THE REVEREND ORLANDO MULLEN PREACHES A SERMON
On the following Sunday, a mild autumn morning, Mr. Mullen preached one
of his most impressive sermons from the text, "_She looketh well to the
ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness_."
Woman, he said in the course of it, was created to look after the ways
of her household in order that man might go out into the world and make
a career. No womanly woman cared to make a career. What the womanly
woman desired was to remain an Incentive, an Ideal, an Inspiration. If
the womanly woman possessed a talent, she did not use it--for this would
unsex her--she sacrificed it in herself in order that she might
return it to the race through her sons. Self-sacrifice--to use a worn
metaphor--self-sacrifice was the breath of the nostrils of the womanly
woman. It was for her power of self-sacrifice that men loved her and
made an Ideal of her. Whatever else woman gave up, she must always
retain her power of self-sacrifice if she expected the heart of her
husband to rejoice in her. The home was founded on sacrifice, and woman
was the pillar and the ornament of the home. There was her sphere, her
purpose, her mission. All things outside of that sphere belonged to man,
except the privilege of ministering to the sick and the afflicted in
other households.
He leaned forward in the old pulpit, his shapely, well-kept hand hanging
over the edge in one of his most characteristic gestures; and the autumn
sunlight, falling through the plain glass windows, shone on his temples.
Immediately below him, in a front pew, sat his mother, a dried little
old woman, with beady black eyes and a pointed chin, which jutted out
from between the stiff taffeta strings of her poke bonnet. She gazed
upward, clasping her Prayer-book in her black woollen gloves, which were
darned in the fingers; and though she appeared to listen attentively to
the sermon, she was wondering all the time if the coloured servant at
home would remember to baste the roast pig she had left in the oven.
To-day was the Reverend Orlando's birthday, and the speckled pig she had
fattened throughout the summer, lay now, with an apple in his mouth, on
the trencher. She had invited Molly to dine with them rather against
her wishes, for she harboured a secret fear that the girl was trying
to marry the rector. Besides, as she said to herself, with her eyes
on Orlando's hand, how on earth could he do full justice to the pig if
there was a pretty parishioner to distract his attention?
In the pew next to Mrs. Mullen sat old Adam Doolittle, his hand behind
his left ear, his withered old lips moving as if he were repeating the
words of the sermon. From time to time he shook his head as though he
disagreed with a sentence, and then his lips worked more rapidly, and
an obstinate, argumentative look appeared in his face. Mentally he was
conducting a theological dispute with the preacher in which the younger
man suffered always a crushing rhetorical defeat. Behind him sat the
miller and Blossom Revercomb, who threw an occasional anxious glance at
the empty seat beside Mrs. Gay and Kesiah; and behind them Judy Hatch
raised her plain, enraptured face to the pulpit, where the rector had
shaken out an immaculately ironed handkerchief and wiped his brow.
She knew who had ironed that handkerchief on Wednesday, which was Mrs.
Mullen's washing day, and her heart rejoiced as she remembered the care
with which she had folded the creases.
It made no difference, said Mr. Mullen, replacing the handkerchief
somewhere under his white surplice, whether a woman was ugly or
beautiful, since they possessed Scriptural authority for the statement
that beauty was vain, and no God-fearing man would rank loveliness of
face or form above the capacity for self-sacrifice and the unfailing
attendance upon the sick and the afflicted in any parish. Beauty,
indeed, was but too often a snare for the unwary--temptresses, he had
been told, were usually beautiful persons.
Molly's lips trembled into a smile, and her eyes were wide and bright as
she met those of the preacher. For an instant he looked at her, gentle,
admonishing, reproachful--then his gaze passed over Judy's seraphic
features to the face of an old grey horse that stared wonderingly in
through the south window. Along the whitewashed plank fence of the
church-yard, other horses were waiting patiently for the service to
end, and from several side saddles, of an ancient pattern, hung flopping
alpaca riding skirts, which the farmer's wives or daughters had worn
over their best gowns to church. A few locust trees shed their remaining
small yellow leaves on the sunken graves, which were surrounded by
crumbling wooden enclosures. Here and there, farther off, a flat
tombstone was still visible in the tall grass; and over the dust of old
Jonathan Gay a high marble cross, selected by his brother's widow, bore
the words, unstained by the dripping trees, and innocent of satire:
"Here lieth in the hope of a joyful resurrection---"
At the end of the service there was a rustle either of relief or
disappointment, and the congregation filed slowly through the south
doors, where the old grey horse stood resigned and expectant amid the
obliterated graves. Mrs. Gay, who had lingered in the walk to speak
to Mr. Mullen, raised her plaintive violet eyes to his face when he
appeared.
"You are always so comforting. I don't know how to thank you for helping
me," she murmured, and added impulsively to the little old woman at his
side, "Oh, what a blessing such a son must be to you!"
"Orlando's never given me a moment's worry in his life, ma'am--not even
when he was teething," replied Mrs. Mullen, who looked sharper and more
withered than ever in the broad daylight. "If you'll believe me, he
wasn't more than six months old when I said to his father that I
could tell by the look of him he was intended for the ministry. Such
sweetness, such self-control even as an infant."
"How happy he must make you! And then, to have the privilege of hearing
his beautiful sermons! But you'll lose him some day, as I was just
saying to Kesiah. It won't be long before some fortunate woman takes him
away from you. We can only hope she will be worthy of the ideal he has
for her."
"Ah, that's just it, Mrs. Gay, I sometimes tell myself there isn't a
woman in the world that's fit for him."
She spoke as fast as she could, eager to dilate on the subject of the
embarrassed Orlando's virtues, flattered in her motherly old heart by
the praise of his sermons, and yet, all the time, while her peaked chin
worked excitedly, thinking about the roasted young pig that waited for
her to attend to the garnishing.
The delay was short; Orlando silenced her at last by a gentle admonitory
pressure of her elbow, and the two ladies drove off in their carriage,
while Molly walked sedately out of the churchyard between the clergyman
and his mother. The girl was pleasantly aware that the eyes of the
miller and of Jim Halloween followed her disapprovingly as she went; and
she thought with complacency that she had never looked better than
she did in her white felt hat with its upturned brim held back by
cherry-coloured ribbon. It was all very well for the rector to say
that beauty was of less importance than visiting the sick, but the fact
remained that Judy Hatch visited the sick more zealously than she--and
yet he was very far, indeed, from falling in love with Judy Hatch! The
contradiction between man and his ideal of himself was embodied before
her under a clerical waistcoat.
"I believe," remarked the Reverend Orlando, thrusting his short chin as
far as possible over his collar, which buttoned at the back, "I believe
that the elder Doolittle nourishes some private grudge against me. He
has a most annoying habit of shaking his head at me during the sermon as
though he disagreed with my remarks."
"The man must be an infidel," observed Mrs. Mullen, with asperity, as
she moved on in front of him.
"He doesn't know half the time what he is doing," said Molly, "you know
he passed his ninetieth birthday last summer."
"But surely you cannot mean that you consider age an excuse for
either incivility or irreligion," rejoined her lover, pushing aside an
impertinent carrot flower that had shed its pollen on his long coat,
while he regarded his mother's back with the expression of indignant
suspicion he unconsciously assumed on the rare occasions when his
opinions were disputed. "Age should mellow, should soften, should
sweeten."
"I suppose it should, but very often it doesn't," retorted Molly, a
trifle tartly, for the sermon had bored her and she looked forward with
dread to the dinner.
At her words Mrs. Mullen, who was walking a little ahead, with her
skirts held up to avoid the yellow stain of the golden-rod, glanced
sharply back, as she had done in church when old Adam had coughed at the
wrong time and spoiled the full effect of a period.
"One reason that Orlando is so helpful to people is that he always sees
so clearly just what they ought to be," she observed. "I don't believe
there's a man in the ministry or out, who has a higher ideal of woman
and her duty."
"But do women ever live up to his ideal of them?"
"It isn't his fault if they don't. All he can do is to point it out to
them earnestly and without ceasing."
They had reached the rectory gate, where she hesitated an instant with
her hand on the latch, and her head bent toward the house in a surprised
and listening attitude. "I declare, Orlando, if I didn't go off and
leave that cat locked up in the parlour!" she exclaimed in horror as she
hurried away.
"Yes," observed Mr. Mullen in his tenderest and most ministerial manner,
"my ideal is a high one, and when I look into your face, I see reflected
all the virtues I would have you reach. I see you the perfect woman,
sharing my sorrows, easing my afflictions---"
Intoxicated by his imagination, he turned toward her as though he beheld
the living embodiment of his eloquence.
For a minute Molly smiled up at him; then, "I wonder if your mother
really locked the cat in the parlour," she rejoined demurely.
After the birthday dinner, at which Mrs. Mullen talked ceaselessly of
Orlando's excellencies, while she reserved the choicest piece of meat
and the fattest dumpling for his plate, Molly tied her cherry-coloured
strings under her chin, and started home, with a basket of apple tarts
for Reuben on her arm. At the crossroads Mr. Mullen left her to return
to an afternoon Sunday school, and she was about to stop at the ordinary
to ask William to see her safely over the pasture, when Abel Revercomb,
looking a trifle awkward in his Sunday clothes, came out of the house
and held out his hand for the basket.
"I thought you'd be coming home this way after dinner," he said, turning
his throat when he moved. His hair was brushed flat on his head as
was his habit on Sundays, and he wore a vivid purple tie, which he had
bought on his last journey to Applegate. He had never looked worse, nor
had he ever felt quite so confident of the entire correctness of his
appearance.
As Molly made no reply, but merely fell into step at his side, he
inquired, after a moment's pause, "How did you enjoy the sermon?"
"Oh, I don't like to be preached at, and I'm sorry for Mr. Mullen's wife
if he expects her to ease everybody's pains in the parish. He looked
very handsome in church," she added, "didn't you think so?"
"I didn't notice," he answered ruefully. "I never pay any attention to
the way a man looks, in church or out of it."
"Well, I do--and even Judy Hatch does. She asked me the other day whom
I thought the handsomest man in the neighbourhood, and I'm sure she
expected me to say Mr. Mullen."
She dimpled, and his arm went out impulsively toward her.
"But you didn't, Molly?" he returned.
"Why, of course not--did you imagine that I should? I said I thought Mr.
Jonathan Gay was the best looking."
His arm fell to his side, and for a minute or two he walked on in
silence.
"I wish I didn't love you, Molly," he burst out at last. "I sometimes
almost believe that you're one of the temptresses Mr. Mullen preached
against this morning. I've tried again and again to tear you out of my
heart, but it is useless."
"Yes, it's useless, Abel," she answered, melting to dimples.
"I tell myself," he went on passionately, "that you're not worth
it--that you're perfectly heartless--that you're only a flirt--that
other men have held your hands, kissed your lips even---"
"And after telling yourself those dreadful truths, what happens?" she
inquired with interest.
"What happens? Well, I go to work and don't think of you for at least
three hours. Then, when I am dead tired I stop for a minute to rest, and
as soon as my eyes fall on a bit of green grass, or a flower growing by
the road, or the blue sky, there you are again, popping in between them
with your big eyes and your mouth that was made for kisses. I forget how
heartless and light you are, and remember only the times you've crept up
to me and put your hand on my arm and said, 'Abel, I'm sorry.' Most of
all I remember the one time you kissed me, Molly."
"Don't, Abel," she said quickly, and her voice broke and died in her
throat.
As he drew close to her, she walked faster until her steps changed into
a run.
"If you only knew me as I am, you wouldn't care so, Abel," she threw
back at him.
"I don't believe you know yourself as you are, Molly," he answered.
"It's not you that leads men on to make love to you and then throws them
over--as you have thrown me--as you will throw Mr. Mullen." His tone
grew suddenly stern. "You don't love Mr. Mullen, and you know it," he
added. "If you love any man on earth to-day, you love me."
At his first change from tenderness to accusation, her face hardened and
her voice returned to her control.
"What right have you to judge me, Abel Revercomb?" she asked angrily.
"I've had one sermon preached at me to-day, and I'll not listen to
another."
"You know I'm not preaching at you, Molly, but I'm a man of flesh and
blood, not of straw. How can I have patience?"
"I never asked you to have patience, did I?"
"No, and I don't believe you want it. If I'd catch hold of you and shake
you, you'd probably like me better."
"It's just as well that you don't try it to see how I'll take it."
"Oh, I shan't try it. I'll go on still believing in you against
yourself, like the born fool I am."
"You may believe in me or not just as you please--but it isn't my fault
if you won't go off and marry Judy Hatch, as I have begged you to.
She's everything on earth that Mr. Mullen preached about to-day in his
sermon."
"Hang Judy Hatch! You are bent on starting a quarrel with me, that is
the trouble. As soon as you mentioned Jonathan Gay I knew what you were
in for."
"As if I couldn't say a man was good looking without putting you into a
rage."
"I'm not in a rage, but I hate a flirt. Every sensible man does."
"Judy Hatch isn't a flirt."
"Leave Judy Hatch out of it--though I've more than half a mind to walk
off and ask her to marry me."
"That's just what I've advised you to do for the last six months, isn't
it?"
"Ah, no, you haven't, Molly, no, you haven't--and you'd be just as
sorry as I the minute after I had done it. You've got some small foolish
childish notions in your head about hating men--but you're much nearer
loving me than hating me at this moment, and that's why you're afraid!"
"I'm not afraid--how dare you say so?"
"Oh, my pretty, how foolish we are, both of us! I'd work my fingers to
the bone for you, Molly, I'd lie down and let your little feet walk over
me if they wanted to--I'd shed my life's blood for you, day by day, if
it could help you."
"Every one of you say this in the beginning, but it isn't true in the
end," she answered.
"Not true--not true? Prove it. Why do you think I've struggled and
raised myself except to keep equal with you? Why did I go to school and
teach myself and make money enough to take classes in Applegate? Just
for you. All those winter afternoons when I drove over there to learn
things, I was thinking of you. Do you remember that when you were at
school in Applegate, you'd tell me the names of the books you read so
that I might get them?"
"Don't," she cried fiercely, "don't tell me those things, for I'll never
believe them! I'm hard and bitter inside, there's no softness in me. If
I went on my knees and prayed to love, I couldn't do it. Oh, Abel, there
isn't any love in my heart!"
"Do you remember when you kissed me?"
"No, I have forgotten."
"It was only three weeks ago."
"Yes, that was three weeks ago."
The light died slowly out of his eyes as he looked at her.
"When you speak like that I begin to wonder if any good can ever come
to us," he returned. "I've gone on breaking my heart over you ever since
you were a little girl in short dresses, and I can't remember that I've
ever had anything but misery from you in my life. It's damnable the
things I've stood and yet I've always forgotten them afterwards, and
remembered only the times you were soft and gentle and had ceased to be
shrewish. Nobody on earth can be softer than you, Molly, when you want
to, and it's your softness, after all, that has held me in spite of
your treatment. Why, your mouth was like a flower when I kissed you, and
parted and clung to me---"
"I wish you wouldn't talk about it. I hate to hear such things after
they are over."
"Such things!" He stood flicking hopelessly with a small branch he
carried at the carrot flowers in the field. "If you will tell me
honestly that you were playing with me, Molly, I'll give you up this
minute," he said.
The colour was high in her face and she did not look at him.
"I was playing with you, and I told you so the day afterwards," she
replied.
"Yes, but you didn't mean it. I can't go any further because this is Mr.
Jonathan's land."
His eyes had in them the hurt reproachful look of a wounded dog's, and
his voice trembled a little.
"I meant always--always to lead you on until I could hurt you--as I did
the others--and then throw you over."
"And now that you can hurt me, you throw me over?" he asked.
Without speaking, she held out her hand for the basket, which he was
about to fling from him.
"Then I'll never forgive you, Molly, so help me God," he added harshly;
and turning away from her, struck out across the pasture in the
direction of the mill.
For a moment she stood looking after him, her lips parted, her eyes wide
and bright as if she were asking a question.
"I am hard--hard and cruel," she thought as she went slowly up the
witch-hazel path that led by the Poplar Spring, "but I wonder--oh, I
wonder if I treat Abel worst because I like him best?"