Ten years drifted away, and there was a new minister in the congregation
at Blue Mound. The Reverend Andrew Turnbull had died, and his successor
had come from a Western divinity school, with elocutionary honors thick
upon him. Under his genial warmth the congregation had thawed into a
staid enthusiasm. To take their orthodoxy with this generous coating of
zeal and kindliness and graceful rhetoric, and know that the bitterness
that proclaimed it genuine was still there, unimpaired and effective,
was a luxury that these devout natures were not slow to appreciate. A
few practical sermons delivered with the ardor and enthusiasm of a
really earnest youth stamped the newcomer as a "rare pulpiter," and a
fresh, bubbling geniality, as sincere as it was effusive, opened a new
world to their creed-encompassed souls. Not one of them thought of
resenting his youthful patronage. He was the ambassador of God to them,
and, while they would have been shocked beyond measure at his
appearance in the pulpit in a gray coat, they perceived no incongruity
between the brightness of his smile and the gloom of his theology.
This man came into Alex Randall's house with no odor of sanctity about
him, and with no knowledge of an unhappy past. Matilda had grown older
and stooped more, and her knot of sandy hair was less luxuriant than it
had once been, but there were no peevish, fretful lines on her face. It
began to grow young again now that she saw Alex becoming "such friends
with the minister." Mary Frances was a tall, round-shouldered girl,
teaching the summer school, and Wattie was a sturdy boy in
roundabouts, galloping over the farm, clinging horizontally to
half-broken colts, and suffering from a perpetual peeling of the skin
from his sunburned nose. Matilda was proud of her children. She hoped it
was not an ungodly pride. She knelt very often on the braided rug, and
buried her worn face in the side of her towering feather bed, while she
prayed earnestly that they might honor their _father_ and their mother,
that their days might be long in the land which the Lord their God had
given them. If she laid a stress upon the word "father," was it to be
wondered at? And the children did honor their father so far as she knew.
If he would only join the church, and share with her the responsibility
of their precious souls! It had been hard for her, when Wattie was
baptized, to stand there alone and feel the pitying looks of the
congregation behind her. Her pulse quickened now at every announcement
of communion, and she listened with renewed hopefulness when Mr.
Anderson leaned forward in the pulpit and gave the solemn invitation to
those who had sat under the kindly influence of the gospel for many
years untouched to shake off their soul-destroying lethargy, and come
forward and enroll themselves on the Lord's side.
It was the Friday after one of these appeals that Alex came into the
kitchen and said awkwardly,--
"I guess I'll change my clothes, Matildy, and go over t' the church this
afternoon and meet the Session."
She felt the burden of years lifted from her shoulders. She said
simply,--
"I'm real glad of it, Elick. You'll find two shirts in the middle
drawer. I think the under one's the best."
Matilda went back to her work, and thought how the stain would be wiped
away. "They'll have to give in that he's a good man now," she said to
herself. She fought with the smile that would curve her lips. The
minister would announce it on Sabbath. "By letter from sister
congregations," and then the names; and then, "On profession of faith,
Alexander Randall." She tried to stifle her pride. It must be pride, she
said,--it must be something evil that could make her so very, _very_
happy.