"THE CHURCH RACKET"
Dr. Harpe went downstairs the next morning with her straight upper lip
stretched in the set smile with which she met a crisis. "Hank"
Terriberry passed through the hall as she descended the stairs and she
watched him breathlessly.
"Mornin', Doc." He nodded in friendly nonchalance and her heart leaped
in relief.
He knew nothing of the quarrel!
"Wait a minute, Mr. Terriberry," she called, and he stopped. "Say, what
church do you belong to? What are you?"
Mr. Terriberry suffered from pyorrhea, and the row of upper teeth which
he now displayed in a genial grin looked like a garden-rake, due to his
shrinking gums.
"I'm a Presbyterian, Doc, but I don't work at it. Why?"
"Let's get together and build a church. I'll go around with a
subscription paper myself and raise the money. I feel lost without a
church, I honestly do. It's downright heathenish."
"That's so," Mr. Terriberry agreed heartily, "there's something damned
respectable about a church. It makes a good impression upon strangers to
come into a town and hear a church bell ringin', even if nobody goes.
Doc, you're all right," he patted her shoulder approvingly; "you're a
rough diamond; you can put me down for $50."
When Mr. Terriberry had gone his pious way, Dr. Harpe smiled and
reiterated mentally: "There's nothing like the church racket; it always
works."
She passed on into the dining-room where the Dago Duke who had sung
himself out of the calaboose sprang to his feet and, laying his hand
upon his heart, bowed low in a burlesqued bow of deference.
"A tribute to your skill and learning, madam."
She stared at him stonily and his white teeth flashed.
How she hated him! yet she felt helpless before his impudence and
audacity. He had "presence," poise, and she knew instinctively that to
whatever lengths she might go in retaliation he would go further. She
would only bring upon herself discomfiture by such a course. She knew
that she had forfeited his respect; more than that, she felt that she
had incurred a deep and lasting enmity which seemed to her out of all
proportion to the cause.
His horseback companion of the previous day was breakfasting beside him
and she found the young man's cold, impersonal scrutiny as hard to bear
as the Dago Duke's frank impudence as she swaggered to her seat at the
end of the long dining-room and faced them. He was as different in his
way from the men about him as the Dago Duke, yet he differed, too, from
that conspicuous person. He seemed self-contained, reserved to the point
of reticence, but with a quiet assurance of manner as pronounced as the
other's effrontery. He was dressed in a blue flannel shirt and worn
corduroys. His face was tanned but it was the sunburned face of an
invalid. There were hollows in his cheeks and a tired look in his gray
eyes. Having critically examined her, Dr. Harpe observed that he seemed
to forget her.
Essie Tisdale passed her without a glance, but Mrs. Terriberry came
behind with the breakfast of fried potatoes and the thin, fried
beefsteak on the platter which served also as a plate, from which menu
the Terriberry House never deviated by so much as a mutton chop.
"I'm sorry you and Essie fell out," said Mrs. Terriberry apologetically
as she placed the dishes before her. "But she seems awful set on not
waitin' on you."
Dr. Harpe dropped her eyes for an instant.
"It's up to her."
"She's as good-natured as anybody I ever saw but she's high-strung, too;
she's got a temper."
Dr. Harpe lifted a shoulder.
"She'd better have my friendship than my enmity, even if she has a
temper."
"Essie's mighty well liked here," Mrs. Terriberry returned quickly.
"Popularity is a mighty uncertain asset in a small town."
"Don't forget that yourself, Doc," returned Mrs. Terriberry, nettled by
her tone.
Dr. Harpe laughed good-naturedly; she had no desire to antagonize Mrs.
Terriberry.
She watched the Dago Duke hold up a warning finger as Essie placed the
heavy hotel dishes before him.
"Be careful, Miss, be very careful not to nick this fragile ware. As a
lover of ceramic art, it would pain me to see it injured."
The girl dimpled, and, in spite of herself, burst into a trill of
laughter which was so merry and contagious that the grave stranger
beside him looked up at her with an interested and amused smile as
though seeing her for the first time.
"Breakfasting at the Terriberry House was a pleasure which seemed a long
way off last night," observed the Dago Duke without embarrassment. "You
heard the imprisoned bird singing for his liberty? Music to soothe the
savage breast of your sheriff. When I am myself I can converse in five
languages; when I am drunk it is my misfortune to be able only to sing
or holler. Your jail is a disgrace to Crowheart; I've never been in a
worse one. The mattress is lumpy and the pillow hard; I was voicing my
protest."
"I don't care why you sing so long as you sing," said Essie, dimpling
again. "It was beautiful, but isn't it bad for your health to get
so--drunk?"
"Not at all," returned the Dago Duke airily. "Look at me--fresh as a
rock-rose with the dew on it!"
Again the grave stranger smiled but rather at Essie Tisdale's laughter
than his companion's brazen humor.
He interested Dr. Harpe, this other stranger, and as soon as her
breakfast was finished she looked for his name upon the register.
"Ogden Van Lennop," she read, and his address was a little town in the
county. She shook her head and said to herself: "He never came from this
neck of the woods. Another black sheep, I wonder?"
Dr. Harpe lost no time in agitating the subject of a church and it
tickled Crowheart's risibilities, since she was the last person to be
suspected of spiritual yearnings--her personality seeming incongruous
with religious fervor. But while they laughed it was with good-nature
and approval for it merely confirmed them in their opinion that with all
her idiosyncrasies she was at heart what she liked to be considered, "a
rough diamond," sympathetic and kind of heart underneath her blunt
candor. That she had never been known to refuse a drink to the knowledge
of any inhabitant was one of the stock jokes of the town, yet it was
never urged against her. Already she had come to be pointed out to
strangers with a kind of affectionate pride as a local celebrity--a
"character." She had a strong attraction for the women of Crowheart--an
attraction that amounted to fascination. Her stronger personality
overshadowed theirs as her stronger will dominated them. She quickly
became a leader among them, and her leadership aroused no jealousy. They
quoted her rude speeches as characteristic bits of wit and laughed at
her uncouth manners. Her callousness passed for the confidence of
knowledge.
"She's so different," they told each other. "She's a law unto herself."
Yet the most timid among them had less fear of Public Opinion than Dr.
Harpe to whom it was always a menacing juggernaut.
She returned at the end of the day tired but content in the knowledge
that her efforts had produced exactly the effect she desired. She had
raised enough money to insure the erection of a modest mission church,
but the important thing was that in so doing she had built a stout
bulwark about herself which would long withstand any explanation that
Essie Tisdale might make as to the cause of the mysterious break between
them.
While she congratulated herself upon the success of this inspired move
on her part, circumstances due to other than her own efforts were
conspiring to eliminate the girl as a dangerous factor in her life.
She retired early and, consequently, was in ignorance of the receipt of
a telegram by Sylvanus Starr announcing the return of Andy P. Symes and
the complete success of his eastern mission. So when she was awakened
the next morning by a conflict of sounds which resembled the efforts of
a Chinese orchestra and raised the shade to see the newly organized
Cowboy band making superhuman endeavors to march and yet produce a
sufficiently correct number of notes from the score of "A Hot Time in
the Old Town" to make that American warcry recognizable, she knew that
something unusual had developed in the interim of her long sleep.
It was like Andy P. Symes to announce his coming that he might extract
all the glory possible from his arrival and he knew that he could depend
upon Sylvanus Starr to make the most of the occasion.
The editor issued an "Extra" of dodger-like appearance, and it is
doubtful if he would have used larger type to announce an anticipated
visit of the President. He called upon every citizen with a spark of
civic pride to turn out and give Andy P. Symes a fitting welcome; to do
homage to the man who was to Crowheart what the patron saints are to the
cities of the Old World.
The matutinal "Hot Time in the Old Town" and a majority of the
population waiting on the cinders about the red water tank were the
results of his impassioned plea.
Tears of gratified vanity stood in the eyes of Andy P. Symes as from the
front platform of the passenger coach he saw his neighbors assembled to
greet him. It seemed an eminently fitting and proper tribute to the
great-grandson of the man who had been a personal friend of Alexander
Hamilton's. He viewed the welcoming throng through misty eyes as, with
an entire appreciation of the imposing figure he presented, he bared his
massive head in deference to Mrs. Terriberry, Mrs. Percy Parrott, Mrs.
Starr and her two lovely daughters whose shrill shrieks were audible
above the grinding of the car-wheels upon the rusty track.
Sylvanus Starr with many sweeping gestures of a hand which suggested a
prehensile, well-inked claw, welcomed him in an outburst of oratory,
iridescent with adjectives which gushed from him like a volume of water
from a fire-plug, that made Crowheart's jaw drop. While Symes may have
felt that the editor was going it rather strong when he compared him to
the financial geniuses of the world beginning with Croesus and
ending with the Guggenheims, he made no protest.
Behind Mr. Symes, wide-eyed and solemn, and transformed nearly past
recognition by a hobble skirt and "kimona" sleeves, stood Mrs. Symes
with the growing feeling of complacent aloofness which comes from being
the wife of a great man.
In contrast to Sylvanus Starr's fluency Symes's response seemed halting
and slow, but it gained thereby in impressiveness. When he clenched his
huge fist and struck at the air, declaring for the third time that "it
was good to be home!" nobody doubted him. And they need not have doubted
him, for, since his salary did not begin until his return to Crowheart,
and the offerings of night-lunch carts are taxing upon the digestion, it
was indeed "good to be home!"