Wayside Courtships

by Garland, Hamlin

  They exulted to think the next preacher to come among them as an evangelist should be a Baptist.

  After the singing, which would have dribbled away into failure but for Mattie, Wallace rose, looking very white and weak, and began his prayer. Some of the boys laughed when his voice stuck in his throat, but he went on to the end of an earnest supplication, feeling he had not touched them at all.

  While they sang again, he sat looking down at them with dry throat and staring eyes. They seemed so hard, so unchristianlike. What could he say to them? He saw Mattie looking at him, and on the front seat sat three beautiful little girls huddled together with hands clasped; they were inexpressibly dainty by contrast. As he looked at them the thought came to him, What is the goodness of a girl—of a child? It is not partisan—it is not of creeds, of articles—it is goodness of thought, of deeds. His face lighted up with the inward feeling of this idea, and he rose resolutely.

  "Friends, with the help of Christ I am come among you to do you good. I shall hold meetings each night here in the schoolhouse until we can unite and rebuild the church again. Let me say now, friends, that I was educated a Baptist. My father was a faithful worker in the Baptist Church, and so was his father before him. I was educated in a Baptist college, and I came here hoping to build up a Baptist Church." He paused.

  "But I see my mistake. I am here to build up a Church of Christ, of good deeds and charity and peace, and so I here say I am no longer a Baptist or Methodist. I am only a preacher, and I will not rest until I rebuild the church which stands rotting away there." His voice rang with intellectual determination as he uttered those words.

  The people listened. There was no movement now. Even the babies seemed to feel the need of being silent. When he began again it was to describe that hideous wreck. He delineated the falling plaster, the litter around the pulpit, the profanation of the walls. "It is a symbol of your sinful hearts," he cried.

  Much more he said, carried out of himself by his passion. It was as if the repentant spirit of his denominational fathers were speaking through him; and yet he was not so impassioned that he did not see, or at least feel, the eyes of the strong young girl fixed upon him; his resolution he spoke looking at her, and a swift response seemed to leap from her eyes.

  When it was over, some of the Methodists and one of the Baptists came up to shake hands with him, awkwardly wordless, and the pressure of their hands helped him. Many of the Baptist brethren slipped outside to discuss the matter. Some were indignant, others much more moved.

  Allen went by him with an audible grunt of derision, and there was a dark scowl on his face, but Mattie smiled at him, with tears still in her eyes. She had been touched by his vibrant voice; she had no sins to repent of.

  The skeptics of the neighborhood were quite generally sympathetic. "You've struck the right trail now, parson," said Chapman, as they walked homeward together. "The days of the old-time denominationalism are about played out."

  But the young preacher was not so sure of it—now that his inspiration was gone. He remembered his debt to his college, to his father, to the denomination, and it was not easy to set aside the grip of such memories.

  He sat late revolving the whole situation in his mind. When he went to bed it was still with him, and involved itself with his dreams; but always the young girl smiled upon him with sympathetic eyes and told him to go on—or so it seemed to him.

  He was silent at breakfast. He went to school with a feeling that a return to teaching little tow-heads to count and spell was now impossible. He sat in his scarred and dingy desk, while they took their places, and his eyes had a passionate intensity of prayer in them which awed the pupils. He had assumed new grandeur and terror in their eyes. When they were seated he bowed his head and uttered a short plea for grace, and then he looked at them again.

  On the low front seat, with dangling legs and red round faces, sat the little ones. Someway he could not call them to his knees and teach them to spell; he felt as if he ought to call them to him, as Christ did, to teach them love and reverence. It was impossible that they should not be touched by this hideous neighborhood of hate and strife.

  Behind them sat the older children, some of them with rough, hard, sly faces. Some grinned rudely and nudged each other. The older girls sat with bated breath; they perceived something strange in the air. Most of them had heard his sermon the night before.

  At last he broke silence. "Children, there is something I must say to you this morning. I'm going to have meeting here to-night, and it may be I shall not be your teacher any more—I mean in school. I wish you'd go home to-day and tell your people to come to church here to-night. I wish you'd all come yourselves. I want you to be good. I want you to love God and be good. I want you to go home and tell your people the teacher can't teach you here till he has taught the older people to be kind and generous. You may put your books away, and school will be dismissed."

  The wondering children obeyed—some with glad promptness, others with sadness, for they had already come to like their teacher very much.

  As he sat by the door and watched them file out, it was as if he were a king abdicating a throne, and these his faithful subjects. It was the most momentous hour of his life. He had set his face toward dark waters.

  Mrs. Allen came over with Mattie to see him that day. She was a good woman, gentle and prayerful, and she said, with much emotion:

  "O Mr. Stacey, I do hope you can patch things up here. If you could only touch his heart! He don't mean to do wrong, but he's so set in his ways—if he says a thing he sticks to it."

  Stacey turned to Mattie for a word of encouragement, but she only looked away. It was impossible for her to put into words her feeling in the matter, which was more of admiration for his courage than for any part of his religious zeal. He was so different from other men. It seemed he had a touch of divinity in him now.

  It did him good to have them come, and he repeated his vow:

  "By the grace of our Lord, I am going to rebuild the Cyene Church," and his face paled and his eyes grew luminous.

  The girl shivered with a sort of awe. He seemed to recede from her as he spoke, and to grow larger, too. Such nobility of purpose was new and splendid to her.

  * * *

  The revival was wondrously dramatic. The little schoolhouse was crowded to the doors night by night. The reek of stable-stained coats and boots, the smell of strong tobacco, the effluvia of many breaths, the heat, the closeness, were forgotten in the fervor of the young evangelist's utterances. His voice took on wild emotional cadences without his conscious effort, and these cadences sounded deep places in the heart. To these people, long unused to religious oratory, it was like the return of John and Isaiah. It was poetry and the drama, and processions and apocalyptic visions. He had the histrionic spell, too, and his slender body lifted and dilated, and his head took on majesty and power, and the fling of his white hand was a challenge and an appeal.

  A series of stirring events took place on the third night.

  On Wednesday Jacob Turner rose and asked the prayers of his neighbors, and was followed by two Baptist spearmen of the front rank. On Thursday the women all were weeping on each other's bosoms; only one or two of the men held out—old Deacon Allen and his antagonist, Stewart Marsden. Grim-visaged old figures they were, placed among repentant men and weeping women. They sat like rocks in the rush of the two factions moving toward each other for peaceful union. Granitic, narrow, keen of thrust, they seemed unmoved, while all around them one by one skeptics acknowledged the pathos and dignity of the preacher's views of life and death.

  Meanwhile the young evangelist lived at high pressure. He grew thinner and whiter each night. He toiled in the daytime to formulate his thoughts for the evening. He could not sleep till far toward morning. The food he ate did him little good, while his heart went out constantly to his people in strenuous supplication. It was testimony of his human quality that he never for one moment lost that shining girl face out of his
thought. He looked for it there night after night. It was his inspiration in speaking, as at the first.

  On the nights when Mattie was not there his speech was labored (as the elders noticed), but on the blessed nights when she came and sang, her voice, amid all the rest, came to him, and uttered poetry and peace like a rill of cool sweet water. And afterward, when he walked home under the stars, his mind went with her, she was so strong and lithe and good to see. He did not realize the worshiping attitude the girl took before divine duties.

  At last the great day came—the great night.

  In some way, perhaps by the growing mass of rushing emotion set in action by some deep-going phrase, or perhaps by some interior slow weakening of stubborn will, Deacon Allen gave way; and when the preacher called for penitents, the old man struggled to his feet, his seamed, weather-beaten face full of grotesque movement. He broke out:

  "Brethren, pray for me; I'm a miserable sinner. I want to confess my sins—here—before ye all." He broke into sobbing terrible to hear. "My heart is made—flesh again—by the blessed power of Christ ..."

  He struggled to get his voice. One or two cried, "Praise God!" but most of them sat silent, awed into immobility.

  The old man walked up the aisle. "I've been rebellious—and now I want to shake hands with you all—and I ask your prayers." He bent down and thrust his hand to Marsden, his enemy, while the tears streamed down his face.

  Marsden turned white with a sort of fear, but he rose awkwardly and grasped the outstretched hand, and at the touch of palms every soul rose as if by electric shock. "Amens!" burst forth. The preacher began a fervent prayer, and came down toward the grizzled, weeping old men, and they all embraced, while some old lady with sweet quavering voice raised a triumphal hymn, in which all joined, and found grateful relief from their emotional tension.

  Allen turned to Mattie and his wife. "My boy—send for him—Herman."

  It seemed as if the people could not go away. The dingy little schoolhouse was like unto the shining temple of God's grace, and the regenerated seemed to fear that to go home might become a return to hate and strife. So they clung around the young preacher and would not let him go.

  At last he came out with Allen holding to his arm. "You must come home with us to-night," he pleaded, and the young minister with glad heart consented, for he hoped he might walk beside Mattie; but this was not possible. There were several others in the group, and they moved off two and two up the deep hollows which formed the road in the snow.

  The young minister walked with head uplifted to the stars, hearing nothing of the low murmur of talk, conscious only of his great plans, his happy heart, and the strong young girl who walked before him.

  In the warm kitchen into which they came he lost something of his spiritual tension, and became more humanly aware of the significance of sitting again with these people. He gave the girl his coat and hat, and then watched her slip off her knitted hood and her cloak. Her eyes shone with returning laughter, and her cheeks were flushed with blood.

  Looking upon her, the young evangelist lost his look of exaltation, his eyes grew soft and his limbs relaxed. His silence was no longer rapt—it was the silence of delicious, drowsy reverie.

  V.

  The next morning he did not rise at all. The collapse had come. The bad air, the nervous strain, the lack of sleep, had worn down his slender store of strength, and when the great victory came he fell like a tree whose trunk has been slowly gnawed across by teeth of silent saw. His drowse deepened into torpor.

  In the bright winter morning, seated in a gay cutter behind a bay colt strung with slashing bells, Mattie drove to Kesota for the doctor. She felt the discord between the joyous jangle of the bells, the stream of sunlight, and the sparkle of snow crystals, but it only added to the poignancy of her anxiety.

  She had not yet reached self-consciousness in her regard for the young preacher—she thought of him as a noble human being liable to death, and she chirped again and again to the flying colt, whose broad hoofs flung the snow in stinging showers against her face.

  A call at the doctor's house set him jogging out along the lanes, while she sent a telegram to Herman. As she whirled bay Tom into the road to go home, her heart rose in relief that was almost exaltation. She loved horses. She always sang under her breath, chiming to the beat of their bells, when alone, and now she loosened the rein and hummed an old love song, while the powerful young horse squared away in a trot which was twelve miles an hour—click, click-click, click-clangle, lang-lingle, ling.

  In such air, in such sun, who could die? Her good animal strength rose dominant over fear of death.

  She came upon the doctor swinging along in his old blue cutter, dozing in country-doctor style, making up for lost sleep.

  "Out o' the way, doctor!" she gleefully called.

  The doctor roused up and looked around with a smile. He was not beyond admiring such a girl as that. He snapped his whip-lash lightly on old Sofia's back, who looked up surprised, and, seeming to comprehend matters, began to reach out broad, flat, thin legs in a pace which the proud colt respected. She came of illustrious line, did Sofia, scant-haired and ungracious as she now was.

  "Don't run over me," called the doctor, ironically, and with Sofia still leading they swung into the yard.

  Mattie went in with the doctor, while Allen looked after both horses. They found Chapman attending Wallace—who lay in a dazed quiet—conscious, but not definitely aware of material things.

  The doctor looked his patient over carefully. Then he asked, "Who is the yoong mon?"

  "He's been teaching here, or rather preaching."

  "When did this coom on?"

  "Last night. Wound up a big revival last night, I believe. Kind o' caved in, I reckon."

  "That's all. Needs rest. He'll be wearin' a wood jacket if he doosna leave off preachin'."

  "Regular jamboree. I couldn't stop him. One of these periodical neighborhood 'awakenings,' they call it."

  "They have need of it here, na doot."

  "Well, they need something—love for God—or man."

  "M—well! It's lettle I can do. The wumman can do more, if the mon'll be eatin' what they cuke for 'im," said the candid old Scotchman. "Mak' 'im eat. Mak' 'im eat."

  Once more Tom pounded along the shining road to Kesota to meet the six-o'clock train from Chicago.

  Herman, magnificently clothed in fur-lined ulster and cap, alighted with unusually grave face and hurried toward Mattie.

  "Well, what is it, sis? Mother sick?"

  "No; it's the teacher. He is unconscious. I've been for the doctor. Oh, we were scared!"

  He looked relieved, but a little chagrined. "Oh, well, I don't see why I should be yanked out of my boots by a telegram because the teacher is sick! He isn't kin—yet."

  For the first time a feeling of shame and confusion swept over Mattie, and her face flushed.

  Herman's keen eyes half closed as he looked into her face.

  "Mat—what—what! Now look here—how's this? Where's Ben Holly's claim?"

  "He never had any." She shifted ground quickly. "O Herman, we had a wonderful time last night! Father and Uncle Marsden shook hands——"

  "What?" shouted Herman, as he fell in a limp mass against the cutter. "Bring a physician—I'm stricken."

  "Don't act so! Everybody's looking."

  "They'd better look. I'm drowning while they wait."

  She untied the horse and came back.

  "Climb in there and stop your fooling, and I'll tell you all about it."

  He crawled in with tearing groans of mock agony, and then leaned his head against her shoulder. "Well, go on, sis; I can bear it now."

  She nudged him to make him sit up.

  "Well, you know we've had a revival."

  "So you wrote. Must have been a screamer to fetch dad and old Marsden. A regular Pentecost of Shinar."

  "It was—I mean it was beautiful. I saw father was getting stirred up. He prayed almost all day
yesterday, and at night—Well, I can't tell you, but Wallace talked, oh, so beautiful and tender."

  "She calls him Wallace?" mused Herman, like a comedian.

  "Hush! And then came the hand-shaking, and then the minister came home with us, because father asked him to."

  "Well, well! I supposed you must have asked him."

  The girl was hurt, and she showed it. "If you make fun, I won't tell you another word," she said.

  "Away Chicago! enter Cyene! Well, come, I won't fool any more."

  "Then after Wallace—I mean——"

  "Let it stand. Come to the murder."

  "Then father came and asked me to send for you, and mother cried, and so did he. And, oh, Hermie, he's so sweet and kind! Don't make fun of him, will you? It's splendid to have him give in, and everybody feels glad that the district will be all friendly again."

  Herman did not gibe again. His voice was gentle. The pathos in the scene appealed to him. "So the old man sent for me himself, did he?"

  "Yes; he could hardly wait till morning. But this morning, when we came to call the teacher, he didn't answer, and father went in and found him unconscious. Then I went for the doctor."

  Bay Tom whirled along in the splendid dusk, his nostrils flaring ghostly banners of steam on the cold crisp air. The stars overhead were points of green and blue and crimson light, low-hung, changing each moment.

  Their influence entered the soul of the mocking young fellow. He felt very solemn, almost melancholy, for a moment.

  "Well, sis, I've got something to tell you all. I'm going to tell it to you by degrees. I'm going to be married."

  "Oh!" she gasped, with quick, indrawn breath. "Who?"

  "Don't be ungrammatical, whatever you do. She's a cashier in a restaurant, and she's a fine girl," he added steadily, as if combating a prejudice. He forgot for the moment that such prejudices did not exist in Cyene.