It is painful to read the remarks made by some of the papers in regard
to the wicked stories told about a minister named Atwater, up in Dunn
county, who was walking in the woods with a young lady. Some editors
would believe anything that was told of a minister, if they knew it was
untrue.
The truth of the matter seems to be that the elder called to visit a
Miss Northrop, a member of his church, who taught school at Knapp. She
seemed to have something on her mind, which she wanted to unfold to him,
and as there were other people in the house where she boarded, it was
suggested that they walk up a hill, into a piece of woods, where they
could talk more freely.
They started out, and a lot of saw mill hands saw them, and immediately
concluded that something was wrong, and after the truly good people had
got into the brush the men followed. How natural it is for bad men to
think there is something wrong, where two persons of the opposite sex
are congregated together. The elder and the schoolma'am went in the
grubs and sat down on a log, and there she unfolded to him her tale of
woe.
It appears that she had violated one of the rules of the church by
dancing, and she felt that she ought to confess, and did confess. She
cried like a child, and seemed to be weak, and the elder put his arm
around her to keep her from falling off the log. Everybody knows how
easy it is to roll off a log, if they are not looking, and any man that
wouldn't put his arm around a girl, to keep her from falling off a log,
would be a fool whom it would be base flattery to call another.
She continued to weep--even the girl admits that--and he put his hand up
to her forehead and stroked her hair, and told her to be calm, and her
head may have fallen upon his breast. The number of heads that wouldn't,
under the circumstances, are mighty few. She was overcome with grief and
he with pity, and he tried to show her that if she braced up and tried
to lead a different life, and shook the dancing hall and the wicked
people who would put their arms around her, she might yet be saved.
One can imagine that he was displeased at her going into a giddy throng,
to be hugged in plain sight, to the music of a band, and pointed out to
her how much more beautiful it would be to go into the woods, on a log.
He had, it is alleged, got through soothing her, and she was about to
wipe her nose on her handkerchief, and he was about to remove his arm
from about her waist, when those wicked and perverse men from the saw
mill came whooping into the thicket where they sat, looking for a mooley
cow with one horn broke.
Now, the elder and the girl knew in a moment that they were not looking
for a mooley cow, but that they were scoffers, and when they asked
the elder if he had seen such an animal, he rose up with much dignity,
buttoned up his coat, and in a pious manner said that he had not seen
the cow. He did not upbraid them for breaking into the solitude of the
sacred confessional, looking for a mooley cow, but seemed to act the
perfect gentleman all the way through.
Nothing had transpired that might not have transpired in a parlor, if
there had not been so many people in the house, and yet these illiterate
and ungodly saw mill hands went off and told a story that would make
angels blush. It is possible that the elder did wrong in not offering
to go with them and look for the mooley cow, but we should not chide
him for that. He probably had not time to take up a collection of his
thoughts, and no doubt after he thought it over he was sorry he did not
offer his services to them as a herder of mooley cows, but it was then
everlastingly too late.
They had gone and told the old, old story, and nothing remained to be
done but to call a church meeting, which was done, and the elder and the
girl were acquitted of any wrong doing. This was right. If men are to
be deposed from the ministry for sitting down on a log and consoling a
female parishioner, what is to become of the world?
We don't believe the elder had any wrong motive, or that a thought
entered his head that might not have entered any man's head under the
circumstances. And yet it was unfortunate, it is so confounded hard to
explain what they walked a mile for to get into the woods where there
was a log.