Within a week after the transfer, the health of the camp was showing so marked an improvement that Old Bill Shea talked of putting on night squads to make up for lost time. Tip shook his head.
“They’ll get bitten and they’ll get fever,” he prophesied.
“What about your pennyroyal?” asked the overseer who had come to have a solid respect for the youngster’s knowledge.
“If you can make ’em use it.”
Adapting the method used in the local mint-stills, Horace and his aide pressed out a supply of pennyroyal extract which was supplied to the workers at cost. At the physician’s suggestion, Genter Latham issued an order, prescribing its use. He knew that there was still some fever in the camp. Horace had been quite frank in saying that he could not explain it. The great man was not captious. It was enough for him that his project was now showing better speed than any other in the valley.
The Irish workmen, an independent and fractious lot, were at first skeptical of the preventive virtues of what they regarded as a fad, and inclined to disregard the order. But when they discovered that the spicy-odorous oil protected them from the stinging pests better than the cumbrous neck-smudges which were the standard resource, they accepted the relief gratefully, all but a few old hardshells who disdained to mollycoddle themselves. More than half of this number developed the shakes, to the great satisfaction of their physician who duly noted it for future submission to a medical journal. He tried to obtain data from other camps, but except at Martin’s the overseers were surly and uncommunicative. They were doing badly. Squire Jerrold’s project was one of the hardest hit.
With the approach of the excavation to the village, local spirit rose to meet it. Early and late Latham’s diggers toiled, wielding their tools by the light of flares and fires, while the goodwives brought them coffee and the tavern keepers contributed a sturdier liquid to spike it on rainy nights. Bonuses for extra dirt-removal were increased. Rivalry drove the work forward at record speed.
They crossed the boundary line of Palmyra Village at two o’clock of a fine September morning. A cannon was fired, the churchbells pealed, and the populace turned out. All the men knocked off work. Genter Latham, aided by the village ladies, had prepared a mighty outdoor feast for which the fires had been lighted since midnight. The central feature was a Gargantuan potpie. Each simmering fivepail kettle held thirteen fowls, sixteen squirrels, ten rabbits, accompanied by liberal chunks of beef, mutton, and venison, with potatoes, carrots, turnips, parsnips, onions and cabbages to fill in. For side dishes there were baked beans, stewed squash, and peas boiled with pork. In the house ovens, pumpkin pies two feet across ripened. Liquor flowed like water: whisky, rum, hollands, hard cider and a choice of brandies, peach, plum, cherry and blackberry or all of them. The robust harmonies of canal song rang through sedate streets more habituated to the meter of the hymn book, culminating in that swift-paced chorus which was largely popular because it was supposed to represent some recondite and occult smut.
Singsong, pillywinkle, snipcat, sootbag;
Singsong, Polly, woncha guy me-O!
Overnight Palmyra became canal-conscious to an almost frenetic degree. Hitherto the more respectable and conservative element had regarded Governor Clinton’s mighty venture with mingled expectancy and distrust. With the palpable evidence of progress under their noses the populace enthused over a new maritime prosperity. The tempo of the whole environment was quickened.
Converts hotly prophesied “Rochester to Albany in the spring.” Warehouses, put swiftly into process, began to fill up with produce and goods before the roofs were shingled. New thoroughfares were laid out and named: Chapel Street, Jackson Street, Fayette Street, and, of course, Canal Street. There was a new tannery, a new ironmongery, a whitesmith’s establishment, ground was broken for a stoneyard, two saloons sprouted where one had sufficed before, and there was optimistic talk of building a public library and improving the jail. Wages skyrocketed until carpenters were earning a dollar a day. Real estate boomed. Building lots doubled and redoubled in value. Genter Latham put up a building for his banking operations. People said that he would be a millionaire-man one of these fine days. The community went mildly and happily mad. Exhorter Sickel coined a sour locution, Eriemania.
The Scythe of Salvation was now embarked upon the second phase of his endeavors, a sort of Children’s Crusade. He laid out a schedule of visits to the young of the Presbyterian flock, to test the armor of their faith for chinks into which Satan might enter, and to fortify their orthodoxy by prayer and admonition. In ministerial courtesy he invited the regular pastor to participate. The Rev. Theron Strang accepted as a painful Christian duty. He did not like the Sickel ways.
High on the Exhorter’s list stood the name of Araminta Jerrold. This was no compliment; far from it; it was due to an appeal from Mrs. Jerrold, not participated in by the Squire, who tried vainly to persuade his better half that Dinty would do well enough if only her mother would let her be.
The mother was not content to let the child be. She was, she told herself, responsible for this immortal soul which she had, by a process which still left her dully bewildered when she considered it, brought to being. Dinty was not the only phenomenon which contributed to poor Mrs. Jerrold’s obfuscation. Most things confused her. She found refuge from the perplexities of an enigmatic world in a groveling religiosity, expressed in dreary texts and the type of hymn which proclaims the singer to be a poor worm of perdition. It bored her worldly husband extremely.
In this crisis, Dorcas Jerrold found the support of the Rev. Philo Sickel profoundly comforting. The Exhorter guaranteed to rescue Araminta’s soul if it was still salvageable.
On a crisp afternoon when she would have preferred to go hickory nutting with Tip, Dinty reluctantly put on her white frock and went down to the parlor where the two reverend gentlemen, black-garbed from toe to neckcloth, awaited her. After the greeting, which was in the form of an appropriate text, Elder Strang formally and mildly questioned her upon vital tenets of the denomination which both professed. She came through creditably on predestination, original sin, conviction of depravity, and salvation by faith, and was looking forward to an early release, when Exhorter Sickel took charge along more personal lines.
“When and where were you baptized, Araminta?”
“In Canandaigua, sir. When I was two years old.”
“You then renounced the world and all its follies?”
“Oh, yes, sir!”
“So that, when you breathe your last, expiring breath, you can die in the hope of salvation?”
“Yes, Mr. Sickel.”
“What would be your sad fate should you die, unbaptized?”
Dinty knew the answer to that one but did not like it. She temporized.
“I’d be in trouble,” she said.
“You would be in hell,” snarled the Exhorter.
“Yes, sir,” said Dinty without enthusiasm.
He eyed her with stern suspicion. “Do you doubt it, Araminta? Are you tainted with the deadly poison of heresy?”
“I hope not, sir,” said Dinty, troubled.
“You know that you are a sinner?”
“Yes, sir.”
He intoned,
Sinners shall lift their guilty head
And shrink to see a yawning hell.
Dinty caught the cue and shrank. “Yes, sir,” she quavered.
He gave out ten minutes of concentrated exhortation and commination and, at the end, pointed a bony finger at her.
“And now,” he demanded, “are you willing to be damned for the greater glory of God?”
Dinty wriggled. “Please, sir, I’d rather not,” she said.
“Answer me! Yes or no.”
Her lip trembled. “I don’t see how it would help God.”
“That is not for you to say, lost soul that you are,” thundered the Exhorter. “Yes or no?”
“No!” said Dinty desperately.
She would not cry! Not before
this nasty sourface. She hated him. It wasn’t fair. It was cruel. If she said she was willing to be damned, Mr. Sickel would probably tell God and God might take her at her word. She turned a piteous face to Parson Strang.
“Why do I have to be damned?” she whimpered.
A strange thing happened. The stern, gray pastor came over and put his arm around her quivering shoulders. His face was pale and strained. He said to his brother of the cloth,
“Are you willing to be damned for the greater glory of God?”
“Yes,” answered Mr. Sickel with a meek and smug smile.
“Then, sir, you ought to be,” returned Mr. Strang with such bitterness as Dinty had never before heard from his mouth. “Come, Araminta, my dear.”
With that gaunt, protective arm still about her, he marched her out. The sound of Mr. Sickel’s supplications followed them. He seemed to be asking Heaven’s pardon for both of them in exasperated accents.
Before dark it was bruited about town that a devil of unrighteousness had issued from Dinty Jerrold and excited Elder Strang to insult the Rev. Sickel and balk him in his efforts to save the child’s soul. Mrs. Jerrold wept purposefully all night and, in the morning, delivered to her husband what was as near to an ultimatum as she dared go; Dinty must be sent away. Squire Jerrold, heavy of heart and exhausted in patience, assented.
Full of woe and perplexity, the child sought out her trusted friend and counselor.
“Uncle Horace, do you think I’m a damned soul?”
“No. Why should you be?”
Dinty folded her hands, the unfailing concomitant of piety on her part, and recited,
Soon as we draw our infant breath,
The seeds of sin grow up for death.
The Law demands a perfect heart,
But we’re defiled in every part.
“I had to repeat that a hundred times yesterday.”
“Whose idea was that?” asked Horace, frowning.
“Exhorter Sickel’s.”
Horace muttered something so uncomplimentary to the Scythe of Salvation that Dinty gasped with horror and delight.
“Oh, Uncle Horace! There’s such a lot of things they tell you to believe that I hate to believe,” she went on meditatively. “Do you believe everything you ought to, Uncle Horace?”
Horace’s eyes wandered to the shelf-row of infallible authorities; the cocksure claims and autocratic dicta of the discordant pundits.
“I’m afraid I don’t, Dinty.”
“Then maybe you’re in peril of damnation, too.”
“I’m liable to be, before all’s said and done.”
“If you can’t believe, you can’t, can you!” said the little philosopher summing up the despairing problem of saint and sinner.
“We’re rebels, I expect, you and I,” said Horace. “Born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.”
“Is it very bad to be a rebel?”
“Perhaps it only means being born out of our time.” He was talking more to himself than to her now. “A rebel has no contemporaries.”
“How do you spell it?” asked Dinty with her diary in mind.
Horace laughed. “Never mind, little Dinty. You stick to your guns and don’t let them scare you.”
“Just the same,” said Dinty, “alas!”
“Oh, no!” he protested. “No more of that.”
“They’re sending me away. To school at Aurora. Really, this time. Will you come to the coach to see me off, Uncle Horace?”
“Of course. I’m sure you’ll like your school.”
“I’m sure I’ll hate it,” she returned with a reproachful quaver. “If I do, I’ll run away. I’ll write to you when I get there. Will you write to me?”
“Perhaps,” he said. Then, seeing her dolorous look, he kindly amended it to, “Yes, of course I will.”
A small and sorrowing group assembled in front of the Eagle to bid the departing traveler farewell. Wealthia Latham was there in tears, Happalonia Vallance, the Fairlie twins, Grace and Freegrace, with several other schoolmates, and Marcus Dillard bearing a farewell token of an improving book selected by his mother. Dinty looked about in vain for Dr. Amlie. He was nowhere to be seen, being at the moment in the saddle and pushing Fleetfoot through the forest to reach a woodcutter who had, by a misstroke, half severed a foot. It was a desolate child who huddled into the corner of her seat, peeping out from damp eyes upon a wet and patchy landscape through the long day’s journey to far away Aurora. She thought that her Uncle Horace had forgotten her.
Something awry with his office impinged vaguely upon Horace’s consciousness a few days later. He presently identified it as a change in the decorative scheme. To his questioning, Mrs. Harte responded by tossing her head and avering that she didn’t meddle where she wa’nt bid, but she couldn’t warrant as much for that smudge-eyed imp of mischief, Wealthy Latham. Let him ask her.
Horace intercepted the girl on her way home from school. She was escorted by two boys, both considerably her seniors, one carrying her books, the other her bag.
“Have you had a letter from Dinty, Wealthia?”
She assumed an air of astonished admiration. “Aren’t you cruel clever, Dr. Amlie! How ever could you know that?”
“My right eye told my left ear,” said Horace dryly. “It was you that put back the sampler. Why?”
“I thought it looked prettier there.”
“No suggestion in the letter?”
Wealthia dimpled. “Would you like to see it? I’ll show you the last page.”
Horace read the carefully inscribed words, evidently written under the still potent influence of the style of Coquette. It began with a broken sentence.
“… see Marcus Dillard tell him I am thinking of him, and I read in his Book daily. You must visit Dr. Amlie’s office, now that I am no longer there, and see that it is Clean and Neat. Mrs. Harte will negleckt him if not Watched. Please Wealthia do Something Important for me. Put my Sampler back on the Wall in Dr. Amlie’s office. Somebody who shall be Nameless took it away. I think he would Like to have it There. I think it would Remind him of One who is Absent. I do not wish him to Forget me. Please do this for me, dear Wealthia and think Ofttimes of Your Loving and Afflicted Friend,
A. Jerrold.
“What shall I tell her about the sampler?” asked Wealthia.
“Tell her I’m glad that it’s back.”
“She’ll be glad, too. All right, all right, I’m coming.” This to her two swains who were showing signs of impatience. “They’re going to treat me to a brand-new beverage,” she told Horace importantly. “It is called soda water and is said to be cruel tasty. Good-bye, Dr. Amlie.”
“Good-bye, and thank you, Wealthia.”
Some days later the mail coach brought him a communication of typical Dintyism, faintly qualified by the elegancies of the Guide to Genteel Correspondence.*
Dear Uncle Horace:
You may guess with what a heavy heart I was helped into the stage that was to convey me to this Detestable Nunnery, which I perfectly hate the Sight of. I want to take a little Rest in the Morning for I like to sleep as well as usual. I have to be Disturbed by a Rattling old Bell and when we go to bed at Night we might as well undertake to talk without mouths as to talk without our Mistress hearing. She will Poke her Head in at the door and tell us what is No News that it is against the Rules to talk in our rooms.
I have finished my Complaints and will now try to be more tame. They lock us in at Night but soon I may not be able to sustain it any longer so if you hear an Owl hooting on your Doorsill, rise up and let it in for it will be me—I; grammar.
Tell Tip I miss him and the Woods. If I do not Die of Loneliness and Abbandonment I will see you all next Vacation.
It seems Centuries away.
Your Loving,
A. Jerrold.
Post Scriptum. Sometimes I think I am God’s Orphan Child and nobody loves me, and if you had been Mad with me about the Sampler I would have Died.
; * For the pattern of this letter I am indebted to the Wells College Library and Miss Louise Robinson Heath, whose great-grandaunt was the afflicted schoolgirl.
– 16 –
I knew all the Time my Doctor Amlie Would not let me Die.
(DINTY’S DIARY)
That fall saw the metamorphosis of Dr. Horace Amlie. Relieved from the cramping Levering influence, he developed into a bit of a gay blade. He became active in the Light Dragoons. He joined the Horsethief Society, meeting on Thursday evenings to devise ways and means of combatting a new and lively industry with which the constituted authorities were impotent to cope, while consuming the contents of Mine Host St. John’s social bowl. He became a fire warden with beribboned staff, sworn to discharge the duties of that honorable office which had little to do with the devouring element directly, but were more of a police function to correct the widely held theory that a fire was a heaven-provided opportunity for the neighbors to augment their household equipment.
A ninepin alley had been established in the cellar of Mr. Hurd’s new inn. Thither Dr. Amlie repaired two evenings of the week, to consort with such gaudy characters as Silverhorn Ramsey, Jed Parris and the more prosperous among the canal laborers. Going further in dissipation, he joined the sporting element of the smithy in laying out a quarter-mile straightaway racetrack on the eastern outskirts, where weekly trotting contests were held to the accompaniment of shameless and open wagering. Of a Saturday afternoon the rising young physician might be seen, fashionable in a suit of the gay London Blue with white silk gloves, acting as judge or, on occasion, competing on his mare, Fleetfoot. It was reputed that he had won twenty-five dollars from Ephraim Upcraft on a single heat.
The Palmyra Society for the Suppression of Vice & Immorality passed and published resolutions declaring that “horseracing is the box of Pandora from which issue more and greater mischiefs than ever man counted or measured,” and accepted Horace’s resignation without a dissenting voice. Exhorter Sickel, the society’s new president, asserted that Palmyra was rapidly going to hell and Horace Amlie was going with it. If so, the wayfarer was patently determined to enjoy himself on the downward path. Thanks to the loan from Genter Latham, he was now established in his new residence, in connection with which another scandal attached itself to his besmirched name. With his cronies of the smithy he held weekly revel in his luxurious quarters where, it was darkly whispered, they played at fipenny loo.
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