, my God, it was my father! he cried. Going back home, what shall I do? There was yet no pity in his heart for the man whom he now knew to be his parent.

His only thought was of the bitterness that parents' folly had caused. Oh, why could he not have died away from home without going back there to revive all the old memories? Why must he go back there just at this troublous time to distress those who have loved me, and help those who hate me to drag my name in the dust? He has chosen his own way, and it has ever been apart from me. He has neglected and forgotten me. Now why does he seek me out after a life spent among strangers? I do not want him. I will not see him again. I shall never go home. I have seen him. I have heard him talk. I have stood near him and talked with him, and just when I am leaving it all behind me, all my past of sorrow and degradation, he comes and lays a hand upon me, and I am more the sun.

Of Tom Brent tonight than ever before. Is it fake, God or the devil, that pursues me so? His passion was spending itself. When he was more calm, he thought. He will go home with a religious testimony. On his lips he will die happy, and the man who has spent all his days in drunkenness killed his wife and damned his son will be preached through the gates of glory on the strength of a few words of familiar cant. There came into his mind a great contempt for the system which taught or preached so absurd and unfair a doctrine. I wish I could go to the other side of the world, he said, and live among heathens who know no such dreams. I, Frederick Brent, son of Tom Brent, temperance advocate, sometime drunkard and wife, Peter, there was terrible, scorching irony in the thought.

There was a pitiless hatred in his heart for his father's very name. I suppose it went on that Uncle Lith, he said the name tenderly, has my letter now, and will be writing to me to come home and hear my father's dying words, and receive perhaps his dying blessing, his dying blessings. But I will not go, I will not go back. Anger mingled with shame at his origin, and a greater shame at himself flamed within him. He did not care for the helpless son sixteen years ago. Let him die without the sight of the son now. His life has cursed my life. His name has blasted my name. His blood has polluted my blood. Let him die as he live without me. He dropped into a chair and struck the table with his clenched fists.

Mrs. Jones came to the door to ask him not to make so much noise. He buried his face in his hands and sat there thinking, thinking until morning.

16 16 - Chapter 16 19:54

Next morning, when Brent went down to breakfast, he was as a man who had passed through an illness. His eyes were bloodshot, his face was pale, his step was nervous and weak. Just what I expected, muttered Mrs. Jones. He was in a beastly condition last night. I shall speak to Mr. Perkins about it. He had no right to take and get him in such a state. She was more incensed than ever when the gay young clerk came. In looking perfectly fresh. He's used to it, she told herself, and it doesn't tell on him, but it's nearly killed that poor young man. Hello there, Brent, said Perkins. You checked me for good last night. Did you lose your way, or was your character too interesting? Character too interesting was the laconic reply.

And I'll bet You've been awake all night studying it out. "'You are entirely right there,' said Brent, smiling bitterly. "'I haven't slept a wink all night. I've been studying out that character.' "'I thought you looked like it. You ought to take some rest to-day. I can't. I've got to put in my time on the same subject.' Mrs. Jones pursed her lips and bustled among the teacups. The idea of their laughing over their escapades right before her face, and thinking that she did not understand, she made the mental observation that all men were natural-born liars, and most guilty when they appeared to be most innocent. Character, indeed, did they think to blind her to the true situation of things. Oh, astute woman!

Strange fellow," said Perkins to his spoon, when after a slight breakfast, Brent had left the table. There's others that are just as strange, only they think they are sharper, quoth Mrs. Jones with a knowing look. I don't understand you, returned her boarder, turning his attention from a spoon to the lady's face. There's none so blind as those who don't want to see. Again, I say, I don't understand you, Mrs. Jones. Oh, Mr. Perkins, it's no use trying to fool me. I know men. In my younger days, I was married to a man. Strange contingency, but still it casts no light on your previous remarks. You've got very innocent eyes, I must say, Mr. Perkins. The eyes, madam, Are the windows of the soul? Perkins quoted with mock gravity.

Well, if the eyes are the soul's windows, there are some people who always keep their windows curtained. But I must deny any such questionable performance on my part. I've not the shrewdness to veil my soul from the scrutiny of so keen an observer as yourself. Oh, Flattery! Isnt going to do your cause? One might have good, Mr. Perkins. I'm not going to scold, but next time you get him in such a state, I wish you'd bring him home yourself, and not let him come tearing in here like a madman, scaring a body half to death. Will you kindly explain yourself? What condition? And who is him? Oh, of course you don't know. I do not. You mean to tell me that you weren't out with Mr. Brent last night before he came home?

I surely was not with him after the first quarter of an hour. Well, it's hard to believe that he got that way by himself. That way? Why, he left me at the door of Meyer's Beer Garden to talk to a temperance crank who he thought was a character. Well, no temperance character sent him rushing. And stumbling in here, as he did last night. Character indeed. It was at the bottom of a pail of beer, or something worse. Oh, I don't think he was loaded. He's an author, and I guess as I got to rolling in a fine frenzy, and he had to hurry home to keep it from rolling out of his head into the street. Mr. Perkins, this is no subject for fun. I've seen what I've seen, and it was a most disgraceful spectacle.

I take your word for it that you were not with Mr. Brent, but you need not try to go further and defend him. I'm not trying to defend him at all. It's really none of my business, and Perkins went off to work a little bit angry, and a good deal more bewildered. I thought he was a jay, he remarked. To Brent, the day was a miserable one. He did not leave his room, but spent the slow hours. Pacing back and forth in absorbed thought, interrupted now and then, by vain attempts to read, his mind was in a state of despairing apprehension. It needed no prophetic sense to tell him what would happen. It was only a question of how long a time would elapse before he might expect to receive word from Dexter summoning him home.

It all depended upon whether or not The California pilgrim got money enough last night for exploiting his disgraceful history to finish the last stage of the journey. What disgusted the young man so intensely was that his father, after having led the life he had, should make capital out of relating it, would not a quiet repentance, if it were real, have been quite sufficient. He very much distrusted the sincerity of motive that made a man hold himself up as an example of reformed depravity, when the hope of gain was behind it all. The very charity which he had preached so fiercely to his congregation he could not extend to his own father. Indeed, it appeared to him, although this may have been a trick of his distorted imagination, that the pilgrim had seemed to take a sort of pleasure in the record of his past, as though it were excellent to be bad in order to have the pleasure of conversion.

His lip involuntarily curled when he thought of conversion. He was disgusted with all men and principles. One man offends, and a whole system suffers. He felt a peculiar self-consciousness, a self-glorification of his own misery, placing the accumulated morality of his own life against, The full-grown evil of his father's. It angered him to think that by the intervention of a seemingly slight quantity the results were made equal. What is the use of it all? He asked himself, my struggle involuntarily though it was, my self-abnegation, my rigidity, when what little character I built up is overshadowed by my father's past. Why should I have worked so hard? And longed for those rewards, real or fancied, the favor of God and the respect of men, when he, after a career of outrageous dissipation, by a simple act or claim of repentance, wins the deity's smile, and is received into the arms of people with gushing favor, while I am looked upon as the natural recipient of all his evil.

Of course, they tell us that there is more joy. Over the one lamb that is found, than over the ninety and nine that went not astray. It puts rather a high premium on straying. He laughed bitterly. With what I have behind me, is it worth being decent for the sake of decency? After all, is the game worth the candle? He took up a little book, which many times that morning he had been attempting to read. It was an edition of Matthew Arnell's poems, and one of the stanzas was marked. It was in my— Serenus. Oh, wherefore, cheat our youth, if thus it be, of one short joy, one lust, one pleasant dream, stringing vain words of powers we cannot see, blind divinations of a will supreme, lost labor when the circumambient gloom but holds, if God's, God's careless of our doom.

He laid the book down with a sigh. It seemed to fit his case. It was not until the next morning, however, that his anticipations were realized, and the telegraph messenger stopped at his door. The telegram was signed, Elithalette Hodges, and merely said, Come at once, you are needed. Needed? What could they need of him? Wanted? Would have been a better word? Wanted by the man who, for sixteen years, had forgotten that he had a son. He had already decided that he would not go. and was for the moment sorry that he had stayed where the telegram could reach him and stir his mind again into turmoil, but the struggle had already recommenced. Maybe his father was burdening his good old friends, and it was they who needed him.

Then it was his duty to go, but not for his father's sake. He would not even see his father. No, not that. He could not see him. It ended by his getting his things together and taking the next train. He was going, he told himself, to the relief of his guardian and his friend, and not because his father—his father—wanted him. Did he deceive himself? Were there not at the bottom of it all—the natural promptings of so close a relationship which not even cruelty, neglect, and degradation could wholly stifle? He saw none of the scenes that had charmed his heart on the outward journey a few days before, for now his sight was either far ahead or entirely inward. When he reached Dexter, it was as if years had passed since he left its smoky little station.

Things did not look familiar to him as he went up the old street, because he saw them with new eyes. Mr. Hadjess must have been watching for him, for he opened the door before he reached it. Come in, Freddy, he said in a low voice, tiptoeing back to his chair. I've got great news for you. You needn't tell me what it is, said Brent. I know that my father's here. Eliphilette started up. Who told you, he said. Some blockhead I'll be bound who didn't break it to you gently as I would a done. Actually, the people in this here town—don't blame the people, Uncle Lyft, said the young man, smiling in spite of himself. I found it out for myself before I arrived, and I assure you it wasn't gently broken to me either.

To the old man's look of bewildered amazement, Brand replied with the story of his meeting with his father. "'It's the good Lord's doings,' said Eliphilette reverently. I don't know just whose doing it is, but it is an awful accusation to put on the Lord. I've still got enough respect for him not to believe that. Freddy, exclaimed the old man, horror-stricken. You ain't a gittin, irreverent. You ain't a beginnin to doubt, air you. Don't do it. I know just what you've had to bear all along, and I know what you're a bearin' now, but you ain't the only one that has their crosses. I'm a bearin' my own. And it ain't like neither. You don't know what it is, my boy, when you feel that something precious is all your own, to have a real owner come in and snatch it away from you.

While I thought your father was dead, you seemed like my own son. But now it pears like I ain't got no kind of right to you. And it's kind of hard, Freddy. It's kind of hard, after all these years. I know how a mother feels when she loses her baby, but when it's a grown son that's lost, one that she's just been piling up love for, it's... It's—the old man paused, overcome by his emotions. I am as much—no more than ever, your son, Uncle Liff. No one shall ever come between us—no, not even the man I should call father. He is your father, Freddy. It's just like I told Hester. She was for sending him along. In spite of himself, the pangs shot through Brent's heart at this. But I said, No, no, Hester, he's Fred's father, and we must take him in for our boy's sake.

"'Not for my sake, not for my sake,' broke out the young man. "'Well, then, for our master's sake. We took him in. He was mighty low down. It seemed like the Lord had just spared him to get here. Hester's with him. Now, Anne—'Anne, can you stand to hear it? The doctor says he's only got a little while to live.' "'Oh, I can stand it,' Brent replied with unconscious irony. The devotion on the goodness of the old man had softened him as thought, struggle, and prayer had failed to do. Will you go in now? asked Galliflet. He wants to see you. He can't die in peace without—the breath came hard between his teeth, as Brent replied. I said I wouldn't see him. I came because I thought you needed me. He is your father, Freddy, and he's penitent.

All of us poor mortals need a good deal of forgiving, and it doesn't matter if one of us needs a little more or a little less than another. It puts us all on the same level. Remember your sermon about charity, and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and—and— Jed not. You ain't seen all his plan. Come on, and taking the young man by the hand, he led him into the room that had been his own. Hester rose as he entered, and shook hands with him, and then she and her husband silently passed out. The sufferer lay upon the bed, his eyes closed, and his face as white as the pillows on which he reclined.

Disease had fattened on the hollow cheeks and wasted chest. One weak hand-picked aimlessly at the coverlet, and the laboured breath caught and faltered as if already the hand of death was at his throat. The young man stood by the bed, trembling in every limb, his lips now as white as the ashen face before him. He was cold, but the perspiration stood in beads on his brow as he stood gazing upon the face of his father. Something like pity stirred him for a moment, but a vision of his own life came up before him, and his heart grew hard again. Here was the man who had wronged him. Irremediably. Finally the dying man stirred uneasily, muttering, I dreamed that he had come. I'm here. Brent's voice sounded strange to him.

The eyes opened, and the sufferer gazed at him. Are you—I'm your son. You—why, I—saw you. You saw me in Cincinnati, at the door of a beer garden. He felt as if he had struck the man before him with a lash. Did you go in? No, I went to your temperance meeting. The elder Brent did not hear. The ill-concealed bitterness of his son's voice. Thank God, he said, you heard my story, and it leaves me less to tell. Something made me speak to you that night. Come nearer, will you shake hands with me? Fred reached over and took the clammy hand in his own. I have had a poor life. The now fast weakening man went on, and I have done wrong by you, but I have repented. Will you forgive me? Something came up into Brent's heart and burned there like a flame.

You have ruined my life, he answered, and left me a heritage of shame and evil. I know it. God help me. I know it. But won't you forgive me, my son? I want to call you that. Just once. He pressed his hand closer. Could he forgive him? Could he forget all that he had suffered, and would yet suffer on this man's account? Then the words in the manner of old came to him, and he said in a softened voice, "'I forgive you, father.' He hesitated long over the name. Thank God for—for the name—and forgiveness.' He carried his son's hand to his lips. "'I shan't be alive—long now, and my—death will set people to talk, and—they will bring up the—past. I—don't want you—to stay—and have to bear it. I don't want to—to Bring any more on you than I have already.

Go away as soon as I'm dead. I cannot leave my friends to bear my burdens. They will not speak of them as they will speak of you, my poor boy. You are old Tom Brent's son. I wish I could take my name and all it means along with me, but promise Me. You will go. Promise. I will go, if you so wish it. Thank you. And now, good-bye. I can't talk any more. I don't dare to advise you after all. You know of me. But do right, do right. The hand relaxed, and the eyelids closed. Brent thought that he was dead and prompted by some impulse. Bent down and kissed his father's brow. His father, after all. A smile flitted over the pale face, but the eyes did not open. But he did not dive in. Fred called Mrs. Hodges and left her with his father while he sat with the it was not until the next morning, when the air was full of sunlight, the song of birds, and the chime of church bells, that old Tom Brent's weary spirit passed out on its search for God.

He had not spoken after his talk with his son. They were heavy hearts about his bed, but there were no tears, no sorrow for his death. Only regret for the manner of his life. Mrs. Hodges and Eliphilette agreed that the dead man had been right in wishing his son to go away, and after doing what he could to lighten their load, he again stood on the threshold, leaving his old sad home. Mrs. Hodges bade him good-bye at the door and went back. She was too bowed to seem hard any more, or even to pretend it, but Eliphilette followed him to the gate. The two stood holding each other's hands and gazing into each other's eyes. "'I know you're a-going to do right without me a-telling you to,' said the old man jokingly.

"'That's all I want of you. Even if you don't preach, you can live and work for him. I shall do all the good I can, Uncle Liff, but I shall do it in the name of poor humanity until I come nearer to him. I'm dazed and confused now and want the truth. Go on, my boy. You're safe. You've got the truth now, only you don't know it.' For they's one that says, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me. Another hearty handshake, and the young man was gone. As Fred went down the street, someone accosted him and said, I hear your father's home. Yes, he's home, said Fred. Tom Brent was buried on Tuesday morning. The Reverend Mr. Simpson, who, in spite of his age, had been prevailed upon to resume charge of his church, preached the sermon.

He spoke feelingly of the dear departed brother. who, though late, had found acceptance with the Lord, and he ended with a prayer which was a shot for the departed's misguided son, who had rejected his master's call, and was now wandering over the earth in rebellion and sin. It was well that he did not see the face of Eliphilet Hodges then. Danel Hastings nodded over the sermon. In the back part of the church, Mrs. Martin and Mrs. Smith whispered together, and gaped at the two old mourners, and wondered where the boy was. They adhered he was in town. Bill Tompkins brought Elizabeth to the funeral.

17 17 - Chapter 17 16:47

gained their mead of golden gossip, and then given way to some newer sensation. But not so here. This little town was not so prolific in startling episodes that she could afford to let such a one pass with anything less than the fullest comment. The sudden return of Tom Brent is changed life, And his death were talked of for many a day. The narrative of his life was yet to be a stock camp-meeting sermon story, and the next generation of dexterites was destined to hear of him. He became a part of the town's municipal history.

Fred's disappearance elicited no less remark. Speculations as to his whereabouts and his movements were rife. The storm of gossip which was going on around them was not lost on Eliphelet Hodges and his wife, but save when some too adventurous enquirer called down upon himself Mrs. Hodges' crushing rebuke or the old man's mild resentment, they went their ways. silent and uncommunicative. They had heard from the young man first, about two weeks after his departure. He had simply told them that he had got a place in the office of a packing establishment. Furthermore, he had begged that they let his former fellow-townsmen know nothing of his doings or of his whereabouts. And the two old people had religiously respected his wishes.

Perhaps there was some reluctance on the part of Mrs. Hodges, for after the first letter she said, it does seem like a sin and a shame, Lifflet, that we can't tell these here people how nice Fred's a-doin, so's to let them know that he don't need none o their help. It just makes my tongue fairly itch when I see Miss Smith and that bosom croning a'earn, Sallie Martin a'nosin' around, tryin' to see what they kin find out. It is amazin' pesterin' Hester. I'm surprised at how I feel about it myself, for I never was no hand to want to gossip, but when I hear, oh, Dan'l Hastings, that can't move, Out of his cheer for the room it is, when I hear him a-saying that he reckoned that Fred was a-going to the dogs.

I felt just like up and telling him how things was. Why, on air, didn't you? If I'd a been there, I'd—but you know what Freddy's letter said. I kept still on that account. But I tell you, I looked at Dan'l from his pocket. The old man took the missive, worn with many readings, and gazed at it fondly. Yes," he repeated. I looked at Dan'l hard. I felt just like up and telling him. Well, no wonder. I'm afeard. I'd a clean forgot Freddy's wishes and told him everything. To think of old Daniel Hastings as old as he is, a gossiping about other people's business, sakes alive. He needs every breath he's got now for his prayers, as all of us poor mortals do now, added Mrs. Hodges, as she let her eyes fall upon her own wrinkled hands.

Yes, we're old Hester, you and I, but I'm... Mighty glad of the faith. I've been a store nut, for it's purty considerable of a help now. Of course, LeVolet, faith is a great comfort, but it's a greater one to know that you've all as tried to do your duty the very best you could, not a saying that you ain't tried. Most of us tries, Hester, even Dannel. I ain't a-goin' to talk about Dannel Hastings. He's just naturally spiteful and crabbed. I declare I don't see how he's a-goin to squeeze into the kingdom. Oh, never mind that has to got a'n a-goin to ask you to find a way. Mrs. Hodges did not reply. She and her husband seldom disagreed now, because he seldom contradicted or found fault with her.

But if this dictum of his went unchallenged, it was not so with some later conclusions at which he arrived on the basis of another of Fred's letters. It was received several months after the settlement of the young man in Cincinnati, and succeeded a long silence. You will think, it ran, that I have forgotten you, but it is not so. My life has been very full here of late, it is true, but not so full as to exclude you and good Aunt Hester. I feel that I am growing. I can take good full breaths here. I couldn't in Dexter. The air was too rarefied by religion. Mrs. Hodges gasped as her husband read this aloud, but there was the suspicion of a smile about the corners of Eliphilette's mouth. "'You ask me if I attend any church?' the letter went on.

"'Yes, I do, when I first left.' I thought that I never wanted to see the inside of a meeting-house again, but there is a young lady in our office who is very much interested in church work, and somehow she has got me interested too, and I go to her church every Sunday. It is congregational. Congregational? exclaimed Mrs. Hodges. Congregational? And he, born and raised up in the Methodist faith? It's the first step. He wasn't born nothing but jest a poor little outcast sinner, and as fur as the denomination goes, I guess that church is about as good as any other. Lifflet Hodges, are you a backsliding to? No, I'm like Freddy. I'm a-growing. It's a purty time of life for you to be a-talking about growing.

You're just like an old tree that has fell in a damp place and sends out a few shoots on the trunk. It thinks it's a-growing, too, but them shoots soon wither, and the tree rots. That's what it does. But before it rotted, it growed all that was in it to grow, didn't it? Well, that's all anybody can do—tree or human being. He paused for a moment. I ain't got all my growth yet. You can get the rest in the garden of the Lord. It ain't good to change soil on some plants too soon. I ain't ready to be set out, he went on reading. I'm not so narrow as I was at home. I don't think so many things are wrong as I used to. It is good to be like other people sometimes, and not to feel yourself apart from all the rest of humanity.

I'm growing to act more like the people I meet, and so I am. The old man's hand trembled, and he moved the paper nearer to his eyes. I—what's this, he says? I'm learning to dance. There. His wife shot forth triumphantly. What did I tell you, going to a congregational church and learning to dance? And he not a year ago a preacher of the gospel. Eliphilette was silent for some time. His eyes looked far out into space. Then he picked up the paper that had fluttered from his hand, and a smile flitted over his face. Well, I don't know, he said. Freddy's young, and they's worse things in the world than dancing. You ain't a upholding him in that too, air you. Well, I never. You'd uphold that sinful boy if he committed murder.

I ain't a upholdin' nothin' but what I think is right. Right, Liffelet Hodges, what air you a sayin? Not that I mean to say that dansin' is right, but—there ain't no buts in the Christian religion, Liffelet, and there ain't no use in your tryin' to cover up Freddy's faults. I ain't a-trying to cover nothin' up from God, but sometimes I get to thinkin' that maybe we put a good many more bonds on ourselves than the Lord ever meant us to carry. Oh, some of us don't struggle under none too heavy burdens. Some of us have a way of just slippin' em off of our shoulders like a bag of flour. Meanin' me? Well, maybe I have tried to make things just as easy for myself as possible, but I ain't never tried to make em no harder for other people.

I like to think of the master as a good gentle friend, and maybe I ain't shifted so many of the burdens he put on me that he won't let me in at last. Livilid, I did say what I said for no slur again. You're as good a Christian man as well as most. I know you didn't mean no slur, Hester. It was just your duty to say it. I've come to realize how strong your feeling about duty is in the years we've been together, and I wouldn't want you to be any different. The calm of old age had come to these two. Life's turbulent waters toss us and threaten to rend our frail bark in pieces, but the swelling of the tempest only lifts us higher, and finally we reach and rest upon the Ararat of age with the swirling flowers.

"'Blood's below us.' Elephalette went on with the letter. "'He says some more about that little girl. "'Alice is a very nice and sensible girl. "'I like her very much. "'She helps me to get out of myself and to be happy. "'I've never known before what a good thing it was to be happy, "'perhaps because I've tried so hard to be so. "'I believe that I have been selfish and egotistical. "'Freddy, don't forget his words,' the old man paused to say. I've always thought too much of myself and not enough of others. That was the reason that I was not strong enough to live down the opposition and Dexter. It seems that after all your kindness to me, I might have stayed and made you and Aunt Hester happy for the rest of your days.

Bless that boy. But the air stifled me. I could not breathe in it. Now that I am away, I can look back and see at all my mistakes and my shortcomings, for my horizon is broader and I can see clearer. I've learned to know what pleasure is, and it has been like a stimulant to me. I've been given a greater chance to love, and it has been like the breath of life to me. I've come face to face with Christianity without cant, and I respect it for what it is. Alice understands me and brings out the best that is in me. I've always thought that it was good for a young man to have a girlfriend. For an instant, Mrs. Hodges resumed her old manner. A slight wave from the old flood had reached the bark and rocked it.

She pursed her lips and shook her head. He forgot Elizabeth in a mighty short time. If he hadn't he ought to be spanked like a child. Elizabeth never was the kind of a mate for Freddy, and there ain't nobody that knows it better than you yourself, Esther, and you know it. Mrs. Hodges did not reply. The wavelet had subsided again. Now just listen how he ends up. I want you and Aunt Hester to come down and see me when you can. I will send for you in a week or two, if you will promise to come. Write to me, both of you, won't you? You're changed, boy, Fred. Changed, and I'm glad of it. He's more like a natural boy of his age now than he ever was before. He's just like a young oak saplin before he allus put me in mind of one of them oleander slips that you used to cut off and hang again the house in a bottle of water so's they'd root.

We'll go down, won't we, Hester? We'll go down and see him. Not me, Livlet. You can go, but I ain't a-goin nowhere to be run over by the cars or Rector or something. Not that I'm so powerful afeard of anything like that, for I do hope I'm prepared to go whenever the master calls, but it ain't for me to begin a-runnin around at my age, after livin all these years at home. No, indeed. Why, I couldn't sleep in no other bed but my own now. I don't take to know sich new things. And go, Mrs. Hodges would not. So Eliphilet was forced to write and refuse the offered treat. But on a day there came another letter, and he could no longer refuse to grant the wish of his beloved boy. The missive was very brief.

It said only, "'Alice has promised to marry me. Won't you and Aunt Hester come and see me, joined to the dearest girl in the world?' There was a postscript to it. I did not love Elizabeth. I know it now. "'Hester, I'm a-goin,' said Eliphilet. Go on, Lifflet, go on. I want you to go, but I'm set in my ways now. I do hope that girl can do something besides work and an office. She ought to be a good housekeeper and a good cook so's not to kill that poor child with dyspepsy. I do hope she won't put Saleradis in her biscuits. I think it's Freddy's soul that needs feedin'. His soul'll go where it don't need feedin' if his stomach ain't tended to, right? If I went down there, I could give the girl some points.

I don't reckon you'd better go, Hester, as you say you're set in your ways, and maybe her ways'd be different, and then—then you'd both feel it. Oh, I suppose she thinks she knows it all like most young people do. I hope she don't, but I'm a-going down to see her anyhow, and I'll carry your blessing along with mine. For the next week great were the preparations for the old man's departure, and when finally he left the old gate and turned his back on the little cottage it was as if he were going on a great journey, rather than a trip of less than a hundred miles. It had been a long time since he had been on a train, and at first he felt a little dubious, but he was soon at home, for his kindly face drew his fellow-passengers to him, and he had no lack of pleasant companions on the way.

Like Fred, the noises of the great station would have bewildered him, but as he alighted and passed through the gate, a strong hand was laid on his shoulder, and his palm was pressing the palm of his beloved son. The old carpet-bag fell from his hands. Fredie Brent, it ain't you. It's I, Uncle Liff, and no one else, and I'm so glad to see you that I don't know what to do. Give me that bag. They started away, the old man chattering, like a happy child. He could not keep from feasting, his eyes on the young man's face and form. Well, Freddy, you just don't look like yourself. You're—you're—I'm a man, Uncle Liff. "'I'llest knowed you'd be, my boy, I'llest knowed you'd be. But your aunt Hester told me to ask you if you'd dropped all your religion.

She's mighty disturbed about your dancing.' Brent laughed aloud in pure joy. "'I knowed you'd hadn't.' The old man chuckled. Lost it all, Uncle Liff, why, I've just come to know what religion is. It's to get bigger and broader and kinder, and to live and to love and be happy so that people around you will be happy.' "'You're still a fur straight preacher, Freddy.' "'Oh, yes, Uncle Liv. I've been to a better school than the Bible seminary. I haven't got many religious rules and formulas, but I'm trying to live straight and do what is right.' The old man had paused with tears in his eyes. "'I've been a-praying fur you,' he said. "'So has Alice,' replied the young man, "'though I don't see why she needs to pray.

She's a prayer in herself. She has made me better by letting me love her. Come up, Uncle Lyf, I want you to see her before we go on to my little plays.' They stopped before a quiet cottage, and Fred knocked in the little parlour. A girl came to them. She was little, not quite up to Fred's shoulder. His eyes shone as he looked down upon her brown head. There were lines about her mouth, as if she had known sorrow, that had blossomed into sweetness. The young man took her hand, Uncle Liv. He said, "'This is Alice.' She came forward with winning frankness, and took the old man's hand in hers. The tears stood in his eyes again. "'This is Alice,' he said. "'This is Alice.' Then his gaze travelled to Fred's glowing face, and with a sob in his voice that was all for joy, he added, Alice, I'm glad you're a living.

End of The Uncalled by Paul Lawrence Dunbar.

queue_music Chapters 17