I
A THURSDAY in June 1913.
The train wandered through orchard-land and cornfields—two seedy
day-coaches and a baggage car. Hurry and efficiency had not yet been
discovered on this branch line, and it took five hours to travel the
hundred and twenty miles from Zenith to Banjo Crossing.
The Reverend Elmer Gantry was in a state of grace. Having resolved
henceforth to be pure and humble and humanitarian, he was benevolent to
all his traveling companions. He was mothering the world, whether the
world liked it or not.
But he did not insist on any outward distinction as a parson, a
Professional Good Man. He wore a quietly modest gray sack suit, a
modestly rich maroon tie. Not just as a minister, but as a citizen, he
told himself, it was his duty to make life breezier and brighter for his
fellow wayfarers.
The aged conductor knew most of his passengers by their first names, and
they hailed him as “Uncle Ben,” but he resented strangers on their home
train. When Elmer shouted, “Lovely day, Brother!” Uncle Ben looked at
him as if to say “Well, ’tain’t my fault!” But Elmer continued his
philadelphian violences till the old man sent in the brakeman to collect
the tickets the rest of the way.
At a traveling salesman who tried to borrow a match, Elmer roared, “I
don’t smoke, Brother, and I don’t believe George Washington did either!”
His benignancies were received with so little gratitude that he almost
wearied of good works, but when he carried an old woman’s suit-case off
the train, she fluttered at him with the admiration he deserved, and he
was moved to pat children upon the head—to their terror—and to explain
crop-rotation to an ancient who had been farming for forty-seven years.
Anyway, he satisfied the day’s lust for humanitarianism, and he turned
back the seat in front of his, stretched out his legs, looked sleepy so
that no one would crowd in beside him, and rejoiced in having taken up a
life of holiness and authority.
He glanced out at the patchy country with satisfaction. Rustic, yes, but
simple, and the simple honest hearts of his congregation would yearn
toward him as the bookkeepers could not be depended upon to do in
Prosperity Classes. He pictured his hearty reception at Banjo Crossing.
He knew that his district superintendent (a district superintendent is a
lieutenant-bishop in the Methodist Church—formerly called a presiding
elder) had written the hour of his coming to Mr. Nathaniel Benham of
Banjo Crossing, and he knew that Mr. Benham, the leading trustee of the
local church, was the chief general merchant in the Banjo Valley. Yes,
he would shake hands with all of his flock, even the humblest, at the
station; he would look into their clear and trusting eyes, and rejoice
to be their shepherd, leading them on and upward, for at least a year.
Banjo Crossing seemed very small as the train staggered into it. There
were back porches with wash-tubs and broken-down chairs; there were
wooden sidewalks.
As Elmer pontifically descended at the red frame station, as he looked
for the reception and the holy glee, there wasn’t any reception, and the
only glee visible was on the puffy face of the station-agent as he
observed a City Fellow trying to show off. “Hee, hee, there _ain’t_ no
’bus!” giggled the agent. “Guess yuh’ll have to carry your own valises
over to the hotel!”
“Where,” demanded Elmer, “is Mr. Benham, Mr. Nathaniel Benham?”
“Old Nat? Ain’t seen him today. Guess yuh’ll find him at the store,
’bout as usual, seeing if he can’t do some farmer out of two cents on a
batch of eggs. Traveling man?”
“I am the new Methodist preacher!”
“Oh, well, say! That a fact! Pleased to meet yuh! Wouldn’t of thought
you were a preacher. You look too well fed! You’re going to room at Mrs.
Pete Clark’s—the Widow Clark’s. Leave your valises here, and I’ll have
my boy fetch ’em over. Well, good luck, Brother. Hope you won’t have
much trouble with your church. The last fellow did, but then he was kind
of pernickety—wa’n’t just plain folks.”
“Oh, I’m just plain folks, and mighty happy, after the great cities, to
be among them!” was Elmer’s amiable greeting, but what he observed as he
walked away was “I am like hell!”
Altogether depressed now, he expected to find the establishment of
Brother Benham a littered and squalid crossroads store, but he came to a
two-story brick structure with plate-glass windows and, in the alley,
the half-dozen trucks with which Mr. Benham supplied the farmers for
twenty miles up and down the Banjo Valley. Respectful, Elmer walked
through broad aisles, past counters trim as a small department-store,
and found Mr. Benham dictating letters.
If in a small way Nathaniel Benham had commercial genius, it did not
show in his aspect. He wore a beard like a bath sponge, and in his voice
was a righteous twang.
“Yes?” he quacked.
“I’m Reverend Gantry, the new pastor.”
Benham rose, not too nimbly, and shook hands dryly. “Oh, yes. The
presiding elder said you were coming today. Glad you’ve come, Brother,
and I hope the blessings of the Lord will attend your labors. You’re to
board at the Widow Clark’s—anybody’ll show you where it is.”
Apparently he had nothing else to say.
A little bitterly, Elmer demanded, “I’d like to look over the church.
Have you a key?”
“Now let’s see. Brother Jones might have one—he’s got the paint and
carpenter shop right up here on Front Street. No, guess he hasn’t,
either. We got a young fella, just a boy you might say, who’s doing the
janitor work now, and guess he’d have a key, but this bein’ vacation
he’s off fishin’ more’n likely. Tell you: you might try Brother
Fritscher, the shoemaker—he might have a key. You married?”
“No. I’ve, uh, I’ve been engaged in evangelistic work, so I’ve been
denied the joys and solaces of domestic life.”
“Where you born?”
“Kansas.”
“Folks Christians?”
“They certainly were! My mother was—she is—a real consecrated soul.”
“Smoke or drink?”
“Certainly not!”
“Do any monkeying with this higher criticism?”
“No, indeed!”
“Ever go hunting?”
“I, uh—— Well, yes!”
“That’s fine! Well, glad you’re with us, Brother. Sorry I’m busy. Say,
Mother and I expect you for supper tonight, six-thirty. Good luck!”
Benham’s smile, his handshake, were cordial enough, but he was
definitely giving dismissal, and Elmer went out in a fury alternating
with despair. . . . To this, to the condescension of a rustic
store-keeper, after the mounting glory with Sharon!
As he walked toward the house of the Widow Clark, to which a loafer
directed him, he hated the shabby village, hated the chicken-coops in
the yards, the frowsy lawns, the old buggies staggering by, the women
with plump aprons and wet red arms—women who made his delights of
amorous adventures seem revolting—and all the plodding yokels with
their dead eyes and sagging jaws and sudden guffawing.
Fallen to this. And at thirty-two. A failure!
As he waited on the stoop of the square, white, characterless house of
the Widow Clark, he wanted to dash back to the station and take the
first train—anywhere. In that moment he decided to return to farm
implements and the bleak lonely freedom of the traveling man. Then the
screen door was opened by a jolly ringleted girl of fourteen or fifteen,
who caroled, “Oh, is it Reverend Gantry! My, and I kept you waiting! I’m
terrible sorry! Ma’s just sick she can’t be here to welcome you, but she
had to go over to Cousin Etta’s—Cousin Etta busted her leg. Oh, please
do come in. My, I didn’t guess we’d have a young preacher this time!”
She was charming in her excited innocence.
After a faded provincial fashion, the square hall was stately, with its
Civil War chromos.
Elmer followed the child—Jane Clark, she was—up to his room. As she
frisked before him, she displayed six inches of ankle above her clumsy
shoes, and Elmer was clutched by that familiar feeling, swifter than
thought, more elaborate than the strategy of a whole war, which
signified that here was a girl he was going to pursue. But as
suddenly—almost wistfully, in his weary desire for peace and
integrity—he begged himself, “No! Don’t! Not any more! Let the kid
alone! Please be decent! Lord, give me decency and goodness!”
The struggle was finished in the half-minute of ascending the stairs,
and he could shake hands casually, say carelessly, “Well, I’m mighty
glad you were here to welcome me, Sister, and I hope I may bring a
blessing on the house.”
He felt at home now, warmed, restored. His chamber was
agreeable—Turkey-red carpet, stove a perfect shrine of polished nickel,
and in the bow-window, a deep arm-chair. On the four-poster bed was a
crazy-quilt, and pillow-shams embroidered with lambs and rabbits and the
motto, “God Bless Our Slumbers.”
“This is going to be all right. Kinda like home, after these doggone
hotels,” he meditated.
He was again ready to conquer Banjo Crossing, to conquer Methodism; and
when his bags and trunk had come, he set out, before unpacking, to view
his kingdom.
II
Banjo Crossing was not extensive, but to find the key to the First
Methodist Church was a Scotland Yard melodrama.
Brother Fritscher, the shoemaker, had lent it to Sister Anderson of the
Ladies’ Aid, who had lent it to Mrs. Pryshetski, the scrubwoman, who had
lent it to Pussy Byrnes, president of the Epworth League, who had lent
it to Sister Fritscher, consort of Brother Fritscher, so that Elmer
captured it next door to the shoemaker’s shop from which he had
irritably set out.
Each of them, Brother Fritscher and Sister Fritscher, Sister Pryshetski
and Sister Byrnes, Sister Anderson and most of the people from whom he
inquired directions along the way, asked him the same questions:
“You the new Methodist preacher?” and “Not married, are you?” and “Just
come to town?” and “Hear you come from the City—guess you’re pretty
glad to get away, ain’t you?”
He hadn’t much hope for his church-building. He had not seen it yet—it
was hidden behind the school-building—but he expected a hideous brown
hulk with plank buttresses. He was delighted then, proud as a worthy
citizen elected mayor, when he came to an agreeable little church
covered with gray shingles, crowned with a modest spire, rimmed with
cropped lawn and flower-beds. Excitedly he let himself in, greeted by
the stale tomb-like odor of all empty churches.
The interior was pleasant. It would hold two hundred and ninety,
perhaps. The pews were of a light yellow, too glaring, but the walls
were of soft cream, and in the chancel, with a white arch graceful above
it, was a seemly white pulpit and a modest curtained choir-loft. He
explored. There was a goodish Sunday School room, a basement with tables
and a small kitchen. It was all cheerful, alive; it suggested a chance
of growth.
As he returned to the auditorium, he noted one good colored memorial
window, and through the clear glass of the others the friendly maples
looked in at him.
He walked round the building. Suddenly he was overwhelmed and exalted
with the mystic pride of ownership. It was all his; his own; and as such
it was all beautiful. What beautiful soft gray shingles! What an
exquisite spire! What a glorious maple-tree! Yes, and what a fine cement
walk, what a fine new ash-can, what a handsome announcement board, soon
to be starred with his own name! His! To do with as he pleased! And, oh,
he would do fine things, aspiring things, very important things! Never
again, with this new reason for going on living, would he care for lower
desires—for pride, for the adventure of women. . . . _His_!
He entered the church again; he sat proudly in each of the three chairs
on the platform which, as a boy, he had believed to be reserved for the
three persons of the Trinity. He stood up, leaned his arms on the
pulpit, and to a worshiping throng (many standing) he boomed, “My
brethren!”
He was in an ecstasy such as he had not known since his hours with
Sharon. He would start again—_had_ started again, he vowed. Never lie
or cheat or boast. This town, it might be dull, but he would enliven it,
make it his own creation, lift it to his own present glory. He would!
Life opened before him, clean, joyous, full of the superb chances of a
Christian knighthood. Some day he would be a bishop, yes, but even that
was nothing compared with the fact that he had won a victory over his
lower nature.
He knelt, and with his arms wide in supplication he prayed, “Lord, thou
who hast stooped to my great unworthiness and taken even me to thy
Kingdom, who this moment hast shown me the abiding joy of righteousness,
make me whole and keep me pure, and in all things, Our Father, thy will
be done. Amen.”
He stood by the pulpit, tears in his eyes, his meaty hands clutching the
cover of the great leather Bible till it cracked.
The door at the other end of the aisle was opening, and he saw a vision
standing on the threshold in the June sun.
He remembered afterward, from some forgotten literary adventure in
college, a couplet which signified to him the young woman who was
looking at him from the door:
Pale beyond porch and portal,
Crowned with calm leaves she stands.
She was younger than himself, yet she suggested a serene maturity, a
gracious pride. She was slender, but her bosom was full, and some day
she might be portly. Her face was lovely, her forehead wide, her brown
eyes trusting, and smooth her chestnut hair. She had taken off her
rose-trimmed straw hat and was swinging it in her large and graceful
hands. . . . Virginal, stately, kind, most generous.
She came placidly down the aisle, a hand out, crying, “It’s Reverend
Gantry, isn’t it? I’m so proud to be the first to welcome you here in
the church! I’m Cleo Benham—I lead the choir. Perhaps you’ve seen
Papa—he’s a trustee—he has the store.”
“You sure are the first to welcome me, Sister Benham, and it’s a mighty
great pleasure to meet you! Yes, your father was so nice as to invite me
for supper tonight.”
They shook hands with ceremony and sat beaming at each other in a front
pew. He informed her that he was certain there was “going to be a great
spiritual awakening here,” and she told him what lovely people there
were in the congregation, in the village, in the entire surrounding
country. And her panting breast told him that she, the daughter of the
village magnate, had instantly fallen in love with him.
III
Cleo Benham had spent three years in the Sparta Women’s College,
specializing in piano, organ, French, English literature, strictly
expurgated, and study of the Bible. Returned to Banjo Crossing, she was
a fervent church-worker. She played the organ and rehearsed the choir:
she was the superintendent of the juvenile department in the Sunday
School; she decorated the church for Easter, for funerals, for the
Halloween Supper.
She was twenty-seven, five years younger than Elmer.
Though she was not very lively in summer-evening front porch chatter,
though on the few occasions when she sinned against the Discipline and
danced she seemed a little heavy on her feet, though she had a corseted
purity which was dismaying to the earthy young men of Banjo Crossing,
yet she was handsome, she was kind, and her father was reputed to be
worth not a cent less than seventy-five thousand dollars. So almost
every eligible male in the vicinity had hinted at proposing to her.
Gently and compassionately she had rejected them one by one. Marriage
must, she felt, be a sacrament; she must be the helpmate of some one who
was “doing a tremendous amount of good in the world.” This good she
identified with medicine or preaching.
Her friends assured her, “My! With your Bible training and your music
and all, you’d make a perfect pastor’s wife. Just dandy! You’d be such a
help to him.”
But no detached preacher or doctor had happened along, and she had
remained insulated, a little puzzled, hungry over the children of her
friends, each year more passionately given to hymnody and agonized
solitary prayer.
Now, with innocent boldness, she was exclaiming to Elmer: “We were so
afraid the bishop would send us some pastor that was old and worn-out.
The people here are lovely, but they’re kind of slow-going; they need
somebody to wake them up. I’m _so_ glad he sent somebody that was young
and attractive—Oh, my, I shouldn’t have said that! I was just thinking
of the church, you understand.”
Her eyes said that she had not been just thinking of the church.
She looked at her wrist-watch (the first in Banjo Crossing) and chanted,
“Why, my gracious, it’s six o’clock! Would you like to walk home with me
instead of going to Mrs. Clark’s—you could wash up at Papa’s.”
“You can’t lose me!” exulted Elmer, hastily amending, “—as the slangy
youngsters say! Yes, indeed, I should be very pleased to have the
pleasure of walking home with you.”
Under the elms, past the rose-bushes, through dust emblazoned by the
declining sun, he walked with his stately abbess.
He knew that she was the sort of wife who would help him to capture a
bishopric. He persuaded himself that, with all her virtue, she would
eventually be interesting to kiss. He noted that they “made a fine
couple.” He told himself that she was the first woman he had ever found
who was worthy of him. . . . Then he remembered Sharon. . . . But the
pang lasted only a moment, in the secure village peace, in the gentle
flow of Cleo’s voice.
IV
Once he was out of the sacred briskness of his store, Mr. Nathaniel
Benham forgot discounts and became an affable host. He said, “Well,
well, Brother,” ever so many times, and shook hands profusely. Mrs.
Benham—she was a large woman, rather handsome; she wore figured
foulard, with an apron over it, as she had been helping in the
kitchen—Mrs. Benham was equally cordial. “I’ll just bet you’re hungry,
Brother!” cried she.
He was, after a lunch of ham sandwich and coffee at a station lunch-room
on the way down.
The Benham house was the proudest mansion in town. It was of yellow
clapboards with white trim; it had a huge screened porch and a little
turret; a staircase window with a border of colored glass; and there was
a real fireplace, though it was never used. In front of the house, to
Elmer’s admiration, was one of the three automobiles which were all that
were to be found in 1913 in Banjo Crossing. It was a bright red Buick
with brass trimmings.
The Benham supper was as replete with fried chicken and theological
questions as Elmer’s first supper with Deacon Bains in Schoenheim. But
here was wealth, for which Elmer had a touching reverence, and here was
Cleo.
Lulu Bains had been a tempting mouthful; Cleo Benham was of the race of
queens. To possess her, Elmer gloated, would in itself be an empire,
worth any battling. . . . And yet he did not itch to get her in a corner
and buss her, as he had Lulu; the slope of her proud shoulders did not
make his fingers taut.
After supper, on the screened porch pleasant by dusk, Mr. Benham
demanded, “What charges have you been holding, Brother Gantry?”
Elmer modestly let him know how important he had been in the work of
Sister Falconer; he admitted his scholarly research at Mizpah Seminary;
he made quite enough of his success at Schoenheim; he let it be known
that he had been practically assistant sales-manager of the Pequot Farm
Implement Company.
Mr. Benham grunted with surprised admiration. Mrs. Benham gurgled, “My,
we’re lucky to have a real high-class preacher for once!” And Cleo—she
leaned toward Elmer, in a deep willow chair, and her nearness was a
charm.
He walked back happily in the June darkness; he felt neighborly when an
unknown muttered, “Evening, Reverend!” and all the way he saw Cleo,
proud as Athena yet pliant as golden-skinned Aphrodite.
He had found his work, his mate, his future.
Virtue, he pointed out, certainly did pay.