by Zane Grey
“I came out here because I wanted to get acquainted with this great country, and because I thought there was an opportunity to do good,” said Margaret, coldly. She did not care to discuss her own affairs with this man. “But, Mr. West, I don’t know that I altogether understand you. Didn’t you tell me that you were a Presbyterian minister?”
“I certainly did,” he answered, complacently, as though he were honoring the whole great body of Presbyterians by making the statement.
“Well, then, what in the world did you mean? All Presbyterians, of course, believe in the infallibility of the Scriptures and the deity of Jesus—and the atonement!”
“Not necessarily,” answered the young man, loftily. “You will find, my dear young lady, that there is a wide, growing feeling in our church in favor of a broader view. The younger men, and the great student body of our church, have thrown to the winds all their former beliefs and are ready to accept new light with open minds. The findings of science have opened up a vast store of knowledge, and all thinking men must acknowledge that the old dogmas are rapidly vanishing away. Your father doubtless still holds to the old faith, perhaps, and we must be lenient with the older men who have done the best they could with the light they had; but all younger, broad-minded men are coming to the new way of looking at things. We have had enough of the days of preaching hell-fire and damnation. We need a religion of love to man, and good works. You should read some of the books that have been written on this subject if you care to understand. I really think it would be worth your while. You look to me like a young woman with a mind. I have a few of the latest with me. I shall be glad to read and discuss them with you if you are interested.”
“Thank you, Mr. West,” said Margaret, coolly, though her eyes burned with battle. “I think I have probably read most of those books and discussed them with my father. He may be old, but he is not without ‘light,’ as you call it, and he always believed in knowing all that the other side was saying. He brought me up to look into these things for myself. And, anyhow, I should not care to read and discuss any of these subjects with a man who denies the deity of my Saviour and does not believe in the infallibility of the Bible. It seems to me you have nothing left—”
“Ah! Well—now—my dear young lady—you mustn’t misjudge me! I should be sorry indeed to shake your faith, for an innocent faith is, of course, a most beautiful thing, even though it may be unfounded.”
“Indeed, Mr. West, that would not be possible. You could not shake my faith in my Christ, because I know Him. If I had not ever felt His presence, nor been guided by His leading, such words might possibly trouble me, but having seen ‘Him that is invisible,’ I know.” Margaret’s voice was steady and gentle. It was impossible for even that man not to be impressed by her words.
“Well, let us not quarrel about it,” he said, indulgently, as to a little child. “I’m sure you have a very charming way of stating it, and I’m not sure that it is not a relief to find a woman of the old-fashioned type now and then. It really is man’s place to look into these deeper questions, anyway. It is woman’s sphere to live and love and make a happy home—”
His voice took on a sentimental purr, and Margaret was fairly boiling with rage at him; but she would not let her temper give way, especially when she was talking on the sacred theme of the Christ. She felt as if she must scream or jump out over the wheel and run away from this obnoxious man, but she knew she would do neither. She knew she would sit calmly through the expedition and somehow control that conversation. There was one relief, anyway. Her father would no longer expect respect and honor and liking toward a minister who denied the very life and foundation of his faith.
“It can’t be possible that the school-house is so far from the town,” she said, suddenly looking around at the widening desert in front of them. “Haven’t you made some mistake?”
“Why, I thought we should have the pleasure of a little drive first,” said West, with a cunning smile. “I was sure you would enjoy seeing the country before you get down to work, and I was not averse myself to a drive in such delightful company.”
“I would like to go back to the school-house at once, please,” said Margaret, decidedly, and there was that in her voice that caused the man to turn the horse around and head it toward the village.
“Why, yes, of course, if you prefer to see the school-house first, we can go back and look it over, and then, perhaps, you will like to ride a little farther,” he said. “We have plenty of time. In fact, Mrs. Tanner told me she would not expect us home to dinner, and she put a very promising-looking basket of lunch under the seat for us in case we got hungry before we came back.”
“Thank you,” said Margaret, quite freezingly now. “I really do not care to drive this morning. I would like to see the school-house, and then I must return to the house at once. I have a great many things to do this morning.”
Her manner at last penetrated even the thick skin of the self-centered man, and he realized that he had gone a step too far in his attentions. He set himself to undo the mischief, hoping perhaps to melt her yet to take the all-day drive with him. But she sat silent during the return to the village, answering his volubility only by yes or no when absolutely necessary. She let him babble away about college life and tell incidents of his late pastorate, at some of which he laughed immoderately; but he could not even bring a smile to her dignified lips.
He hoped she would change her mind when they got to the school building, and he even stooped to praise it in a kind of contemptuous way as they drew up in front of the large adobe building.
“I suppose you will want to go through the building,” he said, affably, producing the key from his pocket and putting on a pleasant anticipatory smile, but Margaret shook her head. She simply would not go into the building with that man.
“It is not necessary,” she said again, coldly. “I think I will go home now, please.” And he was forced to turn the horse toward the Tanner house, crestfallen, and wonder why this beautiful girl was so extremely hard to win. He flattered himself that he had always been able to interest any girl he chose. It was really quite a bewildering type. But he would win her yet.
He set her down silently at the Tanner door and drove off, lunch-basket and all, into the wilderness, vexed that she was so stubbornly unfriendly, and pondering how he might break down the dignity wherewith she had surrounded herself. There would be a way and he would find it. There was a stubbornness about that weak chin of his, when one observed it, and an ugliness in his pale-blue eye; or perhaps you would call it a hardness.
CHAPTER IX
She watched him furtively from her bedroom window, whither she had fled from Mrs. Tanner’s exclamations. He wore his stylish derby tilted down over his left eye and slightly to one side in a most unministerial manner, showing too much of his straw-colored back hair, which rose in a cowlick at the point of contact with the hat, and he looked a small, mean creature as he drove off into the vast beauty of the plain. Margaret, in her indignation, could not help comparing him with the young man who had ridden away from the house two days before.
And he to set up to be a minister of Christ’s gospel and talk like that about the Bible and Christ! Oh, what was the church of Christ coming to, to have ministers like that? How ever did he get into the ministry, anyway? Of course, she knew there were young men with honest doubts who sometimes slid through nowadays, but a mean little silly man like that? How ever did he get in? What a lot of ridiculous things he had said! He was one of those described in the Bible who “darken counsel with words.” He was not worth noticing. And yet, what a lot of harm he could do in an unlearned community. Just see how Mrs. Tanner hung upon his words, as though they were law and gospel! How could she?
Margaret found herself trembling yet over the words he had spoken about Christ, the atonement, and the faith. They meant so much to her and to her mother
and father. They were not mere empty words of tradition that she believed because she had been taught. She had lived her faith and proved it; and she could not help feeling it like a personal insult to have him speak so of her Saviour. She turned away and took her Bible to try and get a bit of calmness.
She fluttered the leaves for something—she could not just tell what—and her eye caught some of the verses that her father had marked for her before she left home for college, in the days when he was troubled for her going forth into the world of unbelief.
As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.…
How the verses crowded upon one another, standing out clearly from the pages as she turned them, marked with her father’s own hand in clear ink underlinings. It almost seemed as if God had looked ahead to these times and set these words down just for the encouragement of his troubled servants who couldn’t understand why faith was growing dim. God knew about it, had known it would be, all this doubt, and had put words here just for troubled hearts to be comforted thereby.
For I know whom I have believed [How her heart echoed to that statement!], and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
And on a little further:
Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his.
There was a triumphant look to the words as she read them.
Then over in Ephesians her eye caught a verse that just seemed to fit that poor blind minister:
Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.
And yet he was set to guide the feet of the blind into the way of life! And he had looked on her as one of the ignorant. Poor fellow! He couldn’t know the Christ who was her Saviour or he never would have spoken in that way about Him. What could such a man preach? What was there left to preach, but empty words, when one rejected all these doctrines? Would she have to listen to a man like that Sunday after Sunday? Did the scholars in her school, and their parents, and the young man out at the camp, and his rough, simple-hearted companions have to listen to preaching from that man, when they listened to any? Her heart grew sick within her, and she knelt beside her bed for a strengthening word with the Christ who since her little childhood had been a very real presence in her life.
When she arose from her knees she heard the kitchen door slam down-stairs and the voice of Bud calling his mother. She went to her door and opened it, listening a moment, and then called the boy.
There was a dead silence for an instant after her voice was heard, and then Bud appeared at the foot of the stairs, very frowning as to brow, and very surly as to tone:
“What d’ye want?”
It was plain that Bud was “sore.”
“Bud,”—Margaret’s voice was sweet and a bit cool as she leaned over the railing and surveyed the boy; she hadn’t yet got over her compulsory ride with that minister—“I wanted to ask you, please, next time you can’t keep an appointment with me don’t ask anybody else to take your place. I prefer to pick out my own companions. It was all right, of course, if you had to go somewhere else, but I could easily have gone alone or waited until another time. I’d rather not have you ask Mr. West to go anywhere with me again.”
Bud’s face was a study. It cleared suddenly and his jaw dropped in surprise; his eyes fairly danced with dawning comprehension and pleasure, and then his brow drew down ominously.
“I never ast him,” he declared, vehemently. “He told me you wanted him to go, and fer me to get out of the way ’cause you didn’t want to hurt my feelings. Didn’t you say nothing to him about it at all this morning?”
“No, indeed!” said Margaret, with flashing eyes.
“Well, I just thought he was that kind of a guy. I told ma he was lying, but she said I didn’t understand young ladies, and, of course, you didn’t want me when there was a man, and especially a preacher, round. Some preacher he is! This’s the second time I’ve caught him lying. I think he’s the limit. I just wish you’d see our missionary. If he was here he’d beat the dust out o’ that poor stew. He’s some man, he is. He’s a regular white man, our missionary! Just you wait till he gets back.”
Margaret drew a breath of relief. Then the missionary was a real man, after all. Oh, for his return!
“Well, I’m certainly very glad it wasn’t your fault, Bud. I didn’t feel very happy to be turned off that way,” said the teacher, smiling down upon the rough head of the boy.
“You bet it wasn’t my fault!” said the boy, vigorously. “I was sore’s a pup at you, after you’d made a date and all, to do like that; but I thought if you wanted to go with that guy it was up to you.”
“Well, I didn’t and I don’t. You’ll please understand hereafter that I’d always rather have your company than his. How about going down to the school-house some time to-day? Have you time?”
“Didn’t you go yet?” The boy’s face looked as if he had received a kingdom, and his voice had a ring of triumph.
“We drove down there, but I didn’t care to go in without you, so we came back.”
“Wanta go now?” The boy’s face fairly shone.
“I’d love to. I’ll be ready in three minutes. Could we carry some books down?”
“Sure! Oh—gee! That guy’s got the buckboard. We’ll have to walk. Doggone him!”
“I shall enjoy a walk. I want to find out just how far it is, for I shall have to walk every day, you know.”
“No, you won’t, neither, ’nless you wanta. I c’n always hitch up.”
“That’ll be very nice sometimes, but I’m afraid I’d get spoiled if you babied me all the time that way. I’ll be right down.”
They went out together into the sunshine and wideness of the morning, and it seemed a new day had been created since she got back from her ride with the minister. She looked at the sturdy, honest-eyed boy beside her, and was glad to have him for a companion.
Just in front of the school-house Margaret paused. “Oh, I forgot! The key! Mr. West has the key in his pocket! We can’t get in, can we?”
“Aw, we don’t need a key,” said her escort. “Just you wait!” And he whisked around to the back of the building, and in about three minutes his shock head appeared at the window. He threw the sash open and dropped out a wooden box. “There!” he said, triumphantly, “you c’n climb up on that, cantcha? Here, I’ll holdya steady. Take holta my hand.”
And so it was through the front window that the new teacher of the Ridge School first appeared on her future scene of action and surveyed her little kingdom.
Bud threw open the shutters, letting the view of the plains and the sunshine into the big, dusty room, and showed her the new blackboard with great pride.
“There’s a whole box o’ chalk up on the desk, too; ain’t never been opened yet. Dad said that was your property. Want I should open it?”
“Why, yes, you might, and then we’ll try the blackboard, won’t we?”
Bud went to work gravely opening the chalk-box as if it were a small treasure-chest, and finally produced a long, smooth stick of chalk and handed it to her with shining eyes.
“You try it first, Bud,” said the teacher, seeing his eagerness; and the boy went forward awesomely, as if it were a sacred precinct and he unworthy to intrude.
Shyly, awkwardly, with infinite painstaking, he wrote in a cramped hand, “William Budlong Tanner,” and then, growing bolder,
“Ashland, Arizona,” with a big flourish underneath.
“Some class!” he said, standing back and regarding his handiwork with pride. “Say, I like the sound the chalk makes on it, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” said Margaret, heartily, “so smooth and business-like, isn’t it? You’ll enjoy doing examples in algebra on it, won’t you?”
“Good night! Algebra! Me? No chance. I can’t never get through the arithmetic. The last teacher said if he’d come back twenty years from now he’d still find me working compound interest.”
“Well, we’ll prove to that man that he wasn’t much of a judge of boys,” said Margaret, with a tilt of her chin and a glint of her teacher-mettle showing in her eyes. “If you’re not in algebra before two months are over I’ll miss my guess. We’ll get at it right away and show him.”
Bud watched her, charmed. He was beginning to believe that almost anything she tried would come true.
“Now, Bud, suppose we get to work. I’d like to get acquainted with my class a little before Monday. Isn’t it Monday school opens? I thought so. Well, suppose you give me the names of the scholars and I’ll write them down, and that will help me to remember them. Where will you begin? Here, suppose you sit down in the front seat and tell me who sits there and a little bit about him, and I’ll write the name down; and then you move to the next seat and tell me about the next one, and so on. Will you?”
“Sure!” said Bud, entering into the new game. “But it ain’t a ‘he’ sits there. It’s Susie Johnson. She’s Bill Johnson’s smallest girl. She has to sit front ’cause she giggles so much. She has yellow curls and she ducks her head down and snickers right out this way when anything funny happens in school.” And Bud proceeded to duck and wriggle in perfect imitation of the small Susie.