Other Main-Travelled Roads

by Garland, Hamlin

  As for Elder Pill, he was as a man transformed. He grew more intense each night, and strode back and forth behind his desk and pounded the Bible like an assassin. No more games with the boys, no more poking the girls under the chin! When he asked for a chew of tobacco now it was with an air which said: "I ask it as sustenance that will give me strength for the Lord's service," as if the demands of the flesh had weakened the spirit.

  Old man Bacon overtook Milton Jennings early one Monday morning, as Milton was marching down toward the Seminary at Rock River. It was intensely cold and still, so cold and still that the ring of the cold steel of the heavy sleigh, the snort of the horses, and the old man's voice came with astonishing distinctness to the ears of the hurrying youth, and it seemed a very long time before the old man came up.

  "Climb on!" he yelled, out of his frosty beard. He was seated on the "hind bob" of a wood-sleigh, on a couple of blankets. Milton clambered on, knowing well he'd freeze to death there.

  "Reckon I heerd you prowlun' around the front door with my girl last night," Bacon said at length. "The way you both 'tend out t' meetun' ought 'o sanctify yeh; must 'a' stayed to the after-meetun', didn't yeh?"

  "Nope. The front part was enough for—"

  "Danged if I was any more fooled with a man in m' life. I b'lieve the whole thing is a little scheme on the bretheren t' raise a dollar."

  "Why so?"

  "Waal, y' see, Pill ain't got much out o' the app'intment thus fur, and he ain't likely to, if he don't shake 'em up a leetle. Borrud ten dollars o' me t'other day."

  Well, thought Milton, whatever his real motive is, Elder Pill is earning all he gets. Standing for two or three hours in his place night after night, arguing, pleading, even commanding them to be saved.

  Milton was describing the scenes of the meeting to Bradley Talcott and Douglas Radbourn the next day, and Radbourn, a young law student, said:—

  "I'd like to see him. He must be a character."

  "Let's make up a party and go out," said Milton, eagerly.

  "All right; I'll speak to Lily Graham."

  Accordingly, that evening a party of students, in a large sleigh, drove out toward the schoolhouse, along the drifted lanes and through the beautiful aisles of the snowy woods. A merry party of young people, who had no sense of sin to weigh them down. Even Radbourn and Lily joined in the songs which they sang to the swift clanging of the bells, until the lights of the schoolhouse burned redly through the frosty air.

  Not a few of the older people present felt scandalized by the singing and by the dancing of the "town girls," who could not for the life of them take the thing seriously. The room was so little, and hot, and smoky, and the men looked so queer in their rough coats and hair every-which-way.

  But they took their seats demurely on the back seat, and joined in the opening songs, and listened to the halting prayers of the brethren and the sonorous prayers of the Elder, with commendable gravity. Miss Graham was a devout Congregationalist, and hushed the others into gravity when their eyes began to dance dangerously.

  However, as Mr. Pill warmed to his work, the girls grew sober enough. He awed them, and frightened them with the savagery of his voice and manner. His small gray eyes were like daggers unsheathed, and his small, round head took on a cat-like ferocity, as he strode to and fro, hurling out his warnings and commands in a hoarse howl that terrified the sinner, and drew "amens" of admiration from the saints.

  "Atavism; he has gone back to the era of the medicine man," Radbourn murmured.

  As the speaker went on, foam came upon his thin lips; his lifted hand had prophecy and threatening in it. His eyes reflected flames; his voice had now the tone of the implacable, vindictive judge. He gloated on the pictures that his words called up. By the power of his imagination the walls widened, the floor was no longer felt, the crowded room grew still as death, every eye fixed on the speaker's face.

  "I tell you, you must repent or die. I can see the great judgment angel now!" he said, stopping suddenly and pointing above the stovepipe. "I can see him as he stands weighing your souls as a man 'ud weigh wheat and chaff. Wheat goes into the Father's garner; chaff is blown to hell's devouring flame! I can see him now! He seizes a poor, damned, struggling soul by the neck, he holds him over the flaming forge of hell till his bones melt like wax; he shrivels like thread in the flame of a candle; he is nothing but a charred husk, and the angel flings him back into outer darkness; life was not in him."

  It was this astonishing figure, powerfully acted, that scared poor Tom Dixon into crying out for mercy. The effect upon others was painful. To see so great a sinner fall terror-stricken seemed like a providential stroke of confirmatory evidence, and nearly a dozen other young people fell crying, whereat the old people burst out into amens of spasmodic fervor, while the preacher, the wild light still in his eyes, tore up and down, crying above the tumult:—

  "The Lord is come with power! His hand is visible here. Shout aloud and spare not. Fall before him as dust to his feet! Hypocrites, vipers, scoffers! the lash o' the Lord is on ye!"

  In the intense pause which followed as he waited with expectant, uplifted face—a pause so deep even the sobbing sinners held their breath—a dry, drawling, utterly matter-of-fact voice broke the intense hush.

  "S-a-y, Pill, ain't you a-bearun' down on the boys a leetle too hard?"

  The preacher's extended arm fell as if life had gone out of it. His face flushed and paled; the people laughed hysterically, some of them with the tears of terror still on their cheeks; but Radbourn said, "Bravo, Bacon!"

  Pill recovered himself.

  "Not hard enough for you, neighbor Bacon."

  Bacon rose, retaining the same dry, prosaic tone:—

  "I ain't bitin' that kind of a hook, an' I ain't goin' to be yanked into heaven when I c'n slide into hell. Waal! I must be goin'; I've got a new-milk's cow that needs tendin' to."

  The effect of all this was very great. From being at the very mouth of the furnace, quivering with fear and captive to morbid imaginings, Bacon's dry intonation brought them all back to earth again. They perceived something of the absurdity of the whole situation.

  Pill was beaten for the first time in his life. He had been struck below the belt by a good-natured giant. The best he could do, as Bacon shuffled calmly out, was to stammer: "Will some one please sing?" And while they sang, he stood in deep thought. Just as the last verse was quivering into silence, the full, deep tones of Radbourn's voice rose above the bustle of feet and clatter of seats:—

  "And all that he preaches in the name of Him who came bringing peace and good-will to men."

  Radbourn's tone had in it reproach and a noble suggestion. The people looked at him curiously. The deacons nodded their heads together in counsel, and when they turned to the desk Pill was gone!

  "Gee whittaker! That was tough," said Milton to Radbourn; "knocked the wind out o' him like a cannon-ball. What'll he do now?"

  "He can't do anything but acknowledge his foolishness."

  "You no business t' come here an' 'sturb the Lord's meetin'," cried old Daddy Brown to Radbourn. "You're a sinner and a scoffer."

  "I thought Bacon was the disturbing ele—"

  "You're just as bad!"

  "He's all right," said William Councill. "I've got sick, m'self, of bein' scared into religion. I never was so fooled in a man in my life. If I'd tell you what Pill said to me the other day, when we was in Robie's store, you'd fall in a fit. An' to hear him talkin' here t'night, is enough to make a horse laugh."

  "You're all in league with the devil," said the old man, wildly; and so the battle raged on.

  Milton and Radbourn escaped from it, and got out into the clear, cold, untainted night.

  "The heat of the furnace doesn't reach as far as the horses," Radbourn moralized, as he aided in unhitching the shivering team. "In the vast, calm spaces of the stars, among the animals, such scenes as we have just seen are impossible." He lifted his hand in a lofty gesture. The light fell on his p
ale face and dark eyes. The girls were a little indignant and disposed to take the preacher's part. They thought Bacon had no right to speak out that way, and Miss Graham uttered her protest, as they whirled away on the homeward ride with pleasant jangle of bells.

  "But the secret of it all was," said Radbourn in answer, "Pill knew he was acting a part. I don't mean that he meant to deceive, but he got excited, and his audience responded as an audience does to an actor of the first class, and he was for the time in earnest; his imagination did see those horrors,—he was swept away by his own words. But when Bacon spoke, his dry tone and homely words brought everybody, preacher and all, back to the earth with a thump! Everybody saw, that after weeping and wailing there for an hour, they'd go home, feed the calves, hang up the lantern, put out the cat, wind the clock, and go to bed. In other words, they all came back out of their barbaric powwow to their natural modern selves."

  This explanation had palpable truth, but Lily perceived that it had wider application than to the meeting they had just left.

  "They'll be music around this clearing to-morrow," said Milton, with a sigh; "wish I was at home this week."

  "But what'll become of Mr. Pill?"

  "Oh, he'll come out all right," Radbourn assured her, and Milton's clear tenor rang out as he drew Eileen closer to his side:—

  "O silver moon, O silver moon,

  You set, you set too soon—

  The morrow day is far away,

  The night is but begun."

  IV

  The news, grotesquely exaggerated, flew about the next day, and at night, though it was very cold and windy, the house was jammed to suffocation. On these lonely prairies life is so devoid of anything but work, dramatic entertainments are so few, and appetite so keen, that a temperature of twenty degrees below zero is no bar to a trip of ten miles. The protracted meeting was the only recreation for many of them. The gossip before and after service was a delight not to be lost, and this last sensation was dramatic enough to bring out old men and women who had not dared to go to church in winter for ten years.

  Long before seven o'clock, the schoolhouse blazed with light and buzzed with curious speech. Team after team drove up to the door, and as the drivers leaped out to receive the women, they said in low but eager tones to the bystanders:—

  "Meeting begun yet?"

  "Nope!"

  "What kind of a time y' havin' over here, any way?"

  "A mighty solumn time," somebody would reply with a low laugh.

  By seven o'clock every inch of space was occupied; the air was frightful. The kerosene lamps gave off gas and smoke, the huge stove roared itself into an angry red on its jack-oak grubs, and still people crowded in at the door.

  Discussion waxed hot as the stove; two or three Universalists boldly attacked everybody who came their way. A tall man stood on a bench in the corner, and, thumping his Bible wildly with his fist, exclaimed, at the top of his voice:—

  "There is no hell at all! The Bible says the wicked perish utterly. They are consumed as ashes when they die. They perish as dogs!"

  "What kind o' docterin' is that?" asked a short man of Councill.

  "I d'know. It's ol' Sam Richards. Calls himself a Christian—Christadelphian 'r some new-fangled name."

  At last people began to inquire, "Well, ain't he comin'?"

  "Most time f'r the Elder to come, ain't it?"

  "Oh, I guess he's preparin' a sermon."

  John Jennings pushed anxiously to Daddy Brown.

  "Ain't the Elder comin'?"

  "I d'know. He didn't stay at my house."

  "He didn't?"

  "No. Thought he went home with you."

  "I ain't see 'im 't all. I'll ask Councill. Brother Councill, seen anything of the Elder?"

  "No. Didn't he go home with Bensen?"

  "I d'n know. I'll see."

  This was enough to start the news that "Pill had skipped."

  This the deacons denied, saying "he'd come or send word."

  Outside, on the leeward side of the house, the young men who couldn't get in stood restlessly, now dancing a jig, now kicking their huge boots against the underpinning to warm their toes. They talked spasmodically as they swung their arms about their chests, speaking from behind their huge buffalo-coat collars.

  The wind roared through the creaking oaks; the horses stirred complainingly, the bells on their backs crying out querulously; the heads of the fortunates inside were shadowed outside on the snow, and the restless young men amused themselves betting on which head was Bensen and which Councill.

  At last some one pounded on the desk inside. The suffocating but lively crowd turned with painful adjustment toward the desk, from whence Deacon Bensen's high, smooth voice sounded:—

  "Brethren an' sisters, Elder Pill hain't come—and, as it's about eight o'clock, he probably won't come to-night. After the disturbances last night, it's—a—a—we're all the more determined to—the—a—need of reforming grace is more felt than ever. Let us hope nothing has happened to the Elder. I'll go see to-morrow, and if he is unable to come—I'll see Brother Wheat, of Cresco. After prayer by Brother Jennings, we will adjourn till to-morrow night. Brother Jennings, will you lead us in prayer?" (Some one snickered.) "I hope the disgraceful—a—scenes of last night will not be repeated."

  "Where's Pill?" demanded a voice in the back part of the room. "That's what I want to know."

  "He's a bad pill," said another, repeating a pun already old.

  "I guess so! He borrowed twenty dollars o' me last week," said the first voice.

  "He owes me for a pig," shouted a short man, excitedly. "I believe he's skipped to get rid o' his debts."

  "So do I. I allus said he was a mighty queer preacher."

  "He'd bear watchin' was my idee fust time I ever see him."

  "Careful, brethren—careful. He may come at any minute."

  "I don't care if he does. I'd bone him f'r pay f'r that shote, preacher 'r no preacher," said Bartlett, a little nervously.

  High words followed this, and there was prospect of a fight. The pressure of the crowd, however, was so great it was well-nigh impossible for two belligerents to get at each other. The meeting broke up at last, and the people, chilly, soured, and disappointed at the lack of developments, went home saying Pill was scaly; no preacher who chawed terbacker was to be trusted, and when it was learned that the horse and buggy he drove he owed Jennings and Bensen for, everybody said, "He's a fraud."

  V

  In the meantime, Andrew Pill was undergoing the most singular and awful mental revolution.

  When he leaped blindly into his cutter and gave his horse the rein, he was wild with rage and shame, and a sort of fear. As he sat with bent head, he did not hear the tread of the horse, and did not see the trees glide past. The rabbit leaped away under the shadow of the thick groves of young oaks; the owl, scared from its perch, went fluttering off into the cold, crisp air; but he saw only the contemptuous, quizzical face of old William Bacon—one shaggy eyebrow lifted, a smile showing through his shapeless beard.

  He saw the colorless, handsome face of Radbourn, and his look of reproach and note of suggestion—Radbourn, one of the best thinkers in Rock River, and the most generally admired young man in Rock County.

  When he saw and heard Bacon, his hurt pride flamed up in wrath, but the calm voice of Radbourn, and the look in his stern, accusing eyes, made his head fall in thought. As he rode, things grew clearer. As a matter of fact, his whole system of religious thought was like the side of a shelving sand-bank—in unstable equilibrium—needing only a touch to send it slipping into a shapeless pile at the river's edge. That touch had been given, and he was now in the midst of the motion of his falling faith. He didn't know how much would stand when the sloughing ended.

  Andrew Pill had been a variety of things, a farmer, a dry-goods merchant, and a travelling salesman, but in a revival quite like this of his own, he had been converted and his life changed. He now desired to help his fellow-me
n to a better life, and willingly went out among the farmers, where pay was small. It was not true, therefore, that he had gone into it because there was little work and good pay. He was really an able man, and would have been a success in almost anything he undertook; but his reading and thought, his easy intercourse with men like Bacon and Radbourn, had long since undermined any real faith in the current doctrine of retribution, and to-night, as he rode into the night, he was feeling it all and suffering it all, forced to acknowledge at last what had been long moving.

  The horse took the wrong road, and plodded along steadily, carrying him away from his home, but he did not know it for a long time. When at last he looked up and saw the road leading out upon the wide plain between the belts of timber, leading away to Rock River, he gave a sigh of relief. He could not meet his wife then; he must have a chance to think.

  Over him, the glittering, infinite sky of winter midnight soared, passionless, yet accusing in its calmness, sweetness, and majesty. What was he that he could dogmatize on eternal life and the will of the Being who stood behind that veil? And then would come rushing back that scene in the schoolhouse, the smell of the steaming garments, the gases from the lamps, the roar of the stove, the sound of his own voice, strident, dominating, so alien to his present mood, he could only shudder at it.

  He was worn out with thinking when he drove into the stable at the Merchants' House and roused up the sleeping hostler, who looked at him suspiciously and demanded pay in advance. This seemed right in his present mood. He was not to be trusted.

  When he flung himself face downward on his bed, the turmoil in his brain was still going on. He couldn't hold one thought or feeling long; all seemed slipping like water from his hands.

  He had in him great capacity for change, for growth. Circumstances had been against his development thus far, but the time had come when growth seemed to be defeat and failure.