THE RAINY EVENING.
A COOL, rainy evening, one of those sudden and sharp reminders of autumn
that in our variable climate come to us in the midst of summer. The
heavy clouds had made the day shut down early, and the rain was so
persistent that it was useless to plan walks or rides, or entertainments
of that nature. Also it was an evening when none but those who are
habitual callers at special homes are expected.
One of these was Col. Baker. The idea of being detained by rain from
spending the evening with Flossy Shipley did not occur to him; on the
contrary, he rejoiced over the prospect of a long and uninterrupted
talk. The more indifferent Flossy grew to these long talks the more
eager was Col. Baker to enjoy them. The further she slipped away from
him, the more eagerly he followed after. Perhaps that is human nature;
at least it was Col. Baker's nature.
In some of his plans he was disappointed. Mrs. Shipley was gone for a
three days' visit to a neighboring city, and Flossy was snugly settled
in the back parlor entertaining her father.
"Show him right in here," directed her father, as soon as Col. Baker was
announced. Then to Flossy: "Now we can have a game at cards as soon as
Charlie comes in. Where is he?"
Rainy evenings, when four people could be secured sufficiently
disengaged to join in his favorite amusement, was the special delight of
Mr. Shipley. So behold them, half an hour after, deep in a game of
cards, Col. Baker accepting the situation with as good a grace as he
could assume, notwithstanding the fact that playing cards, simply for
amusement, in that quiet way in a back parlor, was a good deal of a bore
to him; but it would be bad policy to tell Mr. Shipley so. Their game
was interrupted by a ring of the door-bell.
"Oh, dear!" said Mr. Shipley, "I hope that is no nuisance on business.
One would think nothing but business would call people out on such a
disagreeable night."
"As, for instance, myself," Col. Baker said, laughingly.
"Oh, you. Of course, special friends are an exception."
And Col. Baker was well pleased to be ranked among the exceptions.
Meantime the ringer was heralded.
"It is Dr. Dennis, sir. Shall I show him in here?"
"I suppose so," Mr. Shipley said, gloomily, as one not well pleased; and
he added, in under tone, "What on earth can the man want?"
Meantime Col. Baker, with a sudden dexterous move, unceremoniously swept
the whole pack of cards out of sight under a paper by his side.
It so happened that Dr. Dennis' call was purely one of business; some
item connected with the financial portion of the church, which Dr.
Dennis desired to report in a special sermon that was being prepared.
Mr. Shipley, although he was so rarely an attendant at church, and made
no secret of his indifference to the whole subject of personal religion,
was yet a power in the financial world, and as such recognized and
deferred to by the First Church.
Dr. Dennis was in haste, and beyond a specially cordial greeting for
Flossy, and an expression of satisfaction at her success with the class
the previous Sabbath, he had no more to say, and Mr. Shipley soon had
the pleasure of bowing him out, rejoicing in his heart, as he did so,
that the clergyman was so prompt a man.
"He would have made a capital business man," he said, returning to his
seat. "I never come in contact with him that I don't notice a sort of
executive ability about him that makes me think what a success he might
have been."
There was no one to ask whether that remark meant that he was at present
supposed to be a failure. There was another subject which presently
engrossed several of them.
"Now be so kind as to give an account of yourself," Charlie Shipley
said, addressing Col. Baker. "What on earth did you mean by making a
muddle of our game in that way? I was in a fair way for winning. I
suppose you won't own that that was your object."
Col. Baker laughed.
"My object was a purely benevolent one. I had a desire to shield your
sister from the woebegone lecture she would have been sure to receive on
the sinfulness of her course. If he had found her playing cards, what
would have been the result?"
Mr. Shipley was the first to make answer, in a somewhat testy tone:
"Your generosity was uncalled for, Colonel. My daughter, when she is in
her father's house, is answerable to him, and not to Dr. Dennis, or any
other divine."
"I don't in the least understand what you are talking about," said
mystified Flossy. "Of what interest could it have been to Dr. Dennis
what I am doing; and why should he have delivered a lecture?"
Col. Baker and Charlie Shipley exchanged amused glances, and the former
quoted, significantly:
"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." Then he added, as
Flossy still waited with questioning gaze: "Why, Miss Flossy, of course
you know that the clergy think cards are synonyms for the deadly sin,
and that to hold one in one's hand is equivalent to being poisoned, body
and soul?"
"I am sure I did not know it. Why, I knew, of course, that gambling
houses were not proper; but what is the harm in a game of cards? What
can Dr. Dennis see, for instance, in our playing together here in this
room, and simply for amusement?"
Col. Baker shrugged his handsome shoulders. That shrug meant a great
deal, accomplished a great deal. It was nearly certain to silence a
timid opposer; there was something so expressively sarcastic about it;
it hid so much one felt sure Col. Baker _might say_ if he deemed it
prudent or worth while. It had often silenced Flossy into a conscious
little laugh. To-night she was in earnest; she paid no attention to the
shrug, but waited, questioningly, for her answer, and as it was her
turn to play next, it seemed necessary to answer her if one wanted the
game to go on.
"I am sure I don't know," Col. Baker said, at last. "I have very little
idea what he would consider the harm; I am not sure that _he_ would be
able to tell. It is probably a narrow, strait-laced way that the cloth
have of looking at this question, in common with all other questions,
save prayer-meetings and almsgiving. Their lives are very much narrowed
down, Miss Flossy."
Flossy was entirely unsatisfied. She had a higher opinion of Dr. Dennis'
"breadth" than she had of Col. Baker's; she thought his life had a very
much higher range; she was very much puzzled and annoyed. Her father
came into the conflict:
"Come, come, Flossy, how long are you going to keep us waiting? It is of
no particular consequence what Dr. Dennis thinks or does not think. He
has a right to his own opinions. It is a free country."
Ah, but it did make a tremendous difference to Flossy. She had accepted
Dr. Dennis as her pastor; she had determined to look to him for help
and guidance in this new and strange path on which her feet had so
lately entered.
She wondered if Col. Baker could be right. Was it possible that Dr.
Dennis disapproved of cards played at home in this quiet way! If he did,
why did he? And, another puzzling point, how did Col. Baker know it?
They two certainly did not come in contact, that they should understand
each other's ideas.
She went on with her card-playing, but she played very badly. More than
once Col. Baker rallied her with good-humored sarcasm, and her father
spoke impatiently. Flossy's interest in the game was gone; instead, her
heart was busy with this new idea. She went back to it again in one of
her pauses in the game.
"Col. Baker, don't you really know at all what arguments clergymen have
against card-playing for amusement?"
Again that expressive shrug; but it had lost its power over Flossy, and
its owner saw it, and made haste to answer her waiting eyes.
"I really am not familiar with their weapons of warfare; probably I
could not appreciate them if I were; I only know that the entire class
frown upon all such innocent devices for passing a rainy evening. But it
never struck me as strange, because the fact is, they frown equally on
all pastimes and entertainments of any sort; that is, a certain class
do--fanatics, I believe, is the name they are known by. They believe, as
nearly as I am capable of understanding their belief, that life should
be spent in psalm-singing and praying."
Whereupon Flossy called to mind the witty things she had heard, and the
merry laughs which had rung around her at Chautauqua, given by the most
intense of these fanatics; she even remembered that she had seen two of
the most celebrated in that direction playing with a party of young men
and boys on the croquet ground, and laughing most uproariously over
their defeat. It was all nonsense to try to compass her brain with such
an argument as that; she shook her head resolutely.
"They do no such thing; I know some of them very well; I don't know of
any people who have nicer times. How do you know these things, Col.
Baker?"
Col. Baker essayed to be serious:
"Miss Flossy," he said, leaning over and fixing his handsome eyes
impressively on her face, "is it possible you do not know that, as a
rule, clergymen set their faces like a flint against all amusements of
every sort? I do not mean that there are not exceptions, but I do mean
most assuredly that Dr. Dennis is not one of them. He is as rigid as it
is possible for mortal man to be.
"Herein is where the church does harm. In my own opinion, it is to blame
for the most, if not for all, of the excesses of the day; they are the
natural rebound of nerves that have been strained too tightly by the
over-tension of the church."
Surely this was a fine sentence. The Flossy of a few weeks ago would
have admired the smooth-sounding words and the exquisitely modulated
voice as it rolled them forth. How had the present Flossy been quickened
as to her sense of the fitness of things. She laughed mischievously. She
couldn't argue; she did not attempt it. All she said was, simply:
"Col. Baker, on your honor, as a gentleman of truth and veracity, do you
think the excesses of which you speak, occur, as a rule, in those whose
lives have been very tightly bound by the church, or by anything else,
save their own reckless fancies?"
Charlie Shipley laughed outright at this point. He always enjoyed a
sharp thing wherever heard, and without regard to whether he felt
himself thrust at or not.
"Baker, you are getting the worst of it," he said, gayly. "Sis, upon my
word, that two weeks in the woods has made you real keen in argument;
but you play abominably."
"There is no pleasure in the game now!" This the father said, throwing
down his cards somewhat testily. "Flossy, I hope you will not get to be
a girl of one idea--tied to the professional conscience. What is proper
for you could hardly be expected to be just the thing for Dr. Dennis;
and you have nothing to do, as I said before, with what he approves or
disapproves."
"But, father," Flossy said, speaking somewhat timidly, as she could not
help doing when she talked about these matters to her father, "if we
call clergymen our spiritual guides, and look up to them to set examples
for us to follow, what is the use of the example if we don't follow it
at all, but conclude they are simply doing things for their own
benefit?"
"I never call them my spiritual guides, and I have not the least desire
to have my daughter do so. I consider myself capable of guiding my own
family, especially my own children, without any help."
This was said in Mr. Shipley's stiffest tone. He was evidently very much
tried with this interruption to his evening's entertainment. Whatever
might be said of the others, he was certainly very fond of cards. He,
however, threw down the remaining ones, declaring that the spirit of the
game was gone.
"Merged into a theological discussion," Charlie said, with a half laugh,
half sneer; "and of all the people to indulge in one, this particular
circle would be supposed to be the last."
"Well, I am certainly very sorry that I was the innocent cause of such
an upheaval," Col. Baker said, in the half serious, half mocking, tone
that was becoming especially trying to Flossy. "It seems that I
unwittingly burst a bombshell when I overturned those cards. I hadn't
an idea of it. Miss Flossy, what can I do to atone for making you so
uneasy? I assure you it was really pure benevolence on my part. What can
I do to prove it?"
"Nothing," Flossy said, smiling pleasantly. She was very much obliged.
He had awakened thought about a matter that had never before occurred to
her. She began to think there were a good many things in her life that
had not been given very much thought. She meant to look into this thing,
and understand it if she could. Indeed, that was what she wanted of all
things to do.
Nothing could be simpler and sweeter, and nothing could be more unlike
the Flossy of Col. Baker's former acquaintance.
"I shouldn't wonder a bit if you had roused a hornet's nest about your
ears," Charlie Shipley said to his friend. "Now I tell you, you may not
believe it, but my little sister is just exactly the stuff out of which
they made martyrs in those unenlightened days when anybody thought there
was enough truth in anything to take the trouble to suffer for it. She
can be made by skillful handling into a very queen of martyrs, and if
you fall in the ruins, it will be your own fault."
But he did not say this until Flossy had suddenly and unceremoniously
excused herself, and the two gentlemen were alone over their cigars.
"Confound that Chautauqua scheme!" Col. Baker said, kicking an innocent
hassock half across the room with his indignant foot. "That is where all
these new ideas started. I wish there was a law against fanaticism.
Those young women of strong mind and disagreeable manners are getting a
most uncomfortable influence over her, too. If I were you, Charlie, I
would try to put an end to that intimacy."
Charlie whistled softly.
"Which do you mean?" he asked at last. "The Erskine girl, or the Wilbur
one? I tell you, Baker, with all the years of your acquaintance, you
don't know that little Flossy as well as you think you do. Let me tell
you, my man, there is something about her, or in her, that is capable of
development, and that is being developed (or I am mistaken), that will
make her the leader, in a quiet way, of a dozen decided and outspoken
girls like those two, and of several men like yourself besides, if she
chooses to lead you."
"Well, confound the development then! I liked her better as she was
before."
"More congenial, I admit; at least I should think so; but not half so
interesting to watch. I have real good times now. I am continually
wondering what she will do next."
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